Hugh Corbett 10 - The Devil's Hunt

by Paul Doherty

  ‘Sir Hugh,’ Tripham apologised, sipping from his wine, ‘I appreciate that the hostelry is, perhaps, not the best or most luxurious of quarters.’

  Corbett quietly kicked Ranulf before he could reply.

  ‘I’ve slept in worse,’ Corbett retorted. ‘Master Norreys does his best!’

  ‘You see,’ Lady Mathilda spoke up, ‘the statutes of Sparrow Hall make it very clear. My brother, God bless his memory, decreed this was a house of study and, apart from myself, no other visitors can be lodged here.’

  ‘You are not a visitor,’ Tripham declared tactfully.

  Lady Mathilda just sniffed and looked away.

  ‘How long has the college been founded?’ Corbett asked.

  ‘Thirty years,’ Lady Mathilda replied. ‘The year after King Edward’s coronation. My brother -’ her eyes brightened ‘- wanted a place of scholarship, of books and manuscripts. Sparrow Hall has produced clerks, scholars, priests and bishops,’ she continued proudly. ‘My brother would have been pleased, though,’ she added darkly, ‘perhaps his contribution to the hall and its founding have not been fully recognised.’

  ‘Lady Mathilda,’ Tripham sighed. ‘We have been down this path many a time. Our resources are few.’

  ‘I still believe,’ Lady Mathilda sniffed, ‘that the Hall could find new resources to found a Chair in the University in my brother’s name.’ She pulled at the skin of her throat. ‘Soon all those who knew my brother will be dead and his great achievements forgotten.’ She glanced at Corbett. ‘The King, too, is ungrateful: a grant of monies...’

  ‘His Grace cannot grant,’ Corbett replied, ‘what he has not got.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ Lady Mathilda agreed. ‘The war in Scotland. It’s a pity.’ She picked up her wine cup and stared at the fire. ‘It’s a pity Edward has forgotten my brother and the day he defended the royal standard at Evesham when de Montfort fell.’

  ‘No one forgets,’ Tripham interrupted tactfully.

  ‘No, and neither do I,’ Lady Mathilda retorted. ‘Perhaps the Hall’s accounts should be examined more carefully.’

  ‘What are you implying?’ Tripham’s scraggy neck tensed, his Adam’s apple bobbing like a cork in a pond.

  Ranulf and Maltote sat bemused at the rancour between two of their hosts. Corbett, embarrassed, stared at the sparrow carved above the motto on the stone mantelpiece. He translated the Latin, a quotation from the Gospel, ‘Are you not worth more than many sparrows?’ Lady Mathilda must have noticed Corbett’s distraction for she sighed, gesturing at Tripham that these matters would have to wait.

  ‘Sir Hugh, do you make any sense of Passerel’s death? Could he have been the Bellman?’ Tripham asked. ‘I mean, the attack by the students was unforgiveable. But—’ He pulled a face. ‘Ascham was a well-loved master, child-like in his innocence. He did scrawl most of Passerel’s name on a piece of parchment before he died.’

  ‘It would be tempting,’ Corbett replied, ‘to claim Passerel as the Bellman; to think that he murdered Ascham because the librarian had discovered his secret identity and that Passerel later fled to St Michael’s where he was murdered out of revenge.’ Corbett put his cup down on the floor. ‘If that was the truth, and I could prove it, the King would dismiss Passerel’s death as a mere nothing. He’d declare that the Bellman had been silenced, that justice had been done and I could leave Oxford.’ Corbett shrugged. ‘Who knows, we could even build a case that Passerel may be behind the deaths of these old beggars who have been found in the woods outside the city.’

  ‘But would your logic be so flawed?’ a voice called out from behind him.

  Corbett turned as Master Leonard Appleston picked up a stool and came across to join them. He introduced himself, giving Corbett and his companions a vigorous shake of the hands.

  ‘You are skilled in logic?’ Corbett asked.

  Appleston’s square, sunburnt face creased into a smile; his eyes took on a rather shy look. He scratched at an angry sore on the corner of his mouth, like some schoolboy wondering whether he should be praised or not.

  ‘Leonard is a master in logic,’ Lady Mathilda spoke up. ‘His lectures in the schools are most popular.’

  ‘I heard what you said,’ Appleston declared. ‘It would be neat and tidy if poor Passerel was cast as the assassin, the “fons et origo” of all our troubles.’

  ‘Do you believe that?’ Corbett asked.

