The House of Crows

need you here.’
    Banyard pulled a face but walked out, slamming the door behind him. Wheezing and grumbling, Cranston got to his feet and stared down at the corpses.
    ‘It happens to us all, Brother, but death is a terrible thing.’ Athelstan sketched a blessing in the air and squatted down beside the corpse on the left. A yellowing scrap of parchment at 'he top of the coffin proclaimed it was Sir Oliver Bouchon: a thin beanpole of a man, his harsh, seamed face made all the more dreadful by the slimy water of the Thames. The skin had turned a bluish-white, the lips were slack. Someone had pressed two coins on the eyes; Athelstan noted also the small red crosses dug into the forehead and each cheek. The corpse had keen stripped of its clothes and dressed in a simple shift. Athelstan pushed this back and, swallowing hard, felt the cold, clammy flesh. Bouchon’s cold corpse was covered with scars and welts which Cranston identified as sword and dagger cuts: others were the marks of tight-fitting belts or boots.
    An old soldier,’ Cranston declared. ‘He must have seen service abroad. Hell’s teeth, I need a drink!’
    ‘In a short while, Sir John, but please help me.’
    Cranston obliged and they turned the corpse over. Athelstan stared at the flabby buttocks, muscular thighs and hairy legs: he felt a strange sadness. Here lay a world in itself: what hope, what joys, what fears, what nightmares permeated this man’s life? Was he loved? Did he have ideals? Would people mourn that he had died? Athelstan ran his fingers through the still wet thick black hair at the back of the man’s head.
    ‘Ah!’ he exclaimed.
    ‘What is it, Brother?’
    ‘Feel for yourself.’
    Cranston’s stubby fingers searched the back of the skull but stopped as he felt a huge, hard welt.
    ‘Bring me a candle,’ Athelstan said.
    Sir John handed him one of those Father Gregory had lit, and Athelstan held this down close to the hair. The hot oil from the tallow candle sizzled and spluttered as it slipped on to the still damp hair, yet it provided enough light for Athelstan to make out the huge, angry contusion.
    ‘If anyone says,’ Athelstan declared, ‘that Sir Oliver Bouchon slipped and fell into the Thames, then he’s a liar or ignorant. Someone gave this poor man a powerful whack on the back of his head.’
    ‘Why didn’t anyone else notice it?’
    ‘Because no one was looking for it, Sir John.’
    Athelstan got up and handed the candle back. ‘Sir Oliver here was knocked senseless and then thrown into the Thames. It’s a pity the corpse is undressed; I would have liked to have established that he was knocked unconscious whilst he was walking along the river bank.’
    ‘What makes you think that?’
    Athelstan turned the corpse over and gently grasped each hand, pointing at the dirty fingernails and the muddy marks on the palm of each hand.
    ‘If he was knocked unconscious elsewhere,’ Athelstan explained, ‘I would expect to see bruises where Sir Oliver’s body was either dragged along the cobbles or thrown into some cart. However, as you can see, apart from the bruise on the back of his head, there are no others. But there are the dirt marks under his nails and on the palms of his hands. Bouchon must have been near the river edge. His assailant knocked him unconscious and Sir Oliver fell face down, probably in some mud. His body was then lifted up and rolled into the river.’
    ‘But wouldn’t the water wash the stains off his hands and nails?’
    Athelstan shook his head. ‘It might from the clothes, even from the face.’ He knelt down and examined Sir Oliver’s stubby features. ‘Though even here, apart from these small red crosses, there’s no mark or contusion, which is strange. Whatever, to answer your question directly, Sir John, the river water would remove any superficial mud stains from the face and clothing. But tell me, my lord Coroner, have you ever seen a corpse, the victim of some brutal assault, where the hands are open and the fingers splayed?’
    Sir John smiled and shook his head.
    ‘Sir Oliver was no different,’ Athelstan continued. He held his own hands up, curling the fingers. ‘Next time you look at your poppets, or the Lady Maude when asleep, notice how they curl their fingers into their hands. The unconscious man is no different. After a short while, even in the river, rigor mortis sets in. The body stiffens, hence the faint dirt on the palms of his hands and beneath the nails