The merchant rose and moved across the chamber. He stared down at the wooden polished coffer with its three locks singularly crafted to hold the sacred ruby. He also glimpsed the silver chased dish of sweetmeats the Benedictines had brought him as a gift. Kilverby pulled back the linen cloth. He picked one up and bit half of it, relishing the rich cream and marzipan. He put the other half down and returned to his desk, his mind teeming like a box of ants. He grasped the quill pen and gnawed at its end again before weighing this in his right hand. He peered at the ink stains on his fingers, rose, crossed to the lavarium and dipped his hands in the still-warm rose water. Kilverby groaned again at the pain in his belly. The icy constriction in his legs intensified. Something was wrong! Kilverby glanced swiftly at the locked and bolted door and staggered back to his stout chancery chair, clutching his stomach as he lowered himself into it. The pain was now intense. He forgot about everything, even his beloved Alesia. He was ill, tormented by the assault in his belly, that creeping coldness seeping through his legs. Kilverby’s head snapped back, mouth open in a silent scream, eyes popping as his death engulfed him.

On that same night, the eve of the Feast of St Damasus Pope, the year of our Lord 1380, Gilbert Hanep, former master bowman in the Wyvern Company, also rose to meet his own violent death. As usual Hanep had found sleep impossible in his narrow chamber in the main guest house at the Abbey of St Fulcher-on-Thames. Hanep had fallen asleep for a while but his soul had been tormented by demons. He had woken from a dream that the cold air around him was black with devils waiting to drag him to hell. For a while Hanep sat on the edge of his cot bed and stared at the fiery red glow of the charcoal in the small braziers now turning into a sea of white, feathery ash. Hanep quietly cursed mumbling monks like Sub-Prior Richer and his influence over the likes of poor old William Chalk. Hanep shivered. He swiftly donned his war cloak emblazoned with a striking red Wyvern. The heraldic device brought memories rushing back like water gushing from a spilt cask. The past returned. Memories of the hard-fought battles in France, the bitter fights. The white fog of chalk and lime surging up in clouds from crudely whitewashed shields. The strident screech of sword, club, dagger and mace. Arrows like angry black hornets streaking the blue sky in their thousands. The grating of steel against bone. The constant spray of hot, fresh blood. The shriek of armour against armour, the hideous yells, horrid cries and blasphemous curses of men locked in deadly combat. Banners all gaudily decorated moving through the fog of battle. .

Such memories would never go away, whilst lodging in this abbey did not help the soul. Sub-Prior Richer said the Wyvern Company and all who supported them would go to eternal damnation. They’d be herded into a rough, murky prison full of stench, filth, dark shadows and verminous demons. They’d be punished along with all the other tribes of sinners through an eternity of torture. They’d be imprisoned in dungeons of fire, eating the harsh crust of hell and drinking the cup of everlasting bitterness. Hanep took a deep breath. But what did that frosty-faced, self-styled man of God know? Hanep rose to his feet and filled a pewter goblet from the flagon. He moved over to one of the braziers, plucked out the narrow white-hot poker and pushed its tip into the wine until, in the light of the lantern horn, he saw it bubble. Hanep put the poker back and, grasping the goblet in his two hands, drank greedily. Once satisfied, he thrust his feet into the rough thick-soled sandals, walked across, pulled back the shutters and stared out through the lancet window at the gathering gloom. Memories were like a ravenous host just waiting to gain entry. Hanep, a veteran of many bloody combats, was used to them. He would wake suddenly in this grey-stoned, hollow-sounding abbey and the days of blood flooded back though, after a while, they would turn sweet as other memories surfaced: the days of glory when he and his companions had swaggered along the roads of France taking what they wanted, be it a flagon of wine or some plump French wench to be enjoyed despite her squeals and warbling. Oh yes, sun-drenched days, or so it seemed, when flowers covered the world, the sky was always blue and the trees remained a cluster of thick green. They were heroes then, Hanep reflected bitterly. They had shattered the power of France, the gorgeous, thundering cavalcade of the Valois. Now it was different. The King at Westminster was a child. The armies of England had retreated, forced back into the enclave of Calais. The realm was fearful of the black-prowed French galleys who threatened the passage to Dover and roamed the Narrow Seas, their crews making sudden landings along the south coast to pillage and burn. So much had changed! Here he was, he and the rest, given a corrody at this lonely, haunted abbey, living out their lives as Mahant had said, ‘like stabled cattle, waiting for the slaughter’.

The fate of old William Chalk certainly proved that: his death had been long, lingering and painful. If it had happened in France, Chalk, the defrocked priest beyond all hope of physic, would have received a mercy cut from a razor-edged misericord dagger to put him beyond all pain. Instead they had to visit him in the infirmary day after day, week after week, month in month out. They had to listen to his lamentations about the past, the sins they’d committed and the reparation they should all make. Now, thank God, old William Chalk was gone, buried in the Strangers’ Plot in the great sprawling abbey cemetery. Perhaps he should visit William’s grave, go out and brave the cold and say a prayer, if that merited anything. He could not stay here. Hanep had to, as he often did, walk this abbey in the early hours when the monks were snoring in their dormitories before the first bell of the day roused them to sing matins. He’d be warm enough in his thick serge leggings and stockings. He moved to the door and smiled. He’d forgotten the oath, the great pledge following the mysterious attack on Wenlock. He must remember that’s why his war belt now hung ready on a peg. He took this down carefully moving both sword and dagger in their intricately brocaded scabbards. Hanep circled his waist, pulling the belt tight and securing the buckle. He felt more comfortable, younger and stronger. Mahant was correct. The warrior path of cold steel and the sheer joy of battle, conflict and resolution, was everything.

Hanep picked up the shuttered lantern, opened the door and stepped out. The night was freezing cold in its blackness. Already a frost dusted the sills and carved faces of both saints and gargoyles. A deathly silence hung like some invisible pall pressing down, smothering all sound. Hanep walked along the narrow path which took him into the main cloister: a maze of stone, soaring pillars, sills and doorways fretted in the dog-tooth fashion. Cresset torches flared, their flames leaping in the stiff, freezing breeze. Holy men and demons glared ghostly down at him. The paving stones he walked were scrubbed and dusted with dry herbs which crackled beneath his sandals. Shadows darted. A spirit-thronged place, Hanep reflected. One hand on the hilt of his sword, Hanep went round the cloister garth, out under an archway following the path which skirted the great abbey church. Hanep paused before its yawning, cavernous porch. He stared up at the tympanum above the door, garishly lit by flaring torches. The darting flames brought to life the cluster of carvings depicting the damned and the saved, angels and hellish creatures all transfixed by the dominating figure of Christ in judgement. Hanep felt his conscience prick. How many years had passed since he had been shriven? Sat in the pew taking absolution from a priest? Chalk had urged him to reflect on that yet it was impossible to remember. Hanep again stared up at the Last of Days sculptured so graphically. He remembered the only words of scripture he’d ever learnt so many, many years ago in the dusty aisle of St Mary’s Church at Leighton in Essex. He’d always, like some talisman, quoted the verses before battle: ‘The Lord is my help,’ Hanep whispered, ‘whom should I fear? The Lord is the fortress of my life, before whom should I cower?’ But now in this midnight darkness did he, did the others, believe in all that? Were not their souls weighed down by thick, rich, oozing layers of sin? The women he had taken, the deaths he had inflicted, the plunder seized, the drinking and cramming of his belly with the food and wine of others? The Wyvern Company had acquired a fearsome reputation as a deadly, hostile horde from the havens of hell. They had waged war with fire and sword, having no respect for anything under the sun.