Squalor and brutality also made themselves felt. Beggars, covered in sores and garbed in rags, clustered at the mouth of alleyways and the spindle-thin runnels which cut between the mansions and shops. Outside the churches the poor swarmed, desperate for the Marymeat and Marybread given out by the parish beadles in honour of the Virgin. Fripperers pushed their handcarts full of old clothes, ever quick to escape the sharp eyes of the market bailiffs. A clerk, who’d begged after hiding his tonsure with cattle dung, was being fastened in the stocks, next to him a woman who’d stolen a baby so she could plead for alms. The noise, bustle, smell and colour deafened the ear and blurred the mind. The forest of steepled churches continuously clanged, their bells marking the hour for Mass or another recitation of the divine office. Smoke, fumes and smells from smithies, cook shops, tanneries, fullers, taverns and alehouses mingled and merged. Dung carts crashed by, full of ordure collected from the streets. Night-walkers, faces the colour of box-wood, were being marched, manacled together, to stand in the cage on the Tun in Cheapside. Children, dogs and cats raced through gaps in the crowds, spreading their own noise and confusion and drowning the shouts of tinkers and traders.

Athelstan, who’d taken to fingering his Ave beads, sighed with relief when Flaxwith, Samson trotting behind him, abruptly turned into Rosenip Lane, leaning towards the great mansions of Cheapside. Each of these stood behind its own towering curtain wall, their rims protected by shards of pottery and broken glass. The noise, stench and clatter died away. They stopped before one mansion. A porter let them through the smartly painted black gates and into the broad gardens where small square plots of herbs, shrubs and plants lay dormant in the severe grip of winter. Athelstan gazed around. There were clumps of apple and other fruit trees, their branches stark black whilst the large stew pond was nothing more than a thick sheet of ice. Athelstan hurried to keep up with Cranston as he strode along the white-pebbled path leading towards an enclosed porch built around the main door.

A grey-haired, grey-faced, grey-eyed servant, who introduced himself as Crispin, Sir Robert Kilverby’s secretarius or clerk, ushered them in. Athelstan had been struck by the gorgeous wealth of this red-brick mansion with its blue slated roof, glass-filled windows and soaring chimney stacks. The interior was no different. Athelstan and Cranston walked across tiled floors of black and white lozenges. Drapes and tapestries decorated the pink-washed plaster above gleaming wooden panelling. A gorgeous riot of colours: emeralds, deep blues, argents, purples and gleaming reds pleased the eye. Beeswax tapers glowed on spigots and candelabra, shimmering in the sheen of oaken sideboards boasting gold and silver gilt cups, mazers, dishes and goblets. Thick turkey cloths covered some floors whilst heraldic devices decorated the walls of the broad staircase they climbed. The air was fragrant with the smell of scented woodsmoke as well as the perfumes from small heated herb pots pushed into corners or on sills, a pleasing mixture of black poplar, green grape and elder oil. Nevertheless, Athelstan detected a tension, a watching silence beneath all this opulence.

Crispin eventually ushered them both into the magnificent solar, assuring Sir John that Master Flaxwith would be made most comfortable in the kitchen below. The group of people seated on chairs, stools and settles before the roaring fire rose to greet them. Lady Helen, Kilverby’s widow, was dressed in a sumptuously green and gold gown with a white lace headdress. Beautiful but as hard as flint, Athelstan thought, with a temper sharper than the panther’s tooth. Adam Lestral, whom Lady Helen introduced as ‘her kinsman’, was pasty-faced with shifting eyes and a weak mouth, his long black hair sleek with nard. A man of dark design, Athelstan considered, full of arrogance, kinsman Adam dismissed both Cranston and the friar with a look of flickering contempt. Alesia, Kilverby’s daughter, was fair-headed with crystal-grey eyes and cherry lips. She kept smoothing down the gem-encrusted stomacher of her long, tawny gown whilst glancing across at her imperious stepmother with a venom Athelstan considered to be past all understanding. The introductions were finished. Mulled spice wine and wafer thin doucettes were offered and taken. Cranston emptied his small silver dish and downed his wine in noisy gulps whilst he stood with his back to the fire, stamping his feet. Athelstan sipped his wine partly to hide his smile. Cranston, as ever, was acting the bluff, hearty old soldier as he offered his condolences to the family. The coroner refused to sit down and gestured at Athelstan to undo the leather satchel containing his writing tray.

‘My Lady,’ Cranston began, ‘your husband’s corpse?’

‘Left in the chancery chamber,’ Alesia replied before her stepmother could, ‘on the floor. I thought it was best.’ She motioned at Crispin. ‘My father’s secretarius, Crispin, found him.’

‘Found him?’ Cranston barked. ‘When?’

‘Lamp lighting time,’ Crispin replied sonorously. ‘Just before dawn, I knocked. .’

‘Let us see.’ Cranston interrupted harshly, all bonhomie draining from his face. He pointed at Crispin who shrugged and led them out of the solar, along a gleaming, wood-panelled passageway and up a short flight of stairs.

‘My father’s chancery or counting house,’ Alesia called from behind them.

Athelstan turned and stared at the group from the solar. Alesia, Helen, Adam and Crispin. He sensed the rancid hatred and resentment curdling in this family. Even though Sir Robert lay dead they were all determined on their rights, certainly Mistress Alesia and Lady Helen were openly competing over who exercised authority now.

‘We’ll need help.’ Cranston stepped back. The heavy oaken door had been snapped off its hinges, causing severe damage to the surrounding lintel. It now blocked the entrance to the chancery.

‘It had to be done,’ Lady Helen declared. She pointed back down the gallery where a group of servants clustered. ‘My husband would not answer. The door was both locked and bolted from the inside. It had to be forced.’

‘I had it placed back,’ Alesia added sharply, ‘to seal the chamber. My father, Sir John, did not die. He was murdered.’

‘Nonsense,’ Lady Helen whispered, ‘who would. .’

Athelstan came back down the steps. ‘Whatever is the cause, that is why we are here.’

Athelstan and Cranston waited until the servants moved the door. They then told the household to wait outside and walked into the chamber. Athelstan stared round that comfortable, luxurious room. He crossed himself then knelt and removed the sheet over the corpse lying on its makeshift bed of turkey rugs. Kilverby, an old man with scrawny white hair, had certainly died in agony: eyes popping, throat constricted, his partly opened lips had turned faintly blueish. The skin of his face was slightly liverish, the flesh swiftly hardening.

‘Has he been shriven?’ Athelstan called.

‘No, Father,’ Alesia retorted falteringly.

‘Or a physician called?’ Cranston added.

‘Yes.’ Lady Helen came up into the doorway and stopped at Athelstan’s sign to remain outside.

‘Master Theobald the physician, but he has been detained.’

Athelstan fished inside his leather satchel, took out his stole, put it round his neck then brought out the small phial of holy oils. Lady Helen walked away whilst Athelstan swiftly murmured the ‘Absolvo te’ into the dead man’s ear. Afterwards he anointed the corpse on the brow, eyes, nose, mouth, hands and feet as he intoned the funeral prayer: ‘Go forth Christian soul. .’ Once completed Athelstan undid the man’s clothing. Pulling up the quilted jerkin, cambric chemise and linen undershirt, Athelstan felt the belly, hard like a ball of old string. He also noticed the blueish-red stains on the stomach and lower chest.