Текст книги "The Assassin's riddle"

Автор книги: Paul Doherty

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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

‘You’re rather hard,’ Lesures stuttered.

‘It’s what Peslep would have wanted,’ Elflain responded. ‘I don’t think he believed in God so why should we make a mockery in death of what he made a mockery in life?’

Lesures was about to object when Ollerton staggered back, the pewter cup dropping from his hand, his face contorted in pain. He clutched at his throat and stomach.

‘Oh my God!’ he whispered. ‘Oh heaven and all the…!’ He slumped to his knees.

His companions hurried to assist but Ollerton, the pain so intense, drove them off with his hand before crashing face down to the floor. He lay there convulsing in agony. Alcest managed to secure him, gripping him under the shoulders. All he could do, whilst the others shouted and exclaimed around him, was try to control the terrible spasms which racked his friend’s body. Ollerton was already losing consciousness, eyes rolling back, mouth open, jaw tense, a long line of saliva drooling down his chin. He closed his eyes and coughed, his body shaking again. Suddenly he went rigid and then slack, head falling away, eyes and mouth half open. Alcest put him gently back on the floor. The others stared, horror-struck.

‘Don’t drink,’ Elflain whispered, putting his own cup back on the table.

‘Apoplexy?’ Lesures asked.

‘Apoplexy!’ Alcest sneered. He turned Ollerton’s face over; it was now a garish white, dark rings under the staring eyes. ‘This is no coup de sang. Ollerton has been poisoned.’

He edged across the floor and picked up the fallen cup, whose contents had now soaked into the floorboards. Alcest sniffed at the rim but realised the sweet honey taste could hide any potion. He went across to the jug.

‘You poured the cup, Lesures?’

‘I…’ The Master of the Rolls lifted his hand in alarm. ‘We should send for a physician,’ he wailed.

‘Unless,’ Alcest sneered, ‘you know one who can bring the dead back to life, Master Lesures, perhaps a priest would be better? One of the good brothers from St Bartholomew’s. I’d be grateful.’

Lesures took the hint and fled. Once the door closed behind him, the rest grouped round the corpse.

‘Three now!’ Napham whispered. ‘Three dead!’

Alcest was already going through the man’s wallet and purse.

‘Is that necessary?’

‘Yes, it is,’ Alcest snarled. And tonight, before the snooping coroner arrives, we visit his chambers.’

He paused at the sound of footsteps on the stairs. Lesures hurried in, clutching a piece of parchment. He thrust this at Alcest. The clerk read aloud the riddle scrawled there.

‘“My second is the centre of woe and the principal mover of horror.”’ He glanced at his companions. ‘We are being hunted,’ he said. ‘Ollerton’s death will not be the last!’

CHAPTER 5

Athelstan was standing on the top of St Erconwald’s tower looking through a huge telescope. Bonaventure was talking to him but Cranston was calling from below. Athelstan opened his eyes; roughly woken from his dream, he gasped and looked around. Bonaventure was gone. The sunlight in the small window above his bed was fading. He swung his legs off the bed and realised that what had woken him was the knocking on the door below.

‘Father, Father, are you all right?’

Benedicta had now come into the kitchen.

‘I’m up here, Benedicta,’ Athelstan called, rubbing his face. ‘I went with the cat for a nap.’ He paused. ‘That’s witty,’ he whispered. ‘For a man just woken up.’

‘Athelstan, are you all right?’

The friar rose and looked down the ladder at Benedicta. She was dressed in a summer smock made of light green cloth. She had a small silver chain round her neck. Someone, probably one of the children, had made a daisy chain; she still had this over her jet-black hair. She had such a look of concern in her beautiful dark eyes that Athelstan’s heart skipped a beat. Deep in his soul he loved this widow, but never once would he dare tell her. I love you passionately, he thought, and ruefully recalled the advice of his novice master.

‘It’s not the body, Athelstan, that hungers, it’s the soul. Physical desire is like a flame. Sometimes it leaps up, at other times it burns low. The love of the soul, however, is a raging fire that is never quenched.’

