Field of Blood

countryside north of the Tower?' He tapped Benedicta on the nose. 'But I accept your reasoning. Yet I am certain either one, or both, of that precious pair are implicated in Sholter's murder.' He fought back his anger. 'For which this parish is going to pay.'
    'There are other difficulties,' Benedicta pointed out. 'What if we can prove that Mistress Sholter stayed in her house on Saturday evening and Master Eccleshall never left that tavern?'
    Athelstan got to his feet and clapped his hands at Bonaventure.
    'That, my dear Heloise, would pose a problem!'
    'Who's she?'
    'A beautiful woman who fell in love with a priest called Abelard.'
    'I've never heard of him,' she replied tartly.
    'Come.' Athelstan walked to the door, Bonaventure trotting behind him. 'Let's feed the inner man.'
    They left the church. Outside the day was dying. Athelstan expected to see some of his parishioners but, apart from Ursula the pig woman disappearing down the alleyway, her great sow trotting after her, ears flapping, the church forecourt was empty. Philomel was leaning against his stall busily munching.
    Athelstan found his small house swept and cleaned, a fire ready to be lit. On the scrubbed table stood two pies covered with linen cloths and an earthenware jug of ale. Bonaventure went and lay down in front of the empty grate. Athelstan brought traunchers and goblets from the kitchen, horn spoons from his small coffer. He was about to say grace when there was a knock on the door and Godbless, followed by his little goat, bustled into the house. The beggarman was small, his hair dishevelled, eyes gleaming in his whiskered weatherbeaten face. Athelstan noticed the horn spoon clutched in his hand. Thaddeus went across to sniff at Bonaventure but that great lord of the alleyways didn't even deign to life his head.
    'I am hungry, Brother.'
    'Godbless, you always are. When you die we'll say you were a saint.'
    Godbless looked puzzled.
    'You can read minds,' Athelstan explained.
    'I've been in the death house.' Godbless rubbed his stomach and looked at the pies. 'I've had some cheese and bread but I knew about these pies, Brother.'
    'It's not the death house,' Athelstan reminded him. 'Pike and Watkin have built a new one and, from now on, you are to call your little house the "porter's lodge". You are the guardian of God's acre. I don't want Pike and Watkin getting drunk there or Cecily the courtesan meeting her sweethearts in the long grass. If I've told that girl once, I've told her a thousand times: only the dead are supposed to lie there.'
    Godbless solemnly nodded.
    'And I'm going to offer you a reward.' Athelstan gestured at him to sit. 'I have this dream,' the friar continued, pushing a trauncher towards the little beggarman. 'To actually plant vegetables which I, not Ursula's sow, will eat.'
    'I've driven that beast off before, Brother.'
    'Beast is well named,' Athelstan quipped. 'That pig fears neither God nor man.'
    'I'm glad I'm here.'
    Godbless watched as Benedicta cut the pie and held his trauncher out. Athelstan filled the earthenware cups with ale.
    'That young woman in the cemetery, she is such doleful company!'
    The friar nearly dropped the jug. 'What young woman?'
    'You know, Eleanor, Basil the blacksmith's daughter. She's just sitting under a yew tree muttering to herself.'
    Athelstan was already striding towards the door. Godbless happily helped himself to another piece of pie and began to eat as fast as he could. The friar, followed by Benedicta, hurried through the enclosure along the side of the church and into the cemetery where Athelstan climbed on to an old stone plinth tomb. It supposedly contained the bones of a robber baron who had been hanged and gibbetted outside St Erconwald's many years ago.
    'What's the matter?' Benedicta asked.
    'Eleanor!' Athelstan shouted. 'Eleanor! You are to come here!'
    He glimpsed a flash of colour. Eleanor rose from where she was hiding behind a tomb, head down, hands hanging by her sides. She came along the trackway. Athelstan climbed down.
    'Eleanor, what are you doing here?'
    'I feel as if I want to die, Brother. I just miss Oswald but our parents will not allow us to see each other and it's all due to that wicked vixen's tongue.'
    'You'll die soon enough. And then you'll go to heaven. In the meantime you've got to live your life. God has put you here for a purpose and that purpose must be fulfilled.'
    'I feel like hanging myself.'
    Benedicta put her arm round the young girl's shoulder