The House of the Red Slayer

of hot posset. Cranston and Athelstan sat in the middle of the group. Sir John had no inhibitions but threw back his cloak, stretched out his log-like legs and revelled in the warmth from the fire. The posset he drained in one gulp, held out his cup to be refilled and slurped noisily from it, smacking his lips and staring around as if all his companions were close bosom friends. Athelstan muttered a silent prayer, as he rearranged the writing tray on his lap, that the good Lord would keep Cranston both sober and awake. Geoffrey sniggered whilst the two knights stared in utter disbelief.
    ‘You are the King’s Coroner?’ Sir Fulke loudly asked.
    ‘Yes, he is,’ Athelstan intervened. ‘And Sir John is not always as he appears.‘
    Cranston smacked his lips again.
    ‘No, no, I am not,’ he murmured. ‘And I suspect the same is true of everyone here. Always remember a useful dictum: every man born of woman is three persons; what he appears to be, what he claims to be and,’ he beamed round, ‘what he really is.’ He grinned lecherously at Philippa. ‘The same is true of the fairer sex.’ He suddenly remembered Maude and the thought sobered him quicker than a douche of cold water. ‘The same,’ he continued crossly, ‘is true of the murderer of Sir Ralph Whitton, Constable of this Tower.’
    ‘You suspect someone here?’ Sir Fulke said, his face now drained of good humour.
    ‘Yes, I do!’ Cranston snapped.
    ‘That’s an insult!’ the chaplain blurted out. ‘My Lord Coroner, you are in your cups! You swagger in here, you know us not...’
    Athelstan placed his hand on the coroner’s arm. He sensed Sir John was in a dangerous mood and noticed how the hospitallers had both opened their cloaks to display the daggers hooked in their belts. Cranston heeded the warning.
    ‘I make no accusations,’ he replied softly. ‘But it usually transpires that murder, like charity, begins at home.’
    ‘We face three problems,’ Athelstan diplomatically intervened. ‘Who killed Sir Ralph, why, and how?’
    The lieutenant made a rude sound with his tongue. Cranston leaned forward.
    ‘You wish to say something, sir?’
    ‘Yes, I do. Sir Ralph could have been killed by any rebel from London, by a peasant from the hundreds of villages around us, or by some secret assassin sent in to perform the ghastly deed.‘
    Cranston nodded and smiled at him.
    ‘Perhaps,’ he replied sweetly, ‘but I shall return to your theory later. In the meantime, none of you will leave the Tower.’ He looked around the sombre hall. ‘After I have viewed the corpse, I wish to see all of you, though in more suitable surroundings.’
    The lieutenant agreed. ‘St John’s Chapel in the White Tower,’ he announced. ‘It is warm, secure, and affords some privacy.‘
    ‘Good! Good!’ Cranston replied. He smiled falsely at the group. ‘In a while, I shall see you all there. Now I wish to inspect Sir Ralph’s body.‘
    ‘In the North Bastion,’ Colebrooke retorted and, rising abruptly, led them out of the hall.
    Sir John swayed like a galleon behind him whilst Athelstan hastily packed pen, inkhorn and parchment. The friar was pleased; he had names, first impressions, and Cranston had played his usual favourite trick of alienating everyone. The coroner was as crafty as a fox.
    ‘If you handle suspects roughly,’ he had once proclaimed, ‘they are less likely to waste time on lies. And, as you know, Brother, most murderers are liars.‘
    Colebrooke waited at the bottom of the steps of the great hall and silently led them past the soaring White Tower which shimmered in the thick snow packed around its base, traces of frost and slush on every shelf, cornice and windowsill. Athelstan stopped and looked up.
    ‘Magnificent!’ he murmured. ‘How great are the works of man!‘
    ‘And how terrible,’ Cranston added.
    They both stood for a few seconds admiring the sheer white stone of the great tower. They were about to move on when a door at the foot of the keep, built under a flight of outside steps, was flung open. A fantastical hunch-backed creature with a shock of white hair appeared before them. For a moment, he stood as if frozen. His face was pallid, his body covered in a gaudy mass of dirty rags with oversized boots on his feet. Finally he scampered towards them on all fours like a dog, sending flurries of snow flying up on either side. The lieutenant cursed and turned away.
    ‘Welcome to the Tower!’ the creature