by Paul Doherty
‘Yes.’
‘And the village of Melford lies - ’ Corbett gestured with his hand - ‘to the south? The church stands at one end. We have streets and thoroughfares, the marketplace in the centre, then it curves slightly out into the countryside?’
‘You are not such a stranger,’ Tressilyian replied. ‘But yes, that’s a good way of describing the town.’
‘So, there are many trackways and thoroughfares out?’
‘Yes, I told you. Melford has grown as prosperous, and as rambling, as the fleece on a sheep’s back.’
‘And Molkyn’s mill is at the church end of the town?’
‘That’s right. There’s the mill, Thorkle’s farm is nearby. In fact, it’s almost a small hamlet. There’s the mere, the millpond.’
‘And Goodwoman Walmer’s cottage?’
‘About a mile from the mill.’
‘And lanes and trackways aplenty?’ Corbett asked.
‘Oh, Sweet Lord, yes,’ Tressilyian laughed. ‘If you read the report of the trial, one witness actually described Melford as a rabbit warren. There are lanes and trackways out. You’ve seen the gates and stiles. Footpaths crisscross the meadows. God knows,’ he sighed, ‘as a justice I am always having to rule on what is trespass and what is not. You see, Corbett, the land round here has changed. Sheep, not corn, is the measure of a man’s wealth. So woods are cleared, hedgerows planted, fences and gates put up.’
‘If I catch your drift,’ Sir Maurice said, ‘an ideal place for murder, yes, Sir Hugh?’
‘Any place is ideal for murder,’ Corbett replied. ‘Ranulf dislikes the countryside. He claims it’s more dangerous than the alleyways of London. For once I agree with him. Once darkness falls, a man who knew his way around here could slip along the lanes and gullys and do what he wished. He’d be as well protected as he would in the dingy slums around Whitefriars or the maze of Southwark alleyways.’
‘I have seen both those places,’ Tressilyian replied. ‘I prefer Melford.’
They continued along the lane. The fields gave way to a copse of woods on either side. Corbett felt as if he was going down a hollow, darkened passageway. The lane rose, dipped, then rose again. Corbett identified Devil’s Oak before Tressilyian pointed it out: a great, squat tree once used as a boundary mark. The huge oak had been struck by lightning but its branches, now stripped of their leaves, still stretched up to the evening sky. Corbett dismounted. He looked across the fields to his left: a water meadow which ran down to the banks of the Swaile. Corbett glimpsed the tumbled ruins just near its bank.
‘What’s that?’ he asked.
‘Beauchamp Place,’ Chapeleys explained. ‘It was once a small manor house: piggeries, dovecotes, stables, but the man who built it was a fool. The land is waterlogged. After heavy rains it tends to flood. It’s been a ruin for about thirty years now. The last relic of the Beauchamps was a madcap old man, found drowned in one of the cellars. The townspeople still say it’s haunted.’ He pointed to the oak. ‘They say the same about this and poor Elizabeth’s ghost.’
Corbett stepped across the ditch. There was a gap in the hedgerow on either side of the oak. Corbett slipped through one of these.
‘Elizabeth’s corpse was found here?’
‘Yes,’ Chapeleys replied. ‘That’s what Blidscote said, to the right of the great oak tree, on the field side of the hedgerow.’
Corbett squatted down. The grass was cold, catching at the sweaty skin on his wrist. He brushed this aside and looked along the hard, gnarled branches of the hedge but could see nothing amiss. Feeling with his gloved hand, he searched the area carefully, digging with his fingers.
‘What are you looking for?’ Tressilyian asked.
Corbett got to his feet. Tressilyian was leaning against the oak tree, Chapeleys on the far side of the ditch. Corbett repressed the feeling of unease at the atmosphere of danger. He did not like Devil’s Oak. Here he was with two strangers in a place of brutal murder. He half wished Ranulf was with him.
‘Why is it,’ Corbett murmured, ‘such places have a feeling of desolation? Is it the imaginings of our own souls, a lack of wit? Or does a spot like this still reek of the terrors which visited it?’
Corbett brushed past Tressilyian and leapt across the ditch. He took the reins of his horse, stroking its muzzle.
‘What were you looking for?’ Tressilyian asked again.
‘I don’t know,’ Corbett replied. ‘I am curious. Why should a young woman like Elizabeth come to a lonely place like this? She wouldn’t, would she? No woman in her right mind would travel so far from her town to meet a man in the open countryside.’
