for custom. The taverns and cook shops were open, the smell of dark ale, fresh bread and spiced food enticing the customers inside. Cranston stopped and Athelstan groaned softly.
'Oh, Sir John,' he pleaded, 'surely not refreshments so early in the day? You know what will happen. Once inside, it will take the devil himself to get you out!'
Athelstan sighed with relief as the coroner shook his head regretfully and they moved on. A party of sheriffs men appeared, dressed in their bands of office, carrying long white canes which they used to clear a way through the crowds. They circled a man in a black leather jerkin and hose. His hands were bound, the ends of the cord being tied around the wrists of two of his captors. The prisoner's jerkin was torn aside to reveal a tattered shirt. His unshaven face was a mass of bruises from brow to chin. Someone whispered, 'Warlock! Wizard!' An apprentice picked up handfuls of mud and threw them, only to receive whacks across his shoulders from the white canes.
'Make way! Make way!'
Cranston and Athelstan walked on, past the stocks already full with miscreants: a pedlar; a manservant caught in lechery; a foister; and two other pickpockets. At last they turned off the Holborn thoroughfare into Castle Yard. A pleasant place, the houses being fewer, better spaced, each ringed by sweet-smelling rose gardens and tree-filled orchards. Fortescue's house was the grandest, standing in its own grounds, a massive framework of black timber, thick and broad as oaks, gilded and embossed with intricate devices. Between the black beams the white plaster gleamed like pure snow. Each of the four storeys jutted out slightly over the one on which it rested and each had windows of mullioned glass, reinforced with strips of lead. Cranston lifted the great brass knocker shaped in the form of a knight's gauntlet and brought it down hard. A servant answered and, when Cranston boomed out who they were, ushered them through the open door into a dark panelled hall with woollen carpets on the floor and gold-tinged drapes on the wall.
Athelstan noticed how cool the place was as they were led up an oak staircase and into a long gallery, so dark the wax candles in their silver holders had already been lit.
The servant tapped on one of the doors.
'Come in!' The voice was soft and cultured.
The chamber inside was rectangular in shape, walls painted red with silver stars and the polished tile floor covered with rugs; candles also glowed here because the light was poor and the mullioned window high above the desk was small. The candles bathed the area round the great oak desk in a pool of light. Chief Justice Fortescue, enthroned behind it, barely moved as they entered. One beringed hand continued silently to drum the top of the desk while the other shuffled documents about. Like all his kind, Fortescue was a tall, severe man, completely bald, with features as sharp as a knife and eyes as hard as flint. He greeted Sir John Cranston with forced warmth but, when Athelstan introduced himself and described his office, the Chief Justice smiled chillingly, dismissing him with a flicker of his eyes.
'Most uncommon,' he murmured, 'for a friar to be out of his order even, and serving in such a lowly office!'
Cranston snorted rudely and would have intervened if Athelstan had not.
'Chief Justice Fortescue,' he answered, 'my business is my own. You summoned me here, I requested no audience.'
Cranston belched loudly in agreement.
'True! True!' Fortescue murmured. 'But this meeting was arranged by someone more powerful than I.' He smiled mirthlessly and picked up a knife he used for cutting parchment, balancing it delicately between his hands. 'We live in strange times, Brother. The old king is dead and for the first time in fifty years we have a new king, and he a child. These are dangerous times. Enemies within and enemies without!' He lowered his voice. 'Some people say that a strong man is needed to manage the realm.'
'Like your patron, His Grace John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster?' Cranston interrupted.
'Like His Grace the Duke of Lancaster,' Fortescue mimicked in reply. 'He is the regent, proclaimed so by the late king's will.'
'Regent!' Cranston snapped. 'Not king!'
'Some people say he should be.'
'Then some people,' Cranston barked, 'are varlets and traitors!'
Fortescue smiled as if he had tried to go down a path and realised it was blocked.
