Cranston folded his hands across his enormous belly. He glared at the grinning scribe and smiled with false sweetness at Alice Frogmore.
‘You have made your allegation.’ He looked at the frightened Eleanor. ‘Now, please produce the proof!’
‘I have seen her!’ Alice trumpeted. ‘I have seen her in her garden at night, feeding her foul familiar with the sweetest bread and freshest milk. I have seen her talk to it and my husband also has proof!’
‘Step forward, Master Frogmore!’ Cranston boomed.
The man shuffled to stand by his wife. She, Cranston privately considered, looked more of a toad than the creature squatting in the cage: Alice Frogmore had little piggy eyes, almost hidden by rolls of fat, and her short squat arms hung determinedly either side of a rather bloated body. Cranston gazed at Master Frogmore. He hid a smile as he wondered how the two fared in bed, for Master Frogmore was thin as an ash pole, with straggly white hair, protruding teeth and the frightened eyes of a hunted hare.
‘Well, fellow,’ Cranston barked. ‘Have you seen anything?’
‘Yes, your excellency.’
‘"My lord coroner" will do.’
‘Yes, your excellency, my lord coroner.’
Cranston’s eyes darted to Osbert the scrivener, whose shoulders were beginning to shake with laughter.
‘Be careful, Osbert!’ Cranston whispered. ‘Be very, very careful!’ He stared at Frogmore. ‘Well, what did you see?’
‘It was on Walpurgis Night.’ Frogmore’s reedy voice dropped most dramatically. ‘The time of the Great Sabbat for witches. I saw Mistress Raggleweed go into the garden, light a candle and feed her hideous visitor from hell.’
‘How do you know about Walpurgis Night?’ Cranston interrupted, a look of mock innocence on his face. ‘You seem to know a great deal about witches, Master Frogmore?’
The man just hunched his shoulders.
‘And, more importantly, what were you doing spying on Mistress Raggleweed in the first place?’
‘I was in the garret of my house, mending the shutter on a window.’
‘In the dead of night?’ Cranston roared.
‘My wife told me to.’
Frogmore edged behind his wife, whose head was pushed forward, mouth set, cheeks bulging. Cranston wondered whether she was preparing to spit at him.
‘I need more proof than this,’ Cranston rasped. He scratched his bald pate, the cheery look disappearing from his merry face and ice-blue eyes. He glared at Alice Frogmore, whom he was beginning to name to himself ‘Mistress Toad’.
‘Sometimes,’ the woman shouted back, ‘that toad enters my garden and each time ill-fortune befalls me!’
‘Such as?’ Cranston’s tone carried a warning. He felt beneath the table for his wineskin.
Mistress Frogmore, however, had the bit between her teeth. She misinterpreted the hard look on the fat coroner’s face – she took it for that of a severe judge. It wasn’t – it was that of a coroner who desperately wanted a goblet of wine or a blackjack of sack in the Holy Lamb of God before he hastened home to play with his twin boys and tease his wife, the blessed Lady Maude.
‘Well?’ Cranston growled.
‘On one occasion the milk turned sour.’
‘And?’ Cranston whispered between clenched teeth.
‘On another occasion I fell off a stool.’
‘It’s a wonder you found one to bear your weight!’ Cranston commented under his breath.
Osbert looked up, his face a mask of concern.
‘My lord coroner, I missed that.’
‘I won’t miss you if you don’t shut up!’ Cranston growled back. ‘I’ve had enough!’ He banged the table and turned to Eleanor Raggleweed. ‘What defence do you offer?’
‘Sir John, I am innocent!’
Cranston glared at the toad. ‘Is this creature yours?’
‘Yes, my lord coroner,’ she squeaked.
‘And has it been on the Frogmore property?’
‘Yes, my lord coroner.’
Cranston glared at the toad. ‘So, it is guilty of trespass?’
‘Yes, my lord coroner.’
‘Why do you keep it?’
