Prince of Darkness hc-5

by Paul Doherty

  'Is there anyone there?' he called softly.

  No sound, nothing but the gentle flurry of leaves as the wind lifted and scattered them like pieces of gold across the grass. Corbett strained his ears and grinned. The evening breeze also brought the sounds of singing and he recognised the lusty bellowing of Ranulf.

  He went back through the wicket gate, crossed the darkening village green. As he had guessed, Ranulf had led Maltote into temptation Both were standing, foaming tankards of ale in their hands, in the middle of the group of mourners around the makeshift coffin, leading them in raucous song about the fate of an innkeeper's young daughter. Corbett joined them and waited for the tankards to empty before good-naturedly bullying Ranulf into collecting their horses and making their way back on to the deserted track to Godstowe.

  Of course, Ranulf and Maltote were now firm friends, the servant innocently enquiring whether the messenger ever played dice? A game, he confessed, in which he was deeply interested but had very little skill. Corbett was about to alert Maltote to the truth when he tensed. Something or someone was following them, treading through the trees on the side of the track. He reined in his horse and gestured to Ranulf to keep silent He stared into the green darkness behind them. Someone was watching from the shadows of the forest.

  'What is it Master?' Ranulf whispered.

  'Nothing,' Corbett murmured. 'But when I lower my hand, ride as fast as you can!'

  He half turned, dropped his hand and kicked his horse into a gallop. Ranulf and Maltote following suit just as the two crossbow quarrels came whirring out of the darkness, skimming the tops of their heads. They needed no second bidding but rode as fast as they could, not pausing until they thundered through the half-open gate of Godstowe Priory, putting the porter into such serious agitation he appeared almost sober for once.

  'Close the gates!' Corbett rasped. 'Bolt them, and let no one through without my orders!'

  He suddenly looked round and remembered the two retainers.

  When did they leave us?' he asked Ranulf.

  'At Woodstock, Master. They said their duty was to guard Godstowe Priory.'

  'Is that so?' Corbett retorted. 'Then, Master Porter,' he raised his voice so the two soldiers hiding in the porter's house could hear him, 'tell them I will check that they are carrying out their duties. If I smell so much as a drop of ale on their breaths, they will answer to the King's Provost Marshal!'

  He left Ranulf with the horses and walked round to Lady Amelia's chamber. He found the Lady Prioress closeted with Dames Frances and Catherine.

  'Master Corbett!' She rose from behind the desk, her face full of surprise. 'Do come in.' She ushered him to a window seat. 'More danger, more problems?'

  'On the way back from Woodstock we were attacked.'

  The Lady Prioress drew her imperious brows together.

  'Outlaws? Wolfshead?'

  I would like to think that, My Lady,' Corbett tactfully replied. 'But I think they were sent to kill me.'

  He gazed at the two Sub-prioresses who were staring fixedly at him. Ranulf was right, he thought Dame Catherine did have a lecherous look in her eyes.

  'Lady Amelia, I have a request. Does the phrase "Noli me tangere" mean anything to you?'

  'Do not touch me!' The Lady Prioress grinned mischievously. 'A family motto, Master Corbett. And hardly suitable to a nunnery. Why should it mean anything to me?' She shook her head.

  'In which case,' replied Corbett, I must crave your indulgence. ' He looked across at the hour candle on the table. 'Soon the sisters will gather for Compline, I believe?'

  'Of course.'

  'May I speak to them?'

  'About what?'

  'About the motto. Whether they have heard it or not.'

  Lady Amelia glanced at the Sub-prioresses and shrugged.

  'It's most uncommon,' she murmured.

  'The King would be pleased,' Corbett added.

  'In a little while then, Master Corbett. Perhaps you will take refreshment first?'

  Corbett agreed, allowing the Lady Prioress to serve him a full cup of malmsey whilst chattering about everyday matters and his recent trip to Woodstock. A bell tolled, the sign for Compline, and Lady Amelia led him down through the darkened cloister out across the grass to the church. Corbett sat on the same bench he had occupied the previous Sunday watching the nuns file in. At last, when all the stalls were full, Lady Amelia gestured to the cantor not to begin the usual psalms and caused a stir when she herself rose and swept up to the lectern.

