Field of Blood

'Three times for the host; three times for the chalice and finally for communion: Agnus Dei, Qui tollis peccata mundi…'
    'Don't blaspheme!' Athelstan protested.
    'I am not blaspheming, Brother. Just remembering. I would have been a good priest. Like you. Ah, but the lure of the flesh, the world and the devil. Anyway, I like your church. You certainly have built a parish here, Brother. I remember the previous incumbent, William Fitzwolfe. Now, he was a wicked bastard!'
    'Why have you come?' Athelstan sat on the altar steps facing him.
    'Sir John wants to see me.'
    'Then go and visit him yourself.'
    The vicar of hell laughed. 'What is it you want, Brother? And I'll be gone.' He opened his purse and shook out some coins.
    'I don't want your money.'
    'Take it as an offering and tell me what you want.'
    'Alice Brokestreet,' Athelstan began. 'She worked in a tavern, the Merry Pig, which is also a brothel.'
    'I know it well. She stabbed a clerk with a firkin-opener, pierced him dead. A foul-tempered woman! Now I understand she'll see Mistress Vestler hang.'
    'You know of the incident?'
    'I was there when it happened, it was murder.'
    'And Mistress Vestler?'
    'A secretive one, our tavern-mistress: keeps herself to herself. I approached her on one occasion.' 'For what?'
    'To see if we could do business together, moving goods around London. Perhaps hire one or two of my girls for her house but she refused.'
    'And you know nothing of a barge which comes down the Thames at night and moors on the mud flats near the Paradise Tree?'
    The vicar of hell laughed softly.
    'The river is not my concern, Brother Athelstan: it belongs to people like the fisher of men. In my new vocation, friar, you have to be careful you do not tread on other people's toes. It's the only way you keep alive. However, I'll tell you one thing, I give it to you free: the corpses found in Black Meadow? Bartholomew Menster?' The vicar of hell clicked his tongue. 'Now, Bartholomew was a clerk, a royal official, yet he approached one of my associates. He asked what price would he pay if a large chunk of solid gold came into his possession!'
    'What?' Athelstan leaned forward.
    'Oh, it's common enough, Brother. Stealing a cup, a jewelled plate, a chalice or a pyx. You can't very well go down to a goldsmith and hand it over. The same goes for a slab of pure gold. Questions will be asked! It's treason to take treasure trove and not declare it to the Crown.'
    'And Bartholomew Menster asked this? When?'
    'Oh, at the beginning of June.'
    'But the gold was never produced?'
    'We were very interested but there's an eternity of difference between talk of gold and actually owning it.'
    Suddenly, on the night air, came a sharp, piercing whistle. Athelstan jumped to his feet and went to the mouth of the rood screen.
    'Pax et bonum, Brother,' came the whisper.
    Athelstan turned but the vicar of hell had gone.
    'Pax et bonum,' Athelstan replied. 'May Christ smile on you.'
    He went and locked the coffin door and the sacristy and walked down the church. Godbless and Thaddeus were sitting on the steps. The beggarman stared up at him.
    'I thought I heard a commotion, Brother, so I came out.'
    'Nothing,' Athelstan replied. 'Nothing but shadows in the night, Godbless.' 'Are you well, Brother?'
    Athelstan started. Benedicta came out of the alleyway, a lantern in one hand, in the other a linen parcel wrapped in twine.
    'I've baked some bread,' she said.
    'You shouldn't be out,' Athelstan replied.
    'I was restless.' She pulled back her cloak. Athelstan glimpsed the Welsh stabbing dirk in her belt. 'I have friends in Southwark, no one would lift a hand against me.'
    Athelstan went across to his house. He had given up any idea of studying the stars. Godbless had cleared the kitchen table and the lord of the alleyways was now stretched out before the fire-grate. Athelstan put the bread in the small buttery. He filled three cups of ale and shared them out.
    'Why are you restless?' he asked.
    'For poor Eleanor's sake.' Benedicta chewed her lip. 'It's so sad to see someone so young, so deeply in love.' She smiled. 'I understand you went to see Veronica the Venerable?'
    'Ah yes.' Athelstan went to fetch the grimoire from his chancery bag. 'She had this, a relic from William Fitzwolfe, our former priest.'
    Benedicta leafed through the pages.
    'You can have it,' Athelstan told her. 'Take it over to the parchment sellers in St Paul's and you'll get a good price for the cover. In the meantime,