Hugh Corbett 12 - The Treason of the Ghosts (8 page)

‘What’s that?’ he asked.

‘Oh, it’s my work,’ Burghesh replied. ‘Sir Hugh, I may be a soldier but, in the wild and wanton days of my youth, I became apprenticed to a stonemason. Indeed, I signed my articles as a craftsman. Then the King’s wars came.’ He shrugged. ‘Fighting and drinking seemed more glorious than cutting stone. I do a lot of work round here. I am building a new graveyard cross for Parson Grimstone.’

‘It’s quite a busy place.’ The parson spoke up. ‘Perhaps not on a cold October day but we have small markets and fairs as well as our ale-tasting ceremonies. It’s a place where the parish like to meet.’

Corbett agreed absent-mindedly. He stared up at the soaring hill tower, its red slate roof and pebble-dashed sides.

‘A well-kept church, Parson Grimstone,’ he remarked.

‘Aye, and my father loved it,’ Sir Maurice said. ‘It’s a pity, Parson Grimstone.’ The young knight bit his lip.

‘What’s a pity?’ Corbett asked.

‘My father had a triptych specially done and placed in a side chapel.’

‘And why is that a pity?’

Parson Grimstone sighed noisily. ‘The triptych was kept on a wall. After Sir Roger was executed, someone took it down and burnt it, here in the graveyard.’ The parson pushed his hands up his sleeves. ‘I’m freezing cold, Sir Hugh. Are you finished here?’

‘For the moment,’ the clerk murmured. ‘The lych-gate is on the far side, yes?’

And, not waiting for an answer, Corbett, lost in his own thoughts, walked away. He stopped and turned.

‘I thank you for coming. Sir Louis, I am sorry about the attack. You said it was in Falmer Lane, the same place where poor Elizabeth was found? I wonder if we could ride back there?’

‘I’ll also come,’ Sir Maurice offered.

Corbett and Ranulf said goodbye to the rest and walked back to the lych-gate where Sir Hugh’s groom, Chanson, shrouded in his cloak, held their horses. The groom’s white face was a picture of misery, the sly cast in his eye even more pronounced.

‘Sir Hugh, I am freezing.’

‘You should have sung,’ Ranulf teased. ‘That would have brought everybody hurrying back.’ He patted the young groom on the shoulder. ‘The King’s business.’ He added mockingly, ‘We are all freezing, Chanson.’

‘I have given the horses a good rub down,’ Chanson muttered.

Corbett half listened. Chanson hated waiting almost as much as Corbett hated his singing. Chanson wasn’t his real name. He’d joined Corbett’s service as Baldock. Ranulf, as a joke, had rechristened him ‘Chanson’, a mockery of his appalling voice. Ever since, the groom had insisted that Chanson would be his new name and refused to answer to anything else. A fine groom with a talent for talking to horses, Chanson was also a good knife-thrower, a skill he used to win prizes at local fairs.

‘Can we go back to the tavern, Master? My toes are frozen; my balls are freezing!’

Corbett gathered the reins and swung himself into the saddle. He watched whilst Tressilyian, his hand on Sir Maurice’s shoulder, walked further down the lane to collect their horses.

‘Ranulf,’ he ordered, ‘take Chanson and warm him up in some alehouse.’

‘And then go snooping, Master?’

Corbett pulled the cowl over his head and narrowed his eyes.

‘Yes, I want you to snoop. Find out as much as you can.’

He lifted his head and watched the others leave the church, Blidscote, the fat bailiff; the two priests and Burghesh.

‘What are you thinking, Master?’

‘I don’t know, Ranulf. The pot’s beginning to bubble. Perhaps this is a beautiful place on a summer’s day but now . . .?’

A sound behind him made him turn. An old woman was coming up the lane, resting heavily on a stick. She approached, back bowed, head down. Corbett thought she was about to pass them but she stopped and stared up, pushing away wisps of dirty grey hair from her wizened face. She munched on her gums and wiped the trickle of saliva from the corner of her mouth. She looked at Corbett with rheumy eyes, as if she could learn from one glance who he was and why he was here.

‘Good morrow, Mother.’

Ranulf walked towards her. He opened his purse and took out a coin. The woman snatched it.

‘Are you the King’s clerk?’

Her voice was strong but rasped on the phlegm at the back of her throat. She turned and spat, hobbled forward and grasped Corbett’s bridle.

‘You must be the King’s clerk?’

‘And you, Mother?’

‘Old Mother Crauford, they call me. How old am I?’

‘Not much older than twenty-four,’ Ranulf teased.

The old woman’s head turned as quick as a bird’s.

