Hugh Corbett 13 - Corpse Candle (9 page)

The Watcher by the Gates blinked, his face crestfallen.

‘It’s not right,’ he moaned. ‘All because I wanted some meat!’ He waved his stubby fingers.

‘To be fair,’ Prior Cuthbert spoke up. ‘Our Watcher by the Gates is allowed to wander the abbey grounds. As a kindness, we often feed him from our kitchens.’

‘See,’ the Watcher replied, baring his teeth at Corbett. ‘I’ll tell you what happened. I came in, and was given some ale and a juicy strip of pork, salty and thick, and a small loaf of rye bread. I went out into Bloody Meadow to eat it.’

‘Do you always go there?’

‘I like it there, away from prying eyes! The burial mound is sacred and I am sure the fairies gather there. When I came out I noticed something lying on the top. I went up and even in the poor light I could see it was one of the monks. All I could glimpse was Mandeville’s mark on his forehead. “Oh, Lord save us!” said I. “Oh, Virgin Queen of Heaven, help me!”’ The Watcher clapped his hands. ‘I ran back in, got the lay brother, told him what I had seen, the rest you know.’

‘Cover Gildas’s corpse,’ Prior Cuthbert ordered.

Aelfric went to one of the chests. He brought out a large white cloth which he draped over the corpse. Corbett waited until he’d finished.

‘And what makes you think it’s Mandeville?’ he asked turning to the Watcher. ‘I don’t believe in ghosts. I don’t believe the dead ride. Gildas was killed by flesh and blood.’

‘Gildas was killed by something evil.’ The Watcher’s face became sly. ‘It’s a warning to the good brothers here.’

‘About what?’ Prior Cuthbert asked sharply.

The Watcher danced from foot to foot.

‘This is what I think! This is what I think! Abbot Stephen was going to allow you to build your guesthouse in Bloody Meadow, desecrate the sacred burial ground.’

‘How do you know that?’ Corbett demanded.

‘Oh, I know what I know,’ the Watcher replied. He tapped the side of his head. ‘I can hear things on the breeze.’

‘You’ll hear me,’ Ranulf declared, gripping him by the shoulder. ‘Tell my master, how did you know?’

‘The Abbot told me.’ The Watcher squirmed in Ranulf’s grip. ‘Take your hand off me, Red Hair!’

Corbett nodded at Ranulf who stepped back.

‘This is new to me,’ Brother Hamo declared. ‘Why should our Father Abbot tell such a thing to a hermit and not to members of his Concilium?’

‘Perhaps it was just a passing fancy?’ the Watcher declared. ‘You know how Abbot Stephen liked to walk outside the walls of the abbey, ave beads in one hand, crucifix in the other. And you, his shadow,’ he pointed at Perditus, ‘always walking behind him. Well, the day before he died . . .’

‘That’s right,’ Perditus interrupted. ‘Father Abbot did stop and speak to you.’

‘I asked him why he looked so troubled,’ the Watcher continued. ‘“Guesthouses” the Abbot replied quickly. “Perhaps I should allow a new one to be built?” He seemed distracted and walked on. I tell you the truth, I tell you the truth!’

Corbett glanced back at the sheeted corpse and round at the others. Chanson guarded the door. Ranulf lounged, eyes on his master, watchful, tense as a cat. The monks stood like statues as if unable to cope with what had happened.

I could question you further, Corbett thought. Yet, in his mind’s eye he recalled the sprawling abbey buildings, the Judas Gate, the postern doors, the lonely fields and orchards outside beyond the wall. With darkness falling early, Gildas’s assassin could move with impunity, protected by the commotion caused by Abbot Stephen’s death and burial as well as Corbett’s arrival.

‘I think there’s nothing more we can do for the moment,’ Corbett declared. ‘The hour grows late.’

He was going across to take a sconce torch out of its bracket when the abbey bell began to toll, like a tocsin; not the slow melodious clang which is an invitation to prayer, but sharp and quick.

‘God and his Saints!’ Prior Cuthbert declared. ‘What’s the matter now?’

There was a pounding at the door. Chanson pulled it open. Brother Richard the almoner, out of breath, burst in, hand out to the Prior.

‘Father, you must come and see this! You, too, Sir Hugh!’

‘What about me?’ the Watcher by the Gates demanded.

‘Go home!’ Corbett retorted. ‘Though we’ll have words later, Watcher by the Gates.’

Corbett went out into the cold night air, striding fast to keep up with Brother Richard.

‘It’s in the church – desecration, blasphemy!’

They went up the steps and through the main door. To Corbett’s left, a monk still pulled at the bell.

‘Thank you!’ the clerk shouted. ‘We realise something’s wrong.’ He grasped the almoner by the arm. ‘But what?’

