The Anger of God (21 page)

‘Look, Sir John, let’s play a mummer’s game.’

Athelstan tugged at the Coroner’s sleeve, opened the small gate and led him into the garden. ‘You sit on the turf seat.’ He grinned. ‘Benedicta, you must pretend to be a wolf hound.’

Both smiled, shrugged, but did what Athelstan asked. Cranston slumped on the turf seat and took a generous swig from the wineskin.

‘Now,’ Athelstan whispered, ‘Sir Gerard is sunning himself in the garden with his dogs. Sometime that same afternoon he is stabbed to death, the dagger driven deep into his body, yet he made no resistance and those fierce dogs made no attempt to defend him.’ Athelstan walked back to the wicket gate and pointed to the brick wall of the Guildhall which bordered one side of the garden. ‘Now, a murderer couldn’t come through there.’ He changed direction. ‘He could scarcely climb the fence behind Sir Gerard because both the Sheriff and his dogs would have noticed him. Nor could he come through the wicket gate, knife drawn.’

‘What happens if he did?’ Benedicta asked. ‘What happens if he was a friend, whom the dogs would accept, as their master cordially greeted him?’

‘Mountjoy had no friends,’ Cranston muttered.

‘No.’ Benedicta waved her hands. ‘The assassin gets very close, he draws a knife and plunges it into Sir Gerard?’

Athelstan shook his head. ‘It’s possible,’ he replied. ‘But hardly probable. Sir Gerard would at least have seen the dagger being drawn; the assassin would scarcely enter the garden carrying it. There would have been a fight which would have alarmed the dogs. Remember, Sir Gerard was killed without any sign of a struggle.’

Benedicta stuck her tongue out at him.

‘There’s only one way,’ Cranston growled, pointing to the fence paling at the bottom of the garden. ‘The pentice between the kitchens and the Guildhall.’

‘There are gaps in the fence,’ Benedicta added.

Athelstan shook his head. ‘Too narrow for a man to throw a dagger with such force and accuracy. Look, wait here.’ He took Cranston’s dagger, rather similar to the one the assassin used, walked back into the Guildhall and down the darkened pentice. He stopped and, through gaps in the fence, could see Cranston sitting opposite him on the turf seat. He pushed the dagger through; the gap was wide enough but he was right, no man could hurl a dagger through it. Scratching his head, Athelstan went back into the garden. ‘A mystery,’ he muttered. ‘Come, let us visit the banqueting chamber.’

Cranston pulled a face at Benedicta but followed the rather bemused friar up to the banqueting hall. The room was deserted and the tables still left as they were on that fateful night. Athelstan badgered Cranston with a string of abrupt questions.

Who had sat where? What had they eaten? How late it had begun?

Then, without explanation, he wandered off, saying he wished to talk to the steward who had been present that night.

Cranston didn’t mind. He knew his ‘little friar’ had started some hare and would become engrossed until he had resolved the problem facing him. Moreover, the Coroner was only too willing to sit and chat with the lovely Benedicta who questioned him closely about Athelstan’s story of a thief stealing the severed heads of traitors from above the gatehouse at London Bridge. At last Athelstan returned.

‘Well?’ Cranston bellowed. ‘Have you found anything? Would you like to share your thoughts with mere mortals?’

Athelstan grinned and tapped the side of his head. ‘It’s all a jumble,’ he explained, I need to sit, write and think.’

‘No better place than The Holy Lamb of God,’ Cranston mumbled.

He led them out of the Guildhall, down the steps into a busy market place. The stalls were now laid out for a day’s trade. Apprentices shouted goods and prices or tried to catch the sleeves of passersby. On the corner of the street, Cranston’s hated relic-seller was busy proclaiming his litany of goods for sale. He stopped as the fellow listed his different relics from the stone which killed Goliath to the arm of St Sebbi.

‘I have the relics,’ the fellow bellowed, ‘in a secret place, bought specially at a great high price from the Archbishop of Cologne. The head of St John the Baptist, miraculously fresh as on the day the great martyr died. I tell you this, good sirs and ladies all, you pious citizens of London, his hair is red and soft, his skin as supple, as that of a child!’

Cranston sneered and shook his head.

‘Why don’t you bloody priests,’ he muttered, ‘put an end to this stupid trade?’

‘I wonder where he would obtain the hair of John the Baptist?’ Benedicta muttered.

Cranston just gaped at her. ‘What did you say?’ he whispered.

‘How could he get the head of St John the Baptist? And how does he know the prophet had red hair?’