‘Athelstan!’ Benedicta stamped her foot. ‘Have you lost your wits? You are staring at me!’

‘I was thinking.’ Athelstan smiled. ‘I know what it’s going to be like in heaven.’

Benedicta sighed in exasperation. ‘Athelstan, the council will be meeting soon. You know what Watkin is like. If you’re not there, he’ll start saying Mass. We also have a visitor, a young woman, Alison Chapler. I didn’t know there was a corpse in the death house!’

Athelstan’s fingers flew to his lips and he groaned. ‘Oh Lord save us!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’d forgotten about that, Benedicta. I’ve been with Cranston. You know what it’s like.’

He hurried down the ladder, grasped Benedicta by the shoulder and gave her a kiss on each cheek.

‘What’s that for, Father?’

‘One day I’ll tell you. That poor woman.’

Athelstan quickly grabbed his stole and the phial of holy oils he kept in the cupboard in the far corner of the kitchen. He tightened the girdle round his robe and hurried out. The evening was a gorgeous one; the sun not so strong and bright whilst a refreshing breeze bent the grass and flowers in the cemetery. Crim the altar boy was having a pee in the corner just inside the gate.

‘Hello, Father!’ he called out over his shoulder.

‘Pull up your hose!’ Athelstan ordered. ‘I’ve told you not to do that in God’s acre.’

‘Sorry, Father, but the water-tippler gave me a free drink, cool and sweet it was. Where are you going, Father? I did chase the sow from your garden! It’s a good job you didn’t come earlier.’ Crim chattered on, running alongside Athelstan and looking over his shoulder at Benedicta. ‘Cecily the courtesan has been here!’

‘What?’ Athelstan paused. ‘And who was with her?’

‘I don’t know,’ the boy mumbled, his face crestfallen.

Athelstan ruffled the boy’s hair. ‘Go and bring a lighted candle,’ he said kindly.

‘Oh, there’s a woman in the death house,’ Crim retorted. ‘Is there a corpse there? Can I see it?’

‘Get a candle.’

Athelstan continued down the narrow path which wound by the burial mounds, battered crosses and worn gravestones. The small corpse house stood under the shade of a yew tree in the far corner of the cemetery. The door was open. Inside, Alison knelt beside the corpse which lay in a wooden casket. She’d already lit a candle and put it on a niche in the wall. The air was sweet, not the usual stale, rather dank odour. Alison got up as Athelstan entered, her cheeks soaked in tears.

‘I’m sorry,’ Athelstan apologised. ‘I came back and I forgot.’

‘It’s all right, Father,’ Alison replied. ‘I bought a coffin from a gravedigger who lives near Crutched Friars. He also brought it across for me.’

She went to lift the lid of the coffin. Athelstan helped her to take it off. Chapler’s corpse did not look so ghastly now. Even the hair had been combed, whilst Alison had filled the coffin on either side of the body with crushed rosemary. She stood, hands joined, Benedicta behind her, as Athelstan began the service for the dead. He anointed the corpse, its forehead, eyes, nose, mouth, hands and chest. Crim stole in, a lighted candle in his hand. When Athelstan had finished, he recited the Office for the Dead and ended it with the Requiem.

‘Eternal rest grant to him, O Lord.’

Benedicta and Alison took up the refrain: ‘And let eternal light shine upon him.’

Once they had said the prayer, Athelstan ordered the lid to be replaced and screwed down. ‘It can now be taken into church,’ he declared.

‘No, Father, leave it here for the night.’ Alison’s sweet face puckered into a smile. ‘Edwin liked the grass, the loneliness, the flowers. It’s pleasant out here.’

‘You are sure you want him buried at St Erconwald’s?’ Athelstan asked.

‘Oh yes, Father.’

‘Then I’ll say a Requiem Mass tomorrow morning, just after dawn.’ He turned. ‘This is Benedicta.’

Both women exchanged smiles.

‘You can stay with her. I’ll have Pike the ditcher prepare a grave.’ Athelstan walked out and pointed across the graveyard. ‘Perhaps there in the corner? In summer it catches the sun.’

Alison tearfully agreed. Athelstan took off his stole. He handed that and the oils to Crim, asking him to take them back to his house.

