‘We still go to Firecrest Manor, Brother?’
Athelstan took a full mouthful of the rich Bordeaux.
‘Of course we do.’ Athelstan handed the wineskin back. ‘Sir John, I am truly sorry about earlier. I was daydreaming.’
‘You were anxious, highly so?’
‘Yes,’ Athelstan conceded. ‘This business at Firecrest, “The Book of Fires”, the attacks, it’s different from the other mysteries that have challenged us. I feel there is something important we have missed. And, of course, there is the business at St Erconwald’s.’ He smiled up at the coroner. ‘Trust me, Sir John, I would love to experience a miracle.’ Athelstan slumped down on a plinth of stone and stared up the lane. He wasn’t speaking the full truth. He dare not tell Sir John how sometimes, as today, he wished to be free of all this. He would love to escape back to the calm serenity of the cloisters, some hall at Oxford or Cambridge or even a village parish deep in the countryside. He scrutinized the narrow thoroughfare, the filthy sewer choked with filth and sludge, the shuttered windows, lock-fast doors, the crumbling plaster and decaying beams of the houses three or four storeys high, some held up by crutches as they leaned over to block out the sky. The stench was offensive, the cold now tingling the sweat on his body. Athelstan closed his eyes, breathed a prayer and got up.
‘Come, Sir John, enough of my morbid thoughts.’ They walked further down the street. Athelstan saw dust trailing from the scaffolding holding up one of these tottering tenements. He heard a shout behind him and turned. Four men stood at the mouth of the alleyway, dark shapes against the poor light. Athelstan’s heart sank – more grief and trouble!
‘Sir John?’ The coroner had also noticed the strangers and drawn both sword and dagger.
‘Satan’s tits,’ Cranston whispered. ‘Come, Athelstan, flight is better than fight.’ They backed further up the thoroughfare. One of the four men stepped forward, shouting and gesturing at them to return, pointing up at the scaffolding. Cranston and Athelstan, however, continued to retreat. Again the stranger shouted, first in English then in Norman French.
‘Be warned! Be warned! Avisera! Avisera!’
Athelstan recalled the dust falling from the tenements. He whirled around and glimpsed the figure high on the scaffolding, the pots arching like two balls through the air. He grabbed Cranston’s cloak, dragging him back up the street. They collided, staggering and clinging to each other as if drunk. Athelstan heard the pot smash close by, followed by the whoosh of one fire arrow and then another. Both coroner and friar fled as the breadth of the entire alleyway behind them erupted into sheets of flame, the fire following the liquid snaking from the shattered pots as remorselessly and as swiftly as any predator its prey. The conflagration greedily seized and consumed everything in its path, racing over midden heaps, so swift Athelstan heard the rats screaming in alarm and agony. He and the coroner, however, were fortunate: they were now free of the racing fire. Athelstan stared up at the scaffolding but the black, bleak figure had vanished. He glanced over his shoulder; his rescuers had also disappeared. The alarm had been raised. Cries of ‘Harrow! Harrow!’ echoed. Doors and shutters were flung open. Householders spilled into the street. Cranston had the presence of mind to shout at them to bring sand, dirt and vinegar-soaked sheets. Luckily the flames had not spread to the wooden-beamed houses either side, though the occasional blue and orange flame flickered dangerously close here and there.
‘Come, Friar.’ Cranston plucked Athelstan’s sleeve and they went back the way they had come. ‘Shall we eat and drink our fill, Brother?’ Cranston offered his constant remedy to any danger.
‘I don’t think so.’ Athelstan’s fear had given way to anger. ‘I sensed we were being followed and that was true,’ he laughed abruptly, ‘by the Ignifer as well as our angel escort, who have rescued us twice in one morning. I wonder who they are and why they save us? Sir John, this mystery is deep, dangerous and tangled.’ He paused. ‘If I didn’t know better, I would truly wonder whether Lady Isolda didn’t escape the fires of Smithfield and, like some vengeful wraith, now pursues her persecutors.’ Athelstan walked on, vigilant about the sights and sounds around them. ‘And there’s the rub,’ he added. ‘We were not party to her death, so why the attacks on us?’
‘Do you think she was innocent, Brother?’
‘Lady Isolda was spoilt and wilful,’ Athelstan paused as a cripple scuttled across the street in front of him, his wooden hand rests clattering on the frozen ground. Somewhere in a chamber above them a boy’s voice chanted the ‘Kyrie’ from the ‘Lamentations’ of Good Friday. ‘Aye, Lord, have mercy on us.’ Athelstan translated the refrain. ‘And Lord have mercy on Lady Isolda and Sir Walter – their marriage was certainly not made in heaven. I wonder who wanted that annulment? She, Sir Walter or both? Was she looking at that Codex of Canon Law because her husband was threatening her?’ Athelstan scratched the side of his face. ‘And if there was an annulment, I wonder on what grounds? No, Sir John, it’s idle to speculate on that or her innocence. We must get to Firecrest Manor as soon as possible. I want answers to certain questions as well as establish who was absent this morning. Strange, isn’t it, Sir John?’
‘What is?’
‘We are dealing with these mysteries, we suffer attacks by the Ignifer, yet we also face danger from the Upright Men. Violence seems to meet us at every turn.’
‘Because?’ Cranston gripped Athelstan’s shoulder. ‘That is the way of the world. The way things are. Such assaults are common and we have just been caught up in one. A similar ambuscade was sprung three days ago in Farringdon ward. A few days before that, a string of pack ponies were seized in Cripplegate. Clement of Chatham, one of Gaunt’s tax collectors, was kidnapped outside St Michael’s Cornhill. The revolt is imminent, Brother, what – two, three months at the very most? Like fruit come to fullness, it has to burst. All we can do is prepare. Look at the signs, Brother, as you would the weather; the clouds gather, the wind picks up and the storm is ready to burst upon us.’
‘And in the meantime?’ Athelstan gathered his cloak about him. ‘Murder awaits, scuttling before us. We catch its shadow but never the substance. So, let us see what new things Firecrest Manor can tell us.’
PART FOUR
‘It burns up all things on which it is thrown by bow or catapult.’
Cranston and Athelstan arrived at the manor only to be informed that no one was available. Sir Henry, Lady Rohesia and Buckholt had gone into the city to deal with certain matters; Rosamund the maid had accompan-ied them. Mortice the buttery clerk, all puffed up with self-importance, his eyes gleaming like those of an angry ferret, brusquely informed them they would either have to wait or go. He soon changed his attitude when Cranston grabbed him by the shoulder and shook him into a more humble and cooperative mood. They were shown into the well-furnished buttery adjoining the kitchen. Here Cranston set up, as he put it, his ‘seat of judgement’. A cook hurriedly served bowls of a steaming hot, well-spiced pottage, dishes of cheese and dried fruit, freshly baked bread and two large blackjacks of ale. One of the turnspits was ‘inducted into the service of the Crown’: Cranston gave him a coin and ordered him to go as swift as a pigeon to the city Guildhall to fetch the coroner’s official scurrier, the red-headed, green-garbed Tiptoft. Athelstan washed himself at a nearby lavarium, cleaning off the dirt of the city and the effects of the furious fight near Aldgate. He quickly ate the food, drank the ale, made himself comfortable in a corner and fell asleep. He awoke at least two hours later, according to the day candle on its spigot. Sir John, looking remarkably refreshed, informed him that Tiptoft had been and gone.