The House of the Red Slayer

gentle parish priest’s terrible rage than the dreadful news they had brought. Athelstan had stormed off to his house and drunk a cup of wine with a speed Cranston would have admired. He slept fitfully that night, not even thinking of climbing the tower steps to study the stars. He’d tossed and turned on his pallet bed, fuming with rage at the sinful desecration of his cemetery. The next morning he rose early, opened the church, perfunctorily fed Bonaventure, skipped through the morning office and tried hard to concentrate whilst he celebrated Mass. Bonaventure, like the cunning cat he was, seemed to sense his patron’s change of mood and quietly stole away. At the end of the Mass, before he gave the final benediction, Athelstan spoke in sharp, terse tones.
    ‘Our cemetery has been violated once again,’ he declared. ‘I, Athelstan, priest of this parish, say this, as God is my witness — no further burials will take place until the ground has been re-consecrated and this problem resolved!‘ He glared round at his small congregation. ‘I will go to the highest in the land, be it the young King himself or the Archbishop of Canterbury. Guards will be set and, God forgive me, I shall see these villains hang!‘
    His parishioners had quietly left and Athelstan, now calming, felt a twinge of guilt as he glared down at Tosspot’s ravaged grave.
    ‘Your fiery temper, priest,’ he muttered to himself, ‘is no more curbed than it was twenty years ago. And your tongue is as sharp as ever.‘
    He breathed deeply. Yes, he had been too hard, he reflected, far too brusque with Benedicta and the others, but especially with the widow. She had stayed for a few seconds after Mass, not to gossip but simply to say that the chief bailiff of the ward, Master Bladdersniff, had accosted her on her way to church. He wished to see Athelstan on an urgent matter.
    ‘Oh, yes,’ Athelstan muttered. ‘Master Bladdersniff, as usual, closing the stable door after the horse has bolted!‘ Athelstan felt a fresh surge of rage. If St Erconwald’s had been one of the wealthy city churches, guards would have been set immediately and this would never have happened. Even Cranston, that fat-arsed coroner, hadn’t helped, wrapped up like some mewling maid in his own concerns. Athelstan stared once more round the cemetery, it was so cold, so bleak. He remembered Father Peter and envied the Woodforde priest’s quiet domesticity. ‘Bloody Cranston!’ Athelstan muttered. ‘Bloody murder! Bloody Tower! The bloody hearts of men and their evil doings!’ He kicked the icy mud. ‘I am a priest,’ he hissed to himself. ‘Not some sheriff’s man.‘
    ‘Father? Father Athelstan?‘
    The friar turned and glared at the young pursuivant who stood, cloaked and hooded, behind him.
    ‘Yes, man, what is it?’
    ‘I have been sent from the Tower by Sir John Cranston. He wants to see you in the Holy Lamb tavern off Cheapside.‘
    ‘Tell My Lord Coroner,’ Athelstan retorted, ‘that I’ll be there when I’m there, and he’d better be sober!‘
    The young man looked surprised and hurt. Athelstan grimaced and spread his hands.
    ‘Lord, man, I’m sorry. Look, tell Sir John I’ll be there when I can.‘
    He took a step closer and saw the fellow’s white, pinched face and dripping nose. ‘You are freezing,’ the friar muttered. ‘Go across to my house, there’s a jug of wine on the table. Fill a goblet. You’ll find one on a shelf above the fire hearth. Drink some mulled wine, and get some warmth in your belly before you return.’
    The pursuivant turned and scurried off like a whippet.
    ‘Oh, by the way,’ Athelstan yelled after him, ‘I did mean what I said. Sir John is not to drink too much!‘
    Athelstan walked slowly back to his church, up the steps and into the porch.
    ‘Father?’
    Athelstan jumped as Master Luke Bladdersniff, chief bailiff of the ward, stepped out of the darkness, his lean sallow face and wispy blond hair almost hidden under a tattered beaver hat.
    ‘Good morrow, Master Bailiff.’
    Athelstan studied the ward man: his close-set eyes were dark-rimmed and looked even more like the piss-holes in the snow, as Cranston so aptly described them. Athelstan had always been fascinated by the man’s nose. Broken and slightly twisted, it gave Bladdersniff a rather comical look which sat awkwardly with the fellow’s usual air of bombastic self-importance. Athelstan wearily waved him into the church.
    ‘Master