Devil's Wolf

by Paul Doherty

  ‘Cacoignes?’

  ‘Nonsense. Cacoignes appeared after the potion was mixed, and he joined in the pursuit. He was innocent of everything except a predilection for hazard. You knew about this. You mentioned it to me. How did you know?’

  The monk just stared back.

  ‘Lady Kathryn?’ Corbett continued. ‘She was in the camp. She certainly wanted me dead for her own secret purposes, but she had no grudge or grievance against Seton and his comrades.’

  ‘I too ate the tainted oatmeal.’

  ‘No you did not; you pretended to. Witnesses will repeat how you were apparently on the edge of the camp. You stumbled into the fire glow pretending to be another victim.’

  ‘And when the war dogs attacked, would they know who to savage and who to lick?’

  ‘Mockery, monk, is no defence. True, the war hounds swept in, but we were supposed to be drugged, easy prey for the mastiffs and their masters. You, of course, would slip away, and you are skilled at that, aren’t you? When Darel attacked Alnwick, as well as during that ferocious affray in the priory church, you were conspicuous by your absence. So it was then: you planned to slip away just before the hounds reached the camp. You came staggering across, but in fact you were returning from the horse lines. When Darel’s force was repulsed and we followed in hot pursuit, I noticed that one of our horses was already saddled and harnessed to leave. Curious, I spoke to one of the men who had been sent to guard the horse lines – the very man who is now standing on guard to your right – and asked him who had prepared the mount. He claimed that you were responsible.’

  ‘He couldn’t have done. I was—’

  Brother Adrian broke off and sat back in his chair. Corbett caught the archer’s puzzled look and quickly shook his head. The man shrugged, smiled and glanced away. Corbett rose, walked to the side table and poured himself a goblet of wine. Ranulf too got to his feet and, pointedly ignoring the prisoner, asked if any of the others wanted a drink, serving them quickly.

  When Corbett had finished his wine, he returned to the stool in front of the prisoner.

  ‘You have been thinking, Brother Adrian, planning your defence? Did you know we have been searching, ransacking your chamber and all you possess?’ He half smiled at the prisoner’s quick change of expression and leaned forward. ‘We will find something if we haven’t already: items taken from your victims or those you used in your nightmare forays.’

  ‘I was thinking, clever clerk,’ Brother Adrian almost gabbled. ‘How would I, a poor monk, know about Darel’s attack, the time, the hour, the place?’

  ‘Yes.’ Brother Julian, who still retained some loyalty for this accused brother, spoke up. ‘How could he know such details?’

  ‘Because the hour and the place of that attack were chosen by you, Brother Adrian. No, no.’ Corbett waved a hand at the prisoner’s snort of derision. ‘I suggest that even before we left London, a member of one of your covens, some messenger you met deep in the shadows, was dispatched to Darel informing him of what was happening. During our journey north, we stopped at many places. Because you are a priest, a monk, you can slip here and there. Nobody is really curious; you are just another cleric on God’s business. You can visit this church, that house, stand in the shadows of some tree. You have an ink pot, quill, a scrap of parchment. You could leave, and you certainly did, stark, simple messages describing our strength and our armaments. You enticed Darel into attacking us by insinuating that we were carrying the Lily Crown. Lady Hilda would encourage him further. One final message would stipulate the night the attack was to be launched. Darel would send in his war dogs and wolfsheads. You would ensure we were grievously weakened, deep in a drugged sleep. Most of us would have died up there on the heathland. More bloodshed, more murderous mayhem; above all, the removal in one stroke of a number of problems.’

  Brother Adrian glanced up. For just a moment the mask slipped and Corbett glimpsed the hatred seething in that mad monk’s eyes.

  ‘You brim with arrogance, Alpha and Omega.’ Corbett leant even closer. ‘That’s what you called yourself when dealing with Darel and his retinue. Alpha and Omega, the beginning and ending of all things, a quotation from the last few verses of the Book of Revelation: a tribute to your own scholarship as well as a token of your arrogance. A and O are also your initials. I noticed that when I was studying the manuscripts here. Brother John kindly brought me copies of the documents covering the sale of Alnwick to Lord Henry. You and Prior Richard helped with those documents, initialling them RT and AO. I also noticed wall paintings in the library that use the AO monogram from the Revelation as a decoration. I checked with Brother John about some of those documents, especially the Alnwick maps.’

