Pike cupped his face in his hands, musing disconsolately on his situation. London was now a seething bed of unrest. Taxes were heavy, food in short supply, the French were burning and harrying towns all along the coastline. Worse, out in the open countryside the peasant leaders, representatives of what they called the Great Community of the Realm, plotted a savage rebellion which would sweep away Church and State. Pike sighed. Sometimes it sounded exciting, but would it happen? And, if it did, would his second State be any better than the first? And what about Brother Athelstan? Would he die? Would he be hanged outside his church door as the rebel leaders had vowed all such priests would be? And if the rebellion failed, what would happen then? Pike, swaying drunkenly, got to his feet. Brother Athelstan was correct. Every gallows in London would be heavy with their rotten human fruit. There would be gibbets from here to Dover and the regent would spare no one.
‘Are you well, Pike?’
The ditcher spun round and groaned. Watkin the dung-collector, squat and fat as a toad, his broad red face made even brighter by the ale he had drunk, swaggered across, swinging his spade like a knight would his sword.
‘Good evening, Watkin.’ Pike blinked and tried to keep his voice steady.
Watkin was leader of the parish council, a post Pike deeply coveted. He was unable to seize it, not because of Watkin, who was a born fool, but because of Watkin’s redoubtable wife who had a tongue as sharp as any flail. The dung-collector stopped before him, resting on his spade.
‘You’ve been drinking.’
‘That makes two of us,’ Pike retorted.
‘Our wives will moan,’ Watkin added slyly, ‘but not so loudly if we tell them we have been on parish business.’
Pike smiled conspiratorially and both men staggered along the alleyway, each rehearsing their stories to soften the anger of their respective spouses. Half-way down they were joined by Bladdersniff the beadle, who was as deep in his cups as they were. There was nothing for it but to slake their thirst at a small ale-shop before continuing their journey. By the time they had finished, all three could hardly stand, so they linked arms and stumbled back to the church. As they confided to each other in loud whispers, they could sleep in the death-house there and make fresh excuses the next morning.
By the time they reached St Erconwald’s, Athelstan had apparently left his tower. All three stole into the cemetery, making their way around the mounds and weather-beaten crosses to the death-house in the far corner. Pike, finger to his lips, told the other two to wait while he fumbled with the bolt.
‘Oh, Lord, save us!’ he whispered. ‘It’s open already.’
He staggered in, took out his tinder and lit the dark yellow tallow candle which stood on its brass holder in the middle of the table. No sooner had he done this when he heard a sound in the far corner. Grasping the candle and whirling round, Pike stared in horror at the dark shape squatting on top of the parish coffin. The shape moved closer. Pike saw the glittering eyes, the terrible bared teeth and that dark, blue-red face in a halo of black, spiky hair.
‘Oh, Lord, save us!’ Pike shrieked. ‘A demon from hell!’
He staggered back against the table. The demon followed, lashing out with its paw, gouging Pike’s cheek, just as the ditcher dropped the candle and fell into a dead swoon to the floor.
On the following morning, in the Gargoyle tavern near the palace of Westminster, Henry Swynford, knight, one of the representatives from the king’s shire of Shrewsbury to the present Parliament sitting at Westminster, sat on the edge of his bed and stared into the darkness. Few would have recognised the pompous knight with his leonine, silver hair, arrogant face and swaggering ways. Sir Henry was a knight born and bred. He had fought with the Black Prince in France and Navarre and was regarded in Shrewsbury as a person of importance: a warrior, a merchant, a man of the world, steeped in its workings. He had seen the glories of the Black Prince and carried the golden leopards of England across the Spanish border. Sir Henry constantly reminded the aldermen of all this as they gathered in Shrewsbury’s shire hall to discuss the sorry state of affairs: the regent’s pressing demands for taxes and the Parliament summoned in the king’s name at Westminster. Sir Henry had boasted how he and his friends would only grant money and agree to fresh taxes if the regent listened to their demands for radical reforms.
‘We need a fresh fleet,’ Sir Henry had trumpeted. ‘The removal of certain ministers, economies by the regent and the Court, as well as a fresh Parliament summoned every year.’
