by Paul Doherty
‘Why?’
‘To deepen the mystery, to confuse and confound my investigation, but most importantly, to depict the missing Seton as the secret assassin in Alnwick. After all, Seton had been with us on our journey north. He had been close to Roskell. He had also been in the castle when Hockley and Richolda were poisoned. Around the time he disappeared, Sterling and Mallet were murdered. No, you needed Seton to be killed but also to be used as your catspaw. According to the evidence, he had committed murder and fled; this would divert suspicion from anyone in Alnwick, including yourself. It was most opportune. You had removed all those you wanted to and sowed bitter conflict between Lord Henry and Darel. Who knows, if you had been truly successful and Alnwick had fallen, perhaps you could have blamed it on Seton, claiming that he had somehow known about that secret passageway.’
‘Yes, but that didn’t happen,’ Brother Adrian countered. ‘True, Seton fled Alnwick, but I didn’t follow him. He was killed outside.’
‘No, that’s not how it happened,’ Corbett declared. ‘Once again you lurked in some dark corner or shadow-filled passageway, and God knows there are enough of them in Alnwick. Cowled and masked, you would lure Seton towards the trap. You would act as the benevolent stranger who wanted to help. You told him to be in the cellar of the Abbot’s Tower on a certain day at a certain time. There, as a guarantee of your good faith, he would find weapons, clothing, a few coins and, most importantly, a package of food.’
‘Seton would rise to the bait,’ Lord Henry intervened. ‘He was a Scot desperate for his homeland. He had nothing to lose and so much to gain.’
‘God knows,’ Corbett declared, ‘perhaps the death of Roskell had made him deeply suspicious, worried about whom he could trust. After all, he must have been puzzled as to why someone should murder a hapless squire. There was always the possibility that Sterling, Mallet or both were involved in Roskell’s death. Whatever truly happened, Seton decided to leave Alnwick by himself. Perhaps you also insisted on that. Anyway, he slipped down to that cellar, he found the weapons, clothes, food and money all ready. The trapdoor to the secret passageway was also revealed. He now realised that his mysterious helper was a true friend and could be trusted.
‘Seton goes down into that tunnel and hurries along to emerge in the ruins of the old hermitage. Now I recall that like his companions, he was a true trencherman; he enjoyed his food and he had a long journey ahead. Before he continues his journey, he opens the parcel of food and quickly eats it. Now that was a mistake on your part. You could never have guessed that he would satisfy his hunger so swiftly. Anyway, our hostage finishes the food and continues on his journey. However, what he has eaten is deeply tainted and the poison begins to work. Seton collapses out there on the wild heathland and dies a very painful, lonely death. Within a short time, Darel’s wolfsheads, together with Scottish mercenaries, slip like a ravenous wolf pack across the moorland. They are eager to reach that secret entrance and storm into Alnwick whilst its defenders are distracted and defending its walls against what is only a feint – a mock attack.’
‘And all that nonsense about the fourth watch?’ Lord Henry demanded.
‘Oh yes,’ Corbett agreed. He paused to stare at Brother Adrian, who just lounged in his chair, listening intently. Now and again the monk would glance quickly around as if searching for a door or window, calculating his escape. Corbett drew satisfaction from the fact that the chapter house both within and without was closely guarded.
‘Oh yes,’ Corbett repeated. ‘Paracelsus would have told Lady Hilda on what day and at what hour the secret tunnel should be used. However, as regards Seton, when the wolf pack drew near Alnwick, they discovered his corpse, stripped it of any valuables and then dishonoured it. There is a possibility that some of the Scottish mercenaries may have recognised him as Bruce’s sworn enemy.’
‘And you are saying that I brought these attackers into Alnwick?’
‘Oh certainly. You told your helpmate Lady Hilda, who in turn passed the news to her malevolent nephew. I am sure he knows the truth about his aunt, which is why he so generously supported her. Edmund Darel is a royal squire, a knight of the king’s household, at least publicly so. In private he is malignant and mischievous. He will not accept any authority, be it of God or man; in that respect he is just like you, Brother Adrian, a kindred spirit.’ The monk smiled and glanced away. ‘Edmund Darel would regard the situation as highly amusing. Something worthy of the world of Cokayne, that topsy-turvy land where nothing is what it seems to be and everything is turned on its head. How he must have laughed to watch his aunt act the pious Lady Hilda, whilst the rest of the so-called religious community at Clairbaux were a true brood of vipers, as ferocious and as vicious as a pack of hungry stoats.’