  ‘You deliberately stained those maps, Adrian,’ Brother John accused. ‘You knocked over a pot of very thick ink you were mixing. You claimed it was an accident.’

  ‘It wasn’t, was it?’ Corbett demanded. ‘You deliberately damaged those maps, one of which – and Brother John has now scrutinised them most carefully – showed the secret passageway running from the Abbot’s Tower out under the walls of Alnwick Castle.’

  ‘You are a felon worthy of hanging!’ Lord Henry, who’d drunk deeply of the priory’s Bordeaux, rose, swaying on his feet as he shook his fist at the prisoner. Corbett hid his smile. Lord Henry was just beginning to realise how this evil monk had almost brought Alnwick and the Percys to ruin.

  ‘We should continue.’ He turned back to the prisoner. He noticed the pallor of Brother Adrian’s face, how his smooth brow was laced with sweat. ‘Darel’s attack was beaten off, so you turned to the poisoner’s path. Roskell was your first victim. He was a prisoner, a hostage, not well fed or nourished, chained and manacled as you are now.’ Corbett rose to his feet so that everyone in the chamber could see him. He patted the pocket of his robe. ‘On that bleak morning after Darel’s attack was beaten off, Malachy Roskell was relieved of his chains. He wandered away, cold and hungry. He feels the pocket of his robe or jerkin,’ Corbett drew a sweetmeat from his own pocket, ‘and finds something like this, a tasty morsel for a hungry man. He doesn’t know how it got there; he doesn’t really care. Like many of us in that situation, he would think it was a mistake. He would never imagine it could have been deliberately placed there. Anyway,’ Corbett sighed, ‘he does what we would probably all do: he slips it into his mouth and begins to chew.’ He bit into the sweetmeat.

  ‘True, true,’ Brother Julian called out. ‘I have done the same on many occasions. A piece of food I am eating, then I put it away. The poor Scotsman, hungry and thirsty, just released from his chains, would regard it as manna from heaven.’

  ‘But this was no accident,’ Corbett retorted. ‘Brother Adrian put it there. Darel’s attack had failed, so Paracelsus – because that’s who he really is – decided to take matters into his own murderous hands. He sidles up to that prisoner acting all solicitous. The sweetmeat, or whatever else it was, is slipped into the victim’s pocket.’ Corbett shrugged. ‘It’s now only a matter of time, because this delicacy is soaked in the most venomous poison.’ Eyes on Brother Adrian, he spread his hands. ‘Roskell was famished, so he ate, like all your victims did. He cleared his mouth and licked his lips, then the pain began. He went down to the burn thinking water would help, but of course he was dying.’

  ‘You did the same in Alnwick!’ Lord Henry accused. ‘You poisoned Hockley and Richolda, my prisoners. You hypocritical canting priest! You went down to the dungeons to offer spiritual comfort, or so you said.’ He belched loudly. ‘You slipped a poisoned sweetmeat or some other delicacy into the pockets of their robes.’

  ‘Of course he did,’ Corbett replied. ‘And when the prisoners, cold and famished, shivering in their cages, felt their pockets and found something to eat, they consumed it swiftly, not realising they were swallowing their own deaths. Naturally it never occurred to us at the time that the poison had been carried with them into their cages. And why should it? According to all the evidence, the pri
soners had been kept under close watch and stripped of their possessions. Matters became even more mysterious when the remnants of food and drink given to them in the cages were found to be untainted.’

  ‘But why?’ Brother Adrian protested in a clatter of chains. ‘Why should I murder Richolda and Hockley if they were adherents of the Black Chesters?’

  ‘But they weren’t, were they?’ Corbett retorted. ‘Not really. They were Darel’s retainers. True, Richolda was a member of your coven as well. She and her sister, like the Lady Hilda, were links in the chain binding Darel to you, but they were not important or of any real significance to you. In fact they were a possible threat. You do not care for anyone, Brother Adrian. Why have scruples about two stupid people who allowed themselves to be captured? In a word, they had become a danger to you. Heaven knows what they might have told us under bloody interrogation in an attempt to save their own lives. Moreover, their deaths were of great profit to you. The murder of Darel’s kinsman and Darel’s lover whilst imprisoned at Alnwick Castle would only intensify that robber baron’s enmity for the Percys.’

  ‘And the rest?’ Lord Henry demanded. ‘The other murders?’

