Bloodstone(92)

‘Swift,’ Cranston repeated.

‘The anchorite must do it.’ Wenlock glanced over his shoulder at the coroner. ‘I’ve hanged enough to know what will happen. I don’t want to dance for an hour, twitch and jerk, soil myself while I’m choking. The Hangman of Rochester will ensure it takes no more time than a Gloria.’ Wenlock forced a laugh. ‘You’re right, Cranston, I’ve seen men tortured.’ He blew his cheeks out. ‘I won’t reply, Friar, to what you’ve laid against me. You’ve said enough, there’s little to add. I plead guilty. I have no more to say . . .’

Athelstan stood in the narrow nave of St Bartholomew’s Priory in Smithfield. The church was deserted except for the Guild of the Hanged who clustered before the Great Pity just inside the main door. They knelt, pattering their Aves for the two men being hanged at the Elms only a short distance beyond the great lychgate of the priory. Athelstan half listened to the swelling murmur of the crowd thronging around the soaring scaffold which brooded over Smithfield. The Regent had insisted that both Cranston and Athelstan witness the execution of the two criminals they’d trapped and caught. The coroner was now on the scaffold together with the Hangman of Rochester garbed in black, his head and face hidden by a blood-red visor. Athelstan moved over to pray before the gilt-edged tomb of Rahere, King Henry’s jester who’d founded both the priory and the nearby hospital in fulfilment of a vow he’d made to St Bartholomew in Outremer.

‘God’s jester,’ Athelstan prayed, eyes tightly shut. ‘Have great pity on Crispin and Wenlock. Show even more loving mercy on their poor victims. Eternal rest . . .’ Athelstan broke off at the great roar which echoed through the church. ‘Eternal rest,’ he continued, ‘give them all.’ He pleaded, ‘And let perpetual light shine upon them.’ He remained kneeling, locked in fervent, desperate prayer.

‘It’s over, they’ve gone!’

Athelstan opened his eyes. Cranston and the anchorite stood in the doorway of the church.

‘Swift?’ Athelstan asked.

‘Like that!’ Cranston snapped his fingers.

‘For such small mercies,’ Athelstan whispered, getting to his feet, ‘deo gratias.’ He walked down the nave. ‘Although not over Sir John.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It never is,’ the anchorite declared, hood and visor now pulled back.

‘It never is, is it, Father?’

Athelstan smiled at both of them. ‘Abbot Walter needs to do a great deal of explaining, so does Prior Alexander. His Grace the Regent must decide on what to do with the Passio Christi . . .’ Athelstan spread his hands.

‘Father,’ the anchorite stepped forward, ‘could I move my cell to St Erconwald’s? I cannot stay in that abbey.’

‘You could hang half of his parish,’ Cranston joked.

‘Not now, and you,’ Athelstan pointed at the anchorite, ‘you have a name, Giles of Sempringham, yes? I shall call you that. So,’ Athelstan rubbed his hands, ‘let us go back to “The Holy Lamb of God”. Let us sit before a roaring fire. Let us revel in all God’s comforts and rejoice in the approach of the feast of the birth of God’s Golden Boy.’

‘Oh sweet words, lovely friar,’ Cranston breathed.

All three left the priory. Athelstan turned his face away so as not to glimpse those two corpses hanging black against the bright December sky.