The Anger of God (18 page)

Albric sat down again and stared fearfully at Athelstan.

‘You also mentioned treason.’ Rosamund rushed her words to hide any confusion.

‘Yes, I did,’ Cranston replied softly. ‘Last night I was attacked by footpads. I beat them off and took one prisoner,’ he lied. ‘He confessed how you hired them to kill me.’

‘Nonsense!’

‘He named you.’

‘Oh, this is ridiculous!’ she sneered. ‘Are you also accusing me of hiring three footpads?’

Cranston smiled. ‘How do you know there were three?’

The sneer died on Rosamund’s face.

‘They also named you.’ Cranston nodded at Albric.

‘That’s not true!’ the young man snapped and glared furiously at Rosamund. ‘You said it would be safe!’

‘Oh, shut up, you fool!’ She sat down, covering her face with her hands.

Athelstan relaxed, aware that he had been digging the nails of his fingers into the palms of his hand. He went to stand over the young man.

‘Confess,’ he said quietly. ‘Turn King’s evidence and who knows what the Coroner will do for you?’

Athelstan crouched and patted the young man’s hand then stood up as Albric stared at the floor.

‘I’ll confess,’ he muttered.

Rosamund pushed her tearful, hate-filled face at Athelstan. ‘Shut up, you bloody priest! You ragged-arsed half-man! I did it for you!’ she hissed at Albric. ‘I did it for you!’

He shook his head. ‘We’re finished,’ he whispered.

Cranston turned and beckoned Robert over. ‘Quickly, go down the street. At The Moon and the Cage tavern you’ll find four serjeants. You are to bring them here immediately!’

The steward scurried off. Athelstan and Cranston walked to the front door and waited until the four city serjeants came. Cranston whispered instructions to them then he and his companions left even as Rosamund’s rage turned to hysteria. She screamed her fury at Cranston and Athelstan as the serjeants began to load her and Albric with the chains they had brought.

Outside in the street Cranston stood still, his eyes full of tears. ‘I can’t say anything,’ he said. He shook Athelstan’s hand very formally and then Ranulf’s. He wiped a tear away. ‘Come on. I did not go to Oliver’s requiem mass but let me buy you the funeral toast.’ He pointed down to Ferox, now dozing quietly in his cage. ‘And our little friend here can go home drunk.’

An hour later, a rather drunk Ranulf with an even tipsier ferret staggered out of The Moon and the Cage tavern, muttering that he had to get back to Southwark. Cranston watched the rat-catcher disappear out of the door of the tavern and grew expansive.

‘A fine man, Brother. I’ve always called your parishioners a gang of sinners but there goes a good man.’

‘We are all sinners,’ Athelstan replied. ‘But, God knows, thinking of Mistress Rosamund, I’d draw a line between those who fall due to weakness and those who sin out of malice.’

‘Which brings us,’ Cranston trumpeted, keeping a wary eye on the relic-seller feasting on his ill-gotten gains in the far corner of the taproom, ‘back to the deaths at the Guildhall, eh?’

Athelstan quickly told him about his meeting with Pike the ditcher. Cranston heard him out, smacking his lips and sniffing at the savoury smells from the tavern kitchen.

‘Pike should watch himself,’ he growled. ‘A man who stands with a foot on either side of a flame ends up getting his balls burnt. Oh, by the way, talking of danger, has the Lady Benedicta collected that minx of a girl?’

‘By now, Sir John, she should be safely at the Minoresses.’

‘A bad business that,’ Cranston muttered. ‘Do you know, Brother, there was something evil in that house?’

‘Well, it’s finished,’ Athelstan declared half-heartedly. He agreed with Cranston’s conclusion but still felt guilty about what had happened. ‘However, this business at the Guildhall.’ He ran a finger round the rim of his cup. ‘You realize, Sir John, those murders are not like the ones we usually investigate? You knew Sir Oliver had been murdered. Someone in that house had killed him. The same is true of the other crimes we have resolved, be it the business at the Springall manor or the murder of Sir Ralph Whitton at the Tower last Christmas.’

Athelstan warmed to his theme. ‘You see, Sir John, such crimes originate not from bad blood but hot blood. Political assassination, however, is different. There’s no personal rancour, no malicious glee at the destruction of an enemy, just expediency. This is what we are dealing with now: Mountjoy and Fitzroy’s deaths were coldly decided, seized as a means to bring My Lord of Gaunt’s plans into confusion.’

