The Straw Men(47)

‘Raise the hue and cry!’ Athelstan whispered to a shocked Flaxwith who had followed him in. ‘Shout “Harrow” and rouse the parish!’ He tapped the small cot. ‘Baby Odo needs attention.’ In the small comfortable solar above, Humphrey’s two children, Laurence and Margaret, had been struck down. Laurence almost blocked the threshold; the barb had sliced his throat, the blood splashing out to stain both lintel and floor. Margaret had been thrown back in the comfortable window seat, the embroidery she had been working on slipping through her fingers as the bolt smashed into her chest, a direct hit to the heart. Her eyes stared in glassy horror, her slack mouth encrusted with blood.

‘These are nightmares,’ Athelstan whispered. ‘The blackest sins have been committed here. The demons gather. God have mercy on us all.’ Flaxwith touched him on the shoulder and pointed to a parchment scrap nailed to a wooded settle nearby. Athelstan plucked it down and read the scrawl.

‘When Adam delved and Eve span

Who was then the gentleman?

Now the world is ours and ours alone

To cut the Lords to heart and bone.’

Sir John Cranston gazed down at the four bloody corpses stretched out on a canvas sheet in the spice chamber. Athelstan had swiftly finished the rite for the dead and informed the coroner of what he had found. The lane outside was packed with people. The wardsmen had been alerted by the ringing cries of ‘Harrow! Harrow!’ Bladdersniff, the local beadle and constable, despite his topeish ways, had roused Athelstan’s parishioners. Baby Odo was being looked after by a family. Now the rest of the neighbourhood, armed with staves, clubs, cudgels, daggers and maces, gathered in the freezing cold.

‘Father, we are here.’

‘So you are.’ Athelstan beckoned Watkin and Pike into the small chamber. ‘Just one question.’ Athelstan’s face was drawn in anger, eyes hard, no smile or understanding look. ‘One question.’ Athelstan repeated. ‘On God’s eternal judgement on your souls, the truth!’ he hissed. ‘Are you responsible for this?’

Watkin and Pike gaped in horror at the blood-drenched corpses.

‘Under the ban!’ Watkin exclaimed. ‘They must have all been placed under the ban! Father, I swear, if they were, the order was not known or carried out by us.’ Watkin scratched his face. ‘The Wardes were a nuisance; they actually learnt very little, nothing more than most of the parish know. Well,’ he shuffled mud-caked boots, ‘until that attack on the Roundhoop.’

‘Juravisti iuramentum magnum et non poenitebet vos,’ Athelstan replied, quoting the solemn legal phrase. ‘You have sworn a great oath and you cannot repent of it, yes? You and yours,’ Athelstan pointed at both of them, ‘had nothing to do with this. If you did, I shall, with bell, book and candle, solemnly excommunicate you from the steps of the sanctuary of our church. Damned Watkin! Damned to the fires of Hell for all eternity! Cursed in your waking. Cursed in your sleeping. Cursed in your eating. Cursed in your drinking. Bereft of the sacraments. No Eucharist, no shriving, no anointing, no baptizing.’ Athelstan’s words rolled like the peal of doom, echoing out along the passageway and into the street beyond. Watkin and Pike stretched out their hands, the solemn gesture when taking an oath.

‘Father, on our souls,’ Watkin couldn’t take his eyes off those corpses, ‘we swear on our souls.’

‘If you were involved,’ Cranston barked, ‘once Holy Mother Church finished with you, the hangman will begin.’

‘Father?’ Huddle the painter, accompanied by Benedicta, pushed his way by Watkin and Pike to stare aghast at the carnage.

‘How?’ Benedicta whispered.

‘Never mind.’ Athelstan softened. He picked up a leather sack and thrust this at her with the keys to both church and house. ‘Benedicta, these are Humphrey Warde’s papers: some ledgers and a psalter. Put them in the parish chest, make sure they are safely secure. Please look after everything. I have to accompany Sir John.’

‘King’s business,’ the coroner lugubriously intervened. ‘Despite the late hour, I need Brother Athelstan and, when we are finished, I’m afraid it’s back to the Tower.’

‘Ensure all is safe,’ Athelstan urged Benedicta. ‘Go to Father Walter at Saint Ethelburga’s, ask him as a favour to send his curate to celebrate the Jesus Mass for you tomorrow. Huddle?’ The painter stepped out of the shadows, his stained fingers clutching the skin of his face now whiter than the driven snow, his eyes two large pools of terror. He could not stop staring at the corpses.