Paul Doherty - The Waxman Murders

Corbett was glad to leave, to be free of a place which seemed to reek of evil. He went down the steps, mounted his horse and, gathering his reins, stared down at Castledene and Desroches.

‘We have finished for the day,’ he declared. ‘I need to reflect.’

‘Sir Hugh?’

‘Yes, Master Desroches.’

‘May I accompany you?’

‘Why, Physician,’ Corbett joked, leaning forward and stroking his horse’s neck, ‘are you not tired of our company?’

Desroches stepped closer, grasping the bridle of Corbett’s horse. He forced a smile, but then quickly winked as if communicating a secret.

‘I could do with some company.’ He let the bridle go and stepped back.

Corbett shrugged. ‘We are returning to St Augustine’s Abbey; you can be our guest at supper.’

Desroches agreed and clambered gingerly on to his own palfrey. Corbett could see he was a poor horseman. They said farewell to Castledene and the others and made their way out on to the main thoroughfare. Desroches pushed his horse alongside Corbett’s. ‘Sir Hugh, I am glad of the company. I must tell you two things. First, when poor Oseric was killed, Wendover was not in the buttery.’ He noticed Corbett’s surprise. ‘Lechlade told me that.’

‘And second?’

‘From the little I gather, Lady Adelicia knew more of her husband’s dealings than she pretends.’

‘How so?’

‘Sir Hugh, she saw her hated husband bury that corpse and did not use it against him.’

‘Master Physician,’ Corbett edged his horse closer, ‘you’ve earned your supper.’

Once back at the abbey, Corbett went to his own chamber, leaving Ranulf, Chanson and Desroches to wait in the refectory below for the guest master to serve some food. On the table outside his chamber a lay brother had left two jugs of wine, red and white, covered with a napkin. Corbett opened his door and went in. He took a tinder, lit the candle on its stand in the centre of the table and then the other capped candles. As he rekindled the brazier, warming his hands over it, he heard a soft footfall on the gallery outside and whirled around, hand going to his dagger. There was a knock on the half-opened door.

‘Come in!’ Corbett shouted.

The guest master stepped in, his face all concerned.

‘Sir Hugh, I learnt you were back,’ he gabbled. ‘I came up to see if all was well. I mean, I told your companions-’

‘Yes, yes,’ Corbett interrupted. ‘If some supper could be served we’d be grateful. Perhaps more braziers? The night is chillingly cold.’

The guest master nodded. He was about to turn away when he paused, peering at the wine jugs Corbett had placed on the table beside the candle.

‘Sir Hugh?’

‘Yes, Brother?’

‘You brought your own jugs?’

Corbett felt a tingle of fear curdle his stomach. ‘Brother, what are you talking about?’

The guest master walked across and picked up the napkin. He held this up and peered at the stitching along its hem, then crouched down and moved the jugs.

‘I know every jug and cup in this guesthouse.’ He straightened up. ‘That napkin was not fashioned by us, whilst the jugs certainly do not come from our kitchen.’ He picked up one of the jugs and went to sip from it.

‘Don’t!’ Corbett urged. He walked across, took the jug from the surprised monk’s hand, sniffed and caught a rather faint bitter smell, as if some herb had been crushed and mingled with the red wine. He picked up the white and detected a similar odour.

‘Brother, do you have rats?’

‘Does a cat have fleas?’ the guest master replied. ‘Of course we do, we are plagued by them.’

‘Then give them a feast,’ Corbett urged. ‘Take some fresh bread and cheese, mingle them together, soak the mix in this wine, and put it in the cellars where no one else will see it. Tomorrow morning, or maybe even later tonight, come back and tell me what you found, but I urge you, Brother, do not drink this wine. I believe it is tainted.’

‘Tainted?’ The guest master’s wrinkled face became all fearful. ‘Sir Hugh, someone wishes to do you evil.’

‘Yes, Brother, they do. I’m the King’s messenger in Canterbury and perhaps not everyone welcomes me as they should. I ask you to keep this matter close, even from your own abbot, as well as from my companions downstairs. Brother, how easy would it be for a stranger to enter this guesthouse?’

