‘More!’ he ordered, and smiled at Athelstan. ‘Oh, my favourite friar, I could well become accustomed to this luxury and wealth.’
He watched the servitor hurry off. Cranston glared once more down the hall at the courtiers who were surreptitiously staring up at him.
‘The old days are gone,’ he murmured. ‘Look at them, Athelstan. Dressed like women, walking like women, smelling like women and talking like women!’
‘I thought you loved women, Sir John?’
Cranston licked his lips. ‘Oh, I do, but Lady Maude is worth a thousand of these.’ He stamped his foot. ‘Lady Maude is England!’
Athelstan stared at the coroner warily. Nothing was more dangerous than Sir John in one of his maudlin, nostalgic moods.
‘I remember,’ the coroner continued in a half-whisper, ‘when I stood with the fathers of these men, shoulder to shoulder at Poitiers, and the French crashed against us like a steel wave.’ He patted his stomach. ‘I was slimmer then, sharper, like a greyhound. Speedy in the charge, ferocious in the fight. We were like falcons, Athelstan, falling on our enemies like a thunderbolt.’ He breathed noisily through his nostrils and his white whiskers bristled. ‘Oh, the days,’ he whispered. ‘The lechery, the drunkenness.’ He shook his head, then glared quickly at Athelstan who sat with head bowed so Cranston wouldn’t see the smile on his face.
‘What’s the matter, Sir John?’ he asked abruptly.
‘God knows! I suppose being brought here, being baited by the likes of Gaunt. I knew his father, golden-haired Edward, and his elder brother, the Black Prince, God rest him!’ Cranston wiped away a tear from his eye. ‘A fierce fighter, the Black Prince. In battle no one would dare come near him! He would kill anything that moved, anything he saw through the slits of his terrible helmet. He killed at least three horses under him. He thought their heads and ears were enemies coming at him.’
‘Sir John,’ Athelstan persisted, ‘forget the past. You remember what we agreed? You must tell the story yourself.’
Cranston flicked his fingers. ‘Fairy’s tits! I’ll tell them a tale.’ He glared fiercely at Athelstan. ‘I only hope it’s the right one.’
The servitor brought back another cup of wine. Athelstan closed his eyes and breathed a prayer that the fat coroner would not become too deep in his cups to resolve the riddle. Sir John, however, eyes half-closed, sipped from the goblet now and again, glaring contemptuously down the hall. Athelstan realised he was still quietly bemoaning the decadence of the younger generation. Suddenly a shrill bray of trumpets broke out. A party of young squires entered the hall carrying multi-coloured banners. They stood on either side of a herald dressed in the red, blue and gold of the Royal House of England. He blew three sharp fanfares on a long silver trumpet and cried for silence for ‘His Grace the King, his most noble uncle, John Duke of Lancaster, and his sweet cousin, the Lord of Cremona.’
King Richard entered, dressed in a blue gown bedecked with golden lions and the silver fleur de lys of France. To one side of him walked Lancaster in a russet-gold gown, a silver chaplet round his tawny hair, whilst on the other side walked Cremona dressed in black and silver, a smile of smug satisfaction on his dark face. Behind them members of the court, resplendent in their peacock gowns, jostled for position. The young king clapped his hands when he saw Cranston and, like any child, would have run forward if Gaunt had not restrained him with one beringed hand.
‘My Lord Coroner,’ the boy king called, ‘you are most welcome.’
Cranston and Athelstan, who had risen as soon as the herald entered, sank to one knee.
‘Your Grace,’ Cranston murmured, ‘you do me great honour.’
He waited for Richard’s more decorous advance, took his small, alabaster-white hand and kissed it noisily, causing a ripple of sniggers from the onlooking courtiers. The coroner half-raised his head.
‘Your Grace, do you know my clerk?’
The young king, still holding Cranston’s podgy hand in his, turned, smiled and nodded at the Dominican.
‘Of course, Brother Athelstan. You are well?’
‘Yes, God be thanked, Your Grace.’
‘Good!’ The king smacked his hands together. ‘Sweetest Uncle,’ Richard called over his shoulder, and Athelstan caught the steely glint in the boy’s eyes and voice. The friar stared quickly at the floor. Richard hated his powerful uncle and one day the matter would be settled by blood.
‘Sweet Uncle,’ the young king repeated, ‘let everyone take their seats. Sir John, Brother Athelstan, you shall sit on my right, next to my uncle.’
Cranston and Athelstan rose. Gaunt silkily greeted them both, as did the Italian lord. Athelstan caught the mockery in their smiles. They had studied Cranston well; the coroner was in his cups and they believed the wager was already lost Again there was the usual commotion as courtiers fought for seats on the dais. The herald blew further blasts on his silver trumpet and the hall became full of din and shouting as people took their seats. The King, his eyes bright, his face alive with excitement, kept smiling down the table at Athelstan and Cranston who suddenly sobered up. There was more at stake than just a thousand crowns. Gaunt was waiting for him to fail whilst the king was determined that his uncle be brooked and this arrogant Italian lord be shown the true mettle of English wit.
At last the herald commanded silence and the king, not waiting for his uncle, stood up.
‘My sweet Uncle, my Lord of Cremona, Gentlemen — the wager is now common knowledge. Two weeks ago a mystey was posed,’ the king’s hand fell to the wrist of the Italian lord sitting on his left, ‘by our visitor. A mystery which has taxed the minds and subtle intellects of the learned at this court and elsewhere. Sir John accepted the wager of a thousand crowns.’ The young king clicked his fingers and a page hurried from the shadows bearing a scarlet cushion on which rested a sealed scroll. Richard picked this up. ‘The answer lies here Now, sirs, is there anyone in this hall who can solve the mystery?’
A murmur of dissent greeted his words. The Italian lord leaned forward, his smug smile evident for all to see. The king turned to Cranston. ‘My Lord Coroner, can you?’
Cranston stood, coming round the table to the front of the dais. He bowed low from the waist.
‘Your Grace, I believe I can.’
A deep sigh greeted his words. The king sat down, sending a mischievous glance at Athelstan. Gaunt leaned back in his chair, elbows on its arms, steepling his fingers, whilst the Italian lord began to chew nervously on his lip as Sir John, a consummate actor, slipped from one role to another — no longer the bombastic knight, the tippling toper or the angry law officer. Athelstan hugged himself. Cranston was going to demonstrate that beneath that fat red face and white grizzled head was a brain and wit as sharp as in any university hall or inn of court.
Sir John, warming to his part, walked up and down the dais with his hands held together before him, waiting for the murmuring to die away. He did not begin until he had the attention of everyone. He turned, and his blue eyes caught those of the young king.
‘Your Grace, I believe the mystery is this.’ Cranston licked his lips and raised his voice so all could hear. ‘A young man slept in the scarlet chamber and was found dead, staring through the window. A priest from a local village who had come up through the snow died the same day. However, the most mysterious deaths were those of the two soldiers placed on guard in the chamber.’ Cranston half-turned. ‘You may remember how one killed the other with his crossbow before collapsing and dying himself.’ He paused for effect. ‘No other person entered that room. No secret passageways or tunnels existed. No poisoned food or drink were served. Four men died, one killed by an arrow. Yet,’ Cranston held up a hand, ‘three of them were poisoned.’
‘How?’ Cremona asked.
‘My Lord, the killer was the bed.’
Athelstan caught the look of surprise on the Italian’s face. Cranston was hunting along the right track.