by Paul Doherty
More courses were served: fish in a tangy sauce, roast beef in an onion stew, small loaves of wheaten bread. Corbett ate quietly, half-listening to Sir Peter's plan for the following morning. His eyes grew heavy. Images of Maeve flickered through his mind then Uncle Morgan bawling out some Welsh song, Edward screaming at him from the throne at Westminster about that damnable cipher, three kings visiting the two fools' tower with the two chevaliers… A grinning Ranulf nudged him awake.
'Master!'
Corbett smiled and picked up his wine cup. His stomach felt heavy, one of those rare occasions when he had eaten far too much and drunk too fast. Corbett loosened the belt around his waist to make himself more comfortable – then sprang to his feet.
'Of course!' he whispered to his startled companions. 'Of course!'
'What's the matter, man?' Branwood shouted.
Corbett looked at him. 'Sir Peter, my apologies but I have just realised that Lecroix was murdered.'
'What do you mean?' Branwood snapped.
'Nothing,' Corbett replied sourly. 'Except the way a man puts on his belt. Where is Lecroix's corpse now?'
'Where it was left, under a sheet in the cellar. You know soldiers, Sir Hugh, they are superstitious and refused to remove the corpse of a suicide except in daylight hours.'
'Then we had better go down,' Corbett insisted.
At Branwood's order, soldiers appeared with torches and led them down to the cellar. Corbett crouched in a pool of light and pulled back the sheets covering the corpse.
'Lecroix was left-handed?' he asked.
'Is this necessary?' Roteboeuf asked languidly. 'God's tooth, man! Having to look at Lecroix when he was alive was enough to put you off your dinner!'
Corbett ignored the sniggers. 'The corpse has not been disturbed?'
'Of course not.'
'Well,' Corbett said, 'look at the belt.' 'Oh, for God's sake!' snapped Branwood. Corbett tapped Lecroix's belt.
'You notice how the tongue at the loose end of the belt lies to the left?' 'So?'
'Lecroix was left-handed. I found that out when we examined the corpse earlier. This belt should be on the other way round, looped through the clasp, with the tongue of the belt hanging to his right.'
'He was so bloody drunk,' Naylor muttered, 'it was a wonder he could put it on at all.'
Corbett shrugged. 'I thought of that, until I remembered something else. See how this belt is fastened?' He undid the belt carefully and held it up. 'Now all the holes on this belt except for one are undamaged, for the simple reason that they were never used. A belt is a very personal article. We fasten it the same way every day – unless, of course, we become fatter.' Corbett moved his finger to a hole further up the belt, well away from the one Lecroix had used. 'See how this hole has been torn, slightly gouged? We can tell, from the specks of creamy leather underneath, that this was very recent.' He put down the belt and got to his feet. 'So I ask you first, why did Lecroix put his belt on the wrong way? Secondly, we have seen the hole he always used – so why is this one, much further up the belt, so recently damaged?'
Everyone stared back, Sir Peter open-mouthed, Naylor blinking as if he could not follow Corbett's reasoning. Friar Thomas looked expectant whilst Corbett caught a glint of understanding in Roteboeuf's eyes.
'My opinion,' Corbett concluded, 'is that this belt, on one occasion, was taken off Lecroix and used to bind something which strained against the belt, forcing the gouge marks around the second hole. I'll go further. This belt was strapped around Lecroix after he died. Or should I say was murdered?' Corbett knelt once more at the side of the corpse and pushed back the sleeves of the dead man's threadbare gown. 'Let us, for the sake of argument, maintain that Lecroix was murdered. Someone either took him down here or found him in a drunken stupor. Remember, Lecroix was not the most intelligent of God's creatures, God bless him, and even without wine often lapsed into a very deep sleep. With so much wine down him, I doubt very much whether he would remember his own name. So,' Corbett concluded, 'the murderer, once Lecroix was deep in his cups, took off the poor fellow's belt and bound it round him in such a way as to secure his arms.' Corbett took the belt and then carefully looped it round the corpse, threading the belt through the buckle and fastening it so Lecroix's arms were tightly pinned to his body.
Ranulf heard the murmur of agreement and grinned to himself. At last Old Master Long Face had shown them he was no fool for the belt fitted exactly at the point where the hole was recently gouged.
