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he was, praying just within the porch, as if he didn’t really want to be there.’
    ‘I know old Harrowtooth,’ Athelstan added. ‘I’ll have a talk with her.’
    ‘And the corpse?’ the Fisher of Men asked.
    ‘Keep it for twenty-four hours,’ Cranston replied. ‘If no one claims it, send it to the priest at St Mary Le Bow for interment. There’s a plot in the cemetery there . . . ’
    ‘I can’t do that,’ the Fisher of Men responded. ‘They refused the last one and will continue to do so until the graveyard is cleared and a new charnel house is built.’
    Athelstan stared down at the corpse, full of pity at this young life so brutally wiped out.
    ‘Send it to St Erconwald’s,’ he declared. ‘If no one wants him, St Erconwald’s will take him.’
    Athelstan abruptly turned as the door swung open. Havant, the Fisher of Men’s coven protesting and fluttering like a group of starlings around him, swept into the corpse house.
    ‘Oh, for the love of God!’ Cranston breathed. ‘Don’t say I’m going to see you on the hour every hour, Sir Lionel?’
    ‘A rash of deaths, Sir John. Another clerk has been murdered.’
    ‘In the river?’ the Fisher of Men asked hopefully.
    Sir Lionel didn’t even bother to acknowledge him. ‘Luke Peslep was killed on the privy at the Ink and Pot tavern: stabbed through the belly and the gullet. The assassin has vanished like smoke.’
    ‘Robbery?’ Cranston asked.
    ‘Nothing taken from him except his life, though this was left.’
    Havant handed across a dirty piece of parchment; the ink was dark blue, the writing sprawling. Cranston passed it to Athelstan.
    ‘My eyes are rather bad this morning.’ Cranston’s usual explanation when he’d drunk too much.
    Athelstan read it in the light of an oil lamp.
    ‘Two riddles,’ he said slowly. ‘The first reads: “A king once fought an army. He defeated them but, in the end, victor and vanquished lay in the same place.”’
    ‘What on earth does that mean?’ Cranston asked.
    ‘God only knows,’ Athelstan replied. ‘And here’s the second: “My first is like a selfish brother.” Did this belong to Peslep?’ he asked.
    ‘No,’ Havant replied. ‘The assassin must have left it on the corpse. You’d best come and see.’
    Cranston and Athelstan thanked the Fisher of Men then followed Havant back out into the streets.
    The bells of the city were pealing for midmorning prayers. The traders and their customers ignored this invitation, but had taken a rest for something to eat and drink so the crowds were thinner, the alleyways and lanes easier to manage. Nevertheless, Athelstan felt tired by the time they reached the Ink and Pot. Havant strode like a giant whilst Sir John, eager to accept the challenge, was intent, as always, on showing that he was a puissant knight able to compete with the youngest and the best. A crowd had assembled outside the Ink and Pot tavern, kept back by archers from the Tower wearing the personal escutcheon of John of Gaunt. Havant pushed his way through, spoke to the captain of the guard then led Cranston and Athelstan into the taproom and out across the dirty yard. An archer, gnawing at a chicken bone whilst flirting with Meg the scullion, indicated with his thumb.
    ‘He’s in there,’ he shouted. ‘The captain pulled up his hose and made him decent. He said no man should be found like that.’
    Athelstan opened the door. Peslep was sitting slumped on the privy bench, his jerkin caked in blood from the wound in his neck and the deep sword thrust to his belly.
    ‘Bring him out,’ he whispered.
    Cranston snapped out an order. The archer, assisted by Athelstan, removed the corpse and laid it down upon the cobbles. Athelstan gave absolution and examined the two wounds. He took out the dead man’s purse and emptied the contents out on his hand: there was nothing except a few coins, a pumice stone and a small St Christopher medal.
    Athelstan recited the short Office for the Dead,