The House of Crows

closer, grasping Pike’s hand and squeezing it tightly.
    ‘Will everyone die?’ Pike blurted out hoarsely. ‘Will no mercy be shown?’
    ‘None whatsoever,’ Fox replied, shielding his face with his tankard. ‘The lords, the bishops, the priests. Why, Pike, do you know of a man worth saving?’
    ‘Brother Athelstan,’ Pike hissed, dragging Dogman’s hand from his jerkin. ‘Parish priest of St Erconwald’s,’ he continued excitedly. He looked over his shoulder fearfully but Joscelyn had now gone. ‘Athelstan’s a good man,’ Pike whispered. ‘Gentle and kind. He loves his parishioners, turns no man away.’
    ‘He’s a shaven pate,’ Weasel replied. ‘A friar. Those who are not with us,’ he intoned, ‘are against us. Those who do not collect with us, scatter us abroad.’ He studied the determined set of Pike’s mouth. ‘However, mercy shall be shown to those who show mercy.’
    ‘Such as?’ Pike asked.
    ‘He will die quicker than the rest.’
    The rebel leader finished his drink and slammed his tankard down on the table. ‘We shall leave,’ Dogman said, getting to his feet. ‘In a month’s time, Pike, we shall return. We will want to know how many men you can muster; how many bows, how many pikes.’ He grinned at the pun on the ditcher’s name.
    The rest of the group filed out. Pike did not bother to see them go. He was just about to relax and bawl for another tankard when he felt his shoulder gripped: Dogman pushed his narrow, lean face up against his; so close that Pike flinched at the man’s sour breath.
    ‘You will not,’ he whispered, pushing a dirty cloth into Pike’s lap, ‘be hearing from Wolfsbane!’
    Pike gulped at Dogman’s reference to their representative in Cripplegate Ward. ‘Why? What happened?’ he stammered.
    ‘He turned traitor and talked too much.’ Dogman squeezed Pike’s shoulder.
    Pike sat frozen. When at last he glanced over his shoulder, the rebel leaders had left. He slowly undid the dirt-stained cloth and stared in horror at what it contained: a human tongue, grey and shrivelled, though its end was still bloody. Pike, still clutching the grisly burden, his stomach heaving, dashed from the tavern. Outside, he threw the rag into a sewer and, unable to control himself, knelt and vomited up everything he had drunk. An hour later, a more chastened Pike made his drunken way along the narrow alleyways. He had gone back into the Piebald and downed another quart before the terrors had subsided. Yet the ale had not made him any more courageous, and Pike was deeply regretting not following Brother Athelstan’s advice. He reached the end of the alleyway and, swaying from side to side, staggered towards the steps of St Erconwald’s Church.
    The ditcher stopped: the door was locked and he could see no light. He looked across at the priest’s house but that, too, was cloaked in darkness. Pike tapped the side of his red, bloated nose. ‘I know where you are,’ he muttered.
    Staggering back, Pike looked up at the top of the tower. Against the dark blue, starlit sky he saw the glow of flames and a dark shape moving. ‘You’re watching your bloody stars!’ Pike muttered.
    The ditcher blinked wearily and sat down on the steps of the church. ‘I wish I was with you,’ he grumbled. ‘Well away from this nonsense.’
    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,