by Paul Doherty
‘If they weren’t killed there ...?’
He got up and walked to the window. He missed Maltote more than he would admit and he knew Ranulf would never be the same again. He thought of his young friend’s corpse and Tripham’s words about the bruise on the ankle. As Corbett stared down into the yard at a great cart, fear chilled his stomach. He gave a shout of exasperation and banged his fist against the open shutter. Going to the door he threw it open.
‘Ranulf!’ he shouted.
His words rang like a death knell down the lonely corridor. It was early afternoon: the students, already subdued by Ap Morgan’s capture, were now dispersed to their school rooms and lecture halls. Corbett’s unease grew. He felt lonely, suddenly vulnerable. There were no windows in the gallery, apart from an arrow slit high on the wall at each end, so the light was poor. Corbett edged back inside the doorway. Was there anyone there, he wondered? He was certain he was not alone. He drew his dagger and whirled around at the soft, scuffling sound behind him. A rat? Or someone lurking in the darkness?
‘Ranulf! Ranulf!’ Corbett shouted. He sighed as he heard a pounding on the stairs. ‘Take care!’ Corbett warned.
Ranulf came on, running along the gallery, dagger out.
‘What’s wrong, Master?’
Corbett looked over his shoulder. ‘I don’t know,’ he whispered, ‘but we are not alone, Ranulf. No, no!’ He seized the servant’s arm. ‘We will not go hunting. At least not here!’
Corbett almost dragged Ranulf into the chamber.
‘Put on your war belt,’ he ordered as he did likewise. ‘Bring a crossbow and a quiver of bows.’
‘Where are we going? What are we doing?’
‘Have you noticed,’ Corbett replied, ‘that since we came to Oxford, no headless corpses have been found on some lonely trackway? I know where those poor beggars were killed.’ Corbett jabbed a finger at the floor.
‘Here?’ Ranulf exclaimed.
‘Yes, here, in the hostelry. In the cellars below! Remember, Ranulf, these buildings once belonged to a wine merchant. You visited the houses of such merchants in London?’
‘They have huge cellars and long galleries,’ Ranulf interrupted. ‘Some in Cheapside could house a small village.’
‘And there are the legends,’ Corbett added, ‘of the woman who lurked in the cellars here with her child, when Braose founded his Hall. I wager our noble founder had to hunt them out.’
Ranulf watched him anxiously.
‘I’ll come with you.’
‘No, you won’t,’ Corbett replied. ‘But you will watch the cellar door. If anyone comes in after me, follow them down. No, no!’ Corbett shook his head. ‘Maltote didn’t die in vain, Ranulf.’ He stared round the chamber. ‘An old priest once told me how, at least for a while, the dead linger with you.’ He smiled. ‘I used to put my findings down to intuition or logic but, for this, I give thanks to Maltote. Count to a hundred!’ he ordered. ‘Then follow me!’
Corbett went down the stairs. On the ground floor he went along to Norreys’s counting office. The man was writing in a ledger and Corbett realised that, if anyone had been in the top gallery, it hadn’t been him.
‘Sir Hugh, can I help?’ Norreys got to his feet, wiping ink-stained fingers.
‘Yes, I would like to search the cellars, Master Norreys.’
The man pulled a face. ‘What do you expect to find down there? The Bellman?’
‘Perhaps,’ Corbett answered.
‘There’s nothing there; just barrels and supplies but ...’
Norreys took a squat, tallow candle from a box and, jingling the keys on his belt, led Corbett out along the passageway. He stopped to light the candle then unlocked the cellar door.
‘I’ll go by myself,’ Corbett said.
He went down the steps towards the cellar, which was dark, musty and cold.
‘There are torches in the wall sconces,’ Norreys sang out.
At the bottom Corbett lit one of these as Norreys slammed the door behind him. Corbett made his way carefully into the darkness. Every so often he would stop to light a sconce torch and look around. The wall to his left was of solid brick, but on his right were small caverns or chambers. Some were empty, others contained bric-a-brac, broken tables and benches. He turned a comer and coughed at the thick staleness of the air. Corbett lit more torches and quietly marvelled at this sprawling underworld.
‘These must run the entire length of the lane,’ he murmured.
