The House of Shadows

object,’ the keeper explained. ‘We had to put him here for his own safety.’
    ‘You should wash your armpits,’ Athelstan declared. ‘Use a mixture of mint and wild strawberries, it will help to clear up your condition.’
    ‘Oh, that’s a good idea, Brother. I’ll be able to sell it as a genuine cure, won’t I?’
    ‘And if you are helpful,’ Cranston stooped down, pinching his own nostrils, ‘I’ll set you free. I’ll write a writ under my own seal.’
    ‘Oh, Sir John,’ Spindleshanks closed his eyes and moaned in pleasure, ‘that would be most kind.’
    ‘You’ll give up the dog bones?’
    ‘On my soul, Sir John.’
    ‘Tell me then,’ Cranston urged, ‘what did you hear from the adjoining cell?’
    ‘Oh, I heard the clank of the manacles, so I knew he was carving the wall.’
    ‘Yes, yes,’ Sir John urged, ‘but what happened next?’
    ‘I heard the door open, the keeper’s voice, and then all went silent. Oh, it must have been some time, then low moans, followed by terrible screams. Sir John, they cut me to the heart. He was also shouting something.’
    ‘What?’
    Spindleshanks opened his eyes. ‘I’ll go free?’
    ‘What?’ Cranston persisted.
    ‘He was shouting “Askit, Askit,” or something like that. Sir John, that’s all I can recall. I swear if I remember anything else, I’ll visit you personally.’
    ‘Only after you have washed your armpits!’ Cranston dipped into his purse and thrust a coin into the prisoner’s hand. ‘Now go and wait in the press yard. I’ll send a writ across to the keeper.’
    ‘Oh, my Lord Coroner.’
    Spindleshanks would have sunk to his knees, but Cranston gripped him by the shoulder and thrust him towards the half-open door.
    ‘Oh, Sir John.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Would you have any need for a thousand relic cases?’
    ‘Bugger off.’
    ‘Very good, Sir John,’ and Spindleshanks scampered down the passageway.
    ‘Have the corpse taken to Blackfriars,’ Athelstan ordered. ‘Put it in a proper brandeum... a shroud,’ he explained. ‘My good brothers will put him in a coffin until his sister decides where he should be buried.’
    They left Newgate. The area outside the prison had now been turned into a makeshift fair, drawing in the crowds to watch a mummer’s play, an old story, with two central characters wearing the mask and horns of a cow. First, Chivevache, a lean, ugly cow, who fed on patient women; consequently it was always thin and hungry. Next, Bicorne, a large fat cow, because it fed on patient husbands. In between these two danced a character dressed in a leather hood who assumed the role of the ‘Digitus Infamus’, the ‘Middle Finger’, who kept up lewd commentary on why these two cows existed and were so different. Of course, this provoked the ribald interest of the spectators, who quickly divided into male and female, hurling obscenities at each other as the Digitus Infamus explained why wives lacked patience whilst husbands were models of virtue. Every so often the mummer would break off from his commentary to sing an even more ribald song about a gentle cock residing in its lady’s chamber. Naturally, when a boy in tattered rags ran round the crowd with a pannikin for pennies he received plenty of coins from the men and raucous refusal from the women.
    ‘I’ve seen that play a hundred times,’ Cranston murmured, as he led Athelstan through the milling crowd. ‘The effect is always the same. The men relish the joke and pay the money; next week they’ll return, and the lean, ugly cow will feed on patient husbands and consequently go famished, whilst the fat cow will be the result of patient wives. It’s a clever way of drawing in money.’
    They left the great forecourt, and the salacious mummer’s play, and entered the dark coolness of an ale house, ducking to avoid the great green bush hanging above the doorway. Cranston took a window seat and immediately ordered two tankards of ale, while he dictated a letter on behalf of Spindleshanks to the Keeper of Newgate, and sent it back to the prison courtesy of a pot boy. When this was done he toasted Athelstan, took a deep draught and leaned back against the wall.
    ‘Who killed the Misericord?’ he asked.
    ‘Somebody who followed us to Newgate and watched us leave,’ the friar replied, ‘and decided to act immediately. All these killings, Sir John, I am sure have their root in what happened twenty years ago. The Misericord discovered something, or was