The Anger of God

fact that this sweetmeat was soaked in poison. It was that sugar which I detected in the dead man’s mouth. 1 suspect this is how Fitzroy was killed.’
    ‘Nonsense!’ Goodman exclaimed, his arrogant face now white and pale. ‘Wouldn’t Fitzroy think it strange?’
    ‘No,’ Athelstan replied. ‘First, he had come to a banquet. Perhaps he thought a servant had dropped it or left it there as a small treat for him. Second,’ Athelstan smiled, ‘you have all sat down. Before you on the table is a small trencher. Beside each of these, before you entered, I placed a sweetmeat. How many of you ate that sweetmeat? Popped it absentmindedly into your mouths?’
    Denny, Goodman and Bremmer smiled in embarrassment.
    ‘How do you know it wasn’t poisoned?’ Cranston barked, enjoying the look of stupefaction on their faces. He lumbered to his feet. ‘You did what any person might do, seated at a table waiting for a meal. You found something nice and popped it into your mouth. Fitzroy was no different. Indeed, with his appetite, he could scarcely resist.’
    ‘Yes, but who placed it there?’
    The atmosphere chilled as Gaunt’s question hung like the sword of Damocles above them. Cranston pointed to Lord Adam Clifford.
    ‘You, sir, are a traitor, a liar and a murderer! I accuse you of maliciously causing the deaths of Sir Thomas Fitzroy, Peter Sturmey and Sir Gerard Mountjoy!’ Clifford sprang to his feet, his eyes wide with anger, his face suffused by rage. ‘You fat old fool!’ he yelled. ‘How dare you?’
    Gaunt sat back in his chair, looking as if he had been pole-axed, whilst the Guildmasters stared unbelievingly at Cranston . Clifford advanced threateningly towards the Coroner, hand on his dagger. Sir John drew his own sword but the captain of Gaunt’s guard moved swiftly between the two men.
    ‘Lord Adam, I suggest you sit down,’ the soldier said softly. He looked over his shoulder at his master. Gaunt had now regained his composure and nodded silently, his eyes never leaving his young lieutenant.
    ‘Sit down, Adam,’ he said quietly. ‘My Lord Coroner, continue. But if this allegation is false, you shall answer for it.’
    ‘I will answer to God,’ Cranston retorted. He stared round the assembled men. ‘Now let me tell you a story,’ he began, ‘of a kingdom where the prince is a mere child and all power rests with his uncle, the Regent. In the absence of a strong ruler, factions emerge, jostling for power. At court the nobles become immersed in deadly rivalries; in the city powerful burgesses vie for power. Outside in the countryside the labourers mutter treason, forming secret covens and groups to plot treasonable rebellion.’
    ‘Be careful, Sir John!’ Gaunt snapped.
    Athelstan closed his eyes and prayed that Cranston would not go too far.
    ‘If I tell a lie,’ Sir John answered, ‘let someone here contradict me.’ Cranston gazed round the Guildmasters but they were silent as was Clifford who now sat with beads of sweat running down his face.
    ‘A leader emerges,’ Cranston continued, ‘a mysterious man who calls himself Ira Dei, the Anger of God. He directs the Great Community of the Realm, the secret council of peasant leaders. They do not know who he is, nor does anyone else. He comes and goes, sowing the seeds of dissension. Now things change. His Grace the Regent here decides to form a bond of amity with the leading merchants of London . Ira Dei wishes to frustrate this so he looks for a traitor close to the Regent. He finds him in My Lord Clifford, a young man who has not forgotten his humble beginnings, or at least those of his family. And Clifford, either for idealism or for personal profit or for both, agrees to be Ira Dei’s agent in bringing my Lord of Gaunt’s plans to nothing.’
    ‘A lie!’ Clifford shouted, though the tremor in his voice did little to convince any of his companions, who gazed stonily back.
    ‘Now my Lord of Clifford’s father,’ Cranston continued, ‘was a captain of archers, a skilled bowman — a skill he passed on to his son Adam. On the afternoon Sir Gerard Mountjoy dies, Clifford brings a hunting bow or converted arbalest and, when everyone is either resting or involved in their own affairs, slips like the shadow of death along the pentice. He shoots the dagger, Mountjoy dies in mysterious circumstances, and we become engrossed in the riddle of how he died rather than considering why or who did it.’ Cranton helped himself to a