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dagger and take his victim in the chest. Can you imagine the Sheriff or his dogs allowing that?’
    The Guildmasters, led by Clifford and Gaunt, gingerly entered the small arbour, looking apprehensively over their shoulders at the two great wolf hounds who now lay, sad-eyed, on the grass.
    ‘Are those dogs safe?’ Gaunt muttered.
    ‘Oh, yes,’ Cranston replied absentmindedly. ‘They know something’s wrong but they do not see us as hostile.’ He snorted with laughter. ‘Though perhaps we are. One person here definitely is.’ Cranston stared around. ‘I am Sir John Cranston, King’s Coroner in the city,’ he declared. ‘This is my verdict: I find Sir Gerard Mountjoy murdered by person or persons unknown.’
    ‘What about Boscombe?’ Gaunt intervened, it may well be he. But have you seen this dagger, My Lord?’ Cranston held it up.
    At first Athelstan thought it an ordinary Welsh stabbing dirk with its thin, long, evil blade and small grip and hilt. But beneath the smeared marks of Cranston ’s cleaning, he saw something etched on the blade. Athelstan took it from Cranston ’s hand and peered down.
    ‘Ira Dei,’ he murmured, reading aloud the rudely scrawled letters.
    Gaunt kicked angrily at the grass and beat his fists against his side. ‘By the Mass. ’ He glared at the others. ‘These peasant bastards threaten us here in our own city, in our own palaces!’
    ‘Ira Dei?’ Hussey the royal tutor shoved his way forward. ‘The Anger of God. My Lord of Gaunt, what does this mean? The King must be informed!’
    ‘My nephew,’ Gaunt replied testily, ‘will be told in due course.’
    Athelstan caught the deep dislike in the Regent’s voice and recalled the whispers about the growing rivalry between the Regent and the royal tutor.
    ‘Ira Dei,’ Gaunt replied slowly, ‘is a self-styled leader, cloaked in mystery.’
    ‘Leader of what?’
    ‘The Great Community!’ Gaunt snarled. ‘The name the peasants give to their secret council of leaders who are plotting treason and rebellion, both in and around London . Sir, you should be better informed!’
    ‘My Lord,’ Hussey silkily replied, ‘like His Grace the King, I only know what I have been told.’
    Gaunt looked away in annoyance. ‘Mountjoy’s dead,’ he whispered. ‘Stabbed by his servant who must be in the pay or service of these rebels. Sir John, Brother Athelstan, do you agree?’
    Cranston was peering at the dagger whilst Athelstan was attempting to lay the bulky corpse of the dead Sheriff out along the turf seat. The man’s gown was thickly clotted with blood. Athelstan whispered the requiem and at the same time inspected the wound in the man’s chest, the nick on the fence against which he had been leaning, as well as the blood on the hands of the corpse.
    ‘My Lords,’ the friar declared, breathing heavily as he crossed the dead Sheriff’s hands over each other, ‘I am sure Sir John will agree with me that Sir Roger was murdered by a thrust from that dagger. It cannot have been thrown, the arbour is virtually sealed, and if the assassin stood at the gate, Sir Gerard, not to mention his dogs, would have seen him.’
    ‘All three of them could have been asleep,’ Fitzroy boomed stupidly. ‘Sir Gerard liked his wine.’
    ‘The dogs didn’t,’ Denny smirked.
    ‘I doubt it,’ Athelstan continued calmly. ‘Such hounds would have protected their master from any approach and Sir Gerard knew, at least for a few seconds, that he was dying. See his hands? They are blood-stained.’
    ‘My clerk,’ Cranston interrupted grandly, ‘is following my train of thought.’ He winked at Athelstan and walked back to the gate. ‘The dagger was not thrown. The assassin walked through the gate, perhaps with the dagger concealed. After all, it’s long and thin with no real hilt. Sir Gerard is sitting drinking his wine. He looks up and the assassin strikes, driving the dagger deep into the Sheriff’s heart, piercing his body. In his death