'Of course, of course, Sir John,' he murmured. 'We know each other well. But Gaunt is regent, he needs friends and allies. Other lords seek his head; the Commons mutter about conspiracies, expenditure, the need to make peace with France and Spain. They object to taxes which are necessary.'
'The Commons may be right,' Cranston tartly replied.
'About others,' Fortescue continued,*they may be, but the regent is steadfast in his loyalty to the young king and looks for support from his friends and allies. Men like Springall, Sir Thomas Springall, goldsmith, merchant, and alderman of the city.'
'Springall is dead,' Cranston retorted, 'and so the duke has lost a powerful friend.'
'Exactly!'
Athelstan saw the obsidian eyes of the Chief Justice glare at the coroner and intervened before further damage was done. Sir John was a lawyer from the Middle Temple and appointed as coroner by the late king, an appointment confirmed by the Commons and the powerful Guildhall merchants, yet even he could go too far.
'My Lord of Gaunt must grieve for Springall's death?' Athelstan asked.
'He does.'
Fortescue rose and went to a small table in the corner where stood a number of cups. He filled them to the brim and brought them back. Athelstan refused his, it was too early in the morning for such drink, but Cranston did justice to both of them, draining one goblet then the other down his cavernous throat in a long, gulping sound. After he had finished, Cranston slammed the cups on the table in front of him, folded his great thick arms and looked steadily back at the Chief Justice.
'Sir Thomas Springall,' Fortescue continued, 'was a good friend of the duke's. A close associate. Last night he held a banquet in his house in the Strand. I was there, together with his wife, his brother Sir Richard, and other colleagues. I left after sunset when the bells of St Mary Le Bow were ringing the curfew. A pleasant evening – the conversation, like the food, most appetising and titillating. From what Sir Richard Springall has told me, Sir Thomas retired just before midnight. Although married, he slept in his own bed chamber. He bade his wife, brother and associates good night and went upstairs to his chamber where, as always, he locked and bolted the door. Now Sir Thomas was a fleshly man. Like you, Sir John, he liked a good glass of claret. Every night he ordered his servant, Brampton, to leave one such cup on the table beside his bed. This morning, Springall's chaplain, Father Crispin, went to rouse him and received no answer. Others were called and, to cut a long story short, the door was forced. Sir Thomas Springall was found lying dead in his bed, the cup beside him half empty. The local physician was summoned. He examined the corpse as v/ell as the contents of the wine cup and pronounced Sir Thomas had been poisoned. A search was immediately made.' Fortescue paused and licked his thin lips. 'Brampton's chamber was deserted but, when his chest was rifled, they found phials of poison hidden beneath garments at the bottom. Then an hour ago Brampton was found hanging in a garret of the house.' Fortescue heaved a sigh. 'It would appear that Brampton and Sir Thomas had quarrelled during the day and this reached a climax early in the afternoon. Brampton kept to himself in a sulk. He must have purchased the poison or had it ready, took the cup to his master's room, put the poison in and left. However, like Judas, he suffered remorse. He went up to the garret of the house and, like Judas, hanged himself there.'
'Strange,' Cranston mused, and pursed his lips.
'What is, Sir John?'
'We have a steward who has quarrelled with his master and stormed out. Nevertheless he remembers his duty and takes up a goblet of wine.'
'If the wine had not been poisoned,' Fortescue replied sharply, 'it would have been a kindness. But, Sir John, a man who offers a poisoned chalice is no friend.'
'So what is the mystery?'
Fortescue smiled thinly.
'Ah, that is for you to discover. My Lord Gaunt thinks there is one. Remember, Springall lent the crown monies. There may be reason to see the merchant's death as a hindrance to the regent.' Fortescue shrugged. 'His Grace has not opened his secret thoughts to me but he believes there is a threat to his rule here.'
The Chief Justice picked up a scroll tied with scarlet ribbon and handed it over to Cranston. Athelstan glimpsed
