Hugh Corbett 17 - The Mysterium

by Paul Doherty

Then the King was gone, shouting for his escort. Blandeford and Staunton also made their farewells before following the royal household down to the quayside and the waiting barge. Corbett had immediately sought out Chanson, the Clerk of the Stables, who was responsible for their horses and pack ponies. Corbett had ensured the groom had good lodgings in the abbey guesthouse before adjourning to his own sparse chamber. He had slept well, waking long before dawn. He’d washed at the lavarium and dressed in a fresh shirt, hose and leather jerkin, a welcome relief from the heavy sweaty jerkin and chainmail of the previous day.

  ‘Master?’

  Corbett glanced up. The monks were filing out. He rose, going through the rood screen into the nave, where Chanson squatted at the base of a pillar, his bobbed hair cut, as Ranulf laughingly described, as if a pudding bowl had been overturned on his head. The groom, threading his Ave beads, glanced up, the cast in his left eye giving him a constantly humorous look. Corbett clasped his shoulder, assuring him all was well and thanking him for his work the previous day. In truth Chanson loved and lived for horses and nothing else. Weapons were more dangerous to him than any opponent, whilst his singing voice, so Ranulf asserted, would make the good brothers think that the choirs of hell were mocking their plainchant.

  ‘We’ll wait for the dawn Mass,’ Corbett told him. ‘Stay only if you want to.’

  Chanson said he would, and Corbett left him bantering with Ranulf as he turned to the grandeur of the nave, admiring its soaring pillars, darkened transepts, and the intricacies of the carved screens outside the various chantry chapels. Humming the tune of a hymn, Corbett carefully examined the paintings. One made him smile. Apollinaria, the patron saint of tooth drawers, holding the pincers and tongs of her martyrdom. Now in heaven, she was depicted dispatching help to poor unfortunates as they sat on a row of stools, each with a tooth drawer inflicting more pain than relief. An artist who suffered toothache, Corbett reflected. He walked back up into the Lady Chapel, his mind drifting back to St Botulph’s. He had ringed that church and secured the doors: the main one, the sacristy door, the north door and the corpse door. The windows were narrow and high. The tower, with its plastered walls winding steps and small enclaves, held no secrets. At the top, the crenellated platform provided only a dizzying drop to the steep slate roof below. So, how had Boniface Ippegrave escaped? How had he managed to disappear from such a close, fast place? Corbett paused to light tapers for his wife, for their two children, Edward and Eleanor, for himself and his two companions. By the time he had finished his Ave, the Jesus bell was ringing for the dawn Mass.

  Afterwards Corbett and his two companions, laughing about Chanson’s singing, broke their fast over bowls of oatmeal at the ale table in the buttery before leaving the abbey precincts. The morning was dull. Clouds blocked the sun and a sharp breeze whipped their faces as they made their way out through the Galilee porch into Goose Meadow, which stretched down to the corpse chapel of St Lazarus. Already the brothers were filing out to the outlying fields and granges. Corbett heard their chanting, so strong on the morning breeze not even the cawing of a host of rooks could drown it. The grass was still frosty and wet, the feeding ground for a nearby warren of rabbits, who disappeared in darting flashes of brown and white. Ogadon, on guard outside the entrance of the chapel, close to the ledge beneath the bell, lumbered to his feet growling.

  ‘Pax et Bonum,’ called a voice. The old war hound collapsed, relieved that he didn’t have to exert himself, as Brother Cuthbert crept out of the door. A tall, angular figure in his shabby Benedictine robe, a grey cord around his waist, stout sandals on his feet, his long neck and small, pert face gave him a bird-like look, heightened by the stiff movements of his arms, hands and legs. Corbett suspected the lay brother suffered severe inflammation of the joints. Cuthbert was old, his white hair shorn on three sides; the little on his pate displaying the tonsure. He was cheerful and welcoming enough, nodding quietly as Corbett introduced his companions, watery blue eyes crinkling in amusement when Corbett expressed regret at the death of Lord Evesham.

  ‘You’d best come down to the pit of hell,’ he said sardonically. ‘My humble abode below.’

  Corbett pointed to the snoring Ogadon. ‘Brother, on the night Evesham was murdered?’

  ‘The same as every night,’ Cuthbert replied. ‘Compline is sung. My lord abbot has excused me from that, as there are usually corpses to be washed or a recluse to be cared for. Anyway, once it is over,’ he continued so breathlessly Corbett wondered if the man’s wits were sound, ‘a servant brings me a goblet of wine and a platter of food from the buttery. My other guests,’ he gestured over his shoulder, ‘are past all sustenance.’

