The House of the Red Slayer

closer to the desk. ‘And don’t lie! You and your creature out there —‘ Athelstan indicated the door with a toss of his head. ‘A clever pair. Dressed like lepers, your faces masked by skins covered with white chalk, you lived in my cemetery by day, or at least part of it, finding out what happened. And who would dream of approaching a leper? And, even if they did, you were well prepared. Your face was covered in a cloth mask, the skin of your hands discoloured. Then of course, you would come back at night and take whatever you wanted!’ Athelstan breathed heavily. ‘God forgive me,’ he muttered. ‘I’m no better than other men. Do you know, when a man is declared a leper, he attends his own requiem? We think of him as already dead, and so did I. The lepers in my cemetery were just shadows to me, walking bundles of rags. Only one thing was missing: I never saw them with begging dishes, and didn’t realise that till this morning.’ He glared at the physician. ‘You really should have been more careful, Vincentius. You took those corpses and, when you were finished, ditched what was left into the Thames. But the river was sluggish. This morning the grisly remains of your macabre activities floated back to the riverbank.‘
    The doctor still kept his back to the wall and watched the priest guardedly. ‘You are most observant, friar, Benedicta told me that.‘
    Athelstan flinched at the look in the doctor’s eyes. ‘Aye,’ the friar replied, slumping down on a stool. ‘But I should have been more observant. I found chalk on my fingers after I had passed the Host through the leper’s squint.’ He glared at the doctor. ‘That’s sacrilege, you know? To take the Eucharist as a cover for your blasphemous doings.’ Athelstan glared around him. ‘Yes,’ he rasped, ‘I should have been more observant. I never saw you with a begging bowl, nor could I remember you in the streets around the church.’ He rose. ‘You broke God’s law as well as the King’s. I am leaving now but I will be back with the city guard. Tonight you will be in Newgate getting ready to stand trial before King’s Bench at Westminster!‘
    ‘Benedicta also said you were a tolerant priest. Aren’t you going to ask me why, Father?’ Vincentius replied softly.
    The physician suddenly had a wary, frightened look in his eyes. ‘I did wrong,’ he muttered, slumping into his chair. ‘But what real harm did I do? No, no!’ He waved his hand at Athelstan. ‘Listen to me! I have studied medicine in Bologna, with the Arabs in Spain and North Africa, and at the great school of physic in Salerno. But we doctors know nothing, Father, except how to apply leeches and bleed a man dry.’ Vincentius laced his fingers together and rested his elbows on the desk. ‘The only way we can learn about the human body is to open it up. Dissect each part; study the position of the heart, or the coursing of the blood, or the composition of the stomach. But the church forbids that.’ He held up a beringed hand. ‘I swear I meant no disrespect, but my hunger for medical knowledge, Father, is as great as yours for saving souls. And where could I go? To the execution yards or battlefields where the corpses are so mauled they are beyond recognition? So I came to Southwark, outside the jurisdiction of the city. Yes, yes.’ He saw the look of annoyance in Athelstan’s eyes. ‘To a poor parish where no one cared, just as they don’t for the famished children who roam the streets near your church.’ Vincentius played with a small knife. ‘I took to imitating a leper to spy on the graveyard, taking only those corpses over whom no one had a claim.’
    ‘I claimed them!’ Athelstan yelled. ‘God claimed them! The church claimed them!‘
    ‘Yes, I took the corpses,’ Vincentius continued, ‘and dissected them. Gidaut and I buried them at night in the river, but then we stopped because of the great frost.’ He shook his head. ‘I did wrong but are you going to hound me for that? I did good work here, priest. Go out into the streets of Southwark, talk to the mother with the lanced cyst in her groin. To the urchin whose eyes are clean. To the labourer whose leg I set properly. And if I hang, what then, Brother? Who will give a damn? The poor will still die, and the physicians in Cheapside who milk their patients of both money and health will clap their hands to see me dance at the end of a rope.’
    Athelstan sat down wearily on the stool.
    ‘I