Herald of Hell

PROLOGUE

‘Et Tenebrae Facta – And Darkness Fell’

Thibault wished the night was not so black. The rain had ceased but a dense fog had now descended, swiftly falling over both the river and city, creeping along the alleyways, lurking in the narrow yards, drooping from the gables and eaves of houses to clog the eyes and pinch the skin. Nevertheless, the regent’s Master of Secrets conceded to himself, the fog also provided a cover for subtle intrigue and tortuous treason which, if discovered, could send him to the scaffold on Tower Hill. He wiped his face and sat back against the stern of the narrow boat. He could only dimly make out the snow-white hair, creamy skin and milky blue eyes of his henchman, Albinus, who was straining at the oars. The man had become his soul-sharer, his father confessor, comforter and counsellor. If their treason failed he too would join Thibault on the scaffold. Albinus lifted his head and smiled through the murk at his master.

‘We must be careful,’ Thibault murmured, ‘ever so careful and prudent.’ Albinus just nodded and went back to pulling at the oars, holding the boat steady against the swell of the river. Thibault hitched his cloak closer about him and returned to his thoughts. He and Albinus were committed to the task set them by John of Gaunt. The King’s uncle and self-styled regent had taken Thibault to a secret chamber in the heart of his magnificent palace, an ideal place to plot the deadliest treason. No windows. The one and only door was thick and heavy, fashioned out of the purest oak. The walls of the chamber were covered in quilted tapestries displaying all the colours of Gaunt’s royal claims: the lions rampant of England, the silver fleur-de-lis of France and the golden crowns of Castile. A truly ambitious man, Gaunt nursed dreams of founding a dynasty which would span the kingdoms of Europe. He faced only one obstacle: his nephew Richard, the boy king of England.

In that secret chamber, lit only by a three-spigot candelabra, with no one else present and the room secured against any eavesdropper or court spy, Gaunt had whispered the most dangerous treason. One hand on Thibault’s shoulder, the other on his pearl-encrusted dagger in its purple-gold sheath, Gaunt had asked Thibault if he too could drink from the chalice being offered? Thibault had replied, without hesitation, that he would drain such a goblet to its dregs and lick the cup clean. Gaunt had smiled with that dazzling look of friendship which always captivated Thibault’s soul. Gaunt’s fingers fell away from the dagger whilst the hand on Thibault’s shoulder became an embrace. Both men were joined in a conspiracy which could end in royal splendour, or in the most excruciating execution. Thibault had witnessed men, naked except for a loin cloth, being tied to a sled and dragged at the tail of a ragged horse through the Lion Gate and up the rocky path to the soaring gallows on Tower Hill, the hangman’s nooses dangling like loathsome garlands against the sky. If discovered, Thibault could expect no mercy. The executioners would paint red lines on his naked torso to show where they would cut, before he would be half hanged, his belly split open, his entrails plucked out even as he breathed …

The strident cry of a gull startled the Master of Secrets from his hellish reverie. He breathed in sharply, coughing on the cold, salty, fish-tinged river air. Gaunt had shown him the true path their plotting would open – a glorious path, he reminded himself. A veritable highway leading to manor lands, rich pastures, profitable licences and lordships. Thibault’s heart, to quote the psalmist, had leapt like a stag. He, a lord! He, the offspring of a common whore and some wandering scholar, to be clothed in silk and ermine, to have his arms emblazoned on a banner carried before him by a herald, to sit in splendour close to the throne of a king who would exalt him even higher. All he had to do was keep faith with Gaunt, do his bidding and help spin a web which would entangle the kingdom. Of course, as now, danger threatened with many a potential slip between cup and lip. Thibault had, however, been most prudent as that web began to spread. The Master of Secrets played with the chancery ring beneath his gloved finger. He suspected his own clerk, Amaury Whitfield, had begun to realize how far this web stretched and what it entailed. Nevertheless, Whitfield could be controlled and, if necessary, dispensed with. Until then, the clerk had to be watched. Thibault moved restlessly. Whitfield had absented himself from the secret chancery, he and his minion, the scrivener Oliver Lebarge. They had both pleaded for boon days so as to attend the Festival of Cokayne at the Golden Oliphant, the tavern brothel run by that queen of whores, Elizabeth Cheyne.