Now and again he paused to go into one of the chambers or crouch and look into the caverns. He was glad he’d lit the torches: they would show him the way out. He must have wandered for some time before he made his way back, following the line of torches. He espied another narrow passageway. He went down but the end was blocked off. Corbett remembered those beggar men: he knew they had died here. He could feel an eerie stillness, a sense of evil. He heard a sound further along the passageway and crouched down, examining the brickwork and ground carefully. He could find nothing but small pools of water. Corbett dipped his fingers carefully into one of the puddles and rubbed small pieces of gravel between his fingers. He lifted the candle and stared up at the vaulted ceiling but he could find no trace of any leak or water seeping through. Corbett closed his eyes and smiled. He’d found the killer!
He went back into the passageway where the torches were still alight, making the shadows dance. Corbett wanted to get out. He felt as if the place was closing in around him. His heart began to quicken and his mouth ran dry. He turned a corner and stopped. The passageway was in darkness. Someone had extinguished the sconce torches. Corbett heard a click and immediately stepped back just as a crossbow bolt whistled through the air, smacking into the brickwork. Corbett turned and ran.
He avoided the narrow passageway, the blind alley. At one point Corbett stopped, drew his dagger and crouched down to catch his breath. He looked back and saw a figure silhouetted against the light. Corbett licked dry lips. His attacker could not see so clearly and a second bolt whirred aimlessly through the darkness. Corbett rose and ran as fast as he could before his assailant could insert another bolt and winch back the cord. The man saw him coming. In the flickering light Corbett watched those fingers pulling back the cord but then he crashed into him and both men rolled on the ground, kicking and jabbing at each other. Corbett grasped the small arbalest and sent it smashing against the wall. His assailant broke free. Corbett made to rise but the man’s sword was out, the point under his chin. The figure, half stooping, pulled back his cowl.
Master Richard Norreys.
Corbett pulled himself up to lean against the wall. His hand stole to the dagger in his belt but the sheath was empty.
Norreys crouched down, pushing the tip of his sword into the soft part of Corbett’s neck. Corbett winced and held his head further back.
‘Don’t struggle.’ Norreys wiped the sweat from his face with one hand, though the other, holding the sword, didn’t even quiver. ‘Well, well, well,’ Norreys mused.
He edged closer.into the pool of light; his eyes had a soft, dreamy look. Corbett fought to control the fear. He decided not to lash out - Norreys was as mad as any March hare. If he struggled or resisted Norreys would plunge that sword into his throat, then sit and watch him die.
‘Why?’ Corbett tried to move his head away. He kept glancing down the passageway behind Norreys. Where in God’s name, he thought, was Ranulf?
‘Why what?’ Norreys asked.
‘Why the killings?’
‘It’s a game, you see,’ Norreys replied. ‘You were in Wales, Sir Hugh, you know what it was like. I was a speculator, a spy. I used to go out with the others at night. Along those mist-filled valleys. Nothing -’ Norreys’s voice fell to a whisper ‘- nothing moved, only the murmuring of the trees and the call of an owl. But they were always there, weren’t they? The bloody Welsh, creeping like worms along the ground.’ Norreys’s face was suffused with rage. ‘Soft! Soft!’ His eyes opened wide. ‘We’d always go
out in a group of five or six. Good men, Sir Hugh, archers, with wives and sweethearts back home. We’d always lose one, sometimes two or three. Always the same! First we’d find the corpses. Then we’d go looking for their heads. Sometimes the bastards would play games with us. They’d take a head and leave it like some apple bobbing in a breeze.’ Norreys paused, clasping the sword with both hands. ‘You think I’m mad, witless, possessed by a demon. I tell you this, master clerk,’ he continued on in a rush, ‘when the King’s army disbanded at Shrewsbury, I began to have dreams. Ever the same. Always the darkness, camp fires amongst the trees, footsteps slithering beside or behind me. And those heads - always the heads! Sometimes during the day, I’d see little things - a leaf on a branch, a ripe apple hanging down -’ Norreys sighed ‘- and I’d dream again. Then I came here.’ He smiled. ‘You see, Sir Hugh, I am an educated man: trained as a clerk, a student of the horn book. I was also a good soldier so the King gave me the sinecure here.’
‘Are you the Bellman?’ Corbett asked.