Brother Richard pointed down the nave. A few candles still glowed in the sanctuary. Corbett studied the entrance to the rood screen. Ranulf saw it first.

‘Angels’ wings!’ he breathed. ‘In God’s name, what is it?’

Corbett felt his skin prickle with fear. Brother Richard hung back as he walked up the nave, footsteps echoing hollowly. He could hear voices behind him. As he drew closer, Corbett’s stomach heaved. The corpse of a cat, throat cut, had been hooked by its tail and left to swing from the beam above the rood screen door. Its bristling fur, swinging body and the pool of blood beneath, turned his stomach and made his gorge rise. Corbett was about to turn away when he saw the piece of parchment pinned to the corpse. He covered his mouth and snatched at it. Plucking it out, his fingers brushed the animal’s fur, and Corbett felt as if he was going to be sick.

‘Ranulf!’ he shouted. ‘For God’s sake, take care of it!’

His henchman, muttering and cursing, cut the corpse down. Brother Richard hurried up with a wooden box he’d found in the bell tower. Ranulf put the cat in this and took it through a side door. Corbett stood for a while breathing deeply. He felt his stomach calm.

‘Are you all right, Sir Hugh?’

Chanson came up. His master’s face had gone pale.

‘It’s not the poor creature,’ Corbett replied, ‘but it just looked so hideous swinging there.’

He walked down the church. In the light of the torch he read the scrap of parchment. The words were scrawled like those of a child on a piece of slate: ‘JUSTICE WILL BE DONE. THE SWORD OF MANDEVILLE WILL NOT BE FAR FROM THIS HOUSE.’ Corbett studied it carefully. The parchment could have come from anywhere: it was jagged, rather dirty, the black ink was common and the words had been deliberately scrawled to conceal the writer’s style. Corbett handed it to Prior Cuthbert.

‘Where was the cat from?’ he asked.

‘One of the many we have round here, Sir Hugh. They wage eternal war against the rats in our barns. A senseless cruelty.’

‘Yes,’ Corbett agreed.

He took the Prior by the shoulder and led him away. Cuthbert looked frightened, agitated.

‘Believe me, Brother,’ Corbett whispered. ‘Abbot Stephen’s murder was not the last, neither will Gildas’s be. Someone with a sick mind and a rotten soul has declared war against your community. More deaths will occur. So, tell me, is there anything I should know?’

The Prior licked dry lips, and dropped his gaze.

‘There’s nothing,’ he declared. ‘Nothing at all. We have done no wrong, there is no sin here.’

‘In which case I would like to see Gildas’s workshop.’

Corbett joined Ranulf and Chanson outside the church.

‘I have disposed of the cat,’ Ranulf declared. ‘Poor animal! To be caught, have its throat cut and then trussed up like that.’

‘Thank you.’ Corbett patted him on the shoulder. ‘Long ago I saw a cat crushed by a cart, it’s an image which has never left me.’

‘And the message?’ Ranulf asked.

Corbett told him. A lay brother came out carrying a torch and led them across the abbey. Gildas’s workshop lay near the far wall. They went inside, where candles and oil lamps were lit. Corbett stared round at the table and work benches, the racks of tools, the heap of cut stone. The floor was covered with dust. He scraped it with his foot and eventually found a dark, wine-like stain.

‘This is where Gildas lay,’ he declared, crouching down. ‘He was probably struck on the head and then had his hands tied.’ He pointed to the pile of stone and the brazier. ‘He was killed here and branded.’

Corbett went outside. On the far side of the workshops stood an orchard, the stripped branches of its trees stark against the night sky.

‘A lonely enough place to hide a corpse,’ Corbett observed. ‘Then it would be carried out through that gate and taken to Bloody Meadow.’

‘Do you think,’ Ranulf asked, ‘that we are dealing with one assassin or two?’

‘I don’t know,’ Corbett said. ‘One fact I have grasped: Abbot Stephen and the leading officials of this abbey clashed over Bloody Meadow and the building of that guesthouse.’

He walked to the small postern gate built into the wall, drew back the bolts and went through: a narrow path divided the wall from a small copse of trees.

‘Bloody Meadow,’ Corbett whispered. ‘Gildas’s killer placed that corpse on the burial mound deliberately. But why? And why did Abbot Stephen change his mind so abruptly? If we believe our Watcher, the abbot was deep in thought, considering all possibilities and let slip that he was thinking of changing his mind. So why was he killed? And what is all this nonsense about Mandeville?’

He walked up the path, the curtain wall beside him rose high and sheer. On his left the woods gave way to grass and shrubs. A mist was curling in. Corbett paused and saw the lights flickering.

‘Corpse Candles,’ he declared. ‘I remember these when I was a child, they always terrified me. Some people claimed they were candles held by the angels of death hovering to reap their harvest.’ His voice sounded strange in the dark stillness. ‘Only when I was at Oxford, did a Magister explain how swamps and marshes give off a substance which can glow in the dark. Yet even knowing this, they are still frightening.’

