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Flaxwith undid the rope which held Samson tethered and hurried down the passageway.

‘What do you hope to achieve, Brother?’

‘Trickery, Sir John. The world is full of trickery and deceit. Everything is a riddle. Clerks are killed when no one is about. A moneylender is found dead in his locked counting house whilst in Southwark,’ he added bitterly, ‘crucifixes drip with real blood.’

‘You don’t believe that, do you?’

‘No I don’t, Sir John. But my parishioners do. John, you know the villains and the cunning men of the underworld. How could they do that?’

Cranston sighed. ‘I have knowledge of it,’ he answered. ‘But usually they are fairground tricks, Brother. The blood is wine or paint.’

‘This was real blood,’ Athelstan replied.

‘The men I have arrested,’ Cranston continued, ‘used secret levers or mechanisms.’

‘I don’t think that’s the case here,’ Athelstan said. ‘The crucifix was bleeding when no one was holding it.’

‘What about Huddle?’ Cranston asked.

‘A cunning, subtle painter. What he can do with a paint-brush is beyond me. But why this, eh, Sir John?’ He linked his arm through Cranston’s as they walked down the passageway. As I keep pointing out to you, my Lord Coroner, I am a Dominican. My order, to its eternal shame or credit, has the reputation of being the Domini Canes.’

‘The hounds of God!’ Cranston translated. ‘The Inquisition?’

‘Precisely, Sir John. It is their duty to investigate so-called miracles, question self-confessed prophets. In our library at Blackfriars, there is a book, a record of such investigations. Now, Laveck is coming to examine this door and I have no desire to return to Southwark, so what I propose, Sir John, is that we visit Blackfriars.’ He nipped Cranston’s arm. ‘Don’t worry, I have just remembered, Father Prior is on a brief pilgrimage to St Thomas’s shrine at Canterbury.’

Cranston stopped, a stubborn look on his face.

‘Our mother house also has a new cook,’ Athelstan added slyly. ‘A man who can perform miracles with a piece of beef or roast pheasant. Even His Grace the Regent tried to tempt him into the kitchen of the Savoy’

The coroner clapped Athelstan on the shoulder. ‘Brother, if you weren’t a Dominican, you’d make a very good tempter. The spirit is willing but the flesh is very weak. Accordingly, my only answer to such temptation is yes.’

Robert Elflain, clerk of the Green Wax, left the Chancery Office and made his way up Holborn towards Fleet Street. It was Wednesday and Elflain was determined that he would spend some part of the day away from the cloying, suspicious attitude of his comrades. Everything had gone wrong. Alcest had sworn that in the end they would have nothing to fear but Elflain was worried. He did not like the fat coroner whilst that sharp-eyed friar seemed to sense something was wrong. Alcest had demanded that they stay together, that no one should wander off, but this was Wednesday and, at Dame Broadsheet’s, Laetitia would be waiting: those soft eyes and even softer skin, that long, sinuous body! Elflain was tense, he needed to burrow his face into her swanlike neck and embrace her body.

He passed Newgate and tried not to look at the scaffold: that would reawaken his fears. If only Chapler had been more accommodating, everything would have gone smoothly! Elflain loosened the collar of his shirt and cursed as he slipped on the offal dripping along the cobbles from the butcher’s stall. On the corner of an alleyway he turned and stared back: was anyone following him? The crowds milled about, grouping round the stalls, haggling with the traders. Elflain heaved a sigh and continued on his journey. When he glimpsed the front of Dame Broadsheet’s house he felt a glow of satisfaction in the pit of his stomach. He hurried along until he reached the door. Naturally, it was closed and bolted because Dame Broadsheet only had a licence to sell ale in the evening. Elflain groaned. There would be the usual tarrying as he explained to a suspicious porter who he was and why he had come. Dame Broadsheet was ever suspicious of some bailiff or tipstaff trapping her and bringing a charge against her of conducting a house of ill repute.

Elflain banged on the door. Silence. He knocked again.

‘Elflain!’

He turned and stared at the hooded, cowled figure which had appeared like a ghost behind him.

‘What the…?’ Elflain stepped forward but it was too late.

The catch of the small arbalest was sprung and the barbed bolt took him full in the heart, smashing through flesh and bone. The clerk staggered back against the door, writhing in pain. He glimpsed the cowled figure drop a small parchment scroll at his feet and then he died, even as the door swung open.

CHAPTER 8

When Sir John Cranston left Blackfriars, his stomach was full of capon pie but his mind was totally bemused by what he had read in the library. As he and Athelstan reached Ludgate, the coroner took his hat off and shook his head.

‘Heaven knows, Brother,’ he exclaimed. ‘I have seen villainy enough in the city: how quickly and easily people are gulled. But what I read there is beyond all human understanding.’ He ticked the points off on his podgy fingers. ‘A goblet in which wine miraculously appears. Statues which move and cry. A cloth which is supposed to have wiped Jesus Christ’s face suddenly becoming blood-soaked. A rock on which Jesus stood that glows in the dark. Straw from the manger at Bethlehem which smells of some heavenly perfume.’ He laughed. ‘And that’s before we get on to the people! Was there really a man in Salisbury who dressed in goatskin, ate ants and honey and pretended to be John the Baptist?’

‘Oh yes,’ Athelstan replied. ‘The human mind is a great marvel, Sir John: people are only too quick to believe. Go into any great church. I know of at least ten which claim to have the arm of St Sebastian; five which contain the dorsal fin of the whale that swallowed Jonah.’ Athelstan’s smile faded. ‘But, there again, nothing about a crucifix which drips blood.’

‘Do you think it could be real?’ Cranston asked.

‘I’d love to believe it, Sir John, I really would. I’m no different from the rest of humankind. I have a hankering for signs and wonders, but there’s something…’ Athelstan chewed his lip. ‘I don’t trust Watkin and the same goes for Pike the ditcher. But, talking of trickery, Master Flaxwith and Laveck must have arrived at Drayton’s house. I am eager to learn what they may have discovered.’

They made their way through the crowds, Cranston, full of good humour as well as capon pie, doffing his cap to the ladies of the town and answering their witticisms like with like. When they arrived at Drayton’s house, the small, nut-brown carpenter Laveck had been very busy. The door had been gouged, rows of the great iron studs being removed. Flaxwith sat in a corner, one hand round the ever-vigilant Samson who licked his lips and growled when he saw Cranston.

‘Keep your dog under control,’ the coroner warned. ‘Now, Master Laveck, what have you found?’

‘At first nothing, Sir John. The hinges are sound, the keys and locks are good.’ The man’s bright eyes grinned up at the coroner towering above him. ‘Master Flaxwith,’ he continued, ‘told me what this was all about. I knew Drayton. He was a mean old bugger.’

‘Yes, yes, quite,’ the coroner replied. ‘But what have you found?’

‘Nothing much, Sir John.’ Laveck picked up one of the great iron studs which fitted into the outside of the door. ‘This was held in place by a huge screw on the inside. It’s been loosened.’

‘What do you mean, loosened?’ Cranston gazed threateningly at Flaxwith. ‘I thought you examined the door?’

‘No, no, let me explain,’ Laveck intervened quickly. He was eager to keep the goodwill of the bailiff who had assured him he would be paid good silver for this day’s work. ‘When this door was constructed, the carpenter gouged holes in the wood then inserted these great iron studs facing outwards. They are held in place by a clasp or screw on the inside.’