Текст книги "The Anger of God"

Автор книги: Paul Doherty

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Paul Doherty
The Anger of God

PROLOGUE

The man waiting in the corner of the derelict cemetery between Poor Jewry and Sybethe Lane jumped as an owl in the old yew tree above him hooted and spread ghostly wings to go soaring like a dark angel over the tumbled grass and briars. The watcher saw the bird plunge on its shrieking victim then rise effortlessly as a puff of smoke up against the starlit sky. The man shivered and cursed. He remembered stories from his childhood of the Shape-Shifters, those witches, crones of the darkness, who could change their appearance and haunt such deserted, lonely places. The night was warm yet the man felt cold. These were troubled times. During the day he laughed at the gossip, the stories about an anchor and rope which hung down from a cloud and lay fixed in an earthen mound near Tilbury. Or how the king of the pygmies, large-headed and fiery-faced, had been seen riding a goat through the forests north of the city. Whilst devils, small as dormice, laughed and leaped like fish in a net in the grass around the gallows at Tyburn. Such stories merely mirrored the times and echoed the words of the prophet: ‘Woe to the kingdom where the king is a child!’

A prophecy now coming to fruition in England: golden Richard was only a youth and the affairs of state rested in the grasping hands of his uncle, the Regent, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, who seemed unable to pour balm on the kingdom’s wounds. French galleys were raiding and sacking towns along the Channel coast. In the north the Scots spilled over the border in an orgy of burning and looting, whilst in the shires round London, the peasants, taxed to the hilt and tied to the soil, bitterly protested against the lords of the earth and plotted bloody rebellion.

Gaunt, however, was as slippery as a fish: unable to raise taxes from a rebellious Commons, he had now performed the miracle of uniting the warring Guilds of London to obtain money from the wealthy burgesses and merchants. This had to be stopped. The watcher in the shadows just wished there was an easier way to do it. He bit his lip. Gaunt had to be destroyed, it was necessary. When the revolt came, a new order would be established in the kingdom and the Great Community, the name the peasant leaders had given themselves, would decide who would live and who would die, who would wield power and who would exercise trade. The prudent ones in the government of the city were already preparing to make such men their friends.

‘I am here.’

The man jumped. Was he hearing things?

‘I am here,’ the voice repeated, low and throaty.

‘Where are you?’

‘We are all around you. Don’t move. Don’t run. Just listen to what I have to say.’

‘What is your name?’ the man asked, trying to control the quick beating of his heart and the panic curdling his innards.

‘I am Ira Dei,’ the voice replied from the darkness of the cemetery. ‘I am the Anger of God. And God’s wrath will spill out against those who reap where they have not sown, who gather profits where they have no right, and who oppress the poor men of the soil as if they were worms and no more.’

‘What do you want?’

‘To make all things new. To take this kingdom into an age of innocence for:

“When Adam delved and Eve span,

Who was then the gentleman?”’

The man nodded. He had heard this doggerel verse chanted like a constant hymn by the peasants who wished to march on London, reduce the city to red-hot ash, seize the King’s uncle, strike off his head and march in procession with that same head on a pike.

‘Are you for us?’ the voice asked.

‘Of course!’ the man spluttered.

‘And do the Regent’s plans move apace?’

‘The banquet is tomorrow night.’

‘Then you must act. Do what we want and we shall consider you our friend.’

‘I have a scheme,’ the man replied. ‘Listen…’

‘Silence!’ the voice rasped. ‘If you wish to be one of us then thwart Gaunt’s ambitions. How you do it need not concern us but we shall watch. Adieu.’

The man strained his eyes against the darkness. He heard a twig snap, an owl hoot but, when he called out, his words rang hollow in the silence.

A mile to the south, on the black, stinking waters of the Thames, another hooded, cowled figure moved his small skiff between the starlings of London Bridge. He tied the rope carefully through a rusting ring and began to climb up the wooden beams, on to the blood-soaked trellis towards the decapitated heads gazing sightlessly from their poles across the river. The man cursed then grinned.

