by Paul Doherty
Corbett patted the man gently on the shoulder. "Oh, Priest, " he said softly. "Duket did not commit suicide. He was murdered and I intend to see the perpetrators suffer for their crime. "
He walked round the priest and strode out of the church leaving the rector in the cold darkness behind.
Corbett intended to go straight to The Mitre but, just as he turned out into Cheapside, he felt a hand grasping his arm. He turned quickly, instinctively going for the knife in his sheath, only to find himself staring into the round bland face and cornflower-blue eyes of Hubert Seagrave, a leading Chancery clerk. Corbett had always disliked Hubert with his spiteful tongue and vicious way of hindering anyone who might oppose his preferment in the royal service. He was the last person he expected to see in Cheapside and Seagrave was clearly enjoying his astonishment and dismay.
"Master Corbett, " he lisped. "How good to find you here. You have led us quite a dance. You were not at your lodgings, nor even at The Mitre. " The slight sarcasm in his voice swilled through his words like dirt through clear water.
Corbett bowed in mock deference. "And you, Master Seagrave? I never thought you had legs. The only time I see you, you are either on a stool or on your knees licking the boots of some great man!"
Seagrave's fat face flushed with annoyance as he jabbed a stubby finger into Corbett's chest. "It is you, Master Corbett, who are going to need to lick a few boots! Our master, Lord Chancellor Burnell, is rather tired of sending you letters and is very angry that you have not approached him. Consequently, " he continued ever so sweetly, "he has entrusted me with the task of bringing you to him. "
"And if I do not come?" Corbett could have bitten his tongue as soon as the words were uttered, for he saw the quick movement of Seagrave's eyes and knew that was the answer this fat pompous fool had wanted.
"Master Corbett, " Seagrave replied. "I will not take you. That is why the Chancellor sent the gentlemen who are standing behind you. ''
Corbett turned and saw a group of royal Serjeants in the livery of the King's own household standing behind him and another standing a little far off holding a group of tethered horses. Corbett brought his hand as hard as he could upon Seagrave's shoulder and watched the pain quickly remove his opponent's supercilious expression. "Then, Sir Messenger Boy!" Corbet exclaimed, "if the Chancellor wishes to see me, then we had best waste no time. "
Corbett mounted the horse the Serjeants had brought for him and then, in the middle of the group, was led along Cheapside through the shambles where the butchers' stalls and the slaughterhouses polluted the air with their rank smells. They turned left to go down Old Deans Lane, then into Bowyers Row, south along Fleet Street, passing Whitefriars, the Temple, Gray's Inn and the rich timbered houses of the lawyers, before joining the main approach to the palace and abbey of Westminster. Once they had arrived there, the Serjeants, taking their mission seriously, pushed their way through the crowds, accompanying Seagrave and Corbett into the main hall, past the courts on either side and into the same small chamber where Corbett, a few weeks earlier, had received his assignment.
Burnell was waiting for him, sitting behind his desk. He continued to examine a document and allowed Corbett and his escort to stand waiting for a while before he groaned, sprang up and tossed the document onto the floor to join an ever-increasing pile of parchments there. The Chancellor then sat back in his chair, steepling his fingers together while he looked thoughtfully and rather sadly at Corbett.
"Master Clerk, " he said slowly. "How good it is to see you. How kind of you to come. " Then he brought one hand slamming down on the table. "How stupid and how irresponsible of you, a trained clerk, to tarry so long over the King's own business! Who, Master Corbett, do you think you are?"
The object of his anger simply stared back at him, so Burnell turned to Seagrave. "Where did you find him?"
"In Cheapside, " came the smug reply. "I think he was on his way to see his mistress at the tavern. "
Burnell turned back to Corbett. "Were you?" Corbett swallowed his anger and shrugged.
"Seagrave could never tell the truth, my Lord, " he replied. "Even if it meant it curing the pox he undoubtedly has!''
Burnell cut short Seagrave's yelp of outraged innocence. "Thank you, Master Seagrave, " the Chancellor said softly. "You have done your task well. Now you may go. " The offended clerk turned and glared at Corbett and gracelessly left the room. The royal serjeants-at-arms followed him, doing their best to conceal their satisfaction at seeing such a pompous clerk deflated.
