by Paul Doherty
‘What is this?’ Lady Hilda stepped forward.
‘Today,’ Corbett replied, ‘I visited the stables. I recognised a horse quite singular: dun-coloured, with clipped ears and shorn tail. Its former owner was a mercenary, a captain of hobelars named Bavasour. I knew Bavasour of old. I met him again after Alnwick was attacked. He was captured but I arranged his release. Bavasour was a veteran soldier. You may not know this, but veterans never freely surrender their weapons or their horses. Moreover, the mount I gave Bavasour, the one I saw in the stables here, is a truly excellent beast. My old comrade would never have given up such a treasure. So tell me, who rode that horse here to Tynemouth?’
‘It could be a different horse,’ a voice mocked.
‘Nonsense!’ Corbett replied. ‘I asked my clerk of the stables to scrutinise the animal. Chanson is an excellent judge of horse flesh. He chose that horse for Bavasour and he confirmed without a doubt that it is the mount Bavasour rode from Alnwick.’ He repeated his question. ‘Who amongst you rode that horse here? Answer me; purge yourself. Demonstrate that there is no wrongdoing.’
He waited. This was his last response, his final proclamation to settle matters. He had done the same on the battlefield before the standards were unfurled, the banners displayed, the trumpets brayed, the lances lowered and the long line of destriers pawed the ground ready to break into a charge.
‘He could have reached Carlisle and sold it,’ Lady Hilda called out.
Corbett stepped closer so he could see that clever face with its age-old eyes, its sly expression, the quick shift of mood as the woman realised the mistake she had made.
‘Lady Hilda,’ he asked softly, ‘how do you know Bavasour was journeying to Carlisle? You must have taken his documents, the letters I wrote to Sir Andrew Harclay, Keeper of the Western March.’
She stared back at him, a hard, knowing look. Corbett hoped he had not moved too soon, but the devil’s wolf was in the sheep fold and there was no avoiding the hunt.
‘Open your cloaks,’ he shouted. ‘Unstrap your war belts.’
In response, the main door of the church was slammed shut and the mass of pilgrims in front of him moved threateningly, people pushing their way through. Walter Thurston, his sister Kathryn and Brother Adrian were dragged to the fore; hooded figures forced them to their knees, daggers to their throats. All three hostages looked pleadingly at Corbett, who realised that he must delay and delay again in the hope of help arriving in time. He gestured at Lady Hilda.
‘Mistress, you play the hypocrite. No anchorite, no pilgrims; you are the Black Chesters. A coven of malignants, the true disciples of the devil, servile servants of Satan. All you say and do is nothing but mummery, a mask for your wanton wickedness.’
Lady Hilda, now protected by two of her male adherents, simply smiled, an arching, superior look, as if Corbett was beneath her. Here was a woman committed to what she really believed in. She had brought her followers to Tynemouth to utterly destroy the shrine and burn the church. Corbett wondered if she considered her death and that of her coven a necessary sacrifice to achieve this. He silently berated himself for miscalculating and underestimating the real wickedness of his adversary.
‘Tell your men to follow your example, Sir Hugh.’ One of the figures leaning over Lady Kathryn pressed the jagged edge of the dagger against the woman’s soft white neck. ‘You must all place your weapons on the floor, unstrap your war belts and do exactly as we say. Prior Richard, send one of the bowmen out to tell the monks beyond not to show hostility, offer any threat or try to enter this church.’
‘I recognise you, Leonora,’ Corbett shouted back.
The figure lifted her head, pulled back her cowl and lowered her visor over the bottom half of her face, then dragged off her dusty-coloured wig and threw it on the floor. All the time she kept the dagger close to Lady Kathryn’s throat.
‘Good morrow, king’s man.’ She grinned, eyes dancing with merriment. ‘We have you trapped. Send the messenger, one of your archers; he goes out and he stays out. One fewer to oppose us.’
Corbett turned to Ap Ythel and nodded. The Welshman snapped his fingers at Gaveston, hidden amongst the other archers. Corbett sighed with relief as Gaveston shuffled his way through and was allowed down the nave. The main door was opened then slammed shut, locked, bolted and the beam brought down. Corbett gazed around that haunted nave. The rood screen was now their protection. If need be, he and his cohort could fall back behind that. The enemy were at least sixty in number, swollen by recent arrivals. They all hid behind heavy military cloaks and deep cowls, and as they moved, Corbett could hear the clink and clatter of weapons being loosened. He breathed a brief prayer for help.