The monk stepped away from the table, wiping his hands on his robe, gazing suspiciously at the jugs. ‘Why, Sir Hugh, it’s very easy to enter the guesthouse itself. But as for your chamber, they would have to hold either your key or mine.’

‘So it’s quite possible,’ Corbett asked, ‘for someone to have brought those two jugs in and left them outside my chamber?’

‘Oh yes, Sir Hugh. I mean, people are going to and fro all the time, very rarely is any mischief caused.’

Corbett thanked him. The guest master gingerly picked up both jugs and napkin and left the room, shaking his head and muttering under his breath. Corbett waited until he’d gone, then slumped down on the edge of the bed. He unbuckled his sword belt and cloak, letting them fall around him, pulled off his boots and put on his buskins. Then he went to the top of the stairs and shouted for Ranulf. When his manservant came, Corbett met him halfway down the stairs.

‘Ranulf,’ he patted his companion on the shoulder, ‘I’m tired and worn out. I have eaten and drunk enough. Give my apologies to Master Desroches. You and Chanson entertain him; I intend to sleep.’

He went back to the chamber and checked it most carefully. Nothing had been disturbed. He doused the candles, except those glowing under their bronze caps, and climbed into bed, wrapping the blankets around him. Then he pushed his head hard against the bolster, closed his eyes and fell into a deep sleep.

He woke early, long before dawn, and left the guesthouse. He crossed the frozen yard, braving the winter darkness, until he reached the prior’s kitchen, which served visitors to the abbey. He knocked hard on the door. A sleepy-faced servant opened it and ushered him into the warm, fragrant bakehouse. Corbett told him what he wanted, and a short while later he left carrying a pannier of hot water from the pot dangling on a tripod above the hearth.

Once back in his own chamber, he stripped, washed and shaved. He put on fresh linen undergarments, choosing dark brown hose, a white cambric shirt and a thick fleece jerkin for protection against the cold. He built the braziers up, then drank a cup of water and went across to the writing desk. Once ready, he opened the leather pannier resting beside the leg of the table, pulled out a sheaf of parchment and sharpened a quill pen.

‘Now I will impose order,’ he murmured. ‘Now I will establish a pattern.’

Corbett steeled himself to ignore the growing sounds from the abbey as the monks rose and prepared for the first office of the day. He was tempted to go down and stand in the great oaken stalls and join them in their chanting of Matins, but that would have to wait. He dipped his pen into the green ink and wrote: Primo: The Brothers .

Corbett tried to marshal everything he’d learnt about Adam Blackstock and his half-brother Hubert the Monk, or Hubert son of Fitzurse, ‘The Man with the Far-Seeing Gaze’. His pen raced across the parchment. Blackstock, according to the documents in the Guildhall, had been the pirate’s family name, so why did Hubert use the ‘son of Fitzurse’, his mother’s maiden name? Was he just emphasising that two sons had survived that dreadful massacre? And why did he proclaim himself ‘The Man with the Far-Seeing Gaze’? Was that a reference to his planning and plotting these murders? Had he waited and bided his time? But where did this all begin? Corbett wrote the date 1272, then glanced up and stared at the crucifix on the wall. He remembered how the old King had died gasping at Westminster and the London mob had taken to rioting in the streets. There had been a breakdown in law and order, the king’s peace being openly violated in the shires. The same thing had happened in Kent. According to what he’d learnt, Adam and Hubert’s parents had been wealthy farmers; their manor house had probably been a fine building with vegetable gardens, herb plots, flowerbeds, stables, fertile fields for corn and lush pasture for sheep. Attacks by armed gangs on such manors became commonplace. Usually the rifflers plundered the house and drove away cattle and other livestock, but this attack had been different. Had people from the city of Canterbury been involved? Royal justices had investigated, but no culprits had been produced. Fortune had then turned her wheel again. Adam was put to trade as an apprentice, while Hubert had continued his schooling here in St Augustine’s Abbey. Corbett made a note on a scrap of parchment beside him. He must look out for the magister scholorum , Brother Fulbert, and ask him what he knew.