The Devil's Hunt (A Medieval Mystery Featuring Hugh Corbett)

by Doherty, Paul

  ‘Oh, please no! Please no!’

  He heard the click and, before he could move, he took the crossbow bolt full in his stomach. Senex crouched down, his fingers curling in pain, grasping the dirt. He couldn’t move. He tried to edge forward but then he saw the boots. He looked up and, as he did, the great two-handled axe took his head off, clean and sheer.

  The next morning, just after dawn, journeyman Taldo, making his way out of Oxford towards Banbury, came across Senex’s corpse. It lay beneath an old holm tree and, from one of the branches stretched across the path, hung the old beggar’s severed head.

  Chapter 3

  On the day after Taldo had hurried back to Oxford to report his grisly findings to the sheriff, Sir Hugh Corbett, Ranulf and Maltote entered the city. An early downpour of rain had drenched the streets and cleaned the runnels and alleyways, dulling the rotten odour from the middens. Corbett, his cowl pulled back, let his horse find its way through the dirty packed streets of the university town. They’d entered by the south gate but, instead of going straight towards the castle or Sparrow Hall, Corbett took Ranulf and Maltote along the byways and alleyways so they could grasp the feel of the city. Corbett himself felt a little nostalgic. It had been years since he’d returned: now, the sight, sounds and smells brought back the glorious days of his youth. A happy, carefree time when Corbett had lived in shabby apartments and thronged with the rest of the bachelors, students and scholars down to the bleak rooms of the Schools to hear the Masters lecture on rhetoric, logic, theology and philosophy.

  Corbett found his return eerie: despite the passing of the years, nothing seemed to have changed. Peasants from the outskirts of Oxford tried to force their way through with heavy wheeled carts or sodden sumpter ponies laden with produce for the city markets. As he passed the open doorways of shabby tenements, Corbett glimpsed children and beldames warming their knees before the fire, and sullen lamps glowing in the darkness. On every street the houses huddled on either side, interspersed by a tangle of alleyways and trackways still rough and slippery after the rains. Nevertheless, as always in Oxford, the streets were thronged. Merchants in fur-lined robes marched purposefully in their high, leather Moroccan boots. Servitors went before them to brush aside screaming children or barking dogs. Franciscans, Dominicans and Carmelites made their way to their respective houses: some walked in devout silence, others were as noisy and chattering as magpies. On a corner a gong cart, full of dung and ordure from the sewers, was now being used as a punishment post. A fellow who had sold faulty cloth had been forced to stand waist-deep in the dung whilst lashed to the wheels were other traders found guilty by a Pie Powder court of selling rotten meat, tawdry goods or trying to break the price code set by the market beadles. Next to this, a dog-whipper, the cage on his cart full of fighting, snapping curs, was formally arresting a lean-ribbed mongrel whilst a group of scruffy urchins screamed abuse and claimed the dog belonged to them. The dog-whipper, his sulphurous face ablaze with fury, cursed and yelled back.

  Corbett sighed and dismounted, telling Ranulf and Maltote to do likewise. They took a short cut up Eel Pie Lane which led them on to the High Road. Here Corbett ran into roaming bands of scholars, wags, braggarts, hedge-creepers and rascals from the University, all dressed in their tawdry finery: the short gowns of the bachelors, the tattered hose and shabby jackets of the commoners. The air rang with the noise of different accents and tongues as students spilled out of the Halls or the lecture chambers of the schools. Lost in their own world, the scholars shouted and sang, pushed and shoved each other, totally oblivious of the good citizens and burgesses of the city. These passed the scholars with muttered curses and looks of disdain. Here and there some Masters or lecturers strutted like geese, heads swathed in woollen hoods lined with silk, which proclaimed their status and importance. Behind them beggar scholars, youths unable to pay the fees, staggered along carrying books or other baggage for their masters. Beadles and proctors, the disciplinarians of the University, also strode by wielding lead-tipped, ash cudgels. As they passed the students fell silent, though their presence did little else to curb their high spirits and boisterousness.

