Whitemantle. Robert Goldthwaite Carter

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      One of the black-clad men spat. ‘Yaaah, Hell-damned Grey Robes!’

      ‘There!’ shouted another of the Vigilants’ sighted helpers. He pointed towards Will, whose bewilderment at the various competing orders within the Fellowship was not helping him make sense of his danger. ‘That’s what we’ve come for. Him. That’s a bone demon, sitting on your stair! A bone demon from the Spire!’

      The Vigilants tilted their heads, their attention focussing now on Will. The big Fellow took a short step forward, which made the others draw back. ‘There is no bone demon here. Only an old man whom I hope will yet be persuaded to our purpose.’

      The leader of the Yellow Robes sniffed the air then threw up his hands. ‘Magic!’ he said. ‘Foul magic has been done here! The demon has taken on new form!’

      They all looked towards Will.

      ‘Let us fall upon the beggar!’ one of the mob shouted.

      ‘Aye!’

      They began to surge forward, but the ragged Fellow did not move aside. Instead, he stood four-square and let slip from inside his sleeve a heavy chain. Raising it on high he swept an arc clear before him. Then he said in a stolid but commanding voice, ‘It may be that this old man already belongs! You may believe that approaching him is forbidden!’

      The Vigilants drew back from the death-dealing chain that circled and swung over their heads. It filled all the yard with the soughing of stirred air, and no one dared come within its compass for fear that it too was touched by the magic the Vigilant had smelled. It was plain to the stupidest that, in so narrow a space, a chain in the hands of a man like this might easily murder a dozen of them if they tried to take the recruit away from him.

      ‘You may imagine that we are angry with you,’ the Vigilant Elder said in a high, wheedling voice. ‘One might ask: who is this Fellow? And where does he belong?’

      The hooded head turned to face the questioner. ‘And some may hear that he is Fellow Eudas, and that he belongs to the Black House. But certain exalted ones may choose to take care! For perhaps the lowly Fellow was a soldier before he begged admission to the Happy Family.’

      Will marvelled at the oddly indirect language of the Fellowship. He had heard Gwydion use it when they had visited Clifton Grange disguised as mendicant Fellows. Now the curious but deadly exchanges sent a shiver down his spine.

      ‘How then if the lowly one might be commanded to stand aside? How then?’

      ‘All respect to the exalted! But he may suppose that this Fellow, lowly or not, might decide to send the first man to take another step towards him down to see for himself the fires of Hell.’

      A different Fellow pushed his way to the front. He too was an Elder, but one of the senior Brown Robes whose order dwelt in the House-by-Cripplegate. When he drew back his hood, painted eye sockets seemed to stare out from his skull like the eyes of a madman.

      ‘Why, oh why, should a lowly Fellow be believed, if Fellow he really is? Perhaps it is only an impostor who speaks in such a rude and obstinate way to Elders. Proof may be required! Else one may say that he himself is an incarnation of the very demon which fell to earth!’

      ‘Aye!’ the helpers cried, taking up the idea with enthusiasm. ‘Let him throw back his hood and show himself!’

      The crowd that now filled the alley was fifty or sixty strong. As those at the back began to chant, ‘Show! Show! Show!’ the brown-robed senior gathered himself as if for a fight, and spoke as directly as his station would allow. ‘Can it be this lowly servant has not heard our friends a-calling? Let him show himself! Or must these same friends force him to uncover?’

      ‘Force?’ There was scorn in the reply. ‘Such an ugly word. Shall it be said that these friends are going to force a lowly Fellow who is doing his duty by the Iron Rule, who moves in zeal and commits nothing contrary to the holy principle that binds all members of the Happy Family? Force, is it?’

      The Elder trembled with fury. He was not used to backing down. He cried, ‘How best to put an order such as this? Come now, friends: the lowly Fellow cannot kill us all! Now let him prove himself. Show, show, show!’

      The chant started again, but Eudas stood unmoving in the face of it, until it died away. Then he said, ‘The lowly Fellow has stated his case: the beggar belongs to him. However—’

      A moment passed. The chain continued to circle over-head, but then Eudas snapped his wrist and brought it snaking down into a dead heap beside him. With the next movement he put his hands to his hood and pulled it back onto his shoulders.

      Those who stared gasped at what they saw. From where Will crouched he could not see what had caused the reaction, but there were many in the crowd who turned away, while the rest goggled in frank horror.

      The Elder’s fingers reached out briefly, then he nodded, disappointed that the orbits of Fellow Eudas’ eyes were indeed vacant. The realization struck a dull note of fear in Will’s belly as he huddled lower against the foot of the chapter house door. Above him the brazen arm reached down as far as it could in a vain attempt to seize him.

      ‘Is it not wholly as the lowly one said?’ the big man asked in his quiet, deep voice. ‘Now, if the exalted ones please…he may be left to his work, and may peace attend all.’

      ‘There is peace only in Heaven,’ the brown-garbed one cried, making a sign in the air. ‘Perhaps this is something the lowly Fellow forgets!’

      ‘One may say he knows which of those gathered here upholds the Iron Rule, and which is trying to break it. How if someone should take report of what has passed to the Council of High Wardens? How if due consideration was made upon the facts?’

      Will watched as heads were bowed in fear, but then a voice at the mouth of the alley shouted, ‘This way, everybody! The bone demon went down Fish Street!’

      When the last of the crowd had bled away, the big man quickly pulled up his hood and hid the face that had so horrified the crowd. He stooped and picked up the chain, feeding it artfully inside his sleeve and across his shoulders. Will watched him, his mind still crawling with fears, certain that his best hope was to remain an old beggar for the time being.

      But there was another danger to be handled now.

      ‘I thank you, sir. I thank you for my life,’ Will muttered, rising. He made humble nods, gathered his tattered coat about him, and began to make away, but the Fellow moved across his path.

      ‘If you really do want to thank me for your life,’ he said simply, ‘there is only one way to do it.’

      ‘No, no,’ Will said, trying again to slide past. ‘I’m truly grateful that you’ve helped me, but I’ve no wish to spend my latter days inside a chapter house. Kind though your offer undoubtedly is, I—’

      ‘Hear me out, friend.’

      Will shivered with revulsion. ‘Oh, but the life would be hateful to me. In fact, it would be worse than the death from which you’ve just saved me.’

      But Eudas placed a staying hand on Will’s breast. ‘I also have made that choice.’

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