Once they were gone, Burnell gestured to a stool. "You had better sit down, Corbett, " he muttered. "From what I can gather, you must be exhausted from your labours, though so far I have seen very little fruit of them. " Corbett sat and braced himself for the coming storm but, instead, Burnell got up from his chair and walked across to close the chamber door. He turned and hoisted himself up to sit on the corner of his table and looked down at the clerk.
"Master Clerk, " he said softly. "You may believe that the task I set you was a minor one. You may well ask yourself, and probably have, why the death of a stupid runt like Duket should concern me. " He stopped and stared at a point above Corbett's head before continuing:
"It concerns me because it concerns the King. We are not talking about a stupid feud or paltry brawl but treason against the Crown, against the very person of the King!" The Chancellor fiddled with a ring on one of his stubby fingers and then stared hard at Corbett. "You do know the law of treason covers those who do nothing to prevent treason being carried out? You, Master Clerk, fall into this category and you do know what happens to traitors?"
Impervious to many threats, Corbett could only shudder at the menace in the Chancellor's words. Edward I had devised a new punishment for those guilty of treason. A defeated Prince David of Wales had been the first to experience it only a few years before. The Prince had been captured and brought to London. He had claimed he had fought against a foreign invader but the Royal Justices had ruled that Edward I was King of Wales, so David had been guilty of rebellion against his liegelord. He had been sentenced to be dragged by the heels through the mire and mud of the London streets to the scaffold at The Elms. There he had been hanged by the neck until half dead, his body then being cut down and cut open. The heart being plucked out before his head was struck off and his corpse quartered as a warning to all others who might think of plotting against the Crown.
Corbett, bravely concealing the panic and terror he felt, looked directly into the podgy face of the Chancellor. "I am no traitor, " he replied. "You cannot accuse me of a crime I know nothing of. " He dug into his wallet and pulled out the warrant he had been given. "Your commission says that I am to investigate the suicide of a London merchant in a London church. It says nothing of treason. Nor have I, in all my investigations, discovered anything faintly tinged with disloyalty to the King, never mind outright treason!"
The Chancellor smiled at Corbett's cold and clever reply, heaved his bulk off the table and went back to sit in his chair. "Of course, you are right, Hugh, " he replied, for the first time ever using Corbett's Christian name. "You were sent into this task blind but you were chosen deliberately because of the very qualities that you have so far failed to display. A sharp mind. A tenacity of purpose. A person loyal to the King with a heart and mind which cannot be seduced. I hoped, the King himself hoped, that you too would come to the same conclusions we have reached, the only difference being that you would find treason, the traitors responsible for it and the evidence which would hang them. We still hope that you will achieve this, though time is no longer on our side. "
Corbett breathed deeply and relaxed, aware that he was still important to this ruthless man and the even more ruthless master he served. "What can I say?" he asked. "What do you want to know? More importantly, what should I know?" He suddenly felt the anger rise in him at being assigned a task, the true nature of which had been concealed from him. "You, my Lord, sent me to investigate a suicide but did not
tell me I was looking for traitors. What was I supposed to do? Blunder about in the dark until I hit something? Or worse still, become entrapped myself in something I had no knowledge of? Who are these traitors? What is this treason?"
The Chancellor pursed his lips, a born lawyer, he carefully measured out his words like a thrifty moneylender counting out coins. "We do not know the traitors, " he replied; "or even the treason they are plotting. All we do know is that the Populares or radical movement which supported de Montfort has revived its strength and is plotting fresh revolution in the country and in this city, and that their first task is the destruction of the King by whatever means they can employ. "
The Chancellor dug deep into the pockets of his voluminous robes and pulled out a small leather pouch, the kind Chancery clerks use to keep tags or small pieces of parchment in. He undid the mouth of the pouch, shook a small piece of manuscript free and handed it to Corbett. "Read this, Master Clerk. Study it well. We received this from one of our spies whose body was later found bobbing in the Thames. It is all he sent us before he died. " Corbett undid the dirty, greasy bit of parchment. Its message was short and abrupt, 'de Montfort is not dead. Fitz-Osbert is not dead. They are both in the city and will bring down our Sovereign Lord the King. ' Corbett handed the message back to the Chancellor.
