Hugh Corbett 17 - The Mysterium

by Paul Doherty

  ‘It is your face I seek, O Lord, hide not your face. Do not dismiss your poor servant in anger, for you have been my saving help.’

  He felt the church keys weighing heavily in the pocket of his cloak. He would not go there alone. Nightmare memories warned him against that!

  ‘Aux aide! Aux aide!’ he shouted in Norman French, and was immediately answered by the rattle of armour as the serjeant-at-arms and two archers came hurrying through the mist.

  ‘Sir Hugh, what is the matter?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Corbett grasped the serjeant’s shoulder. ‘Nothing for now, but listen.’ He handed over the two letters. ‘Send one of your archers to my colleague Ranulf-atte-Newgate; rouse him wherever he is. The other to Sir Ralph Sandewic at the Tower. Both are urgent dispatches. You,’ he pointed at a bearded archer whose hood almost covered his face, ‘are to come with me to St Botulph’s, where we’ll meet the rest.’

  A short while later, Corbett and the archer, who introduced himself as Griffyths from South Wales, clambered into a wherry near King’s Steps. The two bargemen pushed away, hugging the bank along the misty, choppy river. Corbett sat in the stern, the archer beside him. Griffyths wanted to talk, but Corbett remained lost in his own thoughts, so the archer turned his attention to the bargemen, engaging them in good-natured banter, loudly asking if Englishmen did have tails and was it true that one Welshman was worth at least a dozen English? Corbett half listened. The river was shrouded in mist, bitterly cold, and very little could be seen except for the lantern lights of ships and torches flaring along the bank. Here and there scaffolds rose, grim spectacles, some decorated with corpses, others empty, awaiting what would be offered later in the day. Corbett recalled Fleschner hanging from that iron bracket, Waldene and Hubert the Monk slaughtered in the tavern chamber. All these squalid deaths were surely linked to what happened twenty years ago, but for the moment, Corbett did not want to speculate further. St Botulph’s would hold the key.

  They disembarked at Queenshithe and made their way up through the still empty streets. The mist was like a veil, abruptly parting to reveal hideous sights. Beggars, faces distorted, their bodies displaying horrid wounds, scuttled out on all fours on their makeshift little carts, hands gripping wooden pegs as they clattered across the cobbles whining for alms. Corbett disbursed some pennies and moved on. Whores and their pimps still searched for customers. Night-walkers and dark-dwellers gathered at the mouths of alleyways and watched the two men pass. The icy weather had hardened the track beneath their feet, but the stench was still offensive, and Corbett glanced away at the sight of mangled corpses of cats and dogs struck down by carts. Occasionally a troop of bailiffs crossed their path pursuing a malefactor, their cries of ‘Harrow! Harrow!’ muffled by the mist. Griffyths had now found his tongue again and inveighed stridently against the night-walkers, dismissing them as ‘a dirty, everlastingly gruesome assembly, not a Christian amongst them, with their base dark faces, nothing more than swift, ravening demons’.

  Corbett smiled to himself. The Welshman was most eloquent in his dismissal of all they saw.

  ‘This is,’ Griffyths declared, ‘the most hideous depths of hell, Sir Hugh. I’d give a year’s wage to be back in the loveliness of South Wales.’

  Corbett didn’t answer. He remembered the ‘loveliness’ of South Wales! Trees clustered together, the light barely piercing them, the grass underneath slippery. He recalled waiting with men-at-arms and archers for the Welsh bowmen with all their hideous skill to appear and loose their shafts, a rain of death clattering against their armour before disappearing as swiftly . . .

  ‘You’ve served in Wales, Sir Hugh?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And you never met the Mouldwarp? He is an ugly-coloured, dismal, lurking character with a hump. He wears a ragged thread-bare cloak and his every limb is blacker than a blacksmith’s.’

  Corbett paused and put a hand on the archer’s shoulder.

  ‘Griffyths, we are going to a place more ominous and threatening than any monster prowling the woods of South Wales or, indeed, any night-walker on these streets. I bid you say your prayers.’

  ‘St Botulph’s?’ Griffyths refused to be abashed. ‘I know of it, sir. I’ve heard the stories. I was there at the battle. All kinds of legends flourish about it being haunted, a place where people disappear. Is that true, Sir Hugh?’