‘What a night to choose,’ he whispered to himself. The river stank like a privy because the dung barges, full of dirt and human refuse, had been busy all eventide unloading their mounds of muck into the water; the stink would last for days. Nevertheless, the thief had to move quickly: the French pirate had been executed the previous afternoon and his head would still be fresh, the skin clean and the eyes not yet pecked out by crows. Nonetheless, he had to be careful: rumours were already rife of how the civic authorities, particularly that fat giant Sir John Cranston, King’s Coroner of the city, were becoming suspicious about the number of amputated limbs and severed heads being moved from London Bridge.

The thief, garbed all in black, with heavy boots to give him a firmer grip on the slippery rails, reached the balcony just under the blood-soaked poles. He crouched in the darkness, straining his ears to distinguish the differing sounds: a barge full of revellers, drunk as lords, making their way from the stews in Southwark back to Botolph’s Wharf; the slop and murmur of the river, faint cries from its banks; the noise of ships being prepared for the morning tide; and, above all, the heavy footfalls of sentries as they walked backwards and forwards near the entrance to the bridge.

The thief waited for a while, breathing carefully, and at last, it seemed, the sentries grew tired and went back to warm themselves over their small brazier. He eased himself on to the top of the bridge and padded soft as a cat to where the long poles jutted out against the sky, each bearing its grisly burden. He stared up into the darkness. He had to be careful. So many executions, so many severed heads. He did not want to choose the wrong one. He had been there the previous evening when the head had been displayed but it could have been moved since. Then he saw the small pool of blood at the end of one pole. He smiled, carefully eased it out of its socket, plucked the severed head from the end, put it into his bag and climbed back over the rails down to his waiting skiff.

On the Southwark side of the Thames, in its maze of dingy, squalid streets, the taverns still blazed with light as the thief-masters and their gangs of rogues went about their nefarious business: the foists, naps, pickpockets and thugs all intent on seeing what profit the night would bring. Others, too, worked: the cat-hunters looking for cheap pelts and meat they could sell; the collectors of dog turds who would sell their smelly bags of refuse for the tanners to use; and the casual labourers, moving from ale-house to ale-house, seeking employment before the day even began. The streets hummed with noise but in a great, half-timbered, three-storied house which had definitely seen better days… all was darkness and silence.

The householder and his wife stood in petrified silence at the door to his daughter’s room. They could see her by the light of a single candle, sitting up against the bolsters, the curtains of the bed pulled well back. As they waited for the terror to begin, the man looked beseechingly at the girl.

‘Elizabeth, will it come again?’ he pleaded.

His white-faced daughter just stared back, her eyes glassy and unseeing.

‘Oh, Elizabeth,’ the man breathed. ‘Why are you doing this to us?’

‘You know why!’ the girl suddenly shrieked, leaning forward.’ ‘You killed my mother to marry that bitch!’ Her hand was flung out, finger pointing at her father’s golden-haired, pretty-faced, second wife.

‘That is not true,’ he replied. ‘Elizabeth, your mother sickened and died. There was nothing I could do.’

‘Lies!’ the girl shrieked.

The man and his wife stared in horrified silence at this young girl who, when darkness fell, became another person. A veritable virago, a hag of the night, who claimed that the ghost of her own mother visited her to denounce both of them as murderers, assassins, poisoners.

‘Listen!’ she hissed. ‘Mother comes again!’

The man let his arm fall from his wife’s shoulders as a shiver ran up his spine, the hairs on the nape of his neck curling in terror. Sure enough, throughout the house the tapping and knocking began. First downstairs, then further up as if something was crawling between the wall and the wainscoting, slowly, cautiously, like a creature spat out by Hell, making its loathsome way towards this bed chamber. The knocking grew louder and began to fill the entire room. The man clapped his hands to his ears.

