cyst in her groin. To the urchin whose eyes are clean. To the labourer whose leg I set properly. And if I hang, what then, Brother? Who will give a damn? The poor will still die, and the physicians in Cheapside who milk their patients of both money and health will clap their hands to see me dance at the end of a rope.’
Athelstan sat down wearily on the stool.
‘I don’t want your death,’ he replied. ‘I want the dead in my cemetery to lie as God expects them to. I want you to go, doctor.’ Athelstan rose and dusted down his robe. ‘I am sorry I struck you.’ He stared at Vincentius. ‘But you must be gone from here. I don’t know where to, and don’t really care, but in a week I want you out of the city!’ Athelstan suddenly felt tired and weak, and realised he hadn’t eaten for some time. ‘I am sorry I struck you,’ he repeated, ‘but I was angry.’ He suddenly remembered Cranston was waiting for him and looked back at the doctor. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘you owe me one favour.’
Vincentius sat back in his chair. ‘What is that, Father?’
‘Well, two to be exact. First, you had a visitor here — Lady Maude Cranston. Why did she come?’
Vincentius grinned. ‘The Lady Maude, despite being in her thirtieth year, is now enceinte.’
Athelstan stared back in disbelief. ‘She’s with child!’
‘Yes, priest. About two months gone. Both she and the child are healthy but she is frightened of Sir John not believing her. She doesn’t want to disappoint him. I believe they lost a child some years ago?’
Athelstan nodded and the doctor enjoyed the look of stupefaction on the priest’s face.
‘She told me about Sir John. I advised her most carefully against the pleasures of the flesh. I believe her husband is a mountain of a man?’
‘Aye,’ Athelstan answered, still dumbstruck at what he had discovered. ‘Sir John is certainly that.’
‘And the second favour, Father?’
‘You served in Outremer?’
‘Yes, I did. For a time I practised in hospitals in both Tyre and Sidon.’
‘If you met someone there, how would you greet them?’
Now the physician looked surprised.
‘Shalom,’ he answered. ‘The usual Semitic phrase for “Peace be with you”.’
Athelstan lifted his hand. ‘Doctor Vincentius, I bid you farewell. I do not expect we will meet again.’
‘Priest?’
‘Yes, physician?’
‘Are you pleased that I am going because of what I have done, or pleased that I am leaving and will not see the widow Benedicta again? You love her, don’t you, priest? You, with your sharp accusations against others!’
‘No, I don’t love her!’ Athelstan snapped. But even as he closed the door behind him, he knew that, like St Peter, he was denying the truth.
Sir John Cranston, Coroner of the City, squatted bleary-eyed in a corner of the Holy Lamb tavern and stared self-pityingly across Cheapside. He had drunk a good quart of ale. Athelstan had not arrived so he’d decided to return home. He would deal with his wife like a man should, with abrupt accusations and sharp questions, but he wished the friar had come. He would have liked his advice on so many things.
Cranston leaned back against the wall and squinted across the tavern. The latest business at the Tower was dreadful. He had gone to see Fitzormonde’s badly mauled corpse: half the face had been torn away and the man’s body savaged almost beyond recognition. Cranston rubbed the side of his own face with his hand. At first Colebrooke had believed the death was an accident.
‘It was just after dusk,’ the lieutenant had informed him. ‘Fitzormonde, as was customary with him, had gone to watch the bear. One second everything was peaceful, the next Satan himself seemed to sweep out of hell. The bear broke loose and mauled the hapless hospitaller. I ordered archers down and the bear was killed.’ Colebrooke shrugged. ‘Sir John, we had no choice.’
‘Was it an accident?’ Cranston asked. ‘The bear breaking loose?’
‘At first we thought so, but when we examined the beast we found this in one of his hindquarters.’ The lieutenant handed Cranston a small bolt from the type of crossbow a lady would use for hunting.
‘Who was in the Tower at the time?’