  Corbett paused, wrapping the reins round his hands, staring up and down the High Street. This had changed: there were more houses on either side, so densely packed that their gables met to block out the light. Pushed in between these, were the cottages of the poorer folk, padded with reeds, straw or shingles which the rain had turned to a soggy mess. The market stalls on either side of the High Road had now reopened after the downpour and were doing a busy trade. Jostled and pushed, Corbett had to move on. Behind him Ranulf lifted one boot and groaned: the mud and dirt were ankle-deep and he looked pityingly at a group of urchins who, despite the weather, were playing in mud half-way up their legs. Ranulf bit back a curse. He would have loved to have roared his irritation at Corbett trudging so stoically ahead of him but the noise was growing more deafening. Corbett abruptly turned left, going down a sordid alleyway. It was quieter here and, when he led them into the yard of the Red Lattice tavern, Ranulf sighed with pleasure. He joyously threw his reins at a surly ostler who came out quietly cursing at these new arrivals who’d disturbed his rest.

  ‘Something to eat and drink,’ Ranulf murmured, rubbing his stomach, ‘would satisfy the inner man.’

  ‘Just a little wine,’ Corbett retorted. Ignoring Ranulf’s black looks he led them into the musty taproom. They stood by the door drinking quickly before going back into the streets.

  ‘What are we doing?’ Ranulf pushed alongside Corbett. ‘Where are we going, Master?’

  ‘I want to show you the city,’ Corbett retorted. ‘I want you to feel it in your brain as well as your belly.’ He paused and beckoned his companions closer. ‘Oxford is a world unto itself,’ he explained. ‘It is a city made up of small villages which are the Halls or Colleges. Each stands in its own ground and has its own workshops, dorters, forges and stables.’ He pointed down the street where Ranulf and Maltote could glimpse a great metal-studded gate in the high curtain wall. ‘That’s Eagle Hall and there are numerous others. Each has its own privileges, traditions and history. They take students from France, Hainault, Spain, the German States and even further east. The Halls dislike each other; the University hates the town; the town resents the University. Violence is rife, knives are ever at the ready. Sometimes you may have to flee and -’ he added,‘- to know in which direction you are fleeing, could save your life.’

  ‘But you are the King’s clerk,’ Maltote spoke up, stroking the muzzle of his horse. ‘They’ll obey the King’s writ?’

  ‘They couldn’t give a fig,’ Corbett replied. ‘Let’s say we were attacked now, who’d come to our assistance? Or later stand up as a witness?’ He punched Ranulf playfully on the shoulder. ‘Keep your cowl pulled, your face down and your hand well away from your dagger.’

  They went along the High Street and stood aside as a church door opened: scholars, in shabby tabards tied round the waist by cords and leather straps, burst out from the noonday Mass. As Ranulf whispered, the service seemed to have had little effect on them. The scholars jostled and shoved each other, bawling raucously, some even sang blasphemous parodies of the hymns they had just chanted. Despite the wet and the jostling crowds, Corbett persisted in showing his two companions the layout of the city. At last they returned, past the Swindlestock tavern, making their way gingerly around the gaping sewer in Carfax and into Great Bailey Street, which led up into the castle.

  ‘Why are we going there?’ Maltote asked. ‘I thought we were for Sparrow Hall?’

  ‘We have to visit the Sheriff,’ Corbett explained over his shoulder. ‘Sir Walter Bullock.’ He grinned. ‘And that will be an experience in itself. Bullock is as irascible as a starving dog.’

  They crossed the moat, really nothing more than a narrow ditch, its water covered with a black slime on which a cat’s corpse, soggy and bloated, floated lazily beneath the drawbridge. A guard dressed in a dirty leather salle
t slouched against the wall beneath the portcullis, his sword and shield lying on the ground beside him. He hardly looked up as they entered the inner bailey. The castle yard was busy: a group of archers shot lustily at the butts; a group of ragged-arsed children, armed with wooden swords, attempted to fight a strident goose; women stood round the well, slapping cloths on the side of the great tuns which served as their bowls. No one took any notice of the new arrivals except a relic seller dressed in garish rags who’d been touting his wares and now came across, a piece of wood in his hand.

  ‘Buy a piece of the juniper tree.’ He pushed the blackened piece of wood almost into Ranulf face.

  ‘Why?’ Ranulf asked.

  The fellow bared his mouth in a horrid display of crumbling teeth. ‘Because it’s the very tree,’ he whispered, ‘that protected the baby Jesus when Mother Mary took him into Egypt, away from Pilate’s fury.’