‘King’s man?’
Corbett decided to gamble; he needed time, to delay matters as long as possible. He went and crouched before the kneeling Lady Kathryn and pointed accusingly at her. ‘You are a member of this damnable coven, a demon-worshipper.’ He steeled himself against the fear in the young woman’s eyes. ‘You tried to kill me, didn’t you? You poured that oil into my chamber. Twice you used an arbalest to attack me. First in St Chad’s chapel, and then in that tunnel under the Abbot’s Tower. On both occasions the weapon was a light, hand-held crossbow, but of course that is all you can use, isn’t it? You have a dreadful injury to your right wrist, severe burn marks inflicted when you were caught up in the sack of Berwick some fifteen years ago. When I asked you to try that bracelet, I realised my suspicions were correct. Little wonder that you are so expert in dressing burns with salves as you did for me, though you must have hated tending the very man you’d tried to kill. I saw the hateful glances you threw me on our journey north. You remembered me and Ap Ythel, whom you also tried to grievously hurt.’
Ap Ythel, standing in the mouth of the rood screen, came and crouched beside Corbett. ‘Yes, I remember you now,’ he murmured; Corbett had informed him of his suspicions as they’d waited in the church earlier in the evening. ‘We first met in the Guildhall at Berwick some fifteen years ago.’
‘You are that young girl,’ Corbett continued. ‘You were shocked by all the horrors and wandered into the king’s presence. You collapsed on the floor, praying to St Oswine. You still have devotion to that saint, don’t you? You openly pray to him. You can never forget that day. Your soul is still full of hurt, your mind twisted by hideous memories. You thought we were responsible for the horrors at Berwick, but we were not. Like you, we were caught up in that nightmare situation. I meant you well then, mistress, and I do now, but you tried to kill me and my comrade, didn’t you?’
Lady Kathryn closed her eyes, moving her head as if in agreement.
‘What is this?’ Leonora demanded.
Corbett tore his gaze away from Lady Kathryn’s face, feeling confused and uncertain as the dead hand of the past stretched out. For a few heartbeats he silently cursed the old king. The sack of Berwick had released all the demons from hell.
Further down the line, Constable Thurston struggled against his captors; he had evidently heard what Corbett had said. ‘Sir Hugh,’ he begged. ‘My sister. I wondered about her. I know she hates all those she met on that day, a deep, lasting, corrosive resentment. She has never forgotten and she never will, but before God, although she may be guilty of attacks on you, we are not of the Black Chesters.’
Corbett stared at him. He was now determined to use everything to create as long a delay as possible.
‘You kept your wrist covered, didn’t you?’ He grasped Lady Kathryn’s ice-cold hand and pushed back her sleeve to reveal healed yet still ugly scars.
‘Enough,’ Lady Hilda called out. ‘For the last time, Corbett, tell your bowmen and your war dog Ranulf to disarm.’
Corbett glanced at Lady Kathryn.
‘I am sorry,’ she whispered. ‘Sir Hugh, I am so sorry.’
‘Leonora!’ Lady Hilda shouted.
‘Sweetly so,’ her accomplice called back, and before Corbett could interject or intervene, she drew her dag
ger in a soft, slithering motion across Lady Kathryn’s throat. The skin ruptured like an overripe plum bursting, the blood bubbling out even as Lady Kathryn’s eyes rolled back in her head. Leonora laughed and pushed her away.
Corbett made to spring, hand going to his dagger, but stopped as the Black Chesters behind Leonora aimed their crossbows. He rose and stared in horror at Lady Kathryn sprawled on the floor, choking on her own blood. Constable Thurston had broken free of his captors and made to charge forward. An arbalest strummed and the constable stumbled towards the corpse of his sister, hands flapping, wild-eyed, his mouth trying to form words but saying nothing as the blood spurted between his lips, one hand lifting as if to remove the quarrel buried deep in the back of his head. He groaned, coughed and collapsed to the floor.
Corbett and Ap Ythel hastened back to the rood screen as the Black Chesters now prepared for battle. Swords and daggers were drawn, crossbows and axes raised, archers pushing to the front. Leonora was laughing hysterically. Lady Hilda screamed orders. Corbett’s cohort gathered behind the rood screen, weapons ready, war bows and arbalests primed. Corbett sensed the deep fear of his comrades. The nave was packed with Black Chesters and their adherents. Soon they would try to force the rood screen and surge into the sanctuary to destroy St Oswine’s shrine.
