Paul Doherty - Bloodstone

Next morning, after a troubled sleep, Athelstan celebrated a late Mass. As he divested he wondered if he should escape the abbey and return to St Erconwald’s for the day. Outside in the aisle the brothers were preparing their own crib, bringing in lifelike statues and arguing about whether the abbot wanted the Three Kings immediately or should they wait until the Epiphany. Athelstan was about to help when he glimpsed an inscription carved along the rim of the chantry altar. He swiftly translated the Latin. He was about to close his eyes in thankful prayer when he heard his name being called. Prior Alexander, unshaven and red-eyed, his black robe stained and blotched, pushed through the gossiping brothers to inform Athelstan that Cranston required him urgently near the watergate. Athelstan collected his cloak and writing tray and hurried down across Mortival meadow, pleasantly surprised by the change in the weather. The mist had lifted. The clouds were thinning and the weak sunlight gave the meadow a more springlike look. On the quayside Cranston, cloaked, booted and armed, stood with Wenlock and Mahant, similarly attired. The old soldiers looked heavy-eyed as if roused from an ale-sodden sleep. Moored along the quayside was a high-prowed barge with a covered awning in the stern. The prow boasted a snapping pennant of dark blue fringed with gold displaying the insignia of the Fisher of Men, a silver corpse rising from a golden sea. The barge was manned by six oarsmen dressed in black and gold livery — these were the Fisher of Men’s coven, outlaws and outcasts who’d rejected their own names and rejoiced in being called Maggot, Taffyhead, Badger, Brick-face, Gigglebrazen and Hackum. Standing on the barge was Icthus, the Fisher’s principal assistant, dressed in a simple black tunic, a strange creature who took the Greek name for fish, an apt enough title. The young man had no hair even on his brows or eyelids whilst his oval-shaped face and protuberant cod mouth made him look even more like a fish. Icthus raised a hand in greeting as Cranston broke off whispering heatedly with Wenlock and Mahant.

‘Osborne’s been found,’ Cranston declared, ‘or at least his corpse, naked as he was born, throat slit from ear to ear.’ Cranston waved at the waiting barge. ‘The Fisher of Men requires an audience. Wenlock and Mahant are coming with us whether they like it or not.’

They all clambered into the barge. Icthus in a high-pitched voice ordered the oarsmen to push away and soon they were out, the rowers bending and pulling back in unison. The river was thankfully calm though busy with fishing smacks, bum boats and market barges all taking advantage of the break in the weather. Mahant and Wenlock sat fascinated by Icthus and his companions. Cranston tersely explained how the Fisher of Men was a retainer of the mayor and city council. The Fisher’s task was to roam the Thames and drag out the corpses, the victims of suicide, murder, or accident.

‘A common enough occurrence,’ Cranston confirmed. ‘He,’ the coroner pointed at Icthus, who sat with his back to them crooning a song to the rowers, ‘has one God-given gift: he can swim like an fish whatever the mood of the river.’

‘Where was Osborne found?’ Wenlock asked.

‘Down river,’ Cranston remarked, ‘trapped amongst some reeds. Icthus believes he was thrown in somewhere between the abbey and La Reole.’

‘We have his assurance it’s Osborne?’ Wenlock shifted his gaze from Icthus to Cranston.

‘We shall see,’ the coroner replied. ‘Apparently not only was the victim’s throat slashed but someone used a hammer, or a rock, to pound his face into a soggy mess of blood, bone and tattered flesh.’

‘Sweet Lord,’ Mahant whispered, sitting squashed in the semicircular stern seat, he leaned down and gently touched the hilt of his sword for comfort.

Cranston nudged Athelstan and pointed to a flock of birds which seemed to cover the corpse dangling from a crude gallows on a sandbank.

‘That reminds me — Leda the swan. Do you really think the Upright Men hanged that poor bird?’

Athelstan recalled what he’d glimpsed in the chantry chapel that morning.

‘Leda was hanged,’ he replied evasively, ‘by someone with a deep hatred for my Lord Abbot.’

‘That must include,’ Wenlock declared, ‘virtually most of his community and everyone outside it.’

Athelstan, reluctant to continue the conversation, stared round the awning at the other barges passing close as they moved in towards the quayside. Athelstan studied them and glimpsed Crispin, Kilverby’s secretarius, sitting huddled in the centre of one skiff staring directly at the Fisher of Men’s barge. Athelstan swiftly drew back. Crispin was apparently heading for St Fulcher’s. Athelstan wondered what urgent business brought him back to the abbey? Icthus, in that eerie voice, abruptly called out commands. The barge rocked as it turned and came alongside a deserted wharf just past La Reole. They disembarked and made their way up to what was variously called, ‘The Barque of St Peter’, ‘The Chapel of the Drowned Man’ or ‘The Mortuary of the Sea’, a single storey building of grey brick with a red tiled roof. The corporation had built this so all the corpses harvested from the Thames could be laid out for inspection and collection by relatives; if not recognized, they were placed on to the great cart standing alongside the Barque and taken to some Poor Man’s Lot in one of the city cemeteries.

The mortuary fronted the quayside, on either side ranged the wattle and daub cottages of the Fisher of Men and what he termed ‘his beloved disciples’; others called them ‘the grotesques’. Athelstan stared up at the vigorously carved tympanum above the wooden porch showing the dead rising from choppy waves to be greeted by the angels of God or the demons of Hell. Beneath this ran the words: ‘And the Sea shall give up its dead’. On the right side of the door hung the great net which the Fisher of Men used to bring in the bodies, above it another inscription: ‘The deep shall be harvested’. On the left side of the door a proclamation boldly proclaimed the prices for recovering a corpse. ‘The mad and insane — 6p. Suicides — 10p. Accidents — 8p. Those fleeing from the law — 14p. Animals — 2p. Goods to the value of £5: ten shillings. Goods over the value of £5, one third of their market value’. The Fisher of Men was seated beneath the sign, his bald head and cadaverous face protected by a leather cowl edged with costly fur. A thick military cloak shrouded his body from head to feet, which were pushed into the finest cordovan riding boots. The Fisher of Men rose and greeted his visitors in fluent Norman French and, turning specifically to Athelstan, lapsed into Latin. He asked the friar if he would give him and his ‘beloved disciples’ a formal blessing before leading them in their favourite hymn, ‘ Ave Maris Stella — Hail Star of the Sea’.

Athelstan, as always, was tempted to ask the Fisher about his past, his knowledge of Latin and the classics. Cranston, however, had warned Athelstan how this harvester of corpses was most reluctant to reveal any aspect of his past, be it stories about once being a leper knight or a merchant who had visited the court of the Great Cham of Tartary.

‘Well, Brother?’

‘Of course, of course.’

The Fisher of Men turned to Icthus, who produced a hunting horn and blew a long haunting blast which hastily summoned the members of that strange community to kneel on the cobbles before ‘The Barque of St Peter’. With Cranston and the others looking on, Athelstan delivered the blessing of St Francis.

‘May the Lord bless you and protect you.