  ‘If a problem exists,’ Appleston said, smiling at Ranulf and making more room, ‘then a solution must exist.’

  ‘Aye, and that’s the problem,’ Corbett replied. ‘But what happens if the problem is complex but the solution so simple that you wonder if a problem existed in the first place?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Appleston asked, taking a goblet from Master Moth.

  Corbett paused to collect his thoughts.

  ‘Master Appleston, you lecture in the schools on the existence of God?’

  ‘Yes, my lectures are based on Aquinas’s Summa Theologica.’

  ‘And you comment on his proofs of God’s existence?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘In which case,’ Corbett replied, ‘wouldn’t you agree that, if I could prove God exists, God would cease to exist?’

  Appleston narrowed his eyes.

  ‘I mean,’ Corbett continued. ‘If I, who am finite and mortal, can prove, beyond a doubt, that an infinite and immortal being exists, then either I am also infinite and immortal, or that which I am proving can’t exist in the first place. In other words, such slight proof for the existence of God is too simple, and is, therefore, not logical. It’s a bit like me saying I can put a gallon of water into a pint tankard: if I could then it is either not a gallon or the tankard can hold more than a pint.’

  ‘Concedo,’ Appleston said grudgingly. ‘Though I would have to think about what you said, Sir Hugh.’

  ‘The same applies to Passerel,’ Corbett added quickly. ‘If he is the Bellman, the assassin of Robert Ascham and John Copsale, not to mention the old beggars, then I would say the solution is simple, too tidy, too neat and, therefore, totally illogical.’

  ‘I agree,’ Ranulf declared, pulling a face at Maltote.

  ‘So, who did kill Ascham?’ Tripham asked quietly.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Corbett replied. ‘That’s why I am here.’ He turned to Tripham. ‘I would like to visit the library tonight, perhaps after dinner?’

  ‘Of course,’ the Vice-Regent replied. ‘We can take our sweet wine down there: it’s a comfortable chamber.’

  Master Moth came over. He tapped Lady Mathilda on the shoulder, making strange signs with his fingers.

  ‘Dinner will be served soon,’ she declared, getting to her feet. She grasped her cane which stood in the corner of the fireplace. ‘Gentlemen, I shall meet you later.’ She hobbled out, one hand resting on the cane, the other on the arm of her silent servant.

  The conversation continued in a rather desultory fashion. Appleston and Tripham asked questions about the court and the price of corn at Leighton Manor. They were joined by other Masters: Aylric Churchley, a Master of the Natural Sciences, thin as an ash pole, with a waspish face and grey tufts of hair standing high on a balding head. He spoke in such a high, squeaky voice Corbett silently had to warn Ranulf and Maltote not to laugh. Peter Langton, a small, wrinkled-browed, narrow-faced man with rheumy eyes, who deferred to everyone, especially Churchley, whom he hailed as Oxford’s greatest physician. Bernard Barnett was the last to arrive, fat-faced with a high forehead; a tub of a man with his startling eyes and protruding lower lip. He had a pugnacious look as if ready to dispute, at the drop of a coin, how many angels could sit on the edge of a pin.

  Lady Mathilda returned and Tripham led them out, along the passageway into the dining hall. This was a luxurious, oval-shaped room, cosy and warm. The table down the centre was covered in white samite cloths which shimmered, in the light of the beeswax candles, on the silver and pewter cups, jugs and cutlery. Beautiful hangings and tapestries,
depicting scenes from the life of King Arthur, hung above the dark-brown wainscoting. Small rugs covered the floor; sweet-scented braziers stood in each corner while large pots of roses had been placed on the cushioned window seats, their sweet, fragrant smell mingling with the cloying and mouth-watering odours from the buttery at the far end. Tripham sat at the top, Lady Mathilda on his right, Corbett on his left. Ranulf and Maltote were placed at the far end with Richard Norreys who had been supervising the cooks in the kitchen. Tripham said Grace, sketched a hasty blessing and the meal was served: quail soup followed by swan and pheasant in rich wine sauces, and roast beef in mustard. All the time the wine flowed freely, served by silent waiters who stood in the shadows. Corbett tasted every dish and drank sparingly but Ranulf and Maltote fell on the delicious dishes like starving wolves.

  Most of the Masters drank deeply and quickly, their faces becoming flushed, their voices rising. Tripham was unusually silent whilst Lady Mathilda, whose rancour against the Vice-Regent was apparent, only nibbled carefully at her food and sipped from her wine cup. Now and again she’d turn and make those strange finger gestures to Master Moth.