‘Stop!’ he yelled. He plucked the crucifix from his belt and held it towards his white-faced daughter. ‘In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to stop!’

But the knocking continued – a rattling clatter which threatened to beat him out of his wits.

‘I can take no more,’ the woman beside him hissed. ‘Walter, I can take no more.’

And she ran down the stairs, leaving her husband transfixed in terror. Suddenly, the knocking ceased. The girl leaned forward, the skin of her face not only white but so taut it gave her a skull-like appearance, heightened by the raven-black hair tied tightly in a knot behind her head. The man took a step forward and looked into his daughter’s face, so pale, so chilling: her eyes were lifeless, two spots of black obsidian, glaring hatefully towards him, the red, soft lips curled in a bitter sneer.

He was about to take another step forward when the rattling began again, a quick juddering noise, then fell silent. The man caught that dreadful, well-remembered stench. His courage draining from him, he fell to his knees, staring pitifully at his daughter.

‘Elizabeth!’ he pleaded. ‘In the name of God!’

‘In the name of God, Walter Hobden, you are a murderer!’

The man lifted his head. His white-faced daughter was staring at him, lips moving, but the voice was that of his dead wife. Her precise intonation, the way she would emphasize the ‘R’ in his first name.

‘Walter Hobden, a curse on you for the wine you gave me and the red arsenic it contained – a deadly potion which rotted my stomach and cut short my life to leave you free to indulge your filthy lusts and hidden desires. I was your wife. I am your wife. And I come from Purgatory to warn you! I shall haunt you for as long as your soul is stained with my blood. Believe me, I have seen the place in Hell prepared for you. You must confess! I must have justice, and only then will you receive absolution!’

Walter Hobden crouched, shivering in terror.

‘No! No! No!’ he murmured. ‘This is not true! This is a lie!’

‘No lie!’ the voice shrieked.

Hobden could take no more. He turned and crawled like a beaten dog from the room, running down the wooden stairs as his daughter shivered, closed her eyes and fell back against the bolsters.

Hobden closed his own chamber door behind him, leaning against it sucking in air as he stared, wild-eyed, at the fear-filled face of his second wife. She thrust a cup of claret towards him.

‘Husband, drink.’

He staggered across, snatched the cup from her hand and gulped the rich, cloying wine.

‘What shall I do?’ he asked hoarsely. ‘Why does Elizabeth do this to me?’

He came and sat beside her on the edge of the bed. She grasped his hand as he gulped the wine; his fingers felt like slivers of ice.

‘Eleanor?’ He stared over the wine cup. ‘What can be done? Is she possessed? Has some demon taken over her soul?’

Eleanor’s sharp eyes flickered in contempt. ‘She’s a liar and a mummer!’ she jibed. ‘She has taken to her bed with the vapours.’ She wiped the sweat from her husband’s brow. ‘Walter, she is tricking you, playing some evil game.’

‘How can she be?’ he replied. ‘You hear the knocking. I watch her hands. They are above the blankets. How could she arrange that, eh? Or the terrible smell or that voice? I have searched her room when she has been asleep and I can find nothing.’

‘In which case,’ Eleanor replied sharply, ‘she is possessed and should be removed, together with that aged beldame her nurse, to some other place. A hospital, a house for madcaps. Or…’

‘Or what?’ he asked hopefully.

If this is true, if her mother’s ghost returns, then it must be a demon in disguise to spit out such lies. And both she and the room must be exorcized and blessed.’

‘But who can do that?’

Eleanor prised the wine cup from his fingers. ‘Priests are two a penny.’ She put her arms round his neck and kissed him gently on his cheek. ‘Forget these ghosts. Your daughter is a trickster,’ she whispered. ‘And I’ll show her up for the liar she is!’

CHAPTER 1

Sir John Cranston sat in the window seat of a bed chamber in a house in Milk Street just off West Cheap. He stared through the mullioned glass window which gave a good view of the church of St Mary Magdalen, watching a prosperous-looking relic-seller lay out his stall and shout for custom. Cranston smiled mirthlessly as the fellow crowed, his words carrying faintly from the street below.

