me?’
Athelstan smiled faintly. He felt relieved at Cranston’s abrupt revelation and curt dismissal of all this mummery and trickery yet still he felt a deep unease.
‘But the smell?’ Athelstan sniffed.
‘Oh, I am sure there’s an answer for that.’
Cranston knelt down, put his hand under the bedstead and drew out two small unstoppered pots. He then went to the other side of the bed and found the same. Cranston picked one up, sniffed at it gingerly and recoiled in distaste as he handed it to Athelstan.
‘God knows what it is! I suspect goat’s cheese.’
Athelstan sniffed and turned away in disgust. ‘Goat’s cheese,’ he coughed, ‘and something else.’
‘A well-known trick,’ Cranston observed. ‘Take off the stoppers and a pig sty would be sweet compared to it.’ He grinned. ‘Put the jars open under the bed, move the blankets, and a stench is wafted from Hell.’
Athelstan gazed down at the sobbing girl whilst the sound of a commotion outside indicated that the fearsome Eleanor Hobden was now dragging the old nurse upstairs. Eleanor entered, cast a look of disdain at her husband and threw the struggling Anna, who looked on the point of fainting with fear, down on to the rushes. She went across and grasped Elizabeth’s hair, pulling back her head. Despite her evil game, Athelstan felt a pang of compassion for the girl. Her face looked ghastly: red-rimmed eyes and pallid, tear-soaked cheeks. Elizabeth had bitten her lips and a trickle of blood ran down her chin.
‘Leave her alone!’ he ordered.
Eleanor gave another vicious tug to the girl’s hair. Athelstan grasped her by the wrist.
‘For God’s sake, woman, leave her!’
Eleanor reluctantly obeyed but glared at Cranston.
‘She is guilty of a crime, isn’t she? The pretended raising of demons and the use of such trickery is almost as grave a charge as dabbling in the Black Arts themselves.’
Cranston, who had taken a deep dislike to the woman, nodded.
‘Are you saying I should arrest her?’
‘If you don’t, I’ll throw her and that bitch of a nurse out into the street!’
‘Eleanor!’ Walter moaned. ‘Don’t!’
‘Oh, shut up!’ she spat back. ‘I told you this little minx was a liar and a cheat.’ She went across and shoved her face only inches from her husband’s. ‘Either they go or I do.’
Cranston stole a glance at Athelstan. The friar looked helplessly down at the sobbing girl whilst Anna still crouched like a dog amongst the rushes. Eleanor walked back and dug the girl in the shoulder.
‘Get out of this bed and leave the house as you are!’
‘Oh, for pity’s sake!’ Cranston snapped.
‘My Lord Coroner,’ the Hobden woman replied, ‘you were not invited to this house. You are here as an officer of the law. You have seen a crime committed yet you have no sympathy for its victims, only the perpetrator.’
Cranston glanced across at Walter Hobden but that man of straw just stood rubbing his hands together with all the courage of a frightened rabbit.
‘For God’s sake!’ Benedicta walked across the room and, though she’d been frightened by Elizabeth’s acting, betrayed no fear of Eleanor Hobden. ‘For God’s sake!’ she repeated. ‘Woman, the girl may well be witless.’
Athelstan went and sat down on the bed, put his arm round the sobbing girl and looked at her father.
‘Why did your daughter make such accusations?’
‘Because she hates me,’ Eleanor retorted. ‘She always has and she always will. Now she can get out!’
Benedicta’s eyes pleaded with Athelstan. He nodded at her to help the old nurse back to her feet.
‘Listen,’ he declared, ‘I insist, Mistress-no, I demand this because I came here at your invitation. True, Sir John was not invited but he is owed something too for delving into the truth.’
The woman nodded.
‘Accordingly,’ Athelstan continued, ‘Elizabeth and her nurse will stay here tonight. Tomorrow morning the lady Benedicta will return and take both of them to the Abbey of St Mary and St Frances which lies at the junction of Poor Jewry and Aldgate Street.’
Walter murmured his approval. His wife chewed on her lower lip, glowering at her step-daughter.
‘Agreed,’ she snarled eventually. ‘But the bitch is to be gone by noonday!’
Cranston stood at the corner of Bread Street and West Cheap and stared across at his house.
‘Oh,’ he moaned, ‘I wish Lady Maude was back.’ He stroked the muzzle of his horse, licked his lips and looked at the welcoming warmth and light of The Holy Lamb. He had left Benedicta and Athelstan in Southwark and made his own way back to Cheapside, talking loudly to himself as he often did about the hardness of the human heart and the stubborn hatred of the likes of Eleanor Hobden. His horse snickered and nuzzled his chest.
‘I suppose you are right,’ Cranston muttered.
He led his horse down a side street and into the yard of The Holy Lamb where he and the Lady Maude stabled their horses. Once the horse was settled, and resisting all temptation, Sir John strode across a deserted Cheapside back to his own house.
He had his hand on the latch when he heard his name called. Two figures detached themselves from the alleyway at the side of the house and stepped into the pool of light provided by the lamp hung on a hook next to the door. Cranston’s smile faded.
‘What the bloody hell do you want?’ he snarled.
Rosamund Ingham pushed back the hood of her cloak with one hand, the other resting lightly on the arm of the slack-faced Albric. Her face was as imperious and harsh as Eleanor Hobden’s. Cranston quickly noted the similarity between the two women: beautiful but hard-eyed, with a sour twist to their mouths. He put his hand back on the latch.
‘I asked what you wanted?’
‘Sir John, leave us alone. Tomorrow morning, as you know, my husband will be buried. I don’t suppose you’ll be there?’
‘No, I won’t! I loved Sir Oliver as a brother. I won’t stand before God in the presence of his murderers!’
‘That’s a lie!’
‘That’s the truth and I’ll prove it!’
‘And if you don’t,’ Rosamund pushed her face forward, ‘I’ll see you in the courts, Sir John.’
‘Piss off!’ he replied, his hand falling to his dagger as he saw Albric move forward.
‘Go on,’ Cranston sneered. ‘Draw your sword and I’ll tickle your codpiece.’
Rosamund waved her lover back with one hand. ‘Take the seals off my husband’s room,’ she demanded. ‘And leave us alone or…’
Cranston stepped forward. ‘Or what, My Lady?’
Rosamund sneered. ‘I am asking you, Sir John. And I’ll not ask again.’
‘Good night, My Lady.’ He pushed open the door and slammed it behind him.
He sniffed the air appreciatively and walked into the kitchen. A red-faced Boscombe was removing a golden- crusted pie from the oven next to the hearth.
‘Just in time, Sir John,’ the little man beamed. ‘Beef stew pie, garnished with onions and leeks. A glass of claret?’
Sir John beamed. ‘Philip, if you were a woman, I’d marry you tomorrow.’
He washed his hands in a bowl of rose water and went to sit at the table.
‘You have not entered the bliss of nuptial grace?’
Boscombe shook his head. ‘No woman would have me, Sir John, and Sir Gerard was the harshest of task masters.’
‘In which case,’ Cranston muttered, ‘you haven’t met the Lady Maude.’
He was about to lift his cup when suddenly Gog and Magog, who had been resting in the garden, burst into the kitchen. Gog knocked Cranston flying off his chair whilst Magog, skilful as a falcon in flight, leapt up and plucked the pie right out of Boscombe’s hands. Cranston, cursing, got to his feet but the two dogs now had the pie and, even before he could reach them, were wolfing it down without a by-your-leave. Boscombe stood and wailed. Cranston stared at the dogs and, if animals could smile their thanks, he was sure these two had.
‘Lovely lads!’ he whispered.
