The Straw Men(44)

Athelstan walked on, knocking away the apprentices plucking at his sleeves and the fleshy-mouthed whores who sidled up whispering what delights they could offer. Athelstan ignored such harrowers of the dark. Nevertheless, the world and all its business still pressed in. A group of Newgate bailiffs pulled two river pirates to the balustrade overlooking the river. Ignoring their screams, the officials tied nooses around the prisoners’ necks and toppled them over. Athelstan glimpsed a prostitute on her knees before a costermonger, feverishly loosening the points of his hose as both sheltered in a narrow runnel between two soaring houses. Athelstan looked away but his eye was caught by other scenes. A beggar, one leg crushed by a cart, lay dying beneath a stall attended by a Carmelite. Two courtesans from The House of Imminent Pleasure just beyond the bridge sauntered by swathed in cheap finery and even cheaper perfume. A group of armed knights, gorgeous pennants proclaiming John of Gaunt’s arms, forced their destriers through the crowd. Curses and insults were thrown. The leading knight, visor down, lowered his lance and the crowd swiftly parted. A gust of river wind, heavy with the smell of rotting fish, buffeted Athelstan. The friar felt dizzy, disconcerted, as if he could feel the pent-up anger and lusts of the people around him. He took a deep breath and moved on, reaching the end of the bridge and the steps either side leading to the upper stories of the yawning bridge gate.

Athelstan climbed these, knocked on the iron-studded door and was ushered into what the mannekin Robert Burdon called his ‘workshop’. Custos of the Bridge and Keeper of the Heads, Burdon was scarcely five feet tall, a small, pot-bellied man who loved to dress in blood-red taffeta, the colour of what he jokingly called his ‘fraternity of the shearing knife’.

In the chambers above Athelstan could hear the screams and shouts of Burdon’s brood of children.

‘Brother Athelstan! Brother Athelstan, come deeper in.’ The friar walked up the macabre chamber, long and narrow, lit only by arrow-slit windows, its wooden floor scrubbed clean, as was the long table which ran down the centre of the room. On shelves along the wall ranged rows of freshly severed heads; these had been washed in brine and recently tarred at the neck, glassy eyes above gaping, bloody mouths gazing sightlessly at him from under half-open lids. Athelstan refused Burdon’s offer of refreshment. He explained why he had come and placed the sack on the table. Burdon, calling blessings down on Sir John, undid the twine and brought out both heads. Clicking his tongue noisily as he critically examined them, the mannekin picked each up, sniffed at them in turn, wetted his fingers and stroked the grey, wizened skin of the two severed heads. He then examined the cut necks. Athelstan had to turn away when Burdon prised open the mouths, poking around with his fingers. Once finished he placed both heads in a space along the shelves.

‘Do you know, Brother,’ Burdon smiled, ‘at night, when darkness falls like a sheet of blackness and the river mists billow in, they come for their heads. Oh, yes! Heart-stricken, bloated and dangerous, the ghosts, the terrormongers, rise from the dismal woods of Hell. They gather here, ushered in by the night hags, a synod of wraiths.’ Athelstan stared at him in disbelief.

‘True, true,’ Burdon lifted his hands towards the shelves, ‘the ghosts of all my guests. I hear them pattering up the steps. Sometimes I glimpse them, smaller than me, hell-borne goblins. They bang on the walls. They gabble like Abraham men then they whisper, a sound like roasted fish hissing on a skillet. But,’ Burdon rose to his feet, ‘not these two. You see, their ghosts cannot cross the sea though their heads did, mind you. I detect salt water on their skins, while I’m sure both were severed not by an English axe but a two-handed broad sword, the execution weapon of Brabant?’ Burdon raised his eyebrows. ‘Flanders? Both heads are dry. The skin withering, the carrion birds will soon peck them to the bone. One head belongs to an old woman, the other to a fairly youngish man. Both have had their tongues plucked out.’

‘So,’ Athelstan sketched a blessing in the direction of the heads, ‘two heads brought from Flanders by Gaunt’s agents. They were undoubtedly the victims of judicial decapitation, probably carried out in secret. Before execution, their tongues were plucked out, the usual statutory punishment for those guilty of grievous calumny and slander. Both heads were to be shown to My Lord of Gaunt.’ Athelstan paused. ‘I suspect the heads were taken by the Upright Men during their assault near Aldgate and searched for when Thibault’s men stormed the Roundhoop.’

‘I heard about both incidents, Brother. I took custody of a number of heads . . .’