‘Look, I have Jesus’s tooth which he lost at the age of twelve! A finger of St Sylvester! A piece of the saddle on which Christ sat when he entered Jerusalem. And in this casket, specially embossed, the arm of St Polycarp – the only thing left after the lions tore him to pieces in the arena at Rome! Gentle folk all, these relics, blessed by the Holy Father, can and will perform miracles!’

Cranston watched the crowd of easily gulled spectators cluster around. A rogue, he thought. He looked across at the corpse laid out on the four-poster bed, the winding sheet, carefully wrapped round it, exposing only the face which now lay back, jaw gaping, eyes half-open.

‘I am sorry, Oliver,’ Cranston muttered to the silent room. He got up, crossed to the four-poster bed and stared down at the grey, sunken face of his former comrade.

‘I am sorry,’ he repeated. ‘I, Sir John Cranston, King’s Coroner in London, a man who sups with princes, the husband of Lady Maude of Tweng in Somerset, father of the two poppets, my beloved sons Francis and Stephen – I am sorry I could not help you. You, my comrade-in-arms, my right hand in our battles against the French. Now you lie murdered and I can’t even prove it.’

Cranston gazed round the bed chamber, noting the rich possessions: the silver cups, the finely carved lavarium, cupboards and chairs quilted with taffeta, the silken cushions, testers, the gold filigree candelabra.

‘What does it profit a man,’ Cranston muttered, ‘if he gains the whole world – only to be murdered by his wife?’

He fished in his wallet, brought out two pennies, fixed them on the dead man’s eyes then covered the face with the sheet. He sighed, walked to the foot of the bed, and jumped at a sudden scurrying sound behind him.

‘Bloody rats!’ he muttered as he glimpsed the sleek, long-tailed, fat rodent slide under a cupboard and scrabble at the wooden panelling. Another darted from beneath the lavarium and easily dodged the candlestick an infuriated Cranston flung in its direction.

‘Bloody rats!’ he repeated. ‘The city’s infested with them. The heat’s brought them out.’

He stared at the lonely, sheeted corpse of his friend. He had arrived to find Sir Oliver Ingham not only dead for hours, but with two rats gnawing at his hand. Cranston had roared abuse at Ingham’s pretty young wife but she had smiled slyly and said she had done her best to protect her husband’s body since it had been found by a servant earlier in the day.

‘He had a weak heart, Sir John,’ she lisped, one soft, white hand on the arm of her ‘good kinsman’ Albric Totnes.

‘Some kinsman!’ Cranston muttered to himself. ‘I bet the two were dancing between the sheets even as Oliver died. Bloody murderers!’

He dug into his wallet and fished out a short letter Oliver Ingham had sent him only the previous day. Cranston sat down and read it again as his large, protuberant eyes filled with tears.

I am dying, old friend. I committed the worst folly of an old man: I married someone two score years younger than me. A veritable May and December marriage, but I thought she would love me. I found she did not. Yet her smile and touch were enough. Now I find she has betrayed me and could possibly plot my death. If I die suddenly, old friend, if I die alone, then it will be murder. My soul will cry to God for vengeance and to you for justice. Do not forget me.

Oliver

Cranston neatly folded the piece of parchment and put it away. He had shown it to no one yet he believed his friend was right. Something in Cranston’s blood whispered ‘Murder’, but how could he prove it? Sir Oliver had been found dead in his bed at mid-morning by a servant and Cranston, as both his friend and Coroner, had been sent for. He had arrived to find Ingham’s young wife, Rosamund, supping with her ‘kinsman’ in the solar below, whilst the family physician, a balding, ferret-faced man in smelly robes, had simply declared that Sir Oliver’s weak heart had given out and his soul was gone to God.

