The House of Crows

stopped just before the steps leading into the chapter-house and, turning right, went down the long flight of stairs into the Pyx chamber. At the bottom he cautiously pushed open the metal-studded door. The chamber inside was bare stone and vaulted, really nothing more than a huge cellar, dry and clean with two sconce torches glowing from their brackets on the wall.
    ‘Perline?’ Harnett whispered. The knight’s brow knit together in displeasure. ‘Where in God’s name are you?’ he hissed, but his words echoed emptily around the chamber.
    Harnett sighed in exasperation and, mopping his face with the hem of his cloak, went and sat on a stone plinth at the far end of the chamber. Perhaps the soldier had gone elsewhere? When he returned, Harnett intended to give Brasenose the rough edge of his tongue. Above him the abbey bells began to toll for Vespers. Despite the thickness of the walls, Harnett heard the patter of feet as the monks moved down. There was silence and then, faintly, the sound of the choir beginning its chant:
    ‘ Exsurge Domine, exsurge, et vindica causam meam .’
    ‘Arise, O Lord, arise and judge my cause.’
    Harnett heard the words and smiled weakly. Had God risen to judge him and the others? Suddenly he felt weary and, leaning back against the wall, stared into the darkness. So many things had gone wrong. Twenty, thirty years ago, he and the others had been young paladins, the spiritual successors of Arthur and his knights. They had even paid a monastic chronicler to prove that Arthur had built his palace in Shropshire. And wasn’t Guinevere reputed to be buried at the nunnery at White Ladies, amongst the oaks around Boscobel? The Knights of the Swan had held their Round Table at Lilleshall Abbey. They had their tourneys and tournaments in a blaze of colour and the shrill blast of silver trumpets. Then they had found the cup. At first Sir Edmund Malmesbury had been mistrustful. He had scoffed at the relic-seller who had brought the cup for sale. Sir Henry Swynford, however, had taken it to a learned monk, who had pronounced that the cedar chalice was indeed of great age and may well have been the Grail for which Arthur and his knights had searched. Oh, how they had been pleased!
    Harnett stretched out his legs, easing the cramp in his muscles. They had met in the great refectory of Lilleshall, seated around the table with the chalice on a plinth, covered by a purple, damask cloth. Each knight, in turn, had been given the privilege of owning the chalice for a month, but then it had gone. One night, as they rested at the abbey, Malmesbury had burst in where they were supping and feasting, screaming: ‘The chalice has gone! The chalice has gone!’
    They had searched high and low but never found it, and the seeds of discord had been sown. Nobody levelled open accusation, but the Knights of the Swan had begun to whisper amongst themselves. The finger of accusation had been pointed to this person and then another: the rottenness had spread, like a canker in a flower, seeping through their lives, creating further discord.
    One thing had led to another. The war in France turned sour and, with news of defeats, came the effects of the ravages of the great pestilence: a shortage of labour and demands by the peasants for higher wages and better privileges. Harnett and the rest had let their souls slip into darkness...
    Harnett sighed and leaned forward: that, surely, had all been forgotten? He had cultivated his fields, bought books, and developed an interest in strange and exotic animals. He had not wanted to come to this Parliament. Indeed, quietly, he had striven not to be elected, but the sheriff had been Gaunt’s man. When the returns had been counted in the guildhall at Shrewsbury, Harnett had been as surprised at the result as the rest. Oh, Malmesbury had told them to put a brave face on it, trumpeting about what they would do once they arrived at Westminster, yet something was wrong.
    Harnett and Aylebore had quietly protested: the sheriff had just smiled from behind his great table on the guildhall dais and spread his hands. ‘You are elected,’ he had declared. ‘Are you saying that I am corrupt?’
    What could Harnett do? To protest would have been strange. So, instead, he and the rest had accepted the result and journeyed up to Westminster, staying as usual at the Gargoyle tavern.
    Harnett stirred as he heard a sound from the vestibule outside, a faint footstep. He got to his feet