The Anger of God

headstones.
    ‘Who is it?’ he shouted angrily. ‘This is no game but God’s house and God’s own acre!’
    ‘Turn round, Brother Athelstan!’
    ‘Why should I?’
    A crossbow bolt smacked into the church wall beside his head.
    ‘I am convinced,’ Athelstan shouted back and turned round, eyes closed, fingers clenched.
    ‘What is it you want?’
    ‘A message from the Anger of God. You are a friar, a priest of the people. Why do you mingle with the fat lords of the soil?’
    ‘If you’re his anger,’ Athelstan spat back, ‘then I am his justice!’
    ‘Take heed of his anger,’ the voice said clearly.
    Athelstan looked down at Bonaventure who seemed to be enjoying this new game.
    ‘ Cranston ’s right,’ Athelstan whispered. ‘You are no bloody use!’
    ‘Take heed,’ the voice repeated.
    Athelstan’s fiery temper broke at last.
    ‘Oh, sod off!’ he shouted and stalked down the church track and into his house, closing the door with a slam.
    For a while he just stood with his back to it, trying to calm the trembling in his legs. Who dared taunt him here? What would Cranston do when he heard? Athelstan marched into the buttery and poured himself a cup of wine which he gulped down before going back to sit at the table.
    ‘God damn it!’ he breathed. He closed the ledger book, cleared up the rest of the manuscripts and took them across to the huge, iron-bound coffer. As he placed them inside and made the lock secure, he thought of the daring robbery at the Guildhall. He only hoped Sturmey was still alive. If Cranston and he found the thief, they would discover the murderer. He jumped at a loud knocking on the door.
    ‘Father! Father!’
    Athelstan went across and opened the door to find Ursula the pig woman, her usually merry, red, warty face now tear-streaked.
    ‘Oh, Ursula!’ Athelstan said, it’s not your sow? I can’t come and bless it again!’
    ‘No, no, Father, it’s my mother. She’s dying!’
    ‘Are you sure?’ Athelstan asked. ‘I have given the last rites to Griselda at least three times.’
    ‘No, Father, she says she’s going. She can feel she is.’
    ‘Come on then.’
    Athelstan locked the door of the house and hurried across to the church. Inside it was cool and dark, smelling fragrantly of candle grease and incense. The morning light was already beginning to brighten Huddle’s pictures on the wall as Athelstan hurried under the rood screen and into the sanctuary. He genuflected, opening the tabernacle door to remove the Viaticum and phial of holy oils. Then he collected his stole, cloak, tinder and a candle from the sacristy and gave them to Ursula, waiting in the porch of the church. He lit the candle, wrapped the cloak round himself and, with the pig woman shielding the candle’s flame in her great, raw hands, locked the door of his church.
    He followed Ursula through the narrow, winding streets of Southwark to the pig woman’s house, a small, two-storied tenement just behind the priory of St Mary Overy. As usual, the great sow, Ursula’s pet and the light of her life, lay basking in front of the fire whilst, behind a curtain in the far corner, Griselda lay on a pallet of straw, head back, her beak-like nose cutting the air, her eyes half-open. Athelstan would have taken her for dead already had it not been for the gentle rise and fall of her skinny chest. As Athelstan crouched beside her, placing the Viaticum and holy oils on a three-legged stool, Ursula stood behind him, still holding the candle. Of course, the sow had to see what was happening and, once she recognized Athelstan, whose cabbage patch she regularly plundered, began to snort and snuffle excitedly.
    ‘Oh, for God’s sake, go away!’ he breathed. ‘Ursula, for the love of God, give her a cabbage or something!’
    ‘She doesn’t eat cabbages,’ Ursula curtly replied as she grabbed the sow by the ear and pulled her away.
    ‘Aye,’ Athelstan whispered to himself. ‘The bloody thing only likes fresh ones!’ is that you, Father?’
    Athelstan bent over the old lady, her cheeks hollow, thick bloodless lips parted. But the small button eyes were still bright with life.
    ‘Yes, Mother Griselda, it’s Athelstan.’
    ‘You are a good priest,’ the old woman wheezed, ‘to come and see old Griselda. Do you want to hear my confession, Father?’
    Athelstan grinned. ‘Why, what have you been up to, Mother, since I heard it last? How many young men this time?’
    The old woman’s lips parted