Thibault glanced up as a horn blew, ringing through the bank of fog rolling across the surface of the river. Albinus rested on his oars and Thibault watched the bobbing light of a passing barge disappear into the blackness of the night. Albinus returned to his rowing and Thibault to his ruminations. Cheyne was a whore amongst whores. She reminded Thibault of his own mother, and that made him feel sick to his stomach. He loathed doing business with Cheyne yet at times he had no choice. The whore mistress, like all her kind, was a snapper-up of trifles which might contain real nuggets of political intrigue. Whitfield and Lebarge would be with her now, celebrating a world turned upside down, a bacchanalian feast where all kinds of filthy practices took place. Not that Whitfield would have joined them to the full. If the whispered gossip was truth, Amaury Whitfield, clerk of the secret chancery, was a veritable gelding in bed. Whatever, Thibault reflected, let him wallow in his sty. Soon Whitfield would have to return to the chancery and concentrate on that secret cipher. The document had been seized from the Upright Men, the leaders of the Great Community of the Realm who were plotting furiously to bring about violent revolution to topple both Church and Crown. Thibault hugged his arms close. He was playing a dangerous game, plotting against the Upright Men even as he journeyed secretly to meet one of their most prominent leaders. They both sought to foment rebellion and revolution, but to different ends. The Master of Secrets wondered how much he would learn tonight, both directly and indirectly. Would he discover more about the cipher seized from Reynard, the Upright Men’s wily courier, who was now reflecting on his sins in the grim fastness of Newgate prison? Or perhaps he would glean something about the Herald of Hell, the mysterious envoy of the Upright Men who appeared at night, all over the city, to warn those judged to be opponents of the Great Community of the Realm. Whitfield and Lebarge had been visited in their chamber in Fairlop Lane. The Herald had delivered his grim warning and disappeared, leaving Whitfield and Lebarge frightened out of their wits. Thibault had granted both men leave. Perhaps the charms of Mistress Cheyne and her moppets would soothe their humours, then Whitfield could return refreshed to the study of that mysterious document.

‘Master?’ Albinus leaned forward. ‘Master, we are almost there.’

Thibault steadied himself as Albinus pulled once more and the keel of the boat crunched on the gravel and silt surrounding the Black Vale, a small, desolate island close to the south bank of the Thames. The boat rocked slightly, embedded in the shale. Thibault rose and, once Albinus had secured the boat, followed his henchman up from the riverside. He felt the dagger in its sheath on his warbelt, on the other side a small hand-held arbalest with its quiver of barbed quarrels. At the top of the slight rise they paused and stared into the darkness. The fog had thinned. Thibault could make out the ruins which peppered this gloomy islet: jagged walls, the carcasses of ruined cottages. A bleak wilderness of dark, shiny pools, sluggish ditches and heaps of mud which fed the coarse grass, rank weeds and stunted trees which grew there.

‘An ugly place,’ Albinus whispered, ‘with an even uglier reputation. Master, we must be prudent.’

‘As always,’ Thibault hissed. ‘You have the lantern, the tinder?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then spark the flame.’

Albinus crouched and opened his leather sack. Thibault heard the tinder strike then Albinus lifted the shuttered lantern against the night.

‘Make the signal.’

Albinus obeyed; three times the shutter on the lantern clattered up and down. Thibault stared into the darkness, oblivious now to the raw fog nipping his skin.

‘There,’ he breathed, pointing into the night. ‘Look, Albinus.’

Their signal had been answered by three sharp bursts of pinprick light. ‘We wait.’ Thibault walked a few paces forward. ‘Keep the lantern light turned towards them but stay behind me, Albinus. Prime your crossbow. At the first sign of trickery, loose.’

Albinus stepped back into the darkness as Thibault watched the bobbing light approach. A figure emerged out of the murk, cowled and cloaked. The stranger walked purposefully, the lantern swinging in his right hand, and in his left Thibault glimpsed a small crossbow, probably primed and ready. The figure stopped about a yard from Thibault and lifted the lantern. The Master of Secrets glimpsed an oval face, clean-shaven, a hairlip mouth and beetle brows: this fitted the description Gaunt had given him. Thibault pushed back his own cowl for the stranger to glimpse his face.

‘You choose a peculiar place to do business, Master Thibault, nothing more than blighted heathland with old charcoal burnings. They say the soot still falls like snowflakes garbed in mourning.’

Thibault recognized the prearranged greeting. ‘Safe enough,’ he replied in kind, ‘for men swept up in a carnival of bloodshed. You are what you call yourself, Master Tyler, Wat Tyler?’

‘I am Wat Tyler, I am Jack Straw, I am every man and I am no man.’

