The House of the Red Slayer

merchant’s genitals.
    Cranston grabbed the head from the horror-struck beggar’s hand, thrust it back into the bag, stepped over the still prostrate maid and, roaring for Maude, dashed down the passage-way to the door. He flung it open, rushing like an angry bull down Cheapside, but the snow-covered thoroughfare was still deserted, with no trace or sign of their mysterious, grisly visitor. Cranston stopped and, half crouching, retched violently as the true horror of what he had seen seized his mind and wrung his stomach as if it was a wet rag.
    ‘Oh, the bastard!’ he whispered. ‘Oh, Lord help us!‘
    He staggered back inside the house. Maude, white-faced, stood at the foot of the stairs.
    ‘Sir John, what is it?’
    ‘Go back to your room, woman!’ Cranston roared. ‘Stay there!’
    He turned to the grooms and servants now huddled together near the kitchen door.
    ‘You,’ Cranston barked at one, ‘go for a physician! You,’ he pointed to the cook and her assistant, ‘take the maid into the solar!‘
    The poor, half-unconscious girl was hustled to her feet. Cranston walked back into the kitchen. Leif sat on the stool like a man pole-axed. The bag and its gruesome contents still lay where Cranston had dropped it. The coroner busied himself around the house. He shaved, changed his doublet, put on his sword belt and took his heaviest cloak from its hook outside the buttery. He found a heavy flour sack in one of the outhouses and placed the battered leather bag carefully in it.
    ‘Leif,’ he ordered, ‘tell Lady Maude I am going to the Guildhall, then on to Southwark.‘
    The beggar, usually so garrulous but still dumbstruck at what he had seen, just stared and nodded, open-mouthed. Cranston swung the sack over his shoulder.
    ‘Oh, Leif.’ Cranston turned and grinned evilly at the beggar. ‘There’s more of that rich stew if you want it.‘
    Leif turned away, retching, whilst Cranston stalked out of his house muttering vengeance against all and sundry.

    In St Erconwald’s church, Athelstan had just finished the Mass for the dead and was now blessing the corpse of Tosspot, an old drunkard who’d lived in the cellars of the Piebald Horse tavern. Tosspot had been found dead the previous afternoon. Pike the ditcher and Watkin the dung-collector had, in the absence of any relatives, sewn the body into a canvas sack, placed it on a wooden trellis and brought it to lie in front of the chancel screen. Athelstan had always given strict instructions on this; any poor man or woman found dead in his parish was to be given honourable burial, so this included Tosspot. Athelstan sketched the sign of the cross above the corpse and sprinkled it with the Asperges rod. Around him the usual Mass-goers, Benedicta included, watched fascinated as Athelstan urged the soul to go out to meet his Christ, whilst he, Athelstan, priest of that church, summoned God’s army to meet this unfortunate man’s soul; they were to lead it into Paradise and ensure it did not fall into the hands of Satan. Athelstan paused. And what about the body? he thought. Would that be safe? He looked down at his fingers and noted the chalk dust on their tips. Where had that come from? he wondered. It had not been there during Mass.
    ‘Father?’ Crim the altar boy whispered.
    Athelstan, startled, looked up.
    ‘Father,’ the boy repeated, his face creased in a mischievous grin, ‘you’ve suddenly stopped praying!’
    Athelstan shook himself free from his reverie.
    ‘We beg thee, Michael the Archangel,’ he intoned the final prayer, ‘to take the soul of this our brother.’ He paused. What could he call him? Tosspot? What would the angels think of such a name? ‘Take the soul of this our brother Tosspot,’ he continued defiantly, ‘into the bosom of Abraham.’
    The friar glared at the congregation but they all knelt, heads wisely bowed to hide their grins. Athelstan, trying to conceal his embarrassment, signalled at Watkin and Pike to lift the bier and follow him and Crim, bearing a lighted taper, into the cemetery. Outside the cold wind snuffed the taper out. Crim slipped on the ice and fell on his backside, cursing so loudly Athelstan had to bite his lip to keep his face straight. They crossed the lonely, haunted cemetery to the shallow grave Pike had dug in the ground. Athelstan caught a glimpse of the two lepers, shrouded in their hoods near the charnel house. He suddenly remembered the twig he had used to push the Hosts through