  ‘I thought it was Herod?’ Ranulf retorted.

  ‘Yes, but he was helped by Pilate,’ the relic-seller gabbled.

  Ranulf took the piece of wood and studied it carefully.

  ‘I can’t buy this,’ he said. ‘It’s not juniper, it’s elder!’

  The rascal’s mouth opened and closed. ‘God bless you, sir, I was in confusion myself. You are sure?’

  ‘Certainly,’ Ranulf replied, handing it back.

  ‘Then that’s what it is,’ the relic-seller whispered and, turning round, walked over to a group of castle scullions. ‘Buy a piece of elder!’ he shouted. ‘The very tree on which Judas hanged himself!’

  Corbett grinned; he was about to ask Ranulf how he could tell the difference between juniper and elder when a prod in his back made him turn around.

  ‘What do you want?’

  The serjeant looked Corbett over from head to toe.

  ‘What do you want?’ he repeated. ‘And where did you get those horses?’

  Ranulf stepped between his master and the serjeant and stared at the man’s dirty, unshaven face.

  ‘We want the Sheriff,’ Ranulf replied. ‘Sir Walter Bullock. This is Sir Hugh Corbett, the King’s principal clerk from the Office of the Secret Seal.’

  The serjeant hawked and spat. ‘I couldn’t give a bugger if he was from the Holy Father!’

  He bawled across at a groom to come and take their horses and, snapping his fingers, told Corbett and his companions to follow.

  They found Sir Walter in his chamber above the gate house. It was a stark room with coloured cloths hung against the wall like rat banners. The fat, balding Sheriff was eating from a dish of eels, beside him on a trauncher were several apples and some cheese. Short and thickset, Bullock was dressed in jerkin, hose and shirt, his war belt and leather riding boots thrown on the straw-covered floor beside him. As the serjeant ushered Corbett and his companions in, slamming the door behind them, the Sheriff raised his clean-shaven face bright as a brass pot.

  ‘What do you want?’ he asked, his mouth full of eels.

  ‘That’s what the ignorant bastard downstairs asked me,’ Ranulf retorted.

  Bullock sat back on his stool and nodded towards the arrow slit window.

  ‘If it was big enough, you’d leave through that!’

  Corbett sighed and pulled from his wallet the King’s seal and tossed it on the table. Bullock swallowed his mouthful of food and picked it up.

  ‘You know what that is, Master Bollock?’ Ranulf taunted.

  ‘My name’s Bullock.’ The Sheriff pushed back his stool and got up, licking his fingers and wiping them on a dirty napkin. He went and stood before Ranulf, hands on hips. ‘My name is Bullock,’ he repeated. ‘And do you know why, sir? Because I am like one: stocky, addle-pated and foul tempered.’ He poked Ranulf in the stomach. ‘Now you look like a fighting boy, but that doesn’t concern me. I’ve pulled bigger things out of my nose!’ He turned abruptly to Corbett, his hand extended. ‘I am sorry, Sir Hugh. The King sent a cursitor, we’ve been expecting you.’

  Corbett grasped the Sheriff’s hand. He noticed how the man’s eyes were dark-ringed with exhaustion.

  ‘You look tired, Master Sheriff?’

  Sir Walter waved to a bench near the wall. ‘If I lie down, Sir Hugh, I’d never get up. Would you like some wine? Something to eat?’ He looked slyly at Ranulf. ‘Maybe a bucket of water from the well to cool you down after your long, hot journey?’

  Ranulf grinned at this little fighting cock of a man. ‘Sir Walter, I apologise.’

  The Sheriff shook Ranulf’s hand then picked at his teeth. ‘Bugger this for a soldier’s life!’ he growled.

  He waited until Corbett sat down then pulled his own stool across. He ticked the points off on his stubby fingers.

  ‘The King’s at Woodstock breathing down my neck. There’s a parliament summoned to sit at Westminster: I’m under orders to get the right man elected. There’s some charlatan selling rats’ teeth to children. The garrison hasn’t been paid for four months. I am running short of supplies. There are three felons in the Bocardo,’ he added, referring to the town gaol, ‘whose necks I am going to stretch before dusk. A tavern wench was ravished in the Chequers tavern. I’ve got a boil on my arse. I haven’t slept for two nights and my wife’s kinsfolk want to come and stay till Michaelmas.’ He sniffed. ‘Now, those are only the minor matters.’