"Of course, everyone realizes who de Montfort was, " the Chancellor's voice hardened, "but what is more worrying is that many in this city still see de Montfort as a saviour. De Montfort was an aristocrat, but he appealed to the people, not the merchants but the small traders and journeymen who mouthed phrases like "What touches all should be discussed by all', de Montfort insisted on calling 'Parliaments', talking sessions where the community of the realm could discuss matters. Our Lord, the King, has taken over such an idea but not in the way that de Montfort intended; he wanted the cowl-makers, the cobblers, the carpenters and the masons to take over in government not just be involved in it. "
"But de Montfort died, smashed to pulp like some rotten apple at Evesham!" Corbett exclaimed. "He, his family and his followers were destroyed by the King!"
"No, " Burnell replied. "Many survived, spread their radical theories and still do here in London, exploiting the city's dreams and aspirations. " He stopped and picked up a piece of parchment. "This was pinned to Saint Paul's Cross yesterday. Listen!" Burnell jibed, opening the crumpled greasy vellum. "Know you, Citizens of London, how you are despised and ill-treated by the endless greed of the Lords and the King They would take from you, if they could, your share of the daylight and tax the very air you breathe. These men, the King, and his Spanish Queen to whom we render forced homage, feed on our substance, have no thought but to glitter with gold and jewels, build superb palaces and invent new taxes to oppress this city. Their priests are no better, shepherds more interested in fleecing their flocks than caring for them. But the Day of Liberation is at hand when the worms of the earth will most cruelly devour the princely lions, leopards and wolves, for the common folk will destroy all tyrants and traitors!" The Chancellor finished speaking, his face slightly purple, his chest heaving.
"The writer?" Corbett interjected.
"We do not know, " the Bishop angrily replied, "but this is treason! Something is beginning to rise from the dark and murky depths of this city!"
"Is that the reference to the Day of Liberation?" Corbett interrupted.
Burnell snorted. "Day of Liberation! From what, I ask you?"
Corbett thought of what he had seen while touring the shires and walking through the midden heaps of London. The common people, in one-storey, timber-framed houses, with thatched roofs and plaster walls, taxed by sheriffs, haunted by bailiffs and royal purveyors. Their lives were pitiless, he had seen a line of peasants once at the bar of an assize court at Kenilworth, standing like roosters soaked in the rain, heads hanging, bedraggled and dirty. A fellow clerk had joked that a peasant's soul could not go to either heaven or hell, for both angel and demon would refuse to carry it because of the smell. Corbett reflected but wisely forbore to answer the Chancellor and turned to another matter.
"I know about Fitz-Osbert, " Corbett said. "A devil worshipper from over a hundred years ago, but what has he to do with this?"
"Fitz-Osbert was a rebel as well as a devil worshipper!" Burnell replied. The Chancellor picked up a small carved crucifix from his desk. "There are thousands of these, " he began, "in castles, homes, hovels throughout this realm. There are monasteries, nunneries and abbeys the length and breadth of the country. There are cathedrals in every city, and a church in every village. Yet Christianity is only skin deep.
There is still the old religion; we met it in Wales, the worship of dark forces and the constant harking back to ancient ways!"
Burnell nodded towards the narrow slit windows. "Even the Abbey itself is built on an ancient place of worship. Go through the records of its church courts and you'll find superstition there: the man who placed the sacred host in his garden in the hope it would ward off marauding insects: the woman who made wax images of her husband in order to cause him pain, or the countless references to people consulting witches, wizards, warlocks and the like. Fitz-Osbert lives on in such practices, he was a rebel because the Church condemned him and the Church is protected by the State. So, attack and destroy the State and the Church is vulnerable. What worries and puzzles me, " concluded the Bishop, "is why the spy mentioned both de Montfort and Fitz-Osbert in the same breath? What did he know? If only he could have told us more!''
"Who was he?" jibed Corbett. "Some poor clerk who was sent in blind, knowing nothing of the facts or the danger?''
"No, " Burnell smiled. "A yeoman, a squire, Robert Savel. These rebels, whoever they may be, are bringing arms into the city. A cartload was taken by stealth from Leeds Castle in Kent, others from castles round London. "
"So, Savel was assigned to find out if these arms were brought to London?" Corbett stated.
