Текст книги "Field of Blood"

Автор книги: Paul Harding

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'Brother?'

'Yes, Pike?'

'The Community of the Realm.' The ditcher shuffled his feet. 'They had nothing to do with these murders.'

Athelstan smiled. 'Yes, Pike, I can see that now.'

An hour later, a slightly breathless, sweat-soaked Athelstan walked into Mincham Lane. The day was a fine one, the autumn sun strong and warm. Athelstan, however, had barely noticed the weather as he hurried out of Southwark and across London Bridge. He realised he hadn't broken his fast and stopped for a quick stoup of ale and some fresh bread in a cookshop. Now he looked down the lane, quietly groaned then jumped as Sir John Cranston appeared like the Angel Gabriel out of the mouth of an alleyway, his bailiffs behind him.

'You look in good fettle, Sir John.'

Cranston wore a flat grey cap over his tousled white hair, a white linen shirt beneath a burgundy-coloured doublet. His broad war belt was strapped around his ponderous girth, fingers tapping the hilt.

'And you, Brother, look as if you've been dragged through a hedge backwards. What's all this excitement?'

Athelstan took him aside and whispered his news.

'Oh by Queen Mab's tits!' Sir John exclaimed. 'Oh, Satan's futtocks! What a little terrier you are, Athelstan.' He brought two hands down on the friar's shoulders. 'Just look at you. The face of a maid and the heart of a lawyer. Oh, come, come! Mistress Sholter awaits us!'

Cranston didn't stand on ceremony but brushed by the apprentices and into the suspect's house. Mistress Sholter was in the parlour, sitting at a counting table, a row of coins stacked before her. On the window seat behind, Hilda the maid was examining a broken strap one of the apprentices had brought in.

'Is Master Eccleshall here?' Sir John boomed. 'Of course not.'

Mistress Sholter rose in alarm. She was still dressed in widow's weeds, her face pale. Athelstan abruptly realised how deep her voice could be.

'Well, you can get out for a start!' Sir John pointed to the maid.

Athelstan heard a dog yapping; Flaxwith and Samson had joined them. Sir John went to the door.

'Henry, keep everybody out of here! Brother Athelstan and I wish words with Mistress Sholter.'

The coroner slammed the door behind him and drew the bolts. Mistress Sholter had retaken her seat.

'What is this?' Her eyes had a guarded look. 'Why do you come here like this? I am a widow, my husband is not yet buried.'

'You are a murderess.' Cranston eased himself down into a chair and leaned against the wooden panelling.

Athelstan sat on a high stool before the counting desk. He felt like a bird perched on a branch. The widow kept her poise but her nervousness was apparent. She kept shifting the stacks of coins.

'Tell her, Brother.'

'Last Saturday,' Athelstan began. 'You do remember last Saturday, Mistress Sholter?' 'Of course!'

'Your lover and accomplice Eccleshall brought horses from the royal stables.' 'My lover!'

'Yes, yes, quite. I'll come to that later. Anyway, your husband left, spurred, sword belt about him. He kissed you goodbye and mounted his horse. As he was riding down the street, or even before, he took out the St Christopher medal he always kept with him and hung it, like many travellers do, over the horn of his saddle.'

'Impossible!' Mistress Sholter spat out. 'He left it here. It's still upstairs.'

'No, mistress, your husband had two medals. A common enough habit with something precious. I shall tell you what happened. He and Eccleshall left Mincham Lane and rode down towards London Bridge. As is customary, because they are royal messengers, they had officially to notify the gatekeeper, Robert Burdon. He remembers your husband, and I have a testified statement that Burdon distinctly remembers the St Christopher medal hanging from your husband's saddle horn.'

'It may have been something else,' she intervened.

