Rosamund Ingham paled as she answered Sir John’s insistent knocking. She stood with the door half-open and glared at the Coroner then at Athelstan, with Ranulf standing behind him. ‘What’s the matter, Mistress?’ Cranston greeted her. ‘You look as if you have seen a ghost!’
‘What do you want?’
‘You asked me last night to remove the seals from your dead husband’s room and that’s why I am here.’ He pushed the door further open. ‘We can come in, can’t we? Thank you so much.’
He glimpsed Albric standing further up the stone-flagged passageway and, from where he stood, Cranston could see the young fop was visibly frightened.
‘I’d best take you up to the room.’ Rosamund recovered her composure quickly, her pert face showing some of its old icy hardness.
Athelstan waved her on. ‘If you would, Mistress.’
Cranston winked at him.
‘For a monk, Brother, you are as sharp as a new pin.’
‘Friar!’ Athelstan hissed.
‘Well, even better,’ Cranston whispered back as they climbed the stairs.
Athelstan lowered his eyes so as not to glance at Mistress Ingham’s swaying hips. A born flirt, he thought, and knew Cranston would use a cruder word. He glanced at his fat friend walking just behind him. Although the Coroner had a smile on his lips, his light blue eyes were hard with fury. They reached the top of the stairs. Cranston removed the seals and pushed the door open.
‘Why are they here?’ Rosamund pointed a dainty finger at Athelstan and Ranulf.
‘First, because they are fellow officers!’ Cranston snapped. ‘And, second, Mistress, because I want them here. You have no objection surely?’ Rosamund moved herself in between Sir John and the open door.
‘You have removed the seals,’ she snapped. ‘Now, get out!’
‘Oh, didn’t you know?’ Cranston raised his eyebrows. ‘When the King’s Coroner unseals a room, he has to ensure, to his own satisfaction, that the chamber is as he left it. Surely you have no objections?’
The woman’s lips tightened and Cranston gave up all pretence.
‘I am not here because I am the late Sir Oliver’s friend,’ he muttered, glancing at Rosamund’s black dress. ‘I suppose the requiem was both short and sweet?’
‘It finished an hour ago.’
Cranston shoved her aside, ‘I am the King’s Coroner,’ he declared, ‘I wish to see this room, and I should be grateful, Mistress, if you and that thing downstairs would make yourselves available to answer certain questions.’
Rosamund flounced away, though Athelstan saw the fear in her face and knew that Sir John was right. She was a killer and undoubtedly responsible for the previous night’s murderous assault on the Coroner. As he followed Cranston into the chamber, Athelstan quietly prayed that both Rosamund and her weak-willed lover would fall into the trap prepared for them and that Ranulf would justify their expectations.
Cranston stared round the bed chamber, quiet and sombre, the dust motes dancing in the sunlight pouring through a glazed window. He opened the shutters of another, took a swig from his wineskin and, in an act of outstanding generosity, allowed Ranulf a drink as well.
‘Right, my lad.’ Cranston clapped the rat-catcher on the shoulder. ‘How would you like the right to be appointed chief rat-catcher in the city wards of Castle Baynard, Queenshithe and the Vintry?’
Ranulf beamed his pleasure.
‘In time, my lad, perhaps. But now, find me some rats — preferably dead ones.’
Ranulf brought Ferox out of his little cage from beneath his cloak. Cranston stepped back immediately.
‘You know what we are looking for, just keep that bloody thing away from me! I have a horror of ferrets. I knew a man once who allowed one to get inside his hose. He ended up being castrated!’
Ranulf grinned as he stroked the inquisitive ferret between the ears. The ferret gazed unblinkingly at Cranston.
‘Oh, bloody hell!’ the Coroner said.
‘Sir John, if you are really afeared,’ Ranulf replied, pointing to a small bench, ‘perhaps it’s best if you stand on that.’
Cranston gazed suspiciously at him but Ranulf remained sombre-faced.
‘Lord Coroner, I always advise nervous patrons to do that.’
‘You’d best do as he says, Sir John,’ Athetstan added with a smile. ‘You know how Bonaventure loves you. Ferox may be of the same ilk.’
Cranston needed no second bidding but stood like a Colossus on the small bench. He leaned his back against the wall, fortifying himself with generous mouthfuls from the miraculous wineskin. Ranulf held Ferox to his lips and whispered in his ear.
‘What are you doing?’ Cranston bellowed.
‘Telling him what to do.’
‘Oh, don’t be bloody stupid, man!’
Ranulf carefully put Ferox down on the floor boards. For a few minutes the ferret sniffed before darting like an arrow beneath the great four-poster bed. Athelstan went across to the small table and picked up the unstoppered earthenware jug.
‘You say this contained the foxglove?’
Cranston, his eyes intent on the bed, just nodded.
‘And you say it was found knocked over and the medicine drained?’
‘Yes, yes, Brother, but leave that. What’s that bloody ferret up to?’
Cranston got his answer. Suddenly there was a violent scuffle under the bed and Ferox emerged, his small snout bloodied as he dragged a fat, long-tailed, brown rat out into the open.
‘Good boy!’ Ranulf whispered.
‘The bloody thing’s as stupid as you are, Ranulf!’
Cranston roared. ‘He’s not here to kill bloody rats but find dead ones!’ Ranulf picked up the dead rat, opened the window and tossed it into the street. Again Ferox went hunting. The minutes passed. Athelstan watched the industrious little ferret and tried not to look at Cranston who, having taken so many swigs from the wineskin, was beginning to sway rather dangerously on the bench. Ranulf kept picking the ferret up and putting it under cupboards and behind chests. Sometimes the ferret would return, other times there would be an eerie scuffling, a heart-stopping scream, and he would re-emerge with a rat. Athelstan had to look away as Cranston began to bellow imprecations. On one occasion Rosamund came and rapped on the door. Cranston roared at her to bugger off and instructed his ‘grinning monk’, as he called Athelstan, to bolt the door.
At last Ranulf was finished. Ferox was put back in his cage. Cranston came down from his perch and all three began to move the bed and bits of furniture, Ranulf even lifting floor boards, but they could find nothing. Eventually, all three went, red-faced and perspiring, to stand in the centre of the room. Cranston’s elation was obvious. He clapped both Athelstan and Ranulf on the shoulder and apologized for bellowing at Ranulf.
‘I’ll buy you the best claret in London!’ he swore. ‘And a drink for your little friend.’
‘He likes malmsey, Sir John.’
‘Well, as far as I’m concerned, he can have a bloody bath in it! But you are sure?’
Ranulf nodded.
‘In which case, we should try the jar.’
He went across, took up the small jug and, using his wineskin, filled the jug to the brim, then raised it to his lips.
‘Sir John, are you certain?’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Athelstan, I am about to find out.’ He drank from the jug, draining every drop from it. ‘ Alea jacta! ’ he declared. ‘The die is cast! Let’s see the bitch downstairs.’
They all trooped down to the solar where a tight-faced Rosamund and a much more nervous Albric sat waiting for them.
‘Sir John.’ The woman got to her feet. ‘You have been a good hour in my house. Now get out!’
‘I haven’t finished yet,’ he snapped, advancing within a few inches of her.
‘Why, what else do you want? These ridiculous allegations!’
Cranston breathed in deeply. ‘Rosamund Ingham, and you Albric Totnes, I, Sir John Cranston, King’s Coroner in the city, do arrest you for murder and treason!’