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you?’
    ‘There’s a reward of twenty-five pounds on my head. He has been dogging my footsteps through Essex, Middlesex, across the river and into Southwark. I don’t know why he is so persistent. I tried to leave Southwark this morning but he had his spies on both the bridge and the quayside.’
    The Misericord pulled a loose thread on his jerkin. ‘I had no choice but to flee.’
    ‘But why?’ Athelstan became intrigued.
    ‘I don’t know,’ the Misericord sighed. ‘I expect he has been hired by a private citizen. Someone who seeks vengeance.’
    ‘For what?’ Athelstan demanded.
    ‘I don’t know! I have played so many games. There is one, perhaps that’s it. I took the name Dr Mirabilis and offered to sell a powder which would . . .’ The Misericord clicked his tongue. ‘Let me put it this way, Father, I said it would make a man perform like a stallion in bed, so I wouldn’t have offered it to someone like you.’
    ‘And of course,’ Athelstan replied, ‘it did nothing. What did you claim it was?’
    ‘The ground horn of a unicorn.’
    ‘And the truth?’
    The Misericord pressed his lips together. ‘A mixture of camomile and valerian.’
    ‘But that would have the opposite effect, Athelstan said. ‘Such a mixture would slow the mind, make the body relax; it’s nothing better than a sleeping potion.’
    ‘I know, Father.’
    ‘How did you sell it?’
    The Misericord was about to reply when the door of the church crashed open.
    ‘Sir Jack Cranston,’ Athelstan whispered.
    The Misericord crept back into the shadows. Athelstan sat listening to those hard, heavy boots ring out across the paving stones of the nave.
    Sir John Cranston, former soldier, Coroner of the City of London, father of the poppets, as he called his twin baby sons, and devoted husband of the Lady Maud, swept into the sanctuary like the north wind. He had a beaverskin hat pressed down on his unruly grey hair, his great body and heavy paunch were masked by the military cloak pulled halfway up to his face, yet there was no mistaking that bristling white moustache, the vein-flecked cheeks and the piercing blue eyes.
    ‘Good morning, Brother Athelstan.’ He peered through the gloom. ‘Aye, and morning to you, Master Misericord.’
    Cranston undid his cloak, clasped Athelstan’s hand and advanced threateningly towards the fugitive now crouching beside the altar. He rested one foot on the second step and leaned forward.
    ‘The Misericord! Also known as John Travisa, also known as Walter Simple, also known as Edward Bowman, also known as God knows what. Wanted dead or alive in the shires of Suffolk, Norfolk, Hertfordshire, Essex and Kent. Oh, this time you’ll hang, my boy.’ Cranston gestured down the nave. ‘I know that Judas Man. You placed your wager on Ranulf’s ferrets? Well, he’s a ferret in human form. He’ll hunt you down, though I’ll be the first to deal with you. You killed a man last night.’
    ‘No I didn’t,’ the Misericord yelped.
    ‘Yes you did!’
    Cranston suddenly remembered where he was and snatched off his beaverskin hat. He hurriedly made a sign of the Cross, one of the fastest Athelstan had ever seen, then fished beneath his cloak and unhooked the miraculous wine skin which never seemed to empty, unstoppered it and took a mouthful. He offered it to Athelstan, who refused, though the Misericord grabbed it greedily and took a generous swig. Cranston snatched it out of his hands.
    ‘Now, my lovely boy,’ Cranston breathed. ‘You killed a man last night, or had him killed. You went to Master Rolles’ for the Great Ratting, and I will see mine host about that. You knew you were being hunted, so you paid some unfortunate who had a passing resemblance to you to wear that misericord dagger around his neck, a man with red hair and pale face. The Judas Man went to arrest him, and Toadflax—’
    ‘Toadflax?’ Athelstan queried.
    ‘Toadflax,’ Cranston explained, ‘was a dog collector. He took the