‘Fish?’ Athelstan asked.
‘Oh, yes,’ Artorius replied, ‘once he caught a porpoise swept in by the river. Maximus will eat anything and everything.’ Athelstan just stood and watched. Maximus was swift and confidently plunging up and down, swimming expertly – sometimes only his massive head protruded above the surface. The silver chain, fine and delicate in appearance, was very strong. Maximus had the freedom to swim although not to reach the far side of the moat.
‘God be praised!’ Athlestan whispered, crossing himself. ‘For such splendour! Sir John, I think we should go.’
They thanked Artorius and left St Thomas’ Tower, going out through the Lion gate, the roars and snarls from the menagerie ringing in their ears. Athelstan refused Cranston’s offer to see the other beasts; instead he plucked Sir John by the sleeve and led the unresisting coroner into the sweet onion-smelling tap room of the Hook of Heaven, an ancient tavern which overlooked the Thames. They cleaned their hands in the bronze basin hanging by a chain from the rafters in full obedience to the warning carved around the rim: ‘Wash with water your hands so clean that, on the towel, no spot be seen.’ Once done, Athelstan ordered blackjacks of ale and bowls of thickened chicken stew. Cranston had remained ominously silent during their visit to the snow bear. Athelstan suspected Sir John was reflecting deeply on Thibault’s hidden threats and the menaces which swirled around them. He wanted Cranston to lighten his mood.
‘We will do our duty, My Lord Coroner,’ Athelstan whispered as he polished his horn spoon and took a generous mouthful. ‘Let us reflect, Sir John, warm our bellies and,’ he gestured at the sack, ‘fathom these mysteries further. Now listen. You must return to your chambers in the Guildhall. Yes? Lady Maude will also be hungry for your embraces. However, make careful scrutiny of this. Search among the Spicers of Cheapside, discover everything you can about Humphrey Warde. Sir John, you remain silent. You have been so . . .’
‘The tribes.’ Cranston finished his soup. ‘Brother Athelstan, my little friar, my friend: Barak is dead, Lettenhove slain, Eli mysteriously murdered, but these are only bubbles on the surface of this morass. Brother,’ Cranston put his spoon down and grasped the friar’s hand, ‘believe me, the tempest has been sown. God help us,’ he murmured, ‘we are going to reap the corpse-makers’ storm.’ The coroner, still distracted, gathered his thoughts. ‘I have business, little friar, so have you, and the hour candle burns.’
They left the tavern. Cranston, lost in his own thoughts, turned off up an alleyway leading to the city. Athelstan, grasping the bag with its grisly contents, moved towards the bridge. The Angelus bells began to peal. Traders, merchants, hucksters and apprentices were all preparing to cease trading in order to break their morning fast. Most of these were swathed in cloaks and hoods against the biting cold. The air was riven with shouts and cries. People pushed and shoved towards the cook shops, alehouses and taverns. Beggars, blue with cold, whined for alms and shook their clacking dishes or tapped their canes. The ‘stealthy night shapes’ as Cranston called them, were also busy – the sneak thieves, the shadow stalkers hungry for prey. Bailiffs and beadles, determined on their food, hurried a line of miscreants to the great stocks next to the bridge. A sheriff’s man pushed a moveable, three-branched gallows with the cadavers of house breakers stripped naked, their dead flesh a pasty white, along the thoroughfare. A herald went before them, declaring the gallows proclaimed the dire consequences of breaking the King’s peace. How their wolfish souls, guilt-steeped and sin-scorched, had received their just desserts from both God and man. A relic-seller in a snoop cap followed, hoping to trade among the gathering crowd, loudly declaring he had holy fragments of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus for sale. Behind him a singing cleric bargained with a funeral party escorting a corpse, stitched in its deer-skinned shroud, to chant the death psalms.
Athelstan, head covered, pushed through this throng on to the bridge. He ignored the fishy, oozing stench from the river as he did the sweet flavour from the public ovens where the morning waffles, cakes and pastries had been baked. He did not look to the left or the right, ignoring the thunder of the Thames as it broke against the starlings of the bridge, the clacking of water mills and the constant noise of the traders crammed into the narrow causeway which ran between the houses and shops either side. He passed Becket’s chapel. On its steps a wandering preacher, standing next to a bonfire of burning rubbish, its creeping flames spluttering in the wet mist, screamed with scorched throat his dire prophecies. How the souls of London’s citizens were polluted by carnal lust. How Christ would soon come again, a brilliant flaming figure appearing like a gorgeous rainbow in the storm-swept skies above London.