The Grail Murders

stroked his short goatee beard.
    'Good!' he murmured. 'The mark of a true swordsman.' He wagged a finger at me. 'One day you will understand. When the blood runs hot, you'll know it. A wild unselfish desire, something which comes from the very marrow of your soul: to kill or be killed. All your life, all your existence, channelled to that one end.'
    Of course I thought this was nonsense and the fellow short of a king's full shilling. Yet he was right. Years later, on a golden sea-shore, Benjamin and I fought sword against sword, dagger against dagger, over a woman with a face as beautiful as Helen of Troy and a heart and soul as black as the deepest pit in hell. However, that's another story and doesn't concern us here.
    Soon I had learnt enough of duelling and began to drift around the capital. London is such a wonderful place! It harbours every type of villain under the sun: gamblers, foists, footpads, cut-throats and cut-purses, sturdy beggars, palliards and counterfeit men… I really felt at home. Naturally, Benjamin kept a wary eye on me and insisted that I spend no longer than three nights in succession in London. He would sit behind his desk in the great solar of our country manor and waggle his bony finger at me.
    'Roger, you're my friend but you have the same penchant for mischief as a cat does for cream. You will either come home or I'll come for you. Do you understand?'
    I did. To be perfectly honest Benjamin was the only person I was really frightened of and the only person I never lied to. Well, within reason. Yet, cats like cream and Shallot likes mischief.
    I fell into bad company: some gentlemen of the road who skulked in the graveyard of St Paul's well beyond the sheriff's writ. They were led by a former cleric, a defrocked priest. I forget his name, we just called him Rat's Arse. He had the innocent face of an angel and one of the most eloquent mouths which ever drew breath. He could convince you black was white and night was day!
    Rat's Arse persuaded me to raise money from our tight-fisted banker Waller so he could set up a molly house in an alleyway off Cock Lane. An exclusive brothel where gentlemen of leisure could take their ease. Of course he took the gold and I never saw him again. Well, alive that is. Two years later, whilst crossing Hampstead Heath, I passed the gallows and saw poor Rat's Arse tarred and gibbeted hanging by his neck. I said a little prayer. He was a villain but his heart was in the right place.
    Anyway, old Waller came for me like a whippet after a rabbit. On the very afternoon I was fleeing the city he grabbed me by the arm in Paternoster Row. 'Shallot!' he screamed. 'Where's my money?'
    (Have you noticed that about bankers? If you've got money, they'll lend it. If you haven't, they purse their lips and shake their heads.)
    I was desperate. I gazed round looking for a way out and suddenly glimpsed old Tunstall, Bishop of London, who was riding down to St Paul's for his daily verbal assault on the Almighty. Now I had met Tunstall when I had been with Benjamin at court so I seized Waller by the wrist. 'You see over there?' I cried. 'Who?' the wretch replied.
    'His Grace the Bishop of London. He agreed to stand surety for the money I have used to send the sick and the poor on a pilgrimage to St James Compostella!' Waller drew his sour face back like a viper about to strike. 'I don't believe you!' he snapped.
    'Look.' I drew off my boots. 'Hold these and I'll go across and prove it to you.'
    Waller held my boots and I tiptoed across the cobbles towards the bishop. 'My Lord Bishop!' I gasped. 'Your Grace!'
    The bishop, surrounded by his flunkeys, reined in and looked down at me. 'Yes, my son?'
    'A petition, My Lord Bishop. A petition. Your holiness may remember me?'
    The old hypocrite stared sourly back, gathering his reins as if to move on.
    'I am the manservant to Benjamin Daunbey, nephew to the great Cardinal.'
    Well, that stopped the old bugger in his tracks. He forced a smile. (Have you noticed how priests do that? As if they were God Almighty and everyone else some poor benighted wretch?) 'What is it, my son?'
    I pointed back to where Waller stood like an idiot, holding my boots.
    'My Lord Bishop, I was in violent disputation with that man over the nature of the Trinity when you passed by. My Lord,' I lied, 'your reputation as a theologian is known to all. I offered you as an arbiter in our debate. My friend said he did not believe me so I left him with my boots as an