Death's Dark Valley

by Paul Doherty

  Chanson gaped at the stranger, then smiled. ‘I have heard of you,’ he muttered. ‘You look after the great ravens that nest in the Tower. You also . . .’ He paused to choose his words carefully.

  ‘I interrogate prisoners.’ The Ravenmaster’s voice was low and cultured.

  ‘No, sir.’ Mistletoe intervened. ‘You torture people.’

  ‘Sometimes that is necessary, Master Mistletoe.’

  ‘You also execute those found guilty of high treason and crimes akin to that.’

  ‘A well-deserved penalty. I am skilled in the use of both the rope and the axe, but my real passion,’ the Ravenmaster’s eerie face broke into a smile, ‘is my flowers. I tend all the gardens in the Tower, together with my lady wife and thirteen children.’ He closed his eyes and smiled. ‘All cherubs,’ he whispered. He opened his eyes and stared at Chanson. ‘Do you know, in this strange weather we have noticed the appearance of rock samphire?’

  ‘Quite, quite.’ Mistletoe glanced quickly at Chanson and raised his eyes heavenwards.

  ‘Master Chanson.’ The Ravenmaster poked the clerk in the arm. ‘You will be returning to Holyrood?’

  ‘Yes.’ Chanson nodded.

  ‘I will accompany you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I have to.’ The Ravenmaster’s voice was so soft Chanson could hardly hear it. ‘As our friend here will inform you, I carry the king’s own writ, signed under the signet seal. Holyrood holds a mysterious prisoner. My orders are most explicit. I am to execute that prisoner as a traitor and a pretender.’ He smiled. ‘Though I would much prefer to be tending my garden and herb plots with my wife and children.’

  Chanson blew his cheeks out. He caught the warning look in Mistletoe’s eyes, telling him not to object, his head shaking slightly as if to confirm the need for silence.

  ‘So,’ the Ravenmaster picked up his tankard, ‘I will be returning with you to Holyrood to carry out the king’s orders.’

  Chanson nodded, hiding the cold chill that abruptly gripped him. He had eavesdropped on conversations between Corbett and Ranulf and had learnt how Holyrood housed a mysterious prisoner, but he knew no more than that.

  ‘I too will be making preparations for your return,’ Mistletoe declared cheerfully, trying to lighten the mood. ‘And I am intrigued,’ he added, ‘about Monsieur de Craon.’

  ‘Why?’ Chanson demanded.

  ‘Well, shortly after he left the galleys, a troop of his rowers led a line of pack ponies out of Tewkesbury.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I don’t really know. However, one of the galleymen told Beatrice, the chambermaid here at the Angel, that they were taking weapons – arrows, bows, swords and clubs – somewhere along the Welsh March. Beatrice also discovered that another such comitatus is about to leave for Holyrood, ostensibly to escort the envoy of Philip of France back to his galleys. Now isn’t that interesting, Master Chanson?’

  Ranulf-atte-Newgate, Clerk of the Green Wax, was deep in the grip of a living nightmare. He had cut his bonds and staggered along the tunnel. At first there was nothing except darkness and a ghostly, brooding silence, until he heard the howling of the hounds of hell echoing like the bells of the underworld.

  He moved cautiously, his back to the wall, the stiletto gripped firmly in his hand as he edged through the darkness. Soon he glimpsed a shifting pool of light, which grew stronger. A figure rounded the corner and Ranulf sprang, knocking the flaring cresset to the ground. He jabbed time and again at his opponent until the man crumpled, his blood sticky on Ranulf’s hands and face. The clerk picked up the torch and bent over his fallen victim. The man was shuddering, trembling, legs kicking, arms flailing as he stared up at Ranulf. The clerk ignored him. He noticed the arbalest hanging from a hook on the man’s war belt. He roughly undid this, then strapped it about himself and primed it in the dancing light of the torch. The ghastly howling grew clearer, drawing closer.

  ‘Mercy,’ the man spluttered. ‘Mercy.’

  Ranulf leant down like a priest whispering absolution into a penitent’s ear. ‘Tell me where the secret entrances are and I will give you the mercy cut. If not, I’ll leave you to the tender care of the war dogs.’ He stared at the man’s dark face, almost hidden by straggling hair, moustache and beard. ‘Tell me,’ he urged, ‘or I’ll be gone.’

