Satan in St Mary

the cross bearer leading the group, chanting prayers, followed by a crier who shouted "Wake you sleepers, pray God to forgive your trespasses: the dead cannot cry; pray for their souls as the bell sounds in these streets!" The grieving mourners swept by muttering, their prayers almost drowned by the raucous howl of stray dogs.
    Corbett let the procession pass and looked around. Southwark was still busy with a few hours of daylight left before those many, shadowy figures who haunted the place, came to life to pursue their secret trades and illegal businesses. In the open-fronted shops, bakers, potters, furriers and other minor traders did brisk business. The whores were there but, given the hour of the day, acted as discreetly as they could with their painted faces, braided hair and scarlet gowns. Corbett turned down one street and found himself amongst scriveners, illuminators of parchment and ink-sellers. He asked one of these for directions to 'The Scullion' but was so bemused by the complicated directions that he slipped the man some pennies and paid for a rough map to be sketched on a piece of dirty, disused vellum. Using that, Corbett arrived at a modest, two-storeyed building with an ale-stake and a crude sign above the narrow wooden entrance, proclaiming it was 'The Scullion'. He tried the door but it was locked, so he continued down the street and into a small square where a crowd surged around two large carts with boards thrown over them. It was surrounded by rough scaffolding over which were draped thick cloths adorned with religious and not so religious themes. Jesters and devils curled and twirled through enormous vines: rabbits fought knights; sacred texts trailed off into long-headed fantastical creatures; bare-bottomed monks climbed towers bearing dragons with tonsured heads; goat-faced priests chased nuns with monkey faces and slim bodies; devils and angels fought over small white souls.
    Corbett leaned against a doorpost and watched the crowd mill around the makeshift stage, yelling abuse at the black-bearded Herod, laughing at the "donkey" carrying Jesus into Jerusalem as the actor inside the skin 'hee-hawed', lifted the tail and dropped huge turds on the stage. Corbett smiled and watched the devils led by a huge black Satan with a grisly mask, horns, tail and a black horse-hair suit. The creature reminded Corbett of Burnell's words about the satanic coven pledged to Fitz-Osbert and he wondered if the murderers of Duket had used black arts to get in and out of Saint Mary Le Bow Church.
    He quickly cleared such a fantasy from his mind, recalling the words of one of his lecturers in philosophy: "There is nothing new under the sun, there is a cause for everything be it good or bad and these causes are, or will be, within human understanding. " No, Corbett thought, Duket was killed by human cunning. If it was some secret coven, espousing the beliefs of de Montfort and Fitz-Osbert, he would find them. But what if it wasn't? If Burnell was mistaken? Or if Crepyn had been the leader and Duket's death was just an act of vengeance and now the perpetrators would simply slide back into the dark pools of intrigue which seemed to ring this city?
    Corbett shook his head and looked up through the gap between the jutting gables of the houses. The sky was darkening. He did not want to be in Southwark when night fell, so he left the small square and went back to 'The Scullion'. The doors were now open, rushlights had been lit and the large, stuffy room was beginning to fill up with a strange array of customers seated around the stout wooden tables. There was a tooth-puller with pincers, bucket and pack of needles still touting for custom: a seller of squirrel skins, the dried pelts draped around his shoulders; an apothecary with skull cap and herb-bag. A forger, the 'F' brand still a resplendent scar on his left cheek.
    They were joined by students and clerks from across the river, openly mocking a pedlar, a crafty-eyed, sharp-nosed man who had a tray slung around his chest which, he proudly claimed, bore the wonders of the world; one of Charlemagne's teeth, a feather from the wing of the Angel Gabriel, a phial of the Virgin Mary's milk, straw from the manger at Bethlehem, porcupine quills and the molar tooth of a giant. Corbett, grinning at the man's patter, pushed his way through the crowd towards the far end of the room where a red-haired, white-faced man in a leather jerkin and apron stood guard over the huge