The Anger of God

fearfully at Athelstan and then Sir John. Cranston sat on the edge of the bed and wiped the sweat from his brow.
    ‘This little minx,’ he breathed heavily, ‘and her nurse concocted this medley of lies and deceits. Come on, man!’ He waved Walter Hobden forward. The girl’s father stepped gingerly into the room whilst she hid her face in her hands and sobbed quietly. ‘Didn’t it ever occur to you,’ Cranston taunted Hobden, ‘that this was all mummery?’
    ‘But she drove Anna away,’ he wailed.
    ‘Listen, tickle brain,’ Cranston replied, getting to his feet, ‘that was part of the masque. The two only appeared estranged! Whilst Elizabeth held court up here, her good nurse, banished to the scullery, used chimney holes and gaps between the wainscoting to create the knocking sounds.’ He walked over to the small hearth. ‘This is an old house,’ he explained. ‘There are funnels and smoke flues, chimneys and other old gaps. If you go down to the scullery where the main cooking hearth is, you can, by rattling rods carefully placed up the chimney stack, create a disturbance all through the house. I have seen it done before. A children’s game, played on the eve of All Hallows.’ Cranston tapped the wainscoting. ‘And this probably helps. It makes the echoes even louder. I went down to the scullery and there was old Anna seated like a night hag beside the hearth, busy with her metal rods.’
    ‘But the voice?’ Eleanor Hobden came into the room. ‘Oh, for God’s sake, woman!’ Cranston scoffed. ‘Haven’t you ever heard anyone imitating a voice?’ He stared up at an astonished Athelstan. ‘I believe Crim, your altar boy, small as he is, can give a very good imitation of me?’
    Athelstan smiled faintly. He felt relieved at Cranston ’s abrupt revelation and curt dismissal of all this mummery and trickery yet still he felt a deep unease.
    ‘But the smell?’ Athelstan sniffed.
    ‘Oh, I am sure there’s an answer for that.’
    Cranston knelt down, put his hand under the bedstead and drew out two small unstoppered pots. He then went to the other side of the bed and found the same. Cranston picked one up, sniffed at it gingerly and recoiled in distaste as he handed it to Athelstan.
    ‘God knows what it is! I suspect goat’s cheese.’ Athelstan sniffed and turned away in disgust. ‘Goat’s cheese,’ he coughed, ‘and something else.’
    ‘A well-known trick,’ Cranston observed. ‘Take off the stoppers and a pig sty would be sweet compared to it.’ He grinned. ‘Put the jars open under the bed, move the blankets, and a stench is wafted from Hell.’
    Athelstan gazed down at the sobbing girl whilst the sound of a commotion outside indicated that the fearsome Eleanor Hobden was now dragging the old nurse upstairs. Eleanor entered, cast a look of disdain at her husband and threw the struggling Anna, who looked on the point of fainting with fear, down on to the rushes. She went across and grasped Elizabeth ’s hair, pulling back her head. Despite her evil game, Athelstan felt a pang of compassion for the girl. Her face looked ghastly: red-rimmed eyes and pallid, tear-soaked cheeks. Elizabeth had bitten her lips and a trickle of blood ran down her chin.
    ‘Leave her alone!’ he ordered.
    Eleanor gave another vicious tug to the girl’s hair. Athelstan grasped her by the wrist.
    ‘For God’s sake, woman, leave her!’
    Eleanor reluctantly obeyed but glared at Cranston .
    ‘She is guilty of a crime, isn’t she? The pretended raising of demons and the use of such trickery is almost as grave a charge as dabbling in the Black Arts themselves.’
    Cranston , who had taken a deep dislike to the woman, nodded.
    ‘Are you saying I should arrest her?’
    ‘If you don’t, I’ll throw her and that bitch of a nurse out into the street!’
    ‘Eleanor!’ Walter moaned. ‘Don’t!’
    ‘Oh, shut up!’ she spat back. ‘I told you this little minx was a liar and a cheat.’ She went across and shoved her face only inches from her husband’s. ‘Either they go or I do.’
    Cranston stole a glance at Athelstan. The friar looked helplessly down at the sobbing girl whilst Anna still crouched like a dog amongst the rushes. Eleanor walked back and dug the girl in the shoulder.
    ‘Get out of this bed and leave the house as you are!’
    ‘Oh, for pity’s sake!’ Cranston snapped.
    ‘My Lord Coroner,’ the Hobden woman replied, ‘you were not invited to this house. You are here as an