‘So, Mistress Alison, will you accept my offer to stay?’

‘Yes, Father, I will.’

Benedicta came over and linked her arm through that of the young woman. ‘Do you have enough money?’ she asked.

‘Oh yes,’ Alison replied. ‘Edwin was a good brother. What he earned he sent to me.’

‘We have a parish council meeting now,’ Athelstan explained. ‘You can wait here or, if you want to join us…?’

Alison squeezed Benedicta’s hand. ‘I’d like to come, Father.’

Athelstan made to lead them down the path.

‘Brother Athelstan.’ Alison was now standing straight.

The friar was slightly alarmed at the expression in her face and eyes; there was something about this young woman, a steel beneath the velvet.

‘What is it, mistress?’

‘My brother’s assassins. You will apprehend them? They will hang for what they did?’

‘Them?’ Athelstan came back. ‘Mistress Alison, what makes you think there are more than one?’

‘Oh.’ Alison pulled a face. ‘Edwin was a vigorous young man. He would not have given up his life so easily.’

‘Do you suspect anyone?’ Athelstan asked.

‘One of those clerks,’ she replied. ‘Especially the arrogant one, Alcest. Edwin often talked about him: he didn’t like him and Alcest certainly didn’t like Edwin.’

‘But murder!’ Athelstan exclaimed. ‘Mistress Alison, sometimes I do not like some of my parishioners, yet that’s no excuse for the most terrible crime of all!’

‘Just a feeling,’ Alison replied, running a finger along her lower lip. ‘Something in the soul, Father.’

Athelstan knew the young woman was right. The clerks of the Green Wax had a great deal to answer for, but what? Murder? How, if they had spent the night Chapler had been killed carousing in some tavern chamber? Athelstan walked down the cemetery path; behind him Benedicta consoled Alison, listening to details about her brother’s murder and reassuring her that Sir John Cranston, for all his love of claret, had a mind as sharp as a razor and a passion for justice.

They went round to the front of the church and Athelstan smiled at his parish council.

‘We’ve been waiting, Father. You’re late!’ Hig the pigman bellowed, his dark-set face made even more ugly by a scowl.

‘I had to anoint a corpse,’ Athelstan explained. He introduced Alison.

‘Don’t you go lecturing our priest.’ Watkin the dung-collector came down the steps, almost knocking Hig the pigman flying. Watkin’s bulbous face was red, his eyes popping and, even from where he stood, Athelstan could smell his ale-drenched breath. ‘I am leader of the parish council.’ Watkin turned. ‘I am the one who speaks to Father.’

‘Not for long!’ Pike the ditcher’s wife called out from the back.

Athelstan clapped his hands. ‘Come on! Come on!’ The friar intervened before a fight broke out.

Ranulf the rat-catcher, dressed in his black tarred hood and jerkin despite the weather, opened the church door and ushered them in. Athelstan plucked the sleeve of Cecily the courtesan. She was climbing the steps slowly, clutching at her dress and swinging her bottom provocatively at Pike the ditcher.

‘Cecily,’ Athelstan whispered.

‘Yes, Father?’ The woman’s cornflower-blue eyes and lovely girlish face, framed in a mass of golden curls, looked more angelic than ever.

‘Cecily, when will you learn,’ Athelstan whispered, ‘that only those who are dead are supposed to lie down in the graveyard?’

‘Why, Father.’ Cecily’s eyes rounded even further. ‘I only went to pick some flowers.’

‘Is that the truth?’

‘No, Father, but that’s all I’m going to tell you.’ And the minx scampered off.

The parish council met near the baptistry, sitting on benches formed in the shape of a square. Watkin took the place of honour on Athelstan’s right, Pike the ditcher on the left, followed by the usual fight for places amongst the rest. Benedicta and Alison found seats on the bench opposite Athelstan and he began the meeting with a prayer. There were the usual items of business: the grass in the cemetery needed cutting; the arrangements for tomorrow’s funeral. Everyone looked sympathetically at Alison. Pike offered to dig the grave, Hig and Watkin to carry the coffin. Athelstan asked who had been drinking raucously two nights previously just outside the church. No one answered, though Bladdersniff the bailiff, Pike and Watkin stared at the floor as if they had never seen it before.