'I don't think so. The riders continued through Southwark and then, for God knows what reason, Eccleshall managed to persuade your husband to leave the road and climb a hill to a derelict house once owned by an old miser. The house is a gaunt, sprawling affair, allegedly haunted, so a rather lonely place. If Eccleshall noticed anyone he would probably have chosen a different location. As I said, God knows what excuse was used. Perhaps Eccleshall feigned illness, something wrong with his horse? Or just a curiosity to visit the old ruin? Once inside the house, however, Eccleshall continued with the plan he'd hatched with you. He killed your husband. The poor man would never dream that such an attack would be launched.' Athelstan paused. 'You know what happened then, mistress. They had taken their time crossing the bridge which would provide enough time for you to clear away the stall, dispense with your maid and hurry down through Petty Wales. You'd go disguised, cowled and hooded: one among many on a busy Saturday evening. Once on Southwark side you hastened along the lanes. I wonder if you arrived before they did?'

Mistress Sholter was now breathing quickly, leaning back in her chair.

'You took your husband's corpse and hid it in the cellar of that house. Your husband was clean-shaven, with long black hair. You would be the same height, mistress. You dressed in his clothes, boots, cloak, and wore his insignia. You and Eccleshall then travelled on to the Silken Thomas.'

'Someone would have noticed,' she interrupted.

'Oh, but they didn't. Eccleshall did all the talking. A room was quickly hired and up to the chamber you go. I am sure, mistress, where necessary, you could lower your voice, make it sound like a man's. Why should anyone think differently? Why should they suspect you weren't a man? You were a stranger at the Silken Thomas, cowled and cloaked. Most people are wary of royal messengers. Not like the Paradise Tree, eh?'

'The Paradise Tree!' she exclaimed.

'Yes, the tavern in Petty Wales where Miles and his so-called friend Eccleshall often went to drink. Strange, isn't it? The taverner there said your husband was known for his bully-boy ways, shouting his orders. At the Silken Thomas he was, apparently, quiet as a mouse.'

'And then there's the medal,' Sir John put in.

'Yes, I always had grave doubts about that,' Athelstan continued. 'Here is a man who leaves his house. He has a devotion to St Christopher. He didn't wear the medal round his neck but kept it in a pouch on his saddle and hung it over the saddle horn. Are you saying he forgot to do that for a long journey to Canterbury? That nothing jolted his memory, even when he stopped at St Thomas a Becket's chapel on London Bridge to pray for safe passage?' Athelstan noticed the beads of sweat running down the woman's face. 'It was a clumsy ploy,' he went on. 'But you had to explain how your husband was killed well away from Eccleshall's company'

'I … I …'

'Hush now, mistress. Let me finish.' Athelstan cleared his throat. 'You left the Silken Thomas pretending to be your husband riding back to collect his medal. But we know the truth, don't we? Your husband had two medals. You reached a lonely spot on the riverside opposite Botolph's Wharf when darkness was falling. You put on the great cloak you probably carried in a bag. You unstrap the saddle and harness, wade into the weeds and throw it into the river. The mud is deep, the water fast flowing. In days it might be swept away or begin to rot. You then clamber back on the bank. The horse you leave grazing; it won't stay free for long, someone will take it. In the gathering dusk you hire a barge across to Petty Wales and return by stealth to your house where, once again, you assume your proper attire. You dispose of any incriminating evidence and prepare to act the role of the grieving widow.' Athelstan paused. 'You made one real mistake: in your haste you forgot to remove that St Christopher medal. If you had, any talk of your husband having two could be easily dismissed.'

'Meanwhile,' Sir John took up the story, 'your accomplice sleeps on at the Silken Thomas. He has proven witnesses who will swear he never left the tavern. On Sunday he acts the distraught friend, riding hither and thither. Of course, he was waiting for nightfall.' Sir John took a swig of wine. 'Only the good Lord knows what you truly intended. Set fire to the old ruin where your husband's corpse was hidden? Or take it out, under the cover of darkness, and bury it in some desolate spot never to be discovered?' He pulled a face. 'What do you care? No one will ever know the truth and the blame will be laid at the door of robbers or rebels.'

