do not wish you to be a traitor, to the Crown or to this so-called Great Community or to yourself.’
‘What is it you want?’ Cranston quietly asked.
‘Nothing much,’ Gaunt murmured. ‘Ira Dei has communicated with Brother Athelstan. Let our faithful loyal friar write back. Who knows? This mysterious traitor may reveal his hand.’ Gaunt smiled. He sat down and spread his hands. ‘I am sure this traitor is no fool and Brother Athelstan would never be trusted. But, as the old proverb puts it, Sir John: “If you shake the apple tree, it’s wonderful what might fall out”.’
Athelstan remained tight-lipped, refusing to commit himself further, and only gave vent to his anger once they had left the council chamber and were returning downstairs to the ground floor of the Guildhall. Cranston was more sanguine, aided by another swig from his wineskin.
‘Take heart, Brother.’ He patted Athelstan on the shoulder. ‘Remember, my Lord Regent must be desperate.’
Athelstan stopped at the foot of the stairs. ‘The meeting was quite fruitful, Sir John, yes?’
Cranston grinned. ‘Yes. Two juicy morsels. First, how did Denny know that My Lord Sheriff was sipping wine and talking to his dogs? Quite a detailed observation from someone who supposedly never went near the Lord Sheriff when he was sunning himself in his private garden.’
‘And Goodman’s embarrassment?’ Athelstan asked.
‘Yes, yes. I think our dead master locksmith had some dark secret which My Lord Mayor shares.’
Cranston looked sharply at Athelstan. ‘There’s something else, isn’t there, Brother?’
The friar looked away but Cranston glimpsed the turmoil behind his troubled eyes. Athelstan murmured something.
‘What’s that, Brother?’
‘Tell me, Sir John, my Lord Regent has a legion of spies?’
‘Legion is the correct word, Brother. More like a swarm of ants across the city. No one can be trusted, and that even includes people like Leif the beggar. Such people are not evil, it’s only that being so poor they can be quickly bought.’ Cranston stepped closer and Athelstan tried not to flinch at the gust of wine fumes.
‘Of course,’ the Coroner whispered, ‘you are wondering how Gaunt knew about Ira Dei?’
Athelstan was about to reply when they both heard a sound and turned to find Sir Nicholas Hussey, the King’s tutor, standing behind them.
‘My Lord Coroner, Brother Athelstan.’ The suave, silver-haired courtier bowed slightly. ‘We heard you were in the Guildhall. His Grace the King requests a moment of your time.’
Athelstan looked curiously at this dark-skinned scholar, a lawyer by profession. Hussey’s quiet control of the King, his subtle manipulation of the young boy, was now making itself felt. He noticed the bright blue of the man’s eyes, clear as a summer day. He also saw the cunning in his face and quickly concluded Hussey might be even more dangerous than the Regent they had just left. Cranston, too, stayed silent, quietly wondering how much Hussey had heard. Then the Coroner smiled.
‘It would be an honour,’ he murmured.
Hussey led them down a corridor and, surprisingly enough, into the Guildhall’s private garden where Mountjoy had been killed. The young King, dressed in a simple Lincoln green tunic, his blond hair tousled, sat on a turf seat, a leather baldrick and a pair of spurred hunting boots alongside him. A toy crossbow lay propped at his feet and, by the mud-marks on his face and hands, Cranston realized the young man had been hunting, probably in the woods and meadows north of Clerkenwell. Both he and Athelstan bowed but Richard dismissed the pleasantries and waved to the seat beside him, pushing the baldrick and boots unceremoniously aside.
‘Sir John, Brother Athelstan.’ Bright-eyed, the King gestured them to sit. ‘Uncle’s not here so I can do what I want. Sir Nicholas, you will stay?’
The tutor bowed. Athelstan was quick enough to catch the glance exchanged between the young King and his mentor. Richard seized Cranston’s huge hand and leaned forward so that Athelstan could hear his conspiratorial whisper.