Athelstan rubbed his lips and, before Cranston could order more wine, told the pot boy to go away. ‘Remember, Sir John, murder is like chess. You move a piece, your opponent counter moves. Sooner or later a mistake will be made or a path opened in order to discover the truth and bring the game to an end. But here our opponent could be anyone.’ Athelstan brushed crumbs from his robe. ‘Three murders,’ he muttered. ‘We know they died but little else. How was Fitzroy poisoned when he ate and drank what the rest did? How could Mountjoy be stabbed to death in the privacy of his own garden? And Sturmey? One minute on the quayside, the next floating in the Thames with a dagger in his chest.’ Athelstan paused as a loud snore greeted his words. He turned to see Sir John, head back, eyes closed, with a beatific smile on his face. ‘Sir John! Lord above!’ Athelstan breathed. ‘I can’t even find your ribs, you’re so fat!’

‘Portly,’ Sir John answered, opening his eyes and licking his lips. ‘I am portly, Athelstan.’ He tapped his red, fleshy nose. ‘Remember, Brother, the Lord Coroner may doze but he never sleeps. What is it you want to know?’

‘Sturmey . . . you knew something from his past?’

‘God knows! I can’t place it,’ Cranston growled, getting to his feet. ‘But we’ve got to visit his shop again.’

‘I thought Gaunt’s men had sealed it?’

‘Yes, they have, but I’ve received permission from the Regent to remove the seals as long as My Lord Clifford is present.’

‘I was hoping to return to Southwark.’

‘Well, you can’t. There’s God’s work to be done here. Come on, Brother.’

Athelstan followed Cranston out, noting how the Coroner deliberately knocked against the hard-drinking relic-seller.

‘I hate such bastards!’ he whispered outside the tavern. ‘If I had my way I’d clear the lot from the city. They sell enough wood from the true cross to build a fleet of ships!’

Athelstan, seeing the fat Coroner was becoming evil-tempered, linked his arm through his and gently diverted the conversation to a more even keel by asking when he thought the Lady Maude would return. They soon found Lord Clifford’s house, a handsome, three-storied building in Parchment Lane, but the young nobleman was not at home.

‘He’s gone to see the physician,’ a liveried servant explained as he ushered them into the small, comfortable solar. ‘However, he is expecting you, Sir John.’

Athelstan courteously declined the offer of refreshment but Cranston needed no second urging. He sat back in a quilted chair, sipping the claret and openly admiring the luxury of the room. Athelstan, quietly praying Sir John would not drink too much, also looked at the pieces of armour tastefully arranged around the walls. A pair of crossed gauntlets, a shield and two halberds, and a number of intricate, beautifully carved arbalests and crossbows.

‘A wealthy man,’ Athelstan observed.

‘Of course,’ Sir John replied. ‘I served with his father. He took a group of bowmen to France. A fierce soldier, God rest him, and now his son aims high.’

Athelstan glanced at the thick, woollen rugs on the shining oak floor, the silverware on the polished table glinting in the sunlight pouring through a painted glass window. Athelstan wondered why men like Lord Adam, who had so much, always wanted more. His meditations were rudely interrupted by Clifford himself bursting into the room. He tossed his cloak at a servant and strode across to shake their hands warmly. Athelstan saw the bruises and marks on the young man’s face and noticed how stiffly he moved his shoulders.

‘You were injured sorely?’ the friar asked as the greetings were finished.

Clifford grinned then grimaced. ‘Some cuts and bruises to my face. The worst is a dagger wound in my shoulder.’

‘The work of Ira Dei?’

‘Undoubtedly. I was beaten unconscious before the watch rescued me. The bastards even left a note pinned to my cloak.’

‘What did it say?’

‘“Do not provoke the Anger of God.”’ Clifford moved his shoulder gingerly. ‘I couldn’t give a fig. It will take more than those ruffians,’ he remarked drily, ‘to hinder me.’

He offered more refreshment but Athelstan said the day was passing.

‘Sir John,’ he explained, ‘wishes to visit Sturmey’s shop, remove the Regent’s seals and search the place.’

Clifford agreed and they went out into the bustling market place, Clifford chatting to them about Gaunt’s determination to restore his alliance with the Guildmasters.

‘Keep your voices down and your hands on your wallets,’ Cranston intervened. He smiled at Athelstan. ‘I think all Southwark’s here.’

