Field of Blood

flinched. He was used to death in all its forms, to gruesome murder, to stiff, ice-cold cadavers, hanged, hacked, stabbed, drowned, burned, crushed and mangled. These three corpses, however, had a pathos all of their own. The young girl looked as if she was asleep, except her face was blue-white and a terrible wound gaped in her throat. The dark-skinned, black-haired stranger looked like a sailor, his eyes still popping at the horror he must have experienced as the crossbow bolt took him deep in the heart. Athelstan inspected the feathers of the stout quarrel.
    'This must have been loosed at close range,' he observed. 'No more than two yards.'
    The third man was young, no older than his twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth summer, with close-cropped hair over a thin face rendered awful by death. Athelstan murmured a prayer and stepped back. The cart moved and the corpse of the young man rolled slightly so that his head fell back, showing the gaping wound in his throat, blue-black, ragged skin, half-closed red-rimmed eyes, his lips and nose laced with blood. Athelstan made a sign of the cross as he whispered the words of absolution. He felt his stomach pitch in disgust at such terrible deaths and the shock they caused. He had been in his church then murder, in all its hideous forms, had been thrust upon him. He sat down on the steps.
    'God have mercy on them!' Athelstan prayed.
    He tried to calm his racing mind. If only Sir Jack were here! He would know what to do. Athelstan prayed quietly for strength and glanced at his three companions. Only then did he notice that Bladdersniff must have vomited; his chin and jerkin were still stained. Watkin and Pike were burly fellows but their faces were pallid, and they were already distancing themselves from the cart's gruesome burdens.
    'Where were they found?' Athelstan asked.
    'In Simon the miser's house. I wager they had been there since at least last night.'
    Athelstan studied the corpses.
    'Where in the house? Who discovered them?'
    'In the parlour downstairs,' Bladdersniff replied. 'Two children in the field nearby, chasing their dog. They went in and ran out screaming; their mother sent for me.'
    'Do you recognise the corpses?'
    Bladdersniff shook his head but Athelstan glimpsed the look of guilt which flitted across Pike's pallid face.
    'Pike!' he shouted. 'Do you know anything?'
    The ditcher shuffled his mud-caked boots, wiping the sweat from his hands on his shabby jerkin.
    'I want to see you about a number of things, Pike, but, first, do you know anything about this young woman?'
    'She may have been a whore, Brother. I am not too sure. I'll have to rack my memory' 'Rack it!' Athelstan snapped.
    He felt stronger and got to his feet. He studied the corpses more closely. The black-haired, sunburned man looked like a sailor with his shaggy, matted hair and beard but he was dressed in a gown and cloak rather than tunic and leggings. On his feet were stout walking boots though the brown leather was scuffed and scratched. The young woman was definitely comely. She wore a linen smock with petticoats beneath, pattens of good leather on her bare feet. A cheap bracelet still dangled round her left wrist. Athelstan went and pulled back the cloak of the dark-skinned man and tapped the wallet. It was empty, as was the purse on the cheap brocaded belt the young woman wore. He held out his hand.
    'The money, Bladdersniff?'
    The beadle coloured.
    'Bladdersniff, you are my friend as well as my parishioner. I do not know the hearts and souls of murderers but I believe these people were killed, not for gain but for some other, more subtle, evil.' He paused. 'To rob the dead is a grievous sin.'
    'I didn't rob them, Brother, I was just holding it.'
    Bladdersniff dug deep into his own purse. He took out a handful of bronze and silver coins and thrust these into Athelstan's hand.
    'Anything else?' the friar demanded.
    The beadle was about to refuse but three more coins appeared from his purse.
    'If I march you up the church, master beadle, and put your hands on the sanctuary stone, would you say "That's all"?'
    'I'll take the oath now, Brother.'
    'Good!'
    Athelstan sifted the coins of gold, silver and copper. He picked up a rather shabby medal on the side of which was a cross, on the reverse what looked like an angel with outstretched wings.
    'Who had this?'
    Bladdersniff pointed to the black-haired corpse. The Dominican slipped the coins into his own wallet.
    'If I remember the law, the goods