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mayhem.’
    â€˜Correct, Brother, but worse. Some of our leading citizens, whom the tribes serve, may well go over to the rebels. Then we shall truly see the Apocalypse. No one will be spared – king, earl, duke or commoner.’ Cranston glanced towards the harpist. ‘Blood will run ankle-deep in Cheapside. For the moment we can only watch and wait. Yet, I assure you, my friend, the arrival of the Oudernardes and their mysterious prisoner, the attacks near the Tower, the bloody affray at the Roundhoop are all part of the gathering storm. But,’ Cranston rose and went to peer at the hour candle; he came back looking rather shamefaced. ‘I’m afraid, Brother, you must come with me.’
    â€˜Must, Sir John?’
    â€˜No less a person than His Grace the Regent,’ Cranston ignored Athelstan’s groan, ‘has insisted on your presence at the third hour in the afternoon.’ Cranston was now grinning at the friar’s surprise. ‘In the Chapel of Saint John the Evangelist at the White Tower,’ Cranston leaned down, ‘His Grace’s own troupe of mummers, the Straw Men, are staging a small masque or mystery play for the delight of His Grace and his special guests. One of whom,’ Cranston pressed his fat forefinger gently against the friar’s slender nose, ‘is you. This will be followed by a collation of juicy meats and the best wine. Brother, all I can say is that I am delighted I will not be supping alone.’
    Athelstan crossed himself, murmured
Jesu Miserere
and followed the coroner out into the icy thoroughfare of Cheapside. He pestered Sir John about why he had been invited and swiftly learnt that the Regent may have been helped in the invitation by Cranston himself, who, as he kept chortling, would not have to suffer alone. The coroner truly hated such occasions and was only too grateful for Athelstan’s company. The friar decided that cheerful compliance was the best course of action and followed the coroner’s great bulk as they turned by the Cross near the Standard, down towards Bread Street. The streets and alleyways, despite the harsh weather, were thronged with traders and hawkers who competed with the many funerals being carried out. The smell of pinewood and rosemary, in which the long-dead corpses had been drenched, mingled with the sweet smells of pastries, bread and grilled meats. Thankfully the hard ice under foot had frozen the ordure and waste and provided some grip. Nevertheless, Athelstan remained wary of the sheets of puddle ice, not to mention the legion of Trojans, as Athelstan called the petty cheats and cozeners who scurried fast as ferrets from the mouths of alleyways and lanes. The apprentice boys were also busy, darting like sparrows from beneath their master’s stalls to offer, ‘cloth of Liege, tin pots from Cornwall, pepper mixers and boxes of cloves’. Prisoners manacled together, shuffled like one monstrous being; recently released from the debtors’ house at the Marshalsea, they begged for alms while moaning at the freezing cold which had turned their bare feet purple. A group of whores caught soliciting on the steps of All Hallows were being marched up to the stocks. They were forced to hold their skirts over their heads, revealing dirty-grey flabby buttocks, so they could be thrashed with white split canes by the escorting beadles. Every so often these officials made their prisoners stop at a horse trough to receive a drenching from buckets of icy water. Athelstan closed his eyes at the sheer misery. Head down, cowl pulled close, the friar wondered at the evil which throbbed inside every soul and expressed itself in such cruelty. He felt Cranston clutch his arm. They had stopped outside St Mary-Le-Bow. A dispute had broken out over a corpse sprawled out on a coffin-stretcher, its left eye still open. Passers-by had glimpsed this and were demanding that such a sign of ill-luck be covered, the eye