  His victim gazed back, eyes glazed with terror. The howling grew closer.

  ‘Your choice, my friend.’

  ‘Look for the white swans,’ the dying man gasped. ‘You will see them painted on the walls. I was going towards one when—’

  ‘When you met me. Pax et bonum, my friend. May the Lord bless you on your journey.’

  Ranulf tipped the man’s head back and delivered the mercy cut, a neat slash across the throat from ear to ear. Then he sheathed his knife and, with the arbalest in one hand and the cresset torch in the other, got to his feet. He took deep breaths to calm himself before hastening back the way he had come, passing the place where he had been tied. A tunnel ran to his left. He paused at the hideous howling to his rear; this was answered by a growl that echoed along the gallery he intended to enter. He reckoned the war hound behind him had found the corpse of the man he had killed. Ranulf, his body now coated in sweat despite the freezing air, crept down the tunnel, holding the torch up, staring to left and right. He almost sobbed with relief when he glimpsed a crudely painted white swan, wings extended, high in the wall to his left. Rough steps hacked into the stone led up to it.

  He was about to start climbing when a deep-throated growl echoed into the darkness stretching in front of him. He crouched and raised the arbalest. A shape emerged from the murk, a war hound, head forward, belly down, sloping carefully, quietly, as graceful as a dancer, muscles gathered at the base of his neck. Ranulf stilled his panic and waited. The dog raced forward, then gathered itself and sprang, only to meet the bolt Ranulf released, a barbed quarrel that smashed between its eyes, digging deep into the animal’s skull. Jaws gaping, legs flailing, the hound turned in its leap, rolled and crashed to the ground.

  Now aware of furious barking and hideous screams, Ranulf hurried up the steps and pushed at the wall in front of him. He felt both stone and wood. Peering closer in the light of the torch, he realised that a square window had been cut in the stone. This had been cleverly disguised with panelling, the wooden surface painted and marbled so it looked like part of the wall. To his right, he felt two small rolls of oiled leather. ‘Hinges,’ he gasped. ‘Hinges!’ He pressed hard on the wood and it creaked. He pressed again and the hatch swung open.

  He threw both torch and arbalest before him, then scrambled out, dropping down into the darkness. He lifted the torch and stared around. He was in an enclave built into one of the galleries. He turned and grasped the hatch, pushing it closed, then crouched, gasping for breath, before shuffling to the edge of the enclave. He placed the still blazing cresset on the ground before him and peered to his right and left. He glimpsed cell doors, grilles high in the wood, and realised he must have emerged close to the dungeons beneath Falcon Tower. He could still hear the snarling of the dogs and started at a heart-freezing scream. Voices echoed further down the gallery. Creeping forward, he peered to his left, then jumped back as an arrow whipped by his face. He glanced to his right and glimpsed Ap Ythel’s bowmen sidling along either side of the gallery, arrows notched, bows at the ready.

  ‘Pax et bonum, my friends!’ he shouted. ‘I am Ranulf-atte-Newgate, clerk to Sir Hugh . . .’

  A short while later, his bruised face washed and tended by Crispin, Ranulf joined Corbett in the inner bailey, only a short walk from Falcon Tower. The morning was bright, but still very cold, even though the thaw was in full flow. So was the blood seeping and curling around the corpses laid out in the snow, their bellies and chests still carrying the arrows and bolts that had brought them down.

  ‘Four in all,’ Corbett declared. ‘Though I suspect others have been mauled and savaged by the dogs. You look as if you met one yo
urself, God save you.’ He extended a hand and pulled his companion closer. ‘I did worry, Ranulf,’ he whispered. ‘I was concerned, but there was nothing I could do. By the time I realised you had been taken, the war dogs had been released.’ He held Ranulf out at arm’s length, gripping his henchman’s shoulders. ‘Down in those tunnels, those sewers of blood, as I call them, I knew that Ranulf-atte-Newgate was back in his old hunting ground, the alleys and runnels of London, and if you could survive those, you can survive anything, so . . .’

  He paused as a lay brother hurried over carrying goblets of mulled wine. Corbett raised his cup, clinking it against Ranulf’s. ‘My friend, I truly missed you. Now, thank God, I can give praise that you are still with us. So tell me what happened.’

