The Nightingale Gallery

with delight as Cranston took a great gulp then, his face puce as a plum, went to the door to spit it out.
    'God's teeth, man! More water than wine!' he snapped.
    'St Dominic and my Order,' Athelstan said tartly, 'have in their wisdom decreed that wine at full strength is not for monks.' He tapped Cranston's great girth. 'Perhaps not even for king's coroners!'
    Cranston drew himself up to his full height and squinted at Athelstan.
    'My orders, little friar, are that you are to accompany me into Cheapside to a tavern called the Bear and Ragged Staff. You have heard of it?'
    Athelstan shook his head, his heart sinking. Cranston smirked.
    'We are going to sit there. I shall remain sober and tell you how Vechey was murdered. He did not commit suicide.'
    'And I shall tell you, my Lord Coroner, how Edmund Brampton, steward to Sir Thomas Springall, did not hang himself in the garret of that house in Cheapside!'
    'So you have been thinking, Friar?'
    'Coroner, I never stop.'
    'Well, come on then!'
    'Sir John, we could stay here and discuss our concerns.'
    Cranston turned, shaking his head. 'Here? Where every little snot from Southwark can come knocking at your door, bothering you with their complaints. Oh, no, Brother. Our stop at the Bear and Ragged Staff is only half our journey. We go then to Newgate, and perhaps elsewhere.'
    So saying, he strode out of the house. Athelstan breathed a prayer for patience, made a sign of the cross over himself and followed suit. Cranston, now mounted, watched him.
    'Aren't you going to lock your door?' he bellowed.
    'What's the use?' Athelstan replied. 'If I do, thieves will break it down thinking there is something valuable to steal.'
    Snorting at the friar's apparent stupidity, Cranston turned his horse and led them out of the main alleyways of Southwark. A group of urchins, recognising Sir John, followed from afar and, despite Athelstan's pleas, shouted insults about the coroner's ponderous girth. Garth the woodcutter, who also took the death carts round the streets, was drinking outside the tavern and joined in the noisy abuse.
    'Sir John Cranston!' he bellowed, tapping his own round belly. 'You must be pregnant. What will it be, boy or girl?'
    That was too much for the coroner. He reined in his horse and glared at his cheery-faced tormentor.
    'If I was pregnant by you,' he shouted back, 'then it would be a bloody great Barbary ape!'
    And, amidst the raucous laughter which greeted this repartee, Athelstan and Cranston continued on their way to London Bridge. They crossed over quietly enough, Athelstan smiling as he passed through the gateway at the far end on to Fish Street Hill. He wondered how the little man was coping, remembered the heads and concluded it was an acquaintance he would not wish to renew.
    The fine day had brought the crowds pouring into London, varlets, squires, and men-at-arms accompanying knights north to the great horse fair at Smithfield, after which there would be tournaments and tourneys. The streets were packed with men, helmeted and armed, and great destriers caparisoned in all the colours and awesome regalia of war moved majestically along Fish Street Hill. High in the saddle rode the knights, resplendent in coloured surcoats, their slit-eyed helmets swinging from saddle bows, bannered lances carried before them by squires. Hordes of others followed on foot; retainers gaudy in the livery of great lords, and the bright French silks of young gallants who swarmed into the city like butterflies under the warm sun and blue skies. They thronged the taverns, their coloured garments a sharp contrast to the dirty leather aprons of the blacksmiths and the short jerkins and caps of the apprentices.
    As Cranston and Athelstan turned into Cheapside they saw the festive spirit had spread. Stalls were out and there were mummers performing miracle plays. Men shouted themselves hoarse proclaiming cock fights, dog battles, and savage contests never seen before between wild hogs and mangy bears. The crowds had impeded the dung carts and the piles of rubbish and refuse were everywhere, the flies rising in thick black swarms.
    'God's teeth!' Cranston said. 'Come, Athelstan.'
    They had to dismount and force their way through, past the Conduit and the Tun and up a small alleyway which led into the Bear and Ragged Staff. They stabled their horses and did not enter the tavern but passed into a pleasant garden beyond. A private place with a chessboard garden, a square divided into