Cranston took another swig and offered Athelstan the wineskin but the friar shook his head. He did not like the look on Mistress Sholter's face: arrogant, slightly mocking.

'You didn't really care, did you,' the friar demanded, 'who took the blame? My innocent parishioners would have to pay. You and your friend would play the roles you assumed. Time would pass, memory would dim. Tell me, when did you first plot it? Days, weeks, months ago? For what? So you could lie in adulterous passion and play the two-backed beast?'

Mistress Sholter moved some of the stacks of coins.

'What a farrago of nonsense!' she snapped. 'How can you prove that I left Petty Wales and journeyed to the Silken Thomas disguised as my husband?

True, he had two medals. Maybe he had forgotten that? Perhaps he was riding back for something else? Did he have a mistress in the city? Anyway, he's ambushed on a lonely road. The saddle bears the royal insignia so it's thrown in the river and the horse is taken and sold elsewhere.' She paused. 'I really don't know what you are talking about!' She preened herself.

'You know full well!' Athelstan insisted. 'You were party to your husband's murder; Eccleshall killed those other two because their arrival hindered his plans. One corpse is easy to hide or burn. But three? Did he panic? Did he flee? I am sure Mistress Sholter that, if you had been present, those corpses would never have been discovered.'

'I don't know what you are talking about,' she repeated.

Sir John sprang to his feet as he heard raised voices outside and, before Athelstan could stop him, he grabbed the St Christopher medal from his hands and walked out of the door. Eccleshall was standing by the stall held back by Flaxwith. Sir John strode up to him, slamming the front door shut. He held up the St Christopher medal.

'Pinion his arms!' he ordered.

The bailiffs grabbed the royal messenger and, before he could protest, took cords from their belts and bound his wrists.

'What is this?' Eccleshall spluttered.

Cranston pushed him along past the stalls and down a narrow alleyway. The coroner quietly prayed that Athelstan would keep Mistress Sholter busy. He grasped Eccleshall by the chin and held up the medal.

'She's confessed all, you know. How she met you at the old miser's house, stripped Miles' body and then journeyed in disguise with you to the Silken Thomas.'

Eccleshall blinked and wetted his lips. 'Our little songbird wishes to save her neck, doesn't she, lads?'

The bemused bailiffs nodded.

'She's told us how she rode down to the Thames and threw the saddle into the river then cast the horse loose. How she used Miles' second medal to distract the maid: a pretext for his supposed journey from the Silken Thomas. How you waited until Sunday evening to dispose of the corpse but then had to kill those two others who surprised you. She has turned King's evidence in return for a pardon.'

'The bitch!' Spit bubbled on Eccleshall's lips. He lunged to the mouth of the alleyway but the bailiffs held him fast. 'She's as guilty as me! She may be cold as ice now but she's a whore in bed!'

'Are you saying that she's your accomplice?'

'More than that! She plotted it from the start.'

'And those two other corpses?'

Eccleshall sagged against his captors. 'I had no choice,' he mumbled. 'I heard them coming. I loaded the arbalest I carried. The man died immediately. The young whore was going to scream.'

'Thank you very much.' Sir John gestured with his head. 'Take him to Newgate! Keep him well away from his accomplice!'

Mistress Sholter's face, when Sir John confronted her, twisted into a grimace of hatred. She cast the coins about and would have run to the door but he seized her by the wrist, twisting her round and throwing her against the wall.

'You'll both hang,' he said quietly, 'for the deaths of three innocents.' He opened the door and gestured Athelstan out. 'Take one last look around your house, Mistress Sholter: it's Newgate for you.'

After Sir John left instructions with the bailiffs, he and Athelstan walked up Mincham Lane.

'You did very well, Brother. Very well indeed.'

'And that was quick of you, Sir John. If they had met, Mistress Sholter's guilt would have been hard to prove.' The friar nudged the coroner playfully in the ribs. 'So it's true what they say about you, Jack? Swift as a greyhound, more tenacious than a swooping hawk!'