  Corbett sighed, tapped the archer on the shoulder and led him on. ‘Listen, Griffyths, what I want you to do is guard me and watch that church. Now, this monster from the Welsh woods, have you ever met him?’

  He allowed Griffyths to chatter as they made their way through the streets, until eventually they reached St Botulph’s. Here the Welsh archer fell silent. The heavy mist thinned to reveal the gnarled yew trees and crumbling cluster of tombs. The church itself looked silent and forbidding. No beacon light glowed in its steeple, no sound carried. God’s acre was strangely empty, as if the beggars and the other dispossessed who usually sheltered there had recognised the sinister atmosphere and fled. Griffyths threw back his cloak, hand on the hilt of his sword, muttering prayers in Welsh. He pointed to the main door and whispered something about the recent battle. Corbett patted him on the shoulder and led him into the trees, along the path to the corpse door. Griffyths abruptly paused, one hand on Corbett’s arm.

  ‘Sir Hugh, did you hear that?’

  Corbett stared into the mist closing behind them.

  ‘What?’

  ‘A footfall, something snuffling.’ He forced a smile. ‘Like the Mouldwarp.’

  ‘Ghosts.’ Corbett smiled, tapping the archer’s broad forehead. ‘Ghosts in here, Griffyths.’

  He brought out the keys and eventually found the correct one. The corpse door creaked open and they entered the nave. A musty, damp smell seeped out of the chilly blackness to greet them. Corbett, recalling where the sconce torches were positioned, took out a tinder and moved to the left, feeling along the wall. Griffyths followed, muttering incantations against the Evil One, his boots slithering over the paving stones. Corbett lit a torch and used it to fire the others. The flickering flames created a ghostly atmosphere along that cavernous nave with its fat rounded pillars and shadow-filled aisles. The light picked up the vivid wall paintings proclaiming the story of Man’s fall from Paradise and his constant battle against the powers of hell. Painted faces, scowling, angry, beseeching, lovely and ugly, celestial and demonic, peered out as Corbett, followed by a now subdued Griffyths holding a sconce torch, made his way round that haunted church, carefully inspecting everything. He confided to Griffyths that they might have to wait for the full light of day, though he was certain no secret cellar, recess, crypt, tunnel or passageway existed. The church grew bitterly cold. Griffyths voiced his unease as they went up into the sanctuary towards the sacristy. Corbett teased his companion, promising that they would soon break their fast before a roaring fire in some nearby tavern. He unlocked the sacristy door, then went back into the church, where a thought occurred to him He returned to the sacristy and stared down at the place where Parson John must have been assaulted and bound. A sound echoed from the church.

  ‘Griffyths?’ exclaimed Corbett.

  The archer slipped out into the sanctuary. Corbett loosened his own sword, then startled at a clatter. He stepped out of the sacristy and immediately retreated. The church was dark, the sconce torches doused. He peered round the lintel of the door. Only one cresset still flamed.

  ‘Griffyths?’ he shouted. A click alarmed him, and he threw himself down even as a crossbow bolt whirled like some angry wasp above his head. He slammed shut the door to the sanctuary, pushing across the rusty bolts at top and bottom, then unlocked the door to the outside and hastened into the mist-strewn poor man’s lot, the burial ground for strangers lying to the north side of the church. Hot sweat cooling in the freezing air, he slammed the door shut and fumbled with the keys but couldn’t find the correct one. He slipped the bunch into the pocket of his cloak and drew both sword
and dagger, edging out across the waste-land trying to control his panic. This was his nightmare, one that had haunted him ever since he had fought in Wales, whether it was here in this graveyard or in some lonely copse or filthy alleyway. He was facing death, hunted by an assassin hungry for slaughter.

  Slipping and slithering on the icy ground. he made his way around wooden crosses, stumbling over mounds, ruts and holes. A sound forced him to stop and turn. A shape moved in the mist. Corbett crouched. He glimpsed a mongrel scavenging at the dead underneath their thin layer of dirt. The dog turned, a bone between its jaws. Corbett lunged with his sword, and the dog yelped and fled. Immediately a crossbow bolt hissed through the air to smash against a headstone. Corbett stared back at the church. He’d made a mistake: he’d have been safer inside. He took a deep breath and whispered a prayer. The mist was thinning, the light strengthening, but he was not safe. St Botulph’s, now seen as accursed, was desolate; very few would enter here. His attacker, armed with a crossbow, would simply hunt him down, drive him into a trap or wait for a mistake.

