by Paul Doherty
‘Sir Hugh?’
Corbett pointed at the one-eyed archer, his beard and moustache all tangled, his shabby hood pulled across his close-cropped head. ‘Peter,’ he declared. ‘Remove your hood.’
The archer, mittened fingers all dirty, nails ragged and broken, did so.
‘Look at him, Ranulf. What do you see?’
The Clerk of the Green Wax stared hard. The archer grinned, took off the eye patch and rubbed at his blackened teeth with his forefinger. Ranulf peered closer and gasped.
‘St Michael and all his angels!’ he breathed. ‘My lord Gaveston! Peter Gaveston, close friend of the king, Earl of Cornwall.’
‘And now an honest archer.’ Gaveston grinned. ‘Ranulf, if I could deceive you,’ his voice changed from lilting Welsh to the harsh Norman French of the court, ‘then I can deceive anyone.’
‘Of course, of course,’ Ranulf breathed. ‘You have a great gift for mimicry, my lord, which is one of the reasons—’
‘The other great lords hate me.’ Gaveston finished the sentence. He leaned forward, picking at his now whitening teeth. ‘I not only beat them at the tournament, Ranulf, but mimic and mock their mannerisms, which is why,’ he immediately changed to a nasal twang, imitating the voice of Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, so accurately that Corbett laughed, ‘they have persecuted me to the death.’
‘Sir Hugh,’ Ranulf glanced at Corbett and Ap Ythel, ‘why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Truthfulness and honesty,’ Corbett replied caustically, ‘do seem to be in very short measure and, I confess, I am party to some of it.’ He gestured at Gaveston. ‘On that issue I have talked to Seton and Sterling. They have revealed their true purpose.’
‘Hugh, Hugh.’ Gaveston leaned forward and gripped Corbett’s shoulder, shaking it gently before letting his hand fall away. ‘Hugh, His Grace and I know your conscience is much more delicate than ours. All we are doing is releasing the dead Red Comyn’s retainers to pursue their own justifiable blood feud as well as weaken this kingdom’s greatest enemy, the usurper Robert the Bruce.’
‘And this!’ Ranulf exclaimed. ‘Why wasn’t I—’
‘Lest we made a mistake,’ Corbett replied, ‘like I nearly did on so many occasions. Think, Ranulf. Because you didn’t know, I couldn’t discuss the truth with you, sure protection against any spy or assassin – and it would seem,’ he added bitterly, ‘there are enough of those around us.’
‘I was party to the secret,’ Ap Ythel declared. ‘I had to be if my lord was to join my lovely lads.’
‘We thought it best,’ Corbett added. ‘Who would look for the elegant Peter Gaveston, Earl of Cornwall, amongst a cohort of Welsh archers?’
‘No one would ever guess,’ Ap Ythel agreed. ‘My lord Gaveston joined us as a distant kinsman in search of employment after a hunting accident in the king’s forest of Caerphilly. I advised my lord to have his head completely shaved, grow a veritable bush of a dirty beard and become used to an eye patch. My lord can mimic like any mummer, but I advised him to talk little. He knows some of the Welsh tongue and he has certainly acted the part. No one has even commented on his presence.’
‘However, I am not yet out of the thicket.’ Gaveston rubbed his eyes. ‘The other great lords want me exiled. If they seized me, they would impose a more permanent solution: swift and sudden death. Their spies and scrutineers are as thick as fleas on a mangy dog along the London quaysides, as well as those of the Cinque Ports such as Dover and Sandwich and all other harbours to both the east and the west. The main highways in and out of London are the haunt of Judas men who hope to earn the bounty Lancaster has posted on my head. The royal palaces of Windsor, King’s Langley, even as far west as Gloucester and Bristol, have their own cohort of silent watchers.’
‘My lord Gaveston is easily recognisable,’ Corbett declared. ‘So,’ he drew a deep breath, ‘we decided on this. My lord becomes a common archer. We remove him from the dangers of London and bring him north. We have one true ally here: Prior Richard at Tynemouth. The priory owns a cog, The Golden Dove, a two-hundred-ton merchantman that does good trade with the northern kingdoms. If we are successful and reach Tynemouth, we shall shelter there. My lord Gaveston will board The Golden Dove and be safe. What we have to do is to sustain the pretence. If Lord Henry or Darel knew the truth, they would seize my lord, hold him hostage and probably sell him to Lancaster.’