‘Now,’ Athelstan continued. ‘The preparations for Holy Rood Day. In about a month’s time, on the fourteenth of September, we celebrate the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.’

That was the signal for everyone to get up and admire Huddle’s new crucifix. The painter, his long, horsy face bright with pleasure, described how he had achieved his masterpiece. Everyone ‘oohed’ and ‘aahed’, followed by general agreement that, this time, Huddle had surpassed himself.

‘Now,’ Athelstan continued when they had resumed their seats. ‘Rood Day is a holy day. We will have Mass followed by a solemn blessing of the crucifix.’

‘I will carry it,’ Watkin bellowed.

‘You bloody won’t!’ Pike roared back. ‘You do everything, Watkin!’

‘I don’t lie down in the cemetery,’ the dung-collector hissed spitefully.

‘What’s that?’ Pike’s virago of a wife leaned forward.

‘Hush now.’ Tab the tinker, sitting next to her, grasped her hand. ‘You know Pike has to dig the graves and look after them.’

Pike smiled across at the tinker and Athelstan sensed there were new shifting alliances on the parish council.

‘After the blessing,’ he continued, ‘we will have church ales and some games, followed by the parish feast in the evening.’

‘What about the ceremony?’ Pernell the Fleming pulled her hair away from her face.

Athelstan quietly groaned: he’d hoped they had forgotten that.

‘You know, Father,’ Pernell continued, ‘a cross is always taken round the cemetery. Who’ll be Christ this year?’

After that came the descent into hell, as bitter words were exchanged about who would do what. Athelstan stared across at Alison. She, like Benedicta, was desperately trying not to laugh. At last peace reigned but only after Athelstan had got up, clapped his hands and glared around. Ranulf the rat-catcher would carry the cross, he decided; Watkin and Pike would be Roman soldiers; other roles were shared out. In the end, only one person didn’t have a part, Pike the ditcher’s wife. She boiled with fury as she paid the price for her spiteful tongue and malicious comments. Time and again Athelstan tried to reallocate or introduce a new role but the woman refused to be mollified. More dangerously, the virago was glaring malevolently at Cecily the courtesan who, of course, smiled sweetly back.

‘Father.’ Alison Chapler got to her feet. ‘Father, I have a suggestion. My family originally came from Norfolk. We always celebrated Holy Rood Day. I notice you have one thing missing, the Kitsch Witch.’

‘Who?’ Athelstan asked.

‘According to legend,’ Alison continued, clearly enjoying herself, ‘the witch was a woman who lived in the Valley of Death near Jerusalem: she was despised by all.’

Athelstan just prayed that no one would make a comment.

‘Anyway,’ Alison continued, ‘when Christ was crucified she stood afar off and, because of her faith, she was transformed and became a saint.’

Everyone clapped and peace was restored.

In a small chamber on the ground floor of the Chancery of the Green Wax, Sir John Cranston surveyed the ruined corpse of William Ollerton, former clerk.

‘The poison must have been deadly.’ Cranston tapped the dead man’s boot with the toe of his own. ‘Pernicious and venomous, eh?’

The coroner drummed his fingers on his stomach. He had been sitting in his garden, watching the poppets play with Gog and Magog and reflecting on his learned treatise, ‘On the Governance of London’, when Bailiff Flaxwith had arrived with the news. Cranston had cursed but left: the report of Ollerton’s death would soon reach the Savoy Palace and the Regent would begin asking questions. Now Cranston had a few of his own. Beside him Master Tibault Lesures seemed to be on the point of fainting, his face pallid and sweat-soaked, eyes blinking. The Master of the Rolls licked his lips, making small, nervous gestures with his fingers. The three clerks Elflain, Napham and Alcest were more composed.

‘Let us begin again,’ Cranston said. ‘You have a cup…?’

‘Yes, Sir John,’ Lesures agreed. ‘Each of us has a cup with the first letter of our surname on it. Late in the afternoon, just before we finish, it is customary for us to have a goblet of malmsey. It washes away the dust and sweetens the mouth.’

