Paul Doherty: Bloodstone

May he show you his face and smile on you.

May the Lord turn his face to thee and give you peace.

May the Lord bless you.’

When Athelstan finished he sketched a cross in the air and intoned the ‘ Ave Maris Stella ’, the rest of his singular congregation merrily joining in, chanting the Latin hymn learnt by rote to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Once the ‘Amen’ had been sung, the Fisher of Men clapped Athelstan’s shoulder and led him and the others into the Sanctuary of Souls, a rectangular lime-washed chamber. On a dais at the far end stood an altar draped with a purple and gold cloth, above it a large crucifix nailed to the wall. The Fisher’s ‘guests’, as he described the corpses plucked from the Thames, were placed on wooden trestles, each covered with a shroud drenched in pine juice. The stench, despite the herbs, was sharp and pungent, a sombre place of haunting sadness. Athelstan blessed the room even as Icthus and two of his companions came around him swinging thuribles, anointing the air with sweet smoke. The Fisher removed the shroud covering one corpse. Athelstan immediately gagged at the sight and grasped the proffered pomander. Cranston and the two soldiers cursed until the Fisher of Men loudly tutted. The face of the corpse, already bloated liverish by the river, had been reduced to a reddish-black pulp, the nose and lips fragmented into a grotesque mask. The body was naked, the muscular torso, legs and arms streaked with old wounds. Athelstan stared closely; he could not be certain who it was.

‘Osborne,’ Wenlock murmured. ‘It’s Osborne.’ He turned to the Fisher of Men. ‘How did you know?’

The Fisher lifted the arms of the corpse, he pointed to the wrists marked by the bracers now removed and the deep calluses on the arrow fingers of the left hand.

‘We keep our eyes and ears sharp. We read and learnt the description Sir John posted at St Paul’s Cross and elsewhere. How you were seeking Henry Osborne, former master bowman, who fled without permission from the Abbey of St Fulcher. Where would such a man flee, we asked? We heard about the deaths at the abbey so when Icthus fished this corpse from the reeds, throat cut, face all disfigured, corpse stripped, we wondered. I examined the wrists, which the archer braces would usually cover, the fingers worn by years notching a bow. .’

‘Where did you find him?’ Cranston indicated for the cadaver to be covered.

Athelstan didn’t wait for the answer; he took a deep breath on the pomander and walked back to the door. He glanced over his shoulder. Wenlock and Mahant stood apart, hiding in the murky light of that grim place. Cranston was helping with the funeral cloth whilst the Fisher of Men and his acolytes gathered around all pleased, eager for their reward.

‘God forgive me,’ Athelstan murmured, ‘for my lack of thought.’ Clutching his writing satchel, he walked back to the trestle. He took out the small phials of holy oils and insisted on anointing the corpse whilst he whispered the words of absolution. He tried to ignore the brutal remains which once housed a living soul, concentrating on the rite whilst the bile bubbled at the back of his throat. Once finished he gratefully strolled outside to the fiery heat from a huge brazier where the rest were already warming themselves. Wenlock and Mahant, now vociferous, informed Cranston how they no longer wished to reside at St Fulcher’s. Cranston warned them that, until he was finished, they could either stay there or be lodged in the Tower and that applied to anyone else involved in these dire events.

‘You must also surely,’ Athelstan added tactfully, ‘see to the burial of poor Osborne? He should be interred next to his comrades at St Fulcher’s?’

The two old soldiers, hands extended over the glowing coals, just glared back at him.

‘You, Magister.’ Athelstan turned to the Fisher of Men. ‘How long do you think Osborne’s corpse was in the water?’

‘He was discovered just after first light,’ that gleaner of the dead replied, ‘in a reed bed. We think he must have been there for at least a day. More importantly, we know where he came from.’ This stilled all conversation.

‘Osborne was murdered,’ the Fisher of Men declared stoutly, ‘on Sunday evening. The weather is too cold even for an old soldier to camp out. In addition, if you know the flow and pull of the river you can deduce where his body fell in.’ He rubbed his hands together.

‘Where?’ Wenlock snapped. ‘Let’s not play games.’

‘My friend, I am not! Listen, Osborne needed shelter. The only place providing that between here and St Fulcher’s is the great riverside tavern, “The Prospect of Heaven”.’

Cranston nodded in agreement.

‘After we found the corpse I sent one of my best scurriers, Hoghedge, who has a nose for tap room gossip. Minehost at the “Prospect” clearly remembered an old soldier armed, carrying his bow not to mention a fardel and panniers, who hired a chamber very early on Sunday morning. He called himself Brokersby.’

‘Brokersby?’

‘That’s what he called himself. Anyway, Minehost recognized an old soldier when he saw one. His guest kept to himself then, later that Sunday, this individual settled all accounts, took his baggage and walked down the towpath towards the river.’

‘And?’

The Fisher clicked his tongue noisily.

‘That is all I can tell you.’

‘Osborne left St Fulcher’s.’ Athelstan turned to the dead man’s companions. ‘He sheltered at that tavern under the name of Brokersby for most of the day then left. Can you tell us why?’

Both men just shook their heads.

‘He did not contact you?’

‘Of course not,’ Wenlock retorted. ‘Nor do we know why he’d go there. We thought he’d hide deep in the city.’

‘Did you find any of his possessions?’ Wenlock turned to the Fisher of Men who just waved back at the Sanctuary of Lost Souls.

‘Naked we come into the world,’ that strange individual intoned, ‘and naked we shall surely leave.’ The Fisher smiled at the coroner. ‘Sir John, if there’s nothing else?’

Cranston and the Fisher of Men walked away from the rest, disappearing into one of the cottages. A short while later Cranston emerged carrying a scrap of parchment, a receipt for the exchequer to account for the monies he had paid to the Fisher of Men. Cranston, Athelstan and the rest clambered back into the barge and, with the cries of farewell from that bizarre community ringing out over the water, the ‘Charon of Hades’ as the barge was called, took them back along the river. Cranston however insisted that they stay close to the bank and pull into the narrow quayside close to ‘The Prospect of Heaven’. He asked them to wait, swiftly disembarked and strode off up the towpath towards ‘The Prospect’; its great timbered upper storeys and black slate roof could be clearly glimpsed from the barge. Wenlock and Mahant followed and, cloaks wrapped about them, walked up and down, whispering between themselves as they tried to keep warm. Athelstan studied both of these. The two old soldiers were unusually taciturn and withdrawn. Were they fearful, anxious? He tried to catch the essence of their mood, their souls. Would they also flee? But, there again, Osborne really hadn’t. He’d simply assumed his dead comrade’s name and moved a short distance down the river. Athelstan took out his Ave beads and fingered them. ‘The Prospect’ was an ideal place to hide. A ramshackle sprawling tavern along the Thames where merchants, travellers, pilgrims and river folk ebbed and flowed like the water itself. So, why had Osborne really left St Fulcher’s? What was he doing at that tavern? Why had he left? How had he been so swiftly overcome, his throat slashed, his corpse stripped of everything, his face pounded beyond recognition before being tossed like rubbish into the river?