His speech had been greeted by roars of approval: Sir Henry and his friends from Shrewsbury and the surrounding countryside had received the elected vote. They had swept into London, taking the best chambers in the Gargoyle (hired so cheaply by one of their stewards) and sat together at night to plot and whisper how matters would proceed. Now all that had changed. In the room next door lay Sir Oliver Bouchon, a fellow representative. His water-soaked corpse had been dragged from the Thames, dead as a fish, not a mark on his body. Everyone said it was an accident, but Sir Henry knew different. Sir Oliver had come to him the previous afternoon just outside St Faith’s Chapel. He’d plucked Sir Henry by the sleeve, led him into a shadowy alcove and pushed the candle, the arrowhead and the scrap of parchment bearing one word, ‘Remember’ into Sir Henry’s hands.
At first Sir Henry had been puzzled though alarmed by the change in Sir Oliver’s demeanour: agitated and pasty-faced, he seemed unable to control the trembling of his hands.
‘What is it?’ Sir Henry had whispered. ‘What does this all mean? An arrowhead, a candle and the word “Remember”?’
‘Have you forgotten?’ Bouchon had snarled. ‘Are you so puffed up with pride, Henry, your soul so made of iron that no ghosts from the past can enter your mind? Think, man!’ He had almost shouted. ‘Think of Shropshire years ago, in the dead of night: a candle, an arrowhead and the word “Remember”!’
Sir Henry had gone cold. ‘Impossible!’ he’d whispered. ‘That was years ago. Who would tell?’
‘Somebody did,’ Bouchon retorted. ‘I found these in my chamber when I returned early this afternoon.’
And, snatching them back, Sir Oliver hurried away before Sir Henry could stop him. At first Sir Henry had dismissed it but, this morning, a dreadful creature, the Fisher of Men, accompanied by the king’s coroner in the city, that fat-faced fool Sir John Cranston, had brought Bouchon’s water-soaked corpse back here. The coroner had set up court in the great taproom below, drained three tankards at Sir Henry’s expense, declared Sir Oliver had probably died from an accident and left the corpse in his care. Sir Henry had paid others to wash and clean the body. Tomorrow morning he would hire a carter and an escort to take it back to Sir Oliver’s family in Shrewsbury.
Sir Henry considered himself a hard man: over the years, other comrades in arms had died on the bloody battlefields of France and Northern Spain. But this was different. Sir Henry glanced at the table, and the source of his fear: the candle, the arrowhead and the scrap of parchment bearing the word ‘Remember’ had now been sent to him. He had found them on his return from Parliament and neither the landlord nor any of his servants could explain how they had got there. Sir Henry reflected on the past. He remembered the words of a preacher: ‘Unpardoned sins are our demons,’ the priest had declared. ‘They pursue us, soft-footed, dogging our every footstep and, when we least expect, close their trap.’
Was that happening now, Sir Henry thought? Should he go out and warn the others? He seized the wine cup from the floor and drained it. He would pay his respects to Sir Oliver first. The priest must have finished his orisons by now. Sir Henry clasped his swordbelt around him, opened the door and went into the gallery. The door to Sir Oliver’s room was half open, the glow of the candlelight seemed to beckon him on. He went in. Sir Oliver lay in his coffin but there was no sign of the priest. Sir Henry turned and saw a dark shape lying on the bed.
‘Lazy bastard!’ Sir Henry muttered.
He went across to the coffin and stared down. His heart skipped a beat: three bloody red crosses had been carved; one on the corpse’s forehead and one on either cheek.
‘The marks!’ he muttered. ‘What?’
He started, but too late. The assassin’s noose was round his neck. Sir Henry struggled but the garrotte string was tight and, even as he died, choking and gasping, Sir Henry heard those dreadful words.
Sir Henry’s dying brain thought of another scene, so many years ago; corpses kicking and spluttering from the outstretched arms of an elm tree, bearing the red crosses on their foreheads and cheeks whilst dark-cowled horsemen chanted the same lines.
