‘Aidez! Aidez!’ Cranston shouted, the usual hue-and-cry call for help.

The two figures looked up and he knew something was wrong. They didn’t retreat, they had masks on their faces, whilst their ‘victim’ suddenly sprang to his feet. Cranston stopped, breathing heavily, and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

‘You are never too old to learn,’ he muttered. The Coroner cursed himself for falling into a well-known trap, hastening to a supposed victim’s help only to blunder into an ambush. He gazed quickly over his shoulder, back up the alleyway where Boscombe and Leif were beginning to make their way down.

‘Go back!’ he roared.

He drew his own sword and gingerly began to retreat. He dared not turn and run. He might slip or a thrown dagger might wound him and bring him down. Anyway he was old and fat whilst these three assailants crept like macabre dancers towards him. Cranston kept moving backwards then suddenly sideways to protect his back against a narrow, jutting buttress of the alley wall.

The three black-garbed assassins crept closer. Each carried sword and dirk. They separated as they advanced. Cranston recognized them as professional killers, much more dangerous than the street rats who would run a mile at the sight of naked steel. He tried to control his breathing. Who had sent them? he wondered. The Ira Dei? Cranston blinked. No, no, that was too obvious. Then he remembered Rosamund Ingham’s hate-filled face, her unspoken threats, and rage replaced any fear.

The three slithered forward, arms out, legs spread, the elaborate street dance of professional fighters. Cranston watched the middle figure, catching a glimpse of an eye, then shifted his gaze to the two companions as if he was more concerned about them.

‘Come on, my buckos!’ he taunted. ‘So you have brought old Jack on to the floor. Come on, let’s tread a measure together!’

The two killers on the outside crept forward. Cranston kept shifting his gaze but knew this sort. They were only feinting. He looked to his right then quickly back as the middle killer closed in, sword low, dagger high. Cranston suddenly shifted his long sword back, then forward in a blinding arc of steel. The assassin died before he even knew it as the pointed, sharp edge of Cranston’s sword severed his exposed windpipe.

Cranston, now smiling, parried forward, first to the right, then the left. He sensed one of the attackers was inexperienced, moving further back than he should. Cranston turned and charged at the other, knocking the wind out of him. Then, standing back, the Coroner shoved his sword with all his strength straight into the man’s stomach. He looked round but the third attacker was now running like the wind back into the darkness. Cranston stood back, resting on his sword as he sucked in the night air and looked at the two dead assailants.

‘Killing blows,’ he muttered to himself.

One man was lying face down on the cobbles, the other sprawled against the wall like a broken doll. Boscombe and Leif came hobbling up and stared in horror at the two corpses as well as a different John Cranston. His face looked as hard as iron by the spluttering light of the torch which still lay on the cobbles where one of his assailants had dropped it.

‘Sir John.’ Boscombe touched his new master. ‘Sir John, I am sorry we could not help.’

Cranston shook his head. ‘You were wise,’ he whispered. ‘But, Master Boscombe, I thank you for your concern. Nothing old Jack couldn’t deal with.’

‘Why?’ Leif spluttered.

Cranston gazed down the alleyway, a bitter smile on his lips. ‘Oh, I know why,’ he brooded. ‘And now it’s old Jack’s turn to play!’

Athelstan, too, brooded as he knelt on the altar steps the next morning after Mass. There had been only three in the congregation, not counting Bonaventure: Pernell the Fleming, Cecily the courtesan in her bright taffeta dress, and Benedicta who had just left. The widow had assured Athelstan she would take Elizabeth Hobden and her nurse Anna to the Friar Minoresses later in the morning.

Athelstan chewed on his knuckles and watched the half-open door of the church. He felt angry and hurt, and hoped he could control himself during the coming meeting.

He blessed himself and rose at the sound of footsteps, walking down the nave to meet Pike the ditcher, who stood uneasily by the baptismal font.

‘Father, you sent for me?’

‘Yes, Pike, I did. Please close the door.’

Pike went back, closed it, then turned in astonishment to see his gentle parish priest bearing down upon him like a charging knight. Athelstan seized Pike by his grimy jerkin and pushed him up against the door. The man didn’t resist, terrified of the rage blazing in Athelstan’s eyes.

‘Father, what is it?’ he stammered.

‘You bloody Judas!’ Athelstan shook him. ‘Pike, I am your priest and you betrayed me!’

‘What do you mean?’

But Athelstan glimpsed the truth in the ditcher’s nervous eyes. He let go, pushed him away and walked back up the nave.

‘Don’t lie, Pike!’ he shouted, his words ringing through the church. ‘You know damned well what I am talking about! You were the only one who saw me take down the proclamation pinned to my door by Ira Dei.’ Athelstan rounded on him. ‘In fact, I suspect you put it there. And that’s fine, Pike. You play your stupid, dangerous games of revolt and building God’s kingdom here in London. But, tell me, do your fellow communards, does the Great Community of the Realm, does Ira Dei know you are a traitor? John of Gaunt’s spy?’ Athelstan walked back. ‘And what would happen to you, Pike, if they found out, eh? How does your secret society treat traitors?’

Pike stood with hands hanging helplessly and Athelstan’s anger began to drain away at the sheer terror in the man’s face and posture. The priest pushed his face close to the ditcher’s.

‘For God’s sake, Pike, I baptized your children! I give you the sacrament. I admired you, working from dawn to dusk for a mere pittance to feed your family.’ Athelstan drew his breath. ‘You are not like me, Pike. I have no family to worry about. But you are a good worker, a good husband, a good father. For God’s sake, why play the Judas with a man who is not only a priest but your friend? Couldn’t you trust me?’

Pike flailed his hands ineffectually as tears coursed down his dirty cheeks.

‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ Athelstan muttered. ‘Pike, I don’t mean to threaten you. Your secret’s safe with me. Not even Sir John knows.’

The ditcher shuffled his feet. ‘It’s not like that, Father.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Three months ago,’ he replied, ‘I and a few others from Southwark were listening to that mad priest — you know, the one with the fiery cross, outside St James Garlickhythe. Then the soldiers came and we were arrested. I had a choice: pay a fine or become Gaunt’s spy. The fine would have crushed me and…’ His voice trailed off.

‘And what?’

Pike looked up defiantly. ‘Don’t believe everything you hear, Father. I am not one of your zealots. Oh, at the beginning I was, but not now. Not when they talk of slaughter, of killing every priest, of burning the good with the bad.’ He laughed sourly. ‘It’s not difficult, Father, to betray something you don’t believe in any more. And as for my Lord of Gaunt, he had discovered I am not the most capable of spies. So, I tell him about a notice pinned on the door of the church. Or that a member of the Great Community of the Realm has visited Southwark, three days after the man has left. Don’t worry, Father, Gaunt never profits from what I tell him.’

Athelstan looked at the great, burly ditcher standing there, hanging his head. You represent the common man, Athelstan reflected, caught between the demons who want to destroy everything and those who wish to keep everything. Athelstan walked forward, hands extended.