‘Yet you are leader of the Upright Men?’

‘One of a few.’

‘How do I know that this is not a device to trap me?’

‘Fear not, Master Thibault, except that you are here and so am I. In the darkness beyond you Albinus waits ready. Behind me stands my escort with his warbow, also primed.’

Thibault nodded in agreement.

‘Then let us do business, Master Thibault. Tonight, at this witching hour, you can call me Tyler, for that is what I am. My true name and identity will only be revealed when we end this game together.’

‘And the game you propose?’

‘Master Thibault, I am a leader amongst the Upright Men, a chief in the Great Community of the Realm which plots to topple prince and prelate and build a New Jerusalem here in London, you know that. We conspire against you, you and your master reply in kind. We despatched the Herald of Hell to haunt your adherents in the city; who he is and where he comes from is my business, not yours. If you caught him you would cut his heart out at Smithfield just as you intend a similar death for our courier, Reynard, seized by you and lodged in Newgate until he hangs.’

‘Or confesses and throws himself on our mercy.’ Thibault regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth. He could almost see Tyler smile through the dark. ‘Whatever the case,’ Thibault added hastily, ‘we have your cipher, and my clerk Whitfield, a peritus, skilled in cryptic writing, will break it to reveal the truth.’

‘Will he now?’ Tyler mocked.

‘And Reynard will hang for the murder of Edmund Lacy, bell clerk at St Mary Le Bow.’

‘And he deserves to,’ Tyler jibed. ‘He allowed himself to be caught. Reynard can rot in Newgate or dance in the air at Tyburn for all I care.’

‘We are not here for him,’ Thibault declared sharply, eager to gain control of this midnight meeting.

‘No, we certainly are not, Master Thibault. We are here as the deadliest of opponents. The Great Community of the Realm, the Upright Men and our soldiers the Earthworms, hunt you as you do them. Our all-seeing eye watches you as you watch us. Let us face the facts, the revolt is coming. You cannot prevent it and neither can I. The peasant armies will march. London will be stormed, its bridge seized and the Tower besieged. The Earthworms intend to burn Newgate and drag out its keepers by the hair of their heads. Men will die barbarously. I must make sure that I do not, and you too should take great care that you are not swept up in the great slaughter.’ Tyler paused. ‘And your daughter, Isabella. I understand you will lodge her with Athelstan, the Dominican priest at St Erconwald’s …?’

‘He has promised to protect Isabella. We rarely mention it, but he has given his word. I believe he will be her safest refuge.’

‘The Upright Men are strong in St Erconwald’s. You know that, Master of Secrets, you have your own spy there.’ Tyler laughed softly as Thibault abruptly stiffened. ‘Do not worry, Master Thibault, we know there is one, but not his or her identity or name. Fret not, the priest Athelstan and your daughter have nothing to fear. Both will be protected most closely by our representative, someone who sits very high in the Council of the Upright Men.’

‘Enough,’ Thibault snapped. ‘What are our conclusions?’

‘You know what they are. The revolt will occur but its outcome can and will be controlled by you, your master and myself. To achieve that, certain conditions must be met, yes?’

‘My Lord of Gaunt, together with his elder son, Henry, is about to leave for the Scottish March,’ Thibault declared. ‘He will take with him a host of mailed men, mounted and on foot, engines of war and an array of bowmen and hobelars. And for yourself, have you chosen the day?’

‘Very close,’ Tyler replied. ‘As for you, Master Thibault, you must remain ensconced in the Tower along with that bitch of a Queen Mother, Princess Joan. She and her whelp must be kept there whilst we – I – must be allowed entry to their gilded cages.’ Tyler let his words hang in the air. Thibault, even though he was committed to this, felt a chill of deep fear.

‘In storming those cages,’ Tyler continued evenly, ‘certain men will and must die. Make sure you are not one of these. You and I cannot control events, only their outcome. Once this has been achieved, all will be well. The path will be cleared. Gaunt can come hurrying south with his army. Meetings can be arranged, councils held, punishments meted out and pardons proclaimed.’

‘And does the cipher we have seized have any bearing on this?’

‘Master Thibault, until certain conclusions are reached, the war between us continues. The cipher is the work of Grindcobbe and others. I am party to it but I have no control over it. Only a few know its secrets. I am one of these, and to betray it would only deepen suspicions.’

‘About what?’

