By Murder's Bright Light (20 page)

Athelstan stared around as the ship was prepared for action. Sailors now thronged the decks. The charcoal braziers glowed red under their metal hoods. Archers strung their bows and boys ran around filling quivers. Crawley went into his cabin and came out with a war belt, mailed hauberk and a conical steel helmet with a nose guard. Other officers followed suit. A drum beat began to roll, but Crawley quickly silenced it. Small catapults were wheeled out from beneath their tarpaulin covers. One last message was despatched via the ship’s boat to the other cogs, confirming the change in plan and warning their captains to expect an attack from the east after the French galleys turned at London Bridge. Crawley shouted up to the look-outs.

‘A silver piece for the first man who sights the enemy!’

‘Thick as soup!’ a voice shouted back. ‘No sign of anything, Sir Jacob!’

Athelstan felt the fear and apprehension. Long poles and grappling hooks were brought up from below. Swords and daggers were eased in and out of scabbards. One man came up, begging Athelstan to shrive him. Athelstan crouched and heard the man’s whispered, hurried confession. He was no more than eighteen or nineteen summers old. ‘In a few minutes,’ he whispered as they crouched in a corner of the deck between the ship’s side and the stern castle, ‘I might be killing people.’

‘God will be your judge, my son,’ Athelstan responded. ‘All I can say is, do what you think right in whatever the moment presents to you.’

Other men, too, wanted him to hear their confessions. In the end Athelstan pronounced a general absolution. Cranston meanwhile had been walking impatiently up and down, peering into the mist.

‘Sir John,’ Crawley called out, ‘you can go below or, if you wish, we can put you ashore!’

‘Sod off!’ Cranston roared. ‘Never will it be said that Jack Cranston scuttled away!’

‘But what about Brother Athelstan?’

Cranston stared at the friar. ‘Brother, you must go ashore.’

Athelstan shook his head. ‘I am here. That means God intended me to be here. Anyway, Sir John, someone’s got to protect your back.’

Cranston walked closer. ‘Sod off, you little friar!’

‘Sir John,’ Athelstan replied evenly, ‘what if something happened to you? Your face is as red as a beacon, so large a target. What could I say to Lady Maude or the poppets?’

Cranston looked over his shoulder at Crawley. ‘We stay,’ he bawled. ‘Sir Jacob, a sword belt, dagger and shield. Oh yes, and a helmet.’

‘If you have one big enough,’ Athelstan said under his breath.

Sir John busily armed himself, his curses and black good humour easing the tension around him. Once finished, he looked a veritable fighting barrel, made all the more ridiculous by the too-small helmet on his head.

The chatter and laughter died as a look-out on the forecastle shouted. ‘I see something! No, it’s gone! It’s gone!’

Now all the ship’s company were turning, gazing up-river. Athelstan walked to the side. What was it he heard? A creak?

‘God in heaven!’ Cranston shouted as fire-arrows hissed through the mist. One hit the deck, another hit an archer in the shoulder, sending him whirling like a doll, screaming with pain.

‘Blazing bollocks!’ Cranston shouted. The bastards are here!’

More fire-arrows fell, followed by a ball of blazing pitch which crashed to the deck but was quickly doused in water. Athelstan felt his stomach lurch; his mouth went dry. He peered into the mist. Long shapes appeared, low-slung with ornate poops resembling snarling wolves’ heads. Athelstan stepped back in fear. There were three or four, no, five galleys, oars up, racing towards the
Holy Trinity
like loping greyhounds for the kill. The speed and silence of their approach was unnerving.

‘Why don’t you fire?’ Athelstan shouted at Crawley.

The admiral stood, hand raised. A galley smashed into the larboard side of the
Holy Trinity.
Another, its oars drawn inboard in one sweeping movement, swung under its stern. A third came to a foaming stop under its bows. A grappling hook snaked out and caught a bulwark.

‘For St George!’ Crawley shouted, and brought his hand down.

The long bows sang their song, a low musical thrum, as goosequill-flighted arrows swooped into the darkness. The night air was shattered by screams and yells.

‘Again! Loose!’

A Frenchman, his dark face bearded, the only man yet to reach the deck of the
Holy Trinity,
stared at Athelstan in stupefaction. An arrow caught him straight between the eyes. He fell back.

‘Again!’ Crawley shouted. ‘Loose!’

