Paul Harding: Field of Blood

'I am too distracted.'

Athelstan gazed down at his ever-faithful compan­ion, the great, one-eyed tomcat Bonaventure. The cat adored this little friar who provided him with deli­cious dishes of milk and salted fish. However, if the truth be known, Bonaventure was not sitting so quietly by his master out of any liturgical reverence; Bonaventure, the scourge and terror of the vermin in the alleyways of Southwark, had discovered that a party of church mice had taken up residence. He was now intently watching a far corner of the sanctuary for any sudden movement.

Athelstan rose and crossed himself. He genuflected towards the silver pyx hanging from a gold chain above the altar, put his stole about his neck and walked over to the small cubicle placed in one of the transepts. This was the shriving pew, fashioned out of oak by Crispin the new carpenter.

Everyone had admired it. It was a simple piece of wood, six foot high and fixed on a wooden platform. There was a lattice grille in the centre covered by a purple cloth. On one side was a small prie-dieu for the penitent, on the other a chair for the priest to hear confessions. Athelstan had announced that, every morning this week, in preparation for the Feast of All Saints, he would be here between the hours of nine and midday to hear confessions, shrive penitents and give absolution. The parishioners had all agreed. Athelstan said a quick prayer as he settled in the shriving chair that Sir John Cranston would not come gusting in from the city with news of a hideous murder, some bloody affray which would require their attention.

Bonaventure lay at his feet. Athelstan read his psal­ter, chanting to himself the divine office for the day. The door opened. He quickly peered round the screen. His parishioners were coming to confess, so Athelstan put the psalter down and rang a silver hand bell. The first penitent took his place.

'Brother, I've done nothing wrong!'

'Is that true, Crim?' Athelstan asked his altar boy. 'Then you are a most fortunate lad. You are good at home?'

'Oh yes, Brother.'

'And do you help your parents?'

'Of course, Brother.'

'And you've stopped making obscene gestures at Pike's wife?'

'Only when her back's turned, Brother.'

'And you never drink the altar wine?'

Crim coughed. 'Only when I have a sore throat, Brother.'

'Say a prayer for me,' Athelstan said as he smiled.

He gave Crim absolution and other penitents fol­lowed. Athelstan felt a deep compassion for the litany of sins they confessed. Men and women strug­gling against terrible poverty and oppressive laws still strove to be good, anxious when they failed.

'Brother, I think impure thoughts about Cecily the courtesan.'

'Brother, I drink too much.'

'Brother, I curse.'

'Brother, I stole some bread from a stall.'

Athelstan's responses were the same. 'God is merci­ful: His compassion will surprise us. Try to do good. Now I absolve you …'

The morning wore on. Athelstan was pleased. Quite a number of parishioners had turned up. Some were honest, others fey-witted. Pernell the Flemish woman, who dyed her hair a range of garish colours, confessed how she had slept with this man and that.

'Pernell! Pernell!' Athelstan broke in. 'You know that's not the truth. You dream.'

'I get worried, Brother, just in case I have!'

At last the church fell silent. Athelstan looked down at Bonaventure, glad that no hideous sin had been confessed: murder, sacrilege, dabbling in the black arts.

The church door opened. Athelstan could tell from the cough and the quick, light footsteps that a young woman had entered the church. She knelt on the prie-dieu.

'Bless me Brother for I have sinned.' The voice was low and sweet. 'I bless you.'

'I was last shriven before the Feast of Corpus Christi. I have been unkind, in thought, word and deed.'

'It is difficult to be charitable all the time,' Athelstan murmured. 'God knows I confess to the same sin.' 'Do you really, Brother?'

'I am a sinner like you. A child of God. He knows the heart and soul. Do continue.'

'Brother, I wish to commit murder!'

Athelstan nearly fell off his chair.

'I really do! I want to kill a woman, take a knife and drive it into her heart!'

'That is just anger.'

'No, I will do it! I swear by God I will do it!' 'Hush now!' Athelstan retorted. 'This is a sacra­ment in God's house. Can I pull back the curtains?' 'There's no need to, Brother.'

The young woman came round the screen and knelt before him. 'Why, it's Eleanor!'

Athelstan grasped her hands and gazed into the thin but very beautiful face of Basil the blacksmith's eldest daughter, a pale young woman with hair red as fire and the most magnificent green eyes Athelstan had ever seen. A shy girl but strong-willed, Eleanor always reminded Athelstan of what an angel must be: beautiful, modest with a dry sense of humour.

'Eleanor,' he pleaded. 'What is the matter?'

'Brother, I am in love.'

'You wouldn't think it.'

'No, Brother, I truly am. I deeply love …' She smiled.

'This is a secret?' Athelstan asked.

'Well, we've been very …' 'Discreet?'

'What does that mean, Brother?' 'Well, secretive, but not sly,' Athelstan added hastily.

A dreamy look came into the young woman's eyes. 'Its Oswald Fitz-Joscelyn.'

Athelstan recalled the eldest son of the owner of the Piebald tavern, his parishioners' favourite drinking-place.

'I truly love him, Brother.'

'How old are you, Eleanor?'

The young woman closed her eyes. 'This will be my eighteenth yuletide, or so Mother says.' 'And Oswald?'

'He loves me too, Brother, more than anything in the world! He bought me,' she touched the locket on a bronze chain round her neck, 'he bought me this on the Feast of the Assumption: Oswald said when he was with me, he felt as if he had been taken up into heaven.'

Athelstan hid his smile and nodded. Oswald was a personable young man. His father had already made him a partner in a very prosperous business. Joscelyn had plans to buy a tavern elsewhere, even apply for the membership of the Guild of Victuallers.

'If this is so,' Athelstan asked, 'why do you plot murder?'

'It's Imelda!'

'Oh no!'

Athelstan groaned and closed his eyes: Pike the ditcher's wife! The self-styled chronicler, herald and fount of all knowledge in the parish.

'What has she got to do with this?'

'She saw,' Eleanor blinked to hide her tears, 'Oswald and me in the fields beyond the ditch. She went and told Oswald's father.'

'And?'

'That harridan,' Eleanor spat the words out, 'maintains that my great-grandmother and Oswald's great-grandmother were sisters!' She glimpsed the look of anguish in the priest's face.

'And what proof does she have?'

'You know, Brother, what she is hinting at? She's never liked me and she blames Joscelyn for Pike's drinking, but the parish has no blood book.'

Athelstan glanced across the church at Huddle's paintings on the far wall depicting Lot's wife being turned into a pillar of salt. He recalled the furious arguments when Huddle had given the woman the same features as Pike the ditcher's wife.

'This is serious, isn't it, Brother?'

'It is, Eleanor.' Athelstan stretched a hand out and gently stroked her hair. 'We have no proper blood book. The last parish priest.' Athelstan shrugged. 'Well, you know what he was like?'

'He dabbled in the black arts, didn't he?'

'He not only did that,' Athelstan said. 'He either burned or stole every document the parish had. We have no records, Eleanor, but the Church strictly forbids marriage within the bounds of consanguinity.'

'I've heard of that, Brother. What does it mean?'

'That you and Oswald are related and that your children …'

'Now that I do know,' Eleanor interrupted heat­edly. 'Imelda said the same. How, in isolated villages, such marriages give birth to monsters!'