‘Aye, sir, death is always busy. And his leavings are scattered throughout the city.’

The Harrower moved across to the bed. In a businesslike manner he moved the corpse, gently wrapping the canvas sheet round it, tying it secure with his piece of rope. The taverner stood in the doorway, his face ashen.

‘Will this take long?’ he moaned. ‘There are customers, my trade will suffer.’

‘It will do nothing of the sort,’ the Harrower replied, his voice muffled. ‘People will flock to you to ask what happened. You’ll sell more ale than you would on a Holy Day or May Day.’ He secured the corpse and lifted the sheeted body gently like a mother would a child. ‘It should be buried soon, my lord coroner.’

‘Today. The innkeeper will pay you all dues. A pauper’s grave in St Mary’s but not in the common ditch: by herself with a wooden cross bearing her name. The taverner will provide it. God rest her!’ The coroner turned away, waving his hand.

The Harrower left. The taverner crossed himself and closed the door behind him. Athelstan waited until the sound of footsteps faded.

Sir Maurice sat on the stool, arms folded, ankles locked, tense and watchful. Athelstan felt a pang of compassion.

‘Right, Sir Maurice!’ he began. ‘You claim you are innocent and I believe you, though later I will ask you to swear to that. However, first, you must not blame Sir Thomas Parr. Your betrothal to the Lady Angelica must have provoked resentment and jealousy, even hatred, from many others at daring to aspire so high. You are also a hero responsible for the capture and destruction of two marauding French privateers. You yourself said that you thought your visit here yesterday was some joke, a trick arranged by people in Lord Gaunt’s household. Moreover, there are others in the city, such as Monsieur Charles de Fontanel the French envoy. He, too, will have taken an active interest in your doings. So, I beg you, keep a quiet tongue; do not lash out and make accusations which cannot be resolved.’

‘In the meantime.’ Sir John came over and thrust the miraculous wineskin at him. ‘Go on, take some!’

He did, a generous swig which Sir John copied. He offered it to Athelstan but the Dominican shook his head.

‘I have not eaten yet, Sir John.’

‘Oh, well, please yourself. In the meantime we have other questions. Why did you go to the Lady Vulpina and buy a love philtre and some poisons?’

Sir Maurice coughed and put his face in his hands.

‘You did go there, didn’t you?’ Athelstan asked quietly.

The young man sighed noisily. ‘Vulpina is well known among the courtiers. I’ll be honest, when Sir Thomas drove me away, I thought I would die. I went to her for a potion. I was stupid enough to think it would soothe the passions boiling within me. I hated the woman, sly, cunning and evil. Laughing at me behind her eyes, smirking at the bully boys who guarded her while I traded. I felt so embarrassed. I also asked for some poison.’

‘To kill the rats in your chamber?’ Athelstan intervened.

‘Brother, please don’t try to trap me. My Lord of Gaunt has his own rat-catchers. I bought it because,’ he sighed, ‘I felt mortified to be there.’

I think you are two things,’ Athelstan smiled. ‘You are a brave warrior, Sir Maurice, and you are a hopeless liar. What you’ve told me is so fumbling, so ill prepared, it has to be the truth though God knows where we go from here.’

‘I must see Angelica.’ Sir Maurice grasped Athelstan’s hand. ‘Please, Brother, you must!’

Athelstan glanced at Sir John but the coroner looked mournful and shook his head.

‘If I were a Dominican…’ Sir Maurice said.

Athelstan let go of his hand and walked to the window. In the yard below the ostlers were beginning the day’s work, leading out horses and, with huge rakes, dragging the dirty straw from the stables. An idea occurred to him but the time was not yet.

‘We’ve examined the corpse,’ Athelstan said slowly. ‘We know the truth and there’s not much more we can do. Sir Maurice, did you buy provisions for the prisoners at Hawkmere?’

‘I’ve told you that, Brother. I go to Cheapside with one of the Regent’s stewards. I simply buy what has to be bought and then it’s taken by cart to Hawkmere.’

‘And you have nothing to do with the prisoners themselves?’

‘You’ve met them, Brother, they have as little time for me as I for them.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘My Lord Regent has held them for ransom but, in my eyes, they were pirates. They may have carried letters from their King in Paris but they attacked English cobs and killed their sailors. I’d have hanged all five out of hand.’

‘Sir John Cranston! Sir John Cranston!’

Athelstan looked down into the yard.

A tipstaff carrying his white wand of office stood under the window.

‘What is it?’ Athelstan asked.

‘My lord coroner is needed in Whitefriars. A message from the Guildhall: a woman’s house, Vulpina’s, was burned to the ground and her remains have been found.’

Sir John Cranston mournfully surveyed the charred, reeking remains of what had once been his favourite tavern. Beadles and bailiffs kept back the crowd of beggars and alley people who thronged to gape at the site and look for any pickings. The three corpses pulled from the burned building now lay under a soiled canvas sheet.

‘What I’ve eaten will stay,’ he said. ‘Pull it back!’

The bailiff, a black vizard across his face, his eyes watering, grasped the sheet.

‘It’s not a pleasant sight, Sir John.’

‘She wasn’t when she was alive, so what’s the difference?’

The man pulled the sheet off. Athelstan turned away, his hand covering his mouth. The corpses were nothing but charred, mutilated flesh, black from head to toe. The eyes had watered, the skin round the face had shrivelled, making them look like grotesque gargoyles.

‘Were they dead?’ Sir John asked. ‘When the fire broke out?’

‘Dead or drunk. God knows what happened.’

The beadle turned one of the corpses over. The wooden bolt had burned but Athelstan could see the steel tip embedded deep in the charred flesh. Sir John walked away. Athelstan and Sir Maurice followed him, their boots crunching on the blackened ash. Sparks still floated up and the air was thick with acrid smoke.

‘And everything was burned with her?’ Athelstan sighed. Any records of potions and philtres all turned to ash.’ He walked back on to the cobbles.

‘What do you think, Sir John?’ the beadle asked.

‘Probably murder,’ he replied. ‘Brother?’

Athelstan gazed at the devastation.

‘Someone probably visited Mistress Vulpina last night but it’s pointless asking these what they know.’

The gallows men and wolfs-heads were watching them with narrow eyes, mournful that Vulpina, once the queen and patroness of these mean and foul alleyways, was now no more.

‘Somebody came and killed Vulpina and two of her henchmen.’ Athelstan shrugged. ‘Some oil, a firebrand; as you say, Sir John, these buildings are old and dry. They burn like stubble under the sun.’

‘My lord coroner.’

Sir John turned to see who spoke. The man standing behind him was small and pink-cheeked, with light blue eyes. With a shaven face and fluffy, white hair he reminded Athelstan of an ancient cherub. A short distance away three men-at-arms, wearing the royal livery, stood, hands on the hilts of their swords, their conical steel helmets gleaming in the sun, the broad nose-guards almost concealing their faces.

‘Well I never!’ Sir John stretched out his hand. ‘Brother Athelstan, may I introduce to you Gervase Talbot, a man who is not as innocent as he appears. A lover of fine claret, subtle and cunning as a fox. Once chief clerk in the chancery of Edward the Black Prince, God bless his memory.’

Talbot stood on tiptoe and exchanged the kiss of peace with the fat coroner. He then did the same with Athelstan. The Dominican caught a fragrance of Castilian soap as well as a woman’s perfume, light and sweet. Talbot’s hand was soft but his grip was firm.