The House of the Red Slayer

the hilt of his sword tightly. Perhaps he had been wrong? Perhaps Sir Ralph’s death had been the work of rebels and now they were back? He ran along the gravel-strewn parapet. He wanted to fight. He wanted to kill, give vent to the fury boiling within him. Suddenly he stumbled. His arms flailed out like the wings of a bird, black against the sky, then he tipped and fell, his mind still gripped by delirium. He was a boy again, leaping from a rock into one of the sweet rivers of Yorkshire. He was the brave young knight storming the parapet of Alexandria, crying out for the rest to join him. Then, darkness.
    Mowbray’s body crashed against the earth, his brains spattering as the sharp, icy cobbles crushed his skull. His body twitched then lay still, even as the dying hand edged towards the wallet containing a yellow piece of parchment depicting a crudely etched ship with dark crosses drawn in each corner.

CHAPTER 6

    Athelstan stood outside his church and stared in pleasant disbelief at the blue-washed sky and the early morning sun as its rays danced and shimmered over the snow-covered roofs of his parish. The friar took a deep breath and sighed. He had slept well, woken early, said Office, celebrated Mass, broken fast and then swept both his house and Philomel’s stable. He had been to the cemetery. The lepers had gone and none of the graves had been disturbed. Athelstan felt pleased, even more so as the great frost had been broken by this sudden bright snap as if Christ himself wanted the weather to improve for his great feast day. He looked over his shoulder and smiled at Cecily the courtesan as she swept the porch of the church. She simpered back before looking, sloe-eyed, towards a dreamy-faced Huddle, now sketching in charcoal the outlines of one of his vigorous paintings on the wall of the nave.
    ‘Keep your mind on the task in hand, Cecily,’ Athelstan murmured. He stretched, turning his face up to the sun. ‘Praise to thee, Lord,’ he muttered, ‘for Brother Day. Praise to thee, Lord,’ he continued St Francis of Assisi’s Canticle of the Sun, ‘for our sister, Mother Earth.’ Athelstan sniffed and wrinkled his nose. ‘Even though,’ he whispered, ‘in Southwark she smells of sour vegetables and putrid refuse!’ He suddenly remembered other beautiful mornings at his father’s farm in Sussex and the sun seemed to lose some of its brightness.
    ‘You are happy, Father?’
    Athelstan grinned at Benedicta. ‘Yes, I am. You left Mass early?’ he queried.
    ‘I had to, Father, have you forgotten?’
    Athelstan remembered the date and winced. No, he hadn’t forgotten Simon the carpenter, one of his more errant parishioners, a florid-faced, thickset man with an evil temper and a long Welsh dagger. Two weeks ago Simon had raped a girl whilst carousing in Old Fish Street then compounded his crime by brutally beating her. He had been tried for his life at the Guildhall and tomorrow would hang. Simon had neither family nor friends and three days ago the parish council had begged Athelstan and Benedicta to visit the unfortunate. The friar had even made a vain plea to Cranston to have the sentence commuted but the coroner had sorrowfully shaken his head.
    ‘Brother,’ he had replied, ‘I can do very little, even if I wanted to. The girl was only twelve and she’ll never walk again. The fellow has to die.’
    Athelstan stared up at the sky. ‘God have mercy on Simon,’ he whispered. ‘And God help his poor victim!‘ ‘What was that, Father?’
    ‘Nothing, Benedicta, nothing.’ Athelstan turned to go back into his church just as a young pursuivant turned the corner of the alley, slipping and sliding on the ice as he bellowed the friar’s name. Athelstan groaned. ‘What is it, man?’ As if he didn’t know already.
    ‘Sir John Cranston awaits you, Father, at the Golden Lamb tavern near the Guildhall. Father, he says it is urgent. You must go there now!‘
    Athelstan fished in his purse and flicked a penny at the young man. ‘Go tell Sir John to stay where he is and not to drink too much. I’ll be there shortly!‘
    Athelstan took the keys of the church, tied by a piece of string to the cord round his waist, and pressed them into Benedicta’s soft, warm hand.
    ‘Look after the church,’ he pleaded.
    Her eyes rounded with mock wonderment. ‘A woman in charge of the church, Father? Next you’ll be saying that God favours women more than men because he created Eve in Paradise, rather than