The Relic Murders

would be to stretch out between crisp sheets with young Lucy.
    'Penny for a beggar!' I cried outside a church. 'Penny for a poor man!'
    The early morning worshippers ignored me. I moved to the church of St Ursula and tried again.
    'Penny for a poor Christian!' I wailed. 'On pilgrimage to the Holy Land, I was taken prisoner by the Turks, and ransomed by the Holy Father himself.'
    Within an hour I had collected a shilling and, after a beef pie and two cups of wine at an alehouse, I was striding back along the alleyways towards the Flickering Lamp. Boscombe greeted me as if I was the prodigal son.
    'Master Shallot.' He put his arm round me and brought me into the taproom. 'Roger, my dear.' Boscombe wrinkled his nose. 'What's that smell?'
    I looked down and realised that though the kindly friar had removed some of the mud, most of it still remained. I immediately stripped and went to the pump in the yard and had the most thorough bath I've had for many a day. Boscombe provided me with new clothes, loaned me a shilling as well as half a roast chicken, some bread and a bottle of ale. Boscombe watched me eat. When I had finished, he beamed across the table.
    'No more trickery for you, Roger my boy,' he declared. 'The Lord Charon has paid visits before to deliver an invitation to his underworld. No one has ever returned. If he sees you begging on the streets again, your torso will be found in the Fleet and your head in the Thames.'
    'Master Boscombe.' I leaned back and patted my stomach. 'Your kindness I won't forget. As for Charon, the Lord be my witness, ‘I will repay him in kind.'
    'Shush!' Boscombe waved his hand, begging me to lower my voice. 'However," I continued, 'discretion is the better part of valour and revenge is a dish best served cold.' Boscombe nodded. 'So, what do you suggest?' Boscombe shrugged. 'You are personable, Master Shallot, you have friends in high places. Why not go to them?' I shook my head.
    'I just couldn't do that. I've told you about the Poppletons and I'm convinced they would follow me. Although I am lower than a worm, I couldn't crawl to great Tom Wolsey to beg for his protection.'
    (Of course that was not true: I can beg with the best of them but the problem was that the sly bastard might not favour me. But years later, when old Tom Wolsey was in disgrace, dying in his bed at Leicester and the servants had fled, taking everything that could move with them, old Tom grasped my hand.
    'You should have come to me, Roger,' he whined, tears streaming down his face. 'All those times you were in danger, you should have come to old Tom Wolsey. I would have helped!'
    'If you'd served me,' I retorted, 'as I have served you, you wouldn't have to say that!' Wolsey let go of my hand and turned his face to the wall.
    'If I had served my God,' he murmured, 'as well as I have served my King, he would not leave me to die like this.' And die he did.)
    However, on that autumn day so long ago, Wolsey was my last refuge. Boscombe was staring at me, picking at his teeth.
    'You owe me money,' he grated. 'And I've a few possessions of yours.' He was referring to the few items I'd given him as surety. 'But you need money,' he continued. 'You should go to St Paul's and hire yourself out.'
    Boscombe was right, or so I thought at the time; I couldn't beg, my relics were all gone and I daren't go back to Ipswich. So I took his advice and decided to try my chances with the rest of the masterless men walking up and down the main aisle of St Paul's Cathedral, waiting to be hired near the Si Quis door. But who would want to hire me? I had no letters or accreditation, no references from a previous employer. And what could I do? Bawl out that I had done special work for his Eminence Cardinal Wolsey? I walked round and round that bloody church till I was exhausted, before Fortune intervened.
    I was sitting with my back to Duke Humphrey's tomb when I saw a pair of laced shoes and, just above them, a cream satin petticoat under a blue satin dress. I looked up and smiled. The woman who was standing over me was plump and comely but, I could tell from one glance at those hot eyes and wet lips, she was a lecher born and bred. She had a false, sweet smile and looked me up and down as hungrily as a fox would a chicken.
    'I need a porter,' she simpered, 'to carry goods up and down the stairs.' She touched her back. 'I've had a touch of the rheums.'
    Well, I was hired. Her name was Beatrice Frumpleton, wife to some notable in the city