Hugh Corbett 14 - The Magician's Death

by Paul Doherty

  Corbett got up from the chest and walked around the side of the bed. ‘And what do you think about these killings, William? What does logic tell you?’

  ‘First,’ the clerk replied, ‘the victims trusted their killer, which is why he was allowed to approach so close. Secondly, therefore, it must be someone who lives in the castle or close by. Thirdly, the assassin must be someone skilled in the use of an arbalest and . . .’ He paused.

  ‘And what?’ Chanson asked.

  ‘Someone,’ Bolingbroke pretended to glower at Chanson, ‘who is not afraid. He is prepared to kill for no other reason than the killing itself. Have you seen a fox raid a hen run, Chanson? There may be sixty, and he will take only one, yet he will kill until no bird is left alive.’

  ‘Which means,’ Corbett concluded, ‘the assassin is killing not for profit or sexual pleasure but out of sheer hatred or revenge.’

  Corbett reflected on the number of men he had hanged for the assault and rape of women. They had all been different, criminals who had taken secret pleasure from their sin, but the killer at Corfe . . .?

  ‘Chanson?’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Of your kindness, go down into the castle yard. If you see Ranulf, remind him why I sent him, but search out a young red-haired woman called Marissa, and tell her that the King’s man who asked about her cloak would like to meet her. Once you’ve done this, ask Marissa about a man-at-arms friendly with Alusia and any of the other girls who have been killed. Tell her she will be rewarded for her pains. If she names someone, bring that person to me. Oh, and you know where the laundry-women have their vats?’ Chanson nodded. ‘Seek out Mistress Feyner, say I want fresh words with her.’

  Chanson put on his boots and left. Corbett went and sat opposite Bolingbroke, who had picked up one of the manuscripts.

  ‘What do you think, William? Are we chasing will-o-the-wisps here? The Secretus Secretorum – is it a puzzle which can be solved?’

  ‘I went through the script with Sanson, Sir Hugh. It’s written in Latin but I hardly recognised a word. Now, Magister Thibault,’ Bolingbroke grew enthusiastic, ‘what he did was very clever. He formed the hypothesis that if Friar Roger wrote a secret cipher, like all people who use such devices he would have become tired at the end and made a mistake. That phrase “I shall give you many doors” is a fine example of it. Now, as you know, Sir Hugh, once you have one line of a cipher, it becomes easy to tease out the rest. But this is where our problem begins; in this case it does not.’

  Corbett closed his eyes and groaned. ‘I advised the King of that,’ he whispered. ‘Friar Roger may talk about his marvels, and the Secret of Secrets may hold the truth, yet I’ve read the friar’s works.’ He opened his eyes. ‘He truly was an arrogant man with a contempt for other scholars. What if he wrote that book in a cipher used once only and understood solely by himself? If that is the case, the key will never be found and the cipher will remain unbroken.’

  Corbett opened the Opus Tertium he had been reading, but found he couldn’t concentrate. He took the psalter Lady Maeve had given him and leafed through the pages. The illuminations always fascinated him; the use of colours and vivid schemes, Christ stretched like a piece of vellum on the Cross. He read the prayer on the adjoining page, and allowed his mind to drift. The Lady Maeve had given him the psalter on his birthday, the previous August. He glanced up. Bolingbroke was asleep in the chair. Corbett stretched out on the bed. He couldn’t forget that girl’s corpse, sprawled on the hand barrow, and the priest, Father Matthew, was a strange one. Why had he made those mistakes in church? Corbett’s eyes opened wide with a sudden realisation. When he brought the corpse in, he thought, it was Father Andrew, the old priest, who insisted the last rites must be given.

  He heard footsteps outside and rose as Chanson led the red-haired Marissa, followed by a young, pockfaced man-at-arms, into the room. Marissa looked freezing in her thin gown; the man was dressed in a sweat-stained leather jerkin over a linen shirt, padded hose and battered boots which looked a size too big for him. Chanson introduced the stranger.

  ‘This is Martin.’

  Corbett clasped the man’s hand and ushered them both to stools in front of the fire. Marissa was friendly, happy at the chance to be warm. Martin, a local man from his accent, was quiet of eye and not overawed by Corbett. He asked bluntly why he had been summoned.

