House of the Red Slayer Read Online Free PDF

was pleased by Cranston’s dramatic style of entry. The friar peered closely at him.
    ‘You have been at the claret, Sir John?’
    Cranston tapped the side of his fleshy nose. ‘A little,’ he slurred.
    ‘What about the cemetery?’ Watkin wailed. ‘Sir John, our priest has to see to that!’
    ‘Sod off, you smelly little man!’
    Watkin’s wife rose and looked balefully at Cranston.
    ‘My Lord Coroner, I shall be with you presently,’ Athelstan smoothly intervened. ‘Watkin, I shall attend to this business on my return. In the meantime, make sure that Bonaventura is fed and the torches doused. Cecily, you will put out food for the lepers?’
    The girl stared vacuously and nodded.
    ‘Mind you,’ Athelstan muttered, ‘they tend to wander and look after themselves during the day.’
    He smiled beatifically around his favourite group of parishioners and made a quick departure down the icy steps of the church and across to the priest’s house. He cut himself a slice of bread but spat it out as it tasted sour and stale. ‘I’ll eat on my journey,’ he murmured, and packed his saddlebags with vellum, pen cases and ink horns. Philomel, his old war horse, snickered and nudged him, a real nuisance as Athelstan tried to fasten the girths beneath the aged destrier’s ponderous belly.
    ‘You’re getting more like Cranston every day!’ Athelstan muttered.
    He led Philomel back to the front of the church and ran up the porch steps. Cranston was leaning against the pillar, leering at Cecily whilst trying to keep Bonaventura from brushing against his leg. The coroner couldn’t stand cats ever since his campaigns in France when the French had catapulted their corpses into a small castle he was holding, in an attempt to spread contagious diseases. Bonaventura, however, adored the coroner. The cat seemed to know when he was in the vicinity and always put in an appearance.
    Athelstan murmured a few words to Benedicta, smiled apologetically at Watkin and the rest; he collected his deep-hooded cloak from the sanctuary and returned just in the nick of time to prevent Cranston from toppling head over heels over Ursula’s fat-bellied sow. The coroner stormed out, glaring at Athelstan and daring him to laugh. Cranston mounted his horse, roaring oaths about pigs in church and how he would like nothing better than a succulent piece of roast pork. Athelstan swung his saddlebags across Philomel, mounted and, before Cranston could do further damage, led him away from the church into Fennel Alleyway.
    ‘Why the Tower, Sir John?’ he asked quickly, trying to divert the coroner’s rage.
    ‘In a while, monk!’ Cranston rasped back.
    ‘I’m a friar, not a monk,’ Athelstan muttered.
    Cranston belched and took another swig from his wineskin. ‘What was going on back there?’ he asked.
    ‘A parish council meeting.’
    ‘No, I mean about the cemetery.’
    Athelstan informed him and the coroner’s face grew serious.
    ‘Do you think it’s Satanists? The Black Lords of the graveyard?’ he whispered, reining his horse closer to Athelstan’s.
    The friar grimaced. ‘It may well be.’
    ‘It must be!’ Cranston snapped back. ‘Who else would be interested in decaying corpses?’
    The coroner steadied his horse as Philomel, conscious of the narrowing alleyway, tossed his head angrily at Cranston’s mount.
    ‘I’d like to root the lot out!’ the coroner slurred. ‘In my treatise on the governance of London . . . Two blue eyes glared at Athelstan, scrutinising the friar’s face for any trace of boredom as the coroner expounded on his favourite theme. ‘In my treatise,’ he continued, ‘anyone practising the black arts would suffer heavy fines for the first offence and death for the second.’ He shrugged. ‘But perhaps it’s just some petty nastiness.’
    Athelstan shook his head. ‘Such matters are never petty,’ he replied. ‘I attended an exorcism once at a little church near Blackfriars. A young boy possessed