‘For a priest, you’re a good fellow, Athelstan. You have fire in your balls, steel in your heart and a tongue like a razor!’ He grinned wickedly, giving Athelstan a vice-like hug. ‘If you weren’t a monk, you’d be a very good coroner’s apprentice.’
‘You’re in good spirits, Sir John.’
‘I feel better already,’ the coroner declared. ‘A blackjack of ale and the presence of the fair Benedicta. Who could ask for more?’
‘The Lady Maude?’ Athelstan queried.
Cranston’s face dropped. ‘By Satan’s balls, friar! Don’t frighten me!’
They reached the tavern and sat ensconced behind a table. Cranston was on his second blackjack of ale whilst his thick fingers tore at the white, succulent flesh of a small quail, when Benedicta joined them. The coroner roared for a cup of hippocrass, invited her to sit on his knee and bellowed with laughter at the woman’s barbed reply, whilst grinning wickedly out of the corner of his eye at Athelstan. He knew the priest was a good man, saintly, but with a weakness for this woman which fascinated Cranston. It was the only time Athelstan ever became nervous, those first few minutes whenever he met Benedicta, and this time was no different. The friar fussed around the woman like a lovelorn squire, making sure she was comfortable, whilst Benedicta, shy at such attention, murmured that she was well. Athelstan privately concluded that she was: Benedicta had lost her strained anxious look, her black glossy hair under its white gauze veil smelt fragrant, and he admired her close-cut gown of pink satin, tied at the throat by a heart-shaped brooch. Benedicta winked at Cranston and glanced sidelong at Athelstan.
‘You have been to the church, Father?’
‘Yes, and have given Pike a piece of my mind. Cecily fled before I could tell her a few home truths. Benedicta, I left you in charge!’
The woman shrugged daintily. ‘You know Watkin, Father. He has a mouth like a trumpet. At least I kept them out of the church. What would you have me do?’ she asked innocently, her eyes twinkling. ‘Lie down in the graveyard with Cecily?’
Cranston snorted with laughter. Athelstan smiled.
‘Any reply to the letter?’ she asked hopefully.
Cranston covered her delicate hand with his huge paw.
‘Don’t worry,’ he confided between gentle burps. ‘I sent the swiftest messenger. He was to go from Dover to Boulogne and is under orders to await a reply.’
Benedicta gripped one of his fingers and squeezed it tightly.
‘Sir John, you are a gentleman.’
Cranston grabbed his blackjack and pushed his face deep into it to hide his embarrassment.
‘The business at Blackfriars?’ she asked.
‘Murder, my lady,’ Cranston answered darkly. ‘Bloody murder! Silent death! But I have a few theories as my clerk will tell you later.’ He glanced suspiciously at Benedicta as she bit her lower lip whilst Athelstan suddenly became interested in his own wine cup.
‘I want to meet you, Benedicta,’ Athelstan intervened smoothly, ‘before going back to Blackfriars. The coffin is to be returned to the church and left there. Today is Thursday. I will return next Tuesday to hear confessions before Corpus Christi. Tell Watkin I want to find nothing amiss.’
‘And what else?’
Athelstan leaned back against the wall. ‘I have been thinking about what Father Prior said to me just before I left Blackfriars. He talked about the first miracle. You know, I think it’s time we visited Raymond D’Arques. Come on.’ He rose as Cranston grabbed his tankard and drained it to the dregs. Athelstan nodded towards the door. ‘Perhaps the mist is beginning to lift in more ways than one.’
D’Arques’s house was a two-storied, narrow building on the corner of a lane. It was half-timbered with a red-tiled roof, small windows on both storeys and a passageway down the side. Athelstan walked along this and looked over the small gate at the bottom. He glimpsed a huge yard, empty except for a few beggars crouched there. Surprised, he returned to the front of the house and knocked on the door, Cranston and Benedicta standing behind him. D’Arques’s pleasant-faced wife answered and welcomed them in with a smile.
‘Father Athelstan.’ She glanced quickly at Cranston and Benedicta.
‘Two friends,’ he replied. ‘Sir John Cranston, Coroner of the City, and Benedicta, a member of my parish council.’
The woman turned and walked back into the shadows of the house.
‘Come in,’ she said softly. ‘My husband is working. You have come to see him about the miracle worked at St Erconwald’s?’
‘Yes,’ the friar replied. ‘The news has spread throughout Southwark, even across the river.’
D’Arques was sitting in the cool, stone-flagged kitchen: the coins scattered across the table, the strips of parchment, ink horn and quill, and the small, black-beaded abacus, showed he was in the middle of doing his accounts. He pushed back his stool as they entered, and rose, inviting them to sit at either side of the table.
‘Brother Athelstan, you are welcome.’
The introductions were made; he clasped Cranston’s hand and nodded politely at Benedicta. Athelstan sat down and looked around. The kitchen was neat and tidy. A huge cauldron above a small log fire gave off a delicious odour. D’Arques caught his glance.
‘Beef stew,’ he commented, ‘but it’s not my wife’s cooking you’re interested in.’ He rolled back the loose sleeve of his gown to reveal a healthy arm. ‘You see, Father, the infection has not returned.’
Cranston and Benedicta stared at the wholesome skin, searching for any mark, but they were unable to find any. D’Arques’s wife sat at the other end of the table watching them intently.
‘Master D’Arques.’ Athelstan shifted uneasily as he felt he was now intruding on this happy household. ‘You’ve lived in Southwark all your life?’
‘I am Southwark born and bred.’
‘And you’ve been a carpenter?’
‘I’ve had various trades, Father. Why do you ask?’
‘Have you ever been married before?’
D’Arques threw back his head and laughed, then winked at his wife. ‘Once bitten, twice shy, Father! Margot Twyford,’ he nodded at his wife, ‘is my first and only wife. My first and only love,’ he added softly.
The woman looked away in embarrassment.
‘Twyford?’ Cranston interrupted. ‘Are you a member of that family?’
‘Oh, yes, Sir John. The famous Twyfords, the merchant princes. I am one of their kin. My father was most reluctant for me to marry outside the family circle and the great trade guilds which the Twyfords dominate.’
Athelstan felt he had gone as far as he dared. He was about to turn the conversation to more mundane matters when there was a sudden knock at the back door.
‘I am sorry,’ D’Arques muttered. ‘We have other tasks to attend to.’
His wife rose. Collecting a huge tray from a side table, she went and knelt before the fire, ladling the stew into small earthenware bowls.
‘Do you wish to eat?’ she asked over her shoulder. ‘Something to drink?’
‘No, thank you,’ Athelstan answered quickly, glancing at Cranston. ‘You have children, Master D’Arques?’
Again the man laughed. He rose and went to open the door. Athelstan glimpsed the beggars he had seen before now staring expectantly into the kitchen.
‘Go and sit down,’ D’Arques said quietly to them. ‘Sit against the wall and my wife will bring out the food.’
The beggars quietly obeyed as Mistress D’Arques rearranged the bowls so as to lay a huge platter of cut bread between them. She smiled at her visitors and disappeared through the door, to be welcomed by cries of thanks and appreciation.
‘You feed the poor?’ Benedicta asked, her eyes shining with admiration.
‘St Swithin’s is our parish, Mistress Benedicta. We all have our tasks. At noontime every day we feed the poor within the parish boundaries. It’s the least we can do.’
Athelstan nodded, rose, and went across to the door. He glanced quickly round and caught sight of a small, beautifully carved cupboard.