‘Now, there’s a pretty bullyboy. I’ve seen you all come and go.’ She pointed a bony finger. ‘How old am I?’

‘Seventy?’ Corbett asked quickly.

‘I’m past my eighty-fifth summer.’

Corbett stared down in disbelief. ‘You keep your years well, Mother.’

‘Go and read the baptism accounts.’ Mother Crauford pointed to the church. ‘Born in the autumn of 1218. I remember the King’s father coming here. Small and fat he was, hair as gold as wheat.’

Corbett stared in disbelief at this old woman who had seen the King’s father in his youth.

‘And so you’ve come to hunt the ghosts, have you?’ she continued. ‘Melford is full of ghosts. It’s always been a wicked place.’

‘So you think warmly of this town?’ Ranulf taunted.

‘I think warmly of no one, Red Hair! It’s true what the preacher says. Men are steeped in wickedness.’

‘You mean the killings?’ Corbett asked.

‘Murders more like it.’ The old woman let go of the reins of his horse. ‘There have always been murders in Melford. It’s a place of blood. No wonder! They say a town was here before even the priests arrived; little difference they’ve made. Anyway, I wish you well.’

She hobbled on. Corbett watched her go. He’d seen the same in many a town or village. The old, shaking their heads over the doings of their younger, stronger ones.

Tressilyian and Sir Maurice rode up.

‘I see you’ve met Old Mother Crauford,’ Sir Maurice smiled. ‘The townspeople call her Jeremiah. They heard a sermon given by the parson, how the prophet Jeremiah would always be lamenting the sins of the people. Ever since then she’s been called Jeremiah. She hasn’t a pleasant word for anybody or anything.’

Corbett watched the old woman retreat into the mist. When I really start snooping, he thought, I’ll visit her. It’s always the old who know the gossip.

‘Sir Hugh?’

‘I am sorry,’ Corbett apologised. ‘Ranulf, Chanson, we’ll meet at the Golden Fleece and thaw the cold from our bones.’

He turned his horse and followed Tressilyian and Chapeleys down the lane and on to the high road. The day was now drawing to a close. The market stalls on either side of the thoroughfare were being taken down. Corbett gazed about. Despite Old Mother Crauford’s lamentations, Melford appeared to be a prosperous place: well-built houses of stone and timber, freshly washed plaster, windows full of glass. The townspeople were no different from any others in these thriving market centres. They reached the end of the high road and entered the town square, fronted by shops, merchant houses with their high timbered eaves and sloping slate roofs. The square even boasted a grandiose guildhall with steps up to a columned entrance as well as a covered wool market where the merchants sold their produce.

‘Why isn’t the church here?’ Corbett asked.

‘Melford’s grown,’ Sir Maurice called back over his shoulder. ‘It began round the old church but all things change.’

Aye they do, Corbett thought, eyeing the two manor lords. Both Chapeleys and Tressilyian were well dressed, in robes of pure wool, edged with squirrel fur, Spanish riding boots, gilt spurs, whilst the saddles and harnesses of their horses were of the best stitched leather, gleaming and polished. Corbett noticed the rings on the men’s fingers and the velvet-tipped sword scabbards. Both knights had taken these off and slipped them over the saddle horns. Corbett had heard the King talk of the growing wealth of these country knights, turning their fields of corn and barley into pasture for sheep, whose wool was in sharp demand by the looms of the Low Countries. Melford boasted such wealth. The marketplace was properly cobbled, with a pavement at one end. The stocks and pillories were full of malefactors: vagrants, drunken youths who spent the days in the taverns and whose raucous voices had threatened the day’s trading. Market beadles swaggered amongst the stalls. They carried scales and specially carved knives so as to weigh and test different produce. Outside one tavern the ale-conners, or ale-tasters, had broached a barrel and were busy sampling its contents to see if the taverner was selling lighter ale at the highest prices.

‘There’s your hostelry!’ Sir Maurice called out, gesturing across to the Golden Fleece which stood on the corner of an alleyway. A three-storeyed building, black-timbered, its plaster washed a light pink, the tavern had windows of mullioned glass that gleamed in the light of the lanterns slung on hooks along the beam spanning the ground floor. ‘Taverner Alliot serves you well?’

‘He keeps a fine house,’ Corbett replied. ‘Matthew Alliot lives high on the hog.’

‘Aye, he does that,’ Chapeleys replied sourly.

‘He was a witness at your father’s trial, wasn’t he?’