‘Divisions are already appearing amongst the Upright Men over what we intend, what we hope will happen once the revolt has occurred and the kingdom been shaken. Some of us talk of a republic like those in Northern Italy, others of a commonwealth like the cities along the Rhine, whilst we, Master Thibault, dream of a realm purified, purged and under the strong leadership of a new royal house.’

‘And for you personally, Master Tyler?’

‘Why, Master Thibault, like you I have dreams of power, lordship and dominion, a free and complete pardon from my Lord of Gaunt so like you I can sit high in his councils. No need then to meet along muddy marshes or beside squalid ditches full of filth with the fog curling in about us. However, until then we must shake the dice from the hazard cup and see how it falls. Master Thibault, I bid you adieu.’

Gaunt’s Master of Secrets watched Tyler walk away into the gathering gloom. He strained his eyes, certain that he detected a second figure following him.

‘Master?’

‘A good evening’s work, Albinus. Now there goes a man who thinks he controls the game but doesn’t.’

‘Master?’

‘My Lord of Gaunt and his eldest son Henry of Lancaster will go north. If the rebels are defeated he will turn swiftly south to be in for the kill. If the rebels succeed, he will then sit, wait and watch. If Master Tyler’s plot comes to fruition, my Lord of Gaunt will be the only royal prince with a standing army behind him. If Tyler’s plot fails, my Lord of Gaunt will return to crush all flickers of rebellion. In the end, our master will be safely removed from the season of slaughter and be free to plot and take action as he thinks appropriate. So yes, Albinus, in all an excellent night’s work.’

‘And the cipher?’

‘I want to unravel that for my own reasons, apart from my nagging curiosity. For that we need Whitfield, once he has finished wallowing in the squalid pleasures of the Golden Oliphant.’

Sir Everard Camoys, mercer and leading banker in Cheapside, was dreaming. He was locked in a nightmare about boiling the flesh from the corpse of his former comrade, Simon Penchen, killed whilst fighting alongside the Teutonic Knights against Slav intruders on the eastern marches of the Holy Roman Empire. Sir Everard, and more especially his brother Reginald, had been determined to bring their comrade’s remains home for a proper burial in St Mary Le Bow. They would not leave Simon’s corpse out on those frozen plains dotted with dark, sinister-looking forests: a desolate landscape, a Hell on earth, where the spirits of the departed, in their own dead flesh, roamed the countryside with their coffins held aloft. Such monstrosities could only be despatched by being dug up and decapitated, their rotten hearts roasted until they cracked open and the evil angel which had animated them, fled in the form of a crow. This malignant spirit would join the other demons yelling in the air: grotesques with flames dancing in their eyes, their mouths crammed with noxious fumes. Fighting alongside the Teutonic Knights, Sir Everard and Reginald had learnt all about the living dead, which had made them even more determined not to leave Simon’s mortal remains in that ghastly land.

They had dressed Simon’s cadaver in an ancient chapel which also served as the treasure house for the Teutonic Knights. At the time Sir Everard should have realized something was dreadfully amiss, and that Reginald was bent on committing heinous sacrilege. Satan, unbeknown to Sir Everard, had been there sticking out his tongue whilst holding his fork in the crook of his arm, with Death sidling beside him, his quiver full of fiery arrows. Satan had certainly struck. Oh, Reginald had always been hungry for riches, determined to return and strut the streets of London, garbed in a puffed tunic bounded by a belt with precious studs to match the gold and black of his sheath and hose, a bejewelled chaperon on his head. Reginald, a self-proclaimed artist, was always taken with any exquisitely precious object, be it a ring, a brooch or, as in this case, a holy relic. Sir Everard wished he had paid greater heed to one of the wall paintings in that ancient chapel. The fresco depicted a man in a blue gown and red hose, seated on a flesh-coloured chair, a harp with golden strings resting on his lap. At first glance a picture of serenity, except, in the bottom corner, lurked Death in the guise of a skeleton, drawing his bow fashioned out of bone and taking careful aim at the harpist. Of course, Reginald would have ignored any warnings, as well as the advice scrawled beneath the painting: that any violator of that hallowed place would have his body consumed by furry rats. Reginald was never a man to be warned …