  A low growl made him turn swiftly, and in doing so he struck one of the wooden crosses, which snapped and broke. Corbett however could only stare in horror at the huge mastiff, belly low to the ground, creeping towards him. He kept still, recognising the breed. Royal levies had used them in Wales and Scotland: a war dog with a spiked collar to protect its thick, muscular throat, the hound had been trained to hunt silently. The assassin had released it to track Corbett down, flush him out and, if he stood still or tried to defend himself, attack. The mastiff growled again, huge cruel jaws slightly open, sharp, tufted ears going back, black eyes intent on its prey. Corbett stepped to the right. The dog, muscular flanks quivering, halted, eyes intent on him. A twig snapped. The assassin was also creeping forward. Corbett crouched down and caught the pungent smell from the freshly dug burial mound over which the fallen cross lay. He recognised the odour of the unadulterated heavy lime used by the grave-diggers. He dropped his sword. The soil was hard, the lime lay loosely strewn. He collected a brimming handful in his gauntleted hand. The war hound half rose, and Corbett lunged, throwing the lime at that great ugly head just as the dog charged. The lime, a congealed mess, hit the hound as it sprang. Corbett moved swiftly to one side. The dog had misjudged its leap, and Corbett scored it with the tip of his dagger. The hound turned in a swirl of muscular black flesh but then broke its stride, confused by the ugly knife wound to its flank as well as the lime burning its eyes, nostrils and mouth. Its great head went back as the lime scorched deeper, and Corbett lurched forward and, grasping his sword, drove it deep into the dog’s exposed throat. The hound rolled in agony on to its side.

  Corbett moved swiftly at a half-crouch back to the sacristy door. A bolt winged dangerously close, but he reached the door and hurled himself inside. He scrambled up and pushed one bolt home, then raced out of the sacristy through the sanctuary, down the steps and across to the corpse door, which he slammed shut. Hands trembling, he snatched out the bunch of keys, finding the correct one as a hideous yelping echoed from outside. Then he sank to the ground, pressing his sweat-soaked face against the icy-cold flagstones. He heard the sacristy door rattle, then silence. He waited. A short while later the door beside him shook violently. Corbett pulled himself up.

  ‘God damn you,’ he shouted. ‘Go down to hell, you and your killer dog.’ He stood up and waited again. Nothing. Swaying on his feet, he kicked aside his sword, dagger and keys and stumbled over to where Griffyths lay in a widening pool of blood. He pushed aside the archer’s fallen sword, turned the corpse over and groaned. Griffyths’ face was smeared with blood, which had gushed from both nose and mouth. The crossbow bolt was embedded so deeply in the archer’s chest it was almost hidden, except for the feathers on the end of the wicked-looking quarrel. Corbett knelt and made the sign of the cross on the man’s forehead and whispered the ‘De Profundis’. Hands clasped, he prayed that the Welshman’s faithful soul would journey unchallenged into the realm of light. Then he sat back on his heels, glancing round this hateful church. He recognised what had happened. The murderer, that hideous assassin, had been hunting him. The serjeant-at-arms at Westminster had been wrong. Some evil killer had gone there to spy Corbett out. He’d withdrawn to lurk in the shadows, then pursued him and Griffyths to this desolate church. The assassin must have left the war hound quiet outside, followed them in through the corpse door, doused the torches and waited. Griffyths simply walked to his death. If Corbett had not been so fortunate, he would have met his out in that ghostly cemetery.

  Corbett stumbled to his feet and went down the church to the small cask of holy water beside the baptismal bowl. He took off the lid and filled the ladle inside, then took it back and dripped the water over Griffyths’ corpse.

  ‘It’s the best I can do for the moment,’ he murmured. ‘I can do no more.’ He tossed the ladle to the ground and went across to the Lady Chapel, pausing on the steps leading into it. He’d noticed how one of the flagstones was smooth, recently replaced, but apart from that, he’d observed nothing untoward in this ghost-filled church.

  ‘It should be burnt,’ he murmured. ‘If I had my way, I would burn this house of blood and build anew.’

  12

  Caitiff: a cowardly, wicked being

  ‘Master? Master?’ Ranulf’s voice echoed, followed by a pounding on the corpse door. ‘Sir Hugh!’

