The Grim Reaper

PROLOGUE

The cathedral Close was never totally silent, even after midnight. There was the scrabble of a stray dog rooting in a pile of butcher’s offal and the rustle of rats in the garbage that was strewn along the muddy paths that crossed this episcopal heart of the city. The wind moaned between the two great towers that reached to the sky, where thin clouds raced across a haloed moon. Its pale light made the shadows cast by the huge building all the blacker and the flickering light of a flare stuck on a wall near Beargate did little to penetrate the gloom along the cathedral’s west front. From beyond the great doors came faint chanting: Matins, the first Office of the new day, was being celebrated in the distant quire.

A cross the precinct, from the direction of little St Martin’s church, came a new sound, the slap of leather soles on the wet soil, as a figure threaded its way through the tomb mounds and piles of earth from newly opened graves. As the walker came out of the shadows, the moonlight shone on the long black cloak and cowl of a priest. However, the devotions of the early hours were not his target, for he walked purposefully past the west front and the cloisters that lay on his left.

The pitch-soaked brand burning at Beargate threw its yellow light down on him as he strode beneath, but it failed to reveal the grim intent on the face hidden by the deep hood.