  ‘I have been searching for Alusia,’ he exclaimed, ‘and I’m on sentry duty at dawn, the first watch of tomorrow.’

  ‘I won’t keep you long.’

  Corbett served them steaming cups of posset wrapped in rags and sat between them. Bolingbroke had gone across to splash water on his face from the lavarium.

  ‘Your name is Martin,’ Corbett began, ‘a friend of Alusia, the girl who is missing. Do you know where or why she may have fled?’

  ‘Fled?’ Martin’s lip jutted out aggressively. ‘Alusia has not fled. She was terrified at what she saw yesterday; she would not go out of the castle again until this killer is found and despatched to Hell.’

  ‘So where is she?’ Bolingbroke came over, wiping his face and hands.

  ‘I don’t know. She left her parents last night, sometime between Vespers and Compline, and never returned.’

  ‘Were you to meet her last night?’

  ‘No, I was not.’

  Corbett studied the open, weatherbeaten face; he’d already glimpsed the leather wrist guard and the calluses on the man’s fingers.

  ‘You use a crossbow?’

  ‘Yes, and I’m very skilled,’ came the hot reply. ‘I can hit my mark from ten yards, I do not need to get too close.’

  ‘Peace, peace,’ Corbett murmured. ‘Did Alusia tell you anything about what happened yesterday?’

  ‘No, I hardly saw her. She was resting, all disturbed. I did have a few words with her, nothing more.’

  ‘And you knew the other girls, the ones who’ve been murdered?’ Bolingbroke asked from his chair. The man-at-arms glanced sideways at Marissa, sitting beside Corbett as still as a statue.

  ‘I knew some of them,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Especially Phillipa.’ Marissa forgot her shyness and glared at the man-at-arms. ‘You said Phillipa was sweet on you, or were you just boasting?’

  ‘Just boasting,’ Martin replied, flushed-faced. ‘She was a strange one.’

  ‘Phillipa?’ Corbett asked. ‘Mistress Feyner’s daughter?’ He looked over his shoulder. ‘Chanson, where is Mistress Feyner?’

  ‘She said she would come when she was ready,’ Chanson replied.

  ‘Oh, good.’ Corbett turned back. Marissa was still shivering, and he put his cup down and went across to the cloaks hanging on a peg. He took one down and draped it over Marissa’s shoulders.

  ‘You’re most kind.’ She preened herself.

  ‘It is yours,’ Corbett replied. He took two coins from his purse and handed one to each of them. Martin accepted reluctantly. Marissa snatched hers, then drew the cloak close to her, treasuring the coin; she was flattered by the attention of this King’s man who allowed her to sit so close to a fire and drink posset from a pewter goblet. Corbett, glancing down, saw a penny whistle lying on the floor, one Chanson used. He picked it up and absentmindedly put it in his wallet.

  ‘You said Phillipa was a strange one?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Marissa replied, ‘full of herself. She claimed one of the outlaws, a mysterious man she called the Goliard, loved her, and said how they would meet under the forest greenery. She claimed he was a landless knight living in his own castle in the forest.’ Marissa put a hand to her face and giggled. ‘We said she was living in her dreams.’

  ‘Were you close to her?’

  ‘No. Some of the others may have been.’

  ‘And when did she go missing?’

  Marissa closed her eyes. ‘On that Sunday when we gave thanks for the harvest. The weather was lovely. I remember seeing her in the cemetery after Mass, then she disappeared. We thought she had gone into the forest to meet her Goliard.’


  ‘Did you take part in the search?’ Corbett asked the man-at-arms.

  ‘Yes, I did. From the forest down to the sea. We found nothing. And now, sir,’ Martin scraped back the stool, ‘I truly must go.’

  ‘Before you do,’ Corbett lifted a hand, ‘did you have a trysting place?’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A secret place,’ Bolingbroke explained, ‘where a man might meet the lady of his heart.’

  ‘There’s some ruins,’ the man-at-arms replied, ‘at the far wall beyond the keep. A passageway leading down to the dungeons and cellars; it was our place.’ He ignored Marissa’s giggle. ‘I’ve been down there, it’s deserted.’