Athelstan felt himself pulled back by Cranston and stared at the archers. They were hand-picked master bowmen; they fired one arrow whilst keeping another between their teeth. Athelstan guessed each one must be shooting at least three a minute. They worked in a silent, cold way. Now and again a French arbalester replied and an archer fell screaming to the deck. He was pulled away and another took his place. Other, more enterprising archers were climbing the rigging. Athelstan hurried to those who had been wounded. The first, a youth of about sixteen, was already coughing up blood, his eyes glazing over. Athelstan sketched the sign of the cross over his face and trusted that Christ would understand. Now Crawley was bringing up fire archers, exposing them to danger as they leant over the side of the ship to shoot down into the galleys. The French replied with their crossbows. One archer disappeared screaming over the side, half his face ripped away. Athelstan stood with Crawley and a small knot of officers at the foot of the mast and listened to the din of battle. He realised how fortunate they had been – without Moleskin’s warning the entire ship’s company would have been unprepared and looking in the opposite direction when Eustace the Monk’s freebooters struck.

‘To starboard!’ someone shouted.

Crawley turned. A galley had come in on the shore side to complete the encirclement of the
Holy Trinity.
Athelstan glimpsed the top of its mast, where a monk’s hood fluttered as its pennant. Now the danger was acute. Archers hurried over, but the grappling lines snaked up and caught the ship’s rigging and bulwarks. In a mad rush, armed Frenchmen, wearing the livery of a monk’s hood over their chain mail, gained a footing. They pushed back the lightly armed archers, so skilled with their long bows and yet unprotected against these mailed men-at-arms.

‘Now!’ Cranston shouted and, not even waiting for Crawley’s orders, the fat coroner led the ship’s company of men-at-arms against the invaders. Athelstan would have moved too but Crawley pushed him back. Cranston hit the Frenchmen like a charging bull.

The friar watched, petrified. Cranston swung his great sword like a scythe. Athelstan smelt fire. He turned and saw smoke billowing from the galley at the other side of the ship. The fire-arrows had at last begun to take effect. Crawley, his face blackened with smoke, left the fight on the deck to run over and scream at his men.

‘Push it away! Push it away!’

The galley, flames licking it from bow to stern, was pushed out into the mist. The screams of the men on board were terrible. Athelstan saw at least three, their clothes aflame, throw themselves into the icy Thames. Now free on one side, more archers rushed to help Cranston. Athelstan retreated towards the shelter of the stern castle. As he did so, a Frenchman broke free of the mêlée and darted towards him. Athelstan moved sideways to dodge. The ship lurched. The deck underfoot was slippery, the seawater edged with a bloody froth. Athelstan crashed to the deck, jarring his arm. The Frenchman lifted his sword to strike but he must have realised Athelstan was a priest, for he smiled, stepped back and disappeared into the throng. The friar, nursing his bruised arm, limped towards the cabin. Behind him, he could hear Cranston’s roar. The friar closed his eyes and prayed that Christ would protect the fat coroner. Then he heard the bray of a trumpet, once, twice, three times, and immediately the fighting began to slacken. The arrows ceased to fall, shouted orders faltered. Athelstan, resting against the cabin, glanced along the ship, experiencing that eerie silence which always falls as a battle ends. Even the wounded and dying ceased their screaming.

‘Are you all right, Brother?’

Cranston came swaggering across the deck. The coroner was splashed with blood, his sword still wet and sticky. He appeared unhurt except for a few scratches on his hand and a small flesh wound just beneath his elbow. Cranston grasped Athelstan by the shoulder and pushed his face close, his ice-blue eyes full of concern.

‘Athelstan, you are all right?’

‘Christ be thanked, yes I am!’

‘Good!’ Cranston grinned. The farting Frenchmen have gone!’ The coroner turned, legs spread, big belly and chest stuck out, and raised his sword in the air. ‘We beat the bastards, lads!’

Cheering broke out and Athelstan could hear it being taken up on the cogs further down the line. He walked to the ship’s side. A number of French galleys were on fire and now lay low in the water, the roaring flames turning them to floating cinders. Of Eustace the Monk’s own galley and the rest of his small pirate fleet there was no sign.

‘What will happen now, Sir John?’ Athelstan asked.

‘The buggers will race for the sea,’ the coroner replied. They have to be out before dawn, when this mist lifts.’

Cranston threw his sword on the deck, his attention caught by the cries of a group of men under the mast. Cranston and Athelstan crossed to where Sir Jacob Crawley lay, a surgeon crouched over him tending a wound in his shoulder. The admiral winced with pain as he grabbed Cranston’s hand.

