The House of the Red Slayer

wine, saddled their horses and rode back along the track to the highway.
    The day looked as if it would be a fine one. A weak sun was about to rise, turning the darkness to a dusty grey: their horses plodded along the frozen track, both riders taking special care against the potholes, some as deep as a man, which could bring down and even kill both the unwary rider and his horse. The countryside was empty and silent. Athelstan shivered as he remembered his nightmare and the eerie stillness of that terrible dream. The hedgerows on either side were still thickly covered with snow and, beyond them, the fields lay iron hard under sheets of ice. A circle of hungry crows soared noisily above a clump of oak trees, branches black against the lightening sky.
    ‘I wish I was back in London,’ Cranston moaned. ‘I hate the bloody countryside, I hate the silence!‘
    Athelstan caught a blur of colour in a ditch on the side of the track and pulled his horse over to look closer. The corpse which lay there was frozen hard, that of an old man covered from head to knee in a loose, threadbare gown. Athelstan closed his eyes and breathed a prayer as he glimpsed the blue-black holes where the hungry ravens had pecked at the scrawny, whitening flesh.
    ‘God rest him!’ Cranston murmured. ‘Brother, there is nothing we can do.‘
    They moved on through a silent, sleeping village, only a few plumes of black smoke giving any sign of life. After an hour’s ride they approached the village of Leighton. At the crossroads they glimpsed a group of villagers huddled round the blackened scaffold. Thankfully, the iron gibbet which swung from its hook was empty. The villagers were gathered round a corpse whilst beside it two burly labourers hacked the iron ground at the foot of the scaffold. Their hoes and mattocks cleared a shallow hole while their breath hung heavy in the frost air. Athelstan looked at Cranston. The coroner shrugged though his hand went beneath his cloak to ensure his dagger was loose in its sheath. The villagers turned at the riders’ approach. An old woman, her face yellow and lined with age, scrawny body covered in the battered hide of a cow, shuffled towards them.
    ‘Morrow! Morrow!’ she cried. ‘Travellers on a road like this?’ Her milky eyes grinned slyly up at Athelstan. ‘Good morning, Father. ‘Tis rare to see a priest up so early.’
    ‘Mother!’ Cranston bellowed back, loosening the muffler round his mouth. ‘It’s good to see anyone in such Godforsaken weather. What are you doing?’
    ‘Burying Eadwig.‘
    ‘Here?’ Athelstan asked. ‘You have no church, no cemetery?’
    The old hag lifted her skinny hand. ‘Come and see! Come and see!‘
    Reluctantly they pushed their horses nearer. Cranston’s mount became skittish and even Philomel showed a lively interest in the group round the scaffold. The villagers parted as the coroner and his companion approached. Athelstan glimpsed red, dirty faces, greasy, matted hair, and the occasional glare of hatred at their well-fed horses and warm, woollen cloaks. Cranston took one look at Eadwig’s body, closed his eyes and drew away. The peasant had been hanged. His face was black, tongue half-bitten off but still clenched tightly between yellow teeth, whilst one eye had popped from its socket and lay grotesquely against the bruised cheek. ‘Good God!’ Athelstan breathed. ‘What happened?’
    ‘He killed himself,’ the old hag cackled. ‘And you know the law, Father?’
    ‘Oh, yes, Mother, I know the law.’ He looked at the small, wooden stake leaning against the scaffold. ‘Sir John, I suggest we ride on.’
    The coroner needed no second bidding. They turned their horses, ignoring the soft cackles of laughter behind them. Athelstan closed his eyes, praying from whatever psalm he could remember to fend off the awful terrors which clung to the world of men. Behind him he heard the faint sounds of a wooden mallet driving the stake through the suicide’s heart.
    ‘Good God!’ Cranston murmured. ‘You priests, Athelstan, should change all that. Only the good Lord knows why the poor bastard killed himself, but must a suicide be buried near a gibbet at the crossroads with a stake driven through his heart?’
    ‘The bishops have tried to stop it,’ Athelstan replied. ‘But Christ’s teaching, Sir John, in certain parts and over certain hearts, lies as thin and as loose as a spider’s web.’
    They rode through Leighton, following the track which