by Paul Doherty
‘Lady Adelicia?’ Corbett smiled. ‘You claim you left your house about noon?’
‘That is correct.’
‘Before you left, did you quarrel with your husband? Were you cross with him? Lady Adelicia, one day you will go on oath. You must tell me the truth.’
‘I went to his chamber.’ Lady Adelicia paused, blinked and stared hard at Corbett. ‘We had the most bitter quarrel.’
‘Over what?’
‘Over the usual, money! I wanted to make certain purchases for myself. He refused.’
‘Did you scream at him?’
‘Of course she did,’ Lechlade intervened. ‘Her voice could be heard all over the house. Ask her maid.’
‘Then what?’ Corbett asked.
‘I left my husband’s chamber.’
‘And he locked it behind you?’
‘Yes, he did.’
‘What did you do then?’
‘I hurried up to my own chamber. I did not wish to be late—’ She stopped abruptly.
‘Late?’ Corbett intervened. ‘Late for what, Lady Adelicia?’
‘It was time to leave.’ She was flustered. ‘I took my purse and my cloak. Berengaria was waiting in her chamber – it’s a small closet room near mine – then we left.’
‘And you, sir?’ Corbett turned to Lechlade, who was now slumped half asleep.
‘I’ve told you,’ the man slurred, ‘once the lady of the manor left, Sir Rauf locked himself in his counting chamber. What more could I do? I went and bought a pot of ale, drank it and fell asleep until I was aroused by a knocking which would have raised the dead.’
‘We must visit Sweetmead,’ Corbett declared. ‘Even though the hour is late, I wish to see this house. You, Lechlade and Berengaria, where are you staying now?’
‘Parson Warfeld,’ Berengaria replied, ‘is a good man. He has given me and Lechlade comfortable lodgings in the priest’s house. He said we can stay there.’
‘Sweetmead and all its possessions,’ Castledene intervened, ‘have been sealed and placed under heavy guard. No one can enter until this matter is resolved.’
‘Ah well.’ Corbett straightened in the chair. ‘Lady Adelicia, I ask you formally. On Thursday afternoon, the Feast of St Ambrose, you were absent from your house, according to your own statement, for at least four or five hours. There is every possibility that you returned, killed your husband and left again. This matter could be very quickly cleared up if you could prove exactly where you were.’
The silence in the room became oppressive. Faint sounds echoed eerily from the street; the drapes on the wall rippled under an icy draught; a candle flame abruptly guttered out. Lady Adelicia sat with both palms flat against the tabletop, staring at some point beyond Corbett’s head. Only once did she glance swiftly at her maid, who nodded imperceptibly.
‘At this moment in time, Sir Hugh, I cannot answer that. I am Lady Adelicia Decontet, widow of Sir Rauf, merchant, money-lender, a man, Sir Walter, like you, with fingers in many, many pies.’ She threw a glance full of hatred at Castledene, whom she regarded as the origin of her present difficulties. ‘Two years ago last April, on the eve of the Feast of St Erconwald, I married Sir Rauf, we exchanged vows at the church door and my purgatory began.’
‘My lady,’ Corbett intervened, ‘what has this to do with the present case?’
‘Oh, Sir Hugh, everything. I was married in the April of the year of Our Lord 1301. Now Sir Rauf, as Lechlade here,’ she clicked her fingers, ‘will bear witness, found it very difficult to sleep. He would often go back down to his chancery chamber to study his ledgers or count his silver. On the fifteenth of July of that same year, the Feast of St Swithun, my husband went downstairs. The night was hot. I too found it difficult to sleep. I rose and went to the casement window of my bedchamber, which overlooks the rear garden of Sweetmead Manor. I was about to retire when I heard the postern door at the back of the house open, and my husband emerged with a shuttered lantern. He went up the garden path, placed it on a turf seat and returned. A short while later he dragged out what looked like a corpse, though it was bound in sacking and tied with cord. Earlier that day he had declared that he wished to do some gardening; I was surprised, for he rarely ventured out in the garden. He’d left it as a wilderness, as again Lechlade will bear witness. Anyway, he pulled the bundle of sacking along the path and disappeared behind some bushes. He must have been there for at least an hour before he came back wiping his hands, picked up the lantern and returned to the house. I could hear him going into the buttery to wash his hands. I retired to bed and fell asleep. The next morning I rose as usual and broke my fast. My husband retired to deal with business matters; Lechlade disappeared, so I went out into the garden. I walked behind those bushes where I’d seen my husband go, and noticed the freshly dug earth—’
‘Lady Adelicia,’ Corbett interrupted, ‘what is the point of all this? You are accusing your dead husband of committing a murder and burying the corpse of his victim in the garden behind your house?’
