The Devil's Hunt (A Medieval Mystery Featuring Hugh Corbett)

by Doherty, Paul

  Corbett wrinkled his nose at the foul smell and the greasy scrap of parchment, with his name scrawled on it, tied on a string round the leather bundle. He walked out into the street, stood in the mouth of an alleyway and cut the cord. He crouched down and gingerly tipped the contents into the muddy street. His stomach clenched and he gagged at the sight of the tattered, foul remains of a crow, its body slit from throat to crotch, the innards spilling out. Corbett swore, kicked the dead bird away and went back into the street.

  Ranulf stayed behind. He examined the bird carefully and then the tattered, leather bag.

  ‘Leave it, Ranulf!’ Corbett called.

  ‘A warning, Master?’

  ‘Aye,’ Corbett breathed. ‘A warning.’

  He stared across Broad Street. The crowd had thinned: it was well past noon: the Angelus bell had tolled and the cookshops and taverns were now full, the traders enjoying a slight lull in the day’s frenetic activities. Corbett and Ranulf walked back towards Sparrow Hall. Now and again Ranulf would turn, staring up a narrow alleyway or glancing at the windows on either side, but he could detect no sign of pursuit. They entered the lane; the door to Sparrow Hall was closed so they crossed the street, went down an alleyway and into the yard of the hostelry. Norreys, assisted by some porters, was rolling great barrels out of a cart to be lowered through an open trap door into the cellar below.

  ‘Provisions,’ Norreys called out as they walked across. ‘Never buy in an Oxford market, it’s cheaper and fresher from outside.’

  ‘Have you just returned?’ Corbett asked.

  ‘Oh yes, I left well before dawn,’ Norreys replied, his face flushed and covered in a sheen of sweat. ‘I’ve made a handsome profit.’

  Corbett was about to continue when a group of students burst into the yard, led by David Ap Thomas. The Welshman, stripped to his waist, flexed his muscles and swung a thick quarterstaff in his hand, much to the admiration of his henchmen. Ap Thomas was well built, his chest and arms firm and muscular; he played with the staff as a child would a stick, skilfully and effortlessly turning it in his hands.

  ‘An accomplished street brawler,’ Corbett murmured.

  ‘I’d ignore them and go in,’ Norreys warned.

  Corbett, however, just shook his head. The Welshman was now staring across at them. Corbett glimpsed the amulet round his neck.

  ‘I think this is meant for our entertainment and amusement,’ Ranulf muttered. ‘As well as a warning.’

  Suddenly the door was flung open and a garishly dressed figure came bounding out. One of Ap Thomas’s henchman, clothed in black tattered rags, a yellow beak stuck to his face, with boots of the same colour on his bare legs. He, too, held a staff and, for a while, jumped about flailing his arms, cawing like the crow he was so aptly imitating.

  ‘I’ll cut the bastards’ throats!’ Ranulf said hoarsely.

  ‘No, no,’ Corbett warned. ‘Let them have their laugh.’

  The ‘crow’ stopped its antics and squared up to Ap Thomas, and both scholars began a quarterstaff fight. Corbett decided to ignore the insult. He stood, admiring the consummate skill of both men, Ap Thomas particularly. The quarterstaffs were thick ash-poles wielded with great force, and a blow to the head would send any man unconscious. Nevertheless, both Ap Thomas and his opponent were skilled fighters. The staffs whirled through the air, as both men ducked and leapt. Now and again the sticks would clash as a blow to the head or stomach was neatly blocked or there would be a jab at the legs in an attempt to tip the opposing fighters over by a vicious tap to the ankles. Ap Thomas fought quietly with only the occasional grunt as he stepped back, chest heaving, face and arms coated in sweat, waiting for his opponent to close in once again.

  The fight lasted for at least ten minutes until Ap Thomas, swiftly moving his pole from hand to hand, stepped back and, with a resounding thwack to the shoulder, sent his opponent crashing to his knees.

  Corbett and Ranulf walked across the yard, ignoring the raucous crowing. Ranulf would have gone back but Corbett plucked at his sleeve.

  ‘As the good book says, Ranulf, “there’s a time and place under heaven for everything: a time for planting and a time for plucking up, a time for war and a time for peace.” - Now it’s time to rouse Maltote, he’s slept long enough!’

  Ranulf shrugged and followed. He also recalled a phrase from the Old Testament: ‘Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life’, but he decided to keep his own counsel.

