Nightshade

by P. C. Doherty

  Corbett rose, went to a side table, filled two goblets of wine and brought one back for Ranulf.

  ‘Very well, Ranulf. Chanson,’ Corbett beckoned the Clerk of the Stables across, ‘fill yourself a goblet of wine. This is what we will do. Ranulf, clear the table here then wander the manor. Try and find the truth of what we’ve been told about where people were, anything untoward. Chanson, keep an eye on Brother Gratian. If you discover anything, come to my chamber.’

  Corbett immediately visited the chapel and sat in a chair before the lady altar; then, getting to his feet, he carefully examined everything whilst wondering what Lord Scrope had meant about something being stolen from there. He gazed up at the crucifix hanging above the entrance to the small sanctuary, then at the altar and side tables, but could see nothing out of place. He returned to his own chamber, took off his boots and lounged in front of the fire. The wine he’d drunk had its effect. He half dozed, and darkness had fallen by the time Ranulf and Chanson returned.

  ‘Nothing,’ Ranulf declared, slouching down on a stool next to Corbett. ‘Nothing at all, master. Everything we heard is true. The servants sang the same hymn. Dame Marguerite, Brother Gratian, Master Benedict and Lady Hawisa were all in their chambers the night Lord Scrope died, whilst of course, Father Thomas and Master Claypole were not even glimpsed here. So what now?’

  ‘I found something.’ Corbett turned to where Chanson was standing by the door. ‘Brother Gratian is going to distribute more Mary loaves tomorrow,’ the Clerk of the Stables reported.

  ‘Be there,’ Corbett urged. ‘As for you and me, Ranulf, we will sleep late, take our horses and let no one know where we are going.’

  ‘Where to?’ Ranulf asked fearfully, half suspecting Corbett’s answer.

  ‘Mordern,’ Corbett replied. ‘It holds a secret and I intend to discover it.’

  ‘And the Island of Swans?’ Ranulf asked. ‘I talked to Pennywort; he’d racked his memory and said a bridge once spanned the lake where the jetties now stand. Dame Marguerite was correct, Lord Scrope destroyed it. I asked if anyone could swim between the two jetties. Pennywort laughed. Apparently the lake is at its deepest at the crossing point.’

  Corbett half listened and nodded. ‘First Mordern, Ranulf,’ he murmured, ‘and when we have collected enough to sift the gold from the dross, we will return to the Island of Swans. Until then it can keep its mystery.’

  The following morning Corbett and Ranulf attended the Jesus Mass at St Alphege’s. Once Father Thomas had left the sanctuary, Corbett returned to scrutinise the wall painting.

  ‘Master?’ Ranulf asked.

  ‘Look,’ Corbett replied, ‘the defenders of that city, they wear russet and green livery.’

  ‘The colours of Lord Scrope?’

  ‘Precisely! Though only some of the figures do, and you have to study the painting closely to distinguish them. Now is this fortress Acre or Babylon? These dark figures fleeing, are they Scrope and Claypole? Who’s the figure in the bed? Is this Gaston, Scrope’s cousin? And the banquet scene with Judas celebrating, what does that mean?’

  ‘And these.’ Ranulf pointed to the plants or herbs the artist had drawn round the edges of the painting. ‘Is this deadly nightshade?’

  ‘Perhaps, and this.’ Corbett gestured at the cross and the gleaming wounds of Christ. ‘Is it a reference to the Sanguis Christi? Ah well.’ He sighed. ‘I wish I knew more. Come.’

  They left the church, paid the urchin holding their horses and swung themselves into the saddle. Others were also leaving the church, traders eager to have their stalls ready by the time the market bell rang. The cold morning air stank of horse manure and the wet straw strewn across the cobbles; these odours mingled with the savoury tang from the bakeries, cook-shops and taverns. Across the square three roisterers, now half sober, screamed at the beadles to free them from the night stocks. The officials did so, but only after pouring buckets of freezing horse piss over their heads. On the steps of the market cross a crier warned traders that only bread bearing a baker’s seal could be bought, whilst everyone should be wary of jugs of watered wine, milk or oil, not to mention bread containing too much yeast, stale fish drenched with pig’s blood to make it seem fresh, and cheese made to look richer by being soaked in cheap broth.