Sir John stood in the middle of the street and took a quick gulp from his wineskin.

'You think I'm swift now, Brother. Let me tell you about the time before Poitiers. We were going along a country lane …'

Athelstan closed his eyes. He'd heard this story at least six times and jumped when he heard his name being shrieked.

'Brother Athelstan! Brother Athelstan!'

Crim the altar boy came speeding from an alleyway, his face covered in the remains of a meat pie, black hair sticking up. He stopped before the friar, grasping his robe.

'Brother!' he gasped. 'Brother, I've …!'

Athelstan patted him gently on the shoulder.

'Come over here.'

He led the little altar boy between two stalls and made him sit on a makeshift bench outside an alehouse.

'Has the church burned down?' Athelstan asked.

Crim shook his head.

'Are Watkin and Pike at daggers drawn?'

Again the shake of the head.

'It's Mistress Benedicta,' Crim gasped.

Athelstan went cold. 'What's happened to her?'

'Come on, lad!' Sir John sat beside the boy. He opened his wallet and took out a piece of marchpane. 'One of my poppets put that in my purse this morning. They don't like to think of Daddy being hungry. I only found it after I had left. Now, tell us what's happened.'

Athelstan found it difficult to breathe.

'Benedicta,' Crim gasped. 'Benedicta, grim …'

'I beg your pardon?'

'Benedicta, grim … No, grimoire!'

Athelstan recalled the book he had given to Benedicta.

'She's in our house, Brother. She's all excited. She says you've got to come now.' 'Well, in which case, we'll go.'

Together they strode down Eastchepe, fought their way through the fish stalls at Billingsgate and hired a barge, Sir John offering the rowers an extra penny. The wherrymen needed no further bidding but pulled at their oars. Crim, his mouth now full of marchpane, sat wedged between the coroner and Athelstan, who had to give up in despair at questioning him further.

The wherry turned midstream, gathering speed as it headed towards the arches under London Bridge.

Crim sat wide-eyed, looking up at the poles jutting out, bearing the severed heads of traitors and riVer pirates. They entered the shadows of the bridge, the wherrymen pulling their oars in as the river gathered speed, carrying them by its own force under the arch and out to the other side.

A short while later they reached the Southwark quayside and clambered out. Sir John strode along the lanes, shoving people aside, Athelstan and Crim bustling behind him. Athelstan expected to find the yard in front of St Erconwald's busy and thronging but it was deserted. Only Bonaventure slept like some lazy sentry on the top step of the church.

'She's in the house,' Crim explained. 'She said she hadn't told anyone. She wanted to show you first.'

'Jack, you needn't have come!' Athelstan said.

'Brother, if you find it exciting, so do I, Anyway, I like to see Benedicta.'

The widow woman opened the door and gave a gasp of surprise as Sir John embraced her, kissing her loudly on the cheeks.

'You are a lovely woman, Benedicta, and what's all this clamour about?'

Benedicta was certainly excited. She had taken her veil off, her raven-black hair tumbling down to her shoulders. She skipped away from Sir John, clapped her hands and pointed to the parchment littering Athelstan's table.

'It's the grimoire,' she explained, taking a seat at the top. 'Now, when William Fitzwolfe, the former priest, had this bound he used parts of the old blood book and different parish records to stiffen the binding.'

Athelstan sat down at the table. Benedicta had undone the red binding which held the grimoire together, loosened the pages and pulled these apart.

'It was when I looked at the cover I noticed how thick it was.'

Athelstan picked it up. It was nothing more than a strip of leather laid out flat and strongly reinforced with a thick wadge of parchment glued together at the edges and then placed against the leather to strengthen it. He leafed through the pages. He saw entries: 'Fulke, son of Thurston the labourer and Hawisia his wife …' Athelstan smiled: that was Watkin's father. Page after page was filled with these faded, scrawled ink entries made by successive priests over the years.

