Paul Doherty - The Mysterium

Corbett stretched out and picked up a bead from the priest’s lap. ‘What are these? You’ve eaten some?’

‘Of course I have,’ the priest replied. ‘Abrin seed; they use it in Venice. You’re given one if you are accused of a crime. If you’re innocent you survive, if you’re guilty you die. The trick is that if you swallow the seed it simply passes through you; the hard shell cannot be digested. If you chew it, as I have, it is a fairly painless death, not now, but soon.’ He clutched his stomach and started forward. ‘I’ll not challenge what you’ve said. I hated my father from the very beginning. I wanted to be different. That is why I became a priest. I knew about his wickedness, his nefarious doings, his alliances, but I never plotted against him, not until I heard that woman’s confession. Then, like a puzzle, pieces fell into place. Things I’d seen and heard. Suspicions, whispers, rumours all became fact. I really did like Brother Cuthbert and Mistress Adelicia. I often visited them. They were two people who truly loved each other. They used to talk about what happened at St Botulph’s. From them I got the description of that ring, my first real suspicion, as I’d seen a similar ring hidden away in my father’s casket. I’d let that pass, but once I learnt the truth, everything died. How could I believe in God the Father when my own father had murdered my mother, a loving, sweet woman? What was the use of candlelight, prayers, the Mass, incense, blessings, holy water? It’s all a pretence: blackness here, blackness beyond. I couldn’t care.

‘It is as you say. I thought, I reflected. I went to the Guildhall on business. I took down the coroner’s rolls. I saw the entry about my mother. I wondered what had happened to Mistress Beatrice, then I waited. It was so simple. I kept my father’s house under close watch at night; he always worked under the cover of dark. He only believed in one verse from the Scriptures: “live for the day”, and he certainly did that. He was attracted to wickedness like a bird to flying. I was the writer from the Land of Cockaigne. I like that description; it suited my world turned upside down. I betrayed him to Staunton and Blandeford and then my father fled to Syon Abbey. I knew what he was doing. He’d lurk there, he’d think and plot, then he’d crawl back into the sunlight, offer some pact with the King, negotiate his way back to preferment. He’d betray anybody for that, do anything. So I struck.

‘I knew that Brother Cuthbert used to meet Adelicia, that was as obvious as the sun rises. It was so easy to go along the river by boat, climb the wall and just wait. It is as you described. The murderous affray at St Botulph’s? I took that as a sign.’ He paused, swallowing hard, staring up at the ceiling. ‘First my father, or the creature who called himself that. I cut his throat without a whisper of guilt. Engleat the drunkard deserved his fate. The same for the rest. Who would miss Waldene, Hubert the Monk, Clarice the adulteress? My father chose well. I suspect she was playing the two-backed beast with Master Fink long before my father fell from grace. I swept into that house like God’s anger. Up the stairs I strode. Fink was fat and flabby. I knocked him aside. I was their executioner, Corbett. Fleschner, all timorous and pleading? He looked the other way when my mother died; he must have known but he never told me, my faithful parish clerk.’ Parson John wiped his mouth.

‘I realised, as you did, that my father was the Mysterium. I reached the truth. It was only fitting for me to assume the Mysterium’s mantle in my pursuit of justice.’ The priest had gone pale, beads of sweat glistening on his brow, but he managed to smile at Corbett. ‘Very subtle and very clever, aren’t you, clerk? You suspected me but you didn’t have the evidence. You fed me, baited me like a fish about how Mistress Beatrice might have had a hand in my own mother’s murder.’ He paused, gripping his stomach, bending forward, gargling at the back of his throat. Mistress Beatrice sprang to her feet, fingers to her lips. Corbett made a sign with his hand, and she stayed where she was. Parson John lifted his face, now ghastly, eyes straining against the pain. ‘How did you do it?’ he said.

‘I went to see her,’ Corbett replied. ‘She assured me she’d told no other man, so I simply asked her another question. Had she at her shriving ever confessed what she called her secret sin, fleeing when her mistress died? I thought she might have done, and she had. She told me how she was shriven last Advent at St Paul’s. I made a few enquiries, but even before that, I nursed suspicions about you, a deep unease.’ He gripped the priest’s arm. ‘You’re dying, Parson John.’

‘I’m dying, Corbett. For God’s sake let me go in peace. You condemn me, but if there is a light beyond, if there is judgement before some tribunal, I’ll plead my cause.’ He glanced watery-eyed at Corbett and gasped at the pain. ‘I was a good priest, clerk, I truly was. I rejected everything my father did, everything he was, until I heard that woman’s confession, then my world fell apart. Do you know what it’s like to suddenly realise that everything you believe in is a lie? There’s no justice, there’s no right? You told me once how we are all murderers. We kill each other in our thoughts. Men like my father must be brought down by men like me or you. They are made by the sword. They die by the sword. They live bad lives, they die bad deaths. Tell me, Corbett, who amongst those I killed was innocent?’ He paused, a white spittle dripping from his lips. ‘That attack in St Botulph’s when the prisoners of Newgate barred themselves in? Look at the innocents who died there — why, Corbett? Look at my poor mother going out to an almshouse, doing good, slaughtered like some wandering pig in the streets.’ He leaned back in the chair. ‘I’ve said enough,’ he gasped. ‘Leave me.’ His fingers fluttered. ‘Leave me. .’

‘We’ll not leave you,’ Corbett replied. ‘We’ll stay with you. We’ll watch you go, priest, and I shall murmur a prayer that God in his mercy will show you some favour.’ He gestured with his hand at the others to remain silent. Parson John became lost in his own world of pain. He made no attempt to talk, but sat hunched in the chair, hands on his belly, coughing and spluttering as the white spittle thickened around his lips. Abruptly he jerked, head back, heels kicking the ground, then he gave a great sigh and sagged, head drooping, eyes half open.

‘I didn’t believe.’ Mistress Beatrice rose to her feet and came round to stare down at the priest. ‘I truly didn’t believe that God’s justice would wait so long. Sir Hugh, why did he take his life?’

‘Because he was correct, mistress.’ Corbett pressed a hand against the dead priest’s neck; already the skin was cold and clammy and he could feel no life pulse. ‘His life was finished when he heard your confession about his mother. After that, a blackness descended, a deep, dark night of the soul. He lived for one reason and one reason only, to wreak hideous revenge. Once he achieved that, what else was there? Go back to being a priest, to shriving people’s sins and offering Mass in reparation for all our wickedness? Parson John’s world had collapsed. He would have killed you and then continued to murder anyone associated with his father or his father’s nefarious schemes until he was either caught or killed.’ Corbett rose. ‘Mistress Beatrice, I thank you. As for your son, Parson John is right about that too: innocents died at St Botulph’s; that riot was deliberately caused.’

‘Clerks,’ Beatrice murmured, ‘all royal clerks are ambitious, following the King’s will, seeking the King’s favour, his gold, the status and power he can confer. That’s the root cause of all this, Sir Hugh.’