  ‘That reminds me of a funny story.’ Ranulf leaned over. ‘A man once asked a butcher for a reduction in price, bearing in mind that he’d been a customer for seven years. “Seven years!” the butcher exclaimed. “And you are still alive?”’

  Corbett laughed and urged his horse across the square towards a stall set up in front of a cookshop. It offered platters of pastries filled with chopped ham, cheese and eel, all seasoned with pepper and other spices. He bought two pastries hot from the oven. He and Ranulf moved their horses into the mouth of an alleyway and ate as Corbett stared round the sprawling marketplace. He noticed the many windows and doorways as well as the ribbon-thin alleyways and runnels between the houses. He was certain that the Sagittarius must have used one of those windows above the forest of brazenly coloured signs: a bush for the vinter, gilded pills for the apothecary, a white arm with stripes of red for the surgeon-barber, a unicorn for the goldsmiths and a horse’s head for the saddlemakers. He bit into the pastry carefully, his other hand grasping the reins. He was oblivious to the hum of noise, cages and pens being opened to release ducks, chickens, capons and screaming piglets, which were then tied to the stalls, waiting for customers to choose one.

  Ranulf glanced at Corbett and sighed. His master was lost in one of his reveries. He looked back towards the church, where carts were lining up. A wandering players’ troupe was busy preparing to stage a play. Their leader had already set up his makeshift pulpit panelled in green and gold and covered with a black pall. He now stood there exhorting the bemused traders and their customers. ‘Brothers and sisters,’ he intoned in a bellowing voice. ‘You who love this age and desire its joys, think of death, of judgement, which our play will describe.’ One of the drunks recently released from the stocks came staggering across bellowing a tavern song to drown the man out:

  One for the buyers of the wine

  Twice they sup for those in jail.

  Three times for the girls with their kirtles raised …

  The troupe leader didn’t object, but simply waited for the drunk to draw closer then smacked him over the head with a skillet, much to the merriment of the gathering crowd.

  ‘Ranulf!’ Corbett had broken from his reverie. ‘Let’s be gone.’

  Ranulf finished what he was eating, put on his gauntlets and gently urged his horse across the cobbles, following Corbett through the milling crowds and on to the winding path that cut through town towards the road to Mordern Forest. At first they had to ride carefully around the carts and sledges, the sumpter and pack ponies, as well as a party of falconers returning from their hunt, poles heavy with the bloodied corpses of rabbits and quail. Pedlars and tinkers surged along the trackway, eager to reach the market square to do a day’s business; these were followed by a group of pilgrims marching on foot behind a banner displaying the likeness of Thomas à Becket, whose shrine they hoped to visit in Canterbury. At last the noisy bustle died. The sea of russet, green, brown and black hoods of other travellers washed around the two clerks and was gone. The clamour of voices died. The odours of cooking, smoke, sweat and the barnyard disappeared as they rode out into countryside. An icy landscape stretched before them, dotted with copses of trees and hedgerows, the occasional farmstead and outbuilding and, in the far distance, the sombre line of Mordern Forest.

  Corbett and Ranulf guided their horses carefully along the frozen trackway, hoods pulled well over their heads, mufflers raised against the nipping cold. Ranulf was almost relieved when they eventually entered the bleak, deserted village. The Principal Clerk in the Chancery of the Green Wax was certain that Satan, the Warrior of Hell, did not live in smoky, fire-licked caverns but in the white waste of eternal winter. Armed or not, accompanied only by C
orbett humming the tune of a hymn, Ranulf was most wary of the brooding loneliness of the countryside, the crows cawing like demons above him, the ravens floating like dark angels across glades echoing with eerie sounds from the undergrowth. They rode into the cemetery, reined in, dismounted and tethered their horses. A cold wind moaned through the trees, sweeping across the battered crosses and stone memorials.

  ‘The haunt of ghosts!’ Corbett murmured.

  They walked over to the funeral pyre, now nothing more than scraps of charred wood and layers of grey ash being swept around by the wind. Corbett stared down. He took his sword and sifted through the debris, then crouched, lifted a handful of dust and let it trail away.

  ‘Remember, man,’ he murmured, ‘that thou art dust and into dust thou shalt return. Sic transit gloria mundi; thus passes the glory of the world, Ranulf.’ He glanced sadly up at his companion. ‘Always remember. Golden boys and golden girls must, in their time, turn to dust.’ He beat the dirt from his gauntlets and stared up at the sullen sky.