  'Sisters in Christ,' she began, 'tonight we have a change in the regular order of our routine. Master Hugh Corbett, Clerk and Special Emissary from our King, wishes to address you. He has a question which on your loyalty to God, the King and this Order, you must answer if you can.'

  Corbett stared around whilst the Lady Prioress was speaking and noticed how troubled Dame Frances looked, but then the Lady Prioress snapped her fingers and imperiously summoned him forward. Drawing a deep breath to hide a flicker of nervousness, he stood at the great carved oak lectern and looked along the stalls at the nuns who sat before him there, so composed in their wimples of white and the dark garb of their Order. He glimpsed Dame Agatha smiling mischievously at him and felt comforted by her friendship.

  'Lady Amelia…' Corbett felt his nervousness return at the wall of silence which greeted him. 'Lady Amelia,' he repeated, 'Reverend Sisters, eighteen months ago in the neighbourhood of Godstowe, a terrible murder took place. A young woman and her male companion were barbarously killed.'

  A gentle, collective sigh greeted his words.

  I wish to ask you a question, and ask it on your allegiance to God, the King and this Order.' Corbett quietly cursed his own pomposity. 'Do any of you know the true identity of the victims, or does the phrase or family motto "Noli me tangere" mean anything to you?' Corbett quietly prayed no wit would cap his remark with some repartee, and blushed as he heard a few of the sisters giggle. 'I ask you again,' he felt his cheeks growing hot, 'does that phrase mean anything to you?'

  He looked along the rows of silent sisters. Some gazed back, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. Dame Agatha had her face in her hands and Corbett wondered if she was laughing at him. There was no response. Corbett bowed towards Lady Amelia, stepped from the lectern and walked quietly out of the church. He stood for a while in the darkness, hoping that perhaps one of the nuns, Lady Amelia or Dame Agatha, would follow him out, but no one came. So he walked back to the guest house where Ranulf and Maltote were locked in a fierce game of dice.

  'Beware of Ranulf!' Corbett called out. 'With him nothing is what it seems to be.'

  The dice players ignored him so Corbett lay on his cot bed and tried to marshall his thoughts.

  Item – Lady Eleanor had died during Compline when the other sisters had been in the chapel. All had gone from there to the refectory.

  Item – Lady Eleanor had been seen alive just before the service began by Dame Martha and Dame Elizabeth. However, the former had seen something amiss but hidden her thoughts behind the riddle 'Sinistra non dextra', literally translated: 'On the right not the left'.

  Item – there had been horsemen seen near the priory, but who were they and who had sent them?

  Item – Lady Eleanor was preparing to leave the priory and go to her secret admirer, but who was he?

  Item – somehow de Craon was involved in all this and had bribed the unwitting Father Reynard.

  Item – the Prince had claimed he had no involvement in Lady Eleanor's death but both he and his favourite appeared nervous.

  Item – Gaveston had hated Lady Eleanor, and he, so Corbett secretly believed, was capable of cold-blooded murder.

  Item – he believed the deaths of the mysterious young man and woman some eighteen months previously held the clue to the riddle surrounding Lady Eleanor's demise, but who were they and what did the motto 'Noli me tangere' signify?

  Corbett turned these questions round in his head. He thought of Maeve and realised how de
sperately he missed her. He also thought of Dame Agatha's smiling face before drifting into a dreamless sleep, leaving Ranulf and Maltote to argue over the fortunes of dice.

  Chapter 10

  In his private chamber in the priest's house Father Reynard was also lost in his own thoughts. Had he done wrong in taking the gold and silver from de Craon? He thought of the widow in her ramshackle hut at the end of the village and the gratitude in her eyes when he gave her a purse of coins. No, he considered it all worthwhile. Father Reynard lifted his head and listened to the sounds outside. Autumn, the season in which he had been born, was here again. The wind was growing stronger, whipping the branches of the trees and shredding them of their fading leaves. Soon it would be Michaelmas, then the feast of All Souls, a time to remember the dead.

