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left the priest house, about the mysterious death of Kilverby the Cheapside merchant as well as the gruesome slaying of one Gilbert Hanep at the great Benedictine Abbey of St Fulcher-on-Thames. The coroner also mentioned John of Gaunt, a precious bloodstone called the ‘Passio Christi – the Passion of Christ’ and that was it. Athelstan was curious for more but decided he would have to wait, especially here on London Bridge with its crowded shops, booths and stalls. The houses packed on either side soared up against the grey sky, forcing them and others to push up the broad narrow lane between, already packed with carts rattling on iron-bound wheels, braying sumpter ponies and apprentices bawling, ‘What do ye lack, what do ye lack?’ The sheer crush, the rancid stench of unwashed bodies, the clatter of waterwheels and the pounding of the angry river against the starlings of the bridge were a stark contrast to the silence Athelstan was accustomed to. He felt slightly dizzy as if he’d not eaten, even though he had. Cranston, thankfully, had not devoured all the oatmeal. Athelstan crossed himself and murmured the ‘ Veni Creator Spiritus ’. He certainly needed God’s help. He was about to enter the meadows of murder, creep along the twisted alleyways along which padded the silent, soft-footed assassin. The age old duel was about to begin; as always, it would be ‘ lutte à l ’ outrance , usque ad mortem – a fight to the death’. Would it be his? Athelstan wondered. Would he draw too close, make a mistake?
    Athelstan touched Cranston’s arm for comfort; the coroner pressed his hand reassuringly and they left the bridge, entering the wealthy part of the city. The streets, paths and alleyways here were packed with fatter, fuller bodies encased in gaily caparisoned houppelandes, capuchons, cloaks, poltocks and tabards. Merchants, shimmering in their jewellery pompously paraded, accompanied by wives bedecked in gorgeous clothes and elaborately decorated headdresses. Knights in half-armour on plump, powerful destriers trotted by. Lawyers, resplendent in red silks, hastened down to the ‘ Si Quis ’ door at St Paul’s. The stalls and booths were open and business was brisk. Merchants and traders offered silver tasselled dorsers and thick woollen cushions for benches. Priests and monks, armed with cross and thuribles, processed to this ritual or that. The air was rich with the many smells from the public bakehouse as well as the fragrance of the vegetable stalls stacked high with onions, leeks, cabbages and garlic. Next to these the fleshers’ booths offered suckling pigs and capons freshly slaughtered and drained of blood. Pilgrims to the shrine of Becket’s parents rubbed shoulders with those fingering pardon beads as the Fraternity of the Salve Regina made their way down to one of the city churches.
    Squalor and brutality also made themselves felt. Beggars, covered in sores and garbed in rags, clustered at the mouth of alleyways and the spindle-thin runnels which cut between the mansions and shops. Outside the churches the poor swarmed, desperate for the Marymeat and Marybread given out by the parish beadles in honour of the Virgin. Fripperers pushed their handcarts full of old clothes, ever quick to escape the sharp eyes of the market bailiffs. A clerk, who’d begged after hiding his tonsure with cattle dung, was being fastened in the stocks, next to him a woman who’d stolen a baby so she could plead for alms. The noise, bustle, smell and colour deafened the ear and blurred the mind. The forest of steepled churches continuously clanged, their bells marking the hour for Mass or another recitation of the divine office. Smoke, fumes and smells from smithies, cook shops, tanneries, fullers, taverns and alehouses mingled and merged. Dung carts crashed by, full of ordure collected from the streets. Night-walkers, faces the colour of box-wood, were being marched, manacled together, to stand in the cage on the Tun