‘And these cups were on a tray?’

Cranston left the corpse and walked over to a small table where all the cups, some still half full, stood on a pewter dish. He picked up Ollerton’s and sniffed at it. He caught the sweet smell of honey and a more acrid odour. Sir John recalled Athelstan’s words about arsenic and deadly nightshade.

‘They are both deadly in their effect,’ the friar had declared, ‘yet easy to disguise.’

Cranston picked up all the cups and sniffed carefully. He tried to stop the juices in his own mouth gathering by remembering the corpse now lying stretched out on the floor.

‘And who washed these cups every morning?’

‘We took it in turns, Sir John.’

‘And this morning?’

Napham lifted a hand. ‘But, Sir John, they were all clean.’

‘Fine, fine.’ Sir John leaned against the wall; he wished Athelstan was here.

‘And who entered the Chancery of the Green Wax today? Give me a list.’

‘Well, well.’ Lesures came forward, ticking the names off on his fingers. ‘Myself and the clerks, Sir Lionel Havant, yourself, Sir John, Brother Athelstan and Mistress Chapler.’

‘And anyone else?’

‘Oh, the occasional servant. They would come in with messages or bring fresh parchment and quills.’

‘But it’s interesting, isn’t it,’ the coroner continued, ‘that the poison was put in at the same time as this cryptic message arrives, about the second being the centre of woe and the principal mover of horror.’ Cranston glanced at the clerks. ‘I thought you liked puzzles and riddles. Do any of you know what it means?’

They shook their heads.

‘Let me continue,’ Cranston said. ‘Whoever put the poison in knew what time you drank the mead. He also arranged for the message to be delivered at the same time: that reduces the number somewhat, doesn’t it?’ He leaned forward.

‘What are you saying?’ Alcest snapped.

‘What I am saying, young man, is this. When Ollerton died, I was in my garden, Athelstan and Mistress Chapler were in Southwark. Havant was probably at the Savoy Palace – that takes care of the principal visitors here. In my view, Ollerton’s assassin works in the Chancery of the Green Wax and could very well be in this room.’

A chorus of hoarse denials greeted his words. Cranston clapped his hands for silence.

‘I am a man of law. I show where the evidence lies. Now I could ask for you to be searched: not everyone carries a small bag of poison around with them.’

‘Pshaw!’ Napham made a contemptuous gesture with his hand and walked to the door as if to leave.

‘Do so,’ Cranston shouted, ‘and I’ll have you arrested, sir! My bailiff’s in the street outside.’

Napham returned.

‘Anyone could have come in here!’ Alcest cried.

‘Anyone?’ Cranston asked. ‘You were here when Ollerton died and any one of you could have visited that tavern and killed Peslep.’

‘But what about Chapler?’ Alcest declared defiantly. ‘Sir John, we can prove that we were carousing in a chamber at the Dancing Pig when our companion died.’

‘Did you like him?’ Cranston asked abruptly.

‘Who?’

‘Chapler. Did you like him? You called him your companion.’

‘He wasn’t one of us,’ Alcest retorted. ‘Ask Master Tibault here. Chapler kept to himself. When the office closed on Saturday morning before the Angelus, he would leave for his beloved sister in Epping.’

‘Was Peslep a rich man?’ Cranston asked.

‘He came of good family.’

Cranston closed his eyes; he felt so tired. He would have loved to question these young men but there was nothing more he could say. No real evidence to work on. The coroner walked to the door.

‘Have the body sheeted,’ he ordered. He thought of the Holy Lamb and then recalled Alcest’s words about the Dancing Pig. He turned, hand on the latch. ‘Master Alcest, the night Chapler died. You left the Chancery of the Green Wax and went straight to the Dancing Pig?’

‘Yes, we did.’

‘And you were in a chamber all by yourselves?’

‘Well, with the rest.’

‘And some young ladies? Where were they from?’

Alcest rubbed his mouth.

‘Come on!’ Sir John barked. ‘You hired a group of whores, didn’t you? Young courtesans. Who was the mistress of this troupe?’