Cranston grabbed the surprised woman and kissed her on both cheeks.

‘Come on!’ he whispered. ‘To The Holy Lamb of God!’

The Coroner forced his way through the throng. Athelstan could see how excited he was by the way Cranston kept bellowing at people to get out of his way. Once in the tavern he dug into his broad purse and drew out a silver coin.

‘Benedicta, take this across to the relic-seller. Say you have five more to purchase the head of St John the Baptist.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Sir John!’ Athelstan interrupted.

‘You know the man’s a fraud. There’ll be no head, just some stupid trick or device. Who knows, Benedicta may even be robbed?’

‘Shut up, Athelstan!’

‘But, Sir John,’ he pleaded. ‘You know! I know!’

‘What?’ Cranston snapped.

‘He can’t have the head of the Baptist . . .’ Athelstan’s voice trailed away and he grinned at Cranston. ‘Ah! To quote the good St Paul, My Lord Coroner, I see in a glass darkly.’

Cranston clapped his hands like a child and Benedicta, with the assurances of both men ringing in her ears, walked back across Cheapside with Cranston’s silver clasped firmly in her hand. Athelstan and Cranston watched her go. Benedicta stopped and whispered to the relic-seller and the man left his perch as quickly as any hungry gull. He led her off, down an alleyway with Athelstan and Cranston following quickly behind. Cranston was excited, Athelstan fearful for Benedicta’s safety, but the man seemed harmless enough. At last he turned off an alleyway going down to Old Jewry. He stopped before the door of a house, said something to Benedicta, she nodded and they both went in. Cranston and Athelstan hurried up.

‘Give the bastard a few minutes,’ Cranston whispered.

Athelstan nodded. Cranston counted softly and, when he reached thirty, kicked with all his might against the rickety door and sent it flying back on its rusty hinges. The house was dingy and smelly and, as they hurried along the passageway, Athelstan gagged at the terrible stench. They heard raised voices, Benedicta’s exclamations. They found her in a small chamber at the back of the house with the relic-seller and the latter’s young assistant. Benedicta looked white, the two tricksters paled with fright at the commotion and Cranston’s shouts, whilst on a table in front of them lay the severed head of a red-haired man, eyes half-closed and purple lips agape. If the two relic-sellers could have escaped they would have but they just huddled together in a corner as the Coroner grabbed the severed head and lifted it up. Benedicta had seen enough and, hand to mouth, hurriedly left the chamber for the street beyond.

‘Well, well, my buckos!’ Cranston grinned. ‘You are both under arrest!’

‘What for?’ the relic-seller shouted.

‘Theft of Crown property, my lad, counterfeiting, deceptive practices and blasphemy. This is not the head of John the Baptist but of Jacques Larue, the French pirate taken off the Thames and legally executed!’ Cranston gazed round the chamber. ‘Lord, this smells worse than the shambles at Newgate!’

He walked out of the door, pushing Athelstan before him, and took the key from the inside lock, imprisoning the two very subdued relic-sellers within.

‘There are no windows or other doors, Athelstan. The rogues can stay there until I hand this key over to the ward officials. Now, let us see what this house of treasures contains.’

Athelstan followed him around but, after a while, gave up in disgust at the different grisly objects discovered and went to join Benedicta in the street outside.

‘Hell’s teeth!’ he whispered, quoting Cranston. ‘The place should be burnt from top to bottom.’

Cranston, however, came out full of himself. He pulled the house door close then locked it.

‘Benedicta,’ he grinned, ‘you are an angel. Where else would a relic-seller get a head to sell as that of a saint except from the execution yard?’ The Coroner rubbed his hands together. ‘One more small victory for old Jack, eh?’

They walked back into Cheapside and waited whilst Cranston summoned officials and sent them to the house. One of the beadles was eating a meat pie, munching insolently as Cranston talked to him. The Coroner grinned as he watched the men stride away.

‘I haven’t told them what they’ll find,’ he joked. ‘But the insolent one with the meat pie will soon receive a short, sharp lesson on eating when the King’s Coroner is giving him instructions!’

He led them back to The Holy Lamb of God, loudly guffawing at Benedicta’s wondering how anyone could be so stupid as to trust such rogues.

‘Stupid!’ Cranston laughed. ‘If you go to any city in England, France or beyond the Rhine, you’ll find men, Princes of the Church, the most intelligent and educated of priests, spending fortunes on pieces of dirty bone and rag. Do you know, here in London, I heard of a merchant who paid a hundred pounds sterling for a napkin on which the Blessed St Cuthbert wiped his mouth. Devil’s balls!’ He mumbled an apology to Benedicta. ‘But hell’s teeth! I wish everything was as easy. Brother, did our journey to the Guildhall clarify anything?’

