The Straw Men(18)
‘Peace, Sir John,’ he whispered. ‘Think of the Lady Maude, the two poppets; this is not your fight. Not yet, anyway.’
‘Hear ye!’
One of the riders surged forward on his grey-black warhorse; the destrier, head shaking, snorting furiously, clattered iron-shod hooves against the cobbles. The rider, like Satan’s own henchman, tall and black in the saddle, cloak billowing out like the wings of some fearsome bird, raised a leather gauntleted hand.
‘So die all traitors to the Great Cause,’ he shouted, pointing at the corpses. ‘Death to all who offend the Upright Men!’ Then the horsemen were gone, clattering back into the darkness of the alleyway as the crowd surged forwards to view the corpses. Cranston bellowed at them to stand aside. Athelstan knelt at the bottom step and, opening his chancery bag, swiftly administered the rites of the dead, closing his mind to everything except the ritual, the anointing and the blessing. As he did so, Cranston turned the corpses over. All three were fairly elderly men with sagging bellies, fat thighs and vein-streaked legs, their faces unshaven, hair unkempt. Athelstan flinched. One of the dead men’s faces was hideous, not just due to the cruel wound inflicted deep into his left side where the dagger had pierced his heart, but his features were distorted by an older, earlier wound across his mouth so his lips seemed to stretch the entire length of that narrow face.
‘Laughing Jack, Thibault’s man.’ Cranston tapped the corpse. ‘Executioner in Billingsgate, from the bridge to the Tower. These are his two assistants, Sinister and Dexter, literally his left and right hand. I wager they were responsible for severing the heads of those slaughtered at the Roundhoop and their poling on London Bridge.’ Cranston sighed, got to his feet and shouted at a group of gathering bailiffs to take care of the corpses.
‘Come, Brother,’ he urged. ‘Our noble Prince, against whom all this is directed, awaits us . . .’
The Upright Men’s assassin, the basilisk, had been very busy. The meeting at the Babylon had ended amicably and the basilisk had prepared. The traitor in Gaunt’s circle had revealed himself, a startling surprise swiftly swept aside by the need for preparations following a heated discussion in the dark recesses of the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula. The basilisk had been insistent. Assassination would take place. Weapons had been demanded and prepared, including that leather sack with its grisly contents. They had clasped hands in what both knew to be a deadly contract. They would stand or fall by each other. Now, gowned and hooded, carrying a special pass impressed with the Regent’s purple wax seal, the basilisk had already surveyed the sprawling fortress of the Tower from the Lion Gate through past St Thomas’ Tower, along Red Gulley and under the dark shadow of Bell Tower, with its massive wooden casing on top housing the great bell which marked the passing hours and sounded the tocsin. The assassin noted that and passed on into the inner bailey, clearly marking out the different towers – especially Beauchamp – close to the parish church of St Peter ad Vincula. Only then did the basilisk approach the great White Tower, the central donjon or keep, its soaring walls of Kentish grey ragstone all whitewashed and gleaming in the harsh frost of the winter’s day. Once again the basilisk stared back at Beauchamp Tower, where the mysterious prisoner brought from Flanders was lodged. It was best not to go too close to its approaches, closely guarded by archers and men-at-arms. What, the basilisk wondered, did Gaunt want with such a prisoner? Why all the mystery and secrecy? Who was that woman? Even the traitor in Thibault’s circle knew very little. Why were the Upright Men so keen to seize her? What was the true connection between the prisoner and the leather sack the Upright Men had entrusted to her? Yet the politics of this place were of little concern – vengeance was!
The basilisk shifted and stared at the black-timbered and white-plastered guest house which stood in its own neat square garden, the shrubs and plants held fast in the iron grip of a savage hoar frost. Oh, yes, the basilisk promised, those who sheltered there – the mystery players – would also be visited by Murder. The Regent’s acting troupe, the Straw Men, Master Samuel and his companions, were nothing more than a coven of treacherous Judas people. They, too, would chew on the bitter bread of pain and sup deeply from the poisoned chalice of the rankest wormwood. The basilisk, however, had to be careful. The Tower thronged with Gaunt’s retainers, henchmen, armoured knights, archers, mailed clerks and household minions, all busy scurrying to do their infernal master’s bidding. The basilisk glimpsed the small dovecote near St Peter’s and smiled; they’d all hasten even faster when the hawk appeared above the doves. What was being planned was only just and right. How did the verse of one of the Upright Men’s songs run? ‘God is deaf nowadays. He will not hear us and, for their guilt, grinds good men to dust.’ God needed a little help!