'From the east.' The bailiff pointed to the hedge at the far end of the field. 'That leads to common land and the great city ditch. While to the west, what is there now?' He scratched his head. 'Yes, there's another field which stretches down to a hedgerow and, beyond that, Brother, lie the alleyways of Petty Wales.'

Athelstan dug with his sandalled foot at the earth beneath the oak tree.

'Wouldn't this be hard to dig?' he asked.

'Not really, Brother. My father was a peasant owning land in Woodford. As long as you avoid the roots, the ground under the branches of a tree like this is always softer. The leaves shade it from being baked by the sun while, when it rains, the branches collect the water and drench the ground beneath.'

'Of course.' Athelstan recalled his father's small farm. How he and his brother Francis would dig around the small pear trees in the orchard to strengthen the roots. 'But wouldn't someone notice?' Athelstan asked. 'Let's say we brought two corpses here at the dead of night, sometime in midsummer, so it must be well after midnight.'

'Don't forget, Brother, it was a very wet summer. The ground was truly soaked and the sod easy to break.'

'How deep was the pit in which they were found?'

'The two corpses?' The bailiff lowered his mattock and dug it into the ground. 'No more than half a yard.'

'And the two were thrown together?'

'Yes, lovers in life, lovers in death, if the gossips are to be believed.'

'So, we put the corpses in,' Athclstan continued. 'But, surely, next morning someone is going to notice.'

'Not really, Brother. First, if we were burying…' The bailiff grinned. 'My lord coroner, God forbid!'