because I was concerned, I stood guard.’ The man’s voice quavered, I thought I would let him rest but when the bells of St Mary Magdalen began to chime for mid-morning prayer, I tried to rouse him. I summoned the servants, we forced the door. The rest you know.’
‘Couldn’t someone have saved him from the rats?’ Cranston retorted.
‘Sir John, the house is infested with them. The Lady Rosamund hates cats or any animals.’
Sir John patted him on the shoulder. ‘Your master will have justice, I will see to that. Now, pray for his soul and take care of his corpse. One of my bailiffs is coming to seal the room.’
Sir John walked out into Milk Street. He entered the church of St Mary Magdalen and lit five candles before the smiling figure of the Virgin and Child.
‘One for Maude, two for the poppets,’ he whispered, thinking of his fine, sturdy sons, now six months old. ‘One for Athelstan,’ he murmured, ‘and one for Sir Oliver, God rest him.’
Sir John knelt, closed his eyes, and recited three Aves before realizing how thirsty he was.
He lumbered out of the church, down Milk Street and into a deserted Cheapside. The stall-owners had now packed up for the day, removing their possessions back to the front rooms of their shops, taking down their booths and leaving the broad thoroughfare to the bone and rag collectors, a lazy-eyed whore looking for custom, snapping mongrels and sleek, fat alley cats who couldn’t believe their luck at the myriad of rats which now plundered the mounds of rubbish and human refuse. A few tinkers and pedlars still touted for business; these shouted friendly abuse at Sir John, who gave as good as he got as he passed, swift as an arrow, into his favourite tavern, The Holy Lamb of God.
Sir John brightened at the cloying, sweet warmth of the taproom. A beadle was sitting in Cranston’s favourite, high-backed chair before the open window which looked out on to a pleasant garden. Sir John coughed and the fellow scuttled away like a frightened rabbit. Sir John sat down, tapping the table and staring appreciatively at the dark polished timbers and white plaster of this most revered of drinking places. He smacked his lips and pushed further open the diamond-shaped, latticed window so he could catch the fragrance of the herb banks. Some people avoided The Holy Lamb, they claimed it was built over an old charnel house and was reputedly haunted by ghosts and sprites but Cranston saw it as a second home, being revered almost as a saint by the landlord’s wife.
Years earlier she had been conned by a trickster who claimed he could draw both wine and sack from the same barrel. She had stupidly agreed to see him try. The man had bored a hole in one side of the barrel and told her to stop it with her finger, whilst he bored another hole from which he said the sack could come. The hapless lady had been left, forced to plug both holes in the barrel, whilst the rogue helped himself to certain monies. She had stood there, terrified, for if she had taken her fingers away, she would have wasted an entire barrel of beer, turned the taproom ankle-deep in ale and proclaimed herself a laughing-stock.
Luckily, Sir John had appeared. He had rapped the rogue across the head, helped plug the barrel and, when the rogue had regained his senses, Cranston had made him stand outside the tavern with his breeches down and a placard round his neck proclaiming him to be a fraudulent trickster.
The same taverner’s wife now came bustling towards him, a large cup of claret in one hand and a bowl of onion soup in the other. Sir John absentmindedly smiled his thanks, sipped the claret and wondered how he could bring another trickster, the murderous Rosamund, to justice. He couldn’t stop thinking of Oliver’s lonely corpse in that desolate chamber, the sniggering wife and her sycophantic ‘kinsman’ below.
Cranston heard voices and raised his head as the relic-seller, whom he had seen in Milk Street, came sliding into the tavern.
‘A rogue steeped in sin,’ he muttered to himself.
The relic-seller was old, walking with a slight limp, but with a shrewd, cold, narrow face, gimlet-eyed, and a mouth as thin and tight as a vice. He was well-dressed in a costly velvet tunic and soft red leather boots, and the purse which swung from the embroidered belt chinked heavily with coins. He grinned and waved across to the Coroner who just glared back and lowered his face over his cup. He really should go home and prepare for the evening but his house was empty as the Lady Maude had taken the two poppets to see her kinspeople in the West Country.
