Angel of Death

small group down the slope through the snow. They avoided the main gate and moved like dogs around the curtain wall till they came to a small postern gate. As usual, this was open. They slipped in. The yard was a muddy quagmire. Fitzwarren examined the tracks carefully but there was nothing out of the ordinary. The stables, byres and barns were all empty and the fire in the blacksmith's long dead. He looked up and there, on the second storey of the manor house, he saw a red coverlet stuffed through a slit window, the sign that it was safe to approach. They walked up to the main door and confidently knocked. Footsteps sounded in the hollow passageway and the door swung open; the steward, Thomas Bassingham, stood there, his small anxious face attempting an ingratiating smile. Behind him, wiping her plump hands on a white apron, stood his wife.
    'You are welcome, Master Fitzwarren,' he stuttered.
    Fitzwarren smiled and, brushing him aside, strode into the manor house along the main hall into the kitchen and buttery beyond. No fire had been lit, according to his orders, but at least the man had had the sense to place warming dishes around the room and put burning charcoal into a rusting brazier. Bassingham's wife, terrified of these rough-looking men, quietly served them with cold meats, cheeses and flagons of rather watery mildewed beer. The outlaws ate greedily, slurping their food, indicating with their hands when they wanted more. Once they were finished Fitzwarren, seated in the large, oaken chair at the top of his table, stretched, belched loudly and brought his hands crashing down on the table.
    'Well, Master Bassingham,' he said. 'You have news of your master?' The steward seemed exhausted. Fitzwarren peered closer. He noticed the lines of anxiety, the dark rings round his eyes, the unshaven face.
    'Something has gone wrong?' he asked ominously.
    Bassingham nodded. 'I came back from the city as fast as I could,' he bleated. 'I have been travelling ever since. The roads there are almost impassable. My horse -'
    'Your horse?' Fitzwarren asked.
    'I have not stabled it here,' the man replied smoothly. 'It is elsewhere. I finished the journey by foot. The snow, it is so deep. My wife, she thought I was dead.'
    'She may well wish that you were if the news you have brought is not satisfactory.'
    'It is not my fault,' the steward almost screeched. 'It's not my fault that the priest is dead.'
    Fitzwarren shot to his feet. Bassingham recoiled at the malice in the outlaw's eyes.
    'He what!'
    'The priest is dead. He collapsed during the mass.' 'So you have brought nothing?'
    'How could I? How could I? His house in London has been sealed. There are royal guards around it. The king himself is angry at de Montfort's death. What could I do?' the man whined.
    Fitzwarren strode down the table and, grabbing the man by the front of his dirty jerkin, lifted him off his feet.
    'You could have brought the gold that your master owes me.' Fitzwarren smiled evilly, his eyes gleaming.
    'I could not bring it,' Bassingham replied anxiously, now wishing he had not returned here. He should have stayed in London, fled. He looked sideways. Only his wife, fresh-faced, black curly hair, his beautiful Katherine, she would have pined away without him. Fitzwarren followed the steward's eyes and grinned.
    'My men,' he said, 'my men have been in the forest long. It is wrong of me to give them nothing.' He turned and grinned over his shoulder at his comrades slouched round the table. 'Tie this rogue up and then,' he tossed Bassingham aside like a rag doll and walked over to the table, knocking off the dishes and cups with a sweep of his arm, 'and then he shall watch us have our pleasure.'
    Bassingham screamed as the outlaws seized his wife but, as Fitzwarren knew, the manor house was deserted, the countryside lay under a heavy cloak of snow. Who could possibly come to their rescue? And Fitzwarren, the rage seething in him, felt that someone should pay for the terrible misfortunes he had suffered.

    In London Corbett and Ranulf were attending a meeting of a totally different nature. Hervey had met them outside the south door of St Paul's and, together, they had entered the cathedral just as prime was finishing. Corbett gestured they should stay in the nave, which was still cloaked in darkness. He stared into the pool of light thrown by the tiers of candles which stood in their silver candelabra between the choir stalls. The canons there were now on the