‘Are you saying that Sir Edmund knew who I really was?’
‘Oh no, I am sure he had enough to laugh at when he wandered Clairbaux. I doubt very much if he knew the identity of Paracelsus. Lady Hilda would simply tell him that the Alpha and Omega had supplied her with the precise information.’
Corbett paused as the door opened and the archer returned with the young woman Marissa, her dark hair tumbling down either side or her white, peaked face. She was trembling with fear and hugged even closer the heavy cloak wrapped about her. Corbett indicated she sit on the stool near the door and turned back to the prisoner.
‘I know who you are, Paracelsus, the leader of the Black Chesters. You pursue a secret life beneath the pretence of being a solicitous priest and a loyal monk. You are in fact a demon incarnate, the devil’s own wolf. You are steeped in the practice of the black arts, which you allegedly studied to combat the powers of darkness when in fact you are the emissary of such diabolic forces. You revel in chaos and mayhem. Like Darel you are bitterly opposed to both Crown and Church. You take great pride in the chaos and bloodshed that has engulfed the royal house of Scotland for three generations. You lust for the Lily Crown, that sacred relic, hidden by Ravinac; that’s the reason you came here and told Lady Hilda to join you on a purported pilgrimage. The two of you, together with the hellish covens you lead, intended to sack this holy place and destroy the great shrine of King Oswine, a prince who in his time fought the children of hell till they martyred him. You intended to set up, as the prophet Daniel says, at the very heart of this sacrosanct priory, the Abomination of the Desolation.
‘You murdered those four Scottish hostages to frustrate their task, an offering by you to Robert the Bruce, who may have been marching south to help you here. You kill without a second thought. Hockley and Richolda were poisoned because they’d served their purpose and could be a danger to you, whilst all the time you worked diligently to deepen antagonisms and bitter feuds along the Scottish march.’ Corbett paused, staring at the prisoner just brought in. ‘You’d sacrifice everyone and everything. Like the wolf you are, you turn, twist, hide and protect yourself against the consequences of your murderous actions. You were preparing to flee that clearing. You planned to do the same at Alnwick, and I remember you crawling out from behind that statue after the violent affray in the priory church. You’d hoped to be able to depict yourself as one of the few survivors of the carnage and destruction inflicted on this priory, Lady Hilda likewise, whilst your coven, after ransacking the church, could take the Lily Crown and everything else for their own secret purposes or to use as a bargaining counter with the Bruce.
‘Enough.’ Corbett got to his feet and beckoned to the young woman. Marissa, still hugging her cloak about her, stumbled to her feet and, helped by the archer, crept fearfully across. Corbett pointed at her. ‘You are Marissa, a member of the Black Chesters?’ She nodded.
‘Answer the judge,’ Ranulf shouted.
‘Marissa,’ Corbett asked gently, ‘do you wish to die along with the others and your master here?’
‘I am a member of the coven,’ she replied, ‘but I do not wish to die. Oh no.’ Eyes rounded in fear, she shook her head. Corbett steeled himself against feeling sorry for her.
She might look innocent, but she had participated in savage murder as well as torture and abuse.
‘Marissa, tell the truth and I shall let you walk out of Tynemouth Priory a free woman. Now, before this trial began, I asked you to watch Lady Hilda in the dungeons below, yes?’ The girl nodded. ‘I also asked you to notice if the accused approached Lady Hilda and gave her something. I warned you that the action would be very swift, when no one else was looking. I promised you your life if you told the truth. Well, did the condemned approach Lady Hilda and give her something?’
‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘It was indeed very swift. The accused moved amongst the prisoners asking if we wished spiritual consolation, to be shriven, to be absolved. He approached Lady Hilda and handed something over, which she pushed down here,’ she indicated her own wrist, ‘under the cuff of her shift, then he walked away. It was in the blink of an eye. If you had not told me to watch so closely, I wouldn’t have noticed it. Master, I am telling you the—’
She broke off as the door opened and one of Ap Ythel’s archers brought in a cage. The rat inside sprawled dead, slightly twisted, a disgusting mucus seeping out from between its jaws.