'Now, look at this!' Benedicta took the pages from him and pointed to one entry already marked with a piece of ash from the fireplace. 'If you check again, Brother, you will find that these two women are the great-grandmothers, respectively, of Joscelyn the tavern-keeper and Basil the blacksmith. They were apparently married on the same day.'

Athelstan read the entry on Agnes Fitz-Joscelyn and Ann, daughter of William the warrener.

'They definitely had different fathers,' Athelstan said. 'But they are described as "sorores",sisters, in the marriage entry.'

'Ah yes.'

Benedicta took the parchment from him. She leafed through and showed another entry. This time the page had a title, written neatly by a learned clerk: 'The Confraternity of St Erconwald'. The first column listed 'brothers of the Confraternity', the second a similar list of 'sisters'. Agnes Fitz-Joscelyn and Ann, daughter of William the warrener, were grouped together as 'sisters'.

Sir John, who had been looking over his shoulder, chuckled.

'You've told me about this problem, Brother.' He tapped the parchment. 'And there's your answer. In my treatise "On the Governance of this City", I have come across many such confraternities. At one time they were very strong in different parishes. The Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament, the Confraternity of the Angels, the Confraternity of St Luke.'

Athelstan gazed wistfully at the piece of parchment.

'It's a very good idea,' he said. 'And there must have been one here: the Confraternity of St Erconwald's. What I suspect happened is this. Agnes and Ann were bosom friends: that's apparent from the fact that they married on the same day. They were also members, perhaps leading ones, of the parish confraternity. They called each other sister. When the blood book disappeared there was no explanation for why they did this. The Venerable Veronica was speaking the truth. These two women lived and died many years ago. All Veronica could remember is that they called each other sister, hence the mistake.'

'Benedicta!'

The widow woman backed away from Sir John who came, arms stretched out, towards her.

'You should have been a coroner. I mean, after all, you can't be a friar.'

'Benedicta,' Athelstan echoed. 'Your sharp eyes and keen wit have made two young lovers very, very happy'

'Will that mean there's going to be more feasting?' Crim spoke up from where he stood just within the doorway.

'Oh, yes,' Athelstan replied. 'Feasting and dancing, Crim. Now, haste away. Don't tell them what we've found but bring Eleanor and Oswald here!'

Chapter 12

Alice Brokestreet was unaware that she was only minutes away from the death she thought she had so cleverly cheated. She sat in her cell of the gatehouse at Newgate and contemplated the table bearing a pewter jug, cup and a trauncher covered with a linen cloth: gifts, the gaoler had said, from a benefactor. Deciding these could wait, she got up and went to the window to look down into the yard. Fowls and pigs roamed freely about; fierce-looking dogs preyed on the garbage heaps, competing with marauding crows. These scattered as huge vats of water, used for washing, were emptied out to cleanse the yard.

Alice was about to turn away when she noticed two bailiffs drag a cunning man out from the dungeons on the far side. The man was to be branded as a forger, the letter 'F' burned into his cheek. The executioners trailed out after him, their branding-irons already red-hot. One of the bailiffs hastily read out how 'Richard Bracklett, forger, perjurer, had sold false relics, including a piece of Elijah's mantle, two legs of one of the Holy Innocents, a skull of one of the Eleven Thousand Virgins from Cologne.'

'Yet,' the bailiff bawled across the yard, 'the said Richard knew that these were nothing but items of rubbish and the certificates he bore were forged.'

Alice turned away as the executioner advanced on the pinioned man, closing her ears to the terrible screams which rang up from the yard. She sat down on the bed. She was nervous. Tomorrow morning she would be taken into court and the case against Kathryn Vestler would be presented.

'All I have to do,' she murmured, 'is tell the truth.' She smiled to herself. 'Well, as I see it!'

She would repeat her story. How Kathryn Vestler, full of frustrated passion, poisoned the clerk Bartholomew Menster and the tavern wench, Margot Haden, and forced her, Alice, to help her bury them out in Black Meadow.

