Paul Doherty: Murder Wears a Cowl

Ranulf dropped the look of mock innocence and grinned mischievously.

‘Thirdly,’ Corbett continued, ‘we need to pack our belongings.’

‘Master,’ Ranulf whispered hoarsely. ‘I am winning.’

‘I know you are, Ranulf, and you’ll give every penny back! Maltote?’

Ranulf wandered dolefully back, raising his eyes heavenwards as Maltote passed him. Corbett looked at the young groom anxiously.

‘You are not carrying any weapons?’ he asked warily.

The lad smiled.

‘Good!’ Corbett grinned back, marvelling at the innocence in the lad’s cornflower-blue eyes. Never had Corbett met a soldier such as Maltote who knew so much about horses, was so skilled in their treatment and management but was so hopeless with weapons. If Maltote carried a knife he’d either cut himself or anyone about him. If he carried a bow he would trip himself up or poke the eye out of some innocent bystander, and he was as dangerous as any enemy if he carried spear or sword.

‘Maltote! Maltote!’ Corbett murmured. ‘Once you were an innocent horse soldier, a good cavalryman and now you have met Ranulf.’ Corbett flinched at the look of admiration in his retainer’s eyes. ‘Yes, yes, I know,’ Corbett muttered. ‘What Ranulf does not know about dice, women and drink is not worth knowing. But we are for London. We must leave immediately. Take two horses from the royal stable, ride as fast as you can and inform the Lady Maeve that Ranulf and I are following.’ Corbett licked his lips. ‘Tell her,’ he concluded, ‘we are not going to Wales but will stay a little longer in London.’

The young messenger nodded vigorously and scampered off, pausing only to watch a sorrowful Ranulf hand back the illicit gains of his crooked dice. Corbett watched him go, closed his eyes and hoped God and Maltote would forgive his cowardice. After all, the young messenger would be the first to receive the brunt of the Lady Maeve’s anger.

The figure in the shadows was waiting. Nothing could be seen in the poor light streaming through the narrow window except the glint of the brass bodkin which the figure was pressing into a small, waxen image. The image had been carefully made: only the purest beeswax had been used, culled from candles which stood on the altars of churches or in the silver and gold candle-brackets of the very wealthy. As an object of hate, the waxen image had been fashioned most lovingly. Only six inches high; its creator had used the skill of a carver to fashion the rounded face, the long legs and arms and the jutting firm tits. A piece of dyed orange wool had been pinned to the head, and red crepe had been tied round the middle so it looked as if the image was wearing a voluminous skirt. Sightless eyes, two small buttons, stared back at its maker who looked at it, chuckled and stuck the bodkin once more into the soft white body. The figure plucked out the bodkin then carefully slashed the waxen image’s neck.

In her small chamber above a draper’s shop in Cock Lane, Agnes Redheard was terrified. She dare not go out. She had not bought food for days and, because of the lack of custom, her small pile of pennies had dwindled. She was hungry, thirsty and so lonely she would have given her body for free just for the solace of someone to talk to or to listen to her chatter. The young girl dressed feverishly because she believed her salvation was at hand. She pulled her bright-red smock down about her voluptuous body, tightened the leather thongs of her wooden pattens and combed her straggling red hair with a steel comb which had seen better days. She looked round the garret.

‘Oh, Lord!’ she whispered. ‘I wish to be free of here.’

The chamber had become a prison ever since that night when, finding herself deserted by a customer, she had slipped along the blackened alleyways hoping her friend, Isabeau, would allow her to sleep on the floor. Agnes Redheard cursed the baker who, instead of taking her home, had roughly used her in the shadowy corner of a street, had paid her only half of what he had promised, then had driven her away with curses, threatening to call the watch.

Agnes had gone along Old Jewry and stopped just as a cowled figure had slipped out of the house where Isabeau lived. She had thought it strange but, in the darkened doorway of the shop, she had glimpsed the face and smiled, then hurriedly climbed the stairs fully intending to tease Isabeau. She was only half-way up when the blood trickling down from her friend’s slashed throat had made her slip on the stair. She had screamed and screamed until the entire street was roused. Nevertheless, Agnes had kept her mouth shut. She had seen the face but couldn’t believe that someone so holy could perpetrate such an obscene act. So Agnes had bought a quill and a scrap of parchment and sent an urgent message to Westminster. Now her benefactor had replied, telling her to come to the small chapel near Greyfriars. Agnes picked up her tattered cloak and skipped down the stairs. Outside, the dirty-faced urchin she paid a penny to, to watch the door, grinned and waved.

‘No strangers here, Mistress!’ he called out.

Agnes smiled and the boy wondered what was wrong for the whore’s face wasn’t painted. He could not understand why she kept hidden in her chamber, paying him money to warn her of any strangers approaching the house. The boy watched her go then hawked and spat. Whatever was wrong, he hoped Agnes Redheard would not discover he had failed to deliver her message at Westminster. Instead, he had dropped the paper into a sewer and spent the penny she gave him on a basket of plums covered in sugar.

Meanwhile, Agnes slipped through the streets, brushing past white-eyed beggars who whined for alms, and a cripple on wooden slats who cried out that he had seen the devil in Smithfield — but no one listened. The booths were open, under the projecting stories of the great houses, and leather-clad apprentices screamed that they had hot mutton, spiced beef and soft bread for sale. Agnes caught the savoury smells from the cookshops and her stomach clenched with hunger. On one occasion she felt so giddy she had to stop and lean against a doorway, watching an old woman at the corner of the alleyway hitch her skirts and squat to pee. The old woman caught Agnes’s eyes and she cackled with laughter in a display of reddened gums and yellow, rotted teeth. Agnes looked away hurriedly, clenched her fists and ran on.

She followed the line of the city ditch, full of offal and refuse, the dead bodies of cats and dogs now ripening under a strong, summer sun. She turned right, down Aldersgate Street into St Martin’s Lane then through alleyways which would take her to Greyfriars. She stopped at a crossroads where the Bailiff of the Ward had piled high on a stool the goods stolen by a burglar now on his way to the scaffold at Tyburn. Different people claimed the same objects and a violent row ensued, blocking all paths. Agnes stopped; she hadn’t the strength to push through. A costermonger came alongside her with a little handcart full of bread, chunks of cheese and cooked eels. Agnes’s hand reached out; she needed to eat, she had to chew something. Suddenly a small urchin threw the dead, bloated body of a toad into the cart. The costermonger picked it up and threw it back, screaming abuse, and Agnes seized her chance. She picked up a small, hard loaf of rye bread, a chunk of cheese and, seeing a gap in the crowd, slipped through, down a narrow, fetid alleyway. Turning left, she saw the small church before her. Agnes, her mouth full of bread and cheese, could have cried with pleasure. She was here, she was safe. She went up the crumbling steps and slipped through a darkened doorway. The message pushed under her garret door had been quite simple: she was to go to the church just before the Angelus bell and wait until her benefactor arrived.