  He was about to leave when there was a knock at the door and Mistress Feyner came bustling in, the sleeves of her gown pulled back to her elbows, her hands and wrists red raw. She totally ignored Marissa and Martin and, without being asked, flounced down on a stool in front of the fire. When Bolingbroke served her some posset from a goblet kept in the inglenook, she snatched it from his hands.

  ‘I can’t be here long. Are you asking these two about my daughter?’ She drank greedily from the cup. ‘If you have questions about Phillipa then ask me.’

  ‘She was last seen on the Sunday in the cemetery after Mass.’

  ‘Yes, she was. She told me she was going to collect flowers.’

  ‘Not to meet the man known as Goliard?’

  Mistress Feyner threw a venomous glance at Marissa, and yet the way she moved her lips and blinked, Corbett could see she was on the verge of tears. She handed him her cup and got to her feet. ‘Don’t worry about Goliard,’ she whispered. ‘My poor Phillipa was lonely.’

  ‘But she claimed to meet him.’

  ‘Yes, yes, she did.’ Mistress Feyner rubbed her hands down her gown. ‘I can’t tell you sir, I truly can’t. My Phillipa has gone and so have the rest; now they are searching for poor Alusia.’

  ‘This trysting place,’ Corbett asked, ‘the passageway leading down to the old dungeons?’

  ‘That’s a favourite place.’ Mistress Feyner smiled. ‘We searched it for Phillipa as we have for Alusia; there is nothing there. There’s never anything there,’ she added as an afterthought.

  ‘I must visit it,’ Corbett declared. ‘Perhaps I will meet Ranulf! Mistress Feyner?’ He took her hand in his, letting her grasp the concealed coin. ‘I thank you for your pains.’

  Once the three had left, Corbett put on his boots and took his heavy cloak from the peg, fastening the clasp under his chin.

  ‘I wish to walk this castle; I want to see what’s happening.’ He nodded to Bolingbroke and Chanson, then paused. ‘Chanson, for the love of God, go and find Ranulf. Tell him I want to speak to him before we meet the French, before we sup this evening.’

  Corbett went down the freezing cold staircase and out into the bailey. Here and there sconce torches flickered bravely against the darkness. People ran across, moving hastily from one shelter to another, eager to escape from the chilling wind. Corbett pulled the hood over his head and walked around the keep. On one occasion he stopped, staring up at the masonry soaring into the skies, a forbidding, massive rectangle of stone. At various levels torches and candles glowed from the arrow slit windows. He walked along the side of the keep, passing through the small village where the castle folk lived in their wattle-and-daub cottages built against the walls and towers. A busy place, children still ran screaming about, dancing around the bonfires and makeshift braziers. The air was full of cooking aromas, the smell of tanned leather, the stench of horse manure and the sweet fragrance of hay from the barns. Now and again someone called out a greeting and Corbett lifted his hand in reply. He paused to talk to some of the men-at-arms and asked where the passageway was. They pointed deeper into the darkness.

  Corbett was now on the other side of the keep. He climbed the brow of the hill which gave the keep its dominating aspect and walked through what must be the gardens of the castle, hidden under their cover of snow, down more steps, stumbling and slipping as he crossed what seemed to be a wasteland of snow and gorse only to realise it must be the castle warren. There were few buildings here: outhouses with empty windows and a few makeshift bothies. Nearby stood the engines of war, two catapults and a large mangonel. Above him on the parapet Corbett could see the sentries, only a few here, standing beneath torches lashed to poles. On the breeze he caught the faint strains of a song a soldier was singing to amuse himself. At last he reached the curtain wall and, going along the wasteland, found the crumbling passageway leading down to what must have been old cellars and dungeons carved out beneath the castle walls like a crypt in a church.

  The steps were uneven, made more treacherous by the icy snow. Corbett held his breath as he went down, regretting that he had not brought a cresset torch. They were too steep. Corbett, cursing, clung to the wall and edged his way down. At the bottom the passageway ran on a little further. His hand felt the wall, and he sighed with relief as his fingers touched the thick tallow candle either left by the cellar man or, perhaps, brought by the lovers who met there. He took his own tinder from his pocket and, after a great deal of effort, lit the thick wick. Cupping the flame in his hand, he held the candle up. The walls of the narrow passageway stretched before him, shadows dancing in the candlelight, the beaten earth ending in a fall of masonry. Corbett walked forward, studying the ground carefully, but could find nothing. He returned to the steps and paused. The snow had turned into a muddy slush and he could tell that people had been here, probably looking for Alusia. He climbed the steps carefully. His search was futile, yet this was a lonely place. If a young woman had come here by herself and the killer had been waiting . . .