‘Nell Broadsheet.’

Cranston grinned. ‘By, sir, you pay well. Broadsheet’s girls are the comeliest and most expensive in London. They keep a house, do they not, near Greyfriars, just past Newgate?’

The young man nodded.

‘Good, then I think I’ll pay her a visit.’

Cranston walked out into the street where Flaxwith leaned against a wall, his ugly dog beside him.

‘Keep that bloody thing away from me!’ Cranston growled. ‘Now, Henry, I’m going to give you a treat. We are going to visit Mistress Broadsheet’s establishment. You know it well?’

The bailiff’s face coloured and he shuffled his feet; even Samson seemed to hang his head a little lower.

‘Henry, Henry!’ Cranston chucked the bailiff under his chin with his finger. ‘Don’t say you’ve been dipping your quill in Dame Broadsheet’s inkhorn?’

‘A man gets lonely, Sir John,’ Flaxwith murmured.

‘You have a wife,’ Cranston replied. ‘The beloved Ursula.’

Sheer terror now replaced the confusion in Flaxwith’s face. Cranston recalled Mistress Ursula, a woman built like a donjon, eyes of steel and a tongue like a lash.

‘Oh, Sir John, it’s our secret, isn’t it? The Lady Ursula…’ Flaxwith leaned down and patted Samson, who was cowering even more on hearing Mistress Flaxwith’s name.

‘Yes?’ Cranston asked sweetly.

‘The Lady Ursula,’ Flaxwith swallowed hard, ‘does not like the pleasures of the flesh.’

Cranston recalled his own merry trysts with his lady wife; he patted the man sympathetically on the shoulder.

‘Well, let’s visit Dame Broadsheet. Let’s see what she has to say about our young clerks.’

‘I was supposed to do that,’ Flaxwith grumbled as they walked along.

‘Well, Henry,’ Cranston nudged him playfully, ‘I am going to make sure you leave with me. Oh, by the way, I still want you to find out about Master Drayton’s two clerks, Stablegate and Flinstead. Just where did they spend the night their master was murdered? You’ll enjoy visiting taverns,’ the coroner continued, ‘and so will Samson.’

The mastiff turned its head, lips curled in a soft growl. Cranston smiled tactfully and they continued up Holborn past Cock Lane, still sealed off by royal archers, through the old city wall into Newgate. All the butchers’ stalls had been cleared away but the smell of blood and offal made Samson excited. He pranced around, straining at this morsel or that. Cranston caught a cutpurse who was following two old ladies down to St Mary Le Bow where the bells were clanging for Compline, the beacon light already lit in the belfry. Cranston grabbed the weasel-faced knave by the collar, gave him a whack on the ear and sent him about his business.

‘Do you know, Henry.’ Cranston stopped before the dark, forbidding mass of Newgate prison where people thronged, waiting to pay a visit to their friends inside. ‘If my treatise on the governance of this city was accepted by the Regent, I’d have torches lit along every highway.’

He pointed to the scaffold where the corpses of four felons, hanged earlier in the day, were now being given a coat of tar and pitch. They would then be placed in iron gibbets before being taken out and hanged as a warning at the crossroads leading into London. The two executioners were whistling, happy in their work. Now and again flicking spots of tar at the orange-haired whores who clustered there, the hangmen were impervious to the misery of the dead men’s friends and relatives who patiently waited to see where their beloved ones would be gibbeted.

‘You were going to say, Sir John?’ Flaxwith asked.

‘I’d have all that removed,’ Cranston growled. ‘Come on!’

Dame Broadsheet’s establishment stood in a small, quiet alleyway: a three-storeyed mansion in its own grounds, the bottom floor was an alehouse with a bush strung up over the door. The upper storeys were what Dame Broadsheet called her ‘chapel of repose’, where clients could meet the sweetest professional doxies in London. Flaxwith tied Samson up outside and told him to be a good boy. The dog, his jaws full of offal he had picked up, whimpered back.

