England at various times, beginning in the time of King Arthur
I looked around the field and my stomach turned to ice: it was scattered with dying horses, crawling, staggering, blood-soaked men, the air filled with bubbling screams and groans, the ground covered with so much gore that the lush clearing was green no more: a stinking midden of blood and mud, horse shit and shattered bodies. The battle smell was sharp as salt: a metallic odour, coppery and blunt at the back of the nose; with notes of dung and piss, fresh sweat and crushed grass. But above all that, above the pain and death and horror and filth, I felt a great swooping, skylarking joy at merely being alive, joy that the enemy was beaten, and that we were victorious.
BLOODSTONE
Paul Doherty
The Sorrowful Mysteries of Brother Athelstan
London, December, 1380
Athelstan unlocked the vestment chest and the coffer holding the sacred vessels, cloths and bread and wine. Candles were brought out and lit. The sanctuary glowed into light. Manyer the bell clerk , all cowled and visored against the cold, hurried in to sound the bell for the Jesus Mass. The clanging echoed out. A short while later Athelstan's parishioners, bustling and chattering, coughing and spluttering, filed into the church:Watkin the dung collector; Pike the ditcher with his narrow-eyed wife Imelda constantly on the search for insult; Godbless accompanied by his goat; Ranulf the rat catcher who always brought his two prize ferrets, Ferrox and Audax; and Ursula and her sow, the great pig's flanks and ears all flapping. The sight of so much luscious pork on the hoof, and so vulnerable, made people pause, stare and wet their lips. Basil the blacksmith always sat next to the sow so, as he put it, he could savour its warmth, though many noticed how the blacksmith's fingers never wandered far from the stabbing dagger in his belt. Moleskin the boatman came along with other members of his coven: Merrylegs the pie-maker, Joscelyn the one-armed former pirate and keeper of 'The Piebald' tavern, Mauger the hangman and Pernel the mad Fleming woman who, in anticipation of Christ's nativity, had dyed her wild tangle of hair red and green.
'Green for the eternal Christ,' she had screeched down the nave. 'Red for his blood.'
They all congregated within the rood screen. Some squatted on the floor; others used the leaning poles. Athelstan, dressed in the purple and gold vestments of Advent, left the sacristy, approached the high altar and made the sign of the cross.
'I will go unto the altar of God,' he intoned, and so the Mass began ...
Old Joan found the first corpse just before dawn or, to be more accurate, she fell over it and banged her knee hard on a sharp rock jutting out of the sand. She cursed loudly as she massaged the bruise, but she could not afford to massage her pain for long. Distand voices, carried towards her on the salt breeze, compelled her to focus her attention on the man lying on the beach.
There was no question that he was dead. His bulging eyes were open and glassy, staring sightless up at the ghost of the moon. Strands of wet grey hair clung to his forehead and a crust of salt was already beginning to frost the stubble on his grizzled chin. Wincing, Joan crouched down on the damp sand. She slid her hand over the stranger's fish-cold face and closed her eyes.
She crossed herself, muttering a swift prayer to St Nicholas, patron saint of sailors, and Our Lady of the Sea, for them to have mercy on this stranger's soul. Then, in less time than it takes to say a 'Paternoster', Joan ran her calloused hands over the body of the corpse and stripped it of what few items of value she could find – an enamel amulet in the form of a blue eye, a small leather bag containing a couple of silver coins and a belt with a broad brass buckle.
[...]
Joan was in desperate need of any scrap she could find. First her poor daughter had died in childbirth. Then, within weeks, her grieving son-in-law had been crushed by an overturned wagon, and Joan had suddenly found herself the sole provider for her three grandchildren. And if that was not trouble enough to heap on any old woman's head, the eldest grandchild, Margaret, had of late been struck down with pains in the guts and frequent vomiting, which no amount of purges or physic could cure. If ever a woman deserved a crumb of good luck, poor old Joan did.
