‘Most uncommon,’ he murmured, ‘for a friar to be out of his order even, and serving in such a lowly office!’

Cranston snorted rudely and would have intervened if Athelstan had not.

‘Chief Justice Fortescue,’ he answered, ‘my business is my own. You summoned me here, I requested no audience.’

Cranston belched loudly in agreement.

‘True! True!’ Fortescue murmured. ‘But this meeting was arranged by someone more powerful than I.’ He smiled mirthlessly and picked up a knife he used for cutting parchment, balancing it delicately between his hands. ‘We live in strange times, Brother. The old king is dead and for the first time in fifty years we have a new king, and he a child. These are dangerous times. Enemies within and enemies without!’ He lowered his voice. ‘Some people say that a strong man is needed to manage the realm.’

‘Like your patron, His Grace John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster?’ Cranston interrupted.

‘Like His Grace the Duke of Lancaster,’ Fortescue mimicked in reply. ‘He is the regent, proclaimed so by the late king’s will.’

‘Regent!’ Cranston snapped. ‘Not king!’

‘Some people say he should be.’

‘Then some people,’ Cranston barked, ‘are varlets and traitors!’

Fortescue smiled as if he had tried to go down a path and realised it was blocked.

‘Of course, of course, Sir John,’ he murmured. ‘We know each other well. But Gaunt is regent, he needs friends and allies. Other lords seek his head; the Commons mutter about conspiracies, expenditure, the need to make peace with France and Spain. They object to taxes which are necessary.’

‘The Commons may be right,’ Cranston tartly replied.

‘About others,’ Fortescue continued, ‘they may be, but the regent is steadfast in his loyalty to the young king and looks for support from his friends and allies. Men like Springall, Sir Thomas Springall, goldsmith, merchant, and alderman of the city.’

‘Springall is dead,’ Cranston retorted, ‘and so the duke has lost a powerful friend.’

‘Exactly!’

Athelstan saw the obsidian eyes of the Chief Justice glare at the coroner and intervened before further damage was done. Sir John was a lawyer from the Middle Temple and appointed as coroner by the late king, an appointment confirmed by the Commons and the powerful Guildhall merchants, yet even he could go too far.

‘My Lord of Gaunt must grieve for Springall’s death?’ Athelstan asked.

‘He does.’

Fortescue rose and went to a small table in the corner where stood a number of cups. He filled them to the brim and brought them back. Athelstan refused his, it was too early in the morning for such drink, but Cranston did justice to both of them, draining one goblet then the other down his cavernous throat in a long, gulping sound. After he had finished, Cranston slammed the cups on the table in front of him, folded his great thick arms and looked steadily back at the Chief Justice.