‘We gave it the food,’ the archer declared. ‘At first it ignored it, determined to break free, then it settled down and ate. You can see the consequences.’
‘Marissa,’ Corbett gestured at the girl, ‘tomorrow morning you will be escorted out of Tynemouth. Where you go afterwards is your concern. However, wherever you journey, tell any remnants of your coven that Paracelsus is dead, Lady Hilda is dead, Clairbaux will be seized by the Crown, and the captured Black Chesters were fastened to stakes along the beach of Tynemouth Cove, waiting for the icy northern seas to rush in and drown them.’
‘I wish to say something!’ Brother Adrian rose and joined his hands in prayer. His wrists were manacled, with a long chain fastened to each. He looked supplicant. ‘I wish to say something,’ he repeated. ‘I want to purge my guilt . . .’
Curious, Corbett walked towards him. As he did so, Brother Adrian, swift as a lunging viper, turned and with one hand pushed the archer guarding him, whilst with the other he plucked the long stabbing knife from the bowman’s sheath. He then turned back, dagger hand scything the air, the point aimed directly at Corbett’s face. The clerk stumbled back against the judgement table. Another archer, along with Brother Julian, tried to seize the prisoner, but, skilled as any street fighter, he lashed out with the knife and in a crash of chains rushed to confront Corbett again.
The clerk recovered, grasping the hilt of his great two-edged sword lying on the judgement table and swinging the blade around. Brother Adrian flung himself forward and Corbett swiftly brought the sword up, its point piercing the monk’s belly, the blade twisting to skewer the flesh. Brother Adrian, mouth gaping, crashed to his knees. He tried to speak but blood choked his throat and bubbled through his lips.
Corbett watched the life light die in his enemy’s eyes. He recalled all the evil this man had sown along the path of life, the innocents he had slaughtered and the murderous mayhem he had caused. He withdrew the blade, then, balancing carefully on the balls of his feet, he brought the sword back and swung it in a hissing, glittering arc of steel. It scythed the air and sliced deep into Brother Adrian’s neck, severing the head in one deep, blood-gushing slash.
Corbett, Ranulf and Ap Ythel stood on the windswept beach of Tynemouth Cove, staring at the long line of the condemned lashed to their execution poles. Each was fastened tight, bound by thick cords around neck, chest and feet. In the end, thirty-eight were being punished according to the law. Corbett crossed himself as Prior Richard passed down the line, sprinkling the condemned with an aspergillum.
Corbett glanced up. The sky was light blue, with wispy white clouds. Gulls floated in on the seaborne breezes, which reeked of salt, fish and that peculiar odour wafting from the masses of seaweed the tide swept in to coat the rocks. A rather cold day; the season was about to turn and autumn was making itself felt. The tide was still out. Down near the shoreline, sailors from The Golden Dove stared in fascination at the grisly masque now being played out.
Once Prior Richard had finished, Corbett and his party would board the waiting boat and be taken out to the ship. All of their movables had already been transported safely to the hold below deck: panniers, saddles, harnesses, sacks, coffers and caskets neatly secured in the cog’s arca and store chambers. Gaveston had been joined by the rest of Ap Ythel’s archers. The royal favourite would remain in disguise until The Golden Dove docked in either Ponthieu or Bordeaux. The horses of Corbett’s party would have to wait for a heavy transport cog; Chanson would stay with them till they disembarked at one of London’s quaysides.
Corbett walked slowly down towards the waiting ship’s boat and stared longingly out to sea. He would be pleased to be gone. He intended to visit Westminster, then petition for leave to return to his manor at Leighton. He stared at the strengthening surge, the sunlight twinkling in the swell and rush of the waves. The sailors had assured him that this was a calm sea, an excellent day for sailing. He felt his business was now completed. The assize had finished yesterday with his summary execution of Brother Adrian – or Paracelsus, as Corbett preferred to call him. The chapter house floor had been awash with the blood pumping out of the severed torso of the decapitated prisoner, the head rolling like a ball to rest against the dais. Corbett had no scruples about what he had done. Paracelsus had slaughtered innocent, hapless peasants who must have watched their loved ones being butchered before their torturers turned on them.