Corbett edged his horse forward. They were now on the edge of the square. Chapeleys reined in, still staring back at the tavern. Corbett noticed how the noise and bustle of the market, the cries of traders had faded as they entered the square. Oh, there was the usual bustle and shouting, the cries of chapmen, ‘What do you lack? What do you lack?’ Dogs and children darted in and out. Apprentices, still sharp-eyed for customers, swaggered about but Corbett felt as if many of them were watching. Was it the presence of a King’s clerk and a royal judge?

‘Sir Hugh?’ Tressilyian leant over and gently touched Corbett on the shoulder. ‘I can read your thoughts, master clerk, and, perhaps answer them. The townspeople realise you are here because of the murders. It’s trade as usual but people are worried.’

‘And can you read Sir Maurice’s mind?’ Corbett replied. ‘It’s true, isn’t it? Taverner Alliot was a witness against your father?’

‘Yes, yes, he was.’ Chapeleys broke free from his reverie. ‘On the night Goodwoman Walmer was murdered, my father went to the Golden Fleece to slake his thirst. According to Alliot, my father said he was going to the goodwoman’s cottage.’

‘But that’s not a lie, is it?’ Corbett asked.

He swore as a dog came yapping at his horse’s hoofs.

‘No, it’s not.’ Sir Maurice gathered the reins in his hand. ‘Oh, never mind. Let’s go on, the light is fading.’

They went down a narrow lane, out along the back streets, past the garden plots, piggeries and outside stables of the cottagers’ houses. They turned right up a cobbled track and reached the crossroads, a slight rise providing a good view of the surrounding countryside. A little of this was plough land but most of it meadows, dotted with sheep. Small copses and lines of hedgerow broke the greenery. To Corbett’s left, the beginning of a great forest which stretched north. He shaded his eyes and caught a glimpse of the river Swaile.

‘Prosperous land,’ he murmured. ‘Well cleared and watered. It makes me homesick.’

He wondered what Maeve was doing at their Manor of Leighton. Would she be in the kitchen doing business with the steward and bailiffs, checking their accounts, planning what they were doing tomorrow? Eleanor would be tottering around whilst Uncle Morgan would be leaning over the crib-cradle tickling Baby Edward. Or, if Maeve wasn’t looking, trying to pick him up and play with him once again.

‘I hate this place!’

Corbett started. Sir Maurice had moved ahead and was staring up at the great gallows post, its three stark branches black against the evening sky. Corbett had studied a map of Melford. Of course, this was the spot where Sir Roger had been executed. The scaffold was immense, its main post sunk deep into the earth and strengthened by mortar. Sir Louis was also staring up, as if fascinated by the sharp hooks at the edge of each outstretched beam. Sir Maurice crossed himself and sat for a while, head bowed. The cold breeze caught their cloaks, tugging at their hoods.

‘It was here?’ Corbett asked. ‘Were you present?’

‘No, he wasn’t,’ Tressilyian whispered back. ‘He was only a lad. His servants kept him at the manor, Thockton Hall.’

Corbett was about to continue his questioning when Sir Maurice cursed and jumped down from his horse. He walked over to the scaffold. Corbett glimpsed a piece of parchment fluttering on a nail just above the base of the beam. Sir Maurice snatched this off and brought it back.

‘It’s the same as on the gravestone,’ he murmured, handing it to Corbett.

The parchment was a greasy piece of old vellum: in the fading light Corbett made out the red scrawl: ‘REMEMBER!’

‘Someone has been busy. Sir Maurice, may I keep this?’

His companion nodded. Corbett folded the scrap of paper and slipped it into his wallet. The clerk stared around. The crossroads and the surrounding fields were not so pleasant now. The breeze was cold, the sky more grey and threatening, the misty haze like a shifting gauze veil. A feeling of dread, of quiet menace pervaded. The lives of many in Melford had been blighted. The secrets they nursed, hidden sins, could surface and manifest themselves in brutal and bloody death, especially on an evening such as this.

At Tressilyian’s insistence they rode on, Chapeleys slightly ahead of the others. Corbett considered drawing Tressilyian into conversation about the trial but decided that this was not the time nor place. The justice himself seemed to be in a dark mood, keeping his head down, chin tucked into his cloak, cowl pulled across his face. Corbett realised that Tressilyian must also be alarmed, seriously concerned that he had condemned and supervised the execution of an innocent man. The silence grew oppressive. Corbett could understand why Ranulf, a creature of the alleyways and streets of London, felt fearful in the countryside, especially in this quiet time before dusk as if the creatures of the night were waiting for darkness to fall. The path they had taken was nothing more than a broad, rutted trackway, ditches on either side and high, prickly hedgerows. Every so often this line would be broken by a gate or stile.