By Murder's bright Light

asleep.
    His awakening the next morning, however, was far from peaceful. He woke to find one of the great wolfhounds lying on top of him. The poppets, who viewed Athelstan as a favourite uncle, were staggering about with pieces of bread smeared with honey. They were screaming with laughter as they tried to force the bread between his lips. Athelstan chmbed sleepily from the bed in a whirl of hurling limbs, soft little bodies and pieces of honey-coated bread. The other wolfhound, Magog, also appeared and made his contribution to the growing clamour. If Athelstan didn’t want the bread and honey, the dogs certainly did. They began to butt the baby boys in their fat little stomachs.
    Lady Maude arrived and her few quiet words had their desired effect. The wolfhounds disappeared beneath the table. The two poppets would have joined them, but their mother grabbed them both and dragged them off for their morning wash. Boscombe, Cranston ’s small, fat steward, a model of courtly courtesy, appeared with soap, towel and razor.
    Athelstan washed and shaved before the fire then joined Sir John, dressed now in more sober attire, to breakfast in the kitchen. Leif the beggar also arrived. Athelstan was always astonished at the skinny beggar’s appetite — it was as if he was constantly on the verge of death through starvation. Leif had brought a companion, Picknose — so named because of a disgusting personal habit. The two were listening in rapt admiration as Sir John, using knives and pieces of bread, described Eustace the Monk’s attack along the Thames . Athelstan ignored them all, ate a hasty breakfast and went outside. The morning, despite the clear skies, was bitterly cold. Athelstan crossed to St Mary Le Bow, where the friendly priest allowed him to celebrate Mass in a chantry chapel.
    Cranston was waiting when Athelstan left the church. He handed the friar his cloak and staff.
    ‘I have just visited that old nag of yours,’ he said.
    ‘Philomel is not an old nag, Sir John. He’s a bit like yourself , a stout warhorse who may have seen better days.’
    Cranston roared with laughter as they made their way down Bread Street across Old Fish Street and Trinity towards the quayside. The city was beginning to stir, carts crashed along, pulled by great dray horses with hogged manes, the steam from their sweaty flanks raising clouds in the cold morning air. Pedlars pushed their barrows; sleepy-eyed apprentices, not alert enough for mischief, laid out stalls and extinguished the lamps hanging outside their masters’ houses. Night pots were being emptied from upper windows and a burly-faced trader, covered in someone’s night soil, was fairly dancing with rage. The dung-carts were out scraping the muck from the sewers and picking up the detritus from the previous day, which included dead cats and a dog, its back broken by a cartwheel. A group of Benedictine monks escorted a coffin down towards one of the churches. A chanteur entertained the early morning crowds with a story of being spirited away to a fabulous fairy city under a mountain outside Dublin . Some drunken roisterers, halters around their necks, their hose pulled down about their ankles, were being led up to the Tun to spend the morning in disgrace in the huge cage there. At the entrance to Vintry two poles stuck in the ground bore the heads of executed French pirates, their features unrecognisable under the muck and refuse that had been thrown at them.
    Cranston and Athelstan reached the quayside, which was thronged with merchant ships; the sky was almost blacked out by a forest of masts, spars and cranes. They passed the Aleppo , the George, the Christopher and the Black Cock, their holds open to receive bundles of English wool, iron, salt, meat and cloths from Midland towns. Athelstan looked between the ships and glimpsed the war cogs riding at anchor. Cranston led him down to the alehouse where they had last met the Fisher of Men. He quietly asked the tapster to fetch the fellow, ordered two blackjacks of ale, sat in the same comer of the tavern as before and waited. The Fisher of Men soon appeared. His narrow, skeletal face glowed with pleasure at the profits he had harvested by plundering the dead and taking corpses from the river. His gargoyles thronged in the doorway waiting. The Fisher of Men refused Cranston ’s offer of refreshment but clapped his hands and gave Cranston and Athelstan a mocking bow.
    ‘My Lord, your Holiness! At last you grace us