'Do you follow my meaning?' Corbett stared round. In the pool of torchlight they all nodded, their faces tense and watchful.
'See,' he repeated, 'the belt is now linked around the arms. Lecroix, in his drunken stupor, cannot move his hands. Our murderer then takes the drunken Lecroix, forces him to stand on that box, slips his neck through the waiting noose and knocks the box away, leaving him to kick and slowly choke to death. Now when I was here first, I thought of this possibility and so carefully examined the wrists.' Corbett undid the belt and pushed the sleeves of the gown even further back, pointing to the angry welts high on each arm just under the elbow.
'He was murdered!' Branwood declared.
'Oh, yes,' Corbett continued. 'A dreadful death, gentlemen. Lecroix may have taken minutes to die. Once he was dead, the murderer slipped out of the shadows, took off the belt and quickly wrapped it round the corpse's waist. As the assassin was right-handed, the belt was fastened differently from the way Lecroix would have tied it. And who would notice it? Who would discover the hole in the belt or the weals round the arm? Or, if they did, put all these items together?' Corbett got to his feet and shook his head. 'I only realised this when I undid my own belt in the hall.'
'But why?' Roteboeuf leaned forward.
Corbett noticed the clerk's face was pallid and covered in a sheen of sweat.
'Why should anyone murder poor Lecroix?'
'For two reasons,' Ranulf intervened, winking at his master. 'Isn't it obvious, sirs? First, if Lecroix committed suicide it's only natural to draw the conclusion that he did so out of remorse for killing his master. Such a death would also hide the real truth.'
'Which is?' Branwood snapped.
'I know what Ranulf is going to say,' Corbett intervened. 'Lecroix brooded over his master's death. Perhaps he saw or remembered something amiss in that chamber and the murderer realised this. But what was it, eh?' Corbett stared round. 'Did the man say anything to anyone here?'
'He spoke to me,' Roteboeuf called from the shadows where he stood. 'He kept saying his master was a tidy man.'
'What did he mean?'
'I don't know. He just kept mumbling about how tidy his master was.'
'But he was not!' Ranulf almost shouted. 'I mean, this castle needs cleaning, painting…' His voice trailed off at the angry murmurs his words provoked.
'What Ranulf is saying,' Corbett tactfully added, 'is that the wolfshead's depredations unhinged Sir Eustace's mind. What is more important,' he continued briskly, 'is that Lecroix was murdered because he saw something which may have unmasked his master's assassin. And, on that, sirs, I bid you good night.'
Corbett left the cellar, Ranulf following behind him. Not until the door closed behind them, did Corbett allow himself a smile. He undid his belt and threw it on the bed.
'Well, well,' he grinned. 'So we have set the cat amongst the pigeons! Vechey's murder we had to accept but we have won one victory. The assassin now knows we are not so stupid as he thought.' He sat down on the bed and stared at Ranulf. 'I'll tell you this, Ranulf-atte-Newgate, faithful servant and would-be clerk: if we discover the murderer of Lecroix or Vechey, we will trap Robin Hood.'
Corbett went to the chest at the bottom of the bed. He took out a small iron-bound coffer no more than a foot long and secured by three locks which he undid with one of the keys which swung from his belt.
'Master?'
'Yes, Ranulf.'
'I accept what you say but look at it another way – we are here alo
ne in a castle surrounded by murderers. What's the use of knowledge if it leads to our own deaths?'
Corbett rummaged in the small coffer, took out a roll of parchment and tossed it to Ranulf.
'True, true,' he murmured. 'But isn't that always the case, Ranulf? Now let me add to your woes. Robin Hood may not be the only person seeking our deaths.'
'You mean the murderer in the castle as well?'
'No, there could be someone else.'
The colour drained from Ranulf's face and he slumped down on the bed.
'Oh, sweet Mary, help us!' He looked down at the parchment Corbett had thrown at him. 'Is it something to do with this business?'
'No, worse.' Corbett drew in his breath. 'Before we left Westminster, after our audience with the King, do you remember he followed us down to the courtyard and took me aside?'
'Yes,' Ranulf replied. 'You and the King went into the small rose garden. You were there some time. I wondered what was wrong. His Grace not only ignored me but left his bosom friend the Earl of Surrey kicking his heels.'
