Fire was Worcester’s great enemy, but the fires in this book are of course fictitious. The basic street layout of the city has not altered in the area that lay within the walls, but many of the street names have changed. If you look at the map at the front of the book and one of modern Worcester you could follow in Bradecote and Catchpoll’s footsteps but you have to imagine buildings nearly all single storey, made primarily of wattle and daub walls and with thatched roofs. The churches are in the same place, though much altered, and in the case of St Andrew’s, only the later tower and spire (known as The Glover’s Needle) remain.
William de Beauchamp was the lord Sheriff of Worcestershire, and we have some details of his life in the histories, but his physical look and character are my invention. The greatest fiction is, of course, that there were men dedicated to the taking of criminals. The sheriff was primarily the King’s tax gatherer and militia organiser, and the sheriff’s serjeant would have collected those taken up by hue and cry to bring before the justices, but would not have spent his days ‘policing’.