Corbett paused. Somewhere out in the moorland, a fox yipped and there was a scream as if some creature was caught in its death throes. He looked up. A curlew screeched noisily above them, rising and falling on the buffeting breeze.
‘Of course, we have other business in Tynemouth.’ He turned back to his companions. ‘Ravinac and Cacoignes were entrusted with the Lily Crown of Scotland. Ravinac apparently did not trust Cacoignes, a matter we will have to return to. Anyway, to cut to the chase, we believe the Lily Crown is hidden somewhere in or around Tynemouth Priory. If we reach there, we must question the prior closely. Our king would love to seize such a sacred relic.’ He wiped his face with his hand. ‘I thought it was safest to tell you all this out here in the wilderness. My lord Gaveston, we will meet occasionally at Alnwick. You must continue to act the part of Ap Ythel’s bodyguard or stableman . . .’
Corbett broke off and rose to his feet. He climbed up onto the rocks and stared around. ‘Nothing,’ he declared, gazing out over the heathland. ‘Nothing but desolation on every side,’ he smiled, ‘in more ways than one.’
He climbed down again. ‘The challenges we face are great,’ he continued. ‘We must maintain the pretence that we are here to negotiate over the hostages, but that is a deception that might soon wear thin. Once it does, speculation will grow about the real reason for our long and arduous journey north. Already someone has misinformed Darel that we hold the Lily Crown. We do carry gold, but the story about the crown is pure fable. Even so, such a possibility may well attract the attention of every marauder and wolfshead along the Scottish march. We must be vigilant, watch and plot. So, let us return . . .’
Once back in Alnwick, Corbett became even more wary and suspicious and ordered Ranulf and Chanson to be on their guard. The clerk of the stables promised he would mix with the other grooms and ostlers and report anything untoward. Corbett impressed upon him the importance of this and warned him not to become too absorbed in his love for horses. Corbett himself kept to his chamber in the Abbot’s Tower. Now and again he would invite Ranulf to join him in the castle buttery or kitchens for something to eat and drink.
On the second day after his return from the moorland, Corbett decided to write a letter to Maeve in the hope that he could ask some journeyman or one of Percy’s messengers to take the letter either directly to Leighton or at least leave it in the Secret Chancery offices at Westminster. He remained distracted. He knew he had heard or seen something here at Alnwick that sparked memories of the past, yet as he confessed to Ranulf, he could not for the life of him recollect what it was. He continued to feel uneasy. The prospect of attack was imminent. Lord Henry had changed his mind: the corpses of Richolda and Hockley would not be given swift burial but crudely embalmed and used as possible tokens of negotiation with Darel. They had been sealed in chests in the death house, each crammed with herbs and spices to offset the effects of putrefaction and corruption.
Corbett was also growing concerned that on two occasions he had heard someone moving in the stairwell outside, yet when he unlocked the door and drew back the bolts, there was nothing but dust whirled up by the breeze. He eventually decided not to lock and bolt the door, but to keep it closed with a primed arbalest next to him and his war belt within easy reach.
On that particular afternoon, he was about to read the office of the day. Once again he heard the sound, a scuffling as if something was being pressed between the bottom of the door and the cracked paving stones. Curious, he rose and walked slowly forwards. As he stared down, he noticed that the stem-like tube of an oilskin had been pushed under the door, the liquid
pouring out of it clear and rather thick; a lighted taper was then thrust through, followed by another. Corbett hurriedly stepped back as the floor between himself and the door erupted in a seething sheet of flame. He had been half asleep, his wits dulled, but now he was alert to the danger facing him. Another oilskin was forced through and a second sheet of angry flame flared greedily, licking at the ancient door as well as the dry carpet of tightly woven cordage. The window behind him was too narrow to climb through, and the heat was growing intense as the fire assumed a life of its own.
Corbett shouted the usual cry for help, ‘Aux secours! Aux secours!’ He heard shouts outside, but the smoke was now billowing around him. He hurried across to the bed and pulled off the mattress, slitting it and shaking the bone-dry sawdust within onto the fire, which undoubtedly weakened its force. He grabbed his cloak, war belt and chancery satchel, which were thankfully close, then snatched up a blanket and, taking the jug of cold water from the lavarium, drenched the heavy fabric and wrapped it around him. He stared at the leaping wall of flame between himself and the door.