Abruptly, like a sudden close peal of thunder, a pounding began against the main door of the church. It rolled through the nave, quietening all other sound, and was followed by war cries and battle chants. Corbett hoped his ears weren’t deceiving him.
‘Lord Henry! The Percys!’ One of the Black Chesters at the far end of the church stood on a bench and peered through a lancet window. ‘Lord Henry!’ the man screamed again. ‘He has come with great force.’
The news created consternation. The Black Chesters were preparing to unleash their assault against the rood screen when a hunting horn sounded loud and clear across the sanctuary. The haunting, long-drawn-out call was repeated, followed by the shrill ringing of a handbell. A woman’s singing carried through. Corbett glanced over his shoulder. Rachaela, dressed in her black robe, had put down the horn and bell. The recluse was now carrying what looked like a tray covered by the small square of silk used to protect the offertory cruets on their shelf in the sanctuary wall. Smiling serenely, she walked towards Corbett and his party.
‘Let me pass,’ she whispered.
Corbett caught the pleading look in her eyes and stood aside.
‘Leonora,’ she called, ‘it is I.’ She stepped through the door of the rood screen, processing slowly towards Leonora, who now stood slightly apart from the others.
‘Well, well.’ Lady Hilda’s harsh voice stilled any whispers. ‘Little Rachaela.’ Her voice turned ugly. ‘The traitor!’
‘What do you want, Rachaela?’ Leonora taunted. ‘What is that you are carrying? Do you hope to bargain for your life? Nothing can buy you that.’
‘What is it?’ Lady Hilda demanded, ‘What are you carrying?’
Rachaela stopped, still clutching the tray covered by that gold-fringed scarlet cloth. ‘The Lily Crown,’ she declared. ‘I bring it to you, Leonora.’ She walked briskly forward.
Her words had created a stillness that was broken by a fresh pounding against the main door. Rachaela was now very close to Leonora, who, all intrigued, stretched out her hands. Rachaela abruptly stepped back. The silk cloth slipped to the floor, as did the tray beneath, but Rachaela still gripped the hand-held arbalest, bringing it up so quickly that Leonora could only stare in horror. The recluse aimed and loosed, an ominous click as the jagged barb sped to shatter Leonora’s beautiful face. There was a deathly quiet for a few heartbeats. Rachaela did not try to flee or hide but stood, arms extended, almost as if she welcomed the crossbow bolts that struck her in the chest and stomach and sent her staggering back to collapse against a pillar and slump to the ground.
Battle was now joined. Corbett’s retinue, assembled behind the rood screen, blocked its entrance as they had planned with furniture – chests, coffers and anything they could drag from the sacristy or sanctuary – hastily creating a barricade strong enough to impede any attack yet also allowing Ap Ythel’s archers to loose time and again, both from behind the barricade and through the slits and apertures of the screen. Corbett’s earlier judgement proved correct. Many of the Black Chesters were not soldiers, and had no experience of the horror of bitter hand-to-hand fighting. They could not close with their opponents, who time and time again retaliated with deadly accuracy. Meanwhile, the pounding on the main door was having an effect. The crack of wood and the buckling of metal could be clearly heard above the cries, yells and screams and the macabre music of the bowstrings as they released their flying death.
Desperate to break through, the Black Chesters grabbed cresset torches and hurled them at the rood screen. Some of these hit the highly polished wood but did not set light to it. Ap Ythel directed two of his master bowmen to bring down anyone wielding a torch, an easy enough target in the dancing light. Corbett sensed the sheer frustration of the Black Chesters as they threw themselves against the barrier. Their screams and death cries grew more shrill as the Welsh bowmen loosed and loosed again, a constant hail of yard-long shafts, volleys of such force and sharpness that bodies were completely pierced and most of the wounds inflicted were deadly.
The stench of smoke and spilt blood smothered the usual sweet odours of the church. The struggle was now becoming a massacre as the Black Chesters fought against the closing trap. The main door was breached, while at the same time a fresh assault was launched on the corpse door to the side of the building, and Lord Henry’s men, garbed in their blue and white livery, poured into the church along with members of the community and the priory’s own men-at-arms. The barricade across the rood screen was pulled back. Armed with sword and dagger, Corbett and his party now joined the uneven struggle being waged up and down the nave. Tendrils of smoke curled from the thrown cressets, the flames spluttering in the blood that seemed to swirl everywhere. The dead sprawled as thickly as fallen leaves on an autumn day.