Cranston eased his great backside down on to the stool and stared pitifully at his clerk. ‘Athelstan,’ he pleaded. ‘Sooner rather than later, the Regent is going to ask me to account.’

The friar stared at the table top. ‘Let us see,’ he began slowly. ‘We know why Mountjoy and the other two were murdered. Not because of any secret sin or personal rivalry but to upset the Regent, to block his ambitions, to build up support amongst the powerful merchant class of London. Well, that has been achieved so there will be no more murders. At least, not for the time being.’ Athelstan paused, I am sure the murders can be laid at the door of the Ira Dei, but suspect he is only the architect. There’s a traitor and a killer in Gaunt’s party – Goodman or one of those powerful Guiidmasters.’

‘Why, Sir John?’ Benedicta interrupted. ‘Why hasn’t the assassin struck at Gaunt himself?’

‘Because the devil you know, My Lady, is better than the devil you don’t. Someone has to be Regent or, to put it more bluntly, someone has to be there to take the blame. If Gaunt were removed, his chair would merely be filled by one of his younger brothers. No, these murders are to clip Gaunt’s wings.’

‘Has there been any reaction to our meeting with the Guiidmasters about Sturmey’s private life?’ Athelstan asked.

Cranston shook his head. ‘Not as yet.’

‘Sir Nicholas Hussey was a boy when the scandal occurred?’

‘Only very young,’ Cranston replied. ‘God knows, he may remember whispers, but according to the records there is no indication that he was involved, even as a victim. Ah, well.’ He put his tankard down on the table.

‘What are we going to do now?’

‘Wait, Sir John, think, reflect. As I have said, the murders at the Guildhall are not crimes of passion but cold and calculating. I doubt if we will discover any further clue or sign. We must gather all we know, apply logic, and so squeeze out the one and only solution.’

‘If there s one,’ Cranston added wearily.

The conversation became desultory. Cranston’s elation at the arrest of the relic-sellers dissipated under a cloud of gloom as the fat Coroner began to sink into a sulk. Benedicta took her leave, saying she had no wish to stay, she’d had her fill of cadavers and mystery. Sir John took Athelstan back to his house but Lady Maude was busy and the poppets out with the nurse in the fields north of St Giles. Cranston became impossible so Athelstan left him for a while, deciding to visit his brethren at Blackfriars.

The friar returned just as the market in Cheapside drew to an early end and people hurried home to prepare for Sunday. Cranston, more refreshed, clapped him on the shoulder and they went back to The Holy Lamb of God to meet Cranston’s friend and physician, Theobald de Troyes, whom the Coroner had visited earlier in the afternoon.

‘Are you sure you wish to come?’ Cranston asked.

‘Sir John, I am always at your disposal,’ the physician replied. ‘Does the priest at St James know?’

‘I have already sent a constable down there. There will be labourers to dig out the grave and lift Sarah Hobden’s coffin.’ Sir John licked his lips. ‘Perhaps a drink first?

Both Athelstan and the physician flatly refused and, one on either side of him, escorted the reluctant Coroner out of West Cheap across Watling Street into Cordwainer and then along Upper Thames Street to the rather sombre church of St James Garlickhythe. The priest, Father Odo, cheery, red-nosed, and much the worse after a generous lunch, came out of the priest’s house and took them into a rather overgrown graveyard where three labourers were resting under the cool shade of a yew tree. At first there was absolute confusion as Father Odo tried to read the burial book and discover where Sarah Hobden had been buried.

‘I can’t find it,’ he mumbled, swaying dangerously on his feet.

Athelstan peered over his shoulder, realized the inebriated priest was reading it upside down, and took it out of his hand.

‘Let me help, Father,’ he offered gently.

Glaring defiantly at Cranston and daring him not to laugh, the friar sat on a tombstone and leafed through the pages until he found the entry: ‘Sarah Hobden, obiit 1376, North West’.

‘Where’s that, Father?’

Odo pointed to the far corner of the graveyard. Athelstan smiled and returned the burial book.

‘Father, you sit down and take your rest.’ He patted the old priest gently on the shoulder.

‘Don’t you dare!’ he hissed at Cranston as the Coroner’s hand went to where his miraculous wineskin was hanging beneath his cloak. ‘The poor man has had enough and, to be quite frank, Sir John, so have I!’