Paul Doherty - The Magician

Chanson put on his boots and left. Corbett went and sat opposite Bolingbroke, who had picked up one of the manuscripts.

‘What do you think, William? Are we chasing will-o-the-wisps here? The Secretus Secretorum – is it a puzzle which can be solved?’

‘I went through the script with Sanson, Sir Hugh. It’s written in Latin but I hardly recognised a word. Now, Magister Thibault,’ Bolingbroke grew enthusiastic, ‘what he did was very clever. He formed the hypothesis that if Friar Roger wrote a secret cipher, like all people who use such devices he would have become tired at the end and made a mistake. That phrase “I shall give you many doors” is a fine example of it. Now, as you know, Sir Hugh, once you have one line of a cipher, it becomes easy to tease out the rest. But this is where our problem begins; in this case it does not.’

Corbett closed his eyes and groaned. ‘I advised the King of that,’ he whispered. ‘Friar Roger may talk about his marvels, and the Secret of Secrets may hold the truth, yet I’ve read the friar’s works.’ He opened his eyes. ‘He truly was an arrogant man with a contempt for other scholars. What if he wrote that book in a cipher used once only and understood solely by himself? If that is the case, the key will never be found and the cipher will remain unbroken.’

Corbett opened the Opus Tertium he had been reading, but found he couldn’t concentrate. He took the psalter Lady Maeve had given him and leafed through the pages. The illuminations always fascinated him; the use of colours and vivid schemes, Christ stretched like a piece of vellum on the Cross. He read the prayer on the adjoining page, and allowed his mind to drift. The Lady Maeve had given him the psalter on his birthday, the previous August. He glanced up. Bolingbroke was asleep in the chair. Corbett stretched out on the bed. He couldn’t forget that girl’s corpse, sprawled on the hand barrow, and the priest, Father Matthew, was a strange one. Why had he made those mistakes in church? Corbett’s eyes opened wide with a sudden realisation. When he brought the corpse in, he thought, it was Father Andrew, the old priest, who insisted the last rites must be given.

He heard footsteps outside and rose as Chanson led the red-haired Marissa, followed by a young, pockfaced man-at-arms, into the room. Marissa looked freezing in her thin gown; the man was dressed in a sweat-stained leather jerkin over a linen shirt, padded hose and battered boots which looked a size too big for him. Chanson introduced the stranger.

‘This is Martin.’

Corbett clasped the man’s hand and ushered them both to stools in front of the fire. Marissa was friendly, happy at the chance to be warm. Martin, a local man from his accent, was quiet of eye and not overawed by Corbett. He asked bluntly why he had been summoned.

‘I have been searching for Alusia,’ he exclaimed, ‘and I’m on sentry duty at dawn, the first watch of tomorrow.’

‘I won’t keep you long.’

Corbett served them steaming cups of posset wrapped in rags and sat between them. Bolingbroke had gone across to splash water on his face from the lavarium.

‘Your name is Martin,’ Corbett began, ‘a friend of Alusia, the girl who is missing. Do you know where or why she may have fled?’

‘Fled?’ Martin’s lip jutted out aggressively. ‘Alusia has not fled. She was terrified at what she saw yesterday; she would not go out of the castle again until this killer is found and despatched to Hell.’

‘So where is she?’ Bolingbroke came over, wiping his face and hands.

‘I don’t know. She left her parents last night, sometime between Vespers and Compline, and never returned.’

‘Were you to meet her last night?’

‘No, I was not.’

Corbett studied the open, weatherbeaten face; he’d already glimpsed the leather wrist guard and the calluses on the man’s fingers.

‘You use a crossbow?’

‘Yes, and I’m very skilled,’ came the hot reply. ‘I can hit my mark from ten yards, I do not need to get too close.’

‘Peace, peace,’ Corbett murmured. ‘Did Alusia tell you anything about what happened yesterday?’

‘No, I hardly saw her. She was resting, all disturbed. I did have a few words with her, nothing more.’

‘And you knew the other girls, the ones who’ve been murdered?’ Bolingbroke asked from his chair. The man-at-arms glanced sideways at Marissa, sitting beside Corbett as still as a statue.

‘I knew some of them,’ he mumbled.

‘Especially Phillipa.’ Marissa forgot her shyness and glared at the man-at-arms. ‘You said Phillipa was sweet on you, or were you just boasting?’

‘Just boasting,’ Martin replied, flushed-faced. ‘She was a strange one.’

‘Phillipa?’ Corbett asked. ‘Mistress Feyner’s daughter?’ He looked over his shoulder. ‘Chanson, where is Mistress Feyner?’

‘She said she would come when she was ready,’ Chanson replied.

‘Oh, good.’ Corbett turned back. Marissa was still shivering, and he put his cup down and went across to the cloaks hanging on a peg. He took one down and draped it over Marissa’s shoulders.

‘You’re most kind.’ She preened herself.

‘It is yours,’ Corbett replied. He took two coins from his purse and handed one to each of them. Martin accepted reluctantly. Marissa snatched hers, then drew the cloak close to her, treasuring the coin; she was flattered by the attention of this King’s man who allowed her to sit so close to a fire and drink posset from a pewter goblet. Corbett, glancing down, saw a penny whistle lying on the floor, one Chanson used. He picked it up and absentmindedly put it in his wallet.

‘You said Phillipa was a strange one?’

‘Oh yes,’ Marissa replied, ‘full of herself. She claimed one of the outlaws, a mysterious man she called the Goliard, loved her, and said how they would meet under the forest greenery. She claimed he was a landless knight living in his own castle in the forest.’ Marissa put a hand to her face and giggled. ‘We said she was living in her dreams.’

‘Were you close to her?’

‘No. Some of the others may have been.’

‘And when did she go missing?’

Marissa closed her eyes. ‘On that Sunday when we gave thanks for the harvest. The weather was lovely. I remember seeing her in the cemetery after Mass, then she disappeared. We thought she had gone into the forest to meet her Goliard.’

‘Did you take part in the search?’ Corbett asked the man-at-arms.

‘Yes, I did. From the forest down to the sea. We found nothing. And now, sir,’ Martin scraped back the stool, ‘I truly must go.’

‘Before you do,’ Corbett lifted a hand, ‘did you have a trysting place?’

‘A what?’

‘A secret place,’ Bolingbroke explained, ‘where a man might meet the lady of his heart.’

‘There’s some ruins,’ the man-at-arms replied, ‘at the far wall beyond the keep. A passageway leading down to the dungeons and cellars; it was our place.’ He ignored Marissa’s giggle. ‘I’ve been down there, it’s deserted.’

He was about to leave when there was a knock at the door and Mistress Feyner came bustling in, the sleeves of her gown pulled back to her elbows, her hands and wrists red raw. She totally ignored Marissa and Martin and, without being asked, flounced down on a stool in front of the fire. When Bolingbroke served her some posset from a goblet kept in the inglenook, she snatched it from his hands.

‘I can’t be here long. Are you asking these two about my daughter?’ She drank greedily from the cup. ‘If you have questions about Phillipa then ask me.’

‘She was last seen on the Sunday in the cemetery after Mass.’

‘Yes, she was. She told me she was going to collect flowers.’