  Tripham leaned across. ‘Sir Hugh, you wish to talk to us about your presence in Oxford?’

  ‘Yes, Master, I do.’ Corbett looked down the table. ‘Perhaps now is as good a time as any.’

  Tripham rapped the table and asked for silence.

  ‘Our guest, Sir Hugh Corbett,’ he announced, ‘has certain questions to ask us.’

  ‘You all know,’ Corbett began brusquely, ‘about the Bellman and his treasonable publications.’

  All of the Masters refused to meet his eyes but stared at each other or toyed with their cups or knives.

  ‘The Bellman,’ Corbett continued, ‘proclaims he is from Sparrow Hall. We know the handwriting to be a clerkly hand, albeit anyone’s, and the parchment expensive; consequently the writer is a man of some wealth and learning.’

  ‘It’s none of us!’ Churchley screeched, running his fingers round the collar of his dark-blue robe. ‘No man here is a traitor. Satan could claim that he lives in Sparrow Hall but, whether he does or not, is another matter.’

  His words were greeted with a murmured assent, even the soft-spoken Langton nodding his head vigorously.

  ‘So, no one here has any knowledge of the Bellman?’

  A chorus of denials greeted his question.

  ‘He writes and posts his proclamations at night,’ Churchley explained. ‘Sir Hugh, we are all eager for our beds. Even if we wanted to wander abroad, Oxford, after dark, is a dangerous place. Moreover, our doors are locked and bolted. Anyone who left at such a late hour would certainly provoke attention.’

  ‘Which is why,’ Appleston spoke up hurriedly, ‘the writer may well be a student. Some scholars are poor but others are rich. They have a clerkly hand and, amongst the young, de Montfort still has the status of a martyr.’

  ‘Is there a curfew at the hostelry?’ Corbett asked Norreys.

  ‘Of course, Sir Hugh, but proclaiming one and enforcing it on hot-blooded youths is another matter - they can come and go as they wish.’

  ‘Let us say,’ Corbett said, ‘causa disputandi, that the Bellman is neither a member of Sparrow Hall nor the hostelry - why then should he say he is?’

  ‘Ah!’ Lady Mathilda sniffed, folding back the voluminous cuffs of her robe. ‘There’s so much nonsense written about de Montfort. When my beloved brother came here and founded the Hall and bought the tenements opposite for the hostelry, a widow woman with a child lived in the wine cellars across the lane. She was quite fair but something of a madcap; apparently her husband had been one of de Montfort’s councillors. My brother, God bless him, had to ask her to leave. He offered her alternative dwellings but she refused them.’ Lady Mathilda ran her finger round the rim of her cup. ‘To cut a long story short, Sir Hugh, the woman took to wandering the streets with her boy, until one winter’s night he died. She brought his little corpse down to the lane. She had a hand-bell and began to ring it. A crowd assembled, my brother and myself included. Then she lit a candle, fashioned, so she claimed, from the fat of a hanged man, and she cursed both my brother and Sparrow Hall. She vowed that one day the Bellman would come and wreak revenge, both for her and for the so-called glorious memory of Earl Simon.’

  ‘What happened to her?’ Corbett asked.

  Lady Mathilda grinned; in the flickering candlelight she reminded Corbett of a cat, with narrowed eyes, the skin of her face drawn tight, one hand curled like a claw on the table.

  ‘Now that’s a coincidence, Sir Hugh. She entered the nunnery at Godstowe but, because of her extravagances, left there. She is now an anchorite at St Michael’s Church. Oh yes! The same place in which Passerel was poisoned.’

  ‘Why the Bellman?’ Maltote, usually quiet but now emboldened by drink, spoke up. ‘Why did the anchorite refer to the Bellman?’

  ‘Because,’ Tripham intervened quickly, ‘in London, the Bellman stands outside the Fleet and Newgate prisons on the night before execution day. He warns the prisoners in the condemned cell that they are about to die.’

  ‘It’s not only that,’ Langton spoke up shyly. ‘Sir Hugh, many years ago when I was a mere stripling, I was an apprentice to a scrivener near St Paul’s. When de Montfort raised the banner of rebellion against the King, the trained bands of London were summoned by his herald, who called himself the Bellman.’

  Corbett smiled his agreement but secretly wondered how many at Sparrow Hall had fought or supported the dead earl.