'It was over the cipher,' Corbett blurted out, shamefaced. 'And I should have told you before.'
'What? Does the King know the truth about the tower of the fools and the three kings taking their two chevaliers?' Ranulf jibed.
'No, the cipher is a mystery to him as it is to me.' Corbett licked his lips. 'The French King and his two murderous advisers, our old friends Sir Amaury de Craon, may God damn him, and Nogaret, realise we have the cipher. They know that we know that time is on their side. Soon Philip's armies will cross into Flanders. We know,' Corbett continued caustically, 'that the French will do anything to stop us solving their cipher. Now you are a gambling man, Ranulf. To put it bluntly, the French have decided to protect their wager. They have an assassin, a skilled killer, a murderer whom we know only by the name given to one of Satan's devils – Achitophel.' Corbett now stared directly at his servant. 'Well, Amaury de Craon and others of his ilk believe their cipher will be entrusted to me. One of our spies in the Louvre Palace sent our noble Edward the rather chilling news that Achitophel has been sent to England to kill me. And, if necessary, those who work with me.'
Ranulf's jaw dropped. He stared in stupefaction at his master. He wasn't frightened of danger. Ranulf had been born fighting and raised in the fetid alleys and runnels of Southwark. But if anything happened to Sir Hugh Corbett, who would care for Ranulf? Who would bother if he never became a clerk or received further preferment in royal service?
'Who could it be?' he stuttered.
'Anyone. A strolling player, some priest, a beggar on a corner. Even worse, Achitophel always remains in the shadows. We know he is responsible for the deaths of at least a dozen of our agents in France and the Low Countries. Sometimes he – though it could as well be a woman – strikes himself; at other times he hires someone else to carry out the task. Achitophel may be in this castle now or he may have spent good silver to buy the services of someone here. They will have one task and one task only: to kill me.'
Ranulf leaned back on the bed and groaned.
'Achitophel,' he murmured, 'an assassin in the castle, outlaws in the forest, the King screaming about a cipher no one understands!' Ranulf raised his voice. 'The three kings go to the two fools' tower with the two chevaliers.' He closed his eyes. 'Hell's teeth, Master!'
'But let's leave that,' Corbett replied briskly, getting to his feet. He took out his writing implements, smoothed out a piece of parchment on the table and pulled the candle closer. 'Improve your reading, Ranulf. Tell me again what the clerk at Westminster wrote about Robin Hood.'
Ranulf sat up and unrolled the parchment Corbett had given him, studying it carefully with lips silently moving. Ranulf was proud of his ability to read and never lost an opportunity to demonstrate his skill to his master.
'Sir Peter Branwood has already told us most of it,' Ranulf began. 'The outlaw was born Robin of Locksley. At the age of sixteen or seventeen he fought with Simon de Montfort against the King.'
'Stop!'
Corbett raised his face from the parchment and stared at the sliver of night sky through the arrow slit window. He felt uncomfortable. At Westminster the King had glossed over this. Was there something Edward hadn't told him? Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, had forty years ago led a most serious rebellion against the King. De Montfort, who had owned lands around Nottingham, had only been defeated after a bloody battle at Evesham. Was Robin Hood nurturing old grievances?
'How old does that make Robin now?' Corbett abruptly asked.
Ranulf screwed up his eyes in concentration. 'Evesham took place in 1265 so the outlaw must be in his mid-fifties, about fifty-five or fifty-six.'
'Mm!' Corbett mused. 'Old, but there again, the King and his generals are much older and quite capable of leading the most taxing campaigns in the wild glens of Scotland.'
Ranulf shook his head. 'What I can't understand, Master, is that according to what this clerk has written, Robin Hood was an outlaw who preyed only upon the rich. He was well known for his generosity, especially to the poor who openly supported and protected him. True, he did fight pitched battles in the forest but never once did he engage in wanton killing or secret assassinations such as the murder of the tax-collectors and poor Vechey. So why now?'
'Perhaps his mind has turned?'
Ranulf wearily threw the parchment back on the bed.
'Master, I am tired. This day has been long enough.'
