The House of the Red Slayer

him and, eyes guarded, raised his tankard. Athelstan smiled back but watched as, a few minutes later, Pike rose and led the rest of his companions out of the tavern.
    Cranston squatted down with his back to the wall, smacked his lips and gazed hungrily up at the hams and other meats hanging from ropes on the rafters to be cured. He watched a pot boy broach a new cask and through an open door glimpsed the kitchen with its huge oven where Joscelyn baked his own bread. A dusty-faced boy was now raking the coal and wood from this into a tidy, white pile of ash. The bread would then be slipped in, the oven door sealed, and when the oven cooled, the bread would be baked. A curious place, Sir John reflected, at the heart of Southwark’s squalor, yet the ales and wine were always fresh and the food delicious. He glimpsed a table at the far end of the tavern with a huge silver nef or spice ship. Cranston scratched his head. So much new wealth. He idly wondered if Joscelyn had returned to his old ways and was engaged in some petty smuggling.
    Athelstan studied Cranston out of the corner of his eye. Sir John’s temper had improved but Athelstan dreaded spending a day watching him guzzle one goblet of wine after another. The landlord waddled over.
    ‘My Lord Coroner, you are ready to order?’
    Cranston gazed speculatively at the ceiling.
    ‘No fish!‘ he barked. ‘Some pheasant or quail, cooked to a golden brown and stuffed with spices. I want the sauce thick. And some fresh bread!‘
    ‘And the Reverend Father?’ Joscelyn asked sardonically. ‘The Reverend Father,’ Athelstan replied smoothly, ‘would like a bowl of thick leek soup, some bread, and a cup of wine with more water than claret.’
    They waited until Joscelyn had walked away, roaring their order into the kitchen.
    ‘Well, My Lord Coroner?’ Athelstan asked. ‘What has happened?’
    Cranston outlined in sharp, succinct phrases the grisly events which had taken place earlier in the day. ‘I have also been to the Guildhall,’ he mournfully concluded. ‘The mayor told me in no uncertain terms how displeased His Grace the Regent Duke of Lancaster is at our lack of progress. Adam Horne was apparently a member of his retinue.’
    ‘And what was your reply?’
    ‘I told him that I didn’t give a rat’s arse, and that I was doing the best I could.’
    ‘I suppose,’ the friar answered, ‘the mayor accepted your eloquent reply?’
    Cranston slouched back against the wall. ‘Oh, we had a quarrel, but I have more sense than to seek a confrontation. I explained we had searched for Horne but could not find him.’ He glanced across at Athelstan, his face full of self-pity. ‘I must resolve the matter with the Lady Maude,’ he whispered. ‘It’s clouding my mind.’
    Athelstan waited until the slattern had served them with goblets of wine.
    ‘Look, Sir John, let us take these events from the beginning.‘ Athelstan raised a hand. ‘No, it is necessary. And, if you’ll accept my apologies, we must for the time being put the matter of Lady Maude to one side.’
    Cranston nodded glumly.
    ‘Sir Ralph Whitton,’ Athelstan began, ‘received a warning that he was going to die because of a terrible act of betrayal committed in Outremer some years ago. I know,’ Athelstan quietly continued, ‘Sir Ralph was guilty of such an act. That’s why in the back of his Book of Hours, he scribbled those prayers to Julian the Hospitaller.’
    ‘Who was he?’
    ‘A knight who committed terrible murders and spent his life in making reparation. Anyway,’ Athelstan continued, ‘Sir Ralph moves from his own chamber to the so-called security of the North Bastion tower. He is frightened and even refuses to take his Moorish servant, Rastani, with him. He drinks heavily the night before his death and retires to his bed chamber. What happened then?’ Athelstan asked, trying to draw Cranston from his own dark thoughts.
    The coroner slurped noisily from his cup. ‘Well, my dear friar, according to all the evidence we have, Sir Ralph went to bed, and locked the door behind him, keeping the key with him. The door leading to the gallery on which his chamber stands was locked by the guards, whilst the other end of the passage is blocked by fallen masonry. The guards are on duty all night just inside the entrance to the North Bastion. They are both trusted men and the key to both the gallery door and another for Sir Ralph’s chamber hang on a hook beside them. We have