The Straw Men

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Sir John Cranston, swathed in cloak, muffler and beaver hat, dug in his spurs and coaxed the great destrier, his old war horse Bayonne, closer to the scaffold, which rose like a black shadow against the snowbound countryside around St John’s Priory in Clerkenwell.

‘Do you recognize one of your friends, Sir John?’ A member of his escort, similarly garbed against the cold, called out.

‘I have no friends,’ Cranston replied over his shoulder. ‘At least, not here,’ he whispered to himself. He pushed Bayonne, who began to snort and paw the ground, nearer to the high-branched gallows. ‘I know, I know,’ Sir John soothed. ‘But at least there is no smell.’ Cranston lifted his considerable bulk up in the stirrups and stared at the frozen, decomposed cadaver, its head slightly awry, the thick, hempen rope strangling the scrawny throat like some malignant necklace. Crows and ravens had done their work, pecking out the eyes and all the other tender bits, nose, ears and lips. The corpse’s face was nothing but an icy-white, frozen mask with black holes; the rest of the shrivelled corpse had merged with the shabby tunic the felon had been hanged in. Cranston glimpsed the scrap of leather pinned just beneath the man’s shoulder. No one had bothered to remove it. Cranston did. He unrolled the stiffened leather scrap even as Bayonne, shaking its head in protest, backed away snorting, the hot breath rising like clouds in the freezing morning air.

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