The House of Crows by Paul Doherty

Author:Paul Doherty [Doherty, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Publisher: Severn House Publishers
Published: 2012-06-01T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 8

As Athelstan built up the fire in the heart of his small priest’s house, Sir Francis Harnett was hurrying along the deserted vestibule leading to the chapter-house of Westminster Abbey. The knight was vexed at being stopped so many times by the guards and archers. However, once through, and into the abbey precincts, this irritation gave way to a small glow of pleasure at the prospect of meeting the elusive Perline Brasenose. Harnett 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.

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