The House of the Red Slayer

Athelstan knelt beside him.
    ‘Simon!’ he murmured. ‘Simon!’
    The carpenter raised his head.
    ‘Do you wish to be shriven? I will hear your confession.’
    The man looked up despairingly.
    ‘There’s nothing left,’ Athelstan whispered. ‘This time tomorrow, Simon, you will be with God.’
    The carpenter nodded and began to cry like a child. Athelstan turned.
    ‘Sir John, Benedicta, please, give me a moment.’
    They withdrew. The coroner bawled at the porter to follow them and, for the second time that day, Athelstan heard the confession of a man about to meet Death. At first, Simon spoke slowly and Athelstan had to fight hard to keep his composure as the chill of the dungeons seeped through his robe, turning his legs to blocks of ice, but then Simon allowed his emotions full rein. He talked of everything, a miserable litany of failure culminating in the rape of a child. Athelstan heard him out, pronounced absolution and rose, rubbing his stiff legs to make the warmth return. The porter came back.
    ‘Tomorrow, Simon,’ Athelstan whispered, ‘I shall remember you. And, Simon?’
    The condemned man looked up.
    ‘You remember me before the throne of God.’
    The carpenter nodded. ‘I didn’t mean to do it, Father. I was lonely, I’d drunk too much.’
    ‘I know,’ Athelstan murmured. ‘God help you and her!’ Athelstan turned to the porter and tossed him a silver coin. ‘One good meal, sir.’
    The porter caught the coin and nodded.
    ‘One good meal,’ Athelstan warned. ‘I shall check on that.’
    He was about to leave when Simon called out: ‘Father!‘ ‘Yes, Simon?’
    ‘Ranulf the rat-catcher came to see me earlier today. He had been hired by a butcher in the Shambles. He said you were at the Tower because of Sir Ralph Whitton’s death.’ The carpenter grinned. ‘Even though I have been shriven, it is good to know that bastard went before me. A strange place the Tower, Father.’
    Athelstan nodded. He felt Simon was only trying to prolong the visit
    ‘I worked there once,’ the carpenter called out. ‘A strange place, worse than this!‘
    ‘Why is that, Simon?’
    ‘Well, at least here the cells have doors. In the Tower there are rooms, dungeons, where you go in, the doors are removed, and you remain until death behind a bricked wall.‘ ‘Is that so?’ Athelstan smiled. ‘God be with you, Simon.’ Athelstan went back up the steps to rejoin Cranston and Benedicta. They never spoke until they were out of the prison, the wicket gate slamming shut behind them.
    ‘The antechamber of Hell,’ Athelstan murmured as they made their way down Bowyers Row under the dark mass of St Paul’s. At Friday Street Sir John made to leave. Athelstan took him aside and stared into the bleary-eyed face.
    ‘I thank you for coming, Sir John. Be at peace. Go home and talk to the Lady Maude. I am sure all will be well.‘ Cranston scratched his head. ‘God knows, Brother, but I feel the only good I did today was to listen to Fitzormonde and help that child. You know, the one who stood over the beggarman?’
    ‘You came with us to the Fleet.‘
    ‘Aye,’ Cranston muttered. ‘I could not get a pardon for Simon, you know that, Brother, but I showed him one last mercy.‘
    ‘What’s that, Sir John?’
    ‘I left a coin for the executioner. Simon won’t dance. He will be taken far up the ladder.’ Cranston snapped his fingers. ‘His neck will snap and it will all be over quickly.’ The coroner stamped his feet and looked up at the star-filled sky. ‘You had best hurry home, Brother. The stars await you.’ He turned and tramped up the street. ‘I only wish,’ he called out, ‘we’d found Alderman Horne!’

CHAPTER 9

    As Athelstan and Benedicta rode slowly back across the dark, choppy waters of the Thames, Adam Horne left the Crutched Friars monastery near Mark Lane just north of the Tower. He’d arrived just after Vespers to collect the message he had been told would be waiting for him. The grizzlehaired lay brother had smiled toothlessly and waved Horne into the door-keeper’s lodge.
    ‘It’s been here all afternoon,’ the lay brother murmured, handing him a thin roll of vellum. Horne anxiously unfolded the parchment and, begging the brother to bring a candle, hastily read the contents.
    ‘Oh, my God!’ he groaned as his hopes were dashed. Earlier in the morning he had received a piece of parchment with a sketch of a crudely drawn ship, and a flat sesame seed cake. He had