Cranston got up and walked to the side of the bed where the jug, knocked from its table by Oliver in his final apoplexy, still lay. At his insistence the doctor had sniffed the jug and then the cup, Oliver’s favourite, and solemnly pronounced:

‘No, Sir John, nothing in it except claret and perhaps a little of the foxglove I prescribed to keep Sir Oliver’s heart strong.’

‘Could more have been put in?’ Cranston asked.

‘Of course not!’ the physician snapped. ‘What are you implying, Sir John? A strong infusion of foxglove would leave the cup and jug reeking.’

Sir John had demurred and sent for Theobald de Troyes, his own physician, a man skilled in his art and patronized by many of the court. Theobald had given corpse, cup and jug a most thorough scrutiny.

‘The physician was correct,’ he announced. ‘You see, Sir John, if Sir Oliver was given too much foxglove, his corpse would bear some trace. I can find nothing except the effects of a sudden seizure, whilst the cup only carries traces of claret and a little foxglove, but no more than a good doctor would prescribe. The jug smells only of foxglove.’

‘Any mark of violence?’ Cranston asked.

‘None whatsoever, Sir John.’ Theobald lowered his eyes. ‘Except the rat bites on the fingers of the right hand. Sir John,’ the physician had pleaded, ‘Sir Oliver retired to bed last night, feeling ill. His servants heard him declare he felt weak and dizzy with pains in his chest. He locked his chamber door and left the key in the lock. The windows were similarly padlocked. No one could enter to do him mischief.’

Sir John had grunted, bade him farewell and sat in this chamber for the last two hours, wondering how murder could have been committed.

‘I wish Athelstan was here,’ he moaned to himself. ‘Perhaps he would see something wrong. Bloody monk! And I wish he would bring that sodding cat with him!’

Cranston thought of Athelstan’s fierce-looking torn cat, Bonaventure, whom his secretary and friend proclaimed was the best rat-catcher in Southwark. Cranston sighed, crossed himself, lowered his eyes and said the prayer for the dead.

‘Grant eternal rest to Oliver, my friend,’ he muttered as his mind drifted back down the passage of the years: Oliver, tall and strong, standing at his shoulder as the French knights broke through the English ranks at Poitiers. The roar of battle, the neighing of war steeds, the clash of swords, the silent purr of the arrow, the stabbing and hacking as they and a few others bore the brunt of the last desperate French attack. The ground underfoot had become slippery with blood. Cranston had stood, legs apart, whirling his sword like a great scythe against the French knights as they closed in for the kill.

A monstrous giant had rushed against him, his helmet in the shape of a devil’s head with wide, sweeping horns, its yellow plume tossing in the evening breeze. Cranston, glimpsing steel-encased arms swinging back a huge battle axe, had moved to one side, slipped and gone down in the mud. He had expected to receive his death blow but Oliver had stepped over him, taken the brunt of the blow with his own shield and, closing with the enemy, shoved his small misericorde dagger between cuirass and helm.

‘I owe you my life,’ Cranston confessed afterwards.

‘One day you can repay the debt!’ Oliver laughed as they both sat on the battle field toasting each other in cup after cup of the claret they’d filched from the French camp. ‘One day you will repay the debt.’

Cranston opened tear-filled eyes. He raised his right hand and stared at the corpse. ‘By the sod, I will!’ he muttered. He looked once more at the pathetic corpse under its winding sheet.

‘In our golden days,’ he whispered, ‘we were greyhounds racing for the hunt! Young hawks swooping for the kill! Ah, the days!’

Cranston tapped his broad girth, pulled the bed curtains close and stamped out of the chamber, pausing only to glance once more at the damaged lock.

He tramped like a Colossus down the stairs and marched into the solar where Lady Rosamund and ‘kinsman’ Albric were playing cat’s-cradle in the window seat. Rosamund looked all the more beautiful in a gown of black damask and carefully arranged veil of the same colour, her narrow face twisted into an approximation of grief. Cranston just glared at her, and even more contemptuously at her smooth-faced, sack-lipped, weak-eyed young lover.

