Paul Doherty - The Mysterium

Corbett glanced up. He touched one of the two heavy candelabras, then his commission next to the crucifix, brushing this with his fingers before moving to the hilt of his sword lying with its point towards Staunton, his fingers finally resting on his seal. All these symbols of office should remind this precious pair that although they exercised the law, they were not above it. Staunton’s persistent questioning and objections faded into silence.

In the yard below, a crier announced the removal of a corpse to a chapel. A voice began to bellow the ‘Requiem Aeternam’. Corbett waited for silence, staring down at the parchment, lips murmuring as if reciting a prayer. Ranulf watched. He would remember all this when Fortune’s wheel turned and he himself had to preside, to carry out judgement. He dreamed dreams. He fully understood the rancorous emotions that seethed through the chancery and palace: Evesham’s ambition, the cunning secrecy of Boniface Ippegrave, the arrogance of Staunton and Blandeford. The chancery was a ladder, slippery and dangerous, but for the agile and keen-witted it was a passage to the highest office in the land. Ranulf, with or without Corbett’s help, was determined to climb that ladder. He now understood the rules of the game. True, he was not a clerk from the halls of Oxford or Cambridge. He was a sharp, abrasive denizen from the city of the night, but so what? The only thing that mattered was the King. Edward’s will was law, and Ranulf was a King’s man heart and soul.

One thing he did not understand, could not comprehend, was Corbett, a true enigma, a puzzle. Even Edward the King was baffled by old Master Longface. Ranulf could plumb the depths of Staunton’s arrogance when summoned to answer questions. Blandeford was no different. The corridors of Westminster were full of clerks and judges, justices and officials just like them, all intent on pleasing the King and carrying out his will, though only those who did it successfully were noticed and rewarded. Corbett was different. Was that why Edward, with increasing frequency, took Ranulf aside to sit with him on the ale bench in the royal quarters and share a tankard or blackjack of ale? Ranulf always understood the drift of the King’s words. What would happen if the King wanted something but Corbett didn’t? What the King desired had the force of law. Ranulf accepted this; he just wished he could understand his master.

Corbett was a highly successful clerk, yet he was so monkish. He loved his wife deeply and refused to attend the various suppers, banquets and parties organised by the court. He was more absorbed in the liturgy and ritual of the Church, and drew strength from these, firm in his insistence that chaos must be controlled through right law and prepared to vigorously enter the most violent affrays to enforce this. He was locked in his own prayer chamber; in the world but not of it, part of the world yet distant from it. A clerk who fervently believed in the Church and the law, and that without these the world, wicked though it was, would be infinitely worse.

‘We are waiting, Sir Hugh?’ Staunton declared wearily.

Corbett’s head came up. ‘Of course you are, my lord. I too am waiting. The King is waiting, God is waiting. You are not here to parry words with me, or debate the finer points of the law, but to answer certain questions under oath.’ He gestured to where Chanson sat near the door, next to him the lectern holding the Book of the Gospels. ‘You have both taken the oath?’

‘Of course,’ Staunton and Blandeford chorused.

‘Then you know the punishment for perjury?’

‘Sir Hugh!’

‘I am just reminding you, my lords.’ Corbett sifted through the parchments and sat back in his chair, staring up at the raftered ceiling. ‘Very well then, we’ll go back twenty years. Both of you were chancery clerks, specialising in the affairs of the city, dealing with the Great Ones at the Guildhall?’

‘Of course,’ Staunton snapped. ‘We still are. You know that, Sir Hugh. We hold our commissions for matters affecting the city and the rights of the King in London.’

‘Very good, very good,’ Corbett murmured. ‘Then let’s go back to the murders by the Mysterium. You knew nothing of them?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Did you know Boniface Ippegrave?’

‘Naturally.’

‘Were you his friend? Some people, including his grace, claim you were.’

‘Some people are wrong, though not the King. He has now been apprised of the full facts. Ippegrave was an acquaintance, a man we liked,’ Staunton shrugged, ‘but nothing special. He was not, how can I put it, of our household. We did not consort with him at night. We did not sup or revel with him till the early hours.’

‘No, no, I am sure you did not. So can you explain why, in his scribblings, Boniface Ippegrave should mention your names?’

‘Why not?’ Blandeford blurted out before Staunton could stop him. ‘Why shouldn’t he scribble down our names? I know what you are talking about, Sir Hugh, I have seen the same scraps of parchment.’

‘You have?’ Corbett leaned forward.

Blandeford looked as if he was going to bluster, but Staunton, acting the serene judge, held up a hand. ‘Sir Hugh, Sir Hugh, when the Mysterium was unmasked and Boniface Ippegrave disappeared, everyone was fascinated by the details. We knew that Ippegrave’s chancery pouches were being emptied and the evidence collated. Master Blandeford and I, like many others, sifted through it. You must have done the same.’

Corbett smiled, narrowing his eyes.

‘I was young and tender then, Sir Hugh,’ Staunton purred, ‘more concerned with the business before me than with what had happened. Oh, of course I remember the rumours, the scandal. We picked at what morsels we could, but everything else was hushed, hidden away like the pyx in a tabernacle.’ He pulled a face. ‘As for our names being on that list, who knows. Did Ippegrave suspect us?’

‘Of what?’

‘God knows,’ came the bland reply. ‘Perhaps,’ he shrugged, ‘we were intended victims.’

‘So, on your oath, you know nothing of those matters?’

‘What his grace the King has already told you covers everything we knew.’

‘Very good, very good.’ Corbett wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. ‘And so we move forward twenty years. My lord Staunton, Master Blandeford, you have both prospered well, waxed wealthy and powerful under the King’s protection. Of course your relationship with the city has deepened and become more, how can I put it, enriched.’

‘What are you implying?’ Blandeford accused.

‘I am implying nothing,’ Corbett snapped. ‘That is the situation. Walter Evesham was Chief Justice in King’s Bench. You, my lord Staunton, are a judge, whilst Master Blandeford here is your senior clerk, a minor justice who one day hopes to join you in your pre-eminence — true?’

Staunton nodded, watching Corbett carefully.

‘Now,’ Corbett chewed the corner of his lip, ‘your mandate is to keep an eye on the city merchants, the powerful ones, those the King loves to tax and often does, those with whom he clashes. What happened regarding Evesham? How did his fall begin?’

‘We received information, anonymous messages, that our chief justice was no Angel of Light,’ Staunton replied tersely. ‘This information, so the writer claimed, came from the Land of Cockaigne, another word for nonsense, except that such testimony maintained that Evesham was hand in glove with two leading gang members: Giles Waldene and Hubert the Monk.’

‘And how was this information given to you?’

‘By letters delivered at Westminster, left with this clerk or that.’

‘You have examples? You have brought the documents? I would like to see them.’