[William Falconer 06] - Falconer and the Ritual of Death by Ian Morson Page B

were beginning to fall again. He bumped into someone coming abruptly out of a narrow side lane, and cursed him when he looked up and saw the yellow badge that betrayed the man as a Jew.
    Deudone tossed back his own curse, ready to stand up to the muscular man in rough builder’s clothes. But he seemed preoccupied, and was off striding over the sewage gully down the middle of the street before any blows were offered.
    ‘A coward too, eh,’ muttered Deudone, clenching his fists.
    He sighed, and pulled the hood of his cloak over his curly locks. The rain was beginning to fall heavily again, and he wished he was safely indoors and paying court to the voluptuous Hannah. But he had other business in hand tonight concerning Covele, the renegade Jew who had performed the ritual in Lumbard’s house. The forbidden ritual of qorbanot that Deudone had taken part in. He had hoped the ritual might have eased the burden of guilt that had weighed on his mind for some years now. But it had not, merely leaving him with an unpleasant taste in his mouth. A taste of something terribly, awfully wrong. He stood uncertainly for a moment under the eaves of Aaron’s house before dashing off in the same direction as th6.builder. He needed to find Covele, who was still holed up in that derelict house behind St Aldate’s.
    Peter Pawlyn emerged from Agnes’s whorehouse in Grope Lane a wide grin on his face. John Trewoon, as ever, had waited for his diminutive friend outside in the street. When it had begun to rain, he almost wished he had gone inside. But the girls in a place like that scared him. They mocked him due to his size, and made suggestions that embarrassed him. Then, when his face grew red, they mocked him for his shyness. So he avoided brothels like the plague, which is what his mother had told him he would get anyway if he ever went in one. So he was huddled under the eaves of the dingy, ill-kept house when Pawlyn came out, his hair plastered flat over his brow. Pawlyn looked both sated and excited. He grabbed the giant’s arm.
    ‘Come on, John, there’s games afoot.’
    ‘What’s that, Peter? I’m tired and I’m cold. Can’t we go to bed?’
    ‘No, we can’t. What I’ve heard about will soon warm you up. There’s a rumour about bloody murder of children. And the Jews are guilty again. The girls were talking about it, and how it’s a shame that good Christians have to live so close to them.’
    John frowned, thinking it was a shame that good people, Jews or not, had to live so close to a whorehouse. But he knew Peter would only laugh at him, so he kept the thought in his own head. ‘What’s that to do with us, Peter?’ Pawlyn let out a whoop. ‘We’re going to help the townsfolk break a few heads.’

    ‘A Templar priest?’
    Jehozadok nodded in response to Falconer’s question.
    ‘Yes. I cannot recall his name after all these years. But I do remember it was a Templar who was collecting the tallage imposed on us. It was the time that Louis of France was ransomed. A million besants was required, I believe.’
    ‘But why were the Templars involved?’
    ‘The story goes that Louis was thirty thousand livres short, and asked the Templars for a loan. The commander in Outremer refused it as his rules forbade him releasing the money to anyone other than the depositor. There was a stand-off, until the marshal of the Temple proposed a solution. The Templars could not break their vows, but there was nothing to prevent the King’s representatives taking the money by force. The Templars stood back, and the strongbox was broken into. The money was taken, to be returned later. When it had been collected from us. Of course England’s share of the whole ransom was being collected at the same time anyway. But it was definitely a Templar priest who was responsible for the work. And he disappeared soon after collecting from everyone in the town. Along with a large amount of money.’
    ‘So people assumed he had fled with the