The Judas Man sat, his Lincoln-green hose pushed into black boots to which the spurs were still attached, his brown leather jerkin unbuttoned to reveal a clean white shirt and round his neck a silver chain bearing a golden ring, allegedly belonging to his dead wife. His cloak, war belt, and small crossbow lay on the truckle bed. They were within easy reach as the Judas Man contented himself, squatting on a three-legged stool playing softly on a penny whistle, a jigging tune, more suitable to a May Day dance than this sombre chamber rented for him. He lowered the whistle; he did not know the name or identity of his hirer. He had simply followed instructions – now he had to wait. He had gathered, from the roars below, how the ratting had ended. Now the raucous sound of a bagpipe echoed through the ceiling.
The Judas Man picked up his wine goblet and sipped carefully. He wanted to remain calm but wished the stranger would come. He felt trapped in London. He did not like its narrow, winding, reeking streets. He preferred to work out in the shires, bringing in the outlaws and wolf heads – those who had been proclaimed ‘utlegatum’ – beyond the law. He would hunt them down and drag them, at the tail of his horse, into some market square before the Guildhall. He would hand the prisoners over to the sheriff’s men and claim the reward. What happened to his captives afterwards was not his concern. Now he had been hired by some mysterious stranger, a generous advance in good coin, with a promise of more to come, once he had captured the Misericord. The Judas Man knew all about the Misericord, a clever thief – the most cunning of men. Rumour had it he was a former priest; they had forgotten his real name. He was called the Misericord because of the small dagger, clasped in a velvet sheath, worn round his neck. The misericord was the dagger used by archers to dispatch a wounded enemy. The Misericord used it to cut purses and prise open locks. He was also an infamous trickster, a man who could sell soil and claim it was gold. No wonder he was wanted dead or alive in numerous towns and shires around London.
The Judas Man had been at Coggeshall in Essex when he had received the letter, written in a clerkly hand, with a generous purse of silver coins. The instructions were quite simple. He was to be in London by the eve of St Wulfnoth and take lodgings at the Night in Jerusalem in Southwark. Once he had arrived, the Judas Man realised that a trickster like the Misericord would try his luck on the night of the Great Ratting. Nevertheless, he had to wait for the signal. He rose to his feet and walked across the room, staring out of the needle-thin window. He gazed down into the stable yard of the inn; here and there a pitch torch, lashed to a pole, gave off a pool of light, shadows flitted across. The Judas Man didn’t like his chamber. When he had climbed the stairs he had seen how luxurious the rest of the tavern was, but Master Rolles had been very particular. This was the chamber which had been hired so this was the chamber he had been given. Suddenly the door behind him rattled. The Judas Man hastened to pick up his war belt; he strapped this about him and walked carefully across as the door rattled again.
‘Who is it?’ he called.
Again the door rattled. The Judas Man pressed his ear against the wood but he could hear no sound. He loosened the bolts at the top and bottom, lifted the latch and looked out. Nothing, except a lantern horn glowing on the high windowsill at the top of the stairs. The wind rattled a shutter, the floorboards creaked; the Judas Man glanced down and saw the leather pouch lying there. He picked it up and stepped back into the chamber. The pouch contained a scrap of parchment with the scrawl ‘The Misericord is below’ and a small purse of silver coins. The Judas Man counted these out carefully. They were good – freshly minted, ten pounds sterling. He put the pouch carefully inside his jerkin and finished his preparations.
He had left his chamber and was halfway down the stairs when the group at the bottom made him pause. Four knights in all, dressed like Hospitallers in their black and white cloaks, the golden falcon emblem sewn on the left shoulder; next to them a fifth man in the garb of a Benedictine monk. They were preparing to climb the stairs to the palatial chambers on the Oaken Gallery, which ran along the front, back and one side of the tavern. Luxurious rooms with feather-down beds, turkey carpets on the floor and exquisite draperies and tapestries adorning the walls. One of the knights looked up the stairs, staring full at the Judas Man.
‘By the Cross,’ he breathed, ‘and St Veronica’s veil!’
The Judas Man came down the rest of the stairs to be greeted by the knights, who clasped his hands. He knew them all: Sir Maurice Clinton, Sir Thomas Davenport, Sir Reginald Branson and Sir Laurence Broomhill. They asked the same question he asked them.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘It’s our anniversary.’ The smooth-faced Benedictine pushed his way through, pulling back the cowl of his robe. ‘I’m Brother Malachi,’ he smiled. ‘Their chaplain.’
The Judas Man grasped his hand, even as he remembered how these important knights, all great landowners in the shire of Kent, were accustomed to come up to London every year to celebrate how they had once sailed from London to fight under Lord Peter of Cyprus, the Great Crusader who had captured Alexandria in Egypt almost twenty years
