The House of Shadows

to bring in bodies, were inscribed the words ‘The Deep shall be harvested’. On the left side of the door a garish notice proclaimed the prices for recovering a corpse: ‘The mad and insane, 6d.; Suicides, 10d.; Accidents, 8d.; Those Fleeing from the Law, 14d.; Animals, 2d.; Goods to the value of 5 pounds, 10 shillings; Goods over the value of 5 pounds, one-third of their market value.’
    ‘It’s good to see you, Sir John, Brother Athelstan.’
    The Fisher of Men never seemed to age. He always looked the same, with his cadaverous face, his bald head protected from the cold by a shroud-like cowl made out of leather, and lined with costly ermine. Athelstan could never discover the true antecedents of this enigmatic individual. Stories abounded of how he had once been a soldier, but others claimed he was a scholar who had contracted leprosy, been cured and so dedicated his life to harvesting the river. He was definitely cultured and educated, with more than a passing knowledge of scripture, as well as being able to talk in both Norman French and Latin. Beside the Fisher of Men stood his chief swimmer, the young man known as Icthus the Fish. He certainly looked like one, with his pointed face, protuberant eyes and mouth,- he was bald as an egg and totally devoid of eyebrows, his long bony body hidden beneath a simple but costly woollen tunic, good leather sandals on his long feet. Nearby, sitting on a bench, were the rest of what the Londoners called the Grotesques, all shrouded in robes to hide their disabilities.
    ‘May we go in?’ Athelstan asked. The Fisher of Men always demanded that courtesy and etiquette be observed.
    ‘Well,’ the Fisher of Men smiled, blood-filled lips parted to show perfect teeth, ‘Brother, you may claim what you wish from our chapel. Sir John, there is no fee for you. However, now you are here, Brother, would you first shrive us, hear our confessions?’
    Athelstan looked at him in surprise, whilst Sir John stamped his foot in annoyance.
    ‘While you wait, my Lord Coroner,’ the Fisher of Men added tactfully, ‘perhaps you would like to savour a generous cup of Bordeaux from a new cask, a personal gift from a vintner...’
    Cranston was immediately converted. He sat on a bench outside, cradling a deep-bowled cup, whilst Athelstan, a little bemused, agreed to the request. He was escorted like a prince to the Fisher of Men’s chancery, a small, opulently furnished chamber built at the rear of the barque. The friar sat on a throne-like chair whilst the Fisher of Men and his company trooped in one after the other to confess their sins and be absolved. Athelstan’s exasperation gave way to compassion as he listened to these men, outcasts of society, with their disfigured faces. He was touched by their striking humility as they listed sins such as drunkenness, frequenting Mother Harrowtooth’s house on the bridge, cursing and swearing, not attending Sunday Mass. He tried to reassure each one, asking what good they had done, before imposing a small penance of one Paternoster and three Ave Marias.
    After an hour, he was finished, and with Cranston standing next to him, still sipping at the claret, Athelstan led the assembled company in prayer. Standing on that shabby quayside, he intoned the lovely hymn to the Virgin Mary, ‘Ave Maris Stella’ — ‘Hail Star of the Sea’ — accompanied by Icthus on pipe and drum. Once this was done, the Fisher of Men and Icthus escorted Cranston and Athelstan into the Sanctuary of Souls, a long chamber with a makeshift altar at the far end under a stark Crucifix fashioned out of wood from a royal boat, so the Fisher of Men informed Cranston, which had sunk in the Thames, drowning a party of revelling courtiers. On wooden planks before the altar was a line of corpses laid out on trestle boards, each covered by a death cloth, a pot of incense glowing beside it to drive off the dreadful stench of the river in which all these corpses, at varying degrees of putrefaction, had been found.
    ‘We try to keep things neat and wholesome,’ the Fisher of Men informed Athelstan. ‘Death may be stinking, but life is fragrant.’
    The Fisher of Men led them down the line of the dead, describing the various corpses. ‘This was a maid who committed suicide near Queenhithe. Oh, and this one,’ he pointed to one bundle where a clawed hand hung from beneath its cover, ‘this is Sigbert, who thought he was a swan and tried to fly from the bridge. But this,’