Paul Doherty - The House of Crows

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.

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’ stalls. Nearby, in the Hand and Shears tavern, the Court of Pie Powder would deal out summary justice to those caught pickpocketing, foisting or indulging in any other form of trickery. Consequently the blood-spattered pillory posts were always busy. Wednesday, however, was Execution Day. The great six-branched gibbet would dominate the marketplace, nooses hanging; the condemned felons would be brought down from Newgate, past St Sepulchre’s, stopping at the Ship tavern in Giltspur Street so that the condemned felons could have one last drink before they were turned off the ladder.

Sir John Cranston, King’s Coroner in the city of London, always hated such occasions but, on that particular Wednesday, the feast of St Hilda, it was his turn to be king’s witness to royal justice being carried out. He sat on his great, black-coated destrier, chain of office around his neck, his large fat face pulled into a mask of solemnity, his kindly blue eyes now cold and hard. Now and again his horse would whinny at the crowds thronging behind him but, apart from scratching his white beard or twirling the ends of his moustache, Sir John hardly moved.

‘I should be home,’ he moaned quietly to himself. ‘Sitting in the garden with Lady Maude or watching the poppets chase Gog and Magog.’

Sir John had four great passions: first, his wife and children; secondly, a love for justice; thirdly, his great treatise on the governance of the City and finally, a deep affection for his secretarius and assistant in rooting out murder and horrible homicides, Brother Athelstan, the Dominican parish priest of St Erconwald’s in Southwark.

‘And your claret,’ Sir John whispered to himself. ‘Not to forget your London ale and sweet tasting malmsey.’

Sir John never knew in what order these passions should really be listed. In fact he loved them all together. Cranston’s idea of heaven was a spacious London tavern full of sweet-smelling herbs and blossoming roses where he, Athelstan, Lady Maude and the poppets could sit, talk and drink for all eternity.

‘I should be home,’ Sir John growled again.

‘I beg your pardon, my lord Coroner?’

Cranston turned and gazed at Osbert, his court clerk, whose brown berry face was wreathed in concern, his dark little eyes screwed up against the morning sunshine.

‘Nothing,’ Cranston muttered. ‘I just wish the buggers would hurry up and get here from Newgate.’

As if in answer, the crowd at the far end of Smithfield gave a great roar and began to part, allowing through the garishly painted death-wagon, driven by the executioner and his assistant all clothed in black from head to toe. The horses they managed had their manes hogged with purple-dyed plumes nodding between their ears. In the cart stood three men, dressed in white shifts, shouting and gesturing at the crowd. On either side walked lines of soldiers from the Tower garrison, halberds over their shoulders. Behind the cart two bagpipers played a raucous tune.

Why all this mummery? Cranston thought. In his treatise on the governance of the City, he would recommend to the young king that such executions be abolished and confined to the press-yard of Newgate Prison. Cranston stood high in his stirrups: he gazed over the heads of the crowd pushing against the wooden barricades guarded by city bailiffs and beadles.

‘The pickpockets and foists will be busy, Osbert,’ he remarked. ‘They love a crowd like this.’ Sir John glared, as if his popping eyes could seek out and threaten any one of the myriad of footpads so busy slitting purses and wallets.

The execution cart drew closer; finally it entered the bare expanse in front of the scaffold. The three prisoners, their faces dirty and unshaven, were pulled down, their hands tied. The Franciscan, also standing in the cart, eased himself off, still intoning the prayers for the dying, though, from the expression on the faces of the three felons, they couldn’t care a whit.

‘Let’s make it quick!’ Cranston snapped, raising his hand.

The heralds on either side of him lifted their trumpets, but the mouthpieces were full of spittle and they could only squeak.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ Cranston barked as a chorus of laughter greeted their efforts.

The heralds mumbled an apology, lifted their trumpets again. This time a shrill blast silenced the clamour of the crowd. Cranston nudged his horse forward and stopped in front of the three condemned felons.

‘You are to be hanged!’ Sir John declared. He nodded at Osbert to unroll the parchment.

‘You, William Laxton,’ the clerk proclaimed in a loud voice, ‘Andrew Judd and William the Skinner have been found guilty by His Grace’s judges of assize of rape, abduction, stealing hawks’ eggs, stealing cattle, poaching deer, letting out a pond, buggery, desertion from the royal levies, coin-clipping, cutting purses, robbery on the king’s highway, filching from the dead, conjuring, sorcery and witchcraft. For these and divers other crimes you have been sentenced to be taken to this lawful place of execution. Do you have anything to say before sentence is passed?’

‘Yes. Bugger off!’ one of the condemned shouted.

Cranston nodded to the executioner but the fellow just stood, eyes glaring through the eyelets of his mask.

‘What’s the matter, man?’ Cranston barked.

‘They’ve got no goods, no chattels,’ the executioner replied. ‘The law of the city is,’ he continued sonorously, ‘that the goods, chattels and clothes of the condemned felons belong to the hangman — but they’ve got bugger all!’