  They found Maltote had just woken up. He was sitting, scratching his blond, tousled hair. He blinked owlishly at them, then winced as he stretched out his leg.

  ‘I came back here half asleep,’ he explained, ‘and caught my shin on a bucket Norreys had left out after he’d been cleaning the cellars.’ Maltote limped to his feet. ‘I heard the noise from below,’ he said. ‘What was happening?’

  ‘Just fools playing,’ Corbett retorted. ‘They were born foolish and they’ll die foolish!’

  ‘Are we to eat?’ Maltote asked.

  ‘Not here,’ Corbett said. ‘Ranulf, take Maltote, explain what has happened and how careful he has to be. Go to Turl Lane, where there’s a tavern, the Grey Goose. I might meet you there after I’ve visited the Hall.’

  They went downstairs into the lane. A whore, her face painted so white the plaster was cracking, flounced by, shaking her dirty, tattered skirts at them. In one hand she held her red wig, in the other a pet weasel tied by a piece of string wrapped round her wrist. She grinned at them in a display of yellow, cracked teeth but then turned, cursing in a string of filthy oaths, as a dog came out of an alleyway snapping and snarling at her pet. Whilst Ranulf and Maltote helped to drive it away, Corbett crossed and knocked at the door of Sparrow Hall. A servitor let him in. Corbett explained why he was there and the man took him upstairs to Churchley’s chamber. Master Aylric was sitting at his desk beneath an open window, watching the flame of a candle burn lower. He rose as Corbett entered, hiding his irritation beneath a false smile.

  ‘How does fire burn?’ he asked, grasping Corbett’s hand. ‘Why does wax burn quicker? Why is it more amenable to fire than wood or iron?’

  ‘It depends on its properties,’ Corbett replied, quoting from Aristotle.

  ‘Yes, but why?’ Churchley asked, waving him to a stool.

  ‘It’s about natural properties I have come.’ Corbett abruptly changed the conversation. ‘Master Aylric,’ he continued. ‘You are a physician?’

  ‘Yes, but I’m more of a student of the natural world,’ Churchley teased back, his narrow face becoming suspicious.

  ‘But you dispense physic here?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘And you have a dispensary? A store of herbs and potions?’

  ‘Of course,’ came the guarded reply. ‘It’s further down the passageway, but it’s under lock and key.’

  ‘I’ll come to the point,’ Corbett said briskly. ‘If you wished to poison someone, Master Aylric - it’s a question, not an accusation - you wouldn’t, surely, buy it from an apothecary in the city?’

  Churchley shook his head. ‘That could be traced,’ he replied. ‘One would be remembered. I buy from an apothecary in Hog Lane,’ he explained, ‘and all my purchases are carefully noted.’

  ‘You never gather the herbs yourself?’

  ‘In Oxford?’ Churchley scoffed. ‘Oh, you might find some camomile out in Christchurch Meadows but, Sir Hugh, I am a busy Master. I am not some old woman who spends her days browsing in the woods like a cow.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Corbett replied. ‘And the same goes for the assassin who killed Passerel and Langton.’

  Churchley sat back in his chair. ‘I follow your drift, Sir Hugh. You think the poisons were taken from the dispensary here, yet that would be noticed. The poisons are all held in jars carefully measured. It’s not that we expect to be poisoned in our beds,’ he continued, ‘but a substance like white arsenic is costly. Come, I’ll show you.’

  He took a bunch of keys from a hook on th
e wall and led Corbett to a door further down the gallery. He unlocked it and they went in. The room was dark. Churchley struck a tinder and lit the six-branched candelabra on the small table. The air was thick with different smells, some fragrant, others acrid. Three walls of the chamber were covered in shelves. Each bore different pots, cups or jars with its own contents carefully marked. On the left were herbs: sponge-cap, sweet violet, thyme, hazelwitch, water grass, even some basil, but others, on the right, Corbett recognised as more deadly potions such as henbane and belladonna. Churchley took down a jar, an earthenware pot with a lid. The tag pasted to its side showed it to be white arsenic. Churchley put on a pair of soft kid gloves lying on the table. He took off the stopper and held the pot up against the candlelight. Corbett noted how the jar was measured in half ounces.

  ‘You see,’ Churchley explained. ‘There are eight and a half ounces here.’ He opened a calf-skin tome lying on the table. ‘Sometimes it is dispensed,’ he continued, ‘in very small doses for stomach complaints and I have given some to Norreys as it can be used as a powerful astringent for cleansing. But as you see, eight and a half ounces still remain.’