‘You are finished, Sir John?’ Rosamund rose as the balding, red-faced giant marched towards her. She at least expected him to kiss her hand but Cranston seized her and Albric by the wrist and pulled both to their feet, squeezing hard as he pulled them close.

‘You, madam, are a murdering bitch! No, don’t widen your eyes and scream for help! And you, sir – ’ Albric’s eyes fell away. ‘Look at me, man!’ Cranston squeezed harder. ‘Look at me, you whoreson bastard!’

Albric’s eyes came up.

‘You are party to this. If you had the courage I would challenge you to a duel and take the head from your shoulders. Don’t forget, the offer’s always there!’

‘Sir John, this is…’

‘Shut up!’ Cranston growled. ‘Upstairs lies the truest comrade a man could ask for. A good soldier, a shrewd merchant and the best of friends. Oliver’s heart may have become weak but he had the courage of a lion and the generosity of a saint. He adored you, you whey-faced mare, and you broke his heart! You betrayed him. I know you killed him. God knows how but I will discover it!’ Cranston shoved them both back into the window seat. ‘Believe me, I’ll see you both dance at Smithfield on the end of a rope!’

He spun on his heel and walked to the door.

‘Cranston!’ Rosamund yelled.

‘Yes, bitch!’ he replied over his shoulder.

‘I am innocent of my husband’s death.’

The Coroner made a rude sound with his lips.

‘In ten days’ time my husband’s will shall be read out. All his property and his wealth will be mine. I shall use that wealth to prosecute you in the courts for slander and contumacious speech.’

‘In ten days’ time,’ he retorted, ‘I’ll see you in Newgate! You may remove the corpse but nothing else. I have an inventory of what’s there!’

Cranston walked into the passageway, trying to curb his anger at the derisive laughter behind him. Ingham’s old retainer Robert stood near the front door, white-faced.

‘Sir John,’ he whispered. ‘How can you prove what you say?’

Cranston stopped, one hand on the latch, and stared at the servant’s lined, tired face.

I can and I will,’ he growled. ‘But tell me once more what happened yesterday.’

‘My master had been ill for days: fatigued, complaining of a lightness in his head and pains in his chest. He left supper last night with his wine cup. I saw him go to the buttery and fill the jug with a small infusion of foxglove to mix later with his wine as the physician had prescribed. Then he went to bed. He locked his chamber door and, because I was concerned, I stood guard.’ The man’s voice quavered, I thought I would let him rest but when the bells of St Mary Magdalen began to chime for mid-morning prayer, I tried to rouse him. I summoned the servants, we forced the door. The rest you know.’

‘Couldn’t someone have saved him from the rats?’ Cranston retorted.

‘Sir John, the house is infested with them. The Lady Rosamund hates cats or any animals.’

Sir John patted him on the shoulder. ‘Your master will have justice, I will see to that. Now, pray for his soul and take care of his corpse. One of my bailiffs is coming to seal the room.’

Sir John walked out into Milk Street. He entered the church of St Mary Magdalen and lit five candles before the smiling figure of the Virgin and Child.

‘One for Maude, two for the poppets,’ he whispered, thinking of his fine, sturdy sons, now six months old. ‘One for Athelstan,’ he murmured, ‘and one for Sir Oliver, God rest him.’

Sir John knelt, closed his eyes, and recited three Aves before realizing how thirsty he was.

He lumbered out of the church, down Milk Street and into a deserted Cheapside. The stall-owners had now packed up for the day, removing their possessions back to the front rooms of their shops, taking down their booths and leaving the broad thoroughfare to the bone and rag collectors, a lazy-eyed whore looking for custom, snapping mongrels and sleek, fat alley cats who couldn’t believe their luck at the myriad of rats which now plundered the mounds of rubbish and human refuse. A few tinkers and pedlars still touted for business; these shouted friendly abuse at Sir John, who gave as good as he got as he passed, swift as an arrow, into his favourite tavern, The Holy Lamb of God.

