'Crim!' Athelstan shouted. 'Come over here!'

The boy ran up, his thin, pallid face grimed with dirt. Athelstan felt in his purse and thrust a penny into the boy's outstretched hand.

'Go tell your father, Crim, I am across London Bridge with Sir John Cranston. He is to feed Bonaventure. Ensure the church door remains locked. If Cecily the courtesan sits there, tell her to move on. You have that message?'

Crim nodded and fled, fast as a bolt from a crossbow.

The crowd eased and Cranston kicked his horse forward. Athelstan followed. They went down on to London Bridge, weaving their way through houses built so close, the road was hardly a cart span across. Athelstan kept his head down. He hated the place. Houses rose on either side, some of them jutting out eight foot above the river with its turbulent tide-water rushing through the nineteen arches below. Sir John began to tell him about the history of the old church of St Thomas Overy which they had just passed. Athelstan listened with half an ear. He crossed himself as they passed the chapel of St Thomas a Becket, and only looked up when Sir John ordered them to stop so they could stable their horses at the Three Tuns tavern.

'The crowd is too great,' Sir John commented. 'It would be quicker on foot.'

He paid for ostlers to take the horses away and, with Athelstan striding beside him, they made their way up Fish Hill past St Magnus the Martyr church and into Cheapside. The good weather had brought the crowds out. Apprentices and merchants, their stalls now laid ready for trade, scurried backwards with bales of cloth, leather pelts, purses, panniers, jerkins. They piled their stalls high, eager for a day's business. The ground underfoot was a mixture of mud, human dung and animal decay, still damp from the storm. They slipped and slid, each holding on to the other, Cranston mouthing a mixture of curses and warnings, Athelstan wondering whether to protest or smile at Sir John's purple countenance and violent imprecations.