  ‘Finely done,’ Corbett answered. ‘You now have to kill Seton and his two companions. Of course there were distractions. You must have been mystified by the presence of another killer at Alnwick. Especially when you were caught up in the attack in St Chad’s chapel. Little wonder you examined the bolts loosed at us. However, on reflection, you must have been pleased. You hoped that I would become distracted and confused. I might even conclude that the murderer of Roskell was the same person who loosed that crossbow bolt at me, and of course, you were with me at the time. It put you, or so you thought, on the side of the angels.

  ‘Your next line of defence was to totally mystify me by portraying yourself as a monk commissioned by his superiors to hunt down the very people you led. How could such a close ally be an enemy? How could a monk dedicated to fighting the practitioners of the black arts be in fact the very leader of the coven you were hunting? Indeed, you complicated matters further. You stole that bracelet from Cacoignes and left it close to the cottage where you and yours had carried out your hideous midnight rites.’ Corbett paused. ‘But let’s return to the other murders. Ah, on second thoughts, in a while.’

  He held his hand up and turned slightly. ‘Poor Bavasour! Lord Henry, I told you that I had sent our mercenary captain to Harclay at Carlisle, but you didn’t know at the time, did you? If I recall events accurately, I took Bavasour across the drawbridge of Alnwick Castle and only then did I entrust him with that task. I offered him a reward for his services and dire punishment if he deliberately failed. Now Bavasour was a mercenary, a good one, a professional soldier. He took the money, delivered his solemn promise and left. At the time, no one knew except myself. I may have shared it with Ranulf and Ap Ythel, but outside my secret council, nobody else. Then I told you.’ He pointed at Lord Henry.

  ‘Yes, that was before you left Alnwick for Tynemouth, when we were in secret discussion together. You said Bavasour might be successful but you had growing doubts, given the way Darel’s men and the Black Chesters roamed the heathland.’ Lord Henry preened himself. ‘I solemnly promised to follow you to Tynemouth.’

  ‘That is correct,’ Corbett agreed. ‘The only other place I mentioned Bavasour’s intended destination was in the letters I gave him. I made a mistake.’ He turned back to the prisoner. ‘I underestimated how closely you and yours watched me. You saw Bavasour leave, you became alarmed and, I suggest, immediately sent messages to Lady Hilda, who dispatched the Black Chesters in pursuit. They caught up with poor Bavasour and showed him no mercy. Another murder, Bavasour’s corpse being tossed into some marsh or morass. Nevertheless, his ghost cries for vengeance and demands that God’s justice be served.’ Corbett smiled at the prisoner, hoping to provoke him. ‘One of your most dreadful mistakes, Brother Adrian. The Black Chesters needed horses and harness, and one of them took Bavasour’s, a mount that had its own distinctive appearance. If Chanson had not seen it in the priory stable, God knows what would have happened.

  ‘Now, to the other murders.’ He walked across to the side table and picked up the wineskin and the goblet that Ranulf had placed there. He turned and lifted both for all to see. ‘Brother Julian, Brother John, Lord Henry. Last night, did I not visit you?’ All three murmured their agreement.

  ‘You know you did,’ Brother John declared. ‘We talked about the documents lodged here by His Grace Anthony Bek, Bishop of Durham. How we’d made copies for Lord Henry. We then discussed the Alnwick maps and how,’ the librarian glared at Brother Adrian, ‘the so-called accident with the ink occurred.’

  ‘Good, good,’ Corbett replied. ‘And can you remember what I gave you?’

  ‘For Gabriel’s sake, Sir Hugh, you carried that wineskin and goblet. You claimed it to be a heavenly Bordeaux from the finest vineyards around Saint-Etienne. I drank a few generous mouthfuls. I remember quoting from the psalms: “how wine gladdens the heart of men”.’

  ‘And you did the same to me,’ Brother Julian called. ‘The wine was delicious. I told you about how I had been on the night watch when your companion Cacoignes was lashed to that execution post on the beach. Why did you—’

  ‘I know,’ Lord Henry slurred, banging the table, ‘Corbett, you cunning bastard. You visited me as well with the same wine and goblet. We discussed the attack on Alnwick and other matters. I know why.’ Lord Henry pointed at the prisoner. ‘That murderous monk did something similar at Alnwick. Oh yes, I can imagine him with the prisoners, but . . .’

  ‘But what, my lord?’