  Ranulf did so. Corbett heard him out, whistling under his breath. He then informed his henchman about the theft of the casket and the disappearance of Brother Raphael, before pointing to the corpses. ‘They broke cover and paid the price. So far we have lost one of Mortimer’s hobelars, but the hunt goes on.’ Ranulf stared down at the four corpses, their chapped faces almost masked by long hair and thick moustaches and beards. ‘As I said, there are others,’ Corbett came up beside him, ‘their corpses mangled by the dogs. We know that; we heard their death screams.’

  ‘How many in all, Sir Hugh?’

  ‘Perhaps ten, certainly no more, yet enough for the mischief they perpetrated. As you yourself discovered, the tunnels and galleries below us were cleverly constructed. Imagine, Ranulf, an underground town with hills, paths, winding trackways. Apparently some of these are steep and lead up to openings as high as the second storey of a tower, or run deep into the storerooms and cells beneath. Armed with torches and informed about the white swans, it must have been easy enough for our assassins to move around, sliding in and out like a cloud of ghosts. Now their hunting grounds have trapped them. I have asked for prisoners, though I doubt we will take any alive: if we did it, would be one way of discovering something about the enemy within, the reprobate who assisted this coven of assassins, who must have given them sustenance and support, be it candles, torches or food.’ Corbett clutched Ranulf’s arm. ‘We have so much to resolve here, my friend, a truly tangled web of deceit, murder and treason.’

  ‘And Brother Raphael?’

  ‘God knows.’ Corbett glanced away as one of Ap Ythel’s bowmen brought a heap of weapons and threw them on the ground beside the corpses.

  ‘Sir Hugh.’ The man pointed at the tangle of steel. ‘This is what the attackers used.’

  Corbett walked over and stared down, sifting the weapons with the toe of his boot, a mixture of swords, daggers and small maces. ‘Well I never.’ He crouched and picked up a dagger, turning it to examine the hilt more closely. ‘See this, Ranulf, the finger holes in the hilt, the serrated blade?’

  ‘I have seen the like before,’ Ranulf joined his master, ‘though only now and again.’

  ‘So have I. You are looking at good steel, fashioned not in this kingdom.’ He let the dagger drop and picked up a short stabbing sword. ‘French.’ He squinted up at Ranulf. ‘Steel from the foundries of Dijon in Normandy. I do wonder,’ he let the dagger drop, ‘if Monsieur de Craon had a hand in all of this. Remember the fire arrows, the sentry killed on the parapet walk? Was that mere mummery to cover men slipping into the Valley of Shadows with pack ponies carrying arms and other munitions of war? Well, well, well.’ He softly clapped his hands. ‘Ranulf, have all this taken to the abbey forge. Search out the smith, Brother Dunstan, I believe. Ask him to examine these, then hide them away.’

  Corbett and Ranulf stayed in and around the Falcon Tower, directing the bloody conflict being waged whenever an assailant appeared from some secret place. Four more corpses were dragged out, weapons seized and inspected. Ap Ythel believed at least three of the enemy had been destroyed by the mastiffs, while the same number of war dogs had been slain. The struggle continued for the rest of the day and into the night. Corbett ignored pleas and requests from Abbot Henry. He insisted that he would maintain the search until the hounds fell quiet; only then could peace and harmony be restored and the abbey return to its usual placid horarium.

  By dawn the next morning, the mastiffs were silent, and although tired and weary, Corbett insisted that they must still finish the task to his satisfaction. The keeper and his assistants were summoned, along with muzzles, leads and goads, as well as an escort of shield-bearing hobelars. They gathered near the devil’s door and went down into the passageways and tunnels. The dogs were now exhausted and sated, and their keepers easily managed to chain and muzzle the survivors, whilst others dragged up the three killed. The dead mastiffs were taken out to be burnt in a furiously flaming pyre in the outer bailey, a veritable furnace fed by dry wood and oil. For a while, a stinking black cloud drifted over the abbey, though by midday this had dissipated, and the charred remains were gathered up and thrown into the icy moat. Only then did Corbett allow a respite for the garrison to wash, eat and rest before insisting that the hunt should continue.

