Sir Ralph’s quarters were up a polished wooden staircase in one of the turrets of the White Tower, a pleasant, sweet-smelling chamber in sharp contrast to the grim cell over in the North Bastion. Two small bay windows with cushioned seats below and an oriel window, glazed with stained glass depicting the Agnus Dei, provided light. The walls were of plaster, painted soft green and decorated with silver and gold lozenges. A thick tapestry hung just above the small canopied fireplace, the floor had been polished smooth, and the great bed was covered by a gold-tasselled counterpane. At the foot of the four-poster, with its lid thrown back, stood Sir Ralph’s huge personal coffer.
‘It’s luxurious,’ Cranston whispered. ‘What terrified Sir Ralph so much he had to move from here to that bleak prison cell?’
Cranston and Athelstan squatted down before the coffer and began to go through Sir Ralph’s personal papers, but they found nothing about his years in Outremer. Every document concerned his office as constable or his service in the retinue of John of Gaunt. They must have spent an hour sifting through letters, indentures and memoranda. Only a Book of Hours caught Athelstan’s attention. Each page was decorated with delicate filigree-like scrollwork in a range of dazzling colours: on one page lightly drawn angel figures, on another a priest sprinkling a shrouded corpse with holy water as he committed it to the grave. The Nativity, with Mary and Joseph bowing over a sleeping child; Christ’s walk through Limbo, driving away black-faced demons with the power of his golden eye. Athelstan became engrossed, fascinated by its beauty. He looked inside the cover and noticed how Sir Ralph had scrawled prayer after prayer to St Julian. ‘St Julian, pray for me! St Julian, avert God’s anger! St Julian, intercede for me with Christ’s mother!’ Each of the blank pages at the back of the book was filled with similar phrases. Athelstan read them all, ignoring Cranston’s mutterings and the angry boot-tapping of Sir Fulke. Finally Athelstan closed the coffer and stood up.
‘You are finished, friar?’ the kinsman snapped.
Athelstan looked sharply at him: Sir Fulke was apparently a man who hid behind a veil of bonhomie and good humour but now he looked angry, suspicious, and resentful of their intrusion.
‘Am I finished?’ Athelstan echoed. ‘Yes and no, Sir Fulke.’
The knight blew out his cheeks. ‘The day is passing, friar,’ he observed tartly, glaring out of the window. ‘I am a busy man with matters to attend to. What more do you want?’
‘You wear boots, Sir Fulke?’
‘Yes, I wear boots!’ came the mimicking reply.
‘And there are buckles on your boots?’
The colour drained from Sir Fulke’s face.
‘Yes,’ he mumbled.
‘Well,’ Athelstan pulled from his wallet the buckle he had found on the frozen moat, ‘I believe this is yours. We found it on the ice outside the North Bastion tower, yet you said you were in the city all night.’
Sir Ralph’s kinsman paled, the arrogance draining from his face.
‘I lost the buckle yesterday.’
‘Were you on the ice?’
Sir Fulke suddenly smiled. ‘Yes, I was. I went there early this morning. You are not the only one, Brother, to think the assassins scaled the tower at dead of night to murder Sir Ralph.’
Athelstan tossed the buckle at him and Sir Fulke caught it clumsily.
‘Then, Sir John, we are finished here. Perhaps some refreshment?’
They met Colebrooke in the passageway outside, thanked him for his attentions and went down the outside steps into the Tower bailey. Athelstan gauged it to be about two o’clock in the afternoon and this was confirmed by a servant who bumped into them as they passed the great hall. They were on the point of going under the Archway of Wakefield when Athelstan caught sight of the great brown bear chained to the wall in the corner near Bell Tower.
‘I have never seen a bear so huge, Sir John!’ he exclaimed.
Cranston clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Then, my lad, it’s time you did!’
The friar was fascinated by Ursus. The bear scarcely repaid the compliment but sat on his hindquarters, hungrily stuffing his great muzzle from a pile of scraps thrown around him. Cranston clapped his hands and the beast raised his huge, dark head. One paw came up and Athelstan stood, riveted by the great, slavering jaws, the teeth — long, white and pointed like a row of daggers — and the insane ferocity blazing in those red-brown eyes. The bear lurched slightly towards them, growling softly in his throat. Cranston grabbed Athelstan’s arm and pulled him back. The animal, alarmed by such rapid movement, now sprang to his full height, his great unsheathed paws beating the air as he strained at the massive steel collar around his neck. Both the coroner and his companion saw the chain fastened to the wall strain at its clasps.
‘That chain,’ Athelstan murmured, ‘is not as secure as it should be.’
‘Goodbye, Ursus,’ Cranston whispered. ‘Let’s go, Athelstan. Very softly!’
They collected their horses and made their way out of the Tower into Petty Wales. A few stalls stood uncovered and some brave souls made their way through the ankle-deep, mucky slush. Two beggar children, arms and legs as thin as sticks, stood beside a brazier singing a carol. Cranston tossed them a penny, and turned to watch as a woman condemned as a scold was led by a beadle up to the stocks in Tower Street, a steel brank fastened tightly around her head. Down the dirt-filled alleyways business was thriving for the red-wigged whores and their constant stream of clients from the Tower garrison.
Cranston asked directions from a one-eyed beggarman and came back beaming from ear to ear.
‘I have found it!’ he announced. ‘The Golden Mitre tavern! You know, the one Sir Ralph and the hospitallers went to every year for their banquet.’
The tavern was just near the Custom House on the corner of Thames Street, a grand, spacious affair with a green-leaved ale-stake pushed under the eaves from which hung a huge, gaudily painted sign. A red-nosed ostler took their horses. Inside, the tap room was airy and warmed by a fire. The rushes on the floor were clean and sprinkled with rosemary and thyme. The walls were lime-washed to keep off insects, and the hams which hung from the blackened beams gave off a sweet crisp smell which made Cranston smack his lips. They hired a table between the fire and the great polished wine butts. The landlord, a small, red-faced, balding fellow with a surprisingly clean apron draped across his expansive front, took one look at Sir John and brought across a deep bowl brimming with blood red claret.
‘Sir John!’ he exclaimed. ‘You remember me?’
Cranston seized the bowl by its two silver handles and half drained it at a gulp. ‘Yes, I do,’ he replied, smacking his lips and glaring over the rim. ‘You are Miles Talbot who once worked as an ale-conner in the taverns round St Paul’s.’ Cranston put down the bowl and shook the landlord’s hand. ‘Let me introduce an honest man, Brother Athelstan. Talbot always knew when a blackjack of ale had been watered down. Well, well, well!’ Cranston unclasped his cloak and basked in the sweet odours and warmth of the tavern. ‘What can you serve us, Master Talbot? And don’t give me fish. We know the river is frozen and the roads blocked, so anything from the water must be weeks old!’
The landlord grinned, listed the contents of his larder, and within the half-hour served a couple of pullets stuffed with herbs and covered with a piquant sauce of sweet butter and wild berries, a skillet pasty, an apple tansy, and a prodigious marrow pudding. Athelstan sat in complete stupefaction, drinking his beer, as Cranston cleared every platter, washing it all down with another bowl of claret. At last Cranston belched, stretched, and beamed round the tavern, snapping his fingers to call Talbot over.
‘Master Miles, a favour!’
‘Anything you wish, Sir John.’
‘Your house is frequented, or rather was frequented, by the late Constable of the Tower, Sir Ralph Whitton?’