The House of the Red Slayer

of the Hospital of St Anthony and couldn’t be slaughtered. Beadles armed with steel-pointed staffs dispersed fowl or curbed the yapping of fierce yellow-haired dogs, whilst bailiffs tried to move on a strange creature dressed like a magpie in black and white rags. The fellow loudly claimed he had in his battered, leather coffer some of the most marvellous relics of Christendom: ‘One of Charlemagne’s teeth!’ he yelled. ‘Two legs of the donkey that carried Mary! The skull of Herod’s servant and some of the stones Christ turned into bread!‘
    Athelstan stopped and restrained the beadles who were harassing the poor fellow.
    ‘You say you have one of the stones Christ turned into a loaf of bread?’ the friar queried, trying hard to hide his laughter.
    ‘Yes, Brother.’ The relic-seller’s eyes brightened at the prospect of profit.
    ‘But Christ didn’t change stones into bread. The devil asked him to but Christ refused.’
    Cranston, also grinning, drew close to watch the charlatan’s reaction. The relic-seller licked dry lips.
    ‘Of course, he did, Brother,’ he replied in a half-whisper. ‘I have it on good authority that when Satan left, Christ did it but then changed them back to show he would not be tempted to eat. It will only cost you a penny.’
    Athelstan dipped into his purse and drew out a coin.
    ‘Here.’ He pressed it into the fellow’s grimy paw. ‘This is not for your stone. Keep it. It’s your ingenuity I am rewarding.’
    The man gaped, open-mouthed, and Athelstan and Cranston walked on, quietly laughing at the relic-seller’s quick response. They passed the Littlegate of St Paul’s where a lay brother was feeding a group of lepers with mouldy bread and rancid pork slices, as laid down by the city fathers who judged such food actually helped them. Cranston glared across in disgust.
    ‘Do you really think it does?’ he asked Athelstan abruptly.
    ‘What, Sir John?’
    ‘Such food, does it really help lepers?’
    Athelstan gazed at the grey cowled figures with their staffs and bowls for alms. ‘I don’t know,’ he murmured. ‘Perhaps.’
    The lepers made him think about the two who lurked in the cemetery of St Erconwald. A memory stirred but he could not place it so pushed the matter to one side. They turned into an alleyway off Friday Street and Cranston began to bellow at passersby for the whereabouts of Parchmeiner’s shop. They found it on the corner of Bread Street, a narrow, two-storeyed tenement with a shop below and living quarters above. There was a stall in front, but because of the inclement weather this was now bare so they opened the door and went inside. Athelstan immediately closed his eyes and sniffed the sweet odour of fresh scrubbed parchment and vellum. The smell reminded him vividly of the well-stocked library and quiet chancery of his novice days at Blackfriars. The shop itself was a small, white-washed room with shelves along the walls stacked with sheets of parchment, ink horns, pumice stones, quills, and everything else one would need in a library or chancery.
    Geoffrey himself was sitting at a small desk. He smiled and rose to greet them.
    ‘Sir John!’ he cried. ‘Brother Athelstan, you are most welcome!’ He went into the darkness beyond to bring back two stools. ‘Please sit. Do you want some wine?’
    Surprisingly, Cranston shook his head.
    ‘I only drink when Sir John does,’ Athelstan mockingly replied.
    The parchment-seller grinned and sat down behind his desk.
    ‘Well, what can I do for you? I doubt you want to buy parchment or vellum — though, Brother, I have the best the city can offer. I am a Guild member and everything I sell carries their hallmark.’ Geoffrey’s good-natured face creased into a smile. He shook his head. ‘But I don’t think you come to buy.’ His face became grave. ‘It’s the business at the Tower, isn’t it?’
    ‘Just one thing,’ Cranston answered, moving uncomfortably on the small stool. ‘Does the name Bartholomew Burghgesh mean anything to you?’
    ‘Yes and no,’ Geoffrey replied. ‘I never met him but I heard Sir Fulke talk of him, and once Philippa repeated the name in her father’s presence. Sir Ralph became very angry and stormed out. Of course, I asked Philippa why. She just shook her head and said he was an old enemy of her father’s, and refused to be drawn any further.’
    Athelstan watched the young man intently. Could this languid, rather effete, fop be the Red Slayer?