Roseblood Read Free Page A

They stood and listened as he pointed out the many drunks staggering across the great open expanse before St Bartholomew’s church, dismissing them as ‘tosspots, swill bowls, drunken swine who’ll end their day sleeping, snorting in their vomit, more fit for the dunghill than the house’. His makeshift congregation loved that. They would recall such rich language and use it themselves when they caroused to the chimes of midnight in some Cheapside tavern. The barber, however, roared for silence when his customer began to curse the friar, threatening to slice the butcher’s nose and hang it alongside the dangling teeth.
    A quiet did descend, even the dust billowing away, as a funeral cortège appeared on its way to St Andrew Undershaft. Sir Richard Workin, knight and merchant tailor, recently departed, was being escorted to his requiem mass with torches, tapers, pennants and glorious banners all festooned with the insignia of his guild and carried by squires clothed in black worsted livery and blood-red hoods. A priest, garbed in a black and gold chasuble, preceded the coffin, carrying a cross. Beside him walked two altar boys, one carrying a lofty beeswax candle whilst the other lustily swung a thurible, which incensed the air with the most fragrant smoke. Every so often the procession would pause so that one of the livery men could bawl out, ‘Rest be to his ashes. He tailored well and served God and his guild.’ As if in answer, a distant church bell began to toll.
    Once the mourners were gone, the tumult across Smithfield broke out even more stridently. Lazarus seized his opportunity. He scuttled closer to his prey, who turned, deep-set eyes watchful. Lazarus prided himself on both his patter and his skill. He held his cutter very close to his side as he began his beggar’s chant.
    ‘For the love of God…’ His left hand, all scabbed and wrinkled, went out to distract his prey. ‘Look at me, Lord, with merciful eye, so lamed by a cankerous worm that gnaws the flesh from my bones—’ He stopped abruptly as the clerk brought up his cleverly concealed Italian stiletto with its long, wicked-looking blade and sharp dagger point. He pressed its serrated edge against Lazarus’s neck.
    ‘Sir,’ the clerk’s voice was soft, ‘I recognise you. You are Lazarus, leader of a pack of scavengers who prowl Queenhithe ward. You are known for your thievery and your brutality. You see, sir, I have been there and watched you.’ He pressed on the dagger. ‘Because I am Amadeus Sevigny, nephew of Sir Philip Malpas, sheriff of this city. A former schoolman of Balliol Hall in Oxford, serjeant of law, trained by the Crown and now principal clerk in the secret chancery of Richard, Duke of York. I am here to watch the execution of one gang of malefactors and go hunting for another. You, sir, have a knife in your right hand. You intend me harm. I have introduced myself, so when you enter Hell, you can inform Lord Satan who sent you there.’
    Lazarus lunged, but he was too slow. Sevigny’s dagger opened the beggar’s throat in one swipe, and the blood spurted out like juice from a split ripe plum. Sevigny took a step closer, watching the soul light die in Lazarus’s eyes. He caught the beggar as he slumped to his knees, and laid him gently on the mud-strewn cobbles. The sight of blood drew in the crowd. A woman screamed. Someone shouted, ‘Harrow!’ even as Sevigny rose to his feet, hands extended, one holding his own knife, the other that of the dying man.
    ‘Self-defence!’ he cried. ‘I am a clerk, tonsured and protected by Holy Mother Church, henchman of his Grace the Duke of York.’ He pointed down at Lazarus, still jerking slightly in his death throes. ‘This man attempted murder.’
    ‘I was witness to that.’ A group of serjeants, all wearing the red and white livery of the city, now pushed their way through. Their leader, Skulkin, a burly, pig-faced man, grasped the thick leather belt attached to the collar of