‘Master?’ Ranulf was now outside.
‘No, don’t open the door!’ Corbett shouted. ‘It will fan the fire.’
He grasped his chancery satchel tighter, took a deep breath and, head down, lunged through the flames towards the door. The heat scorched his skin, and he could feel his hair frizzling under the sparks, but, using the edge of the water-soaked blanket, he grasped the latch, pushed it down and pulled the door open. Coughing and gasping, clothing and hair singed, he staggered out into the stairwell, where Ranulf and Chanson tended to him with cloths soaked in icy water. Corbett slumped onto a window ledge. Other servants now appeared with buckets of sand and tubs of water.
Ranulf grasped Corbett’s arm and almost pushed him up to his own chamber, where they had stored their saddle bags and panniers. Corbett stripped and washed himself at the lavarium. Lord Henry and Arnulf, the castle leech, came up. The latter was so drunk, Lord Henry dismissed him and sent for the constable and his sister. Kathryn Thurston, as Corbett later declared, proved more skilled and knowledgeable than any physician. She brought salves and ointments, tending gently to Corbett’s injuries, though she avoided his gaze as she chattered about the dangers of fire. Corbett didn’t explain, assuring her and Lord Henry that the conflagration was an accident. Kathryn Thurston appeared to accept this and continued her ministrations, though Corbett could see that Lord Henry remained highly suspicious. Once they had gone, Constable Thurston arrived to assure Corbett that the fire was now doused and that the royal clerk could move to fresh chambers above the great hall.
‘No accident,’ Corbett declared once their visitors had left.
‘No accident, Sir Hugh,’ Ranulf agreed. ‘I saw the smoke. I heard your shouts and found the two oilskins forced under the door. Both must have been bulging. The assassin simply unstoppered them, pushed the necks under the door and pressed on the full sacks, squirting oil into the chamber. A lighted taper then followed, and . . .’ Ranulf pulled a face, ‘the rest you know. I pulled out the empty sacks, or what’s left of them; you’ll find them in the corner of the stairwell. Master, your assailant could have been anyone, and it was so swiftly done. I was asleep when the alarm was raised, and of course, once it was, people came milling around so it was hard to distinguish anyone acting suspiciously. Anyway, master, are you hurt?’
‘My dignity more than anything else,’ Corbett replied ruefully. He stretched out both hands, turning the wrists, before dabbing at the soreness on his cheekbones and touching his singed eyebrows and hair. ‘Kathryn Thurston’s salve will keep them clean. I will heal soon enough.’ He got to his feet.
‘Did you lose much?’
‘Thank God our panniers are here. My Secret Chancery coffers are sealed and held in Lord Henry’s arca in the secure chamber beneath the great hall: so, there’s no lasting damage.’
He left the room and stood outside in the stairwell. Once Ranulf followed him out, Corbett closed the door and imagined how the assassin must have struck at him in his chamber below. He would have crept up the stairs with the two oilskins carefully concealed before pushing them swiftly under the door. Corbett glanced over his shoulder at the squat tallow candle burning in its socket fastened to the wall. A similar light flared outside his own chamber. The assassin would have lit the tapers, pushed them under the door and slipped away. It would not have taken long. Moreover, he might have hoped that Corbett had locked and bolted the door, making it even more difficult for him to break through the flames and out of that fiery chamber.
‘Even more so,’ Corbett spoke aloud, ‘if I had been in a deep sleep.’ He clasped Ranulf by the shoulder. ‘Thank God, and thank you, my friend, but who is my mysterious assailant?’
‘The same person who murdered Richolda, Hockley and Roskell?’
Corbett reopened the chamber door, gesturing at his companion to follow. ‘I do not think so,’ he declared, closing the door behind them. ‘Our assailant here in this tower and in the chapel deals in weapons: crossbow bolts and burning oil. The slayer of Roskell, Richolda and Hockley is a most venomous poisoner.’ He scratched his chin. ‘I do wonder if we have two assassins lurking in Alnwick, each with their own murderous mission.’
There was a knock on the door and Ap Ythel came in, followed by Gaveston acting the one-eyed shuffling archer.
‘Ap Ythel, what is it?’ Corbett asked, sensing the man’s ill ease.
‘Sir Hugh, I heard what happened in your chamber. Castle people say it was an accident.’