  ‘And Walter Evesham?’

  ‘He had his own food brought, though much earlier than mine: a goblet of wine and a platter. The servant puts the tray on the ledge and . . .’ Cuthbert pulled at the rope and glanced up as the bell clanged. ‘You see, not everyone likes to enter a death house,’ he whispered. ‘I go up, collect the tray, then bolt the door from inside.’

  ‘You secured the door?’ Corbett exclaimed.

  ‘Yes, yes, come in, come in.’

  Corbett and Ranulf followed Cuthbert into the corpse chapel. The lay brother slammed the door shut and drew across the iron bolts at top and bottom. Corbett stared around. It was a truly chilling place now the light had faded. Shadows and shapes flittered around the macabre bundles on the mortuary tables. The only light came from the windows along one wall, nothing more than narrow apertures, their shutters flung back.

  ‘I close the shutters and bolt the door,’ Brother Cuthbert continued conversationally, ‘then I am fastened in for the night. You see, Domine,’ he drew back the bolts, led them out again and pointed, ‘beyond the chapel, bushes and trees fringe the high wall of the abbey, lofty as that of Troy. On the outside it stands on a ramp of earth; its top is covered with sharp shards of tile and pottery. The wall has to be a good defence against the river along which flow the barges of wickedness oared by pirates and other river monsters.’ Cuthbert’s light blue eyes crinkled, Corbett glimpsed the intelligence and humour there. Brother Cuthbert was not just an old lay brother, but a clever man pretending to be distracted.

  ‘And your mastiff?’

  ‘Old Ogadon is not as fierce as he looks. He can tell friend from foe; he growls but would only roar at some footpad slipping through the night.’

  Corbett smiled as Cuthbert led them back into the chapel and down the steps into the cellar. The tunnel was narrow, the timbered ceiling just above their heads. The first cell on the right, Cuthbert’s own, was neat and clean. High in one corner of its whitewashed walls was a vent that allowed in a crack of light. The chamber was sparsely furnished: a cot bed draped with a black coverlet edged with silver, a stool, a table, shelves over the bed holding pots, platters and jugs. Crucifixes were nailed against the walls; robes hung on pegs, and from beneath the table peeped a small wineskin. The next cell was a storeroom. The far one, its door leaning against the wall, had been Evesham’s. It was similar to Cuthbert’s, but the table, pushed against the wall, was heavily stained with the justice’s blood.

  ‘Soaked it must have been,’ Ranulf observed. ‘His throat was cut like a pig’s.’

  They looked around. The coverlet and sheets on the bed had been removed, as had the jugs and pots from the shelf above it.

  ‘Any manuscripts?’ Corbett asked.

  ‘My guest was reading Boethius’ De Consolatione Philosophiae. It was lying on the bed so it was not stained with blood. Father Abbot had it taken back to the library.’

  ‘Any other possessions?’

  ‘Yes.’ Cuthbert scratched his head. ‘A ring or two, a cross on a chain. Abbot Serlo had them washed and sent back to Evesham’s widow.’

  Corbett moved to examine the door and lintel.

  ‘Boethius!’ Ranulf remarked.

  ‘A suitable choice. The reflections of a minister who fell from power, though Boethius was innocent.’ Corbett turned and
smiled. ‘Evesham certainly wasn’t, was he, Parson Tunstall?’

  Cuthbert coloured slightly and glanced beyond Corbett as if staring at something else.

  ‘That will wait, that will wait,’ Corbett remarked and pushed by him to stare down at the table.

  Ranulf was right. Evesham’s blood must have splattered out like water, staining the surface; even the two candlesticks standing at each corner were clotted with dried blood. Corbett took a stool, sat down and stared up at Brother Cuthbert.

  ‘Walter Evesham?’

  Cuthbert glanced at Ranulf standing close to him. Corbett gestured with his head. Ranulf patted the lay brother on the shoulder and went to stand in the doorway, whilst Corbett indicated that Cuthbert sit on the end of the bed. The lay brother did so. Beads of sweat wetted his forehead, and the constant licking of lips showed his dryness. A wine toper perhaps? A man who drank to forget?

  ‘Walter Evesham?’ Corbett repeated.

  ‘He came here weeks ago. First he sheltered in the guesthouse, then for the last month here.’

  ‘At his request?’