‘Bellman!’ Norreys sniggered. ‘Bellman! I couldn’t give a fig about de Montfort or those fat lords across the lane. I was happy here and the dreams became less frequent ... but then the Welsh came.’ He closed his eyes but abruptly opened them as Corbett stirred. ‘No, no, Sir Hugh, you have got to listen. As I had to - to those voices. Do you remember, Sir Hugh, how the Welsh used to call out in the darkness? They’d get to know our names, and as we hunted them they hunted us. And, if they took one of our company, they’d call out: “Richard has gone! Henry has gone! Tell John’s wife she’s a widow!” Norreys’s voice rang through the vaults. He looked round. ‘I’ll have to go soon,’ he whispered. ‘The scholars will be back from the schools. They’ll be knocking on my door for this or that.’
‘The old men?’ Corbett asked quickly.
‘It was an accident,’ Norreys replied, shaking his head. ‘Mere chance, Sir Hugh. An old beggar came here, wanting work so I sent him down to the cellar to collect a tun of wine. Of course, the stupid, old man had to broach a cask. Quite drunk he was when I came down. He was frightened and ran away. I followed.’ Norreys chewed the corner of his lip. ‘Here,’ he whispered leaning forward, ‘here in the darkness, Sir Hugh. It was like being in Wales again. I was hunting him. He’d call out, saying he was sorry. I caught up with him and he struggled so I slit his throat. I left his corpse here but that night I had a dream.’
‘So you cut his head off, didn’t you?’ Corbett interrupted. ‘You put the corpse and the head in a barrel, and took it out of Oxford by this gate or that to dispose of.’
‘That’s right,’ Norreys agreed. ‘I’d throw the corpse into the woods and tie the head to a branch. Do you know, Sir Hugh, it was like being exorcised or shriven in church? The dreams stopped. I felt purified.’ Norreys smiled, a gleaming look in his eyes. ‘I felt like a boy jumping off a rock into a deep, clear pool: washed clean.’ He paused, staring at a point above Corbett’s head.
Corbett breathed in deeply, straining his ears. Oh God, he prayed, where’s Ranulf? He looked down the passageway behind Norreys but he could see nothing.
‘Then you killed again?’ Corbett asked.
‘Of course I did,’ Norreys smirked. ‘It’s like wine, Sir Hugh. You drink it, you taste and feel the warmth in your belly. The days passed and I needed that warmth again. And who cared? The city is full of beggars - men with no past and no future: the flotsam and jetsam of this world.’
‘They had souls,’ Corbett replied, wishing Norreys wouldn’t press so hard with the sword. ‘They were men and, above all, they were innocent: their blood cries to God for vengeance,’
Norreys shifted and Corbett knew he had made a mistake.
‘God, Sir Hugh? My God died in Wales. What vengeance? What are you going to do, Sir Hugh? Cry out? Beg for mercy?’
‘I’ll be missed.’
‘Oh, of course you will be. I’ll take your corpse out. I promise I’ll do it differently. There are marshes deep in the woods. The fires of hell will have grown cold by the time your corpse is found. I have thought it all out. Your death will be blamed on the Bellman. The King’s soldiers will come into Oxford and those pompous, arrogant bastards across the lane will take the blame. Sparrow Hall will be closed but the hostelry will continue.’ He saw Corbett shift his gaze. ‘Oh, what are you waiting for? Your cat-footed friend? I locked the cellar door. You are alone, Sir Hugh.’ He cocked his head sideways. ‘But what made you suspect me?’
‘My servant, the one who died, is his blood on your hands?’
Norreys shook his head.
‘He said he’d knocked his shin against a bucket,’ Corbett continued as he glimpsed a shadow move further down the passageway. ‘I wondered why the Master of the hostelry, a place not known for its cleanliness, should be washing the cellar floor. You were removing the blood stains, weren’t you? And then I began to reflect how the corpses bore no mark of being hunted through the forest, how beggars might come here seeking alms, bread and water, how the cellars were deep; and I recalled your work as a speculator in Wales. Of course, as a steward, you had every right to go out in your cart to buy produce in the surrounding villages. No one would be suspicious, no one would stop you.’
Norreys pointed a finger at him. ‘You are a good hunting dog!’
‘You took the corpses out and left them with the heads dangling from branches. No one would notice the dark stain in a barrel built to contain wine, the lid firmly nailed down. Whilst I, the King’s hunting dog, was here, you stopped your slaughter. You knew I was curious so you washed the killing places and Maltote hit his shin against a bucket.’
‘Anything else?’
‘You dropped a button ...’
‘Ah! I wondered ...’
‘And there’s thin gravel here. I found traces of it on the beggar’s clothing.’