  Corbett picked up the pot and sniffed.

  ‘Be careful,’ Churchley warned. ‘Those skilled in herbal lore say it should be handled wisely.’

  Corbett sifted through the pot, noticing how the powder at the top seemed finer than that lying underneath. Churchley handed him a horn spoon and Corbett shook some of the fine chalk-like substance into it. Churchley stopped his protests and watched quietly, his face rather worried.

  ‘You are thinking the same as I,’ Corbett murmured. He scooped some of the powder on to the spoon. ‘Master Churchley, I assure you, I am not skilled in physic.’ Corbett held the powder up to his nose. ‘But I think this is finely ground chalk or flour and no more deadly.’

  Churchley almost snatched the spoon out of his hand and, plucking up courage, he dabbed at the powder and put some on the tip of his tongue. He then took a rag and wiped his mouth.

  ‘It’s finely ground flour!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘Who keeps the keys?’ Corbett asked.

  ‘Well, I do,’ Churchley replied in a fluster. ‘But, Sir Hugh, surely you do not suspect me?’ He stepped out of the pool of light, as if he wished to hide in the shadows. ‘There could be other keys,’ he explained. ‘And this is Sparrow Hall, we don’t bolt and lock all our chambers. Ascham was an exception in that. Anyone could come into my chamber and take the keys. The Hall is often deserted.’ His words came out in a rush.

  ‘Someone came here,’ Corbett replied, putting the spoon back on the table, ‘and removed enough white arsenic to kill poor Langton. Someone who knew your system, Master Churchley.’

  ‘Well, everybody does,’ the man gabbled.

  ‘He filled the jar with powder,’ Corbett explained.

  ‘But who?’

  Corbett wiped his fingers on his cloak.

  ‘I don’t know, Master Churchley.’ He waved round the room. ‘But God knows what else is missing.’ He stepped up close and saw the fear in Churchley’s eyes. ‘But I ask myself what else, Master Aylric, has been taken?’ Corbett turned and walked to the door. ‘If I was a Master of Sparrow Hall,’ he called over his shoulder, ‘I would be very careful what I ate and drank.’

  Chapter 8

  A worried Churchley locked the door of the store room and followed Corbett down the gallery.

  ‘Sir Hugh,’ he wailed. ‘Are you saying we are all in danger?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I am. I would strongly advise that you scrupulously search to see if any more powders are missing.’

  Corbett paused at the top of the stairs. ‘Who is acting as bursar after Passerel’s death?’

  ‘Well, I am.’

  ‘Is it possible to sift through Ascham’s and Passerel’s belongings?’

  Churchley pulled a face.

  ‘I need to,’ Corbett persisted. ‘God knows, man, all our lives are at risk. I might find something there.’

  Churchley, grumbling under his breath and anxious to get back to his herbs, led Corbett downstairs. They passed the small dining hall to the rear of the building. Churchley unlocked the door and led Corbett into a store room, a large vaulted chamber full of barrels with sheaves of parchment, ink, and vellum ranged along the shelves; further back stood buckets of sea coal and tuns of malmsey, wine and ale.

  Churchley took Corbett over to a far corner. He unclasped two great chests.

  ‘Passerel’s and Ascham’s possessions are here,’ he declared. ‘They had no relatives - or none to speak of. Once their wills have been approved by Chancery, I suppose all these items will be inherited by the college.’

  Corbett nodded and knelt down beside the chests. He smiled as he recalled his own experience as a clerk of the Chancery court, having to travel to some manor house or abbey to approve a will or order the release of monies and goods. He began to sift through the belongings. Churchley mumbled something about other duties and left Corbett to his own devices. Once Churchley’s footsteps faded away, Corbett realised how quiet the Hall had become. He controlled a shiver of unease and went across to close and bolt the door before returning to his task. He then searched both chests, sifting through clothes, belts, baldrics, a small calf-skin-covered Books of Hours, cups, mazers, pewter dishes and gilt-edged goblets that each man had collected over the years. Corbett was experienced enough to realise that what was not actually listed in Ascham’s or Passerel’s will would have already been removed. He was also sure the Bellman would have also scrutinised the dead men’s possessions to confirm that nothing suspicious remained. Ascham’s belongings provided little of interest and Corbett was about to give up on Passerel’s when he found a small writing bag. He opened this and tossed the fragments and scraps of parchment it contained on to the floor. Some were blank, others scrawled with different lists of provisions or items of business. There was a roll listing the expenses Passerel had incurred in travelling to Dover. Another listed the salaries of servants in both the hostelry and Hall. A few were covered with graffiti: one in particular caught Corbett’s attention. Passerel had scrawled the word ‘Passera’, ‘Passera’, many times.