Sir Everard jerked awake from his half-sleep and pulled himself up against the feather-filled bolsters. They had eventually brought Penchen’s corpse back for burial in St Mary’s, then he and Reginald had gone their separate ways. Sir Everard had joined the Goldsmiths’ Guild and soon prospered. As for Reginald … Sir Everard sighed. His brother had become involved with the whore Elizabeth Cheyne. Only years after they had returned from Prussia did Reginald confess that he had stolen the precious relic, the Cross of Lothar, with its antique cameo of the Emperor Augustus, a miniature but exquisitely carved cross, carved and decorated with gold, gems, pearls and precious enamels. Reginald had cheerfully admitted, rogue that he was, that he had filched the relic from the treasury in the ancient chapel of the Teutonic Knights not simply for profit, but because he truly lusted after the cross’s delicate beauty and its links with an ancient past. Reginald also viewed the cross as part reparation for the death of his comrade Simon. He had refused adamantly to restore it and had taken the secret of the relic’s whereabouts to his grave. Did the whore Elizabeth Cheyne now possess it? That might explain why she seemed to have little or no interest in where it could be. And it might be the real reason why Sir Everard’s own scapegrace son Matthias frequented that brothel, especially now with its Festival of Cokayne. Sir Everard snorted with annoyance – Cokayne! Why were they celebrating at a time when London teetered on the abyss, with the threat of revolt growing ever more imminent? Out in the surrounding shires, the Commonwealth of the Peasants plotted furiously under their leaders like the hedge priest, John Ball, who warned that God’s wrath would envelop them all.

Sir Everard thanked God that heaven had taken his beloved Eleanor to itself: his wife would not witness the bloody mayhem which would soon drench the city. Cheapside turned into a corpse-strewn battleground. Pitched battles outside the Tower. The rebels storming across London Bridge, seizing the Gatehouse and fortifications which, if their doggerel proclamation proved prophetic, would be swiftly decorated with the severed heads of their opponents, especially that of John of Gaunt, self-styled protector, uncle and regent of the boy king, Richard II. Others would soon join him, such as Master Thibault, Gaunt’s Master of Secrets who now huddled with his henchmen behind the grim fortifications of the Tower. Already many of the court party were preparing to flee; even members of Master Thibault’s own household were drawing their gold and silver from the bankers of Cheapside and slipping into the night, well away from London and the doom which threatened.

Fiery preachers, garbed in horse- and goatskin, stalked the streets warning citizens that the iron seats of judgement had been set up amidst a swarm of serpents. The skulls of London’s citizens would be split and, with the parting of the sutures, their souls would fly out to mingle with a host of spirits in the air. A dark, dank yet glittering mist would encase the city like a funeral shroud, and through this would prowl all the demons of Hell. The preachers, undoubtedly sent by the Upright Men, foretold that London would undergo the blood-splattered pangs of rebirth to emerge as the New Jerusalem with silver ramparts and gold-encrusted doorways fashioned out of pure white crystal and blue marble. Gaunt had hanged a few of these self-proclaimed prophets on moveable four-branched gallows, pushed up and down Cheapside so all could gaze on the strangled remains of his enemies. However, terror piled upon terror did nothing to curb the fear creeping across the city like a thick river mist which swirled and curled its way through everything.

Sir Everard pushed back the thick woollen rug and crisp linen under-sheets. He glimpsed the early dawn of this late May morning piercing the gaps between the shutters, shimmering in the light of the polished floorboards. He gazed round his bedchamber with its empty cloth poles hanging from the ceiling, the polished aumbry with cleared shelves, the great chestnut coffer now stripped of its contents: the high-backed settle before the hearth bereft of cushions, the empty spaces on the walls where paintings, triptychs and coloured cloths had been taken down. Gathering up his cloak from a stool, he dragged the candle-table closer. He took some comfort in the fact that he had removed all the costly items as well as his great iron-bound coffers with their triple locks. A former comrade in arms, now Constable of Leeds Castle, had indentured to protect all of Sir Everard’s movables. The goldsmith wondered whether he should also leave, but he was not sure if Matthias would accompany him. And what would happen if the revolt was crushed, its leaders torn to pieces, their dead flesh hacked into bloody chunks to decorate the spikes of London Bridge and the Lion Gate at the Tower: would Gaunt and Master Thibault then begin to sift amongst those who had fled? Would they adopt the line from scripture, that whoever was not with them was against them? Sir Everard let his vein-streaked legs dangle over the side of the bed, then lowered his feet and felt the crushed herbs which dusted the floor planks. He wondered if Matthias had returned home from his roistering or if he was still at the Golden Oliphant, searching for the Cross of Lothar. Then his heart skipped a beat at the sound of a horn braying outside. He sat, the breath catching in his throat, as he waited for what he knew was coming. One blast, two, followed by a third. The Herald of Hell was outside this house! Pierced by a dart of chilling fear, Sir Everard crumpled on to the bed as he heard the voice, powerful and carrying, like a blast from a hollow trumpet:

‘Lord Camoys and all who with you dwell,

Harken to this warning from the Herald of Hell,

Judgement is coming, it will not be late,

Vengeance already knocks on your gate.’

