Paul Harding - Field of Blood

Cranston took another swig and offered Athelstan the wineskin but the friar shook his head. He did not like the look on Mistress Sholter's face: arrogant, slightly mocking.

'You didn't really care, did you,' the friar demanded, 'who took the blame? My innocent parishioners would have to pay. You and your friend would play the roles you assumed. Time would pass, memory would dim. Tell me, when did you first plot it? Days, weeks, months ago? For what? So you could lie in adulterous passion and play the two-backed beast?'

Mistress Sholter moved some of the stacks of coins.

'What a farrago of nonsense!' she snapped. 'How can you prove that I left Petty Wales and journeyed to the Silken Thomas disguised as my husband?

True, he had two medals. Maybe he had forgotten that? Perhaps he was riding back for something else? Did he have a mistress in the city? Anyway, he's ambushed on a lonely road. The saddle bears the royal insignia so it's thrown in the river and the horse is taken and sold elsewhere.' She paused. 'I really don't know what you are talking about!' She preened herself.

'You know full well!' Athelstan insisted. 'You were party to your husband's murder; Eccleshall killed those other two because their arrival hindered his plans. One corpse is easy to hide or burn. But three? Did he panic? Did he flee? I am sure Mistress Sholter that, if you had been present, those corpses would never have been discovered.'

'I don't know what you are talking about,' she repeated.

Sir John sprang to his feet as he heard raised voices outside and, before Athelstan could stop him, he grabbed the St Christopher medal from his hands and walked out of the door. Eccleshall was standing by the stall held back by Flaxwith. Sir John strode up to him, slamming the front door shut. He held up the St Christopher medal.

'Pinion his arms!' he ordered.

The bailiffs grabbed the royal messenger and, before he could protest, took cords from their belts and bound his wrists.

'What is this?' Eccleshall spluttered.

Cranston pushed him along past the stalls and down a narrow alleyway. The coroner quietly prayed that Athelstan would keep Mistress Sholter busy. He grasped Eccleshall by the chin and held up the medal.

'She's confessed all, you know. How she met you at the old miser's house, stripped Miles' body and then journeyed in disguise with you to the Silken Thomas.'

Eccleshall blinked and wetted his lips. 'Our little songbird wishes to save her neck, doesn't she, lads?'

The bemused bailiffs nodded.

'She's told us how she rode down to the Thames and threw the saddle into the river then cast the horse loose. How she used Miles' second medal to distract the maid: a pretext for his supposed jour­ney from the Silken Thomas. How you waited until Sunday evening to dispose of the corpse but then had to kill those two others who surprised you. She has turned King's evidence in return for a pardon.'

'The bitch!' Spit bubbled on Eccleshall's lips. He lunged to the mouth of the alleyway but the bailiffs held him fast. 'She's as guilty as me! She may be cold as ice now but she's a whore in bed!'

'Are you saying that she's your accomplice?'

'More than that! She plotted it from the start.'

'And those two other corpses?'

Eccleshall sagged against his captors. 'I had no choice,' he mumbled. 'I heard them coming. I loaded the arbalest I carried. The man died immediately. The young whore was going to scream.'

'Thank you very much.' Sir John gestured with his head. 'Take him to Newgate! Keep him well away from his accomplice!'

Mistress Sholter's face, when Sir John confronted her, twisted into a grimace of hatred. She cast the coins about and would have run to the door but he seized her by the wrist, twisting her round and throwing her against the wall.

'You'll both hang,' he said quietly, 'for the deaths of three innocents.' He opened the door and gestured Athelstan out. 'Take one last look around your house, Mistress Sholter: it's Newgate for you.'

After Sir John left instructions with the bailiffs, he and Athelstan walked up Mincham Lane.

'You did very well, Brother. Very well indeed.'

'And that was quick of you, Sir John. If they had met, Mistress Sholter's guilt would have been hard to prove.' The friar nudged the coroner playfully in the ribs. 'So it's true what they say about you, Jack? Swift as a greyhound, more tenacious than a swoop­ing hawk!'

Sir John stood in the middle of the street and took a quick gulp from his wineskin.

'You think I'm swift now, Brother. Let me tell you about the time before Poitiers. We were going along a country lane …'

Athelstan closed his eyes. He'd heard this story at least six times and jumped when he heard his name being shrieked.

'Brother Athelstan! Brother Athelstan!'

Crim the altar boy came speeding from an alley­way, his face covered in the remains of a meat pie, black hair sticking up. He stopped before the friar, grasping his robe.

'Brother!' he gasped. 'Brother, I've …!'

Athelstan patted him gently on the shoulder.

'Come over here.'

He led the little altar boy between two stalls and made him sit on a makeshift bench outside an alehouse.

'Has the church burned down?' Athelstan asked.

Crim shook his head.

'Are Watkin and Pike at daggers drawn?'

Again the shake of the head.

'It's Mistress Benedicta,' Crim gasped.

Athelstan went cold. 'What's happened to her?'

'Come on, lad!' Sir John sat beside the boy. He opened his wallet and took out a piece of marchpane. 'One of my poppets put that in my purse this morn­ing. They don't like to think of Daddy being hungry. I only found it after I had left. Now, tell us what's happened.'

Athelstan found it difficult to breathe.

'Benedicta,' Crim gasped. 'Benedicta, grim …'

'I beg your pardon?'

'Benedicta, grim … No, grimoire!'

Athelstan recalled the book he had given to Benedicta.

'She's in our house, Brother. She's all excited. She says you've got to come now.' 'Well, in which case, we'll go.'

Together they strode down Eastchepe, fought their way through the fish stalls at Billingsgate and hired a barge, Sir John offering the rowers an extra penny. The wherrymen needed no further bidding but pulled at their oars. Crim, his mouth now full of march­pane, sat wedged between the coroner and Athelstan, who had to give up in despair at questioning him further.

The wherry turned midstream, gathering speed as it headed towards the arches under London Bridge.

Crim sat wide-eyed, looking up at the poles jutting out, bearing the severed heads of traitors and riVer pirates. They entered the shadows of the bridge, the wherrymen pulling their oars in as the river gathered speed, carrying them by its own force under the arch and out to the other side.

A short while later they reached the Southwark quayside and clambered out. Sir John strode along the lanes, shoving people aside, Athelstan and Crim bustling behind him. Athelstan expected to find the yard in front of St Erconwald's busy and thronging but it was deserted. Only Bonaventure slept like some lazy sentry on the top step of the church.

'She's in the house,' Crim explained. 'She said she hadn't told anyone. She wanted to show you first.'

'Jack, you needn't have come!' Athelstan said.

'Brother, if you find it exciting, so do I, Anyway, I like to see Benedicta.'

The widow woman opened the door and gave a gasp of surprise as Sir John embraced her, kissing her loudly on the cheeks.

'You are a lovely woman, Benedicta, and what's all this clamour about?'

Benedicta was certainly excited. She had taken her veil off, her raven-black hair tumbling down to her shoulders. She skipped away from Sir John, clapped her hands and pointed to the parchment littering Athelstan's table.