The House of Crows

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