The House of Shadows

these out carefully. They were good — freshly minted, ten pounds sterling. He put the pouch carefully inside his jerkin and finished his preparations.
    He had left his chamber and was halfway down the stairs when the group at the bottom made him pause. Four knights in all, dressed like Hospitallers in their black and white cloaks, the golden falcon emblem sewn on the left shoulder; next to them a fifth man in the garb of a Benedictine monk. They were preparing to climb the stairs to the palatial chambers on the Oaken Gallery, which ran along the front, back and one side of the tavern. Luxurious rooms with feather-down beds, turkey carpets on the floor and exquisite draperies and tapestries adorning the walls. One of the knights looked up the stairs, staring full at the Judas Man.
    ‘By the Cross,’ he breathed, ‘and St Veronica’s veil!’
    The Judas Man came down the rest of the stairs to be greeted by the knights, who clasped his hands. He knew them all: Sir Maurice Clinton, Sir Thomas Davenport, Sir Reginald Branson and Sir Laurence Broomhill. They asked the same question he asked them.
    ‘What are you doing here?’
    ‘It’s our anniversary.’ The smooth-faced Benedictine pushed his way through, pulling back the cowl of his robe. ‘I’m Brother Malachi,’ he smiled. ‘Their chaplain.’
    The Judas Man grasped his hand, even as he remembered how these important knights, all great landowners in the shire of Kent, were accustomed to come up to London every year to celebrate how they had once sailed from London to fight under Lord Peter of Cyprus, the Great Crusader who had captured Alexandria in Egypt almost twenty years ago.
    ‘Of course!’ the Judas Man exclaimed. ‘You are the Falconers.’
    ‘That is the standard we fought under,’ Sir Maurice, the leader of the group, replied. He was harsh-faced, tall, and thin as a beanpole, iron-grey hair parted down the middle. ‘And we lodged at this tavern before we sailed. But what are you doing here?’
    ‘Business;’ the Judas Man murmured, staring hungrily past the knights at the shaft of light pouring through the doorway leading into the tap room. He stepped aside. The knights had apparently been enjoying the ratting and drunk much. Brother Malachi supported Sir Thomas Davenport, who was rocking backwards and forwards on his feet. The Judas Man made his farewell to the knights. He heard their laughter behind him and tried to recall what he knew of them. Ah yes! The five noble Falconers, all Kentish men; the sixth, the monk, had also been a soldier until he’d taken his vows. Wasn’t there some mystery about them? And where was the fifth? The Judas Man put such questions aside as he stepped into the tap room.
    Customers sat round tables. Scullions and slatterns fought their way through with tankards. The great fire was beginning to die, the candles were fading, the bowls of oil drying up. The Judas Man hastily stood aside as a boy pushing a wheelbarrow carted out the corpses of the rats killed in the pit, which was now being washed clean with tubs of scalding water. A sea of faces greeted the Judas Man, some disfigured, others pretty. A whore came sidling up; the Judas Man pushed her away as he walked like a cat round the edge of the tap room, looking intently for his prey. People jostled and shoved, pedlars and tinkers tried to sell trinkets. He was invited to sit in on games of hazard, whilst a pretty slattern asked him what he wanted to drink. The Judas Man ignored all these, eyes ever shifting, moving from face to face. He was looking for a man of medium height with a shock of red hair and a misericord dagger on a lanyard round his neck. At last he found him, seated just near the door, throwing dice with two others. There was no mistaking the silver sheath or that shock of red hair, though the pallid face and scrawny beard and moustache hadn’t been in the description. The misericord dagger, though, was unmistakable. The Judas Man pushed his way through, placed his hand on his victim’s shoulder and squeezed tightly. The man looked up.
    ‘You are to come with me,’ the Judas Man whispered quietly in his ear. ‘You, sir, are under arrest.’
    His words had an immediate effect. The other two gamblers shot to their feet, pulling out knives even as Red-Hair shrugged off the Judas Man’s hand and, as fast as a whippet, kicked the stool back into his legs. Then he sprang up, drawing the knife from the battered belt around his waist. The