‘There’s only one answer, Sir John. I doubt if he was bribed so the answer must be blackmail. If you search your prodigious memory, I am sure you’ll find something rather unsavoury about Master Sturmey.’

Cranston nodded and they led their horses further up the street, where their attention was drawn to a huge crowd which had assembled around a sinister figure dressed in goatskin. The man had long, grey hair falling down over his shoulders, the lower half of his face was hidden behind a thick, bushy beard; strange mad eyes scanned the crowds, fascinated by this latter-day prophet and the tall, burning cross he was holding. The latter, coated with pitch and tar along the cross beam, burnt fiercely, the flames and black smoke only emphasizing the mad preacher’s warnings.

‘This city has been condemned like Sodom and Gomorrah! Like those of Tyre and Sidon and the fleshpots of the plain to bear the brunt of God’s anger!’ The man flung one sinewy arm towards Cheapside. ‘I bring the burning cross to this city as a warning of the fires yet to come! So repent ye, you rich who loll in silk on golden couches and drink the juices of wine and stuff your mouth with the softest meats!’

Cranston and Athelstan watched the man rant on, even as soldiers wearing both the livery of the city and of John of Gaunt began to make their presence felt, pouring out of alleyways leading down to the Tower. The soldiers forced their way through the throng with the flats of their swords in an attempt to seize the mad prophet. The mob resisted, their mood sullen; fights broke out and, when Athelstan looked again, the preacher and his fiery cross had disappeared.

‘Come on, Sir John, I have a confession to make.’

He led the Coroner further away from the tumult.

‘What is it, Brother?’

‘This leader of the Great Community, Ira Dei. He has sent me a warning.’ Athelstan carefully described his strange visitation earlier in the day as well as the proclamation pinned to his church door.

Cranston, tight-lipped, heard him out, so concerned he even forgot his miraculous wineskin.

‘Why would they approach me?’ Athelstan asked.

Cranston blew out his lips. ‘Fear and flattery, Brother. Fear because he knows you are my clerk and secretarius.’

‘And secondly, Sir John?’

Cranston gave a lop-sided smile. ‘You are rather modest for a priest, Athelstan. Haven’t you realized how in Southwark, amongst the poor and the downtrodden, you are respected, even revered?’

Athelstan blushed and looked away.

‘That’s ridiculous!’ he whispered.

‘Oh no, it isn’t!’ Cranston snapped, moving on. ‘Forget Ira Dei, Brother. When the rebellion comes, it will be priests like yourself, John More and Jack Straw, who will lead the commons.’

‘I’ll hide in my church,’ Athelstan retorted. ‘Speaking of which…’ He stopped outside St Dunstan’s, looping Philomel’s reins through one of the hooks placed on the wall.

‘What’s the matter, Brother?’

‘I want to think, Sir John, and pray. I advise you to do likewise.’

Muttering and cursing, Cranston hobbled his own horse, took a generous swig from the miraculous wineskin and followed Athelstan into the cool, dark porch.

Inside the church was lit by the occasional torch with candles placed around statues of the Virgin, St Joseph and St Dunstan, as well as the sunlight pouring through the stained-glass windows which made the pictures depicted there flare into life in glorious rays of colour. Athelstan stared admiringly up at these.

‘I’d love one of those!’ he whispered. ‘Just one for St Erconwald!’

He looked again and, as he did so, Cranston took one small nip from his wineskin and followed the friar down the nave to sit on a bench before the rood screen. Behind this, in the choir stalls, the master singer and his choir were rehearsing the Mass of St Michael. Athelstan sat on the bench, closed his eyes and listened to the words.

‘I saw a great dragon appear in the heavens, ten heads and on each a coronet, and its great tail swept a third of the stars from the sky. Then I saw Michael do battle with the dragon.’

The powerful, three-voiced choir triumphantly sang in Latin the description of Archangel Michael’s great triumph over Satan.

Athelstan closed his eyes and prayed for God’s help against the evil he now faced: Mountjoy, blood-stained in that beautiful garden; Fitzroy, choking his life out above the gold and silver platters of John of Gaunt; Sturmey, dragged out of the river like a piece of rubbish by the Fisher of Men, his corpse displayed like that of a dead cod or salmon.

Athelstan remembered the warning delivered to him earlier that day and felt his own temper fray. The man who called himself Ira Dei was a blasphemer! How could God or his just anger be associated with sudden murder and evil assassination? All those souls sent into the great darkness unprepared and unshriven. And the other wickednesses of the city? This possessed girl at the Hobdens. The malefactor who stole the severed limbs of traitors. And old Jack Cranston’s friend, subtly murdered and left to be gnawed by rats. What had these things to do with God’s creation? With the stars spinning in the skies? The green, lush meadow grass? The basic honesty and goodness of many of his parishioners? Athelstan half-murmured the words of his mentor, Father Paul: ‘God is never far away. He can only act through us. Man’s free will is God’s door to humanity.’ So what about these murders? He tried to direct his thoughts and search for a common thread. The singing stopped and he opened his eyes as Cranston, emitting a loud snore, crashed back against the bench.

‘Sir John, come!’

Cranston opened his eyes and smacked his lips.

‘Mine’s a deep bowl of claret!’ he bellowed.

‘Sir John, we are in church.’ Cranston rubbed his eyes and lumbered to his feet.

‘I find it difficult to pray, Brother. So let me show you what I do.’

Like a great bear he lumbered across into the side chapel and stood before the wooden carved statue of the Virgin, her arms wrapped round the shoulders of the boy Jesus. Cranston dropped two coins into an iron-bound chest and fished out ten candles, arranging them like a row of soldiers on the great iron candelabra before the statue.

‘Ten prayers,’ he muttered. ‘One for myself, one for the Lady Maude, one for each of the two poppets, one for Gog and Magog, one for you, one for Boscombe and Leif, one for Benedicta and one for old Oliver.’

‘That’s nine, Sir John.’

‘Oh, yes.’ Cranston lit the last one with a taper. ‘And one for any other poor bugger I should have prayed for!’ He blew the taper out with a gust of wine-drenched breath and charged back down the church. ‘That’s it, Brother. Now it’s The Holy Lamb of God for me!’

They unhitched their horses and walked into a busy thronged Cheapside. Sir John expected his usual rapturous welcome at his favourite tavern but was disappointed. The landlord’s wife was waiting in quivering anticipation.

‘Sir John, a message from the Guildhall! A servitor has been here at least twice. You are to go there immediately!’ Her voice dropped to a reverential hush. ‘The Lord Regent himself demands your presence!’

Cursing and muttering, Cranston forced his way back across Cheapside with an even more subdued Athelstan trailing behind. At the Guildhall a chamberlain took them to the small privy council chamber which overlooked the gardens where Mountjoy had been killed. He tapped on the door and ushered them in. Cranston swaggered through and glared at the Regent who sat directly opposite, Goodman and the Guildmasters flanking him on either side. Athelstan looked up at the silver and gold stars painted on the blue ceiling then around at the wooden panels. A soft, luxurious room, he thought, where the great ones of the city plotted and drew up their subtle plans. Gaunt beckoned them forward to two quilted, high-backed chairs.