‘How was the body when it was found?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Was it cold? Was the blood congealed?’
‘Yes, it was,’ Athelstan replied, though he remembered he had not asked that question himself at the time. ‘Where are you from, Doctor?’ he deftly turned the conversation. The physician carefully put his wine cup back on the table.
‘I was born in Greece, of Frankish parents. They later returned to England. I studied at Cambridge, then Santiago and Salerno.’ He grinned. ‘At Salerno,’ he continued, ‘I spent most of my time trying to forget what I had learnt at Cambridge. The Arabs have a more thorough grasp of medicine than we. They know more about the human body and have proper Greek translations of Galen’s Art of Medicine and Hippocrates’ Book of Symptoms.’
‘What brought you back to Southwark?’ Benedicta asked.
The physician smiled as if relishing some private jest.
‘Why not?’ he joked. ‘Wealth? I have enough. And as you know, Brother, the poor need any help they can get.’ He leaned across the table and studied Athelstan’s face carefully.
‘What are you going to recommend, Physician?’ Athelstan teased. ‘The eagle’s remedy for bad eyesight?’
‘What’s that?’ Benedicta asked.
‘Brother Athelstan jokes,’ Vincentius replied. ‘The charlatans say the eagle gets its keen eyesight by eating raw lettuce. So they claim rubbing the eyes with the juice of the lettuce will clear up any eye infection.’
‘And will it?’
‘A bag of nonsense!’ Vincentius snapped. ‘Warm water and a clean cloth will do more! No, Brother,’ he tapped Athelstan lightly on the fingers, ‘what you need is more sleep. And if you have any lettuce, eat it. It will do you good.’
Athelstan laughed. ‘If I can find it! The frost has killed everything in my garden, and Ursula’s pig scoffs the rest.’
Whilst Benedicta described Ursula and her malevolent sow, Athelstan felt tempted to talk to Vincentius about the desecration of the cemetery but concluded it was not a topic suitable for the table. He looked across at the hour candle and saw it was growing late. He rose and made his farewells, politely refusing Benedicta’s invitation to stay longer. He had enjoyed the meal but was glad to be gone, reminding himself that he was a priest and Benedicta was the mistress of her own life. He left her house and trudged wearily through the snow. The night was cold and black but when he stopped and looked up between the black overhanging gables of the houses, he was pleased to see the clouds beginning to break up. He would have gone straight home but made a short diversion when he found Pike the ditcher drunk as a bishop on the corner of the trackway leading down to the church. Athelstan helped his errant parishioner to his feet
‘Good evening, Father.’
Athelstan flinched at the ale fumes which billowed towards him.
‘Pike! Pike!’ he hissed. ‘You great fool. You should be home in your bed with your wife.’
Pike staggered away from him, tapping his nose drunkenly. ‘I have been seeing people, Father.’
‘I know you have, Pike.’ Athelstan grasped him by the arm. ‘For God’s sake, man, be careful! Do you want to end your life swinging on the end of some gibbet as the crows come to peck your eyes out?’
‘We’ll rule like kings,’ Pike slurred. He struggled free of the friar’s grip and danced a quick jig. ‘When Adam delved and Eve span,’ he chanted, ‘who was then the gentleman?’ Pike smiled drunkenly at Athelstan. ‘But you’ll be safe, Father. You, your cat, and your bloody stars!’ He laughed. ‘You’re a jewel. You charge no tithes. I just wish you’d bloody well laugh sometimes!’
‘I’ll bloody well laugh,’ Athelstan hissed, seizing the drunken man by the arm, ‘when you’re sober!’
And he hustled the ditcher back to his angry wife waiting in their tenement in Crooked Lane.
Athelstan thankfully reached St Erconwald’s, made sure everything was locked up and walked over to his house. It was only when he was lying on his pallet bed trying to pray and not be distracted by Benedicta’s fair face, that Athelstan suddenly remembered what Vincentius had said. What had the good physician been doing at the Tower? Moreover, Vincentius admitted he had been educated in the area around the Middle Sea where Sir Ralph and the others had also served. Was there any connection? Athelstan wondered. He was still pondering on the problem when he drifted into a deep and dreamless sleep.
Cranston, too, was thinking about events in the Tower but was too anxious to concentrate on the problems they posed. The coroner sat forlornly at the desk in his chamber, his little chancery or writing office as he called it, a place he loved, at the back of the house away from noisy Cheapside. He stared around. The floor had been specially tiled with small red and white lozenge-shaped stones and covered with woollen rugs. The windows were glazed and tightly shuttered against piercing draughts. Pine logs crackled and snapped in the small fireplace and warming dishes stood on stands at either end of the great writing desk. Sir John loved to spend time here, concentrating on his great treatise on the governance of the city. Yet tonight he could not relax; he was too distracted, ill-at-ease with the atmosphere in his own household. Oh, he had found Maude a little happier, they had exchanged the usual pleasantries, but Cranston still sensed that she was hiding something. He stirred as below stairs the maid tinkled a bell, the sign for dinner. Sir John groaned as he eased his bulk up and sorrowfully waddled down to the aroma-filled kitchen. Leif, the beggar, was crouched in the inglenook, stuffing his mouth full of richly sauced venison. He grinned at Sir John, then stared in surprise as Cranston mournfully passed by. Leif was astonished. Usually Sir John would greet him with a stream of good-natured abuse.
The beggar shrugged and went back to his meal. He was enjoying himself. Lady Maude had given him a few pennies and tomorrow he planned to see his friend in Crabbe Street. They’d dine in an eating-house and go to Moorfields where foaming bears, huge-tusked hogs and fat bulls were baited by bloody-mouthed mastiffs.
In the linen-panelled dining chamber, the table had been specially laid, covered by a white cloth of lawn with gold embossed candlesticks placed at either end. Cranston looked suspiciously at his wife. She seemed too happy. He noticed the colour high in her cheeks whilst her eyes danced with pleasure. Sir John grew more mournful. Had Lady Maude found someone else? he wondered. A young swain more virile and lusty than he? Oh, he knew such practices were common. The bored wives of old men and burgesses often found happiness in the arms of some court dandy or noble fop.
Sir John eased himself into his great chair at the top of the table and gloomily reflected on the past. Yes, his marriage had been an arranged one. Maude Philpott, daughter of a cutler, solemnly betrothed to the young Cranston. Young? He had been fifteen years her senior when they met at the church door but he had been slimmer then, fleet as a greyhound, a veritable Hector on the battlefield and a Paris in the bedchamber. Sir John looked soulfully at his wife who smiled back. Should he raise the matter? Sir John gulped. He dare not. Cranston was frightened of no one; he had the body of a bullock and the heart of a lion. Yet, secretly, he was wary of his miniature, doll-like wife. Oh, she never shouted or threw things at him. Just the opposite. She would sit and answer back, stripping away his pomposity as she would the layers of an onion, before going into a sulk which could last for days.
‘Sir John, all is well?’
‘Yes, My Lady,’ Cranston mumbled.
The maid served dinner: beef stew pie, the pastry crisp and golden. The meat within was garnished with herbs and cooked in a rich onion sauce. Cranston’s mood receded, aided and abetted by two generous cups of claret.
‘You were at the Tower today, Sir John?’
‘Yes, and all the fault of Sir Ralph Whitton, the constable. Last night he had a throat, tonight both throat and life have gone.’
Lady Maude nodded, remarking how she had heard that Sir Ralph was a hard, cruel man.
‘And you, My Lady?’