‘Why?’

Muckworm became crestfallen. ‘Sir John, I do not know.’

‘How did you learn all this?’

‘Oh, very simple, Sir John.’ Muckworm grinned triumphantly. ‘I have a cousin who is a boatman. More importantly, another cousin is a lay brother at the abbey. He serves in the refectory at the prior’s table. He. .’

‘And Eleanor Remiet?’

‘Nothing, except she looks after the abbot’s niece. Now, as regards the Wyvern Company,’ Muckworm chattered on, ‘the King’s own bully boys? Men of blood through and through. Oh, I know you fought in the King’s wars but they’re different.’

‘Did you discover much?’

‘All candles burn out, Sir John. I had little time except I did visit the tavern Mahant and Wenlock claimed to have visited on the eve of St Damasus.’ Muckworm raised his eyebrows. ‘They certainly did. They arrived just before the market horn blew and stayed there feasting at the long table and enjoying the favours of some of the ladies offered by the mistress of the maids. According to my sources, the next morning they broke their fast, went out amongst the stalls then returned late to their abbey.’ Muckworm noticed Cranston’s disappointment. ‘But I did search out one secret. Two of my comrades, I believe you are acquainted with them: Mulligrub and Scapskull.’

‘Both gentlemen have graced my judgement chamber, not to mention every stock and pillory post in London.’

‘Sir John, they have turned lawful. Do you remember how swift they are?’

‘Like rats down a hole.’

‘Well, they now serve many of the London taverns as messengers including “The Pride of Purgatory”. They said that Mahant and Wenlock were waiting for Geoffrey Portsoken.’

‘Don’t know him.’

‘Oh yes, you do, Sir John, in the bills posted at St Paul’s Cross and elsewhere, he is Vox Populi. .’

‘Vox Populi, Vox Dei.’ Cranston smiled in astonishment. ‘He’s a ditch crawler, a hedge creeper, a man who slinks through London and the surrounding shires preaching rebellion and tradition. He calls himself the “Voice of the People and the Voice of God”. He was attainted, proclaimed ultegatum — beyond the law, a wolfshead.’ Cranston sipped from his own tankard.

‘What does he have in common with the Wyverns?’

‘He used to be one of them. Something happened and he was cut off from their company. Anyway, Sir John, Vox Populi is about to be strangled. He’s already appeared before the Justices in Eyre so he’ll dance at Smithfield.’

‘And now?’

‘Lodged in Newgate Hole where the blackness salutes the darkness.’ Muckworm drained his tankard and stared around. ‘Now, my Lord Coroner, other duties call?’

Cranston dug into his purse and pushed a silver piece into Muckworm’s extended hand. ‘God go with you.’

‘And you too, Sir John.’ Then Muckworm was gone.

Cranston sat for a while, staring into the fire. He’d kept an eye on who came into the tap room and was growing suspicious about the two costermongers in the corner. They had, he remembered, entered just after he had, ordered ale and fallen asleep. Cranston entertained a nagging suspicion that they were ‘faux et semblant — false and deceiving’, just by their position, lying in a way so they could furtively watch him. The tap room’s warm comfort seemed to fade. Cranston rose, buckled on his war belt, donned both cloak and beaver hat then left. Outside he immediately drew his stabbing dirk and, keeping that at the ready, made his way along Cheapside. It was candlelight time. The cold had grown more intense: already the apprentices were busy clearing stalls and booths. He went down Stoat-back Lane, a narrow runnel stretching on to the broad thoroughfare leading to the shambles and the forbidding mass of Newgate.

‘The hour of the bat and the screech owl,’ Cranston muttered. He just wished Athelstan was with him, not for bodily protection but that strange little friar was always balm for the soul with his shrewd observations and humorous asides. A man in the world but not of it, Cranston reflected, Athelstan was a priest as cunning as a serpent with the innocence of a dove. Cranston made the resolution to seek out the friar as soon as possible and walked on. Lanterns glowed on door posts. Candles flamed behind latticed windows or between the chinks of shutters; these threw some light on the filth-strewn cobbles as well as the narrow doorways and alley enclaves where the destitute sheltered. The coroner made his way around the slime-drenched mounds of refuse where dogs, cats and rats all foraged for morsels. Ahead of him trundled the dung cart and the evening breeze wafted back a smell so putrid Cranston had to cover both nose and mouth behind the folds of his cloak. Despite the poor light he was soon recognized and strident calls echoed like a ball bouncing up the runnel before him.

