The House of the Red Slayer

table of pewter and wooden platters. In one corner, two men were idly baiting a badger with a dog and other groups were huddled round the fire. Athelstan gazed around. The heavy pall of death hung over the room. He recognised its stench, the suspicion and unspoken terrors which always followed a violent, mysterious slaying. One of the figures near the fire rose and hurried across as Cranston bellowed his title once again. The fellow was tall and lanky, red-haired, with eyes pink-lidded and devoid of lashes. An aquiline nose dominated his half-shaven, lantern-shaped face.
    ‘I am Gilbert Colebrooke, the lieutenant. Sir John, you are most welcome.’ His bleary eyes swung to Athelstan.
    ‘My clerk,’ Cranston blandly announced. The coroner nodded to the group round the fire. ‘The constable’s household, I suspect?’
    ‘Yes,’ Colebrooke snapped.
    ‘Well, man, introduce us!‘
    As they moved across, the people crouching on stools near the fire rose to greet them. Introductions were made, and inevitably Cranston immediately dominated the proceedings. As usual Athelstan hung back, studying the people he would soon interrogate. He would dig out their secrets, perhaps even reveal scandals best left hidden. First the chaplain, Master William Hammond, thin and sombre in his dark black robes. He moved with a birdlike stoop, his face sallow with an unhealthy colour, balding head covered with greasy grey wisps of hair. A bitter man, Athelstan concluded, with a nose as sharp as a daggerpoint, small black eyes and lips thin as a miser’s purse.
    On the chaplain’s right stood Sir Fulke Whitton, the dead man’s brother, sleek and fat, with a pleasant face and corn-coloured hair. His handshake was firm and he manoeuvred his considerable girth with the grace and speed of an athlete.
    Beside him was the dead constable’s daughter, Philippa. No great beauty, she was broad-featured, with pleasant brown eyes and neat auburn hair. She was rather plump and reminded Athelstan of an over-fed capon. Next to her stood, or rather swayed, her betrothed, Geoffrey Parchmeiner, hair black as night though oiled and dressed like that of a woman. He seemed a pleasant enough fellow, strong-featured though his smooth-shaven face was slightly flushed with the blood-red claret he slopped around in a deep-bowled goblet. A merry fellow, Athelstan thought, and gazed with amusement at Geoffrey’s tight hose and protuberant codpiece: the shirt beneath the tawny cloak dripped with frills under the sarcenet doublet, and the toes of the shoes were so long and pointed they were tied up by a scarlet cord wound around the knees. God knows how he walks on ice, Athelstan thought. He recognised the type — a young man who aped the dandies of the court. A parchment seller with a shop in some London street, Geoffrey would have the money to act like a courtier.
    The two hospitaller knights whom Cranston had mentioned, Sir Gerard Mowbray and Sir Brian Fitzormonde, could have been brothers, each dressed in the grey garb of their Order, cloaks emblazoned with broad white pointed crosses. Athelstan knew the fearsome reputation of these knight monks and had on occasion even acted as confessor at their stronghold in Clerkenwell. Both Gerard and Brian were middle-aged, and every inch soldiers with their neat clipped beards, sharp eyes and close-cropped hair. They moved like cats, men conscious of their own prowess. Warriors, Athelstan mused, men who would kill if they thought the cause just.
    Between them stood a lithe-figured dark man, his hair and beard liberally oiled. He was dressed in blue loose-fitting trousers and a heavy military cloak over his doublet. His eyes moved constantly and he watched Cranston and Athelstan as if they were enemies. The coroner barked a question at him but the fellow just looked dumbly back, opened his mouth and pointed with his finger. Athelstan looked away in pity from the black space where the man’s tongue should have been.
    ‘Rastani is a mute.’ The girl, Philippa, spoke up, her voice surprisingly deep and husky. ‘He was a Muslim, though now converted to our faith. He is...’ She bit her lip. ‘He was my father’s servant.’ Her eyes filled with tears and she clutched the arm of her betrothed, though the young man was more unsteady on his feet than she.
    Once the introductions were made Colebrooke shouted for more stools and, catching the greedy gaze of Sir John directed towards the young man’s wine cup, goblets