‘We did it, Jack.’ The admiral’s face, white as a sheet, broke into a thin smile. ‘We did it again, Jack, like the old days.’

Cranston looked at the surgeon.

‘Is he in any danger?’

‘No,’ the fellow replied. ‘Nothing a fresh poultice and a good bandage can’t deal with.’

Crawley struggled to concentrate. He peered at Athelstan.

‘I know,’ he whispered. ‘I remember. Everything was so tidy, so very, very tidy!’ Then he fell into a swoon.

Athelstan and Cranston drew away. The ship became a hive of activity and the friar winced as the archers, using their misericorde daggers, cut the throats of the enemy wounded and unceremoniously tossed their corpses into the river. Boats were lowered and messages sent to the other ships about what was to be done with the English wounded, the dead of both sides and the enemy prisoners.

Athelstan, nursing his arm, sat in the cabin and listened as Cranston, between generous slurps from his wineskin, gave a graphic description of the fight. Crawley, now being sent ashore to the hospital at St Bartholomew’s, had won a remarkable victory. Four galleys had been sunk and a number of prisoners taken. Most of these, perhaps the luckiest, were already on their way to the flagship to be hanged.

The news had by now reached the city. Through the fog came the sound of bells and sailors reported that, despite the darkness and the mist, crowds were beginning to gather along the quayside.

‘Sir John,’ Athelstan murmured. ‘We should go ashore. We have done all we can here.’

Cranston, who was preparing for a third description of his masterly prowess, rubbed his eyes and smiled.

‘You are right.’

The coroner walked to the cabin door and watched as a French prisoner, a noose tied around his neck, was pushed over the side to die a slow, choking death.

‘You are right, Brother, we should go. No charging knights, no silken-caparisoned destriers, just a bloody mess and violent death.’

They crossed the deck to the shouts and acclamations of the sailors and archers. Athelstan glimpsed the dangling corpses.

‘Sir John, can’t that be stopped?’

‘Rules of war,’ Cranston replied. ‘Rules of war. Eustace the Monk is a pirate. Pirates are hanged out of hand.’

Crawley’s lieutenant had the ship’s boat ready for them. Cranston and Athelstan gingerly climbed down the rope ladder, the shouts and praises of the crew still ringing in their ears.

‘Where to, Sir John?’ the oarsman asked.

Cranston glanced at Athelstan. ‘You are welcome to stay at Cheapside.’

Athelstan shook his head. He kept his eyes down. He did not wish to see the terrible executions being carried out on the flagship, the corpses now hanging like rats from the ship’s sides.

‘No, Sir John, I thank you. Ask the oarsman to take me to Southwark.’ He smiled and patted Sir John on the arm. ‘You are a hero, Sir John. A brave, courageous heart. Lady Maude will be proud.’ Athelstan grinned. ‘And I shall tell the two poppets how their father is a veritable Hector!’

The Fisher of Men crouched on the quayside. He saw the boat carrying Athelstan to Southwark leave the
Holy Trinity.
He made out the outline of the flagship and saw the grisly burdens twitching at the ends of their ropes. He smiled at the gargoyles grouped around him.

‘Harvest time, my sweets!’ He turned his head, ears straining into the darkness. ‘There’s living men as well as dead in the river. As they come ashore, say that you are here to help. If they reply in French, kill them! If they are English, help them. But don’t forget to look for the corpses.’

One of the gargoyles tugged at his sleeve and pointed to the river, where a corpse in white shirt and dark hose bobbed, face down, towards them.

‘Yes, yes.’ The Fisher of Men smiled. ‘Harvest time at last!’

Athelstan slept late next morning. He woke at dawn, aching from head to toe, though his arm felt better. The mist still boiled outside. He couldn’t even glimpse the church from his upper chamber window.

‘God forgive me!’ Athelstan muttered. ‘But I feel terrible!’ He went downstairs, built up the fire, drank a little wine and returned to bed. This time he slept for hours and was only awakened by Watkin pounding on the door an hour before noon. Athelstan, pulling his thin blanket around him, hurried down. He unlocked the door and smiled at the look of astonishment on the dung-collector’s face.

‘Father, you have been asleep?’

Athelstan took him into the kitchen. Behind Watkin other parishioners were gathering on the church steps. Even Marston was there, looking apprehensively towards the priest’s house. Athelstan slumped down at the table.