The House of Shadows

is it?’ the Misericord called, all alarmed. ‘Who’s there?’
    ‘ Pax et bonum ,’ Athelstan called back. ‘Do not concern yourself, it’s only Brother Athelstan.’
    He walked back up the nave through the rood screen, and paused. The wood smelt freshly polished and he remembered how the previous day five of his parishioners, who called themselves the ‘Brotherhood of the Rood Light’, had cleaned and polished the oaken screen. The sanctuary lay in darkness, except for the candle on the high altar and the red lamp which showed where the pyx containing the Sacred Host hung from its silver chain. A shadow moved beside the altar.
    ‘You can come out, sir.’
    The Misericord stepped into the light and sat on the top step.
    ‘I’m hungry, Brother, I thought you would never return.’
    ‘I’m sorry,’ Athelstan replied. ‘I was longer than I thought. Murder is a vexing business. So stay there, sir, and I shall come back with food, a good jug of wine, some meat and bread, not to mention a piece of cheese. Afterwards we shall talk about what part, if any, you played in these terrible killings.’
    ‘Brother...!’
    ‘Oh!’ Athelstan came back. ‘I believe a coffer was brought here from the Night in Jerusalem ?’
    ‘What’s happening?’ the Misericord pleaded. ‘I heard rumours. When I went out to relieve myself, Pike the ditcher said there’d been hideous murders.’
    ‘Did he now? But where’s the coffer?’
    ‘Watkin put it over there. He and Ranulf brought it in.’
    Athelstan walked across the sanctuary. The coffer was under the offertory table. He drew it out and, ignoring the Misericord’s demands for his food to be brought quickly, walked back down the nave and out through the open door, where he put the coffer down. The Judas Man was sitting on the bottom step. He turned and pointed at the chest.
    ‘That was brought earlier. I hoped it would be safe in there.’
    ‘It has three locks,’ Athelstan replied, ‘and the Misericord is no fool, and neither are you. If a sanctuary man steals from the Church, or interferes with anything, the law says he can be handed over to the sheriff’s men.’
    The Judas Man bit at the quick on his thumb. ‘I’ll have him soon enough.’
    ‘Are you always so zealous in hunting men down?’
    ‘You preach, I hunt,’ came the tart reply.
    Athelstan pointed to the gold ring on the chain around the Judas Man’s neck.
    ‘The keepsake of a lady?’
    ‘My betrothed.’
    ‘She died?’
    ‘No, I found her with another man. I killed them both.’ The Judas Man drew his head back, staring at Athelstan from under heavy-lidded eyes. ‘She meant everything to me. I found them out in the woods. He drew a knife, I claimed self-defence.’
    ‘And since then you have been a hunter? And your soul, Judas Man?’
    ‘I leave such things to the likes of you and God. Now, you have not come to question me about a ring.’
    ‘Are you sure you know nothing about those two women murdered at the Night in Jerusalem ?’
    The Judas Man shook his head. ‘I know nothing about that. I was fighting for my own life.’
    Athelstan stared across the cemetery. He noticed how the Judas Man had divided the comitatus to keep the entire outside of the church under view; his own parishioners were now clustered around a makeshift brazier, enjoying the meat and ale.
    ‘Will you join us, Father?’ the Judas Man asked.
    Athelstan picked up the coffer and shook his head. ‘Will you pray, Judas Man?’
    The hunter of men made to turn away, then paused and glanced over his shoulder.
    ‘I’ll talk to God, priest, when He talks to me.’



Chapter 5

    Sir Laurence Broomhill was half asleep. He was drowsy yet aware of being in his chamber at the Night in Jerusalem . He heartily wished he was back in his comfortable manor house on the road to Gravesend , but then again, none of them could have anticipated what had happened. Sir Laurence, like the rest, had drunk deeply that afternoon and lurched back to his chamber, La Morte D’Arthur, with its coloured tapestries exuberantly depicting the Great Hero’s struggle with the black-armoured Mordred. The picture of knights helmeted and visored, swords and shields raised, provoked vivid memories of the battles in Outremer, outside Alexandria .
    For a while Sir Laurence recalled those arrows, wrapped in flaming cotton, shooting through the air. Scaling ladders all ablaze, the men on them, small black figures trapped by the inferno, dropping