  ‘Yet it does not end here, Ranulf. Oh no, we are spiritual beings. Souls survive, hungry for the eternal light. Blood remains blood and, in the realm of the Holy Spirit, cries for justice. That is why we are here, where, I suspect, the veil between what is seen and unseen grows very thin.’

  Ranulf stared bleakly at his master and gestured around. ‘Is this God’s justice, Sir Hugh?’

  ‘No, Ranulf, it isn’t, but it is the beginning of it. In God’s own time, at a place of his own choosing, justice will be restored. Not a tear spilt, not a child abused, not a woman broken, not a man ill used goes unnoticed. All things end well in God’s own time, but he uses us, Ranulf. He keeps us close to his right hand for his own secret purposes.’ Corbett pulled his hood completely over his head. ‘He needs our wits and good sense, those talents he has given us. So look around, Ranulf, what is missing here?’

  His companion stared around, then down at the pieces of blackened wood, the slimy grey dust. ‘Master?’

  ‘Bones.’ Corbett smiled. ‘Fire consumes everything but human bone, yet I cannot see a scrap or a chard. Someone has been here to clear the remains.’

  ‘Father Thomas?’ Ranulf queried. ‘Or some of the townspeople as an act of mercy? The Free Brethren did have their friends in Mistleham.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Corbett shrugged. ‘But first that verse: “Rich, will richer be, Where God kissed Mary in Galilee.” Ranulf, you begin with the first row of graves; I shall start at the far end of God’s Acre.’

  ‘What we are searching for?’

  ‘A carving,’ Corbett replied, ‘a depiction of Gabriel’s annunciation to the Virgin at Nazareth.’

  Ranulf walked away, boots crackling on the bracken and gorse that curled across the cemetery. Corbett started at the other end. An eerie experience, the mist seeping through the trees, crawling towards them like the souls of those departed who’d lived and died here, slipping through the air curious as to why the living should be so busy amongst the dead. Corbett moved from one headstone or battered cross to another. Most of them were faded. All of them evoked memories of his own dead, his parents, sister and first wife, those gone before him. He was whispering the Requiem when Ranulf shouted and he hastened over to a tombstone in the middle of the cemetery. It had been carved out of good stone many years before; the names and prayers had been hidden by lichen and moss except for the exquisitely carved roundel depicting the Angel Gabriel, wings extended, hovering over a kneeling Virgin.

  ‘Master, look!’

  The lichen had been loosened to reveal the carving whilst the actual grave was almost smothered in frozen gorse and bracken, most of it taken from elsewhere and piled over the grave bed to conceal it as much as possible. They hurriedly cleared away the vegetation and began to hack at the ground using their swords, daggers and a small axe Ranulf kept in his pannier bags. The ground was hard, though it was obvious that the bank of earth had been piled quite recently. The soil beneath was loose, and as they dug, the noisome stench of corruption seeped out, forcing them to cover their mouths and noses. Corbett, recalling advice given to him by his physician friend at St Bartholomew’s, hoarsely ordered Ranulf to put on his gauntlets and to remember to scrub both hands and face when they returned to Mistleham. The horrid stench grew worse. At last they reached the corpse of the hanged man, still in his hose and linen shirt: all slimy, seeping with dirt and corruption. The belly had swollen and burst, whilst the face was nothing more than a bloated bag of messy decaying flesh, the noose still tight around the throat. Corbett felt his gorge rise; Ranulf turned to retch. They both had to walk away, pulling down their mufflers to gasp at the clear air.

  They returned with fallen branches to prise the corpse free from its resting place. Corbett, experienced as he was in tending the dead on battlefields, found this gruesomely macabre. John Le Riche – and Corbett knew it must be he – was now a hideous mound of putrid flesh. Corbett had to remind himself that this had once been a living soul. They removed the corpse and returned to the grave, where they sifted another layer of gruesomely soaked soil and reached the arrow chest. They pulled this up, tipping back the lid, and drew out several smaller leather bundles. They loosened these and emptied them. Ranulf whispered in awe at the fast-growing pile of rings, bracelets, cups, ave beads, small jugs and platters, a glittering jewel-encrusted hoard of precious metals and stones. Other pouches held diamonds, rubies and mother-of-pearl, crucifixes, signet seals, brooches, head pins, necklaces and armlets. The last item was a wooden casket containing two rolls of parchment. The first depicted a drawing very similar to the painting in St Alphege’s Church. Corbett studied this and handed it to Ranulf.