‘Castle people do not know what they are talking about,’ Ranulf snapped. ‘It was attempted murder, a sin that did not reach its full foul flowering. Ap Ythel, what is the matter?’
‘Show him,’ Gaveston murmured. ‘Show him what was waiting for you in your chamber.’
Ap Ythel lifted the bag he was carrying and emptied the caltrops onto the floor: small metal balls with a profusion of razor-sharp spikes at least two inches long. Anyone who stepped on these murderous miniature traps would shred their feet, stumble and stagger onto others. Caltrops were often deployed against horsemen, strewn along some trackway or deep in long grass. The device could also be used against the unwary stumbling into a darkened chamber or one where the floor was covered in straw. The wounds inflicted would be deadly; the shock alone might kill, whilst any injury would last for life.
Ap Ythel dropped the sack. ‘I left my door unlocked, but who has a grievance against a poor archer?’ He was clearly upset. ‘Sir Hugh, remember I came with you on the day Berwick was sacked some fifteen years ago. You were correct: Berwick was a hideous sin.’
‘My friend,’ Corbett clapped the Welshman on the shoulder, ‘what is the matter?’
‘Sometimes I think that anyone involved in Berwick’s destruction must pay for it, or make reparation. The old king sowed dragon seeds in Scotland and the harvest is harrowing. If I had my way, I would collect our horses and ride south. Ah well.’ Ap Ythel slumped down on a stool, his usually nut-brown face pallid. ‘I don’t like Alnwick, Sir Hugh. Too close to Berwick and its ghosts. I am uneasy. Anyway, I always place a linen string across the threshold of any room when anxiety nags my soul. After the attack in the chapel, I was even more cautious than usual.’
‘And the string had been broken?’
‘Yes, Sir Hugh, it certainly had. So why?’ Ap Ythel demanded. ‘Why this, why now, why here?’ He took a deep breath. ‘I am going to keep an eye on Cacoignes; I think he is a harbinger of ill fortune, wouldn’t you agree?’
As if in answer to Ap Ythel’s question, the tocsin bell began its sombre pealing. At first slow, then much swifter as other bells took up the warning. They hurried down into the cold, greying afternoon. Constable Thurston, now dressed in half-armour, hastened across, his sister trailing behind deep in conversation with Cacoignes. Thurston pointed to the crowd gathering at the foot of the steps to one of the towers.
‘Sterling and the squire Richard Mallet,’ he ga
sped. ‘They have a chamber on the stairwell of the Falconer’s Tower. My task is to keep a sharp eye on the hostages.’ Clearly agitated, he turned and hurried towards the tower. Corbett hastened after him.
‘For heaven’s sake, Thurston, what has happened?’
‘I can’t find him,’ the constable replied.
‘Can’t find who?’ Corbett demanded.
‘Seton, Lord Alexander Seton.’
‘But this is your castle; you should know every nook and cranny.’
‘It’s Lord Henry’s castle,’ Thurston retorted. ‘I was looking for Seton just to check on him. I couldn’t find him so I went to his chamber, but it’s locked and bolted from the inside. Perhaps all three of them are there, but no one has seen them.’
The constable drew his sword, forcing his way through the castle folk staring at the hobelars who’d gathered in the main stairwell armed with a hand-held battering ram. Thurston ordered them up the steps to break down the door of the chamber that the Scots shared. Corbett immediately intervened, warning the soldiers not to enter the room until he had inspected it carefully. Lord Henry and Lady Eleanor also swept across to join the group, Percy’s sour-faced wife muttering how the royal clerks had brought only chaos and trouble to their castle. Corbett ignored the insult. He and his two companions went into the stairwell and stood listening as the pounding on the door above began, the soldiers finding it difficult to wield the battering ram in such a narrow, cramped space. Corbett was relieved that Gaveston had silently and prudently slipped away once Thurston had appeared. He prayed that the pretence surrounding the royal favourite would remain a secret and that his disguise would hold until he was safely aboard The Golden Dove.
‘They are dead, aren’t they?’ Ranulf whispered. ‘Whoever is in that chamber, master, they’re dead.’
‘Yes, Ranulf,’ Corbett replied. ‘I suspect we will find corpses, God have mercy on them. The storm is truly gathering. Our assassin is moving swiftly, like a famished fox in a hen coop. He swerves, twists and kills whenever he can.’