‘Everyone,’ Colebrooke replied. ‘Myself, Mistress Philippa, Rastani, Sir Fulke, Hammond the chaplain — everyone except Master Geoffrey who had returned to his shop in the city.’
Cranston had thanked the lieutenant and gone over to the shabby, dank death-house near St Peter ad Vincula where Fitzormonde’s mangled remains lay, waiting to be sewn into their canvas shroud. The corpse was hideous, nothing more than a scarred, bloody pile of flesh. Cranston had left as quickly as he could, questioned those he found, and concluded that the crossbow bolt had been loosed by some secret archer: this had goaded the bear to fury and, snapping its chain, it had attacked Fitzormonde.
Cranston gazed one more time round the tavern, sighed and closed his eyes. Was there no way of resolving this problem? he thought. And where the bloody hell was Athelstan?
‘My Lord Coroner?’
Cranston opened his eyes. ‘Where have you been, monk? And why are you grinning?’
Athelstan smiled and called over to the taverner ‘Two cups of your best Bordeaux. And I mean your finest.’ He sat down, still beaming at Sir John. ‘My Lord Coroner, I have some news for you.’
CHAPTER 13
Sir John Cranston sat in the high-backed chair in his spacious, stone-flagged kitchen and stared lovingly at Lady Maude who was standing at the table filling jars with comfits. He couldn’t believe Athelstan’s news, not at first. The truth had only sunk in after three further goblets of Bordeaux and Athelstan’s repetition of what he had learnt from Doctor Vincentius. At last, Cranston thought, it all makes sense…
He stole a glance at his wife’s waist and realised Lady Maude’s voluminous skirts would conceal any thickening of the waist; even her nightgowns were quilted, and of course the thought of another child had never occurred to him. After Matthew’s death from plague so many years ago at the age of three, Cranston had given up all hope of an heir. He drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair. Lady Maude caught his glance and sniffed into a jar to hide her surprise at Sir John’s sudden change of mood. Should she tell him now? she wondered. Or wait, as she had planned, till Christmas Day?
Lady Maude had been stunned by the realisation her monthly courses had ceased and a friend had recommended Doctor Vincentius. The physician had confirmed her hopes and given her sound advice on what to eat and drink and to be gentle with herself. She had to refuse Sir John’s amorous embraces but could not tell him the reason. She had to be certain. Lady Maude bit her lip. There was another reason: once Sir John learnt the truth, she would know no peace. He would hang round her like a great shaggy guard dog, watch her every move and give her endless lectures about ‘being safe and keeping well’. Lady Maude lowered her face. The child, she silently prayed, must be healthy. She would never forget Sir John when Matthew died. He, who had the courage of a lion, just sat like a little boy, with not a sound, not a moan, nothing save those streams of silent tears.
Sir John’s thoughts followed a similar pattern; he had solemnly promised Athelstan not to broach the matter with his wife but wait for her to do so. He had also promised to allow Vincentius to leave London unscathed. However, Cranston narrowed his eyes, he would have to think again about that. Perhaps in the new year letters should be sent to every sheriff in England about Doctor Vincentius and his iniquitous activities in other people’s graveyards? The coroner stirred and looked across at Athelstan who was chatting merrily with Leif the beggar.
‘Brother, you will stay for some dinner?’
‘No, Sir John, I must go. Perhaps later?’
‘And the business at the Tower?’
Athelstan rose from his chair. ‘I don’t know, Sir John. Perhaps it is best if you eat and reflect on what we have already learnt. We’ll discuss it tomorrow, eh?’ He looked admiringly at the jars Lady Maude was filling. ‘You expect guests at Yuletide?’
‘I thought so, Father,’ she replied. ‘My relatives from Tiverton in Devon.’ Lady Maude threw a mock angry glance at Sir John’s snort of displeasure. ‘They were supposed to come but the roads are impassable, not even messengers can get through. I was talking to one of the aldermen’s wives. She said her husband’s trade had been