  ‘See, whatever they devise, they plan first. It’s a faithful copy: the castle being stormed, the man lying in the bed, the banqueting scene, the flight, the great dragon soaring above, the strange symbols and plants.’

  The second scroll was longer, etched in red and blue ink, depicting a vivid picture of hell consisting of great concentric circles or trenches. Each circle was separated by strange geometric symbols similar to the ones around the painting in St Alphege’s. In the first trench, according to the scribble beside it, were blasphemers, who were sent endlessly hopping or skipping by horned demons armed with scourges and horrid whips. In the next trench, sorcerers and witches, who had twisted nature by magic, were now twisted themselves, heads facing backwards so their tears rolled down their buttocks. Crawling about the next pit were horrible reptiles searching amongst the thieves and robbers, who, for having robbed people of their property, were now robbed of their souls in one of two ways: either reduced to ashes by the sting of a scorpion, then reassembled for the torture to be repeated; or melted into wax, mingling into each other so they were not able to recognise who they were as, in their earthly lives, they’d been unable to distinguish between what was their property and other people’s. Other trenches were drawn and explained. Each was filled with sinners, but the centre of hell was reserved for Lord Oliver Scrope, bound fast, eternally consumed by the divine fire.

  ‘What does it mean?’ Ranulf asked.

  Corbett leaned against the headstone, staring at the ruined church. ‘Ranulf,’ he looked over his shoulder, ‘those paintings were a warning to Lord Scrope. The Free Brethren had two ideas: one was to draw on the fall of Babylon, which is really a parable for the fall of Acre. The second was a vision of hell, with Scrope, the greatest sinner of them all, lying at the centre. Apparently they decided on the fall of Babylon, but this begs the important question, one that has been hinted at but never developed. The Free Brethren definitely came here to wreak vengeance on Lord Scrope. They, or some of them, certainly hated him; they had a grudge to settle. Hence the paintings, their weapons. Perhaps they really did plan to storm Mistleham Manor.’

  ‘But why?’ Ranulf asked. ‘What connection did the Free Brethren have with Lord Scrope?’

  ‘The vital question,’ Corbett declared. ‘I still don’t know, but there was a connectio
n; a hidden, lasting one, formed of blood and riddled with festering resentments and grievances.’

  ‘If that was so,’ Ranulf argued, coming up to stand beside Corbett, ‘their deaths should have ended the matter.’

  ‘Which begs two possible conclusions,’ Corbett replied. ‘First, not all of them were killed in the massacre; or second, is there someone else, associated with the Free Brethren, carrying out vengeance on their behalf? I don’t know, Ranulf.’

  ‘And the treasure?’

  ‘Ah.’ Corbett smiled thinly. ‘Master Claypole has a great deal to answer for. This is what I suspect. The King’s treasure in the crypt at Westminster was robbed, its contents hauled away. Now I know from Drokensford that many goldsmiths in London were implicated in receiving these stolen goods and selling them on the open market. Now, to do that, Puddlicott and his gang must have made arrangements with goldsmiths in the city to receive what they’d stolen.’

  ‘And goldsmiths elsewhere?’ Ranulf asked.

  ‘Precisely!’ Corbett retorted. ‘John Le Riche didn’t come here by accident. Think, Ranulf! Puddlicott and his gang would cast their net far and wide. They would have negotiated with London merchants but they would also look for customers elsewhere. Why not Mistleham, a prosperous Essex wool town? And its mayor, Master Claypole, who appears to have no sense of right or wrong, never mind any loyalty to the Crown. Le Riche wasn’t trapped, not in the way Claypole or Lord Scrope described. That devious pair had a more subtle plan. They’d received the proclamations from the King, warning that his treasure had been taken and promising the strictest penalties for anyone who received stolen items. Le Riche turns up in Mistleham expecting a hero’s welcome. Instead he is arrested. Scrope and Claypole manage his trial, his imprisonment and his swift hanging.’