The House of Crows

hands.
    At first Sir Henry had been puzzled though alarmed by the change in Sir Oliver’s demeanour: agitated and pasty-faced, he seemed unable to control the trembling of his hands.
    ‘What is it?’ Sir Henry had whispered. ‘What does this all mean? An arrowhead, a candle and the word “Remember”?’
    ‘Have you forgotten?’ Bouchon had snarled. ‘Are you so puffed up with pride, Henry, your soul so made of iron that no ghosts from the past can enter your mind? Think, man!’ He had almost shouted. ‘Think of Shropshire years ago, in the dead of night: a candle, an arrowhead and the word “Remember”!’
    Sir Henry had gone cold. ‘Impossible!’ he’d whispered. ‘That was years ago. Who would tell?’
    ‘Somebody did,’ Bouchon retorted. ‘I found these in my chamber when I returned early this afternoon.’
    And, snatching them back, Sir Oliver hurried away before Sir Henry could stop him. At first Sir Henry had dismissed it but, this morning, a dreadful creature, the Fisher of Men, accompanied by the king’s coroner in the city, that fat-faced fool Sir John Cranston, had brought Bouchon’s water-soaked corpse back here. The coroner had set up court in the great taproom below, drained three tankards at Sir Henry’s expense, declared Sir Oliver had probably died from an accident and left the corpse in his care. Sir Henry had paid others to wash and clean the body. Tomorrow morning he would hire a carter and an escort to take it back to Sir Oliver’s family in Shrewsbury.
    Sir Henry considered himself a hard man: over the years, other comrades in arms had died on the bloody battlefields of France and Northern Spain. But this was different. Sir Henry glanced at the table, and the source of his fear: the candle, the arrowhead and the scrap of parchment bearing the word ‘Remember’ had now been sent to him. He had found them on his return from Parliament and neither the landlord nor any of his servants could explain how they had got there. Sir Henry reflected on the past. He remembered the words of a preacher: ‘Unpardoned sins are our demons,’ the priest had declared. ‘They pursue us, soft-footed, dogging our every footstep and, when we least expect, close their trap.’
    Was that happening now, Sir Henry thought? Should he go out and warn the others? He seized the wine cup from the floor and drained it. He would pay his respects to Sir Oliver first. The priest must have finished his orisons by now. Sir Henry clasped his swordbelt around him, opened the door and went into the gallery. The door to Sir Oliver’s room was half open, the glow of the candlelight seemed to beckon him on. He went in. Sir Oliver lay in his coffin but there was no sign of the priest. Sir Henry turned and saw a dark shape lying on the bed. ‘Lazy bastard!’ Sir Henry muttered.
    He went across to the coffin and stared down. His heart skipped a beat: three bloody red crosses had been carved; one on the corpse’s forehead and one on either cheek.
    ‘The marks!’ he muttered. ‘What?’
    He started, but too late. The assassin’s noose was round his neck. Sir Henry struggled but the garrotte string was tight and, even as he died, choking and gasping, Sir Henry heard those dreadful words.
    ‘Oh day of wrath, oh day of mourning, heaven and earth in ashes burning. See what fear man’s bosom rendereth... ’ Sir Henry’s dying brain thought of another scene, so many years ago; corpses kicking and spluttering from the outstretched arms of an elm tree, bearing the red crosses on their foreheads and cheeks whilst dark-cowled horsemen chanted the same lines.

CHAPTER 1

    It was Execution Day on the large, bare expanse of Smithfield. Usually the place was busy with various markets selling horses, cattle and sheep; the area around Smithfield Pond would be thronged with stalls and booths offering leather, meat and dairy produce. The crowds always flocked there to see the freaks and performing animals, whilst the puppet-masters, fortune-tellers and ballad-mongers from all over London, the quacks, the gingerbread women, the sellers of toy drums and St Bartholomew babies would do a roaring trade. Men and women of every kind came to Smithfield: nobles and courtiers in their silks and taffetas, merchants in their beaver hats, the red-headed whores from Cock Lane. Their children would frighten themselves, and each other, by staring into the glassy eyes of the severed pigs’ heads which were piled high on the fleshers’