Paul Doherty - The Waxman Murders

Later that day, just as the bells of the abbey tolled for Vespers, Corbett’s guests began to arrive in the cobbled stable yard. Corbett waited for them in the refectory. He met each of them at the door and escorted them into a room now transformed into a small comfortable hall with its coloured cloths and turkey rugs, the trestle table laid down the centre covered with a shining white cloth, candelabra flaming brilliantly against the dark. Charcoal braziers spluttered while a fire roared merrily in the hearth. Corbett behaved as if relaxed, offering each guest a small cup of spiced wine before taking them to their seats around the table. The cooks had done themselves proud. Corbett made sure the wine jug circulated. At first the atmosphere was cold, even hostile. However, as the green almond soup was served, followed by oysters stewed in ale, crayfish, pork hash mixed with eggs, minces, roast capon in black sauce, venison in a pepper juice, and the wine jugs were refilled, the guests relaxed. Only Castledene remained watchful, still pale-faced, nervous and anxious after his brief but blunt encounter with Corbett earlier that day.

‘Sir Hugh,’ Parson Warfeld toasted with his cup, ‘this is most kind. What is the reason?’

‘Why, sir. .’ Corbett slouched in his chair at the top of the table and gazed quickly at Lady Adelicia. She looked truly beautiful in a blue-mantled furred gown, her gorgeous hair pinned with a jewelled clasp almost, but not quite, hidden by an exquisite white veil. ‘Why, sir, because I’m leaving.’

‘Leaving?’ Desroches pushed away his silver platter and gazed expectantly at Sir Hugh. ‘The King’s business is finished here in Canterbury?’

‘Yes, sir, the King’s business truly is, thanks to a man called Edmund Groscote! Well, that’s how he was baptised at the font.’ Corbett laughed. ‘He goes by the name of the Pilgrim and consorts with troubadours, mummers and moon people. Now the Pilgrim was once an outlaw hunted by that venator hominum Hubert Fitzurse. Through his own secret, sly ways, he managed to acquire a description of Hubert.’

‘And?’ Lady Adelicia asked.

‘At this moment in time, the Pilgrim is taking sanctuary in St Michael’s church at Cornhill in London. He will speak only to me. I have sent Chanson and Ranulf along the icy roads to seize him and take him to the Tower or Newgate, or to bring him here. I suspect it will be the Tower. If the weather holds tomorrow, I shall certainly leave Canterbury. You see, the Pilgrim lived a chequered life. There are men and women who work for me. In a sense they are a secret society; I call them ‘the ordinaires ’. They collect mere trifles, snippets of information, bits and pieces; the Pilgrim is one of these and he has earned his keep.’

‘Who do you think. .’ Lechlade slurred from where he sat at the far end of the table. ‘Who do you think this Fitzurse is?’

‘What he claims to be, Master Lechlade: an assassin who lurks in the shadows.’

‘And those grisly murders,’ Desroches asked, ‘at Maubisson and elsewhere?’

‘I haven’t solved them yet,’ Corbett lied. ‘Nor why that poor city guard was killed at Sweetmead or how Sir Rauf and Berengaria were murdered. Of course, you’ve heard the news about Wendover?’ They replied that they had. Corbett glanced sharply at Lady Adelicia, who simply put her head down and picked up her knife to play with a piece of meat on her dish; embarrassed, she coughed, lifting her goblet to conceal her own confusion.

‘When we seize Hubert,’ Corbett continued, ‘I am sure the King’s interrogators will secure the truth, but more importantly,’ he smiled, ‘I have found the Cloister Map!’ His words created immediate silence; even Lechlade glanced up sharply. ‘Ah yes,’ Corbett declared, ‘we know how Stonecrop, who betrayed Adam Blackstock, survived the sea battle off the Essex coast. He stole the map before The Waxman was taken. For a while he hid, then made his way inland. Stonecrop needed good silver to discover that treasure, so he approached Sir Rauf Decontet and brought him the map. Sir Rauf, however, murdered Stonecrop, stole the map, then hid it.’

‘Where?’ Lady Adelicia asked.

Corbett sensed she was speaking for all, expressing their deep hunger for this marvellous ancient treasure. ‘Lady Adelicia,’ he asked, ‘where did your late husband spend most of his time?’

‘In his chancery chamber.’

‘And?’ Corbett asked.

‘He sat at his desk, but I-’

‘Oh, I am sure you looked for the map there,’ Corbett intervened. ‘But you were searching in the wrong place, Lady Adelicia, everybody was. You do remember me sitting in your late husband’s chair? I did so every time I used his chamber?’

Lady Adelicia’s face crumpled in disappointment.

‘I found it,’ Corbett declared, ‘in a secret pocket of the seat beneath the quilted cushion. When you return home tonight, you’ll find the gap, the aperture from which I drew it.’

‘I know you searched his chamber. .’ Adelicia mumbled distractedly, ‘and sat in Sir Ralph’s chair.’

‘Of course you did,’ Corbett agreed quickly. ‘At first I could not understand it, but the map is clear. I will be gone within the day. Soon it will be in the hands of the King’s ministers. When spring comes, the royal household will go hunting in the wilds of Suffolk. True,’ Corbett picked up his goblet, ‘the murders of Paulents and others, Wendover and Sir Rauf, cannot be explained, but in time, royal justice will have its way and the felon responsible will go to the scaffold. Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for your cooperation. I toast you. .’

Corbett added that he would answer no further questions and deftly turned the conversation to other matters. Glancing around the table, he knew the effect he had created and pretended to celebrate by drinking copiously. The evening drew to an end. The guests made their hasty farewells and left. Castledene dallied for a while, but Sir Hugh refused to answer any of his questions or see him alone. Eventually the guesthouse and the stable yard outside fell silent, cloaked in darkness and, as Corbett had whispered to Ranulf just before he’d left, the dead gathered to witness God’s judgement carried out. .

Shortly after midnight, the shadowy figure of the assassin slipped across the yard and in through the unlatched door of the guesthouse. Hooded and visored, knife in one hand, a small axe in the other, an arbalest handing from a hook on his war belt, he gazed quickly round. One night flame still beckoned like a beacon, but the fire in the refectory was banked, the braziers capped, the candles snuffed, the table still littered with bits and pieces from the feast. The man started at the squeak of a rat; a dark shape scurried across the floor. He took a deep breath and softly climbed the stairs, pausing at every creak and groan of the weathered wood. Yet the night remained silent. He reached the stairwell and peered along the narrow gallery. One door was closed, the other slightly opened. He edged his way along, gripping the knife and axe tighter; he tiptoed closer, pushed the door open and crouched down, edging into the room. The chamber was still lighted; a candelabra stood on a table. One of the candles had guttered out but the other two still flickered beneath their metal caps. He gazed at the bed and glimpsed the outline of the sleeping clerk, his woollen jerkin, boots and hose strewn on the floor. The assassin smiled to himself. Corbett had drunk so much he must have staggered upstairs and fallen asleep, confident and secure that his task had been finished. The assassin raced towards the bed, stretched over the body and drove the dagger deep into the sleeper’s chest. He heard a sound, whirled round and gazed in horror as Corbett walked from the shadows in the far corner, sword and dagger out.