He stared around the cove, which stretched out then curved in to enclose the sea. The waves had left behind a myriad of shells, pebbles and other fragments caught up by the fast-moving tides. Gulls, as if aware of what was happening below, were beginning to circle in ever-increasing numbers, their calls harsh and strident. Beneath them, on this antechamber to eternity, stretched the execution poles, each with its gruesome offering to the incoming sea and, as one old monk had put it, the demons that rode the white horses of the surf.
Beyond the execution ground was a sandy enclave sweeping across to the base of the great crag that soared up to hold the priory against the sky. Corbett, shading his eyes, stared up at the battlemented walls as he recalled the events of the previous day. Prior Richard had decreed that the corpses of Lady Hilda and Brother Adrian need not be exhibited down here on the beach. Instead both of them, as befitted excommunicates, were to be shrouded in the rough hides of cattle slaughtered in the priory’s fleshing yard. ‘In death therefore,’ he had intoned, ‘they will be cursed, cut off from the sacred, soothing soil of God’s Acre; their corpses can rot covered by the filthy dirt in which they lived as their souls go forward to meet the judgement and mercy of God.’
The two corpses, sewn tightly in their leather shrouds, had been given hasty burial after sunset. The priory cemetery, a ghostly place even in the full light of day, was after nightfall a true place of the dead, made even more so by the dancing flames of the cresset torches that ringed the pit where the corpses were tossed. Earlier this morning, Marissa had been released: she had been given clothing, some food and a few coins and had been dispatched through the main gate of the priory with Prior Richard’s warnings about keeping to the path of righteousness ringing in her ears.
‘Sir Hugh?’ Ranulf gently grasped Corbett’s arm and led him away from the monks clustered around Prior Richard as he chanted a psalm of mourning.
‘Ranulf?’
Ranulf came as close as he could. ‘The Lily Crown, where is it?’
‘I don’t truly know, but I have my suspicions.’
‘Sir Hugh?’
‘Up there, Ranulf, in Tynemouth Priory.’
‘But where?’
Corbett led Ranulf further away from the monks. He smiled at this most loyal of henchmen. ‘Only use this knowledge, only barter this secret, if you have to save life and limb. Promise?’
Ranulf, grasping the cross on the chain around his n
eck, held up his hand. ‘I swear.’
‘Ravinac,’ Corbett began, ‘was a good man who seized and held a most sacred relic. His very possession of such a holy object influenced both his mood and his will. He had taken the crown from a hallowed place, the abbey of Scone, before he and his comrades fled for the safety of the English border. Of course we know what happened. Ravinac and his comrades were attacked by the Black Chesters; only he and Cacoignes managed to escape. He may have come to believe he was saved for a reason. Eventually he reached Tynemouth Priory. He kept the crown hidden because he knew his companion also had designs on it. Ravinac was not well, his health had suffered, but whilst he was in the priory, he loved to visit the chapel and view the beautiful Purbeck marble sarcophagus that housed the mortal remains of holy King Oswine. In doing so he struck up a real friendship with Brother Oswald, the priory craftsman who was busy working on the rood screen. Now, what did Ravinac say about where the Lily Crown could be hidden?’
‘Hanging between heaven and earth in God’s own graveyard.’
‘And that, Ranulf, is where it is. The crucifixion is God’s own graveyard, where Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died. On the cross Christ hung between heaven and earth, an image, as you know, taken up by many artists. Now Ravinac, I am sure, facing death and still guilt-ridden at seizing the Lily Crown, took Brother Oswald into his confidence.’
‘The crown!’ Ranulf exclaimed.
‘The crown,’ Corbett agreed. ‘Brother Oswald was preparing that life-sized figure of Christ in agony. The crucified Saviour is always portrayed as wearing a crown of thorns. I believe that Oswald and Ravinac took the Lily Crown, steeped it in black paint and refashioned it as the crucified Saviour’s crown of thorns. Think of that carving, Ranulf; the sharp points on the crown are really lily stems.’ He chuckled. ‘A most fitting hiding place for such a holy treasure.’