"Exactly, " Burnell replied. "Savel began his investigation in Southwark, working in a hostel called 'The Scuilion' in the middle of that jakes-infested quarter. He was there ten days, he sent me nothing except that scrap of paper, then he was found with his throat cut, floating face down in the weeds off Southwark bank. I only knew of his death because I had my clerks search the coroner rolls. "
"He left nothing?" Corbett asked.
"Nothing except the note. "
"Friends or relatives?" enquired Corbett.
"None, " Burnell smiled sourly. "Savel was chosen because, like you, he was alone with no family or close friends. We felt he could be trusted to hunt down traitors. He was killed, so were Crepyn and Duket. I believe that all three deaths are linked, though I do not know how. But, if the mystery of Duket's death is solved, then we may be able to proceed and discover those who resent the royal control over the city and would like to throw off royal authority, turning London into a commune independent of the sovereign, like many of the cities of northern Italy. They can do this through outright revolution or, more simply, by destroying the King. Such an act would achieve their ends for her Grace, the Queen, has still not produced a living male heir. "
Corbett could only agree with Burnell. Twelve years into his reign, even longer in his marriage, the King was still without a son to succeed him. Time and again Queen Eleanor had given birth to male children but within months they were dead. Small, pathetic bundles given a hasty burial here in Westminster. The Queen was pregnant again, but would the child be a male and survive? If the King died suddenly without an heir then civil war would ensue. London could rise in revolt and dictate its own terms to anyone who wished to win its support.
"Consequently, after Savel's death, " the Chancellor said abruptly breaking into Corbett's thoughts, "we assigned you to this task. We believe that Crepyn was a leading member of the Populares and a member of a secret coven pledged to the teaching of Fitz-Osbert. We also know that Duket in some tenuous way was also linked to the revolutionary elements in the city. We hope, or rather
hoped, that by giving you this task we might stumble upon the truth and bring any treason plotted against the King to nothing. "
Burnell jabbed his finger at Corbett. "We still believe you can do that and order you on your loyalty to the King to continue the task assigned to you. Do you accept?"
Corbett nodded. "I accept, and I apologize for the time I have lost, though I must inform you that I have made some progress. There is no doubt that Duket did not commit suicide. He was murdered. "
The Chancellor's face beamed with satisfaction and he rubbed his hands together. "Good, " he murmured. "Then it is surely time we caught his murderers!"
Nine
Corbett was pleased to get out of the palace, free from Burnell's strictures, warnings and secret threats. He had been investigating a suicide which was really murder which, in turn, masked treason, sorcery and rebellion. As he walked towards the river, he mentally scrutinized what he had learnt. Burnell had reached the conclusion that Duket was murdered by a secret, treasonous coven. If the reason, the method and the perpetrators were discovered then, Burnell had decided, he would also seize a nest of traitors.
He looked up at the rain-swept sky and wished he was elsewhere; on the one hand, he wanted to solve the mystery but, on the other, at what cost? A throat cut at dead of night, a violent death and a solitary funeral? Gone into the darkness without anyone really caring? He thought of Alice but, with an effort, dismissed her from his mind. Burnell had made himself clear, Corbett must act with haste to prove or disprove the Chancellor's conclusions about Duket's death. But where could he begin? He remembered Savel and 'The Scullion' tavern and decided a visit there might unveil some of the mystery.
He hired a boat at the bottom of the Westminster river steps to take him across the river to Southwark. The boatman agreed, openly smirking at Corbett who realized that the fellow thought he was just a clerk out on a pleasure jaunt, intent on drink and the soft body of some whore. He glared at the man, who simply pulled faster at the oars, a knowing grin on his face. Soon, Corbett was in Southwark, a maze of winding streets and overhanging houses. A funeral procession forced him aside, the cross bearer leading the group, chanting prayers, followed by a crier who shouted "Wake you sleepers, pray God to forgive your trespasses: the dead cannot cry; pray for their souls as the bell sounds in these streets!" The grieving mourners swept by muttering, their prayers almost drowned by the raucous howl of stray dogs.