The same doggerel threat which, he knew, had been proclaimed throughout the city. He had hoped to be spared. The goldsmith drew a deep breath, his courage returning, angry that he had been so frightened. He lurched to his feet, hearing noises coming from below as servants hurried to find out what was happening.

Sir Everard pulled back the oxhide draught excluder and opened the door window with its glazed, painted glass. He stared out, but Acre Street lay empty, not even a wandering dog or cat. He wrinkled his nose at the foul smell from the sewer which ran along the centre of the street, then sniffed at his linen bedrobe, sprinkled with Provins Roses.

‘Who’s there?’ he shouted, leaning out of the window. Other windows along the street were being opened. The ward watchman came into view, staff in one hand, lantern horn in the other.

‘Is that you, Poulter?’ Camoys bellowed. ‘Did you hear that? Did you see anything?’

‘Nothing, Sir Everard.’ The watchman pulled down the folds of his heavy cloak. ‘I heard the proclamation and I came round the corner out of Spindle alleyway. But,’ he shrugged, ‘I saw nothing at all.’ Poulter pointed in the direction of the front door. ‘I think you’d best see this for yourself.’

Camoys grabbed his cloak, slipped on his sandals and hurried down, pushing aside the few frightened servant maids who still worked in the house. By the Angelus bell most of these would have slipped away on this excuse or that pretext. Shepherd, Sir Everard’s steward, had already gone to visit an allegedly ailing mother in Dorset. The goldsmith pulled back the bolts and turned the heavy key, then swung open the door and stared down at the beaker of blood containing two stalks, each bearing a small onion, a macabre imitation of heads poled in blood above London Bridge. The Upright Men had sent both him and his son Matthias a warning of their possible fate. Now beside himself with anger, Camoys kicked over the beaker even as he wondered who had bellowed that proclamation. Despite an obvious attempt to disguise the voice, the Goldsmith was certain he recognized it, but that would have to wait. The Herald of Hell, whoever he was, had issued his dire summons and Sir Everard realized that he faced as great a threat as any he had confronted on the eerie borderlands of the Holy Roman Empire.

The Herald of Hell watched Sir Everard close the door to his gilded mansion. He continued to lurk in the shadowy recess further along the street, waiting until all the excitement had died down. The neighbours who had been roused now doused their candles; doors, shutters and gates were locked and bolted. Poulter, the ward bailiff, a lonely, doleful figure, rubbed his face with one hand and beat the end of his staff furiously against the ground in frustration. Then the watchman straightened up and trudged away, muttering to himself. The Herald waited for a while before crossing to an empty laystall and filling his sack with what was hidden there. He then slipped into the thinning dark, hastening along the alleyways, flitting like a shadow, one hand grasping the sack, the other on the hilt of his dagger. No one would accost him, and if they did, he had warrants to explain his presence on the streets of Cheapside long before dawn fully broke. The Herald turned a corner and, keeping to the shadows, crept along to the old ironmonger’s shop which stood on the corner of an alleyway halfway down Fairlop Lane. The Herald placed the sack on the ground, then drew his dagger to prise open the lock on the door of the narrow house belonging to the chancery clerk, Amaury Whitfield. To his surprise, the door was off its catch and creaked open. The Herald of Hell stiffened with fear. He recalled a wall painting in his church of goggle-eyed Hell hounds slipping through the murk, watching a spirit of the damned fall into the deathly salamanderembrace of a hairy-mouthed fiend. An unspeakable horror! Did such grotesque terrors lie beyond this door which should have been firmly locked?

He pushed it open and stepped into the darkness which hung like a thick, stifling pall, reeking of musty damp. He started at the cry of some night bird further along the street, followed by the shrill scream of a hunting cat and the bark of a dog howling at the lightening sky. The Herald drew a deep breath and closed the door behind him. A rat scurried across the floor, a scampering, startling sound which only sharpened his anxiety. The Herald paused, leaning against the wall. He had been instructed to come here just before the Jesus bell tolled the approaching hour for the first Mass of the day. An Earthworm, one of the street warriors of the Upright Men, had delivered the message detailing what the Herald should do and where he should go. He had expected someone to meet him outside Whitfield’s house but there had been no one, yet he was not at all sure that he was alone. He could feel a cold sweat prickling his back and he fought to control his breathing. Was this a trap? He did not want to be seized, taken up and lodged in Newgate like Reynard, put to the torture until he broke and confessed everything. Yet the Earthworm messenger had shown him the all-seeing eye, the mark of the Upright Men. The Herald caught his breath as a faint sound echoed further down this hellishly dark passageway. Again the sound, and abruptly a lanternhorn, light glowing like a beacon, shone through the gloom.