  He felt a flicker of disquiet Those corpses, the ones he had buried in their makeshift grave under the old elm tree -who were they? Why had they been killed so barbarously and so mysteriously? He rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand. What would a high-born lady be doing in the wilds of Oxfordshire? Visiting a friend at the university or maybe one of the towns like Abingdon? Yet if so, why had no one come forward to claim the corpses? Or were they connected with Godstowe?

  'Father Reynard!'

  The Franciscan felt the hair on the back of his neck stir as he looked towards the door. Someone was standing outside in the cemetery calling his name. It sounded like a child's voice, lilting and clear.

  'Father Reynard! Please, Father Reynard, help me!'

  The Franciscan made the sign of the cross in the air. Was it a ghost? An apparition? An earth-bound soul? The ghost of the dead Lady Eleanor?

  'Father Reynard, come out!'

  The voice was becoming petulant. The Franciscan rose and walked cautiously towards the door, picking up the thick cudgel which leaned against the wall.

  'Father Reynard, do come! Please!'

  Again the lilting voice cut through the darkness and the priest paused with his hand on the latch. Was it some demon raised by a witch or warlock? On his arrival in the village, the Franciscan had had some trouble with those who practised the black arts and used the cemetery for diabolical activities. There had been strange lights and incantations, the sacrifice of a black cock at midnight, but he had cleared them out and barred the graveyard, threatening the congregation with the pains of excommunication in this life and Hell fire in the next.

  'Father Reynard, I mean no harm.'

  The priest grasped the cudgel tighter, opened the door and stepped into the darkness. The wind caught his face as he closed the door behind him. He stared into the blackest night.

  'Who's there?' he shouted. 'In God's name, child, who are you? What do you want?'

  Only the wind moaning through the trees answered his cry. Father Reynard walked across to the cemetery, making out the dark shapes of the wooden crosses, mounds of earth and ghostly elm trees.

  'Who are you?' he repeated. 'Where are you?'

  He strained his eyes and glimpsed a shadow darker than the rest He gasped in horror. A child, a small, dark, hooded figure was sweeping across the grass towards him with hands joined as if in prayer. Father Reynard too began a prayer and was half-way through it when the crossbow quarrel hit him full in the chest, ripping open skin, bone and muscle. The priest collapsed, the blood pouring through his mouth and nose tasting like iron. He felt the soft grass against his cheek. He saw himself as a child, running towards someone. His mother was holding our her arms to him. He knew he was dying.

  'Absolve me, Domine!' he muttered as his eyes closed and his soul was extinguished.

  The next morning Corbett was up early, shaking awake a tousled-headed Ranulf and a heavy-eyed Maltote.

  'Come on,' he shouted good-naturedly. 'Maltote, you will stay with us. We go to London and then on to Leighton.'

  Ranulf sprang up, pleased to abandon the fresh air of the country and head back to the seamy streets of London and the rounded pleasure-giving body of Mistress Semplar. Maltote staggered to his feet and went down to relieve himself in the necessary house. Corbett met him coming up the stairs.

  'Master, shouldn't I return to the royal camp?'

  Corbett noticed his surprised expression.

  'No, Maltote.' He put his hand on the messenger's shoulder. I need a man-at-arms, someone to protect me.' And, before the young soldier could ask whether he was being sarcastic, Corbett slipped by him.

  The nuns were just leaving their convent church. Theyglanced shyly at him out of the corner of their eyes and giggled, remembering his appeal of the night before. Lady Amelia, majestic as a queen, swept by. Corbett bowed respectfully and, pushing by the labourers and other villeins coming in from the fields to break their fasts, went out of the Galilee Gate, across the track and into the woods. There he positioned himself, trying to glimpse Dame Elizabeth's chamber from where she had alleged she had seen the horsemen waiting in the trees. At last Corbett achieved the correct position. If Dame Elizabeth, as she surely must be, was staring curiously out of her window now, she would be able to see him.

  Corbett squatted down and examined the ground, sifting carefully through the fallen leaves and twigs. At last he found what he was looking for horses had stood there. He picked up the dry droppings and crumbled them in his hand. He could not say when, but the horse dung and the faint indentations in the dry earth showed riders had stood there for some time. Dame Elizabeth had not been dreaming or seeing things.