She breathed in. She felt safe with Master Whittock, that hawk-eyed man with his searching eyes and harsh, guttural voice. He had learned a surprising amount about the Paradise Tree and its owner: stories of hidden treasure, of visitors at night. Time and again he'd refer to other evidence. Time and again he would make her repeat her story. Alice chewed her lip. She had been promised a pardon but was there something else? Whittock had been deeply interested in the stories about the hidden treasure of Gundulf. She had seen Whittock wet his lips and noticed the gleam in his eyes. If Mistress Vestler hanged, she wondered, would the serjeant-at-law buy the tavern and continue the search?

Alice felt her stomach rumble. She went and took the linen cloth from the trauncher revealing a pastry. Then she removed the piece of parchment over the jug and filled the tin cup. Taking that and the pastry, she sat on a stool and began to eat. She also drank rather quickly so the poison in the wine soon made its presence felt with searing pains in her belly which ran up into her chest, sealing off her throat. Alice dropped the cup, spilling the dregs out on to her gown. She staggered towards the door but the pain was dagger-sharp, she couldn't breathe and collapsed on the floor. She stretched out her hand, opened her mouth to scream but no sound came. All she could think of, strangely enough, was Black Meadow, that great oak tree and those graves beneath it.

In St Erconwald's the celebrations were well under way. Athelstan had informed the happy couple that he could now see no impediment to their marriage: at Mass, the following Sunday, he would proclaim their forthcoming nuptials for all to hear. Eleanor and Oswald fairly danced with joy and the news had quickly spread. The Piebald tavern was closed. Basil the blacksmith did the same with his forge. Watkin and Pike, only too eager to hurry from their work, also spread the good news and the parishioners thronged in front of the church steps. Athelstan, Sir John smiling beatifically beside him, announced that they would not pay the fine. The assassins responsible for the murder of Miles Sholter had been unmasked and were now already lodged in the King's prison of Newgate.

'We'll have a celebration!' Pike shouted.

'The parish council will have a celebration!' Watkin declared, eager to exercise his authority. He glared spitefully at Pike's sour-faced wife who kept in the shadows, muttering that she was glad 'the difficulty had been resolved'.

Tables were set up, benches brought out from the church; Watkin brought his bagpipes; Ranulf the ratcatcher his lute; Manger the hangman his tambours. Merry Legs provided pies and pastries which, he proclaimed, were only two days old. Other offerings were made and Joscelyn was cheered to the heavens when he rolled barrels of ale and beer along from the Piebald. Athelstan promised that some of the expense would be met from the parish coffers.

Sir John, of course, was determined to stay. He drank two blackjacks of ale and, when challenged by Watkin and Pike, drank another faster than they. Afterwards he danced a jig with Ursula the pig woman and Pernell the Fleming: even Crim declared him light on his feet and nimble as a juggler.

Athelstan sat on the steps and watched it all. He drank his stoup of ale a little too fast and felt rather tired. Eventually he and Sir Jack left the parishioners and retired to the priest's house where the coroner threw his beaver hat and cloak into a corner, took off his doublet and sat on a bench opposite Athelstan, mopping his face.

'I sometimes curse your parishioners, Athelstan, yet they are a merry lot: it's so good to dance! Did I tell you I was at Windsor when the Countess of Salisbury lost her garter?'

'Tomorrow, Sir John, another lady will lose more than her garter!'

Sir John sobered up. 'Aye, Athelstan. What we've learned is bad enough but only the good Lord knows how much Master Whittock has unearthed. I hope Hengan's wits are sharp and keen for he is going to need all his power to defend Mistress Vestler.'

'Let us say,' Athelstan ventured, 'for sake of argument, that Mistress Brokestreet is a liar.'

'Which she is.'

'Then how, my dear coroner, did she know about those two corpses? That's the nub of the case. The murder of two innocents is not something you proclaim for all the world to hear.'

'So?'