  Corbett reached the top step and, cupping the candle, was about to walk through the ruined stone entrance when he missed his footing and slipped, just as the crossbow bolt smashed into the crumbling masonry above him.

  From the flashing and fury of certain igneous substances, and the terror inspired by their noise, certain wonderful consequences follow.

  Roger Bacon, Opus Tertium

  Chapter 8

  Ranulf of Newgate, Clerk of the Chancery of the Green Wax, was very pleased and self-satisfied. He had, by mere chance as he told himself, met the Lady Constance and her maid when he returned to the solar to find something he had lost. Of course he never mentioned that he had paid a groom a silver coin to keep him apprised of where the Lady Constance was. Now, with her maid perched strategically on a stool near the door, Ranulf was attempting to show Lady Constance the wonders of the miraculous coin trick so beloved of the cunning men at Smithfield Fair.

  ‘Well, my Lady,’ Ranulf placed the three pewter cups taken from the waiting table, ‘which cup covers the coin?’

  ‘That one.’

  Ranulf’s fingers brushed hers, heads drew together and he lifted the cup to show the coin had gone. Lady Constance’s eyes danced with mischief as she swiftly tried to find the coin beneath the other two cups.

  ‘You’re a cheat!’ she exclaimed.

  Ranulf seized her wrist – he moved his chair so that the maid couldn’t see.

  ‘Sir,’ Lady Constance’s eyes widened, ‘release me.’

  ‘For a token,’ Ranulf whispered, ‘I’ll release you for a while.’

  ‘For words of love,’ she whispered.

  ‘Vos, quarum est Gloria amor et lascivia atque delectatio Aprilis cum Maio.’

  ‘Which means?’

  ‘If you were April’s lady and I were Lord of May—’ abruptly the tocsin sounded, the castle bell tolling like the crack of doom. Ranulf released her wrist, bit back his curse, and hastily remembered where he was and what he should be doing. Lady Constance jumped to her feet. At the door the maid was already standing, hands fluttering.

  Corbett, his sweat-soaked body turning icy cold, also heard the tocsin as he crouched in the ruined doorway, staring out into the blackness. He wondered what it could mean. He could hear shouts; perhaps his assailant had retreated? Cor
bett moved, and hastily ducked as another crossbow quarrel hurtled into the stonework behind him. His anxiety deepened. That was the fourth time he’d moved, and the mysterious archer showed little intention of giving up. The sentries on the parapet walk were few and would not know of the deadly cat-and-mouse game being played out beneath them. Corbett had shouted, but his cry had not been heard and now the guards were leaving. He glimpsed one hurrying with a flickering torch to investigate the source of the alarm. They’d be totally unaware of the assassin below.

  Corbett realised the murderous archer was watching the entrance to the dungeon. Any movement against the light-coloured stone, the slither of Corbett’s foot on the gravel or the crackle of icy snow would alert him. Corbett was alone, unarmed, and he sensed that his attacker was drawing closer. The quarrels now smacked into the wall with greater force; he must be only a few yards away, probably crouched or kneeling down. Corbett shivered. The castle bell tolled again but then fell silent. His hand went to his belt but he wasn’t even carrying a dagger. His fingers brushed the wallet and he recalled the penny whistle he had picked up. He took this out and, with all his breath, blew a long, piercing blast. He heard a sound in the darkness and began to shout the usual cry of a man being ambushed: ‘Au secours! Au secours!’ He took a deep breath and blew on the penny whistle again. Corbett felt slightly ridiculous crouched here in the freezing darkness, his only weapon a child’s toy. He shouted once more, heard scuffling sounds and blew a fresh blast on the penny whistle.

  ‘Who’s there?’ Corbett relaxed as he recognised Bolingbroke’s voice.

  ‘William,’ he shouted. ‘I’m over here.’ He edged out of the doorway. Bolingbroke stood a few paces away, sword drawn.

  ‘What happened?’ he exclaimed as Corbett came stumbling towards him.