St Martin’s Lane, sounding so similar to John’s address in Exeter, was only a few yards away and within minutes they saw the Falcon, a large and respectable-looking tavern fronting directly on to the busy thoroughfare that led up to Aldersgate. It had two storeys, with shuttered windows on either side of the large central door. There was a side lane which led around to a yard containing stables and various outbuildings. As they could not leave their horses in the road, John led the way around to the back, where a snivelling barefoot boy took their steeds and hitched them to a rail.
‘There’s a door to the taproom there, sirs, to save you going round to the street again,’ said the lad, as John gave him a half-penny.
‘Let’s see if the landlord recalls who might have dined with our lecherous priest,’ said John, pushing open the back door that the urchin had pointed out. Through a short passage, half-filled with casks and crates, was an arch into the main room, crowded with drinkers even at mid-morning. They either stood in groups or sat on benches around the walls. There was a cacophony of chatter, some drunken singing and in a corner the twanging of someone playing a lute. There were several harlots with painted lips and cheeks plying their trade, dressed in striped gowns and wearing bright-red wigs, the uniform of London whores. A pair of hounds were wrestling playfully on the rushes, watched at a distance by several wary cats.
Drink was being served from barrels behind a table, from which a potboy and a wench were selling pint jugs of ale. De Wolfe pushed his way to them through the uncaring throng.
‘Where’s your master, the landlord?’
‘Still at Smithfield, buying meat,’ said the girl. ‘But the missus is in the eating hall, through there.’ She flipped a hand towards another arch which led into the other half of the ground floor.
John, with Gwyn close behind, went through into a room with one long table and several small ones, where people were beginning to settle on benches for their early pre-noon dinner. A large woman in a long linen apron was carrying in baskets of bread and John moved to intercept her with his questions, when he received a hard nudge in the back from Gwyn.
‘Just look who’s over there, Crowner!’ he hissed, jerking his head. John followed his gesture and saw that, at a table in the far corner, were two men and a woman — the very ones they were seeking.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Almost at the same moment, William Aubrey noticed them standing inside the entrance. He blanched and leaned forward to whisper to Ranulf and Hawise, who were sitting with their backs towards the newcomers. Their heads shot around and in any other circumstances the expressions of surprise on their faces would have been comical. William sat transfixed, but Ranulf recovered his poise almost immediately, rising to his feet and coming across to John and his officer with a smile on his face.
‘Great God, John, how came you here? Do you seek me or the Lady Hawise?’
De Wolfe was not sure if there was some innuendo in his remark, but that was not his main concern. ‘I think you have some explaining to do, Ranulf of Abingdon,’ he said harshly, moving towards the corner table.
The young marshal turned up his hands in a parody of supplication. ‘You have caught me red-handed, sir! What can I say, other than love is blind and will not be denied, even by common sense?’
John hesitated. Was the dashing young knight only involved in a foolish elopement, running away from a jealous husband? Perhaps his other suspicions were unfounded, after all.
‘I can well understand that the fair lady may have captivated your heart, Ranulf,’ he growled. ‘But what of William there?’
He jabbed a finger towards Aubrey, who was stuck half-risen from his bench, apparently paralysed by indecision. ‘Does this lady’s power over men extend to more than one at a time?’
He had not meant to be offensive, but the silent Hawise turned her head to give him a poisonous glare.
‘My good friend William has decided to join me in our new life, Crowner!’ replied Ranulf, almost light-heartedly. ‘We have tired of being superior stable boys at Westminster. There are fortunes to be made in the tourney grounds of Germany.’
He waved a hand at their table, where food was half-consumed. ‘Join us for a meal, you and your good man Gwyn.’
De Wolfe shook his head, still suspicious of the situation.
‘I need some answers from you and Aubrey. Why did you choose this tavern to hide away, presumably to wait for a ship for Flanders?’
Ranulf stared at him. This was a question he had not expected.
‘Because I know it well, it has the best roast beef in London and clean beds upstairs. We need a decent night’s lodging, so where else but the Falcon?’
De Wolfe fixed him with a steely eye, his brooding hawk’s face searching the man’s features for the truth.
‘And not because you know it well from your visits here with Canon Simon Basset?’ he snapped.
Ranulf stared back at him guilelessly. ‘By Christ’s wounds, sir, you speak in riddles! We are merely waiting here until a cog is due to sail for Antwerp on tomorrow’s tide.’
The coroner looked across at William Aubrey, who remained as if turned to stone, only his frightened eyes watching every move. Then John moved to stand over Hawise d’Ayncourt, who looked at him as if he was something scraped from the midden in the inn’s backyard.
‘Your husband will be overjoyed to know that you are safe after your abduction, lady,’ he said sarcastically.
She glared up at him. ‘Abduction be damned! I have left that fat pig, the dullest man in Christendom!’
She was not to know that lifting her head to speak was the trigger for mayhem.
As she raised her chin defiantly, John saw a glint of gold appear above the neck of the pale-cream gown that she wore. Careless of any courtesy to a lady, he plunged his fingers into the space between the linen and her soft skin. Paying no heed to her scream of outrage, he pulled out a heavy necklace of solid gold, embellished with intricate designs typical of Saxon craftsmanship.
‘I think the last time I saw this, it was in the strongroom of the Great Tower!’ he roared at Ranulf. ‘So where’s the rest of it, you thieving bastard?’
Three men on the next table had leapt to their feet when they heard the scream and saw the bosom of a fine lady apparently being violated, but they backed away rapidly when Ranulf whipped out a long dagger from his belt and advanced on the coroner, waving it dangerously close to his face. Simultaneously, William Aubrey unsheathed a short sword and, with his dagger in the other hand, leapt over the table to stand back-to-back with his friend, facing the somewhat astonished Gwyn. The room went into pandemonium, as the other diners fell over themselves in haste, to get out of range of what looked like a fight to the death.
De Wolfe and Gwyn had left their long swords in their saddle-sheaths, as they had entered the tavern expecting only to search for information, so both had to grab for their own daggers, which never left their belts.
‘You stupid cow!’ roared Ranulf at his mistress. ‘I told you not to wear that damned thing until we left the country!’
At the same time, he lunged at John, who stepped back sharply and knocked over a fat dame who was desperately trying to get to the safety of the other side of the room.
‘You cannot escape the city, Ranulf!’ snarled de Wolfe. ‘You may as well surrender and put yourselves at the mercy of the court.’
For reply, Ranulf slashed out again at John, this time slicing into the sleeve of his grey tunic. ‘What mercy will we get?’ he yelled. ‘The choice between hanging or flaying alive?’
Behind him William Aubrey was challenging the big Cornishman and it became obvious that both these younger men, strong, fit and well trained from their frequent practice on the tourney fields, were expert fighters.