Lady Adelicia, face now white as snow, nodded, her eyes pleading with Corbett, who realised what path she was about to take.
‘I know,’ she stammered, ‘I know something of the law, Sir Hugh. I wish to turn King’s Approver. I accuse Sir Rauf Decontet of homicide.’
Corbett sat back in the chair and glanced quickly at Castledene, who shook his head.
‘Two things.’ Corbett leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. ‘First, everyone here must gather at Sweetmead Manor tomorrow between the hours of eleven and twelve. I wish to search the house as well as that garden to establish the truth of what you say, Lady Adelicia. Second, you may know the law, Lady Adelicia, but I regret to inform you that you are wrong in this matter. To turn King’s Approver means that you accuse another person of a felony in the hope of receiving a royal pardon. The person you accuse has the right to answer; in this case, however, that is impossible. Your husband is dead. I do not think the royal justices will accept such a defence.’
Lady Adelicia swayed slightly, hands clutching the table. She glanced at Berengaria and then over her shoulder at Wendover, who’d been standing near the door. During the interrogation Corbett had watched the captain of the city guard: he seemed nervous and agitated. Corbett suspected Wendover had a great deal to do with the proceedings before him, and wondered if he should challenge him directly, but decided against it. He was about to turn to Sir Walter Castledene when there was a loud knocking on the door and a liveried servant hurried in. He bowed to Corbett before hurrying across to whisper in Sir Walter’s ear. The Mayor glanced up.
‘Sir Hugh, Parson Warfeld is here. I thought he too should give evidence.’
Corbett nodded. ‘He is a cleric,’ he declared, ‘a priest. I think it best if this room is cleared of everyone except you, Sir Walter,’ he nodded at Ranulf, ‘and my clerk.’ Corbett rose, pushing back his chair. ‘Lady Adelicia, Master Desroches, Lechlade and Berengaria, I thank you. Lady Adelicia, you must remain in your cell beneath the Guildhall, at least until tomorrow.’ He held up his hand to quell her protest. ‘Tomorrow we shall go out to Sweetmead Manor and see for ourselves. I thank you.’
Corbett walked away and stared out of the window, waiting for the room to empty. Wendover looked as if he wanted to stay, but Ranulf jabbed his hand, indicating that the captain should leave. He did so just as Parson Warfeld came bustling into the chamber, mopping his face with the hem of his robe. Corbett made the priest comfortable on one of the chairs and personally served him a cup of posset, then sat down next to him.
‘Parson Warfeld, I thank you for coming. You know the proceedings before me. I will be blunt and to the point. Lady Adelicia is accused of murdering her husband Sir Rauf sometime on the afternoon of the Feast of St Ambrose. Physician Desroches came to the house to meet his client, but unable to gain access sent a boy to fetch you from St Alphege’s. Is that correct?’
Parson Warfeld gulped the mulled wine and nodded.
‘And
when you arrived?’
Parson Warfeld put the goblet down on the table; Corbett noticed his hand was shaking slightly. The room fell silent except for Castledene, who was drumming his fingers on the table, and the squeak of Ranulf’s pen across the freshly scrubbed parchment.
‘Well, well . . .’ Warfeld gasped. He then proceeded to tell Corbett exactly what the clerk had already heard, starting from the moment he had been summoned to Sweetmead and finishing with Castledene’s decision to arrest Lady Adelicia and bring her to the Guildhall.
The parson shrugged. ‘There was nothing more I could do. I have visited Lady Adelicia in prison and have lodged Master Lechlade and Berengaria in my own house. They are no real problem; there’s always plenty of work to do in and around the church. The priest’s house at St Alphege’s is well furnished. “In my Father’s mansion there are many rooms”,’ Parson Warfeld quoted jokingly from the scriptures. ‘I really can’t say any more, Sir Hugh.’
‘Did Sir Rauf, or Lady Adelicia, ever ask to be shriven by you?’ Corbett asked.
