The House of Crows

precisely because Gaunt does not wish to be blamed for them. Unless, of course, Coverdale is not really Gaunt’s friend,’ he added. ‘In which case, Sir John, we are like dogs chasing our tails.’
    ‘Which is why I am returning to Cheapside.’ Cranston called over his shoulder as he strode on. ‘I may not be able to help my lord Regent...’ he stopped and tapped his fleshy nose. ‘But perhaps I can assist your search for Perline Brasenose.’ They went up on to Holborn Street. The sun was beginning to set, and that broad thoroughfare which swept out of Newgate was full of traders, carters, hucksters and peasants making their Weary way home after a day’s business. A hedge-priest, his battered wheelbarrow full of tattered belongings, stopped and begged a penny off Athelstan.
    ‘Blessings on you, Brother!’ He sketched a benediction. And if I were you I would hurry. The crowds around Newgate are thicker than flies on a cowpat. They’re getting ready to hang a man.’ He then seized his wheelbarrow and hurried on. Cranston and Athelstan crossed the street where the coroner, using his ponderous bulk and booming voice, stopped a wine cart loaded with tuns and casks. The lord Coroner of the city, together with his secretarius, sat like two boys at the end of the cart, legs dangling, as the wine trader, eager to be in London before curfew, cracked his whip and urged the great dray horses forward. They rattled by Pontypool Street, Leveroune Lane, the Bishop of Ely’s inn, then turned right at Smithfield, past Cock Lane where the whores thronged. One of them recognised Cranston. She steadied the orange wig on her bald head and turned to her sisters. ‘There goes Lord Fat Arse!’
    The rest of the group took up the shouts. Cranston smiled beatifically back, sketching a sign of the cross in the air towards them. Athelstan hid his face and just prayed they would reach Newgate without further mishap. They were forced to stop just alongside the great city ditch where the stinking refuse was piled in mounds as high as their heads. The stench was indescribable. Convicted felons, under the supervision of bailiffs, their mouths and eyes covered by scraps of dirty rags, were sprinkling saltpetre over the mounds of slime. Others, armed with bellows, stood round great roaring braziers, fanning the burning charcoal. Athelstan pinched his nostrils and tried not to look at the corpses of rats and other animals which protruded out of the heaps. Cranston, however, shouted encouragement to the bailiffs.
    ‘Good lads! Lovely boys! It will be ready before nightfall?’
    ‘Oh yes, Sir John,’ one of them shouted back, leaning on his shovel, ‘Once the curfew bell tolls, we will light the fire.’
    ‘Thank God,’ Cranston breathed. ‘The ditch is full enough: when the winds come from the north-west, they make Lady Maude sick.’
    One of the felons shouted, pulling down the muffler from his face. ‘It’s good to see, how the lord Coroner has now got his own carriage, suitably furnished.’
    Cranston peered through the shifting columns of smoke. ‘Is that Tolpuddle? So, you’ve been caught again, you little bastard!’
    ‘Not really, Sir John,’ the felon shouted cheerily back. ‘Just a little misunderstanding over a baby pig I found.’ Tolpuddle came closer. Athelstan noticed how one eye was sewn up, the other was bright with mischief.
    ‘Misunderstanding?’Cranston asked.
    ‘Aye, the bailiffs caught me with it two nights ago.’
    ‘So you had stolen it?’
    ‘No, Sir John.’ The felon leaned on his rake. ‘The saints be my witness, Sir John. I found the little pig wandering alone in the streets. It looked so lonesome. I simply picked it up, put it under my cloak. I was going to take it back to its mother.’ Cranston laughed, dug into his purse, and flicked the man a penny. At last the wine trader saw an opening in the crowds. He cracked his whip and the cart trundled on. Tolpuddle stood, cheerily waving goodbye, until a bailiff clapped him on the ear and sent him back to his work.
    The cart rattled on through the old city walls, and Cranston and Athelstan got down in front of Newgate. The great bell of the prison was tolling. On a high-branched scaffold just outside the double gates, a man was about to be turned off. Around the foot of the scaffold thronged men-at-arms and archers wearing the regent’s livery; these held back the crowds, even as a herald in a royal tabard proclaimed how Robert atte