  ‘So, you know nothing,’ he asked, ‘about the present Bellman or these gruesome deaths amongst the beggars?’

  ‘Come, come!’ Churchley tapped the table. ‘Sir Hugh, Sir Hugh! Why should any man here want to take the heads of such destitute people?’

  ‘Oxford is full of covens and groups,’ Appleston spoke up. ‘The young dabble in strange rites and practices. We have men from the eastern marches whose Christianity, to put it bluntly, is wafer thin.’

  ‘Let us return to more familiar domestic matters,’ Corbett replied. ‘Master John Copsale’s death?’

  ‘He had a weak heart,’ Churchley declared. ‘I often made him a concoction of digitalis to temper the heat and make the blood flow more evenly. Sir Hugh, I was Copsale’s physician. He could have died at any time: when I dressed his corpse for burial, I noticed nothing amiss!’

  ‘Where was he buried?’ Corbett asked.

  ‘In the churchyard of St Mary’s. Passerel will also be buried there. The Hall owns a plot of land adjoining the cemetery.’

  ‘Did Passerel say anything?’ Ranulf spoke up from the end of the table. ‘Anything at all to explain why Ascham should write his name, or most of it, on a piece of parchment?’

  ‘He hotly denied any blame,’ Norreys replied. ‘Every time he came over to check on the stores or sign the accounts, the poor fellow would begin a speech in his own defence.’

  ‘We all agreed with him,’ Tripham said. ‘The day Ascham was killed, Passerel was travelling back from Abingdon.’

  ‘Ascham’s corpse must have been cold,’ Churchley spoke up, ‘when Passerel arrived back about five o’clock. It was he who initiated the search for poor Robert, and when we forced the door Ascham was as cold as ice.’

  ‘What time do you think he died?’ Corbett asked.

  ‘We know,’ Tripham replied. ‘He went into the library - oh, between one and two o’clock in the afternoon. He locked and bolted the library door behind him. He must have been searching for something but exactly what he never mentioned. Now, for some of that afternoon, I was with Lady Mathilda discussing the Hall’s revenues.’ He glared meaningfully to his right. ‘We then went down to the buttery. Passerel burst in, saying the library was locked and he could get no answer from Ascham.’

  ‘And where were the rest of you?’

  The mumbled replies told him little. Norreys had been across in the hostelry doing his accounts: the rest had been in their chambers before going d
own to the buttery.

  ‘I ordered the door to be broken down,’ Tripham declared. ‘When we went in, Ascham was lying in a pool of blood, the letter beside him; the candle was burnt down and the garden window was shuttered.’

  ‘I examined him,’ Churchley spoke up. ‘It was just after five o’clock in the evening when we broke in. He must have been dead for about an hour.’

  ‘And what happened on the day Passerel fled to St Michael’s?’ Corbett asked.

  ‘The scholars,’ Tripham replied, ‘loved old Ascham. On the day in question, a mob gathered threatening violence.’

  ‘Couldn’t you have sent to the Sheriff for help?’

  ‘Aye, and we’d still be waiting,’ Appelston replied. ‘I told Passerel to flee: it seemed the best course of action.’

  ‘We thought it wise to let hot blood cool,’ Tripham added. ‘The following morning, I would have petitioned for help.’ He tapped the table cloth. ‘In the circumstances, it’s difficult to blame the students.’

  Corbett pushed his wine cup away. At the far end of the table Maltote and Ranulf looked at him expectantly. Maltote was completely bemused. Ranulf was grinning, running his tongue round his lips. As he often whispered to Maltote, ‘I love to see old Master Long Face get to the questioning. A true lawyer he is, with those sharp, hooded eyes. He sits and questions and then he’ll go away and brood.’ Ranulf took great pleasure in what was happening. Apart from Norreys, the rest of the Masters had ignored him as if he did not exist. Suddenly a screech owl called outside and Ranulf shivered. Wasn’t Uncle Morgan always saying that a screech owl’s call was the harbinger of death?

  Chapter 5

  Corbett sat in silence. He studied his wine cup, a trick he often used to force others to speak. This time he was disappointed. Lady Mathilda and the rest just stared back expectantly.

  Corbett began his questioning again. ‘Did Ascham ever say anything untoward? If the Bellman killed him there can only be one reason for that: Ascham must have begun to suspect his identity.’ He clasped his hands together on the table. ‘Now students are not allowed to come into the Hall, are they?’