‘Are you saying she was killed elsewhere?’ Chapeleys asked.
‘I know she was killed elsewhere,’ Corbett replied. ‘You see, when those two young boys found her corpse they would be frightened, yes? They’d run back to the town and bring back Master Blidscote and the other bailiffs. Now they would see it lying there and pull it out ever so carefully.’
‘And?’ Sir Maurice asked, intrigued by this dark-faced, mysterious clerk.
‘The man who raped young Elizabeth wouldn’t be so tender. He was brutal. He attacked her, ravished her, then wrung her neck with a garrotte string. Even a man like Blidscote, despite all the ale he had drunk, would have seen signs of a violent attack here at Devil’s Oak.’ He paused. ‘I also expected to find bits of hair, clothing, even some sign of the corpse being pushed under the hedge. Again, Blidscote would have noticed that. But the killer seems to have acted as tenderly as a mother with her babe.’
‘You don’t believe that?’ Tressilyian taunted.
‘No, I don’t.’
Corbett stared across the field and his heart skipped a beat. Was that a figure of a woman - he was sure of it - flitting through the copse of trees on the brow of the hill?
‘Sir Hugh, you were talking about the killer . . .?’
‘I don’t think he was tender,’ Corbett replied, still watching the spot through the gap in the hedgerow. ‘I think he brought Elizabeth’s corpse here in a sheet and rolled it under.’ He gathered the reins and swung himself up into the saddle. ‘Call the killer tender? No, no, sirs, we are dealing with a ravenous wolf!’
Chapter 5
They rode down the hill; the hedgerows and fields gave way to a small wood on either side. They stopped at the spot where Sir Louis had been ambushed. The signs were still there: the sapling which the justice had pushed off the road had apparently been cut down by an axe. Tressilyian found an arrow in the far ditch with its barn snapped off. The gravel on the trackway had been disturbed by the horse’s skittering, whilst Corbett could still see the tangle of undergrowth where Sir Louis had charged his assailant. The clerk drew his sword to clear away the briars and brambles and followed the same path.
‘I am sure he stood there,’ Sir Louis called out.
Corbett followed his direction: a thick ash tree where the undergrowth wasn’t so dense. He walked across and crouched down. No grass and the mud was soft from the previous day’s rain. Corbett could distinguish the prints of Sir Louis’s boot but then noticed the imprint of bare toes and a heel.
‘That’s strange!’ he called back. ‘Sir Louis, your assailant was bare-footed!’
‘Whatever, he was a will-o’-the-wisp!’ the justice replied.
Corbett looked up: a narrow trackway curved through the woods, muddy and slippery. He went back and looked at the arrow and recalled his days in the King’s armies in Wales. How the Welsh, with their long bows, used to fight bare-footed to keep a firmer grip on the soil.
‘What does it all mean, Corbett?’ Tressilyian asked.
‘I wish I knew.’ The clerk looked at the faint tendrils of mist curling amongst the trees. ‘But I’ve kept you long enough with my searches.’
‘What on earth is that?’
Tressilyian walked to the edge of the ditch. Corbett followed. A woman, cloaked and hooded, stood beneath the branches of an outstretched tree. He could make out h
er pale face, hair peeping from beneath a shabby hood.
‘Come forward!’ Corbett ordered. He gripped his sword tighter.
The woman stayed still.
‘Come forward! We mean you no harm!’
The woman seemed hesitant. Chapeleys grasped his horse’s reins and swung himself up in the saddle. The woman hesitated and walked forward: long, purposeful strides, sure-footed. She crossed the ditch and stood wiping the burrs from her patched, woollen gown; the linen undergarment hung shabby and frayed above battered leather boots. She wore a half-cloak, a coarse linen shawl beneath a broad and weather-beaten face - her nose slightly crooked, a pleasant, full mouth and wide, watchful eyes. Her black hair was streaked with grey at the front.
‘Who are you?’ Corbett asked.
‘I am Sorrel.’
‘Sorrel?’ Corbett laughed. ‘That’s the name of a herb.’
‘That’s what Furrell called me.’
Corbett heard an exclamation from Chapeleys.
‘Of course, you are Furrell the poacher’s woman!’
‘I was Furrell the countryman’s woman!’ she replied, deftly moving her hair from her face.
