Paul Doherty - Murder Most Holy

‘Sir John,’ Athelstan breathed, ‘walking with you through London is an experience never to be forgotten — and certainly never to be repeated!’

Cranston glared furiously at the crowd.

‘In my treatise on the government of this city,’ he intoned, ‘mummers will be told to perform their tricks in certain places and will have to seek a licence. Moreover. .’

Athelstan had heard enough. He turned and rapped furiously at the front door.

‘Please yourself,’ Cranston mumbled. ‘If I had more time and patience, I’d settle those buggers!’

A thin, pinch-faced maid answered the door. Sir John, grinning wickedly, pushed by her.

‘Sir John!’ she gasped. ‘We did not expect you!’

‘I come like a thief in the night!’ Cranston boomed. ‘Now, please tell the Lady Maude her lord and master has returned!’

‘The Lady Maude is in the flesh markets at the Shambles, master. She will be home shortly.’

‘And my little poppet princes?’

‘They’re upstairs, Sir John, in the solar with the wet nurse.’

Cranston lurched up the stairs, Athelstan following swiftly behind as Sir John imperiously beckoned him on. In the solar, a pleasant, sun-lit room with tapestries on the wall and carpets on the floor, the wet nurse sat on one of the cushioned window seats, gently rocking the huge, wooden cradle beside her. She rose and curtseyed as Cranston entered.

‘Leave us,’ the coroner said airily.

‘Lady Maude said,’ the comely wench answered pleadingly, ‘not to leave the poppets alone!’

Cranston drew his brows together. ‘I am the poppets’ father,’ he proclaimed. ‘They will be all right with me.’

The wet nurse, throwing anxious glances over her shoulder, left the room as Sir John gestured Athelstan forward.

‘Look!’ the coroner whispered. He bent over the huge wooden cradle and drew back the pure woollen blanket under which his two little poppets, as he described them, lay fast asleep. Sir John pushed his head deeper under the high linen canopy, breathing wine fumes down on his beloved sons. ‘Fine boys!’ he growled. ‘Fine boys!’

Athelstan peered round the coroner’s white grizzled head and once again vowed to keep his face straight. The two ‘fine boys’ and ‘poppet princes’ were indeed sturdy babies. Fat, bald heads, dimples in their cheeks, red-faced, without any hair, they looked so like Sir John that, if Athelstan had found them in Cheapside, he would have known to which family they belonged. Cranston pushed Athelstan away.

‘Fine contented lads,’ he muttered. ‘Even when they are asleep, they smile. Watch this!’ He bent to stroke one of them, Athelstan thought it was Francis, on the corner of the mouth. The coroner was ungainly on his feet and pressed so hard the little fellow woke: two liquid blue eyes stared up at them. ‘Shush, my boy!’ Cranston whispered. ‘Back to sleep with you now.’

He rose, staggered, and gave the cot a powerful push. The other baby woke up and the two brothers looked at Sir John.

‘See, they are smiling,’ Cranston said. ‘They are so pleased to see Daddy.’

Almost at a given signal the two babies’ lower lips went down, their eyes widened and the Cranston boys gave full vent to their fury at such an abrupt and unexpected wakening. The coroner shoved the blanket back and rocked the cradle vigorously. Athelstan couldn’t help laughing, for the more the coroner rocked, the worse the din became. Cranston glared furiously at him.

‘Don’t bloody well laugh, you stupid monk! Give them a blessing, sing a hymn!’

‘Sir John! What are you doing?’

Cranston turned slowly, like a fat-bellied ship shifting in the wind. Lady Maude stood in the entrance to the solar. She was only five foot two, her hair mousey, her face and figure petite, but Athelstan could sense the fury raging in her. All the more terrible for the false, sweet smile on Lady Maude’s usually serene, pretty face.

‘Sir John, what are you doing?’ she repeated, walking slowly across the room. ‘You thunder into this house like a great boar, revoke my instructions, frighten the children! Isn’t it enough that you accepted a wager which,’ Lady Maude pointed dramatically at the ceiling, ‘has threatened even the roof over their heads!’

She turned, calling for the wet nurse. At last the girl, each arm full of a struggling and still furious, red-faced baby, disappeared down the stairs, the boys’ howls fading in the distance. Cranston raised his eyes heavenwards and crept across to sit in his favourite chair next to the hearth. He saw an empty bowl shoved in the corner of the inglenook.

‘Has that lazy bugger Leif been here?’

‘Yes, he’s doing some gardening, because you, Sir John, are busy elsewhere! In the sewers, by the sound of your language!’

Cranston sank deeper into the chair, his lower lip going down, so he reminded Athelstan more of his baby sons than the King’s Coroner North of the Thames. Lady Maude, her body as stiff as a board, walked across to stand before him, arms folded.

‘Sir John, you have a big mouth, a big belly — and the only thing that redeems you is your big heart. At times you can be the shrewdest of men, and at others,’ Lady Maude sighed, ‘Leif the beggar would have more sense. How could you accept such a wager? A thousand crowns!’

‘Athelstan will help,’ Cranston replied meekly.

Lady Maude sent one withering glance at the friar, who decided to retreat and stay out of the storm in the window seat.

Athelstan sat bemused as Lady Maude gave her husband the rough edge of her tongue, a short biting lecture on the virtues of commonsense and keeping a still tongue in one’s head. Cranston, who was frightened of no one under the sun, just sat and cringed, his eyes half-closed. At last Lady Maude stopped, drew a deep breath, patted her husband on the shoulder and, leaning over, kissed him softly on the cheek.

‘There, Sir John, I have said my piece.’ She clasped her hands and glanced at Athelstan. ‘Welcome, Brother. I always thank God that Sir John has you. I am sure,’ and Athelstan smiled weakly at the steely menace in her voice, ‘I am confident you will help my husband out of this impasse. Now, Sir John, a cup of claret and a plate of doucettes. And you, Brother? Good, there’s nothing like honey to take away the taste of vinegar. Eh, Sir John?’

Cranston, his head half-lowered, nodded vigorously and, as Lady Maude flounced away, blew out his lips in a long sigh and sagged in the chair like a pricked bladder skin.

‘Believe me, Brother,’ he whispered hoarsely, ‘nothing, and I repeat, nothing on earth, is more awesome than the Lady Maude in full battle array. Give me a group of roistering bully boys any time of the day!’

Lady Maude returned, bearing a tray with the wine and doucettes. She served Sir John as meekly and dutifully as any squire. The coroner, seeing in which direction the wind was blowing now, drew himself up and reasserted himself. He asked in a gruff voice what had happened whilst he had been away, nodding impatiently at Lady Maude’s chatter about the neighbours, the price of bread and the number of trade fights taking place in the city.

‘Oh, Sir John!’ Lady Maude’s fingers flew to her lips. ‘I had forgotten. Some letters arrived for you.’ She crossed to a small chest and brought out two thin rolls of parchment. Sir John opened them and quickly studied the contents, clicking his tongue.

‘We are in luck, Brother,’ he announced. ‘First, my clerks have established your church is only a hundred and thirty years old. Before that a private dwelling place stood on the site. Secondly, and more importantly, my spies have traced Master William Fitzwolfe, formerly parson of the church of St Erconwald’s, Southwark. He can be found in the Velvet Tabard inn in an alleyway off Whitefriars.’