  ‘I think so. Abbot Serlo decided it was for the best. You see,’ Cuthbert continued, ‘this is where all who desire a recluse’s life within the abbey come. To be sure,’ he laughed sharply, ‘a rare event. Sometimes one of the brothers simply wishes to be alone for a while.’

  ‘Did you talk with Evesham?’

  ‘Sir Hugh, you know I did, at least at the beginning. You’ve heard the story, or at least some of it. Evesham begged for my forgiveness, but if the root be tainted, so is the branch . . .’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Evesham was no sinner come to repentance. He was a malignant. He was born wicked, he died wicked!’

  ‘Do you really believe that?’

  ‘For the love of God, Sir Hugh, Evesham was caught in his own foul sin, so what does he do? Falls to his knees and assumes sackcloth, ashes, prayers, fasting, contrition and repentance.’ Cuthbert’s flushed face betrayed the hatred curdling within him. ‘He wasn’t worried about his soul or how he spent the last years of his life; he was more concerned about his neck.’ The lay brother paused, licking at the froth on his lips.

  Ranulf took a step forward, hand nursing the hilt of his sword.

  ‘Keep your dagger man, your bully-boy, well away from me, Sir Hugh. I mean you no ill, I am sorry.’ Cuthbert wiped his mouth on the back of his wrist. ‘I am sorry I have tried so hard to hide my anger.’ He struck his chest. ‘My fault, my fault, I have sinned, I have sinned.’ He glanced up, eyes brimming with tears. ‘Sin never leaves you,’ he added hoarsely. ‘Like some loathsome bramble it trails the soil of your soul and its roots dig deep. Please don’t think my anger is guilt. I do not want to be hauled off to some bleak prison, nor to Father Abbot, who kindly gave me shelter when I was nothing but some poor soul drifting on the winds of life.’ He glared at Corbett. ‘I heard how the King’s hawk had arrived. They know about you, clerk, even here at Syon. Our prior says that you are ruthless in the pursuit of justice, that your soul cannot be bought and sold. Now isn’t that praiseworthy in a world where souls come cheaper than apples from an orchard?’

  ‘You claim that Evesham the recluse was in fact a hypocrite?’

  ‘The word is yours, Sir Hugh.’

  ‘Yes it is, and I believe you.’ Corbett stretched across and touched Cuthbert’s cold, wrinkled, spotted hand. ‘I truly do.’ He smiled. ‘Evesham was caught, confronted and indicted. He turned, swift as a bird on the wing, throwing himself on the King’s mercy, proclaiming himself a sinner come to repentance. Such contrition was accepted.’

  ‘Because it was in the King’s interest?’ Cuthbert jibed.

  ‘True,’ Corbett agreed, ‘it certainly was in the King’s interest. Edward of England, the new Justinian, the great law-giver, the promulgator of statute law, the lord of parliament: to have one of his chief justices depicted in open court as corrupt? Indicted as a consorter with outlaws, a receiver of stolen goods, the lord of bribes, the master of chicanery? Oh yes, it was very much in the King’s interest for Evesham to confess, to seek pardon, to hide from scrutiny, to don sackcloth and ashes and sit in the dust.’

  ‘Until the storm blew itself out?’ Cuthbert observed.

  ‘You believe that?’

  ‘Of course. Evesham could kneel and mutter his paternoster, thread his Ave beads and stare at the crucifix. He could eat hard bread and drink the waters of bitterness, but I believe he was secretly preparing his defence. And before you ask, Sir Hugh, God knows what that was! What secrets did he hold about others, about the King?’ He leaned closer. ‘Did his grace, our noble lord, wish him dead?’

  ‘That’s treason,’ snapped Ranulf.

  ‘It could still be true,’ Cuthbert muttered over his shoulder. ‘Your master, dagger man, is here to seek the truth; what am I supposed to do, lie? I am simply asking what the truth is. You may keep the King’s Secret Seal but not his soul, Sir Hugh.’

  Corbett stared at this man, whose very soul bubbled with anger. He sensed what might have happened; he had seen it before. Men and women who’d hidden and masked their own hurt, nursing it like some festering wound over the years. Then, in one hour, one moment, one heartbeat, all the bile, the bitterness, anger and hurt erupted in a violent act. Had this happened here, or worse? Was Cuthbert pointing to a darker sin? Had Edward the King decided on Evesham’s death here in this lonely abbey? Corbett edged his stool closer.

  ‘Did you kill Lord Walter Evesham, Brother?’

