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

by Doherty, Paul

  ‘We are not responsible,’ Tripham snapped, ‘for the private lives of each individual scholar.’

  ‘And neither am I,’ Corbett replied, ‘For every royal official. Moreover -’ Corbett’s voice rose ‘- on my way back here I was attacked yet again. A piece of slingshot narrowly missed my head.’

  ‘We have all been here,’ Tripham expostulated. ‘Sir Hugh, all this morning no one has left the hall. We have sat in close council in the parlour discussing what should be done with Ap Thomas and his cronies.’

  Corbett hid his surprise. ‘You are sure, Master Tripham?’

  ‘We would all take oaths on it,’ Dame Mathilda snapped. ‘And you could interrogate the servitors who brought us wine and sweetmeats. Since we rose this morning and heard Mass in our chapel, no one has left Sparrow Hall. And, Sir Hugh, to my knowledge nobody left the hall last night when your servant was murdered.’

  ‘I don’t want Maltote’s body to be dressed here,’ Corbett replied, ignoring the outburst. ‘It is to be sent to Osney Abbey for embalming.’

  ‘Norreys will take it there,’ Tripham replied. ‘But, Sir Hugh, how long will you stay here? How long will this go on?’

  ‘How long will you continue to pry into our lives?’ Barnett snapped.

  ‘Until I find the truth,’ Corbett, stung by their arrogance, retorted. ‘What about you, Master Barnett, and your secrets?’

  The sneer faded from Barnett’s fat, smug face.

  ‘What secrets?’ he stammered.

  ‘You are a man of the world,’ Corbett continued, wishing he had kept better control of his tongue. ‘Yet you feed the beggars and are well known to Brother Angelo at St Osyth’s hospital. Why should a man like you bother with the underdogs of this world?’

  Barnett stared down at the tabletop.

  ‘What Master Barnett gives to the poor,’ Tripham murmured, ‘is surely a matter for him alone?’

  ‘I am tired,’ Barnett replied. He glanced round the library. ‘I am tired of all this. I am tired of the Bellman. I’m tired of attending the funerals of men like Ascham and Passerel: of lecturing to students who neither comprehend nor like what you say.’ He stared at Corbett. ‘I’m glad Ap Thomas has been arrested,’ he continued, ignoring the gasps of his colleagues. ‘He was an arrogant layabout. I don’t need to reply to your question, master clerk, but I will.’ He got to his feet, knocking away Churchley’s restraining hand. He undid the buttons of his long gown and then the clasps of the shirt beneath. ‘I have spent my life in avid study. I love the taste of wine, the dark passion in a bowl of claret, and young girls, full-breasted, slim-waisted.’ He continued to unfasten the clasps of his shirt. ‘I am a wealthy man, Corbett, the only son of a doting father. Have you ever heard the phrase in the Gospels: “Use money, tainted though it be, to help the poor so, when you die, they will welcome you into eternity”?’

  Barnett pulled open his shirt and showed Corbett the hair-cloth beneath. Barnett sat down on a stool, his arrogant face now downcast.

  ‘When I die,’ he murmured, ‘I don’t want to go to hell - I have lived in hell all my life, Corbett. I want to go to heaven so ... I give money to the poor, I help the beggars, I wear a hair shirt in reparation for my many sins.’

  Corbett leaned across and pressed his hand.

  ‘I am sorry,’ he murmured. ‘Master Tripham, I have told you what I know: soldiers from the castle will guard every entrance from Sparrow Hall until this business is finished.’ He got to his feet. ‘Now I would like to pay my last respects to my friend.’

  Tripham led him out of the room and along to the corpse chamber.

  ‘We have done what we could,’ he murmured as he opened the door. ‘We’ve washed the body.’

  Corbett, followed by Ranulf, stood by the bed and looked down.

  ‘It’s as if he’s asleep,’ Ranulf whispered, staring at the boyish, ivory-white face.

  ‘We dressed the wound.’ Tripham stood behind them. ‘Sir Hugh, did you know about the terrible bruise on his ankle?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Corbett replied absentmindedly. ‘Master Tripham, leave us for a moment.’

  The Vice-Regent closed the door. Corbett knelt beside the bed and wept as he quietly prayed.

  Chapter 11

  Corbett and Ranulf returned to their own chamber, passing Norreys on the stairs. He offered some food and drink but they refused. Ranulf said he wanted to go for a walk so Corbett went and sat in his chamber: deeply upset by Maltote’s death, he tried to distract himself. He took out the proclamations which Simon had given him at Leighton and sifted through them. They were all similar: the shape of the bell at the top through which a nail had been pierced; the broad, clerkly brushes of the quill; the phrases full of hate for the King. At the foot of each was the same phrase: ‘Given by our hand at Sparrow Hall, The Bellman.’

  Corbett pushed them away. He wiped the tears from his face and picked up Maeve’s letter from his chancery bag, going carefully over the phrases. One sentence caught his eye. Maeve’s complaint about how uncle Morgan teased Eleanor with stories of decapitated corpses and heads hanging by their hair from branches.

  ‘That’s it!’ Corbett breathed.

  He put the letter down and recalled the clothing he had examined at the castle: no grass, no soil, not a leaf or a piece of bark.

  ‘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 t
he 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.’