'There are a number of possibilities, Sir Jack. Firstly, Kathryn Vestler told her about the corpses, but that's hardly likely. Secondly, somehow or other, Alice Brokestreet found out about the murders and kept the secret to herself.'

'In which case,' Sir John mused, 'we must ask why the assassin should tell her?'

'And that's my third point, Sir Jack. If Alice Brokestreet is lying and Mistress Vestler is innocent, someone else murdered Bartholomew and Margot. He, or she, then gave the secret to Brokestreet so she could escape execution by approving Mistress Vestler.'

'So Brokestreet will know the identity of the assassin?'

'Not necessarily, Sir John. She could have been informed by letter, or by a mysterious visitor to Newgate or even before she committed her own murder. Brokestreet is not the problem. She is only the cat's-paw. She was informed by the assassin who,

I suspect, will take care of Mistress Brokestreet in his own way and at his own time. Now Vestler is a widow. If she's found guilty of a felony and hanged, the Crown will seize the Paradise Tree and sell it to the highest bidder.'

'The real assassin could be the one who buys it in order to search for Gundulf's treasure.'

Sir John whistled under his breath.

'That's going to be hard to prove, little friar. The Paradise Tree is a profitable, spacious tavern; there will be many bids for it.'

'Yes, I know,' Athelstan sighed. 'So I suppose my conclusion is weak. However, it will not go well for us tomorrow. The profits of the Paradise Tree will have to be explained; as will those mysterious visitors at night and, above all, two corpses in Black Meadow. You went to Bapaume the goldsmith?'

Sir John nodded. 'He told me that Bartholomew Menster had intimated he was drawing all his gold and silver out to buy something but he didn't say what!' He tapped Athelstan on the back of the hand. 'But you did well, Brother. At least Mistress Vestler is cleared of the deaths of those other skeletons. I just hope Chief Justice Brabazon accepts your plea that Black Meadow was a cemetery during the great pestilence.'

He started at a knock on the door.

'Come in!' Athelstan shouted.

Joscelyn, the one-armed tavern-keeper, staggered in, his face wreathed in smiles. Under his arm he carried a small tun of wine which he lowered on to the table.

'Sir Jack,' he slurred. 'This is the best cask of Bordeaux claret, held in the cellars of the Piebald for such an occasion. It's only right that you and Brother Athelstan are the first to broach it.'

Cranston scooped it up like a mother would a favourite child. He examined the markings on the side, drew his dagger and began to cut at the twine which held the lid securely on. Then he paused, put the dagger down and held the cask up, inspecting it carefully.

Joscelyn's smile faded. 'What's the matter, Sir John?'

'You know full well, sir. I am the King's officer.'

Joscelyn licked his lips nervously and lowered himself on to a stool at the far end of the table.

'Sir Jack?' Athelstan asked. 'Is there a problem?'

'Yes there is, Brother.' Sir John tapped the top of the cask. 'This is rich claret brought from Bordeaux.' He pointed out the markings on the side. 'This tells you the year and the vineyard. But, Joscelyn,' he added sweetly, 'would you like to tell your priest what is wrong?'

'Why should I, my lord coroner? You are the King's officer.'

'The good tavern-master here,' Sir John said, 'has very generously brought a cask of wine to broach but one thing's missing: all wine from Bordeaux brought into this realm must pay duty. Each cask is marked with a brand saying it has come through customs. It is then sealed showing the port of entry. Such marks are very hard to forge.'

'Oh, Joscelyn, no!' Athelstan groaned. 'You haven't been involved in smuggling along the river?'

'Sir John, Brother, I brought it as a gift. Such casks are common among the victuallers and tavern-masters of London.'

'True.' Sir John smacked his lips. 'I am only here to celebrate and I am not a customs official.'

'Joscelyn, you should be careful,' Athelstan warned. A memory stirred. 'Where did you buy it from? Come on, Joscelyn. If you were involved in smuggling, my precious parish council would be involved up to their necks: Moleskin, Watkin and Pike. Are they? I don't want to see them dance on the end of a rope.'