‘It is Saturday.’ He glared at his two minions. ‘I have other business. Has Muckworm appeared?’
‘No, Sir John,’ both men chorused.
‘In which case,’ Cranston buckled on his war belt, grabbed his cloak and beaver hat and stepped down from the dais, ‘if Muckworm rears his ugly head, tell him he’ll find me in my favourite chantry chapel immersed in my devotions.’
‘The Holy Lamb of God, Sir John?’
‘Very perceptive.’ Cranston nodded at both men and swept out of the judgement chamber, down the stairs and into the bailey. Scurriers and messengers, all booted and spurred, were readying restless horses, the breath of both man and beast hanging like a clear mist in the freezing air. Cranston pushed his way past these as well as a swarm of clerks, ostlers and ragged scholars whose Goliard song caught Sir John’s fancy.
‘My desire is to die in a tavern,
Where wine will stain my dying mouth.
All the choirs of angels will chant,
May God be merciful to this man of drink.’
Cranston dropped a coin in their begging bowl and strolled out under the cavernous arch into Cheapside. Evening was due yet business still thrived. The air was thick with a mixture of smells. The sweet fragrances of the herb and perfume-sellers, vegetable and fruit hawkers mingled with the stink from the ordure-strewn cobbles. The fullers’ stench was still strong, whilst the wind wafted in the foul odours from the fleshing yards. Cranston donned both cloak and hat as he surveyed the busy stalls and booths. He hardly noticed the drab but smart smocks, jerkins and gowns of the tradesmen, the glossy elegance of court fops with pomanders pushed under their nostrils or the wealthy in their velvet, wool-lined cloaks and sheepskin mittens.
‘No,’ Cranston whispered, ‘where are you my lovelies, all you creatures of the dark?’
Two worlds existed here: one apparent, the other had to be closely studied. Cranston surveyed the crowd. Oh yes, they were here, the night-walkers and dark-hawks, soil-caked and dirt marked, who slept on straw pallets stretched out over tamped-down mud. The coin-fakers and cross-biters, the cozeners, the mumpers, the scolders and sneaksmen in their motley garish rags, pointed hoods and scuffed boots were on the prowl. All these were of the same genus – Newgate birds, who would milk a pigeon to get a drink. Some were obvious, others more hidden as they threaded through the crowd, looking for prey. Cranston recognized quite a few of his ‘Lovelies’: Mouse-ears with his twitching nose and stuck-out ears, Frost-face, his skin badly gnawed by the pox, Rats-tooth and Spindle-shanks, could all be glimpsed amongst the mad and the bad, the moon-men and the moon-cursers. At the mouth of alleyways clustered even more, the beggars who ate mouldy bread filled with barley straw and drank watered ale and wine so muddy it made them wry-mouthed.
‘Ah, well,’ Cranston breathed. He moved out from beneath the archway and crossed the broad expanse of Cheapside. He was soon recognized by a gibbet lawyer going down to Newgate to meet an accomplice. ‘Cranston is out!’ The whisper spread through the crowds. Sir John, one hand on the hilt of his sword, watched both the slime-strewn cobbles beneath him as well as the crowds around him. He glimpsed Matilda the mistress of the maids hurriedly disappear down a runnel with a bevy of her ladies of the night. Alleyway mouths also mysteriously cleared. Foists and nips darted off like sparrows alarmed by a cat. The rag traders, the whipsters, mountebanks and miserere men stooped, crouched and ran back to hide in what Cranston called ‘Mumpers’ Manor’ or ‘Castle Conning’, the filthy lairs and bolt-holes of these Cheapside cheats. They all feared Cranston. Parson Dumpling, who looked after these malefactors at his Chapel of the Gibbet deep in the slums of Whitefriars, always warned his congregation that Sir John, when the spirit took him, could whistle up his bailiffs and beadles and sweep like the wind through Cheapside, Poultry and the surrounding wards, netting their quarry as a fowler would his birds. Once done, they’d herd all their captives down to the great yard at the Fleet prison. There, as on Judgement Day, they’d begin to separate one flock of goats, those they wanted to question, from the rest, whom they’d leave to graze for a while. Cranston paused – should he do that now? Yet he had enough business awaiting him. Muckworm would soon appear.
‘Not today, my lovelies,’ Cranston murmured.
He walked on, then stopped by a stall to view a vase made out of clay with a dark green glaze, next to this a jug fashioned out of quartz which Cranston quietly promised to mention to Lady Maud. He fingered some Saracen cloth on the next stall, glanced around and moved on. He inspected the cage on the Tun; this was empty except for a drunk who lay snoring on his back. At the nearby stocks, bailiffs were locking in Plugtail, a notorious cunning man who sold philtres no more useful than a cup of dirty water. He greeted Cranston cheerfully. The coroner responded by ordering the bailiffs to ensure Plugtail was released before freezing nightfall. Outside ‘The Holy Lamb of God’ lurked the beggars Leif and Rawbum who, despite the cacophony noise from the market place, insisted upon telling Cranston some tale about a priest in Burton-on-Trent who’d exorcized a demon from a blood-drinker back from the dead. Thankfully both were interrupted by a funeral procession, flanked by acolytes and mourners, the deerskin shroud they were honouring sprinkled with ash. Both men, eager for alms, hopped off like crickets, allowing Cranston to disappear into the warm mustiness of one of his favourite resting places. The coroner ensconced himself in the inglenook, ordered the best of ales, a capon pie, a bowl of diced vegetables and today’s bread fresh from the bake house. He sat and ate, recalling what he’d seen at Kilverby’s mansion and St Fulcher’s Abbey.