‘Approach, Herald,’ a voice mockingly called. ‘Step into the pool of light so I can see your face clearly.’

Curbing his rising panic, the Herald obeyed, walking slowly, boots slithering on the greasy paving stones.

‘Who – who are you?’ The Herald couldn’t keep the tremor out of his voice.

‘Simon Grindcobbe.’

The Herald relaxed at the name of one of the most senior captains of the Upright Men.

‘How do I know?’ he stuttered.

‘Lift the lantern,’ the voice mocked, ‘and turn around. Quickly now, the hour is passing. Take the lantern.’

The Herald did so and started at a sound behind him. He lifted the lantern, turned and stared in horror at a devilishly garbed figure who must have followed him in from the street. An Earthworm, hair spiked with grease, his face hidden behind a feathery raven’s mask. This grotesquely attired figure carried an arbalest, primed and ready, the brightly barbed quarrel pointing directly at the Herald.

‘Now, now,’ Grindcobbe’s voice soothed, ‘no need to fear, put the lantern down. Good. Just a few questions then we shall be gone. Reynard is taken up, he failed to deliver the cipher. Master Thibault, Gaunt’s creature, now has it but not the key. I suspect Reynard must still hold that on his person.’

‘I don’t know,’ the Herald mumbled. ‘I was just waiting for orders.’

‘True, that is now our concern, not yours. So, to other business. Sir Everard Camoys received a visitor tonight?’

‘Yes, he did. I saw …’

‘Good, good,’ Grindcobbe broke in. ‘Camoys is a merchant banker. It’s well to terrify the likes of him. He needs to be gone from this city and take his feckless son with him. We do not need Matthias Camoys haunting the church of St Mary Le Bow, do we, with his stupid questions and hunger for the Cross of St Lothar? God knows what he might stumble on to.’

‘He could be disposed of.’

‘No, no.’ Grindcobbe’s voice turned hard. ‘There has been enough dancing around the maypole with the killing of Edmund Lacy the bell clerk. Matthias Camoys’ death would only attract unwanted interest. No. Let’s hope we can frighten both father and son out of London. After all,’ Grindcobbe laughed softly, ‘it would be the best for everyone, including themselves. So,’ he continued briskly, ‘we are here. I asked you to come for two reasons. First, I have been across to Southwark. I was supposed to meet Amaury Whitfield regarding the cipher taken from Reynard but he failed to appear. I wonder why. Have those ladies of the night, those moppets of the moon at the Golden Oliphant, sapped his strength? Has Whitfield drunk too deeply of Mistress Cheyne’s best Bordeaux …?’

‘What has that to do with me?’

‘Oh, everything, Master Herald. Gaunt’s henchmen regard you as the leader of the Upright Men in London, but you are not. You are only our faithful servant, one who has been richly rewarded for his work. Anyway, I was supposed to meet Whitfield tonight whilst you were ordered to search this property. However, nothing runs smoothly in this valley of sorrows we call life. Whitfield, as I have said, did not appear. So I hastened across here with my friends, one of whom, Brother Raven,’ Grindcobbe chuckled, ‘now guards your back. We did your task for you, Master Herald. We have searched this house both here and above, only to find nothing. Swept clean, it is, bare as a poor widow’s pantry. Strange, is it not?’

‘Again, sir, I know nothing of that.’

‘But you are prepared?’ Grindcobbe snapped. The Herald peered into the darkness, but all he could make out was a shadowy outline moving slightly against the poor light. ‘You are prepared,’ Grindcobbe repeated, ‘for the day of the great slaughter?’

‘Of course. All is ready, but Whitfield …’ The Herald’s curiosity was now pricked. ‘He appears to have fled. My warning must have …’

‘So it would appear,’ Grindcobbe replied. ‘In the circumstances this is a little unfortunate, but I suspect that our clerk, like so many at the Tower and Westminster, fears for the future. Your warning may have simply spurred him on his way. Whitfield,’ Grindcobbe added almost as an afterthought, ‘has a great deal to fear from so many quarters.’