The taproom was quiet and very pleasant, the ceiling high, the rushes on the floor clean and supple. The tables were ringed with proper stools, not overturned kegs. Vats and beer barrels stood neatly at one end; hams and bags of onions hung from the rafters and baskets of flowers were placed on window ledges. By the sweet tang from the buttery, Cranston knew Dame Broadsheet’s French cook was busy. He smacked his lips, patted his stomach but kept within the shadows of the doorway, revelling in the sights and sounds. Flaxwith, behind him, kept his hand on his dagger. Dame Broadsheet’s establishment was well known as a retreat for the highwaymen and footpads of the city: Sir John would not be a welcome guest.

Cranston wondered whether to make a grand entrance or rush across and up the stairs at the far end. He decided on the latter. He stared around the taproom. He recognised many of the faces: scrimpers, foists, counterfeit men, cunning women, professional beggars, hardened bully-boys as well as some young men out for an evening, intent on carousing until cockcrow. All around them were the ladies of the town, not the common whores or strumpets, but, as Dame Broadsheet proclaimed, ‘ladies of refinement who knew how to please a gentleman’. The coroner had decided to make a dash for the stairs when a voice abruptly sang out.

‘Oh hell’s jakes, it’s Cranston!’

The young boys playing the rebec, flute and tambour abruptly stopped their soft music. The chatter died. Cranston swaggered into the centre of the room. He pulled off his beaver hat and gave the most mocking bow.

‘Lovely lads and lasses. Good evening. Jack Cranston presents his compliments.’

‘Oh piss off!’ A voice shouted.

Cranston didn’t even bother to look round. ‘It’s Ned, isn’t it? Ned the Limner? I’d keep a tidy tongue in your head, otherwise tomorrow, Ned my lad, I’ll be issuing warrants for your arrest. Charges of contumacy against a King’s officer. Now, now, now!’ Cranston spread his legs and tucked his thumbs into his broad sword belt. ‘Don’t be cruel to old Jack. I’ve got Henry Flaxwith here and a dozen more of his burly boys outside. Not to mention Samson the dog. You know Samson, don’t you? He likes nothing more than to gnaw on a nice juicy ankle.’

‘There’s no need for talk like that, Sir John.’

A lady came down the stairs, her blonde hair coifed under a silver-edged linen veil. Her gown was of dark burgundy, a gold chain round her slender waist. She moved slowly, languorously, head held high like a young noble-woman rather than mistress of a house of ill repute. The skin of her face was smooth, almost golden, the eyes big and smiling. It was the mouth that gave her away: sharp, thin lips, slightly sneering.

Cranston bowed again. ‘Mistress Broadsheet, how pleasant it is to see you.’

‘I’d love to return the compliment, Sir John.’

Cranston noticed her voice suddenly rose. She seemed reluctant to come any further down the stairs but stood holding on to the rail.

Sir John stiffened. ‘So, I’m welcome here?’ he asked curiously.

‘Of course you are, Sir John Cranston. You are coroner of the city. My house is your house…’

That was enough for Cranston. He reached the foot of the stairs in two bounds, brushed by her and reached the top. He heard the sounds of muffled footsteps above him. Despite his weight and tiredness, Sir John went up the next flight as nimble as a monkey, so quick he almost crashed into the man standing there; he held a small arbalest, the winch pulled back, the barbed bolt pointed directly at Sir John’s chest. Cranston paused and stared at the smiling face of the young man. He reminded the coroner of Athelstan: gentle eyes and olive skin under a mop of dark, glossy hair.

‘Well I never, the Vicar of Hell!’ Cranston studied the young man from head to toe, dressed as usual in black leather. Behind him, a young woman, a sheet wrapped round her, peered anxiously at the coroner. ‘Go back to your room, sweet one!’ Cranston called, feeling for his dagger.

‘Now, now, Sir John.’ The young man edged a bit closer. ‘You are not to do anything stupid.’

‘I want you,’ Cranston growled.

‘Wanting and having are two different things, Sir John.’

The Vicar of Hell lifted his arbalest. Sir John flinched but, instead of loosing the quarrel, the Vicar of Hell abruptly pushed Cranston, sending him tumbling back down the stairs.