‘Did that cup of wine leave your care?’ Athelstan asked.
‘Never, I took the cup from the shelf, I rinsed it out with clean water, dried it with a napkin, put it on a tray and brought it up. I placed the tray on the table, talked to Sir Stephen about his boots and left. I heard him draw the bolts and turn the key behind me.’
He paused as Cranston gave a loud snore. The coroner’s head was going down. Athelstan quietly prayed that Sir John was not going into one of his deep slumbers. One of the knights laughed quietly.
‘Did anyone come into this chamber?’ Athelstan asked. ‘After Master Rolles had left?’
Sir Maurice and the rest shook their heads.
‘We wouldn’t,’ one of them declared. ‘If Sir Stephen was having his bath, he was most particular about his comforts.’
‘So, here we have Sir Stephen,’ Athelstan summarised, ‘alone in his chamber. When the cup and wine are left here there is no trace of poison in them. So someone must have come into this room and, whilst Sir Stephen was distracted, poured poison into that goblet. There’s no secret passageway, no one could come through the window and we have no reason to believe that Sir Stephen would take his own life. Now the claret was rich, it has a strong smell.’
‘A fragrance all of its own,’ Cranston abruptly declared, shaking himself and blinking.
‘Sir Stephen also has the rheums,’ Athelstan added, ‘mucus in his nose, so his sense of smell would not be so sharp. He climbs into the tub, drinks the wine and dies.’
‘He must have opened the door again,’ Cranston interposed.
‘Of course.’ Athelstan smiled. ‘Master Rolles, the boots weren’t placed outside when you left?’
The taverner shook his head.
‘So, it must have happened afterwards. There are two chambers, one on either side,’ Athelstan continued. ‘Who occupies them?’
‘One is a storeroom,’ Rolles replied. ‘Sir Maurice occupies the other.’
Athelstan sat staring down at the floor. He could only accept what the taverner had said; Rolles had no obvious grievance or grudge against Sir Stephen, and if he was involved in the poisoning, he certainly would have not brought up the wine himself. He asked Rolles again about the cup and jug never leaving his care. The taverner was adamant. Athelstan was convinced of his innocence, especially as Rolles made no attempt to pass the blame on to anyone else.
‘Was Sir Stephen in good humour? Was he anxious about anything?’
Athelstan’s questions only provoked a chorus of denials.
‘I must search the chamber,’ Athelstan declared. He was surprised by the reaction his statement provoked.
‘Sir Stephen is a lord,’ Sir Thomas Davenport shouted, ‘not a common criminal; his goods are not being distrained.’
‘I must search this chamber,’ Athelstan insisted.
Cranston rose to his feet and was glaring at the knights, challenging them to question his authority. In a moment of taut silence, Athelstan walked across to the coffer with the three locks.
‘What is this for?’
‘Private papers,’ Sir Maurice spluttered. ‘Keepsakes. Brother Athelstan, is this necessary?’
Athelstan patted the wallet which swung at the end of the cord around his waist.
‘Sir Maurice, I have found the keys. I wish you to leave now.’ He smiled thinly. ‘I have kept you long enough from your midday meal. Sir John and I still have business here.’ Athelstan paused. ‘Now, as for this casket, Master Rolles, have two of your men deliver it into the sanctuary of St Erconwald’s Church.’
‘Will it be safe there?’ Sir Maurice demanded.
‘I have the keys,’ Athelstan answered, ‘and not even my parishioners will steal something I place in the sanctuary.’
Sir Maurice and the other knights left, Cranston shouting out that he would not join them at table.
‘What do you think?’ the coroner asked once they were alone.
‘I don’t think anything, Sir John, except that I must search this chamber.’
They went through the dead knight’s possessions, which were stored in the great chest at the foot of the bed, as well as the aumbry built in the far corner, but found nothing remarkable except finely cut clothes, jerkins, hose, boots of cordovan leather, spurs, a sword and two daggers in decorated scabbards attached to an embroidered war belt. Beneath the table, beside the bed, Athelstan found a psalter and leafed through it. The parchment pages were of the finest quality. Athelstan was intrigued that the psalter book was not regularly used except for one page, where Chandler had copied the words of a prayer. This page was well thumbed, the parchment black and shiny due to constant use. Athelstan read the first line aloud.
‘Have pity on me as you had pity on the possessed whom you saved from the power of the Devil.’
He glanced up. ‘I wonder what sin weighed so heavily on Sir Stephen’s soul that he had to recite this prayer time and time again?’ A question he posed to himself as much as Sir John Cranston.
Chapter 4
Cranston and Athelstan left the tavern. The coroner went into a scrivener’s to peer at an hour candle and came out loudly declaring for all to hear how it was past two in the afternoon and he was very hungry. Athelstan wanted to go back to his parish, but Cranston plucked at his sleeve claiming it was time to meet Mother Veritable, the Whore-Queen of Southwark. They made their way through needle-thin, filthy streets under the jutting storeys of houses which leaned so far out they blocked the sky and seemed about to crash into each other. Athelstan kept a wary eye on the windows as well as the creaking shop signs hung so low they were as dangerous as any axe or club. The streets were busy, packed with thronging crowds; they also reeked of sulphur as the scavengers were out, clearing the lay stalls, the Corporation’s refuse tips. The stench of the rubbish, which included the rotting corpses of animals, was so offensive Cranston bought two pomanders from a passing tinker. They held
