‘Good man! Good man!’ Cranston murmured. ‘You are already high in my favor.’ He wagged a stubby finger at his new steward. ‘Five things matter to me,’ he growled. ‘First, the Lady Maude. She is to be obeyed in all things. Second, take care of my sons, the poppets. Third, Brother Athelstan,’ he tapped the friar gently on the arm, ‘is my friend. Fourth, my study where I keep my great treatise is my sanctuary. And, fifth, my wineskin. There are two in fact; one hanging behind the buttery door, the other in my chamber. They are to be kept full at all times but the Lady Maude is never to know there are two.’
‘Of course, Sir John.’ Boscombe disappeared as silently as he’d appeared.
Cranston sipped the claret. ‘He will be a good man,’ he murmured. ‘But what about those bloody dogs, eh? Satan’s balls, Athelstan, they look big enough to eat the poppets and Lady Maude in one gulp!’
Athelstan chewed his lower lip. He could see Sir John’s problem but not even the glimmer of a solution.
‘It will all depend,’ he said slowly, ‘on what Lady Maude decides, Sir John.’ He held back the laughter. ‘If you are lucky, she’ll just put the two dogs out of doors. If she’s angry, you may go with them!’
Cranston belched. The two dogs turned and looked towards him.
‘Hell’s teeth, boys!’ Cranston growled at them. ‘What shall I call you? Do you know, that snivelling bastard Mountjoy, God rot him, didn’t even bother to give you names? Well, I have thought of two: the one with the blue collar will be called Gog and the one with the red, Magog.’
The two dogs must have thought it was time once again to thank their new master for they came hurtling back towards him. Athelstan felt his heart lurch with fear but Cranston lifted his hand and the two dogs stopped and lay panting before him, their eyes never leaving his fat, florid face.
‘Where did you get this gift with dogs? They’d eat out of your hands,’ Athelstan asked, carefully putting his feet under the bench.
‘Ever since I was knee-high to a buttercup I’ve got on with dogs,’ Cranston replied. ‘My father was a hard man. When I did wrong, he put me out in the kennels.’ Ever reluctant to discuss his youth, he pointed to the writing implements on the table in front of Athelstan. ‘But it’s not as difficult as this problem, eh?’
Athelstan picked up his crude drawing of the Guildhall garden. ‘How?’ he muttered, conscious of Cranston breathing noisily in his ear. ‘How could such a murder occur?’
‘Never mind that,’ growled the Coroner. ‘Let’s think about who? Hell’s tits!’ he muttered, answering his own question. ‘The possibilities are legion, and amongst them that group of whoreson codpieces who richly deserve a hempen necklace round their necks!’
Athelstan stared at the Coroner. ‘I didn’t know you cared so much, Sir John?’
‘They are,’ Cranston continued, getting into his stride, ‘a group of foul, wrinkled, double-speaking, painted turds!’ He knocked Athelstan’s piece of parchment aside and crumbled the remnants of the piece of bread he had been nibbling. ‘At the Guildhall this afternoon, my dear monk…’
‘Friar, Sir John!’
‘Same thing!’ he mumbled. ‘This afternoon we met the finest collection of rogues who ever graced this kingdom.’ Cranston placed one lump of bread on the table. ‘We have the Guild masters, the devil’s own henchmen. So full of oily grease, if you set a torch to them they’d burn for ever. They hate each other, and resent the Crown whilst each and all would love to control London. Any one of these or all together could have murdered Mountjoy.
‘Second,’ another lump of bread appeared on the table, ‘we have Gaunt’s party. God knows what that subtle prince is up to. He may desire the Crown or at least to be its master. He wants to control the London mob and needs the Guildmasters’ gold to achieve this. Next,’ a third piece of crust appeared, ‘we have the King’s party. Now our young prince is not yet of age, but followers like Hussey would love to break the power of the Regent and replace him with their good selves. Then we have the Great Community of the Realm, the peasant leaders with their secret council and mysterious leader named Ira Dei. Finally, we have the unknown. Was Mountjoy killed for personal rather than political reasons?’
Cranston lowered his voice. ‘Who knows? It could have been Boscombe or, indeed, anyone in London. I wager if you called a meeting of those who hated the Sheriff, there wouldn’t even be standing room in St Paul’s Cathedral and the line of those waiting to get in would stretch all the way down to the Thames.’
‘But, Sir John, the knife bore the name Ira Dei?’
‘Oh, come, come, clever friar,’ Sir John boomed.
‘Don’t play the innocent with me. I am sure some assassin turned up when all those notables were gathered in the Guildhall and asked for directions so he could kill the Sheriff! It’s obvious,’ Cranston stated, drawing himself up, his white whiskers quivering. ‘I only speak aloud what that double-faced group of bastards secretly know. The assassin was already in the Guildhall. Neither the Regent nor that fat slob Goodman reported any stranger being seen in or around their blessed Guildhall.’
Athelstan grinned. ‘ Concedo, O most perceptive of Coroners. So this matter becomes more tangled?’
‘Of course.’ Cranston picked up the morsels of bread.
‘And what if,’ he speculated, ‘there’s an alliance between all these groups? An unholy conjunction, as between Pilate and Herod?’
‘If that’s the case,’ Athelstan replied, ‘we have a list of complexities which defies logical analysis. The Guildmasters may not be united. They may be divided or even treacherous, paying court to both Gaunt and the peasant faction.’
‘Or worse still,’ Cranston intervened, ‘the Guildmasters could be courting Gaunt, the King and the peasant leaders.’ He waved one podgy hand. ‘Perhaps only one of the Guildmasters is a traitor? Or did Gaunt have Mountjoy killed because he was the one worm in their rose?’ Athelstan put up both hands ‘I agree, Sir John. How Sir Gerard was murdered is a mystery. Who murdered him… well, it could be anyone? So, we are left with one question: why?’
‘And we have already answered that.’ Cranston got up, patted his stomach and beamed down at his clerk. ‘Perhaps Sir Gerard was too much trouble for Gaunt? One thing we do know.’ He drummed his fat fingers on the table top. ‘The object of this game is power and the prize is to be king of the castle and watch the destruction of your enemies. All I can say is, we must trust no one.’
‘My own belief,’ Athelstan replied, ‘is that as this murder occurred on the very day Gaunt cemented his alliance with the city of London, I must conclude Sir Gerard’s death was not the result of a personal feud but a bid to wreck that alliance and sow the seeds of dissension and mistrust. In which case…’
‘In which case, what?’ Cranston snapped.
‘In which case, my dear Coroner, before either of us is much older, there will be another murder.’
Cranston, cursing softly, swept the bread from the table and watched as Gog and Magog lumbered over to discover what their master was offering them. The bells of St Mary Le Bow began to chime. Sir John looked up at the darkening sky.
‘Come on, Friar, we are invited to the Regent’s banquet at the Guildhall.’
‘Sir John, I should return to my parish.’
Cranston grinned. ‘The devil’s tits! The Regent has invited you, you have to go!’
Cranston strode back to the house, bellowing for Boscombe. Whilst Athelstan washed and cleaned himself in a bowl of water in the scullery, Sir John went up to his own chamber and dressed in a gown of murrey sarcanet, edged with gold, changing his boots for a more courtly, ornate pair. He came back to the kitchen, red face gleaming, smelling as fragrant as any rose from the ointment he had rubbed into his hands and cheeks.
‘Sir John, you look every inch the Lord Coroner. I am afraid,’ Athelstan looked down at his dusty gown, ‘I have no fresh robe.’