  ‘What is this?’ Corbett murmured, recalling the message left by the dying Ascham. Was Passerel playing some pun on his name? Did ‘Passera’ mean something? Corbett put the pieces of parchment back, tidied up both chests and pushed down the clasps. He went back into the hall and along the passageway to the library. The door was half open. Corbett pushed it aside and walked quietly in. The man seated at the table with his back to him was so engrossed in what he was reading that Corbett was beside him before he turned, the cowl falling back from his head, his hands moving quickly to cover what he was reading.

  ‘Why, Master Appleston,’ Corbett smiled his apologies. ‘I did not mean to alarm you.’

  Appleston closed the book quickly, turning on his stool to face Corbett.

  ‘Sir Hugh, I was... er... well, you remember what Abelard said?’

  ‘No, I am afraid I do not.’

  ‘He said there was no better place to lose one’s soul than in a book.’

  Corbett held his hand up. ‘In which case, Master Appleston, may I see the one you are so engrossed in?’

  Appleston sighed and handed the book over. Corbett opened it, the stiff, parchment pages crackling as he turned them over.

  ‘There’s no need to act the inquisitor,’ Appleston declared.

  Corbett continued to turn the pages.

  ‘I have always had an interest in the theories of de Montfort: “Quod omnes tangent ab omnibus approbetur”.’

  ‘What touches all should be approved by all,’ Corbett translated. ‘And why the interest?’

  ‘Oh, I could lie,’ Appleston replied, ‘and say I am interested in political theory, but I am sure the court spies or city gossips have told you the truth already.’ He stood up, pulling back his shoulders. ‘My name is Appleston, which was my mother’s name. She was a b
ailiffs daughter from one of de Montfort’s manors. The great Earl, or so she told me, fell in love with her. I am their child.’

  ‘And are you proud of that?’ Corbett asked. He studied the square, sunburnt face, the laughter lines around the eyes and wondered if this man, in some way, was a fair reflection of his father. ‘I asked a question.’

  ‘Of course I am,’ Appleston retorted, touching the sore on the comer of his mouth. ‘Not a day goes by that I don’t pray for the repose of my father’s soul.’

  ‘Concedo,’ Corbett replied. ‘He was a great man but he was also a traitor to his King.’

  ‘Voluntas Principis habet vigorem legis,’ Appleston quipped.

  ‘No, I don’t believe that,’ Corbett retorted. ‘Just because the King wants something does not mean it’s law. I am not a theorist, Master Appleston, but I know the gospels: a man cannot have two masters - a realm cannot have two kings.’

  ‘And if de Montfort had won?’ Appleston asked.

  ‘If de Montfort had won,’ Corbett replied, ‘and the Commons, together with the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, had offered him the crown, then I and thousands of others would have bent the knee. What concerns me, Master Appleston, is not de Montfort but the Bellman.’

  ‘I am no traitor,’ the Master replied. ‘Although I have studied my father’s writings since I was a boy.’

  ‘How is it -’ Corbett asked ‘- that a member of the de Montfort family is given a benefice here at Sparrow Hall? A college founded by de Montfort’s enemy?’

  ‘Because we all feel guilty.’

  Master Alfred Tripham entered the library, a small folio under his arm.

  ‘I have just returned from the schools,’ Tripham explained. ‘Master Churchley told me you might be here.’

  Corbett bowed. ‘You walk as quietly as a cat, Master Alfred.’

  Tripham shrugged. ‘Curiosity, Sir Hugh, always has a soft footfall.’

  ‘You spoke of guilt?’ Corbett asked.

  ‘Ah, yes.’ Tripham put the folio down on the table. ‘That prick to the conscience, eh, Sir Hugh?’ He looked round the library. ‘Somewhere here, amongst these papers, there’s a copy of Sir Henry Braose’s will but I am too busy to search for it.’ Tripham went and sat on a stool opposite Appleston. ‘However, in his last years, Braose became melancholic. He often had dreams about that last dreadful fight at Evesham and how the King’s knights desecrated de Montfort’s body. Braose believed he should make reparation. He paid for hundreds of chantry Masses for the dead Earl’s soul. When Leonard here applied for the post...’