‘My husband was a gentle man. He found the toad when it was small and we’ve always kept it.’ Mistress Raggleweed’s tired face forced a smile. ‘I live alone, sir. It’s all I’ve got. It’s a friendly creature.’
Cranston glared at her from under his bushy white eyebrows.
‘Have her stripped!’ Mistress Frogmore broke in. ‘Let us search for the marks of a witch! For the extra teat with which she suckles her familiar!’
Cranston brought one heavy fist down on the table.
‘Quiet!’ he bellowed.
‘She’s a witch!’ Alice Frogmore insisted.
‘Fined two pennies for contempt of court!’ Cranston roared.
‘But, my lord coroner-’
‘Fined two pennies for contempt of court!’ Cranston yelled.
He could see the bailiffs standing near the door beginning to shake with laughter. Cranston took the wineskin, drank a generous mouthful from it, pushed its stopper back and re-hung it on its hook on the side of his table. He glared at Eleanor Raggleweed.
‘Are you a witch?’
‘My lord coroner, I am an honourable widow. Ask Father Lawrence.’ The woman turned and pointed to the white-haired priest standing with the bailiffs. ‘I go to church on Sundays and three times in the week.’
The gentle-faced priest nodded as the woman spoke.
‘So, why did the Frogmores bring this allegation?’ Cranston asked.
‘Because they have always contested the rights to a small plot of land behind my house. They drove my husband to an early grave with their wrangling and bickering.’ The woman’s voice dropped to a murmur. ‘I am frightened they will kill Thomas!’
‘Who the hell is Thomas?’ Cranston roared.
‘The toad, my lord coroner.’
Suddenly the little yellow-green monster in the cage shifted its fat, swollen body and emitted the most powerful croak. Osbert’s head went down on the table; he was shaking with laughter so much he could no longer write. Mistress Frogmore immediately sprang forward.
‘See!’ she shouted. ‘The toad talks to her!’
‘Fined one groat!’ Cranston bellowed.
He wiped the sweat from his brow and quietly thanked God that Brother Athelstan, his personal clerk, was not here to witness this but was safely ensconced in his parish church of St Erconwald’s across the river in Southwark. By now Athelstan would have collapsed to the floor, hysterical with laughter. Cranston glared at the toad, which seemed to have taken a liking to him, for it jumped forward, croaking loudly in recognition.
‘This has gone far enough!’ Cranston murmured. ‘Osbert,’ he whispered, ‘if you don’t sit up straight, I’ll fine you a noble and have you in the Fleet prison for a week!’
The scrivener, biting his lips to keep his face straight, picked up his quill. Cranston clicked his fingers, summoned the priest forward and pointed to the huge bible chained to a heavy lectern on the side of his table.
‘Raise your hand, Father, and take the oath!’
The priest obeyed.
‘Keep your hand there!’ Cranston ordered. ‘Now, tell me, Father, about Eleanor Raggleweed.’
‘A kindly woman,’ the priest replied. ‘Good and true, Sir John. Her husband fought in your company of archers, when you served Sir John Chandos and Prince Edward.’
Cranston sat back in his chair and his jaw dropped as he suddenly remembered Raggleweed, a master bowman, a merry chap, honest, brave and true. He looked back at the old priest.
‘And these allegations?’
‘Before Christ and His mother, Sir John, arrant lies!’
Sir John nodded and motioned for the priest to stand back.
‘This is my verdict. First, you, Mistress Alice Frogmore, are guilty of contempt of court. You are to be fined four pennies. Secondly, you, Mistress Alice Frogmore, have wasted the time of this court, so you are to be fined another four pennies. Furthermore’ – he glared at the hate-filled face of the fat woman – ‘you are bound over to keep the peace between yourselves and Mistress Eleanor Raggleweed, your neighbour. What do you say?’
‘But that toad came on our property!’ she whined.
‘Ah, yes.’ Cranston turned to Eleanor Raggleweed. ‘Eleanor Raggleweed, your toad who is called Thomas’ – Cranston fought to keep his face straight – ‘is guilty of trespass. You are fined the smallest coin of the realm, one farthing.’