Read The Anger of God for Free Online

how deeply it’s embedded, Sir John.’
    Cranston agreed. ‘Where is Boscombe now?’ he asked.
    ‘Protesting his innocence,’ Goodman replied, in the dungeons beneath the Guildhall. Sir John, we are waiting! Are you fearful of the dogs?’
    ‘Bring me two hunks of red meat!’ Cranston shouted back. He enjoyed keeping these pompous men waiting. ‘And a pannikin of water!’
    Goodman went into the Guildhall and they stood waiting, listening to his shouted orders. In a short while a servant appeared, bearing a trencher with two bloody steaks and a pannikin of water. He thrust these into Cranston ’s hands, looked fearfully at the arbour and ran back into the Guildhall.
    ‘Stay where you are!’ the Coroner commanded. ‘John Cranston fears no one. And those dogs are too noble to be killed.’ He walked to the gate and started talking quietly, greeted by the snarling of the dogs. They raised their huge paws and lifted themselves up, their great shaggy heads well above the gate. Cranston stepped back and kept talking softly to them. The dogs continued to bark raucously but then grew silent. They lay down at the gate, looking up at this soft-spoken man holding the delicious-smelling meat and pannikin of water. Athelstan drew closer. Sir John was whispering to the great beasts as if they were old friends.
    ‘You see, Brother,’ he muttered out of the corner of his mouth, ‘no being, except a human, can ignore kindness.’
    He carefully opened the gate. The two great hounds stood still, tails wagging. Cranston whistled softly through his teeth and, taking the meat and water, led both dogs out into the garden. He put the meat down. Whilst the dogs wolfed it, they let Cranston gently stroke their huge heads and fondle their ears.
    ‘Good lads!’ he whispered. ‘Be good lads for old Jack!’
    One of the dogs even stopped eating to nuzzle him. Cranston walked back into the arbour. The dogs stirred.
    ‘Sit!’
    The two hounds obeyed and Cranston , followed by a smiling Athelstan, walked into the arbour.
    ‘Close your eyes, Brother.’
    Athelstan did so and heard the unmistakable yielding sound as Cranston pulled the dagger out of the dead man’s body. Athelstan opened his eyes and stared around.
    The corpse had keeled over, lying face down on the turfed seat. A wine cup nestled under the ivy growing up the Guildhall wall and, as Cranston wiped the dagger on the grass, Athelstan realized how mysterious this murder was. Directly opposite where Mountjoy had been sitting was the lean-to pentice or covered walk; the fencing was wooden planks with gaps between, though certainly not wide enough for anyone to throw a knife with such force. The Guildhall wall was an impenetrable barrier and, if the knife had been thrown from the garden, someone would have had to stand at the gate. Athelstan shook his head. Sir Gerard or his dogs would not have allowed someone to stand wielding a wicked-looking knife, and made no protest or resistance.
    Athelstan looked down the pebbled path. How it crunched under his sandalled feet. No soft-footed assassin could have stolen along such a path and stood at the gate without sending the dogs into a barking frenzy. He looked up at the buttress of the Guildhall against which the pentice had been built. The only windows there were mere arrow slits and too high and narrow for anyone to throw a knife through them with any force or accuracy. He looked at Cranston who was studying the blade of the knife carefully.
    ‘It must have been Boscombe,’ Athelstan muttered. That knife was not thrown. See.’ He pointed to the trellis against which Mountjoy had been leaning. ‘The dagger went right through his chest and scored the fence.’
    ‘Perhaps someone climbed the fence behind Sir Gerard?’ Clifford approached them to suggest.
    Athelstan shook his head.
    ‘I doubt it, My Lord. Sir Gerard was apparently sitting down when he was killed. Such an assailant would have to climb the fence, swing down with the