At last cries for mercy were heard. The surviving Black Chesters shouted that they wished to surrender. They threw down their weapons, raising their hands, falling to their knees in the puddles of blood seeping from the corpses of their comrades. In the heat of battle some received no quarter, only the deep thrust of a sword or the slicing cut of a dagger across their throats. The piteous screams trailed away as a knight in full armour with a surcoat boasting the white lion of the Percys banged his sword on the ground and roared for silence. Then he raised his visor, gasping for breath.
‘Lord Henry.’ Corbett sheathed his own sword and extended his arms. ‘In any other circumstances I’d kiss your sweat-soaked face.’
‘Less of the sarcasm, Corbett.’ Lord Henry indicated with his head. ‘Shall we cut the bastards down? Take them out and hang them from the gables? Or we could save time and expense and throw them off the crag.’
‘None of those.’ Prior Richard, who had found a helmet that did not exactly fit him, came striding over, in one hand a battered shield, in the other a fearsome war club, its spikes clotted with human bone, hair and blood. ‘Our church,’ the prior spun round, addressing both victor and vanquished, ‘has been polluted. The Bishop of Durham will purify and reconsecrate it. Until then this place remains a house of blood and slaughter, of filthy blasphemy and sordid sacrilege. I would dearly love to fling these disciples of the devil from the great crag, but we have the law. I exercise all the rights of a manor lord; I shall sit in judgement on these miscreants. Their fate is certain, their deaths approaching. They can die as they watch the tide surge in.’
Corbett kicked away fallen weapons and moved corpses with the toe of his boot as he walked into the centre of the nave, staring closely at the prisoners and their captors. The bloodlust had now cooled. The rage of battle was slipping away. He glimpsed Lady Hilda being dragged from one of the chantry chapels where she had been hiding. He smiled in satisfacti
on. He was about to continue when Brother Adrian crept out from behind one of the statues. He smiled weakly at Corbett and gratefully accepted the cloak Ap Ythel hurriedly threw around him. The monk bowed towards Corbett and Prior Richard and, shivering and moaning, scuttled for the protection of the archers thronging in the entrance to the rood screen. Once again Corbett glanced around. The nave was like a flesher’s yard. Blood flowed across the flagstones and ran in rivulets down the pillars. The smell of death was deeply offensive. The stench of ripped bellies made him pinch his nostrils whilst the sounds of the wounded and dying carried like a dreadful hymn to the violence that had shattered this holy place.
He lifted one hand. ‘I am,’ he declared, ‘the Crown’s envoy. I am a royal justice. I have the power to hold a king’s assize. I can appoint justices in eyre, and so I do: myself, Prior Richard and Lord Henry Percy.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Have the prisoners bound; offer them no more violence. Prior Richard, you have dungeons?’
‘Beneath the chapter house.’
‘Good.’ Corbett clapped his hands. ‘Let them be taken there.’
‘Dark drops,’ Corbett declared as he washed his hands at the lavarium in his guest-house chamber, ‘dark drops from the ocean of darkness, shadows that sweep through human affairs: such are the Black Chesters, and we have done something to check their evil.’ He wiped his hands on a napkin and walked back to join the others squeezed around the chamber table: Prior Richard, Lord Henry, Ranulf and Ap Ythel. He sipped at his wine goblet, then toasted Lord Henry. ‘Last night,’ he smiled, ‘was a miracle. The Black Chesters made a number of hideous mistakes. They thought that through the murders of Cacoignes and Bavasour they had cut me off from any help. Of course they didn’t reckon on Lord Henry coming to our aid. Second, I suspect they knew that a goodly number of the brothers had journeyed south on the priory war cog The Golden Dove, visiting their mother houses at Westminster and St Alban’s. They thought the community here would be weak and vulnerable, depleted of fighting monks as well as the men-at-arms who man that cog.’ He grinned. ‘They were truly wrong and this is linked to their third mistake. They underestimated the ruthless courage of our prior here, not to mention others. Fourth, we must not forget the fortitude and self-sacrifice of our recluse Rachaela. She will be given an honourable requiem?’