The friar glanced around. The stalls were busy, the noise deafening with the apprentices’ raucous cries of ‘St Thomas’ onions!’ ‘Fresh bread!’ ‘Hot pies!’ ‘Pins and needles for a mistress!’ ‘A cap for you, sir!’ All of London, the silk-clad nobles and serge-clothed peasants, swirled around the stalls and Athelstan glimpsed the sharp-faced foists, pickpockets and cut-purses at work. He’d walked so many times through the city with Cranston, he’d acquired the Coroner’s skill in detecting how these sneak thieves worked, constantly moving round the market place looking for a victim. These petty law-breakers were now busy, seemingly oblivious to the punishments being carried out around the stocks and whipping posts of Cheapside: market beadles chained men and women, crude placards slung round their necks describing their litany of crimes, be it cutting buttons from precious robes to bone-pickers and rag-gatherers who were not above helping themselves to any items which fell from a stall.

A pardoner stood beneath the market cross, greasy scrolls in his hand, offering remission for sins in return for donations to the Pope’s coffers. Hawkers sold battered spoons, rusting tin cups and other paltry articles. The whores paraded themselves, keeping a wary eye for the ward constables; tipplers offered fresh water whilst beating off dogs lapping in their buckets or ragged-arsed urchins begging for a free drink. The execution cart forced its way through, preceded by a dark-cowled monk, muttering the prayers for the dying. Three condemned felons sat on their cheap arrow-chest coffins shouting farewells at the sparse, ragged crowd of friends and acquaintances. These accompanied the condemned felons to the gallows to hang on their feet and so ensure a speedy death. Now and again Cranston would be recognized with ‘Hellos’ from the worthy city burgesses or black looks and a stream of obscenities from those who had felt the Coroner’s fat hand on their collar.

At last they turned up Lawrence Lane. Sturmey’s shop was all boarded up but the whey-faced maid and chattering apprentice let them in.

‘His son has not come south yet,’ the young boy told them. ‘But the sooner he does, the sooner I can move on to another master.’

Cranston patted him on the head and slipped a penny into his hand. Clifford drew his dagger, sliced through the Regent’s seal and, taking the keys the Corporation had seized, opened the workshop. Inside, ably assisted by the young apprentice, they began to sift through the bits of discarded keys. Athelstan went through the dead locksmith’s ledger but, after an hour, they could find nothing of interest.

Clifford, grimacing at the pain in his shoulder, stamped his foot in annoyance.

‘Sturmey must have made a second set of keys. But how and where is a mystery, Sir John.’

Cranston was staring at the young, angelic face of the apprentice. A vague memory stirred in his mind.

‘How long did you serve Master Sturmey?’ he asked.

‘It’s three years, sir, since my mother drew up indentures with him and I have another three years left.’

Cranston nodded his head sagely. ‘And your master always worked here?’

‘Oh, yes, here or in the garden.’

‘And he had no visitors?’ Cranston smiled. ‘Like this young noble lord here?’

The lad stared at Clifford and shook his head.

‘No, no, it was always the Lord Mayor and the Sheriff.’

Athelstan walked out of the workshop and down the passageway. He smiled at the young maid in the scullery and went through the back door into the garden. A neatly kept place with a small rose patch, a green garth, and the rest flowers or herbs: iris, lily, cowslip and cornflower growing around a small pond. The air was sweet with fragrance from the herb banks: camomile, fennel, lavender, even some hyssop and marjoram. Athelstan noticed a small brick house at the end of the garden and followed the path down. He was surprised to see the sturdy door heavily barred and padlocked so returned to the house and asked the young boy for the key. The apprentice shook his head.

‘Master Sturmey kept that separate,’ he declared. ‘We was never allowed in there.’

Now curious, Cranston and Clifford followed Athelstan back into the garden. The Coroner took a hammer and chisel from one of the work benches and soon made short work of the lock. Inside, the stone shed was musty, rather airless. Cranston knocked open the shutters and stared round. There was a bench and some chests. Cranston grinned and pointed to the small forge near the fire-hearth.

‘This is where he made the keys,’ Cranston declared, and using the mallet and chisel, soon opened the chests. Inside were all the implements a locksmith would need; strips of lead and steel, casting-irons and bits of keys. Cranston rummaged amongst the contents of the chest and brought out a mould which had been deliberately shattered. He handed this to Clifford.

‘If you take that to the Lord Regent, as cats love milk, I am sure you will find Sturmey used this and others to fashion a second set of keys.’

‘For whom?’ Clifford asked.

‘Ah, that’s the mystery.’

A small book, deep in the shadows of the chest, caught Cranston’s eye. He pulled this out whilst Clifford walked back into the garden to study the fragments of the mould more closely. Cranston flicked through the pages. At first he thought it was a small Book of Hours but then he looked at the illustrations, cleverly drawn, and slipped it up his sleeve. He now knew Master Sturmey’s dark secret.