Ranulf repressed a shiver and tapped the hilt of his dagger. He hated the countryside; he found it more dangerous and threatening than any alleyway in Southwark. Corbett was about to go back when he heard a hunting horn braying. He paused. The sound came from some distance away. Ranulf cursed under his breath as the shrill blast was repeated, two, three times.

‘It’s easy to scoff at Mandeville’s ghost,’ Ranulf declared. ‘But, out here in the dark, with the mist curling in . . .?’

‘I wonder what that could be?’ Corbett murmured. ‘Why has it started again now? And what connection does it have with these deaths?’

‘Shall we try and find out?’ Chanson asked.

‘Not now, it is too dark for chasing ghostly huntsmen!’

And the clerk went back through the gate into the abbey grounds. Corbett told Ranulf and Chanson to return to the guesthouse.

‘Stay together,’ he warned.

Ranulf gestured at Chanson to walk away. He tugged at Corbett’s sleeve and pulled him into the buttress of one of the buildings.

‘And what about you, Master?’

Corbett felt how tense and watchful his companion had become.

‘You know the Lady Maeve’s instructions!’ Ranulf insisted. ‘I am not to leave you alone. This may be a house of God, Sir Hugh, but it is also the abode of murder with its lonely chambers, empty galleries and passageways. One monk looks much like another,’ Ranulf jibed. ‘They are quite capable of thrusting a dagger or loosing an arrow through the dark.’

‘And the King?’ Corbett asked. He wanted to resolve an issue which had been nagging at him since he’d left Norwich. ‘Why do you start, Ranulf? Are you under secret instructions from him?’

Ranulf stepped back and leaned against the wall.

‘Come, come, Ranulf-atte-Newgate, principal Clerk in the Chancery of the Green Wax,’ Corbett teased. ‘How ambitious are you? Why did the King take you by the arm and stroll through the rose garden with you?’

‘Why, Master, were you spying on me?’

‘Why, Ranulf, I didn’t have to. Most of those at the Bishop of Norwich’s palace saw you.’

‘Are you jealous?’

Corbett laughed merrily.

‘I am sorry,’ Ranulf apologised.

‘Ranulf, Ranulf!’ Corbett gripped him by the shoulder. ‘Once you ran ragged-arsed through the alleyways of White Friars and Southwark. Ranulf the riffler, the roaring boy, the night-walker, the footpad. Now you are a clerk with good linen shirts, and woollen hose, your shoulders protected by thick warm cloaks, and a broad leather belt strapped round your waist. Spanish boots are on your feet with clinking spurs; sword and dagger are fastened at your side. You carry the King’s Seal, you are his man in peace and war. What more do you want, Ranulf-atte-Newgate? You have monies salted away with the goldsmiths in London. You’ve hired a chantry priest to sing Masses for your soul. How many horses do you own – three or four, including one from Barbary, in our stables at Leighton. You are skilled in every form of writing, drawing up an indenture, sealing a charter, issuing a proclamation. Now the King walks with you arm-in-arm. Why, Ranulf-atte-Newgate? Does he trust you? Do you trust me, Ranulf?’

‘With my life, Master. You know that. Your enemies are mine.’

Corbett let his hand fall away. He thought of Edward the King: hair and beard now iron-grey; those cynical, watchful eyes, the right one slightly drooping; his swift changes of mood, either charming or coldly ruthless. Edward was a King who didn’t stand on ceremony; and could also play the warrior, clad in his black armour on Bayard his war horse, hanging Scottish rebels by the dozen, not turning a hair as villages were ravaged by fire and sword.

‘The devil can come in many forms, Ranulf, and tempt in many ways. Did the King take you up to a high mountain and show you the glory which could be yours?’

‘I don’t understand,’ Ranulf stammered.

‘My friend, you do. The King is impatient. I have read the records. Sir Stephen Daubigny, late Abbot of this place, was once one of the King’s boon companions, a knight who fought with him during the dark days of Simon de Montfort. The King owes Abbot Stephen his life. Remember the King’s motto: “My word is my bond”. Now, Ranulf-atte-Newgate, you know and I know, and the King suspects, that Abbot Stephen’s killer is a monk, a priest, a member of the Body Spiritual. If I catch him, and God willing I shall, I cannot hand him over to the sheriff or carry out judgement myself and hang him from the nearest gallows. So, what has the King told you? To carry out justice on his behalf? Summary execution? Do you carry in your wallet one of those writs: “What Ranulf-Atte-Newgate has done, he has done for the good of the King and the safety of his realm”.’ Corbett stepped closer. ‘You can’t do that, Ranulf. There is the King but above him stands the law. The law is all-important.’