The Herald’s unease deepened in the ominous silence, broken only by the sound of his own breathing and the slither of footfall as Brother Raven moved behind him.

‘If Whitfield has stripped this place …’

‘He and his friend, Lebarge,’ Grindcobbe interrupted sharply. ‘Yes, apparently they have got busy on their own affairs, as you have been, Master Herald?’

‘Of course …’

‘Busy in particular tenements not far from here, buying warbows and quivers crammed with yard shafts, everything a master bowman needs? You have left these in certain chambers overlooking Cheapside?’

‘Of course,’ the Herald rushed to answer. ‘I was instructed to.’

‘By whom?’

‘By the Upright Men. I have been visited by another of your great captains. He meets me, as you do, deep in the shadows. He shows his warrant and …’ The Herald fell silent as Brother Raven pushed the sharp barb of the crossbow quarrel against the nape of his neck. The Herald tried to quieten his panic. ‘Was I not supposed to do that?’ he gabbled, his stomach pitching with fear. He fell silent as the sharp barb again brushed his skin. He had heard rumours about how serious divisions were appearing amongst the captains who sat high on the Council of the Upright Men. ‘I did,’ the Herald stammered, ‘what I was told. The warbows and arrows are stored. Why, do you want me …’

‘Never mind,’ Grindcobbe snapped. ‘You must be ready for the signal which will come soon enough.’

The dark shape moved through the murk. The lantern was lifted, its shutter pulled down, and the darkness returned.

‘Go,’ Grindcobbe ordered. ‘Master Herald, you may leave. Brother Raven will show you out.’

Grindcobbe watched the Herald stumble back up the passageway and through the door into the street. The Upright Man closed his eyes and reflected on what he knew to be the truth. He and his confederates had planned to build a new Sion, a holy city here in London where pauper and prince would be equal before God and the law. A return to the harmony of the Garden of Eden where no predator swaggered or heralded knight rode arrogantly on his warhorse. A new beginning was what they had planned, but now demons had invaded their carefully constructed paradise, snaking in amongst its trees. Divisions had appeared. The tapestry of interwoven ideals and dreams was rent. Disunity had emerged here, there and everywhere. Rumours swarmed like loathsome spiders and mistrust, like the croaking of some foulsome toad, could be clearly heard in certain voices of the Upright Men.

‘Master, what now?’

‘God knows.’ Grindcobbe opened his eyes and stared at Brother Raven. ‘Whitfield appears to have fled. He may or not be at the Golden Oliphant, or so drunk he’s incapable of movement.’ Grindcobbe drew in a deep breath. ‘Master Thibault has the cipher. More importantly, he has Reynard locked up in Newgate and our messenger may still carry the key to that cipher. If so …’

‘Can Reynard be trusted?’ Brother Raven’s voice echoed dully from behind the grotesque feathery mask.

‘No, he certainly can’t be. I suspect that Master Thibault may well offer him a pardon, an amnesty in return for everything Reynard can reveal, but that must not happen. So,’ Grindcobbe rubbed his hands together, ‘we have brothers in Newgate?’

‘Hydrus, Wyvern and the madcap Benedict Bedlam, all ripe for hanging.’

‘And I am sure,’ Grindcobbe murmured, ‘that Reynard is determined not to join their dance in the air above Tyburn stream. Get messages to our followers amongst the Newgate turnkeys. What has to be done should be done swiftly, eh?’

‘And the matter of longbows and arrows left in those chambers along Cheapside?’

‘It’s too late and far too dangerous to do anything about that,’ Grindcobbe retorted. ‘Leave it for the moment. Get messages to our friends at the Golden Oliphant. I want to know what has happened to Whitfield. Keep that brothel under close watch.’

‘And you, Master?’

Grindcobbe rose to his feet. ‘I think it’s best to say as little as possible. I intend to return to Southwark and visit our friends at St Erconwald’s.’

‘Master, be careful. Rumours abound that the parish houses one of Thibault’s spies, a traitor to our cause.’

‘I have heard the same,’ Grindcobbe murmured. ‘I will be careful, but I need you to get messages to our captains there. Swiftly now.’

Brother Raven left. Grindcobbe sat back on the stool. He tried to control his sense of urgency, yet time was now the most precious commodity. He had received messages from Kent and Essex; banners were about to unfurl and the season of slaughter was closer than ever.