‘Cranston, here! Wary! Wary! Coroner, here!’

He walked on gripping his dagger, shadows slunk away. He was almost at the top of the alley when a beggar woman pushed her ragged boy towards him, his little arms outstretched for alms. Something in the boy’s eyes pricked Cranston’s suspicions. He dug into his belt wallet and thrust a coin into the boy’s scabby hand. The child stepped back and Cranston heard the whispered warning from the shadows.

‘Watch your back, Lord Coroner.’

He walked up to the mouth of the alleyway then swiftly turned. Shapes further down just as abruptly stepped back into the creeping shadows.

‘St Michael and all his angels.’ Cranston murmured a prayer for protection and walked on. He was determined to meet Vox Populi before the day was through. He turned right into the Shambles, the great fleshing market of London. The butchers and carvers were now unhooking the chunks of beef, chicken, poultry, duck, rabbit, venison and ham. The air reeked of salt, blood and messy entrails; even the cobbles glowed red in the dancing light of torches whilst the butchers and their boys seemed like demons in their gore-splattered leather aprons and hats. Beadles and bailiffs thronged to secure their blood-soaked linen packages of free meat. The poor and the needy also clustered, going down on hands and knees beneath the stalls searching for fresh gobbets of flesh, fighting off the curs and cats which also massed to feast in this place of slaughter. Traders and tinkers, selling the rejected to the rejected, shouted for business. Prostitutes, faces all painted, hair dyed and festooned with gaudy ribbons, sheltered together ready to entice customers into what Cranston called their ‘Temples of Mercenary Love’. Pimps touted for courtesans, even mixing with a small crowd who’d gathered round a Friar of the Sack. The Franciscan stood on a plinth intoning the office of the dead for the Guild of the Hanged, a pious group of men and women who assembled outside Newgate to pray for those inside condemned to death.

Cranston pushed himself through these and the horde of nighthawks, dark-walkers, gibbet lawyers and mountebanks; all assembled before the great iron prison gates hoping to visit friends within, coins at the ready to bribe janitors and turnkeys. Cranston recognized many familiar faces amongst these Pages of the Pit and Squires of the Sewer, who swiftly drew away as he marched up to the postern door and vigorously pulled at the bell. The door flew open. The bullnecked, grey-faced turnkey took one look and hurriedly stepped aside. Cranston entered that antechamber of hell. He met the keeper in the great yard, showed him his seal and demanded to see the Vox Populi. The keeper, dressed in black like a parson with the sanctimonious face to match, swiftly agreed. Cranston had little time for him. The keeper was a born rogue who, Cranston had often confided to Athelstan, was twice as fit for hell as those he guarded. They entered the murky, main gallery of the gloomy prison. Cranston took the proferred rags soaked in vinegar to cover his nose. The air was fetid, damp and reeking of putrefaction. The walls seemed to sweat slime which gathered like sludge over the flagstone floor. The light was poor. Torches flared, giving off trails of pitch and tar. Tallow candles, cheap and nasty smelling, flickered in niches and crevices. A thriving place for rats, cockroaches and other vermin, Cranston tried to ignore the lice crackling under his boots. They passed chambers and cells where prisoners laden with irons stood with hands outstretched, their pleading for alms almost drowned by the horrid howling and screaming which rang out constantly. They reached the condemned cell — nothing more than a filthy box guarded by a heavy oaken door. Inside it reeked like a midden heap, black as pitch with no light or vent for air. The prisoner was crouched in the corner on a palliasse of rotting straw. Cranston breathed in deeply on the rag as he shouted for lights, two stools and a jug of claret.