‘What are you doing wandering the woods?’ Corbett demanded. ‘Unarmed, unaccompanied?’
‘I am not unarmed, clerk. Oh yes, I know who you are.’ She smiled. ‘I have a staff. I have left it amongst the trees with my leather bag. Surely I would be safe with a royal justice, the handsome Sir Maurice and the fearsome King’s clerk? And, as for being unaccompanied, now who would hurt a poor beggar woman?’
‘I saw you earlier,’ Corbett declared, ‘in the copse at the top of the meadow where Devil’s Oak stands.’
‘And I saw you.’ Sorrel looked up at the sky and sighed. ‘So, it’s true what they say. You are a sharp-eyed clerk! Come to chase the devil from Melford, have you? By God and all His angels, he needs chasing!’
‘Watch your tongue!’ Tressilyian snapped.
‘My tongue and my manners are my own!’ Sorrel’s face took on a pugnacious look. ‘You are not in your court now, Sir Louis. Because of you, my man has disappeared, just because he told the truth!’
Corbett looked over his shoulder at Sir Louis, who just shrugged. This was no accident. Sorrel had followed them from Melford. She had even learnt a little about him.
‘Sir Louis, Sir Maurice!’ Corbett called out. ‘I have kept you long enough. I must return to Melford.’
‘You will be my guests?’ Sir Louis asked. ‘Tomorrow night a dinner at the Guildhall? You and your companions?’
Corbett agreed. He stood and watched both knights leave. The woman didn’t move.
‘You’d best get your bag and staff,’ Corbett smiled. ‘I’ll wait for you here.’
The woman crossed the small ditch, hurried amongst the trees and came back, the leather bag slung over her shoulder, a stout walking cane in one hand. She also brought a cloak which she’d slung around her shoulders and clasped at the throat. She winked at Corbett.
‘I have two cloaks. This one’s stolen. It’s best not to let the royal justice know that.’
‘You want to speak to me, don’t you?’
‘Yes, clerk, I wish to speak to you.’
‘Where do you live?’
‘In Beauchamp ruins. Common pasture there. No one exactly knows who owns what so they can’t clear me out.’ She looked at Corbett’s magnificent bay gelding. ‘Can I ride your horse? Please. I always wanted to be a lady and ride high in the saddle.’
Corbett helped her up, shortening the stirrups, then grasped the reins.
‘Now, you won’t ride off,’ he joked, ‘and claim you found the horse wandering?’
Sorrel leant down and stroked Corbett’s cheek with her calloused hands.
‘You have a priest’s face, olive-skinned and smooth-shaven. You tie your hair back like a fighting man. Your eyes are sad but sharp. You remind me of a trapped falcon. Are you trapped, royal clerk?’
Corbett grinned.
‘That’s better.’ She smiled back. ‘You can be quite the lady’s man but you’d have scruples about that, wouldn’t you?’
‘I didn’t know it was so easy to read my mind.’
‘Oh, I haven’t. However, when you sit in the inglenook at the Golden Fleece, it’s marvellous what you hear. Your reputation precedes you, Sir Hugh Corbett. The King’s man in peace and war. Are you the King’s man?’
Corbett recalled Edward’s face, harsh and lined, the cynical eyes, the way he talked to him but his eyes would shift to Ranulf as if the Clerk of the Green Wax was more his confidant: the man who, perhaps, would do things not covered by the law.
‘I try to be,’ Corbett replied. ‘But it’s getting dark, Mistress. I am cold, I am hungry and you have a tale to tell.’
He urged the horse forward, walking alongside. He glanced up. Sorrel was riding as if she was a lady, eyes half closed, humming under her breath.
‘You are comely enough,’ he said. ‘What’s your real name?’
‘Sorrel, that’s what Furrell called me. That’s what I am.’
‘And why do you wander the woods?’
‘I don’t wander, I am searching.’ Her voice was hard. ‘I am looking for Furrell’s grave.’
Corbett paused. ‘You are so sure he’s dead?’
She tapped her forehead and chest. ‘I truly am. I want to find his grave. I want to pray over his corpse. If I can discover his grave, perhaps I can unmask his killer. He was a good man. I was a wanderer. I met Furrell twelve years ago. We exchanged vows under a yew tree in the graveyard. We were man and wife, as close and as handfast as any couple blessed in church. Oh, he was merry. He could play a lute and dance a lively jig. He was the best hunter and woodsman. He could creep up on a rabbit, silent as a shadow. We never went hungry and we sold what we didn’t need.’