He began to undress and Corbett, feeling his eyelids grow heavy, did likewise. He blew out the candles and lay for a while staring into the darkness. Images pressed in on him. The cipher, Maeve's face as she said farewell, the old King shouting in his fury, Lecroix swinging by his neck from that beam and Vechey's corpse lying cold and forgotten in the death house. Outside a dog howled at the summer moon and bats flitted against the castle walls. From a nearby stand of trees an owl hooted mournfully. Corbett shivered, rolled over and fell asleep wondering what tomorrow would bring.
Just outside the castle, Achitophel the assassin sat drinking in The Trip to Jerusalem. The murderer steeped in the blood of Philip's opponents carefully sipped his wine and stared round the crowded tavern full of soldiers and servants from the castle. Achitophel kept in the shadows. He stared through the open window at the dark mass of the castle and carefully plotted Corbett's death.
Chapter 4
The next morning Corbett and Ranulf breakfasted on ale and a loaf of bread fresh from the castle bakery then went down into the courtyard. The sky was overcast with thick black clouds massing, threatening rain. Branwood joined them, dressed in a chain-mail jacket with its coif pulled over his head. He cradled a visored helmet in his arms.
'I hope it doesn't rain,' he moaned. 'If it does we will have to turn back.'
'Is this wise?' Corbett asked. 'Again, yes. We have no choice.'
A soldier came running down the keep steps carrying a small banner displaying Branwood's coat of arms.
'Even if the townspeople see that we can enter the forest and return, it will be a victory.'
Branwood turned and shouted orders. The courtyard became a milling hive of activity as grooms edged horses out, men mounted and serjeants-at-arms ensured all equipment was ready. Wives holding children came to bid farewell. Corbett reckoned that their force was about thirty mounted men and the same number of archers. At last, Sir Peter shouted the order to move.
Naylor blew a shrill blast on a horn, the gates swung open and they left the castle, taking the winding route down under the gatehouse, through Brewhouse Yard into Castle Street then up Friary Lane which led to the market place. Sir Peter rode in front, Corbett and Ranulf behind whilst Naylor went up and down the column to maintain good order. As they passed the townspeople some looked surly but most shouted good wishes and Corbett gathered that Branwood was, despite his office, fairly popular in the town.
They entered the market place, past the houses and stalls of the Guild of Poulterers now preparing for a d
ay's busy trade: feathers floated in a soft breeze and women and children plucked carcasses. These were handed over to the apprentices to be slit and gutted before being washed in huge vats of scalding water and hung over the stalls for sale; beggars and dogs fought for the giblets tossed into dirty puddles.
Two children screamed with delight as they tried to ride a pig. A dog bit one of the children and was immediately chased, howling and yelling, into Branwood's column of archers where it received further punishment before escaping up an alleyway. A group of wild men, garbed in rags, their faces painted brown and green, performed a strange dance around the skull of a goat impaled on a rod. They ignored Branwood's order to clear the way and only retreated when Naylor advanced on them with drawn sword. The column crossed the cobbled market place into the streets leading down to St Peter's Gate where the crowds became more dense and the air stank with the odour of stale sweat as citizens moved from stall to stall, bartering noisily with the tinkers, apprentices and journeymen.
For a while the column had to pull aside as a herd of cattle, lowing with fright, were driven up towards the slaughter houses. These were followed by a cleric who had been caught with a whore and was being led through the streets for public humiliation. Both the man and his paramour had been stripped just short of decency, tied back to back, and were now being paraded through the city by two grinning beadles. The soldiers joined in the laughter then turned to watch as a madman jumped on a haberdasher's stall. The fellow wore a pair of dirty, makeshift boots and a ragged gown and carried a large ash pole. His eyes, wild as an animal's, scrutinised the soldiers as he loudly declared that he was the Angel Gabriel sent by God to warn them of impending judgement. The soldiers did not believe him and the 'angel's' important message was drowned in cat-calls and jeers. Naylor, an iron helmet on his head, the broad nose-guard almost obscuring his face, screamed for silence and, going ahead with drawn sword, began to force a way through the crowd.
At last they reached the city gates and the column debouched on to the white, dusty track which wound between the broad fields beyond the city wall. Ahead of them lay the fringe of Sherwood Forest, its dark greenness almost touching the lowering black clouds. Corbett glanced across at Ranulf and noticed how hollow-eyed his servant looked, his face pale with anxiety.