Murder most holy

mournful glances. Brother,’ his eyes pleaded with Athelstan, ‘that problem must be resolved.’
    Athelstan turned his back so Cranston couldn’t see the desperation on his face.
    ‘Skeletons, mysterious murders, and an assassin loose in a monastery!’ Athelstan closed his eyes. ‘Oh, sweet God, help us!’
    He busied himself about the kitchen until he heard a knock on the door.
    ‘Come in!’ he shouted.
    Benedicta entered, her beautiful face now drawn and anxious. She nodded at Cranston .
    ‘What’s wrong, Brother? Why have I been sent for?’ Athelstan ushered her to a stool and sat down next to her. ‘Benedicta, the letter’s gone but we will have to wait for a reply. I have to leave the parish for a while and go to Blackfriars.’ He touched her gently on the wrist. Cranston , embarrassed, coughed and looked away. ‘Listen, Benedicta,’ Athelstan continued, ‘as soon as I have gone, summon the parish council to a meeting this evening.’ He took his ring of keys from his belt. ‘You can meet here. Try and talk some sense into them. Look after the church. Keep an eye on the workmen, they should finish in a few days. Feed Bonaventure. For God’s sake, keep an eye on Cecily.’ He grinned. ‘She’s the only one more important to Watkin and Pike than that skeleton!’ Benedicta took the keys. ‘Take care, Father,’ she murmured. ‘We’ll miss you.’ She left as quietly as she had come.
    ‘A good woman that,’ Cranston said in a mocking voice. ‘A truly wholesome woman.’ He staggered to his feet, his great bulk swaying as he concentrated all his fuddled wits on putting the stopper back into the wineskin. ‘A good sleep,’ he murmured, ‘and I’ll be right as rain.’
    Athelstan hastily tidied away the cups. He changed his robes, washed, and took down the battered saddle with its leather panniers for his writing tray, parchment, quills and ink horn. He then saddled a protesting Philomel, whose ideal day of sleeping between meals was so abruptly ended. Within the hour, Cranston , snoring, burping and farting in his saddle, led his ‘beloved clerk’, as he called Athelstan, down to London Bridge .

CHAPTER 5

    They had to fight their way across as the carts, their produce emptied at the markets, made their way out of the city before curfew sounded. On Bridge Street the fish market stank like a rancid herring. Athelstan glimpsed some of the stale fish the vendors were still trying to clear and quietly vowed to be wary of any fish pie served in the cookshops or taverns. On such a fine day all of London was out of doors. The rich in satin and murrey clothes rubbed shoulders with urchins, their thin bodies barely covered by dirty tattered rags. A group of prostitutes, with heads freshly shaven, were led by a bagpiper to stand in the round house called the Tun at Cheapside . They turned left into Ropery where the stalls were covered with every type of cord, rope, string and twine — some dyed in brilliant colours, others rusty coils to be bought by masons and builders. The apprentices ran out seeking trade, even brushing off the bridles of horses, but one look at the red-faced Cranston and the dark-cowled priest and they turned away.
    The sight of the builders’ ropes made Athelstan think of those flagstones in the church and the strange mason’s mark. He had asked his parishioners to keep their eyes open for a similar mark but no one had recognised it. Somehow, Athelstan concluded, the man who had first laid those stones must know about the skeleton found beneath them.
    Cranston stirred. ‘Lord, look at that,’ he said.
    They’d stopped at the corner of the Vintry where the sheriffs’ men were carrying out punishments. A man stood naked up to his chin in a barrel of horse piss. The crude notice pinned to the wood proclaimed him to be a brewer who’d adulterated his drink. The biggest crowd, however, had stopped to watch an aged harridan, her ragged skirts tied up above her head, whilst a bailiff beat her drooping grey-coloured buttocks with a wand as a punishment for ill-treating some children. A crowd had gathered round, shouting cat-calls and throwing offal and other refuse at the hapless blindfolded woman. The commotion stopped as a funeral procession forced its way through, led by a priest carrying a cross and chanting ‘Requiem Dona Eis.’ Most of the mourners were drunk and the coffin bobbed on the shoulders of the pall bearers like a cork on water, so much so that the lid