Murder most holy

delivered of two fine boys, Francis and Stephen. Cranston had been confirmed in his office of coroner by the Regent, who had invited him to this banquet to sit at his right hand, a significant honour for a Justice of the Peace.
    ‘I wish the Lady Maude could see me now,’ Cranston murmured to himself. Yet the invitation had not included his good wife. Not that she minded.
    ‘God forgive me, Sir John,’ she said, ‘but I do not like the Duke of Lancaster. He has the eyes of a snake — dead and cold. His ambition is like Lucifer’s and I fear for the young king.’
    Sir John had been surprised. Lady Maude was prudent. She kept her own secret counsel but, when she spoke, her words were like well-aimed arrows shot direct at the heart of the target. Cranston stirred uneasily, placed his cup on the table and turned to his left. Gaunt’s olive-skinned face with its neatly clipped golden beard and moustache looked complacent as he gazed from heavy-lidded eyes at his hall’s magnificence. On Gaunt’s left sat the young king. The boy, thought Cranston , has the looks of an angel with his pale face, clear blue eyes, sensitive features and shoulder-length golden hair. The young king appeared to be schooling himself to listen attentively to the dark-bearded, swarthy-faced Italian lord sitting on his left. Cranston leaned back in his chair and glanced sideways at this Italian lord, renowned for the cunning astuteness which had made him as wealthy as Croesus and turned his small city state into one of the great powers of Italy .
    The Lord of Cremona controlled banks, ports, fertile vineyards, fields and manor houses. His ships ranged from the Adriatic to fabled Constantinople and the golden shores of Trebizond . Cranston knew why he was in England . The English exchequer was empty. Parliament was unruly; the peasants seething with such discontent, that tax collectors were fearful of moving into any village without a powerful military escort. Gaunt had invited Cremona to England in order to raise loans and consequently had not stinted in his lavish hospitality. Pageants had greeted him at Southampton; Gaunt and his brothers, dressed in pure cloth of gold, escorting him to London to be greeted by more lavish shows, colourful spectacles, banquets and speeches. These may have impressed Cremona but only increased bad feeling in the city as Londoners saw Gaunt accrue more power to himself than any emperor, pope or king.
    Cranston picked up his goblet and slurped noisily from it, relishing the way the wine’s full-bodied taste drenched his mouth with sweetness. His good humour began to fade. Should he be party to these junketings? And why exactly had Gaunt invited him? Cranston stirred restlessly. The banquet was over, and what a meal! Swan, venison, boar’s meat, beef, veal, fish fresh from the river, lampreys cooked in a cream sauce, marchpane, jellies carved and sculpted in the most extraordinary forms. The jugglers had come and gone, as had the acrobats, the fire-eaters and the dwarfs who made everyone laugh. The musicians in the gallery at the far end of the hall were now half-asleep and the pure-voiced choir of young boys had long been dismissed. Cranston shook himself alert and looked down the hall with its two tables set side by side. There must be no fewer than sixty great lords attending this banquet. Why was he among their select number?
    Before the banquet, Gaunt had spoken to the Italian lord of Cranston ’s skill in solving notorious cases of murder.
    ‘Is no such problem beyond your grasp?’ Cremona had asked.
    ‘None!’ Cranston had drunkenly boasted, beaming round at a group of gaping bystanders. Now Sir John began to regret his own vainglory.
    ‘Sir John, you are well?’
    Cranston turned. Gaunt was looking at him speculatively as if trying to discern Cranston ’s frame of mind.
    ‘My Lord, I am happy to be here,’ he replied. ‘You do me great honour.’
    Both he and Gaunt suddenly looked down the hall at the tumult which broke out as a large rat, startled by one of the greyhounds, scampered on to the table. The guests rose in uproar, stabbing at the rodent with their knives until it jumped off the table into the jaws of a waiting dog. A general fracas then occurred amongst the pack, only broken up by huntsmen with whips who drove both dogs and their mangled quarry out of the hall.
    ‘Enough is enough,’ Gaunt whispered.
    He rose and gestured to the heralds standing in the gallery who raised