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Disappointed, he fumbled in the leather scrip on the man’s belt and was equally chagrined to find only two silver pence. He had half a mind to throw the corpse back into the water, but being so near the shore, he feared that he might be seen. Reluctantly, he rowed on to the landing stage, where a handful of citizens were waiting, augmented by some loafers who had seen the sodden body sprawled in the flimsy craft. As the cadaver looked fresh and not bloated or stinking, they helped him haul the victim out on to the wharf, where it was laid on the boards.
    ‘It’s a clerk,’ declared an old man, hopping nearby on a crutch. ‘May even be a priest?’
    At this, a portly monk in the white habit of a Cistercian, pushed his way through the small crowd that had gathered and imperiously waved aside the nearest onlookers.
    ‘Keep away, let me see!’ he snapped. ‘If it is one of my brothers, he must be treated with all respect.’
    Bending over the sodden corpse, he looked at the plain cassock and noted the lack of any pectoral cross or beringed fingers. He decided that this was no archdeacon or even vicar, but merely someone in minor orders.
    ‘What’s that embroidered on his front, then?’ asked the man on crutches, whose infirmity obviously did not extend to his eyesight. The Cistercian bent lower and squinted at some unobtrusive embroidery just below the left shoulder. The dark red stitching did not show up well against the soaked black fabric, but now his short-sighted eyes made out three small lions, one above the other.
    ‘This must be a brother in the king’s service!’ he exclaimed, straightening up. ‘Quite probably from Westminster.’
    The boatman nodded sagely. ‘That would fit, for he’s quite fresh, even in this hot weather. So he’s not come far down the river, certainly not from Windsor or Reading.’
    The monk, losing interest now that the dead man was obviously not someone important in the Church hierarchy, stepped back and began moving towards the end of the landing stage, beckoning the boatman to take him across the river.
    ‘Get the poor fellow taken to some shelter out of the sun,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘And tell the watch to notify the palace that it might be a royal servant.’
    As he lowered himself cautiously into the wherry and was rowed off across the wide river, two large men in leather jerkins and serge breeches came striding down to the upper end of the landing stage from Thames Street, which ran along the edge of the river. They carried heavy staves and wooden truncheons hung from their wide belts. Attracted by the small crowd, these were city watchmen, employed by the mayor and aldermen to keep order in the streets. This was easier said than done, as there were only a few dozen of them to control London’s thirty thousand inhabitants. Employed mainly for their brawn, rather than brains, they still managed to cope with this incident efficiently, as they frequently had to deal with ‘drowners’. Taking the brief story from the onlookers, they decided to move the cadaver to the nearest church, as he appeared to be some kind of cleric. However, as they were tipping the corpse on to a barrow commandeered for the purpose, the change in posture caused blood to start leaking through the cassock. The lame onlooker, who was avidly watching the proceedings, was again the first to spot this and he gave a shout of warning.
    ‘Look at that cut in his clothing!’ he yelled. ‘The man’s been stabbed!’
    Everyone crowded around until the watchmen shoved them roughly aside to make sure for themselves.
    ‘God’s guts, this is getting too heavy for us!’ muttered the senior of the pair to his partner. ‘A king’s clerk, murdered and thrown into the river. This is a job for the sheriff’s men!’
    That evening, John de Wolfe decided to eat his supper in the palace, rather than eat alone in the house in Long Ditch. As usual, Thomas was supping in the abbey refectory, where he