Murder Most Holy by Murder Most Holy (epub)

Author:Murder Most Holy (epub)
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781788638906
Publisher: Canelo Digital Publishing Ltd
Published: 2020-02-04T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

Cranston and Athelstan pushed their way up a crowded Cheapside, through a maze of alleyways and into the squalid slums round the Carmelite monastery of Whitefriars. Beggars wailed for charity. Flies swarmed on the many refuse heaps which choked the sewers and, in places, were piled waist-high outside the dirty, fetid tenements. Two boys had seized a small dog and were trying to push a stick up its rectum until Cranston sent them fleeing with a swift kick. Hawkers and pedlars with their trays of gewgaws or small barrows full of food over which flies swarmed, stood in corners shouting for trade and keeping a wary eye out for the beadles who patrolled the area. A group of market officials had seized two men: one had not paid scutage or tax for trading in the city; the other they were trying to make pronounce ‘Cheese and bread’ on suspicion that he was a Fleming who had no right to bring any goods into the city.

‘If he pronounces that wrong,’ Cranston muttered out of the corner of his mouth as he swaggered by, ‘they’ll burn the palm of his hand with a red-hot poker.’

Dark shapes flitted in and out of the doorways of the narrow runnels. The air was thick with black smoke from the glue-makers who melted the bones and offal from the Shambles in huge metal vats at the back of their squalid little houses. Cranston seemed to know his way well. Athelstan, clutching the quarter-staff, walked a little behind him, keeping a wary eye that no one was following them. Children screamed and argued. Dogs fought over the mounds of refuse. Athelstan was sure that in one pile he glimpsed a human hand, its splayed fingers putrid and rotten.

‘God save us!’ Athelstan muttered.

‘The very door to hell,’ Cranston answered. ‘Say your prayers, Brother, and keep your eyes sharp. If anyone lurches towards you, be they drunk, woman or child, give them a rap with that quarter-staff!’

They went down one alleyway. A group of beggars emerged out of the darkness, blocking their path. Cranston drew his sword and dagger.

‘Piss off!’ he shouted.

The figures retreated into the darkness. On the corner stood a woman with three children, their bodies half-covered in a dirty mass of rags, displaying terrible sores and bruises. Athelstan’s hand immediately went to his purse as the woman, bony-faced, her one good eye gleaming, stretched out a birdlike claw. Cranston slapped the hand away and pulled Athelstan on.

‘Keep your money, Brother. Can’t you see she’s a palliard?’

‘A what?’

‘A professional beggar.’

Athelstan looked quickly over his shoulder. ‘But the children, Sir John. Those terrible bruises!’

The coroner chuckled. ‘It’s a wonder, Brother, what people can do with a mixture of salt, paint, potash and pig’s blood.’

‘They are so real.’

‘Brother, look at their bodies. Plump, well-fed – they are not starving children. They probably eat better than I do.’

‘That,’ Athelstan muttered to himself, ‘would be a miracle!’ He shook his head at the sheer guile of the beggars as he followed Sir John down another alleyway.

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