  Corbett hurried across and unlocked the door. Ranulf almost knocked him aside as he strode into the church followed by Chanson.

  ‘Master, what’s happened here? We’ve been to the north door. There’s a war dog lying outside, its throat slashed.’ He glanced across at Griffyths’ corpse and hurried over. ‘Jesu miserere,’ he murmured. ‘Sir Hugh, what happened here?’

  Corbett swayed on his feet, and Ranulf caught him.

  ‘Come,’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘Chanson, tell Sir Ralph to stay outside. He is not to come in here, not yet.’ He lowered Corbett to the ground, leaning his master back against the church wall.

  For a while Corbett fought the urge to be sick, to retch, to vomit out the tension he felt. At last he felt better.

  ‘Apart from the war dog you saw nothing else?’ he asked.

  ‘A crossbow bolt in the sacristy door.’

  Corbett told him what had happened. Ranulf, crouching beside him, listened intently.

  ‘You shouldn’t have come . . .’ he said when Corbett had finished.

  ‘Don’t lecture me, don’t preach. Griffyths has gone to God, and I think this mystery is clearing. Look,’ Corbett clambered to his feet, ‘first Sir Ralph.’

  They went out into the cemetery, where the constable had already set up camp beneath the yew trees. His men had collected dry bracken and were starting a fire. Sandewic rose as Corbett approached.

  ‘Sir Ralph, I am pleased you’re here.’ Corbett grasped Sandewic’s hand and led him away, Ranulf and Chanson following.

  Corbett pithily described what had happened.

  ‘The war hound is dead,’ Ranulf commented. ‘The lime did terrible damage to its throat and eyes. Its owner put the beast out of its misery with a mercy cut.’

  ‘And who is its owner?’ Corbett paused as starlings burst out from a nearby tree.

  ‘Boniface perhaps? He’s returned and is lurking in hiding. I’ve heard of such assassins . . .’ Ranulf’s voice trailed away. He was concerned about Corbett, his lack of colour, the nervous twitch to his eyes and lips.

  ‘We could scout the entire ward,’ Sandewic grumbled, ‘but what good would that do? Sir Hugh, what do you want with me? You asked for a comitatus . . .?’

  Corbett stared up at the church tower. He must be done with this. He wanted to warm himself before a fire, but the ghosts were gathering about him. Somewhere here, in this churchyard, lay the rotting corpse of Boniface Ippegrave, a good clerk, a man of integrity. His flesh must have long decayed but his soul, like some tongue of flame hungry for dry wood, surely demanded justice.

>   ‘Sir Hugh?’

  Corbett smiled, stretched across and pulled up Chanson’s cowl. The Clerk of the Stables looked surprised.

  ‘Pull it tighter,’ Corbett ordered. ‘Ranulf, do up your cloak and cover your head with the hood.’ He turned to the constable. ‘Divide your men. You must place a close guard around the church.’ He paused as the corpse door opened and two of Sandewic’s men brought out Griffyths’ body shrouded under the archer’s cloak.

  ‘Sir Ralph, before we begin, send poor Griffyths’ remains to the corpse house near the King’s Chapel at Westminster.’

  ‘And for the rest?’

  ‘Divide your comitatus. Guard the north door, sacristy door, front door and corpse door. Tell your guards that they must not allow Chanson out of St Botulph’s.’

  ‘But they don’t know him.’

  Corbett pointed to Ranulf. ‘Our cloaks are Benedictine black, Chanson’s is Lincoln green. He must not leave. Do you understand? ’

  Sandewic grinned, shrugged and sauntered off. He knew Corbett of old. The clerk could be capricious and eccentric yet ruthless in his pursuit of the truth.

  ‘Well, Chanson?’ Corbett tapped the surprised groom on the shoulder. ‘Go on, enter the church. Oh, Sir Ralph,’ he called. The constable turned. ‘Chanson will pretend to be in sanctuary. No one except Ranulf and myself may visit him, you understand?’

  The constable raised a hand.

  ‘Go into the church, Chanson.’ Corbett gestured at the corpse door. ‘Sit on the sanctuary steps.’

  ‘Master, this is a place of blood.’

  ‘You can always sing,’ teased Ranulf. ‘Sir Hugh, what is this?’