The smile faded from Warfeld’s face.
‘I know, I know,’ Corbett conceded. ‘You can reveal nothing told to you under the seal of confession. I didn’t ask for that. I asked whether you ever heard their confessions.’
‘I will not reply to that either, Sir Hugh. But I will tell you this: there were rumours, whispers about Lady Adelicia not being satisfied with Sir Rauf, and her trips into the city.’
‘Are you saying she was meeting someone else?’ Corbett asked.
‘I’m saying nothing, Sir Hugh. I merely report what I’ve heard.’
Corbett thanked him and asked him also to be present on the morrow between eleven and noon at Sweetmead Manor. Parson Warfeld agreed, bowed to both of them and left.
‘Ah well.’ Castledene walked towards the door, closed it and leaned against it. ‘Sir Hugh, what can be done here? Lady Adelicia must face the charges levelled against her, whilst this business at Maubisson . . . I have,’ he added hastily, ‘despite the snow, sent couriers to all ports asking for harbour-masters and port-reeves to search for Servinus. He must be the assassin!’
Corbett shrugged. ‘I cannot comment on that, Sir Walter. I have my doubts. Why should Servinus wait to come to a foreign country to strike? At a closely guarded manor like Maubisson, in the depths of winter, in a strange city? How did he do it without resistance from his victims? How did he escape?’ He shook his head. ‘All I know is that the matters before us are as dark and bleak as the weather outside. We stand on the edge of a tangled forest of evil deeds, full of danger; we must thread our way carefully through it.’
Chapter 6
Dies irae et vindicatae.
A day of wrath and vengeance.
Columba
A short while later, Corbett and Ranulf mounted their horses, cloaks pulled tightly about them, and left the Guildhall. They made their way up the Mercery, turning right towards the corner leading to the Butter Cross, then along Burgate, which would take them to Queningate. Darkness was closing in. The air was still bitterly cold, the ground slippery as the ice hardened, yet the stalls and shops were very busy. The narrow, dirt-filled streets were illuminated by flaring torches, the light pouring through tavern and alehouse doors and windows. The shifting murk, the din, clamour and foul smells reminded Corbett of a wall painting in a church depicting the streets of hell. The rakers and scavengers were out with their dung and refuse carts. Pilgrims in their worsted cloaks, displaying pewter badges depicting the martyred head of Becket or the ampulae or miniature flasks representing the martyr’s blood, battled to make their way to and from the cathedral. They screamed abuse at the apprentice boys who darted from the stalls like grey-hounds to pluck at sleeves and cloaks, shouting their goods, inviting passers-by to inspect ‘ninepins for sale all in a row’, ‘boots of Cordovan leather’, ‘candles white and pure as a virgin’, ‘hot pies’, ‘spiced sausages’, ‘sharp knives’.
Tavern hawkers and idlers were encouraging two drunken women to fight; each would hold a penny in her hand, and the first to drop it would be judged the loser and dipped in the freezing water of a nearby horse-trough. A city serjeant fighting to control a loose donkey tried to intervene, whilst bawling for the market bailiffs with their metal-tipped staves to assist him. A chanteur stood on a plinth at the corner of an alleyway off the Mercery; he was telling a group of gaping pilgrims to pray most urgently and earnestly before Becket’s shrine: ‘Because,’ he declared, ‘the time of doom is fast approaching.’ The chanteur informed the pilgrims how he had recently returned from Paris, where a friend had invoked demons to advance him in his studies. On his deathbed, just in time, this friend had been persuaded to repent; as his fellow scholars assembled to sing the funeral psalms around his bier, the man fell into a deep sleep. He dreamed his soul plunged into a dark, sulphurous valley where a gang of fiends tossed his soul about, whilst others prodded him with claws which surpassed the sharpness of any earthly steel. When the man eventually woke up, he vowed to change his life, went on pilgrimage to Becket’s shrine and received God’s calling to enter the Benedictine order. So, the chanteur concluded, they too must pray most earnestly to save themselves from the traps and lures of Satan.
Corbett half listened to this man, clamorous as a sparrowhawk, as he waited for the street to clear before him. At last they moved on and reached the centre of Canterbury, with its great Buttery Cross soaring above the stalls and booths. On the top step a Crutched Friar was delivering the sentence of excommunication against a felon who had dared to rob his church.