Sir John brightened at the cloying, sweet warmth of the taproom. A beadle was sitting in Cranston’s favourite, high-backed chair before the open window which looked out on to a pleasant garden. Sir John coughed and the fellow scuttled away like a frightened rabbit. Sir John sat down, tapping the table and staring appreciatively at the dark polished timbers and white plaster of this most revered of drinking places. He smacked his lips and pushed further open the diamond-shaped, latticed window so he could catch the fragrance of the herb banks. Some people avoided The Holy Lamb, they claimed it was built over an old charnel house and was reputedly haunted by ghosts and sprites but Cranston saw it as a second home, being revered almost as a saint by the landlord’s wife.

Years earlier she had been conned by a trickster who claimed he could draw both wine and sack from the same barrel. She had stupidly agreed to see him try. The man had bored a hole in one side of the barrel and told her to stop it with her finger, whilst he bored another hole from which he said the sack could come. The hapless lady had been left, forced to plug both holes in the barrel, whilst the rogue helped himself to certain monies. She had stood there, terrified, for if she had taken her fingers away, she would have wasted an entire barrel of beer, turned the taproom ankle-deep in ale and proclaimed herself a laughing-stock.

Luckily, Sir John had appeared. He had rapped the rogue across the head, helped plug the barrel and, when the rogue had regained his senses, Cranston had made him stand outside the tavern with his breeches down and a placard round his neck proclaiming him to be a fraudulent trickster.

The same taverner’s wife now came bustling towards him, a large cup of claret in one hand and a bowl of onion soup in the other. Sir John absentmindedly smiled his thanks, sipped the claret and wondered how he could bring another trickster, the murderous Rosamund, to justice. He couldn’t stop thinking of Oliver’s lonely corpse in that desolate chamber, the sniggering wife and her sycophantic ‘kinsman’ below.

Cranston heard voices and raised his head as the relic-seller, whom he had seen in Milk Street, came sliding into the tavern.

‘A rogue steeped in sin,’ he muttered to himself.

The relic-seller was old, walking with a slight limp, but with a shrewd, cold, narrow face, gimlet-eyed, and a mouth as thin and tight as a vice. He was well-dressed in a costly velvet tunic and soft red leather boots, and the purse which swung from the embroidered belt chinked heavily with coins. He grinned and waved across to the Coroner who just glared back and lowered his face over his cup. He really should go home and prepare for the evening but his house was empty as the Lady Maude had taken the two poppets to see her kinspeople in the West Country.

‘Oh, do come, Sir John,’ she had begged. ‘The rest will do you good. And you know brother Ralph will be delighted to see you.’

Cranston had shaken his head mournfully and wrapped his bear-like arms round his petite wife.

‘I cannot come, Lady,’ he declared gruffly. ‘The Council and the Regent are most insistent that I stay in London.’

Lady Maude had pulled free and looked at him archly.

‘Is that the truth, Sir John?’

‘By God’s tooth!’

‘Don’t swear,’ she had insisted. ‘Just tell me.’

Sir John had sworn upon his honour that he spoke the truth, yet it had been tinged by a lie. He couldn’t stand brother Ralph, as unlike his sister as chalk from cheese. To put it bluntly, Ralph was the most boring man Cranston had ever met. His one passion was farming and, as Sir John had wryly remarked to Athelstan: ‘Once you have listened to Ralph’s two-hour lectures on how to grow onions, that’s your lot for eternity!’

Nevertheless, Cranston felt guilty. Ralph was good-hearted and Sir John missed both his wife and the two poppets; large, plump and sturdy-legged, they would stagger up to their father, hand-in-hand, so he could rub their bald little heads. He wondered why Athelstan kept laughing every time he saw them but the friar would always pull his dark face straight, chew his lip, shake his head and declare, ‘Nothing, Sir John, nothing. They are just so like you.’