  Corbett rose, wiped his hands and went back into the priory. He heard the lamentations and cries as he walked through the Galilee Gate, and hurried around to the main entrance where a distraught Lady Amelia was being supported by the two Sub-prioresses, their own cheeks wet with tears. A young peasant boy had remounted his lathered horse and was galloping away from the priory.

  'Lady Amelia, what is wrong?'

  The Lady Prioress raised tearful eyes, shook herself free from the clinging sisters and wiped her cheeks.

  'God rest him, we argued enough,' she muttered. 'But the poor man is dead.'

  'Who, My Lady?'

  'Father Reynard,' she whispered. 'He was found murdered in the cemetery this morning. A crossbow bolt in his heart.' She clasped her hands and stepped closer. 'What is happening, Corbett?' she asked. 'Such a peaceful community once, now murder and death at every turn.' She stepped back, her eyes hard. 'Is it you, Clerk? Are you a death-bringer? Does murder slide behind you?'

  'No, My Lady,' he replied sharply. But we are in the eye of a gathering storm. Unless I find a solution to the puzzle, hundreds – perhaps even thousands – more will die in Gascony, on the Narrow Seas, and in our towns along the southern coasts. Now, My Lady,' he took her cold hand and raised it to his lips, I bid you adieu. I will return. If you have further information, send the fleetest messenger you can hire to my manor at Leighton. It can be found by following the Epping road down into London.'

  Corbett nodded at the two hard-faced Sub-prioresses and went to order Ranulf and Maltote to saddle their horses as swiftly as possible. He told them briefly what had happened and, satisfied that they had packed everything, led them out towards the Galilee Gate.

  'Hugh – Master Corbett!'

  The clerk turned. Dame Agatha was hurrying towards him. She, too, had been weeping.

  'I heard,' she said breathlessly, 'about Father Reynard's death.' She thrust a small linen-bound bundle into his hand. 'Some food for your journey. Take care!' she whispered. 'You will come back?'

  I will come back.'

  He glimpsed the tenderness in her eyes and looked away, embarrassed.

  'God be with you, Sister.'

  Corbett returned to a grinning Ranulf, who was holding the heads of the horses.

  'Mount!' he ordered gruffly. 'You find something amusing, Ranulf?'

  The mischievous grin disappeared.

  'No, Master,' he replied innocently. 'I just wondered if we could invite some of these sisters down to Leighton. The Lady Maeve would relish such company.' />
  Corbett gathered the reins in his hands and leaned towards Ranulf.

  'Mark my words,' he snapped. 'If you so much as whisper a word about Dame Agatha to the Lady Maeve, you will regret the day I ever plucked you out of Newgate!'

  Ranulf drew back, eyes rounded innocently.

  'Of course, Master, he replied slyly. 'I was only trying to help.'

  They cantered down into the village and led their horses into the graveyard. A small crowd had gathered outside the church. Corbett gave a child a penny to hold the horses and they went into the priest's house. The villagers had laid Father Reynard out on the table and an old woman, tears streaming down her face, was gently bathing the corpse before it was sheeted for burial. Corbett went across, saw the horrible wounds and glimpsed the short, feathered quarrel still embedded in the man's chest

  'God have mercy on him,' he muttered. 'Did I cause this?' He gazed down at the now peaceful face of the priest 'Why didn't you go?' he whispered. 'Why didn't you go when I told you to?'

  'Master?' Ranulf muttered, 'the assassin must have been very close. The quarrel is embedded deep.'

  'Strange,' Maltote interrupted, his face drawn and white as he stared down at the gory, blood-spattered wound. 'Strange,' he repeated. 'The assassin must have been lying on the ground or Father standing on some steps? Look, the crossbow quarrel is turned upwards.'

  Corbett peered closer and agreed. The quarrel was embedded at an angle.

  'Was Father Reynard found in the cemetery grounds?' Corbett asked the grizzled woman. She blinked away a tear and nodded. Corbett dug into his purse and handed her some coins.