‘Poaching’s a dangerous pastime.’
‘Oh, the occasional deer or the lonely lamb that no one would miss. But who’s going to tell? The peasants we sold it to? Fresh meat in the pot for their children?’
‘And all that changed?’ Corbett asked.
‘Oh, it changed all right. The night Goodwoman Walmer was murdered.’
‘Who was she?’ Corbett asked.
‘She lived in the cottage on the far side of the town. A strange one: pretty as an angel, hair like ripe corn, eyes as blue as the sky. She always wore her gown that little bit too tight. Her face was painted, neck, wrists and fingers adorned with necklaces, bracelets and rings. No one knew where she came from. Geoffrey Walmer was a potter, a very good one. He sold as far afield as Ipswich. He was gone for a week and came back with her. You know how it is, clerk? A marriage between May and December? There is no fool like an old fool in love. Anyway, Geoffrey died and Cecily Walmer became a goodwoman, a widow. She looked even more attractive in widow’s weeds. The men clustered about her like bees round a honeypot.’
‘Did you like her?’
‘We understood each other. You know what she was, clerk? You’ve heard the story many a time. A prosperous tradesman goes to a big town. He makes a tidy profit, enters a tavern and meets some comely maid selling her favours. She’s only too quick to leave the horrors of the alleyways for a peaceful life and anything she wants.’
‘Are you talking from experience?’
‘Very sharp, clerk. Yes, I am but, enough of that. Now Goodwoman Walmer owned a cottage, a self-enclosed plot with chicken coops, dovecotes, piggeries and, in the fields around, juicy pheasants and partridges. Now, on the night she was murdered, Furrell went down there. Sometimes he would call in for a flagon of ale. He crept through the garden, saw the door open and Sir Roger Chapeleys leave. Now, thought Furrell, there’s a satisfied man. The manor lord climbed into his saddle like a man full of ale and pleasure. Goodwoman Walmer stood in the doorway. She leant against the lintel, arms crossed, her hair falling down to her shoulders. Furrell decided to ignore his ale and crept away.’
‘So, the widow was alive and well when
Sir Roger left?’
‘Oh, yes. I don’t think Sir Roger killed those women. He was a lecher and a drunkard but he was good to me and Furrell. He knew we poached his lands but, at Christmas, he always sent us a chicken or a goose. I mean, why should Sir Roger, with all the slatterns and maids at his manor hall, go out and assault peasant wenches?’
‘He visited Goodwoman Walmer.’
‘Ay yes, but she was different,’ Sorrel laughed. ‘An accomplished courtesan. Sir Roger knew where he was fishing.’
‘Was he liked?’ Corbett asked.
‘No, he wasn’t, by either the priests or the townspeople. Sir Roger kept himself to himself, except one night in the tavern he called all priests liars and hypocrites, though he seemed to have a soft spot for Parson Grimstone.’
‘Yet that’s no reason why so many people should speak against him.’
‘I don’t know. Furrell said something strange. The day after Sir Roger was condemned, my man and I , we were having a meal in the ruins. Furrell got slightly drunk and abruptly declared the devil had come to Melford. “Why?” asks I. “Oh,” he replies, “to make those people say what they did.”
‘You mean the witnesses?’
‘Everything,’ she replied. ‘How a bracelet was found in Sir Roger’s house, belonging to one of the murdered women. How Deverell the carpenter was so sure he had seen Sir Roger fleeing from Goodwoman Walmer’s house.’
‘Fleeing?’ Corbett asked.
‘That’s the way he put it. All furtive.’
‘But I understand from the records of the trial that they found Chapeleys’ dagger sheath there.’
‘Furrell didn’t believe Sir Roger had left it there. In fact, he said more to me.’
‘More?’ Corbett queried.
‘On the night Walmer was killed, Furrell saw Sir Roger leave but claimed at least three other men, on separate occasions, made their way down Gully Lane towards her house.’
‘Three?’ Corbett demanded. He stopped and stared up at her.
‘He repeated the same in court. According to him, Widow Walmer must have been very busy that night. Yet he was surely mistaken. Whatever she was in a former life, Cecily Walmer acted the role of a widow. If she had acted any differently in a place like Melford, the gossips’ tongues would have soon wagged.’