He stared at the lonely, sheeted corpse of his friend. He had arrived to find Sir Oliver Ingham not only dead for hours, but with two rats gnawing at his hand. Cranston had roared abuse at Ingham’s pretty young wife but she had smiled slyly and said she had done her best to protect her husband’s body since it had been found by a servant earlier in the day.

‘He had a weak heart, Sir John,’ she lisped, one soft, white hand on the arm of her ‘good kinsman’ Albric Totnes.

‘Some kinsman!’ Cranston muttered to himself. ‘I bet the two were dancing between the sheets even as Oliver died. Bloody murderers!’

He dug into his wallet and fished out a short letter Oliver Ingham had sent him only the previous day. Cranston sat down and read it again as his large, protuberant eyes filled with tears.

I am dying, old friend. I committed the worst folly of an old man: I married someone two score years younger than me. A veritable May and December marriage, but I thought she would love me. I found she did not. Yet her smile and touch were enough. Now I find she has betrayed me and could possibly plot my death. If I die suddenly, old friend, if I die alone, then it will be murder. My soul will cry to God for vengeance and to you for justice. Do not forget me.

Oliver

Cranston neatly folded the piece of parchment and put it away. He had shown it to no one yet he believed his friend was right. Something in Cranston’s blood whispered ‘Murder’, but how could he prove it? Sir Oliver had been found dead in his bed at mid-morning by a servant and Cranston, as both his friend and Coroner, had been sent for. He had arrived to find Ingham’s young wife, Rosamund, supping with her ‘kinsman’ in the solar below, whilst the family physician, a balding, ferret-faced man in smelly robes, had simply declared that Sir Oliver’s weak heart had given out and his soul was gone to God.

Cranston got up and walked to the side of the bed where the jug, knocked from its table by Oliver in his final apoplexy, still lay. At his insistence the doctor had sniffed the jug and then the cup, Oliver’s favourite, and solemnly pronounced:

‘No, Sir John, nothing in it except claret and perhaps a little of the foxglove I prescribed to keep Sir Oliver’s heart strong.’

‘Could more have been put in?’ Cranston asked.

‘Of course not!’ the physician snapped. ‘What are you implying, Sir John? A strong infusion of foxglove would leave the cup and jug reeking.’

Sir John had demurred and sent for Theobald de Troyes, his own physician, a man skilled in his art and patronized by many of the court. Theobald had given corpse, cup and jug a most thorough scrutiny.

‘The physician was correct,’ he announced. ‘You see, Sir John, if Sir Oliver was given too much foxglove, his corpse would bear some trace. I can find nothing except the effects of a sudden seizure, whilst the cup only carries traces of claret and a little foxglove, but no more than a good doctor would prescribe. The jug smells only of foxglove.’

‘Any mark of violence?’ Cranston asked.

‘None whatsoever, Sir John.’ Theobald lowered his eyes. ‘Except the rat bites on the fingers of the right hand. Sir John,’ the physician had pleaded, ‘Sir Oliver retired to bed last night, feeling ill. His servants heard him declare he felt weak and dizzy with pains in his chest. He locked his chamber door and left the key in the lock. The windows were similarly padlocked. No one could enter to do him mischief.’

Sir John had grunted, bade him farewell and sat in this chamber for the last two hours, wondering how murder could have been committed.

‘I wish Athelstan was here,’ he moaned to himself. ‘Perhaps he would see something wrong. Bloody monk! And I wish he would bring that sodding cat with him!’

Cranston thought of Athelstan’s fierce-looking torn cat, Bonaventure, whom his secretary and friend proclaimed was the best rat-catcher in Southwark. Cranston sighed, crossed himself, lowered his eyes and said the prayer for the dead.

‘Grant eternal rest to Oliver, my friend,’ he muttered as his mind drifted back down the passage of the years: Oliver, tall and strong, standing at his shoulder as the French knights broke through the English ranks at Poitiers. The roar of battle, the neighing of war steeds, the clash of swords, the silent purr of the arrow, the stabbing and hacking as they and a few others bore the brunt of the last desperate French attack. The ground underfoot had become slippery with blood. Cranston had stood, legs apart, whirling his sword like a great scythe against the French knights as they closed in for the kill.

A monstrous giant had rushed against him, his helmet in the shape of a devil’s head with wide, sweeping horns, its yellow plume tossing in the evening breeze. Cranston, glimpsing steel-encased arms swinging back a huge battle axe, had moved to one side, slipped and gone down in the mud. He had expected to receive his death blow but Oliver had stepped over him, taken the brunt of the blow with his own shield and, closing with the enemy, shoved his small misericorde dagger between cuirass and helm.

‘I owe you my life,’ Cranston confessed afterwards.

‘One day you can repay the debt!’ Oliver laughed as they both sat on the battle field toasting each other in cup after cup of the claret they’d filched from the French camp. ‘One day you will repay the debt.’

Cranston opened tear-filled eyes. He raised his right hand and stared at the corpse. ‘By the sod, I will!’ he muttered. He looked once more at the pathetic corpse under its winding sheet.

‘In our golden days,’ he whispered, ‘we were greyhounds racing for the hunt! Young hawks swooping for the kill! Ah, the days!’

Cranston tapped his broad girth, pulled the bed curtains close and stamped out of the chamber, pausing only to glance once more at the damaged lock.

He tramped like a Colossus down the stairs and marched into the solar where Lady Rosamund and ‘kinsman’ Albric were playing cat’s-cradle in the window seat. Rosamund looked all the more beautiful in a gown of black damask and carefully arranged veil of the same colour, her narrow face twisted into an approximation of grief. Cranston just glared at her, and even more contemptuously at her smooth-faced, sack-lipped, weak-eyed young lover.

‘You are finished, Sir John?’ Rosamund rose as the balding, red-faced giant marched towards her. She at least expected him to kiss her hand but Cranston seized her and Albric by the wrist and pulled both to their feet, squeezing hard as he pulled them close.

‘You, madam, are a murdering bitch! No, don’t widen your eyes and scream for help! And you, sir — ’ Albric’s eyes fell away. ‘Look at me, man!’ Cranston squeezed harder. ‘Look at me, you whoreson bastard!’

Albric’s eyes came up.

‘You are party to this. If you had the courage I would challenge you to a duel and take the head from your shoulders. Don’t forget, the offer’s always there!’

‘Sir John, this is…’

‘Shut up!’ Cranston growled. ‘Upstairs lies the truest comrade a man could ask for. A good soldier, a shrewd merchant and the best of friends. Oliver’s heart may have become weak but he had the courage of a lion and the generosity of a saint. He adored you, you whey-faced mare, and you broke his heart! You betrayed him. I know you killed him. God knows how but I will discover it!’ Cranston shoved them both back into the window seat. ‘Believe me, I’ll see you both dance at Smithfield on the end of a rope!’

He spun on his heel and walked to the door.

‘Cranston!’ Rosamund yelled.

‘Yes, bitch!’ he replied over his shoulder.

‘I am innocent of my husband’s death.’

The Coroner made a rude sound with his lips.

‘In ten days’ time my husband’s will shall be read out. All his property and his wealth will be mine. I shall use that wealth to prosecute you in the courts for slander and contumacious speech.’