Paul Doherty - The Mysterium

‘The merchant Chauntoys,’ Ranulf replied. ‘The one whom Boniface met at the Liber Albus in Southwark.’

‘You heard the King: Chauntoys has long gone to God.’

‘But he may have married again.’

Corbett turned and smiled. ‘Very good, Ranulf. Seek out any family. Discover if there is anyone who could perhaps add a little more to this twisted tale. And now. .’ He returned to his chair and picked up his cloak. ‘I’ll try to meditate on what I have listened to and what I have learnt. Perhaps I’ll walk across to the abbey and join the good brothers for vespers. Afterwards we’ll meet back here, take our supper and weave together all the different strands we’ve plucked.’

‘Stomach worms gnaw at me,’ Chanson wailed. ‘I’m hungry!’

‘We could go to one of the taverns,’ Ranulf offered. ‘There’s the Catch a Penny, or the Gate Hangs Well. Or I could,’ he joked, ‘get bachelor’s fare.’

‘Which is?’ Corbett asked.

‘Bread, cheese and kippers from a slattern.’

Corbett pulled a face. ‘No, the palace kitchens will serve a good platter. The King is returning from Sheen, where he’s been hunting, so the cooks will be well prepared.’ He clasped Chanson’s shoulder. ‘Calm the wolf in your belly, we’ll feed it soon enough.’

‘And you, master?’ Ranulf asked.

‘As I said, I will join the good brothers at their vespers. You’ll come?’

Chanson pulled a face and nursed his stomach. Ranulf gestured at the parchment still strewn across the table.

‘In which case. .’ Corbett smiled and left them.

The antechamber was cold, the brazier full of spent ash. Servants had snuffed the candles, and only one cresset flame danced in the chilly breeze. Corbett went along the ancient wood-lined gallery to his own chancery office, where he sifted amongst documents received: sealed pouches and parcels containing reports, letters, memoranda and billae from spies, merchants, wandering scholars, friars, envoys at foreign courts, agents in Paris, Rome and Bruges, all forwarding the chatter of the various courts. Pulling the candelabra closer, he went swiftly through them. When he had finished, he snuffed the candle. There was nothing of note, nothing that could not wait. He rose, left the chamber and went down into a small garden enclosure. The light was fading fast but a wheeled brazier crackled beside a turf seat near a reed-ringed pond all calm under its skin of ice. Corbett sat down and pulled his cloak about him. The incense strewn over the charcoal fragranced the air. He relaxed, loosened his sword-belt and stared up at the sky. The stars were so clear and glittering. Words, images and memories from the recent questioning seethed through his mind; the various faces, gestures and mannerisms. What had he missed? What could he pursue? He was still perplexed. Certain mysteries, such as how Evesham had been so cunningly murdered, had been resolved, but that created other problems. Was Cuthbert the killer? Was Adelicia his accomplice? They certainly had good reason to cut the former chief justice’s throat.

Corbett got to his feet, tightened his sword-belt and re-entered the palace. Lost in his own thoughts, he wandered the galleries, passing through a vestibule where he noticed a group of the knight bannerets from the royal household in their resplendent livery. They clustered around one of the King’s jesters, a dwarf who was entertaining them with a droll story about a maiden, a knight and a certain chastity belt. The dwarf, a born mimic, played the various roles, provoking guffaws of laughter from these royal bully-boys, ‘knighted rifflers’ as Corbett secretly called them, killers who loved nothing better than the clash of battle and the song of the sword. He left the palace grounds and crossed the great waste area that separated the royal house from the abbey, its towers, buttresses and cornices soaring up like a majestic hymn in stone against the evening sky. Bells sounded, their clanging trailing away, an early warning to the brothers that vespers would soon begin.

Corbett became more alert. He was about to enter the Sanctuary, a different world to the opulence of the court and the hallowed atmosphere of the abbey. Smells drifted. The odour of wood smoke, crackling charcoal and roasting meats mingled with the stench of sweat and ordure, all the stinks of the citizens of the night. Campfires glowed. Dark shapes darted about. Donkeys brayed over the clucking of chickens and the harsh cry of geese. A sow lumbered by chased by two ragged children. Corbett threw back his cloak and, hand resting on the hilt of his sword, crossed the small footbridge spanning a narrow ditch. He went through the half-broken gate of the palisade and entered the Sanctuary proper, an eerie underworld, a man-made Hades for those who lived in the twilight, well away from the glare of the law. Rifflers and robbers, prowlers of the night, cheats and cunning men, outlaws and wolfsheads, murderers and assassins, pimps and prostitutes of every kind, all sheltered here. The Sanctuary was supposedly holy ground that, by tradition and law, was well beyond the power of courts, the sheriffs and their bailiffs. In truth it was a place of permanent dusk where, as one preacher described it, ‘unholy lusts’ had free play.

All around Corbett stretched the makeshift huts, bothies and fires of the Brotherhood of the Cowl. Weasel faces glared up at him. Ladybirds from their nagging houses, strumpets and whores sauntered up dressed in their tawdry finery, hips swaying, hair and faces garishly painted. Corbett strolled on. Ranulf constantly warned him about walking so carelessly through what he termed the hog-grabbers, piss prophets and toad-eaters who sheltered here. Corbett did not care. Most of these children of the dark were hen-hearted, fearful of a royal clerk. Why should they accost him and so give the King, his sheriffs and justices good reason to sweep through this meadow of misery with fire and sword? More importantly, Corbett had spread the word through Ranulf and Chanson that anyone who brought him information about the recent riot at Newgate and all the horrid deaths in the city would be amply rewarded. He wondered if he’d be approached.

He passed a group of gamblers taking wages on how many would hang tomorrow, execution morning, on the gibbet outside the great abbey gate. A man dressed garishly as a woman swept by in a cloud of cheap perfume, face all hideous in its coating of paste. This grotesque provoked jeers, laughter and curses from the gamblers, before they lost interest and returned to their game. Deep in the camp, two hellcat women were preparing to fight, stripped to their under-tunics, pennies gripped in their hands to stop them scratching. They circled each other close to a roaring bonfire. When Corbett entered the pool of light, the raucous shouting ebbed away and a few curses were flung.

Corbett passed safely on up the slight incline and across the monks’ cemetery, which stretched to the south door of the abbey. A lay brother allowed him in and he walked through the small porch, glancing quickly at the human skin nailed to the door leading into the chapter house. He crossed himself and murmured a prayer, wishing fervently that the King would listen to his plea and that of the good brothers that the skin be taken down. It belonged to Richard Puddlicott, a felon recently taken in a wheelbarrow to the abbey scaffold and hanged for robbing, with the help of certain monks, the royal treasure stored in the great crypt beneath the chapter house. The King had insisted that Puddlicott’s corpse be flayed and this grisly symbol of royal anger hang there as a warning until it rotted.

‘It frightens me,’ whispered the lay brother standing behind Corbett. ‘They say his ghost prowls here along with all the other dark men.’