  ‘Yes.’ Cuthbert lifted a hand, fingers so curled with inflammation it was more like a claw. ‘Yes, Sir Hugh, in my thoughts I killed him at least a score of times over the last twenty years, and I confessed as much in chapter. But in deed, in fact? No! Look at my hands, clerk, how could these fingers grasp a dagger, let alone Lord Walter’s head, pulling it back for the killing stroke?’

  Corbett studied that whiskered old face, eyes all troubled, those lined and furrowed cheeks.

  ‘I swear by the sacrament that I did not kill him. I hardly spoke to him, or he to me. Evesham suspected I knew his heart. I caught his secret glances. I saw him kneel in prayer, but his visitors brought him wine that he slurped, sweetmeats he gobbled. I heard him lying on his bed quietly humming. Does a pig take to singing, Sir Hugh? Does a cat shepherd the mice? Does the hawk protect the pigeon? I don’t think so. Evesham was plotting. No,’ Cuthbert shook his head, ‘he wrote nothing, he said nothing. He had no manuscripts here except the ones he borrowed from the library.’

  ‘I believe you, Brother. Now I want you to go back twenty years, to the fons et origo of all this. Describe to me what happened.’

  The lay brother’s hand went to his lips. He stared hard at Corbett, then sighed.

  ‘In the beginning I wanted to be a Carthusian, a strict order, but they said my health was too frail.’

  ‘You proved them wrong on that.’

  ‘No.’ Cuthbert tapped the side of his head. ‘They were right. In my mind I was too frail. I became a priest, serving as a curate here and there. I recalled the words of St Francis. I tried to preach the Gospel and I lived a chaste life.’ He smiled. ‘That was easy, as was poverty. I truly loved my calling. No archdeacon visited to lecture me on monies missing or the company I kept or the mistress I sheltered. I was a pastor, Sir Hugh, committed to the sheep, and not just their shearing.’

  Corbett caught the profound sadness of this soul.

  ‘Eventually I was appointed Parson of St Botulph’s in Cripplegate. I loved that church, my parish council, the routine of every day, until the Feast of St Irenaeus, the twenty-eighth of June in the year of Our Lord 1284. Have you ever read Irenaeus?’

  Corbett shook his head.

  ‘He said: “The things we learn in childhood become part of our soul.” Outside of the Gospels I’ve never heard a wiser saying. Anyway, on that day, late in the afternoon, I heard the hue and cry being raised, shouts of “Harrow! Harrow!” echoing along the streets. I lef
t the priest’s house. I remember running carefully because a summer sickness had swept the ward, taking the old, the weak, the infirm, the dying. Burial plots had been dug before the summer sun became too strong and dried the ground. I did not wish to stumble into one of these. I reached the north door of the church and went in. I peered through the rood screen; a man crouched there clutching the altar. A royal clerk burst into the church, walking like God Almighty up the nave. He was booted and spurred, brandishing a sword, his face livid with anger. Evesham! The first time I’d ever met him.

  ‘I stood my ground. A man had taken sanctuary. According to canon law, he was not to be disturbed but allowed to stay. I asked Evesham to leave. Eventually he did, but first he demanded, on my loyalty to the King, whether there was a crypt, a cellar, any secret entrance. I replied no. How many doors? I told him four. Any windows a fugitive could wriggle through? I said that was impossible. He made me swear by the sacrament that I told the truth. I did so, and he stormed off. I could hear from the noise outside that all four doors were now guarded.’ Cuthbert snorted with laughter. ‘They even brought rope ladders and put men up the walls and on to the roof. I went into the sanctuary, and only then did I recognise Boniface Ippegrave. I knew him by sight. He lived in the parish with his sister Adelicia. I am sure,’ he added drily, ‘we shall discuss her shortly. She was a close friend of mine. No, Sir Hugh, I mean close friend, a member of my parish council. I knew her brother to be a royal clerk who attended Mass in the chapels at Westminster. On the few occasions I had met him, he’d proved courteous enough. I asked him what crime he had committed, and he said none. I enquired what he was accused of. He refused to say but pleaded for me to send urgent messages to his sister. I said I would. He was in a most agitated state. He carried a knife, and according to the law of sanctuary he had to surrender this to me. I took it and left the church. Evesham searched me from head to toe. I argued that I was a cleric. He replied that so was he, whilst treason and murder were no defence. He took the knife and asked what other belongings Ippegrave held. I lied; I said nothing, except his clothes and cloak.’