  ‘Sterling and Mallet were lodged in the Falconer’s Tower. The guard there said that no one visited the Scottish hostages. Their chamber was on the first stairwell. It couldn’t be seen by the guard, but he assured me that no one came down those steps except workmen. Of course,’ Lord Henry clapped his hands like a child in some guessing game, ‘our murdering monk often wore workmen’s clothes around Alnwick. He did this to protect his woollen monk’s robe as well as to appear as one with the men of the castle.’

  ‘Lord Henry is correct,’ Corbett declared. ‘Can you imagine Sterling and Mallet, the two Scottish hostages, lonely, frightened by the death of Roskell and the mysterious disappearance of Seton? Although I concede that at the time they may not have known about their leader vanishing into thin air. However, they are lonely men, vulnerable souls, visited by the castle’s genial chaplain. They trust Brother Adrian. He has been with them since they left London. He has shared their trials and tribulations.

  ‘He brings a wineskin. He chats with them and establishes that both like rich blood-red Bordeaux. With all due respect, Lord Henry, the two Scots were imprisoned in a formidable northern fortress. Brother Adrian’s visit must have been likened to that of an angel, though in truth he was the angel of death. Our monk pours a goblet for Sterling, another for Mallet. He then gabbles his apologies, says he must leave, time is passing and he has important tasks to attend to. The wine goblets are drained and returned. They and the wineskin go into a sack. Brother Adrian leaves, telling them to lock and bolt the door behind him. Poor unfortunates, they don’t realise they have drunk their death. Holding the goblet and wineskin in a sack and garbed in workmen’s clothes with his hood pulled up, Brother Adrian patters down the steps and out of the tower. The guard would not give him a second glance. Just another labourer going about his business.’

  ‘Again, clerk,’ Brother Adrian accused, ‘you have no proof, no real evidence.’

  ‘Except for the note.’ Corbett turned to Lord Henry and winked as he prepared to bluff his way forward.

  ‘Note?’

  ‘Yes, Brother Adrian, note! Found in Sterling’s chamber, pushed into a wall crevice, the briefest of messages written in Latin. “The Benedictine has poisoned us.” Sterling scrawled that during the last heartbeats of his life and pushed it into that crack before he died. After we left Alnwick,
one of the workmen sent up to clean the chamber found that scrap of parchment. He did not realise its significance until the day Lord Henry left Alnwick for Tynemouth, when he handed it over. Sterling indicted you.’ Corbett wagged a finger in the monk’s face.

  ‘There was no quill, no ink . . .’

  ‘Pardon?’ Corbett mocked. ‘Are you saying you knew what was in that particular chamber so many days ago?’ He waited, tapping his boot against the floor, watching this killer realise that for all his vaunted cunning and deceit, he was being cornered and trapped. Like a hare in the cornfield, he could run and swerve but he was unable to get out and the hounds were closing in.

  Corbett allowed the silence to deepen. From outside he heard the sounds of the priory, the ringing of bells, the patter of feet, the creak of cartwheels and the constant strident call of the gulls. He had walked down to the beach; the execution posts were ready and he knew he could exercise little mercy. The Black Chesters had committed treason against the Crown and sacrilege against the Church, but he did wonder if this would be the end of that coven. He glanced quickly at the prisoner. Was he the true leader or just a high-ranking official? Soon Corbett would leave Alnwick and journey south . . .

  ‘Ranulf,’ he called over his shoulder, ‘have the prisoner Marissa brought up.’

  Ranulf snapped his fingers at one of the archers, who hurried out.

  ‘Now for Seton and that secret passageway that cuts from the Abbot’s Tower to those ruins.’ Corbett held his hand up, three fingers splayed. ‘In my view, there were only three people who could possibly know about that secret tunnel: Lord Henry, Prior Richard and yourself, Brother Adrian. Only two of those were in Alnwick at the time. I doubt very much – in fact I know it to be a certainty – that Lord Henry had any grievance with Seton. What concerns him is his family name and his great castle of Alnwick. He would hardly betray it to Darel and his ilk. You are different. You studied those maps now held here in the priory chancery. You arranged an accident so that that particular map showing the passageway became so deeply stained it was almost impossible for anybody else to decipher what was depicted there. No, only you knew the secret and you used it in your plot to lure Seton to his death and deliver Alnwick into the hands of Darel and his pack of wolfsheads.’