‘Yes, yes, so you have,’ Athelstan conceded. ‘Siward may be old but he is still partial to a fair face. Anyway, give him the seal. Ask him if I can borrow the library copy of a poem known as Beowulf.’ He made Benedicta repeat the message. ‘Take the Hangman of Rochester with you as a guard. He frightens the footpads as much as Sir John.’ Benedicta, eyes closed, repeated the word ‘Beowulf’ until she knew it by heart. Cranston gave her a hug and kiss and she hurried off. Athelstan and Cranston strode on into the mesh of narrow squalid streets of Southwark, which ran like a tangled web, reeking of poverty and all kinds of wickedness. The day was iron-hard cold, the ground under foot still frozen solid, the filth strewn there turning to rock to score the foot and trip the boot. Shutters flew open above them. Doors slammed. Children chased dogs or guided the family pig with a whipping cane. Carts, barrows and tumbrils rumbled and rattled, pushed by sweaty labourers or pulled by spare-ribbed street nags. The legion of tinkers and traders, trays hanging around their necks, offered a range of goods from strips of hard cooked meat to crude sharp knives to cut it. A wild-eyed preacher had commandeered a broken wheeled cart on the corner of Hairlip Lane; his powerful voice bellowed how long hair was a sign of pride and the banner of Hell, and how the world was full of such banners, especially London ale. According to the preacher, this was Satan’s own drink, making men yield to the temptations of fleshly women who bore in their person the marks of the great enemy of man. Athelstan couldn’t make sense of what the preacher was talking about, although he agreed with the man’s constant refrain of how London had become the seat of the Great Beast and idolatry peeked out of every corner.
In truth, the friar was so distracted by the hurly-burly of recent events that he almost forgot where he was. Cranston had to pull him around a funeral party, all drunk and trying to get a coffin out through a narrow door; its thin wooden side had split and a skeletal arm hung out to the distress of the tipsy mourners. They left Hairlip Lane and paused as a group of flagellantes proceeded by, their heads and faces hidden by bright yellow hoods and red masks. The tops of their gowns, both the men and women, were pulled down to expose them to the lashes of those behind, a ceaseless reign of cutting blows which ruptured the skin and sprayed the air with flicking blood. The flagellantes, swinging from foot to foot, lost in a trance, rhythmically chanted ‘Miserere, Miserere, Kyrie Eleison’ – ‘Have mercy, have mercy, Lord, have mercy on us.’ A few city urchins, encouraged by the layabouts standing in the crumbling doorways of shabby alehouses, threw refuse at the penitents. Cranston doffed his beaver hat and bellowed at the top of his voice until the miscreants fled. The coroner was about to move on when he caught sight of a well-known pickpocket, Bird-brain, and shouted a warning for the felon to spread his wings and fly.
They reached The Golden Oliphant, standing at the end of an alleyway with walls of sheer red brick ranging either side. The tavern boasted a magnificent doorway smartly painted in black and gilt; the same colours were reflected in its broad sign and the rest of the tavern frontage. Two oafs dressed in black-and-gold livery stood on guard. Once Cranston announced himself they threw open the door and escorted them into the sweet-smelling parlour, just off the well-scrubbed paving stone floor leading down to the Golden Hall, as one of the guards grandly called the taproom. The parlour reminded Athelstan of a rather luxurious monastic cell with its gleaming oaken furniture, lancet windows filled with painted glass, thick turkey floor rugs and slender candles burning under bright copper caps. Cranston and Athelstan sat down on quilted, leather-back chairs before a brilliantly polished elmwood table; at its centre was a three-branched candelabra next to a blue and gold mazer full of freshly crushed herbs mixed in rosewater. The guards left. A short while later Elizabeth Sheyne, the Mistress of the Moppets, came in accompanied by her maid, a slender but buxom young lady, dressed as discreetly as any novice in a well-heeled convent. Introductions were made, refreshments offered and tactfully refused. Cranston and Athelstan retook their seats and the two women perched on chairs opposite as demurely as any city matrons. The Mistress of the Moppets, however, was a brazen-faced, hard-eyed woman with knowing eyes and a rat-trap mouth. The maid, Joycelina, as she introduced herself, looked no better – a pale, rather peaked face with hostile eyes, her disdain at meeting them barely hidden.
‘You are most welcome, Sir John.’
‘No, I am not!’ Cranston barked. ‘You,’ he pointed at the mistress, ‘run a brothel, a whorehouse, and I am an officer of the law.’
‘Sir John, I have powerful protectors.’
‘I couldn’t give a fig if all the Pope’s cardinals are upstairs with your ladies. Your business is not mine but if you lie I will make your business my business. I shall leave, but return with a warrant to search and a summons to court. Rest assured, I will be escorted by the burliest bailiffs who have ever graced a brothel.’
The mistress fluttered her eyes, laced her fingers together and forced a smile.
‘What do you want, Sir John?’
‘Marsen,’ Cranston used his fingers to emphasize his points, ‘Mauclerc, Sir Robert Paston and not to forget two dead whores. Be attentive to my questions. Answer them truthfully and you are safe; lie and I will have you in the stocks for a week, the public pillory down near the bridge. I am sure the wives of some of Southwark’s leading gentlemen would love to see you there.’
Athelstan steeled himself against the fear he could sense in both women. They had lost their false demure attitude and were now becoming increasingly flustered. Apparently they had never done business with Cranston and were being given a rough schooling.
‘I don’t-’ the mistress began.
‘Oh, by Satan’s tits!’ Cranston thundered jabbing a finger at the maid. ‘On the evening of the murders, and you know what I am talking about, you met Sir Robert Paston at The Candle-Flame – why? Look, accept my apologies,’ the coroner persisted. ‘In many ways I am a knight and a gentleman, but I am also a coroner. Hideous murder has been, and still is being, perpetrated. I don’t want to sit here and parry words with you. I have no desire to convict you of anything. I just want information.’
‘Sir John, Sir John,’ the mistress lifted long, snow-white hands, ‘I will tell the truth. What does it matter? We live in the rough world of men. I have no choice but to be subject to their iron-hard temper.’
‘I will be fair and just,’ Cranston intervened. ‘I am here to do what is right, that is all. Help me and, if and when I can, I will assist you.’
‘Marsen was a demon,’ the mistress spoke quickly, ‘a blood-drinker, a soul-crusher and, above all, a blackmailer. He loved to bully defenceless women. Oh, he was a guest here but not an invited one. He took what he wanted and never paid for anything, be it food, drink or a wench. He accused me of having secret dealings with the Upright Men.’
‘Do you?’
The mistress just stared back.
‘Everybody does, don’t they, Elizabeth?’ Athelstan said gently. She nodded.
‘We help where we can,’ she murmured. ‘In return, we have guarantees that when the days dissolve into fire, The Golden Oliphant will be safe.’ She ignored Cranston’s mocking laugh.
‘Do you store their weapons?’
‘No, Sir John, that would be stupid. You know that. Someone like Marsen would soon find out.’
‘What else did he want?’ Athelstan asked, staring at the maid. ‘Why did you go to The Candle-Flame? Why did one of your sisters who was slain carry a bag which clinked? Did it contain, and I think it did, a blue expensive gauntlet and a chainmail wristguard?’
The mistress drew a sharp breath, rubbed her face and twitched the folds of her dark-green, samite gown.
‘Marsen knew,’ she replied. ‘One of the sisters told him how Sir Robert Paston is the most regular visitor here. After all, he is a widower and he has,’ she fluttered her eyelids, ‘his own needs. When he came here Sir Robert liked …’ She pulled a face. ‘Father, you are a priest?’