  Corbett smiled. He dug into his purse and handed two gold coins over.

  ‘I don’t take bribes, Sir Hugh.’

  ‘It’s not a bribe,’ Corbett replied. ‘It’s your wages. I’ll tell the Exchequer.’

  The coins disappeared in the twinkling of an eye.

  ‘The Bellman?’ Corbett asked.

  ‘I don’t know who he is,’ the Sheriff replied. ‘All I know is that every so often, one of his proclamations is pinned on the doorway of some Hall or church.’

  ‘Didn’t you fight at Evesham for de Montfort?’ Corbett asked abruptly.

  Bullock’s gaze fell away. ‘Yes, I did,’ he replied as if to himself. ‘I was young, an idealist, stupid enough to believe in dreams. Now, Sir Hugh, I am the King’s man in war and peace. I’m no traitor. I do not know who the Bellman is or where he comes from. Oh, I have trotted down to make my inquiries amongst the empty heads of Sparrow Hall, but I might as well whistle across a graveyard as expect a response!’

  ‘And the corpses round Oxford?’

  Bullock shrugged. ‘You know as much as I do, Sir Hugh. Poor men; heads taken off and strung up by their hair to a tree. I have had my men out. They’ve scoured the woods and fields. There’s something going on.’ He paused and scratched the mole on his right cheek. ‘Oxford is a curious place, Sir Hugh. In the churches they sing the Salve Regina and venerate the Body of Christ. At night, in the taverns, they lose their souls in wine and debauchery. Beyond the walls, in the lonely places - well, to cut a long story short, on the Banbury road my men talked to a forester. He led them to a glade deep in the trees. There’s a rock, a huge boulder, as if Satan himself thrust it up from hell. Someone had used it as an altar; there were marks of fire, blood-stains and, in the branch of a tree, an animal’s skull.’

  ‘Warlocks?’ Corbett asked.

  ‘Wizards, warlocks, and witches?’ Bullock sniffed. ‘That’s all there was. The local peasants or farmers are innocent: they’ve neither the time nor the energy for such nonsense.’

  ‘And you think it’s connected to these deaths?’

  ‘Possibly.’ Bullock wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. ‘I’d love to find the killer. I hope it’s some arrogant popinjay of a student. By the way, another corpse was brought in this morning: an old simpleton called Senex. He was found like the others-’ Bullock smiled grimly ‘-with one exception: the old man’s hand was tightly clenched. When I prised the fingers open, I found dirt, pebbles and, more importantly, a button.’

  ‘A button?’ Ranulf queried.

  ‘Yes, of metal, embossed with a sparrow, the escutcheon of Sparrow Hall. What is more,’ Bullock continued, ‘as you know, Sir Hugh, these b
uttons are only worn on the gowns of Masters or certain rich scholars. Most of the rest are clothed in nothing better than sacking.’

  ‘So, what do you think?’ Corbett asked.

  Bullock got to his feet. ‘My view is that there is a coven of warlocks in the hall who follow the Lords of the Gibbet. The deaths of these old beggars are linked to some loathsome practices but I have no proof or evidence. The old man may have picked the button up whilst he was being hunted or, in his death struggle, plucked it from someone’s coat. However, his is not the only corpse we have this morning.’ Bullock slurped from his wine goblet. ‘An evening ago, just before Vespers, William Passerel the bursar was hounded from Sparrow Hall by a mob of students. It’s common knowledge that Ascham, who was well loved, wrote most of Passerel’s name on a scrap of parchment as he lay dying in the library. Now Passerel fled, and took sanctuary in St Michael’s Church. Father Vincent, the parish priest, gave him sanctuary, food and drink. The mob dispersed, but later on, someone entered the church and left a flagon of wine and a cup near the rood screen door. Passerel drank it; but it contained an infusion of poison. He died almost immediately.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ Corbett asked.

  ‘St Michael’s has an anchorite, a mad, old woman called Magdalena. She saw the person steal into the church, a mere shadow. She glimpsed Passerel drinking and then heard his death screams.’ Bullock moved to the door. ‘Come on, I’ll take you down to the corpse chamber!’