'It's black as hell's pit,' he hissed. He stopped and fumbled at her breasts. 'I want to see what I buy.'

'Oh, you shall,' she whispered coyly and snuggled closer, a wild scheme already forming in her mind. She recalled how the downstairs parlour of the old miser's house was littered with thick pieces of wood. A sharp blow to the head and she'd empty this gull's purse and be away. And what could he do? Report her to the bailiffs?

They went down a gritty trackway across a wooden bridge. The preacher's eyes had now grown accus­tomed to the gloom. In the moonlight, the dark, stark outline of a ruined house rose over the brow of a hill. He began to regret his purchase but Prudence was climbing ahead of him.

At last they stood outside the ruined building. Once a magnificent, two-storied mansion, the roof had now fallen in, the windows were empty sockets. She led him through the doorway along a cracked stone passageway. The preacher paused.

'I heard something! A footfall?'

'Nonsense!' Prudence whispered back.

She led him into the parlour and across to a corner where she froze and cursed her fuddled wits. The room was warm, smelling of smoke as if a fire had been lit. She let go of the preacher's hand and turned. A shadowy outline now blocked the doorway. She heard a tinder scrape, as a candle was lit. Prudence and the preacher stood transfixed. In the pool of light they glimpsed a corpse, eyes open, throat cut, lying on the floor with this hideous figure above it. The preacher was the first to recover. 'What?' He stumbled across.

The crossbow bolt struck him full in the chest while Prudence could only stare in terror as the dark figure strode across the room towards her.

If London was regarded as a foulsome place, Newgate Prison, built into the old Roman wall, was the very antechamber of hell, a warren of passageways, pits, filthy chambers and damp dungeons.

Alice Brokestreet surveyed the murky, mildewed cell. Every time she moved, the gyves on her wrists and ankles chafed her skin. The tallow candle she had bought was now burning low on the stone ledge in front of her. Alice, who had definitely seen better days, wrinkled her nose at the fetid smells from the rotting straw and contemplated the bowl of gruel, which consisted of nothing more than slops with pieces of greasy meat and hard rye bread floating on the top. She tried to eat but couldn't, being so full of terrors. She closed her eyes. If she could blot out the shadows? Close her ears to the squealing and scampering of the rats? All would be well.

She was back in that tavern-cum-brothel, the Merry Pig, which stood on the corner of the Ropery near Pulteneys Inn. She was in the taproom and the customer, a fat-bellied clerk, was lurching towards her, screaming abuse. Alice had grasped a firkin-opener and, before she could think, had plunged it, two hands on the hilt, deep into the clerk's fat chest. He'd collapsed, choking on the blood bubbling in his throat.

Alice had expected help from other customers. They just stared hard-eyed back so she fled, out of the tavern along the needle-thin alleyway. Behind her the cries of 'Harrow! Harrow! Harrow!' were bellowed as the hue and cry was raised. Alice, not a young woman, had run demented, crazed with fear. In her panic, she'd turned, going down a runnel only to find there was no way out. She had slipped in the sewer and, before she could even rise, hands were grasping at her, tearing at her clothes and hair; her face was pummelled, her body kicked and punched. She had been caught red-handed, guilty of murder, and the bailiffs of the ward had committed her to Newgate.

In two days' time she would be taken out of this hell, thrown into a cart and hauled before the justices now sitting in judgement at the Guildhall. But what could she plead? Self-defence? The clerk had been unarmed. She was a woman, so benefit of clergy was denied her.

Alice jumped and screamed as the rats scurried across her bare ankles. She stared pitifully at the grille in the door. The gaoler had offered to stay with her for the night. Alice had refused. She shook her head despairingly. What did it all matter? The jury would find her guilty, the justices condemn her to hang. If only she'd not left the Paradise Tree. Mistress Kathryn Vestler had been kindly enough. The tavern had been clean with spacious gardens and a meadow stretching down to the Thames. From her garret

Alice could glimpse the turrets and soaring walls of the Tower.

Oh, she had been happy there! Alice had come from Maidstone in Kent. She had kept herself clean, her appearance good, and been hired as a chamber­maid. Mistress Vestler had found her near the Si Quis door of St Paul's where men and women gathered to be hired. She had worked at the Paradise Tree for three months, cleaning rooms, sometimes helping Mistress Vestler, a widow, in her garden. At night, when the weather was good, she would stroll through Black Meadow, which stretched down to the river, a lonely haunted place. Alice had heard the rumours and gossip; how the tavern was supposedly built on the site of an ancient church, but Alice didn't know or care about such things. It was only scraps of gossip she had picked up. All had changed when a customer had told Alice how she could earn much more at the Merry Pig. She was comely enough. She could be a chambermaid and even save some coins. She could become a goodwoman. Per­haps a seamstress? In time buy her own alehouse or small tavern? Alice, guiled and tricked, had risen like a fish to the bait. The Merry Pig proved to be nothing more than a whore-shop. Perhaps that was why she had killed the clerk?

Alice closed her eyes as a spurt of anger coursed through her. She had tried to go back to the Paradise Tree but Mistress Vestler had been stony-faced and cold-eyed. Alice sighed. What secrets did she know about Mistress Vestler? Perhaps she could send a message? Ask for some help? The gaoler was uncouth but, in turn for a favour? She started as the key turned in the lock and the heavy door swung open. The gaoler lurched in. Alice's resolve weak­ened; he was such a shambling oaf of a man! 'Go away!' she hissed.

'Oh, it's not me, mistress,' the gaoler slurred.

He stepped aside. A shadowy, dark-cowled figure stood behind him.

'This good friar wishes to know if ye want to be shrived?'

Chapter 1

In the parish church of St Erconwald's in Southwark, Brother Athelstan, Dominican, parish priest and secre-tarius to the noble Sir John Cranston, coroner of the city, knelt on the steps before the high altar. He was praying that the new week would be uneventful. He tried to concentrate but his mind teemed with all the different goings on: the parish council was soon to meet. Athelstan privately regarded that as an occasion of sin, particularly if Pike the ditcher's wife decided to hold forth on everything and everyone. Huddle the painter wanted to start a new fresco in the sanctuary but Athelstan was cautious. The pro­jected scene was Noah leading the animals into the ark, yet Huddle couldn't resist poking fun at his enemies in the parish. Athelstan knew it would be civil war if the two apes bore even the slightest resemblance to Pike and his wife. The Dominican gazed up at the brass crucifix standing on the white linen altar cloth.

'They are good people,' he prayed. 'Poor and dirty while the great ones consider them no more than worms in the earth. So, give me patience.' Athelstan paused. 'And good humour in dealing with them.'

Athelstan reflected on the good being done. Watkin the dung-collector and Pike had cleaned the cemetery up; a new death house had been built and the old one was now occupied by the beggarman Godbless and his little pet goat Thaddeus. Athelstan remembered to have a word with Godbless. The beggarman got his nickname because he attended the Mass and, at the kiss of peace, used the occasion to pick pockets. Nothing had happened in St Erconwald's but other parish priests were reporting how their parishioners were losing coins during the osculum pacis.