‘Have you found the murderer yet?’
‘No, Your Grace.’
‘Or who this Ira Dei is?’
Again Cranston shook his head. Richard smiled.
‘But my uncle’s upset. I have heard him shouting,’ he continued. ‘He blames everyone. Goodman, My Lord Mayor, and even his creature Lord Clifford have not escaped censure. Do you think Uncle will be murdered?’
Cranston gazed severely at the boy. ‘Your Grace, how can you say such a thing?’
‘Oh, quite easily, for Uncle would like to be King.’
‘Your Grace, whoever tells you that is a traitor and a knave. One day you will be King. A great prince like your father.’
Richard’s eyes clouded at Cranston’s mention of Gaunt’s brother, the famed Black Prince.
‘Did you know Father well, Sir John?’
Cranston’s gaze softened. ‘Yes, I did, Sire. I stood beside him at Poitiers when the French tried to break through.’
And, urged on by Richard’s pleading, the Coroner gave a blow-by-blow account of the last stages of the Black Prince’s famous victory. Richard sat listening, round-eyed, until Hussey intervened, pointing out the Lord Coroner was a busy man and had other matters to attend to. Richard gave them leave to go, thanking both Athelstan and Cranston warmly. They were just about to leave when Richard, tip-toeing over the grass, ran up and caught them both excitedly by the sleeve.
‘If you find Ira Dei,’ he whispered excitedly, ‘bring him to me, Sir John!’
Cranston smiled and bowed. He and Athelstan walked back through the Guildhall and out into the heat of Cheapside.
‘Now what was all that about?’ Cranston muttered to himself.
Athelstan shook his head. Only when they were safely ensconced in a window seat of The Lamb of God, each with a tankard of cool ale in their hands, did the friar comment.
‘You asked a question as we left the Guildhall, Sir John. Have you considered the possibility that these deaths may not be the work of the peasant leader Ira Dei but of another court faction trying to bring the Regent into disrepute?’
‘You mean Hussey and the like?’ Cranston shook his head. ‘In answer to that, good friar, all I can reply is: have you considered the possibility that, if Gaunt goes, the young King may fall with him?’
Athelstan sat back, surprised. ‘It’s as close as that, Sir John?’
‘Oh, yes. When and if the revolt comes, do you think the peasant leaders will distinguish between one prince and another? Haven’t you heard their song, Brother? “When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the Gentleman?”.’ Cranston gulped from his blackjack of ale. ‘What worries me more, Brother, are the likes of Goodman, Denny and Sudbury, who would like to see London without a King, ruled by merchant princes like the cities they trade with: Florence, Pisa and Genoa. So many players,’ he murmured. ‘God knows, Brother, it’s hard to distinguish between the good and the bad.’ He roared for another tankard. ‘But you were saying, before Hussey arrived, you think Gaunt has a spy in your parish?’
Athelstan’s face became closed and tight-lipped and Cranston glimpsed the gentle friar’s rare anger.
‘You have your suspicions?’
‘For the moment, Sir John, by your leave, I’ll keep close counsel and a still mouth. But, yes, I do.’
They sat for another hour, Cranston deciding to eat at the tavern rather than return to his empty house. The shadows began to lengthen. Outside the market closed and the stalls were taken down. As the tavern began to fill with sweat-soaked apprentices and hoarse-voiced tinkers, desperate to quench their thirst, Cranston and Athelstan collected their horses and returned through the emptying streets towards London Bridge.
The crowds had now gone home so they found their passage easy and Athelstan began to prepare himself for his visit to the Hobdens and the exorcism of the young girl, Elizabeth.
‘Have you ever done this before?’ Cranston asked curiously, half an eye on a well-known pickpocket who was trailing a tired-looking tinker.
‘Done what, Sir John?’
‘An exorcism, a real one?’
Suddenly Cranston turned away and shouted across Bridge Street: ‘Foulpie!’
