Paul Doherty: Field of Blood

'I'd love to silence her, Brother! I'd love to shut that clacking tongue! If it wasn't for her we'd be married at Easter!' Eleanor put her face in her hands. 'I do so love him.' She glanced up. 'Do you understand that, Brother?'

'No, Eleanor.' Athelstan smiled. 'I don't. Love can never be understood because it can never be measured, neither the length, the breadth, the height nor its depth.' Again he grasped her hands. 'In each of us God has breathed; that breath is our soul: without limit, without end. When we love, Eleanor, we are like God, and that includes Imelda.' He let go of her hands. 'Now you may do what you want, I cannot stop you. Or you can leave it to me. But, you must decide now.'

'Until the Feast of All Saints,' Eleanor replied tersely.

'Very well.' Athelstan sighed. 'Until the Feast of All Saints.'

Eleanor got to her feet. 'Thank you, Brother.'

'Smile!' Athelstan urged. 'I am sure, Eleanor, this can be resolved.' He pointed to the church door. 'And I'll meet you and Oswald there to witness your vows.'

He watched the young woman leave then put his face in his hands.

'Oh, Lord, what have I promised?'

He felt pressure on his leg and looked down. Bonaventure had lifted himself up, two forepaws on his knee; the cat's little pink tongue came out with a fine display of sharp white teeth.

'And how shall I forgive you, oh great killer of the alleyways?' Athelstan asked. 'Slaughterer on the midden-heap! Scourge of rats! Come on now!'

Bonaventure leapt into the friar's lap. Athelstan sat there stroking him, half-listening to the tomcat's deep purr as he reflected on Eleanor's problems. The new parish blood book didn't go back far so he would have to depend on verbal testimony. However, if Pike the ditcher's wife was bent on mischief, she might already have jogged memories in the direction she wanted. On the one hand Athelstan felt angry at such meddling but, on the other, if the ditcher's wife was correct, he would not sanctify Eleanor's and Oswald's marriage. So where could he start? What could he do?

The church door opened with a crash. Athelstan thought it was Sir John Cranston but Luke Bladder-sniff the beadle, his bulbous red nose glowing like a piece of fiery charcoal, stumbled into the church.

'Murder!' he screamed. 'Oh horrors! Murder most terrible!'

'In God's name Bladdersniff, what's the matter?' 'Murder!' the beadle shrieked. 'Come, Brother!'

Athelstan followed him out on to the porch. The day was fine, the sun shone strong. He could see nothing except Bladdersniff's large handcart in the mouth of the alleyway. Pike and Watkin were guarding it as if it held the royal treasure. Then Athelstan went cold as he glimpsed a bare foot, a hand sticking out from beneath the dirty sheet.

'In God's name!' he breathed. 'How many?'

'Three, Brother.'

Athelstan knew what Bladdersniff would say next.

'I brought them here because they were found in the parish. I do not recognise them, they are the corpses of strangers. According to the law, such relicts must be displayed outside the parish church for a day and a night.'

Athelstan inhaled deeply. 'Bring them forward, Bladdersniff!'

The beadle gestured. Watkin and Pike trundled the handcart across, Bladdersniff dramatically removed the canvas sheet and the friar flinched. He was used to death in all its forms, to gruesome murder, to stiff, ice-cold cadavers, hanged, hacked, stabbed, drowned, burned, crushed and mangled. These three corpses, however, had a pathos all of their own. The young girl looked as if she was asleep, except her face was blue-white and a terrible wound gaped in her throat. The dark-skinned, black-haired stranger looked like a sailor, his eyes still popping at the horror he must have experienced as the crossbow bolt took him deep in the heart. Athelstan inspected the feathers of the stout quarrel.

'This must have been loosed at close range,' he observed. 'No more than two yards.'

The third man was young, no older than his twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth summer, with close-cropped hair over a thin face rendered awful by death. Athelstan murmured a prayer and stepped back. The cart moved and the corpse of the young man rolled slightly so that his head fell back, showing the gaping wound in his throat, blue-black, ragged skin, half-closed red-rimmed eyes, his lips and nose laced with blood. Athelstan made a sign of the cross as he whispered the words of absolution. He felt his stomach pitch in disgust at such terrible deaths and the shock they caused. He had been in his church then murder, in all its hideous forms, had been thrust upon him. He sat down on the steps.

'God have mercy on them!' Athelstan prayed.

He tried to calm his racing mind. If only Sir Jack were here! He would know what to do. Athelstan prayed quietly for strength and glanced at his three companions. Only then did he notice that Bladdersniff must have vomited; his chin and jerkin were still stained. Watkin and Pike were burly fellows but their faces were pallid, and they were already distancing themselves from the cart's gruesome burdens.

'Where were they found?' Athelstan asked.

'In Simon the miser's house. I wager they had been there since at least last night.'

Athelstan studied the corpses.

'Where in the house? Who discovered them?'

'In the parlour downstairs,' Bladdersniff replied. 'Two children in the field nearby, chasing their dog. They went in and ran out screaming; their mother sent for me.'

'Do you recognise the corpses?'

Bladdersniff shook his head but Athelstan glimpsed the look of guilt which flitted across Pike's pallid face.

'Pike!' he shouted. 'Do you know anything?'

The ditcher shuffled his mud-caked boots, wiping the sweat from his hands on his shabby jerkin.

'I want to see you about a number of things, Pike, but, first, do you know anything about this young woman?'

'She may have been a whore, Brother. I am not too sure. I'll have to rack my memory' 'Rack it!' Athelstan snapped.

He felt stronger and got to his feet. He studied the corpses more closely. The black-haired, sunburned man looked like a sailor with his shaggy, matted hair and beard but he was dressed in a gown and cloak rather than tunic and leggings. On his feet were stout walking boots though the brown leather was scuffed and scratched. The young woman was definitely comely. She wore a linen smock with petticoats beneath, pattens of good leather on her bare feet. A cheap bracelet still dangled round her left wrist. Athelstan went and pulled back the cloak of the dark-skinned man and tapped the wallet. It was empty, as was the purse on the cheap brocaded belt the young woman wore. He held out his hand.

'The money, Bladdersniff?'

The beadle coloured.

'Bladdersniff, you are my friend as well as my parishioner. I do not know the hearts and souls of murderers but I believe these people were killed, not for gain but for some other, more subtle, evil.' He paused. 'To rob the dead is a grievous sin.'

'I didn't rob them, Brother, I was just holding it.'

Bladdersniff dug deep into his own purse. He took out a handful of bronze and silver coins and thrust these into Athelstan's hand.

'Anything else?' the friar demanded.

The beadle was about to refuse but three more coins appeared from his purse.

'If I march you up the church, master beadle, and put your hands on the sanctuary stone, would you say "That's all"?'

'I'll take the oath now, Brother.'

'Good!'

Athelstan sifted the coins of gold, silver and copper. He picked up a rather shabby medal on the side of which was a cross, on the reverse what looked like an angel with outstretched wings.

'Who had this?'

Bladdersniff pointed to the black-haired corpse. The Dominican slipped the coins into his own wallet.