The Anger of God

Guildhall when Boscombe ran forward to crouch at the Regent’s feet.
    ‘My Lord!’ the man wailed, raising a tear-streaked face to John of Gaunt. ‘What shall I do now? My master’s dead. The dogs?’
    ‘Do you have a position?’ Gaunt asked the Mayor. Goodman shook his head. The Regent shrugged. ‘Then, Master Boscombe, you should count your blessings. You are at least free.’
    ‘And the dogs?’ he wailed.
    ‘Perhaps they should join their master. Unless, of course,’ Gaunt glanced sideways at Cranston , ‘My Lord Coroner stands maintenance for all three of you?’ Cranston stared at the pathetic little man and the two huge wolf hounds who looked so resigned to their fate. He was about to refuse but then caught Goodman’s smirk and the doleful eyes of the hounds.
    ‘I’ll stand maintenance!’ he retorted before Athelstan could urge prudence.
    Cranston pulled Boscombe to his feet, whistled to the dogs and marched away through the Guildhall, grinning evilly from ear to ear as the hounds charged after him, scattering that group of powerful, haughty men.

CHAPTER 3

    ‘Lady Maude will kill me!’ Sir John muttered as he and Athelstan sat on a garden bench watching the two great wolf hounds, who had already terrified the life out of Cranston ’s household, bound round the garden. Every so often they would come back and place their great paws on the Coroner’s fat legs to lick his face until the garden rang with Cranston ’s ripest curses.
    Boscombe, needing no second bidding, had gathered his pathetic belongings into a bundle and followed Sir John home. He now appeared at the door, washed, changed and bearing a brimming goblet of claret.
    ‘Good man! Good man!’ Cranston murmured. ‘You are already high in my favour.’ He wagged a stubby finger at his new steward. ‘Five things matter to me,’ he growled. ‘First, the Lady Maude. She is to be obeyed in all things. Second, take care of my sons, the poppets. Third, Brother Athelstan,’ he tapped the friar gently on the arm, ‘is my friend. Fourth, my study where I keep my great treatise is my sanctuary. And, fifth, my wineskin. There are two in fact; one hanging behind the buttery door, the other in my chamber. They are to be kept full at all times but the Lady Maude is never to know there are two.’
    ‘Of course, Sir John.’ Boscombe disappeared as silently as he’d appeared.
    Cranston sipped the claret. ‘He will be a good man,’ he murmured. ‘But what about those bloody dogs, eh? Satan’s balls, Athelstan, they look big enough to eat the poppets and Lady Maude in one gulp!’
    Athelstan chewed his lower lip. He could see Sir John’s problem but not even the glimmer of a solution.
    ‘It will all depend,’ he said slowly, ‘on what Lady Maude decides, Sir John.’ He held back the laughter, if you are lucky, she’ll just put the two dogs out of doors. If she’s angry, you may go with them!’
    Cranston belched. The two dogs turned and looked towards him.
    ‘Hell’s teeth, boys!’ Cranston growled at them. ‘What shall I call you? Do you know, that snivelling bastard Mountjoy, God rot him, didn’t even bother to give you names? Well, I have thought of two: the one with the blue collar will be called Gog and the one with the red, Magog.’
    The two dogs must have thought it was time once again to thank their new master for they came hurtling back towards him. Athelstan felt his heart lurch with fear but Cranston lifted his hand and the two dogs stopped and lay panting before him, their eyes never leaving his fat, florid face.
    ‘Where did you get this gift with dogs? They’d eat out of your hands,’ Athelstan asked, carefully putting his feet under the bench.
    ‘Ever since I was knee-high to a buttercup I’ve got on with dogs,’ Cranston replied. ‘My father was a hard man. When I did wrong, he put me out in the kennels.’ Ever reluctant to discuss his youth, he pointed to the writing implements on the table in front of Athelstan. ‘But it’s not as difficult as this problem, eh?’
    Athelstan picked up his crude drawing of the Guildhall garden. ‘How?’ he muttered, conscious of Cranston breathing noisily in his ear. ‘How could such a murder occur?’
    ‘Never mind that,’ growled the Coroner. ‘Let’s think about who? Hell’s tits!’ he muttered, answering his own question. ‘The possibilities are legion, and amongst them that group of whoreson codpieces who richly deserve a hempen necklace round