  Most of the able-bodied men in Holyrood were drawn into the search through the great maze beneath the abbey. Corbett, Ranulf and Ap Ythel also threaded their way along the tunnels. Having inspected them closely, Corbett and Ap Ythel reached the conclusion that tribesmen had once cut a maze of trenches through the rocky earth as some form of defence to guard and protect the approaches to the Valley of Shadows. Over the years, dwellings had been built over these to form tunnels, galleries and passages. Time passed and the site became deserted and desolate until the arrival of Brothers Anselm and Richard. These clever masons, in a mixture of mischief and building ingenuity, exploited the trenches for their own use, constructing and developing Holyrood over and across the ancient maze.

  Corbett insisted on walking the labyrinth again with Ranulf as his scribe, noting all the secret entrances decorated with a white swan. He had almost completed this when an agitated Crispin came hurrying across the inner bailey to where the clerk stood discussing matters with Ranulf and Ap Ythel. The infirmarian’s face was pallid and sweat-soaked. He was so agitated he even ignored the slush and ice beneath him and the pelting rain that saturated his robe.

  ‘Sir Hugh, please.’ He grasped the clerk’s arm to steady himself on the icy ground. ‘Please, please.’ He turned, lifting his other hand, fingers curled like a claw, towards Ap Ythel and Ranulf.

  Realising the infirmarian was in shock, Corbett clasped the man’s cold hand, nodding at his two companions to follow them back into the abbey buildings. Crispin led them to a corpse chamber close to the infirmary, now a very busy place where those slain in the bloody struggle were laid out in all their gruesome state. Still deeply agitated, he took Corbett and his companions into a narrow side room with only one mortuary table, its contents covered by a heavy canvas sheet, though this was now blotched and stained, the blood dripping down to puddle on the floor. The room reeked with the foul stench of corruption, but further horrors awaited them.

  Crispin pulled back the corpse sheet and Corbett gagged at the sight of the mangled, gory remains of what had once been a human being. Hands shaking, the infirmarian turned the head so that Corbett could recognise what was left of the face. The clerk closed his eyes as his two companions turned away. He murmured a requiem, then left the chamber, striding out into the welcoming fresh air, the others close behind.

  ‘The searchers found his torn remains, what was left of my brother’s body.’ Crispin huddled close, trembling violently. Ap Ythel made him drink from the wine skin he carried. ‘It wasn’t until I peered close that I recognised him.’ He started to cry.

  ‘And we,’ Corbett declared grimly, ‘must now decide if Raphael was the enemy within. If he was, did he steal that precious casket, and more importantly, where is it now?’

  Corbett withdrew all the men from the tunnels except for Ap Ythel’s archers: they were to scour the maze – indeed, the entire abbey – for the precious casket, though secretly Corbett really wondered if they
would ever find it. A conviction he shared when he and others gathered in the abbey council chamber, where Abbot Henry, much recovered and stern-faced, sat enthroned like a prince in his great chair. Along either side of the table were Corbett, Ranulf, Ap Ythel, Mortimer and de Craon, with Brothers Jude and Crispin. Devizes, as usual, stood stone-like in full battle harness close to Maltravers. The master-at-arms bluntly reported how he had done what he could, searching the abbey, the church and surrounding buildings without discovering any trace of either the casket or the movements of Brother Raphael on the evening he disappeared.

  ‘Was he the enemy within?’ Abbot Henry repeated the constant question. ‘After all, he was the abbey’s sacristan, with the keys as well as the authority to go where he wanted and do what he wished. Indeed, on the evening Brother Mark was murdered, Raphael was not in church with us as usual; he had excused himself for a variety of reasons.’

  ‘He held the keys to every chamber,’ Crispin agreed. ‘But we must remember he was also well liked and popular.’

  ‘True, he could draw close to those brothers who were slain.’ Jude spoke up. ‘Surely that is something we must not forget.’

  The prior’s words created a pool of silence: a brooding stillness as people reflected on what might be.

  ‘So,’ Corbett tapped the table, ‘every room here has been searched. Does that include yours?’ He pointed at de Craon.

  The French envoy glared back venomously.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘It has been.’ It was Devizes who replied. ‘I was accompanied by Brother Jude. Father Prior and I have been into every chamber, Sir Hugh, except yours.’

  Corbett smiled thinly. ‘Once this meeting is finished, we shall soon rectify that.’ He leant over and whispered to Ap Ythel, who nodded in agreement. ‘Good, good,’ the Keeper of the Secret Seal murmured. ‘Ap Ythel will go with you, Master Devizes. You and he can search my chamber and that of Ranulf immediately. You’d best join him now.’