By Murder's bright Light

Jacob, Sir John has arrived.’
    Cranston , grinning from ear to ear, brushed by the sailor.
    ‘Jacob Crawley, you dirty old sea dog!’
    Athelstan followed cautiously. The cabin smelt musty and sweet. The man who half- rose from his chair at the table to greet Cranston was white-haired, small, lithe, and brown as a berry. He was dressed in a dark blue cloak tied around the middle with a silver belt. A cap of the same colour, with a feather stitched in the brim, lay on the table. Crawley grasped Cranston ’s hand, beaming from ear to ear, and poked him gently in the stomach.
    ‘More of you than before, Sir John?’
    Then all the more for the Lady Maude to hang on to when the going gets rough!’
    Both men bellowed with laughter. Crawley shook Athelstan’s hand, patting him absent-mindedly on the shoulder. He indicated two empty stools at the table and Cranston and Athelstan joined the men already crammed around it. Crawley introduced them to the others: Philip Cabe, second mate; Dido Coffrey, ship’s clerk; Vincent Minter, ship’s surgeon; and Tostig Peverill, master-at-arms. A motley lot, Athelstan thought, in their sea-stained clothes — lean, hard-faced men with close-cropped hair, weather-beaten faces and unsmiling eyes. They sat, ill at ease, and Athelstan sensed their dislike and impatience at being kept so long.
    ‘We have been waiting for hours,’ Cabe snapped, his leathery, horsey face full of disapproval.
    ‘Well, I’m bloody sorry, aren’t I! ’ Cranston shouted back. ‘I’ve been bloody busy!’
    ‘Now, now.’ Crawley clapped his hands like a child. ‘Sir John, some claret?’
    Cranston , of course, accepted with alacrity.
    ‘Father?’
    Athelstan smiled and shook his head. He unpacked his writing bag and laid out ink horn, quill and Parchment. He stared around the low, crowded cabin, noticing the cot bed in one comer. He felt rather dizzy, especially when the ship moved and creaked as if the whole world was about to roll. Once Cranston had drained his cup, and Crawley had just as quickly refilled it, the king’s admiral of the eastern seas leaned forward and belched.
    ‘How many years, Sir John?’
    ‘Sixteen, sixteen years since we chased the French off the seas and now the buggers are back!’
    Athelstan moved his arm and nudged Sir John — a reminder that this was business, not some drinking i contest between old friends. Cranston coughed.
    ‘Master Cabe,’ the coroner began, ‘you are now the senior surviving officer of this unhappy ship. I understand Captain Roffel was taken ill and had died by the time the ship dropped anchor in the Thames ?’
    ‘Yes. On the 14th October the captain complained of pains in his belly. He said it was like fire.’
    Cranston turned to Minter. ‘Did you examine Roffel?’
    ‘Yes, I did. I thought it was some form of dysentery — violent cramps, putrid faeces, high fever, sweating.’
    ‘And what did you prescribe?’
    ‘I concocted some binding ointment, but nothing worked. By 20th October, Roffel was delirious. He died the night before we sailed up the Thames .’
    ‘Do you think he was poisoned?’ Athelstan asked.
    He studied the ring of faces in the flickering light of the single lantern. Minter’s vinegarish features broke into a crooked smile.
    ‘Oh yes, Father, he was poisoned. But not,’ he added hastily, ‘as you think. Belly cramps, stomach bile, dysentery, inflammation of the bowels and rectum are common on ships. Rats shit on our food, the water’s brackish and the biscuits have more weevils than flour.’
    ‘How many people died on this voyage?’
    ‘Two. The captain and the cook, Scabgut.’
    ‘What did the latter die of?’
    ‘He suffered from similar cramps. But there’s usually a death on every voyage — if it’s not the food, then a man falls overboard.’
    ‘So,’ Cranston intervened, ‘there was nothing suspicious about Roffel’s death?’
    ‘Nothing whatsoever. Though he did have his own supply of wine.’
    ‘But I drank from that as well,’ Coffrey the clerk intervened.
    ‘In which case,’ the surgeon concluded, ‘Captain Roffel ate and drank nothing we didn’t.’
    ‘We understand,’ Athelstan said, ‘that Captain Roffel was a hard man?’
    ‘Like flint,’ Cabe replied. ‘Hard as rock. He had a stone for a heart.’ He smirked. ‘God’s Bright Light! What a name for the devil’s own ship!’ He lifted a hand. ‘Oh, don’t get me wrong, Roffel was successful. We always came back