‘I curse him by the authority of the Court of Rome, within or without, sleeping or waking, going or sitting, standing and riding, lying above the earth and under earth, speaking, crying and drinking; in wood, water, field and town. I curse him by Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I curse him by the angels, archangels and all the nine orders of heaven. I curse him by the patriarchs, prophets and apostles . . .’ On a lower step, totally ignoring the friar, a relic-seller pointed to his leather chest, claiming it contained the stone where Christ’s blood was spilt, a splinter from the Lord’s cradle, a certain crystal vessel bearing shards of the stone tablet on which God had inscribed the law for Moses, straps from Jesus’ winding sheets and fragments from Aaron’s robe. A gang of burly apprentice boys standing around him demanded that the miraculous chest be opened to show them such wonders. The relic-seller refused and a brawl ensued. Market bailiffs and beadles were busy at the stocks, locking in foists, roisterers and drunkards alongside breakers of the King’s peace or the market regulations. A deafening clamour of noise dinned the ear. Corbett looked up at the great mass of Canterbury Cathedral rearing above him, black against the darkening sky. He cursed quietly, and Ranulf, riding slightly behind him, leaned forward.
‘Master, what is it?’
‘I still have the King’s special task to do,’ Corbett murmured, his words almost lost beneath the noise of the market. ‘Perhaps tomorrow.’
Eventually they had to dismount and lead their horses. The ground underfoot was thick and mushy, dung and mud mixing with the refuse thrown from the stalls and taverns. A moonman pushed his way through, wheeling a barrow with a small bear chained to it. Corbett wondered idly where he was going, only to be distracted by a loud-mouthed apothecary who plucked his sleeve, claiming he had an electuary distilled from silver which would cure all ills. Corbett shrugged him off as he glimpsed a goldsmith’s sign. He told Ranulf to hold the horses and walked over. He wanted to divert himself for a while, and was resolved to buy something unique for Lady Maeve.
The merchant behind the stall quickly appraised Corbett from head to toe and immediately led him into the back room of his shop, where he took down an iron-bound coffer locked with three clasps. He opened this and showed Corbett an array of diamonds, pearls, emeralds and sapphires which he called by fancy names such as ‘Bon Homme’, ‘The Dimple’, ‘The Barley-corn’, ‘The Distaff’, ‘The Cloud’, ‘The Quail’, ‘The Chestn
ut’, ‘The Ruby King’. Corbett studied each one, promised the man he would return and left the shop.
Rejoining Ranulf, Corbett grasped the reins of his horse and they walked on. Ranulf realised that any attempt at conversation would be futile, whilst he himself was eager to drink in the various sights of the city, catch a pretty eye or win a smile from some lovely face. At last they were clear of the main trading area. The bells of the city began to clang out the tocsin, the sign for the market to close and all good citizens to return to their homes. They passed the churches of St Mary Magdalene and St Michael, then turned left, following the route they’d taken into the city, along the old boundary wall through Queningate and out into the countryside. Once mounted, Ranulf spurred alongside Corbett to question him about what happened at the Guildhall, but he received little satisfaction.
‘I know nothing.’ Corbett reined in and stared up at the sky, where the clouds were breaking up. He murmured a prayer. ‘At least there’ll be no more snow tonight.’ He sighed. ‘What I must do, Ranulf, is reflect and think.’ His horse skittered on the trackway. ‘And this is a lonely place. Come now, God knows who follows us.’
On their return to St Augustine’s, they found Chanson, much improved, sitting in the small refectory enjoying a dish of rabbit stew with onions and a pot of ale specially brewed at the abbey. Corbett and Ranulf took off their boots, changed, washed their hands and faces and came down to join him. The room was well lit by torches and candles on the table and heated by braziers in every corner. It was a pleasant refectory with paintings on the wall depicting Christ’s Last Supper and his meeting with the disciples at Emmaus. A soothing and relaxing place. Ranulf insisted on telling a story about a stingy abbot and his grasping guest master. A visitor once sheltered in their abbey for the night. He was given only hard bread and water, and a thin straw mattress to sleep on. In the morning he protested to the guest master, who simply shrugged off his complaints. As he left the abbey, the visitor met the abbot and immediately thanked him for his lavish hospitality.