The Dominican quickly scanned the assembled people. The two hospitallers looked aloof and disdainful. Philippa clung more closely to her now tipsy betrothed who grinned benevolently back at Cranston. Rastani, the servant, looked ill at ease, fearful of the huge cross which hung from one of the beams above him, and Athelstan wondered if the Moslem’s conversion to the true faith was genuine. Sir Fulke looked bored, as if he wished to be free of such tiresome proceedings, whilst the chaplain’s exasperation at being so abruptly summoned was barely suppressed.

‘I do thank you,’ Athelstan began smoothly, ‘for coming here. Mistress Philippa, please accept our condolences on the sudden and ghastly loss of your father.’ Athelstan toyed with the stem of his goose-quilled pen. ‘We now know the details surrounding your father’s death.’ ‘Murder!’ Philippa strained forward, her ample bosom heaving under her thick taffeta dress. ‘Murder, Brother! My father was murdered!’

‘Yes, yes, so he was,’ Cranston slurred. ‘But by whom, eh? Why and how?’ He sat up straight and drunkenly tapped the side of his fiery red nose. ‘Do not worry, Mistress! The murderer will be found and do his last final dance on Tyburn scaffold.’

‘Your father,’ Athelstan interrupted, ‘seemed most fearful, Mistress Philippa. He moved from his usual quarters and shut himself up in the North Bastion. Why? What frightened him?’

The group fell strangely silent, tensing at this intrusion into the very heart of their secrets.

‘I asked a question,’ Athelstan repeated softly. ‘What was Sir Ralph so frightened of that he locked himself up in a chamber, doubled the wages of his guards, and insisted that visitors be searched? Who was it,’ he continued, ‘that wanted Sir Ralph’s death so much he crossed an icy moat in the dead of night, climbed the sheer wall of a tower, and entered a guarded chamber to commit foul, midnight murder?’

‘The rebels!’ Colebrooke broke in. ‘Traitors who wanted to remove a man who would protect the young King to the last drop of his blood!’ ‘Nonsense!’ snapped Athelstan. ‘His Grace the Regent, John of Gaunt, will as you said yourself, Master Colebrooke, appoint a successor no less fervent in his loyalty.’

‘My father was special,’ Philippa blurted out.

‘Mistress,’ Athelstan caught and held her tearful glance, ‘God knows your father was special, both in his life and in his secrets. You know about those, so why not tell us?’

The girl’s eyes fell away. She brought her hand from beneath her cloak and tossed a yellowing piece of parchment on to the table. ‘That changed my father’s life,’ she stammered. ‘Though God knows why!’

Athelstan picked up the parchment and quickly gazed at the people sitting around him. He noticed the hospitallers suddenly tense. The friar smiled secretly to himself. Good, he thought. Now the mystery unfolds.

The parchment was greasy and finger-stained, a six-inch square with a three-masted ship crudely drawn in the centre and a large black cross in each corner.

‘Is that all?’ Athelstan asked, passing the parchment back.

The girl tensed. Her lower lip trembled, tears pricked her eyes.

‘There was something else,’ Athelstan continued. ‘Wasn’t there?’

Philippa nodded. Geoffrey took her hand and held it, stroking it gently as if she was a child.

‘There was a sesame seed cake.’

‘What?’ Cranston barked.

‘A seed cake like a biscuit, a dirty yellow colour.’

‘What happened to it?’ Cranston asked.

‘I saw my father walk along the parapet. He seemed very agitated. He brought his arm back and threw the cake into the moat. After that he was a changed man, keeping everyone away from him and insisting on moving to the North Bastion Tower.’

‘Is that correct?’ Cranston asked the rest of the group.

‘Of course it is!’ the chaplain snapped. ‘Mistress Philippa is not a liar.’

‘Then, Father,’ Cranston asked silkily, ‘did Sir Ralph share his secrets with you?’ He held up a podgy hand. ‘I know about the seal of confession. All I’m asking is, did he confide in you?’

‘I think not,’ Colebrooke sniggered. ‘Sir Ralph had certain questions to ask the chaplain about stores and provisions which appear to have gone missing.’

The priest turned on him, his lip curling like that of an angry dog.

‘Watch your tongue, Lieutenant!’ he rasped. ‘True, things have gone missing, but that does not mean that I am the thief. There are others,’ he added meaningfully, ‘with access to the Wardrobe Tower.’

‘Meaning?’ Colebrooke shouted

‘Oh, shut up!’ Cranston ordered. ‘We are not here about stores but about a man’s life. I ask all of you, on your allegiance to the King — for this could be a matter of treason — did Sir Ralph confide in one of you? Does this parchment mean anything to any of you?’

A chorus of ‘No's’ greeted the coroner’s demands though Athelstan noticed that the hospitallers looked away as they mumbled their responses.

‘I hope you are telling the truth,’ Cranston tartly observed. ‘Sir Ralph may have been slain by peasant leaders plotting rebellion. Your father, Mistress Philippa, was a close friend and trusted ally of the court.’

Athelstan intervened, trying to calm the situation. ‘Mistress Philippa, tell me about your father.’

The girl laced her fingers together nervously and looked at the floor.

‘He was always a soldier,’ she began. ‘He served in Prussia against the Latvians, on the Caspian, and then travelled to Outremer, Egypt, Palestine and Cyprus.’ She blinked and nodded at the hospitallers. ‘They can tell you more about that than I.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Fifteen years ago,’ she continued, ‘he was in Egypt in the army of the Caliph and then he came home covered in glory, a rich man. I was three years old. My mother died a year later and we entered the household of John of Gaunt. My father became one of his principal retainers; four years ago he was appointed Constable of the Tower.’

Athelstan smiled understandingly. He knew Sir Ralph’s type: a professional soldier, a mercenary who would crusade for the faith but was not averse to serving in the armies of the infidel. Athelstan stared round the group. How quiet and calm they appeared, though he sensed something was wrong. They were hiding mutual dislikes and rivalries in their over-eagerness to answer his questions.

‘I suppose,’ he remarked drily, ‘you have already been through Sir Ralph’s papers?’

Athelstan looked at Sir Fulke who nodded.

‘Of course I have been through my brother’s documents, household accounts, memoranda and letters. I found nothing untoward. I am, after all,’ he added, glaring round the room as if expecting a challenge, ‘the executor of Sir Ralph’s will.’

‘Of course, of course,’ Cranston assured him.

Athelstan groaned to himself. Yes, he thought, and if there was anything damaging it will have been removed. He stared at the young man next to Philippa.

‘How long, sir, have you known your betrothed?’

Geoffrey’s wine-flushed face was wreathed in smiles as he gripped her hand more firmly. ‘Two years.’

Athelstan noticed the conspiratorial smiles the two lovers exchanged. Cranston leered at the girl whilst he considered the incongruous couple. Geoffrey was outstandingly handsome and probably quite wealthy, yet Philippa was almost plain. Moreover, Sir Ralph had been a soldier and Geoffrey was not, at first glance, the sort of man likely to be welcomed into such a family. Cranston then remembered Maude and his own passionate courting of her. Love was strange, as Athelstan kept reminding him, and opposites were often attracted to each other.

‘Tell me, Geoffrey, why did you stay in the Tower?’

The young man belched and blinked his eyes as if he was on the point of falling asleep. ‘Well,’ he mumbled, ‘the great frost has killed all trade in the city. Sir Ralph wished me to stay during the Yuletide season — even more so after he became distraught and upset.’