Paul Doherty: Herald of Hell

‘Lord Camoys and all who with you dwell,

Harken to this warning from the Herald of Hell,

Judgement is coming, it will not be late,

Vengeance already knocks on your gate.’

The same doggerel threat which, he knew, had been proclaimed throughout the city. He had hoped to be spared. The goldsmith drew a deep breath, his courage returning, angry that he had been so frightened. He lurched to his feet, hearing noises coming from below as servants hurried to find out what was happening.

Sir Everard pulled back the oxhide draught excluder and opened the door window with its glazed, painted glass. He stared out, but Acre Street lay empty, not even a wandering dog or cat. He wrinkled his nose at the foul smell from the sewer which ran along the centre of the street, then sniffed at his linen bedrobe, sprinkled with Provins Roses.

‘Who’s there?’ he shouted, leaning out of the window. Other windows along the street were being opened. The ward watchman came into view, staff in one hand, lantern horn in the other.

‘Is that you, Poulter?’ Camoys bellowed. ‘Did you hear that? Did you see anything?’

‘Nothing, Sir Everard.’ The watchman pulled down the folds of his heavy cloak. ‘I heard the proclamation and I came round the corner out of Spindle alleyway. But,’ he shrugged, ‘I saw nothing at all.’ Poulter pointed in the direction of the front door. ‘I think you’d best see this for yourself.’

Camoys grabbed his cloak, slipped on his sandals and hurried down, pushing aside the few frightened servant maids who still worked in the house. By the Angelus bell most of these would have slipped away on this excuse or that pretext. Shepherd, Sir Everard’s steward, had already gone to visit an allegedly ailing mother in Dorset. The goldsmith pulled back the bolts and turned the heavy key, then swung open the door and stared down at the beaker of blood containing two stalks, each bearing a small onion, a macabre imitation of heads poled in blood above London Bridge. The Upright Men had sent both him and his son Matthias a warning of their possible fate. Now beside himself with anger, Camoys kicked over the beaker even as he wondered who had bellowed that proclamation. Despite an obvious attempt to disguise the voice, the Goldsmith was certain he recognized it, but that would have to wait. The Herald of Hell, whoever he was, had issued his dire summons and Sir Everard realized that he faced as great a threat as any he had confronted on the eerie borderlands of the Holy Roman Empire.

The Herald of Hell watched Sir Everard close the door to his gilded mansion. He continued to lurk in the shadowy recess further along the street, waiting until all the excitement had died down. The neighbours who had been roused now doused their candles; doors, shutters and gates were locked and bolted. Poulter, the ward bailiff, a lonely, doleful figure, rubbed his face with one hand and beat the end of his staff furiously against the ground in frustration. Then the watchman straightened up and trudged away, muttering to himself. The Herald waited for a while before crossing to an empty laystall and filling his sack with what was hidden there. He then slipped into the thinning dark, hastening along the alleyways, flitting like a shadow, one hand grasping the sack, the other on the hilt of his dagger. No one would accost him, and if they did, he had warrants to explain his presence on the streets of Cheapside long before dawn fully broke. The Herald turned a corner and, keeping to the shadows, crept along to the old ironmonger’s shop which stood on the corner of an alleyway halfway down Fairlop Lane. The Herald placed the sack on the ground, then drew his dagger to prise open the lock on the door of the narrow house belonging to the chancery clerk, Amaury Whitfield. To his surprise, the door was off its catch and creaked open. The Herald of Hell stiffened with fear. He recalled a wall painting in his church of goggle-eyed Hell hounds slipping through the murk, watching a spirit of the damned fall into the deathly salamanderembrace of a hairy-mouthed fiend. An unspeakable horror! Did such grotesque terrors lie beyond this door which should have been firmly locked?

He pushed it open and stepped into the darkness which hung like a thick, stifling pall, reeking of musty damp. He started at the cry of some night bird further along the street, followed by the shrill scream of a hunting cat and the bark of a dog howling at the lightening sky. The Herald drew a deep breath and closed the door behind him. A rat scurried across the floor, a scampering, startling sound which only sharpened his anxiety. The Herald paused, leaning against the wall. He had been instructed to come here just before the Jesus bell tolled the approaching hour for the first Mass of the day. An Earthworm, one of the street warriors of the Upright Men, had delivered the message detailing what the Herald should do and where he should go. He had expected someone to meet him outside Whitfield’s house but there had been no one, yet he was not at all sure that he was alone. He could feel a cold sweat prickling his back and he fought to control his breathing. Was this a trap? He did not want to be seized, taken up and lodged in Newgate like Reynard, put to the torture until he broke and confessed everything. Yet the Earthworm messenger had shown him the all-seeing eye, the mark of the Upright Men. The Herald caught his breath as a faint sound echoed further down this hellishly dark passageway. Again the sound, and abruptly a lanternhorn, light glowing like a beacon, shone through the gloom.

‘Approach, Herald,’ a voice mockingly called. ‘Step into the pool of light so I can see your face clearly.’

Curbing his rising panic, the Herald obeyed, walking slowly, boots slithering on the greasy paving stones.

‘Who – who are you?’ The Herald couldn’t keep the tremor out of his voice.

‘Simon Grindcobbe.’

The Herald relaxed at the name of one of the most senior captains of the Upright Men.

‘How do I know?’ he stuttered.

‘Lift the lantern,’ the voice mocked, ‘and turn around. Quickly now, the hour is passing. Take the lantern.’

The Herald did so and started at a sound behind him. He lifted the lantern, turned and stared in horror at a devilishly garbed figure who must have followed him in from the street. An Earthworm, hair spiked with grease, his face hidden behind a feathery raven’s mask. This grotesquely attired figure carried an arbalest, primed and ready, the brightly barbed quarrel pointing directly at the Herald.

‘Now, now,’ Grindcobbe’s voice soothed, ‘no need to fear, put the lantern down. Good. Just a few questions then we shall be gone. Reynard is taken up, he failed to deliver the cipher. Master Thibault, Gaunt’s creature, now has it but not the key. I suspect Reynard must still hold that on his person.’

‘I don’t know,’ the Herald mumbled. ‘I was just waiting for orders.’

‘True, that is now our concern, not yours. So, to other business. Sir Everard Camoys received a visitor tonight?’

‘Yes, he did. I saw …’

‘Good, good,’ Grindcobbe broke in. ‘Camoys is a merchant banker. It’s well to terrify the likes of him. He needs to be gone from this city and take his feckless son with him. We do not need Matthias Camoys haunting the church of St Mary Le Bow, do we, with his stupid questions and hunger for the Cross of St Lothar? God knows what he might stumble on to.’

‘He could be disposed of.’

‘No, no.’ Grindcobbe’s voice turned hard. ‘There has been enough dancing around the maypole with the killing of Edmund Lacy the bell clerk. Matthias Camoys’ death would only attract unwanted interest. No. Let’s hope we can frighten both father and son out of London. After all,’ Grindcobbe laughed softly, ‘it would be the best for everyone, including themselves. So,’ he continued briskly, ‘we are here. I asked you to come for two reasons. First, I have been across to Southwark. I was supposed to meet Amaury Whitfield regarding the cipher taken from Reynard but he failed to appear. I wonder why. Have those ladies of the night, those moppets of the moon at the Golden Oliphant, sapped his strength? Has Whitfield drunk too deeply of Mistress Cheyne’s best Bordeaux …?’