Paul Doherty - The Waxman Murders

‘To those in the trap,’ he referred to fellow prisoners in the castle, ‘I give my mirror and the good graces of the jailor’s wife. To the castle, my window curtains spun from spiders’ webs. To my comrades freezing at night and chained to the walls, a punch in the eye. To my barber, the clippings of my hair. To my cobbler, the holes in my shoes. To my costumer, my worn hose. .’

The raucous speech had attracted the tavern-roisterers with their mulled wine and roasted chestnuts. They gathered around shouting abuse as the unfortunate begged and pleaded for pennies to take back so he and his fellow prisoners could celebrate the birth of Christ in some comfort. Corbett gave him some coins and passed on. He reached a crossroads and glimpsed Les Hommes Joyeuses now parading through Canterbury to advertise their coming pageant. The Gleeman had arranged a cavalcade of devils, all rigged with wolves’, calves’ and rams’ skins laced and trimmed with sheep’s heads and feathers from which dangled cow and horse bells ringing out a horrid din. They held in their gauntleted hands burning pieces of wood, which gave off puffs of smoke and crackling sparks. The people flocked around them. The Gleeman would occasionally rein in and describe how the Mummers would meet here or there to tell the story of the Blessed Christ and His incarnation in the world of men.

Corbett urged his horse on, his ears dinned with the shouted bustle, the hoarse guffaws, the clink of steel, the pealing of bells, the raw scraping music of fiddlers, the shrieks of mopsies and prostitutes seeking customers. Stallholders shouted their goods whilst the sonorous, bellowing sermon of a stooped, black-garbed Dominican echoed across the streets. The preacher stood, one finger pointed to the sky, eyes gleaming in a pinched face, his nose scything the air. Shouted arguments between two dice-coggers echoed from a tavern door. A juggler screamed curses as he pushed his tame bear in a wheelbarrow, looking for space so the beast could dance. Market bailiffs moved around, shoving at the crowd with their steel-tipped staves. Corbett felt as if he was part of some bizarre pageant. He felt sick, slightly confused. He cursed as a pilgrim shot across his path to join the quarrel between a brothel-keeper and a fellow pilgrim who claimed he’d been cheated. Unsteady in the saddle, Corbett reined in and swiftly dismounted. He’d taken enough, he had to rest. He led his horse off the street into the quiet stable yard of The Gate to Paradise tavern. Ostlers ran up to take their mounts. Corbett left them and walked into the sweet, musty darkness of the tap room. He deliberately ignored the glittering, contemptuous eye of a courtesan standing in the entrance, a small posy of winter herbs in her gloved hand. Just within the doorway, a sign pointed down to the Painted Cellar, where The Father of Laughter ruled. Two men stood at the top of the steps, each cradling a pet weasel; they were shouting at the courtesan to join them below.

Corbett still felt as if he was in a dream. The tavern master hurried up looking all snug and cosy with a welcoming pot of wine. Corbett showed his warrant and demanded a private chamber for himself. Mine host bowed and swept him across the tap room, up broad, sturdy stairs into a long, well-furnished room. Coloured cloths hung across the walls, and a fire spluttered merrily in a hearth carved in the shape of a doorway. Above the ornamented mantel hung painted panels celebrating popular saints: Christopher, protector against sudden and violent death; Laurence, the patron of cooks; Julian, the patron of innkeepers. The tavern master waved Corbett and his companions to chairs and stools before the fire whilst he listed the food available: buttered capons and fowl; golden crusty pastries rich with dark tangy sauces; roast partridge; crackling pork served in a mushroom and onion sauce; soups rich with eggs and milk, all accompanied by the best wines of Bearn. Corbett half listened as he sank into the high-backed chair; he muttered that he wanted some wine. Ranulf sat next to him, highly anxious. He was alarmed at Corbett’s drawn face, that haggard look when, as his master had admitted on previous occasions, his mind teemed, the thoughts flying thick and fast as flakes in a snow-storm. Nevertheless, he held his peace. A short while later a slattern served the wine. Corbett drank deep and relaxed.

‘Master,’ Ranulf asked at last, ‘what is wrong?’

Corbett cradled the cup against his chest. ‘What is wrong, Ranulf?’ He winked. ‘I’m confused. I feel like a man with a fever, wandering in that grey land between sleep and day. Questions come, jabbing at me like spear points. Who? What? Why and how?’

‘And, master?’ Ranulf wished to shake Corbett from his mood.

Sir Hugh glanced up at the painted panels. ‘Why? Well,’ he shrugged, ‘why has the Cloister Map disappeared? Undoubtedly it was taken from The Waxman by Stonecrop and brought to Sir Rauf, but what truly happened to it then? From what I gather, that house has been searched. You remarked on that, Ranulf, yet the Cloister Map has not been discovered. Did Decontet really destroy it? Secondly, why did the Cloister Map brought by Paulents prove to be meaningless? Even if you ignore these questions and move on to gruesome murder, why was Sir Rauf Decontet killed in such a fashion? Was it simply revenge, or something else? How was it done? Who was responsible? Why was Lady Adelicia cast as her husband’s killer? How was that arranged?’ Corbett sipped from his wine. ‘Who perpetrated those hideous murders at Maubisson? How was it done so swiftly, so mysteriously? Who killed Servinus in a fashion different from the rest, then ripped his belly open and stowed his corpse away? How could all this be done in a manor house so closely guarded?’ Corbett paused as the reeling tune of pipes and the stamp of feet echoed from the tap room below. For a brief moment, in his fevered mind, he thought demons were dancing at his frustration. He shook his head to free himself from such a macabre reverie, and turned, staring at his companion. ‘And Ranulf, what else is there?’

The Clerk of the Green Wax shifted uneasily in his chair. It was rare to find Sir Hugh so confused. ‘Well,’ he rolled the earthenware goblet between his hands, ‘you talk of who, why, what and how. Yet, master, surely the cause of this or that, the reason for everything, must be someone we have encountered, someone we know, who kills and kills again. Poor Berengaria, garrotted in that lonely church; she must have known her killer.’

‘And that word Berengaria etched on her chamber wall at Parson Warfeld’s house?’ Corbett added. ‘What was it? “Nazareth”, written as if to remind herself, but about what?’

‘And the attack on Griskin,’ Ranulf added. ‘Who killed him?’

Corbett nodded. He did not wish to reply. Les Hommes Joyeuses was his secret. ‘Not to mention the attacks on us,’ he mused, ‘travelling back from Maubisson with Desroches, that crossbow bolt loosed at the shutters, another in the cloisters.’ He paused. ‘Then there’s the wine.’

‘Master, what wine?’

Corbett quickly told him about the jugs left outside his chamber. Ranulf cursed under his breath, a shiver of cold fear pricking the nape of his neck. He glanced apprehensively over his shoulder at Chanson guarding the door. In truth Ranulf wanted to be away from here. He wanted to distance himself from the stretches of lonely, snow-draped fields, ice-rutted forest trackways, desolate, haunted wastelands, the abbey with its stone galleries and echoing, deserted passageways filled with juggling light and shifting shadows. He glanced at Corbett slouched low in the chair, staring into the fire.

‘Master,’ Ranulf leaned over, ‘you have always warned me about the time lost staring into flames.’