Satan in St Mary

Hooded One, silent as ever, was aware of their identities. They were bound by macabre pacts and bloody oaths to destroy the King and create revolt. This was the essence of their being, the link between each of them and they were here to learn how it was to be achieved.
    The figure to the right of the Leader's chair began to talk raspingly, his voice muffled by the mask, his words, no more than whispers, echoed round the cold, sinister chamber. "So, it is done, " he murmured. "Those who threatened the Grand Design, both the spy and the murderer, are removed, gone to their appointed place. "
    "No other threat exists?" asked another member of the group.
    "Yes and no, " the first speaker replied, turning to survey his colleagues one by one. "Our Master, " and he turned to bow to the figure in the chair. "Our Master says that the King and his minions have appointed a clerk to investigate the matter. Our spy in the chancery has warned us to be wary of him. "
    "Why?" one of the group interjected. "What danger does this one man pose?"
    The Hooded One held up one hand for silence and beckoned into the shadows. An old woman crinkled and bent with age shuffled forward, looking nervously from side to side as she moved to crouch in the centre of the group. She pushed straggly hair from her skull-like face, plunged her hand into a dirty leather bag she carried with her, and drew out a black, silk-plumed cock, who stirred restlessly in her hand but was unable to protest because of the drugged corn it had been fed. The old woman held the bird up in her hands, bowed first toward the Hooded One and then towards the altar, she mumbled a prayer and bit deeply into the fat plump neck of the cock. Its body jerked furiously and lay limp as the old woman, her mouth smeared with blood, raw flesh and feathers, looked up and stared triumphantly around the group, who had watched the scene so impassively. She sprinkled the blood on the dirty floor, in blasphemous parody of a priest who cleanses his congregation with a rod of hyssop before Mass began. The old hag then knelt and carefully studied the pool of blood which had formed, groaning and muttering to herself. She turned towards the Hooded One. "The man the King has chosen, " she croaked, "is indeed dangerous. If he is not stopped, you will not take vengeance on the House of Plantagenet. The day of deliverance so carefully planned, will never occur. This clerk must be killed!"
    The hooded leader listened as if concentrating on something else and bent to whisper to the masked speaker on the right, who turned to address the group. "Let the clerk, whoever he is, " he replied, "flounder about. He is just one man. There are many traps. Rest content. He will be stopped. " His voice rose arrogantly. "The day of deliverance will come. We will cleanse the country of all kings, bishops, priests and others who lord it over us. Rest content with that!"
    The group, sensing that the meeting was over, began to disperse one by one, each bowing to the hooded leader before departing. When they had all left, the speaker turned to the Hooded One and pointed to the old crone who still sat as if in a trance on the beaten dirt floor.
    "She waits for her reward, " he said. "What shall we give her?"
    "She has served her purpose, " came the whispered reply. "Cut her throat!"
Two
    Hugh Corbett, clerk to the King's Justices in King's Bench, sat huddled in his blankets on the side of his pallet bed. His thin white face under a mass of black wiry hair was strained and pinched with cold. He pulled the blankets around him and then stretched out cold numbed fingers to a small charcoal brazier which was at last beginning to glow, thinning his breath as it hung heavy on the icy air. He was cold and reluctant to wash in the bowl of lukewarm water that a servant had just brought him. He was often teased by his colleagues when they learnt he insisted on washing all his body once a day. He shrugged at the thought, dropped the blankets and, ignoring the cold, began to rub his body with a cloth soaked in the water. A physician, an Arab, who owed a favour, had once informed him that it was a way of limiting infection. He stopped and stared dully at the cloth. Infection! He wondered if anything could have stopped the plague killing his wife and child. A dull ache from long-buried pain sent shivers through his body and he began to dry himself roughly. His wife and child, happy faces, strong healthy bodies, clean-limbed then, in a