The Anger of God

pronounced:
    ‘No, Sir John, nothing in it except claret and perhaps a little of the foxglove I prescribed to keep Sir Oliver’s heart strong.’
    ‘Could more have been put in?’ Cranston asked.
    ‘Of course not!’ the physician snapped. ‘What are you implying, Sir John? A strong infusion of foxglove would leave the cup and jug reeking.’
    Sir John had demurred and sent for Theobald de Troyes, his own physician, a man skilled in his art and patronized by many of the court. Theobald had given corpse, cup and jug a most thorough scrutiny.
    ‘The physician was correct,’ he announced. ‘You see, Sir John, if Sir Oliver was given too much foxglove, his corpse would bear some trace. I can find nothing except the effects of a sudden seizure, whilst the cup only carries traces of claret and a little foxglove, but no more than a good doctor would prescribe. The jug smells only of foxglove.’
    ‘Any mark of violence?’ Cranston asked.
    ‘None whatsoever, Sir John.’ Theobald lowered his eyes. ‘Except the rat bites on the fingers of the right hand. Sir John,’ the physician had pleaded, ‘Sir Oliver retired to bed last night, feeling ill. His servants heard him declare he felt weak and dizzy with pains in his chest. He locked his chamber door and left the key in the lock. The windows were similarly padlocked. No one could enter to do him mischief.’
    Sir John had grunted, bade him farewell and sat in this chamber for the last two hours, wondering how murder could have been committed.
    ‘I wish Athelstan was here,’ he moaned to himself. ‘Perhaps he would see something wrong. Bloody monk! And I wish he would bring that sodding cat with him!’
    Cranston thought of Athelstan’s fierce-looking tom cat, Bonaventure, whom his secretary and friend proclaimed was the best rat-catcher in Southwark. Cranston sighed, crossed himself, lowered his eyes and said the prayer for the dead.
    ‘Grant eternal rest to Oliver, my friend,’ he muttered as his mind drifted back down the passage of the years: Oliver, tall and strong, standing at his shoulder as the French knights broke through the English ranks at Poitiers . The roar of battle, the neighing of war steeds, the clash of swords, the silent purr of the arrow, the stabbing and hacking as they and a few others bore the brunt of the last desperate French attack. The ground underfoot had become slippery with blood. Cranston had stood, legs apart, whirling his sword like a great scythe against the French knights as they closed in for the kill.
    A monstrous giant had rushed against him, his helmet in the shape of a devil’s head with wide, sweeping horns, its yellow plume tossing in the evening breeze. Cranston , glimpsing steel-encased arms swinging back a huge battle axe, had moved to one side, slipped and gone down in the mud. He had expected to receive his death blow but Oliver had stepped over him, taken the brunt of the blow with his own shield and, closing with the enemy, shoved his small misericorde dagger between cuirass and helm.
    ‘I owe you my life,’ Cranston confessed afterwards.
    ‘One day you can repay the debt!’ Oliver laughed as they both sat on the battle field toasting each other in cup after cup of the claret they’d filched from the French camp. ‘One day you will repay the debt.’
    Cranston opened tear-filled eyes. He raised his right hand and stared at the corpse. ‘By the sod, I will!’ he muttered. He looked once more at the pathetic corpse under its winding sheet.
    ‘In our golden days,’ he whispered, ‘we were greyhounds racing for the hunt! Young hawks swooping for the kill! Ah, the days!’
    Cranston tapped his broad girth, pulled the bed curtains close and stamped out of the chamber, pausing only to glance once more at the damaged lock.
    He tramped like a Colossus down the stairs and marched into the solar where Lady Rosamund and ‘kinsman’ Albric were playing cat’s-cradle in the window seat. Rosamund looked all the more beautiful in a gown of black damask and carefully arranged veil of the same colour, her narrow face twisted into an approximation of grief. Cranston just glared at her, and even more contemptuously at her smooth-faced, slack-lipped, weak-eyed young lover.
    ‘You are finished, Sir John?’ Rosamund rose as the balding, red-faced giant marched towards her. She at least expected him to kiss her hand but Cranston seized her and Albric by the wrist and pulled both to their feet, squeezing hard as he