‘I thought you had found something,’ Norreys jibed. ‘I followed you down here ...’
‘I will make you an offer,’ Corbett interrupted, for Ranulf was not very close.
Norreys’s eyes widened.
‘In the passageway behind you,’ Corbett continued, ‘is my servant, Ranulf-atte-Newgate. Before he became a clerk, Ranulf was a night stalker. He can open any lock and move like a ghost.’
Norreys shook his head, his sneer dying at the click of a crossbow behind him.
‘You can take your sword away,’ Corbett said softly, ‘and stand trial before the King’s justices.’
‘I could kill you.’ Norreys smiled but his gaze faltered.
Corbett brought his hand up slowly, pressing against the sword blade: he relaxed - it wasn’t sharp, merely a sticking iron.
‘You can accept my offer,’ Corbett remarked.
Norreys, however, was more concerned at Ranulf behind him.
‘Or Ranulf can kill you!’
Corbett suddenly knocked the sword away, rolling forwards. Norreys was up. Ranulf came into the light. Corbett heard the whirr of a crossbow bolt and Norreys staggered, dropping his sword, clutching at the bolt in his chest. The look of surprise was still on his face even as Ranulf seized his hair, pulled back his head and, with one swift slash, cut his throat. Ranulf knocked Norreys to the ground and crouched down beside Corbett. The clerk closed his eyes and drew nearer to the wall, drawing deep breaths, trying to calm the pounding of his heart.
‘I came as quickly as I could,’ Ranulf grinned. ‘The lock was rusty and stiff and, for a few moments, I lost my way.’ He helped Corbett to his feet. ‘Do you know what I would do, Master? I’d leave this bloody place!’ He kicked Norreys’s corpse with his boot. ‘I’d ride like the wind to Woodstock and obtain the King’s warrant to arrest everyone in both the hostelry and the Hall until this matter is finished.’
Corbett pushed him gently away and leaned against the wall.
This is a nightmare, he thought, glancing around. Dark, slimy passageways, flickering candlelight, the blood-soaked corpse of a murderer. Was this how it would end? Would R
anulf, one day, not be at hand? Or would he meet an assassin unlike the others, who killed silently and speedily, not bothering to boast about his exploits? Corbett picked up his dagger and re-sheathed it. Ranulf wiped his own blade on Norreys’s jerkin, picked up the crossbow and helped Corbett down the passageway. At the foot of the steps Corbett paused. He felt calmer though very cold.
‘You are right,’ he murmured. ‘Pack our bags, Ranulf. We’ll leave here and go to the Merry Maidens. Hire a chamber but don’t tell anyone where we are.’ He staggered up the steps and pulled open the door. ‘I’m not going back to that room.’
For a while Corbett sat on a bench, his face in his hands. A servitor came to ask if all was well, and whether Sir Hugh knew where Master Norreys was ...
Corbett lifted his head and the man took one look at the clerk’s pale, angry face and hurried off. Ranulf came down, saddlebags over his shoulder and arms. They walked out into the lane. Corbett felt as if he was in a dream. He allowed Ranulf to guide him through streets, pushing away beggars. On one occasion Corbett had to stop because the sound and smells made him feel dizzy. However, by the time they reached the Merry Maidens, Corbett had regained his wits. Still cold and tired he sat in front of a weak fire in the taproom whilst Ranulf hired a chamber, and some food, roast pheasant in an oyster sauce. Ranulf remained silent and just watched as Corbett ate sparingly, drank two bowls of claret and told him about Norreys.
‘I’ll sleep for a while,’ Corbett concluded. ‘Go back to Sparrow Hall, Ranulf and tell Master Tripham what has happened. Wake me just as the bells ring for Vespers.’
Corbett went up to his chamber. A tapster went before him carrying the fresh sheets and bolsters Ranulf had ordered. The room was a simple, whitewashed cell with a rickety table and two stools, but the beds were comfortable and clean. Once the tapster had changed the sheets, Corbett bolted the door, crawled into the bed, pulling the blankets over him, and fell into a deep sleep.
Corbett slept for an hour. When he woke, his hand went to the dagger on the floor until he remembered where he was. He tossed the blankets off, got up and washed. He felt better and, going down to the taproom, found Ranulf engaged in a game of hazard. His servant winked at him, pocketed his winnings and followed Corbett out into the small herb garden behind the inn.