‘Oh, do come, Sir John,’ she had begged. ‘The rest will do you good. And you know brother Ralph will be delighted to see you.’
Cranston had shaken his head mournfully and wrapped his bear-like arms round his petite wife.
‘I cannot come, Lady,’ he declared gruffly. ‘The Council and the Regent are most insistent that I stay in London.’
Lady Maude had pulled free and looked at him archly.
‘Is that the truth, Sir John?’
‘By God’s tooth!’
‘Don’t swear,’ she had insisted. ‘Just tell me.’
Sir John had sworn upon his honour that he spoke the truth, yet it had been tinged by a lie. He couldn’t stand brother Ralph, as unlike his sister as chalk from cheese. To put it bluntly, Ralph was the most boring man Cranston had ever met. His one passion was farming and, as Sir John had wryly remarked to Athelstan: ‘Once you have listened to Ralph’s two-hour lectures on how to grow onions, that’s your lot for eternity!’
Nevertheless, Cranston felt guilty. Ralph was good-hearted and Sir John missed both his wife and the two poppets; large, plump and sturdy-legged, they would stagger up to their father, hand-in-hand, so he could rub their bald little heads. He wondered why Athelstan kept laughing every time he saw them but the friar would always pull his dark face straight, chew his lip, shake his head and declare, ‘Nothing, Sir John, nothing. They are just so like you.’
‘Sir John! Sir John! How are you?’
Cranston started and looked up. Athelstan was standing over him, his olive face sweat-stained, his black and white gown with its black cord round the waist covered in dust.
‘By the devil’s tits!’ Cranston breathed. ‘What are you doing here, monk?’
‘Friar, Sir John.’ Athelstan grinned as he pulled up a stool and sat down. ‘I walked across London Bridge to visit Father Prior at Blackfriars. He’s letting me transcribe certain parts of Roger Bacon’s work on astronomy. I called at your house and the maid said you were absent. Oh, by the way, Leif the beggar is eating your dinner.’
Cranston stared at the friar. You are lying, he thought. I wager you came over here looking for me. I know the Lady Maude left you secret instructions. Nevertheless, he was warmed by Athelstan’s concern.
‘I suppose you want me to buy a drink?’
The taverner’s wife came bustling up.
‘I have already bought them,’ Athelstan replied. ‘Claret for My Lord Coroner and a blackjack of the coolest ale for me.’ Athelstan sipped at the froth and smiled. ‘You are right, Sir John. There’ll have to be taverns in heaven.’
‘How are those rogues in your parish?’ Cranston asked.
‘Sinners like all of us, Sir John,’ he replied. ‘Bonaventure’s catching rats by the dozen. Benedicta is organizing a harvest festival. I offered to bake some bread before I remembered what a hopeless cook I am. Watkin the dung-collector is still at odds with Pike the ditcher.’ Athelstan grinned. ‘Watkin’s wife shoved Pike over in the porch. She claims he was drunk and tripped. What they don’t know is that one of Watkin’s daughters wants to marry Pike’s eldest son.’
‘Do their families know?’
‘Not yet. But when they do you will be able to hear the screams in Cheapside. Cecily the courtesan has a new beau and consequently a new dress every day. Huddle is now painting the new sanctuary.’ Athelstan put down his tankard, his face becoming serious. ‘There are two other matters,’ he added softly, but then fell infuriatingly silent.
Oh, no, Cranston thought, you’re not leaving that rat hole of a parish you love so much? You haven’t been relieved of your duties as my clerk?
Cranston stared at the dreamy-eyed friar. Athelstan had been appointed parish priest of St Erconwald’s in Southwark and Cranston’s secretarius because of past follies. As a novice Athelstan had left Blackfriars and run off with his hero-worshipping brother to the wars in France. The boy had been killed and Athelstan had returned home to witness the grief of his parents and bear the furious reprimands of his monastic superiors.
‘Well, what is it?’ Cranston asked testily.
