Paul Doherty - The Magician

‘We’ll go now. We must thank those who have helped us.’

They let the fire burn down and left the glade in single file, a dozen shrouded figures, men and women who had taken a vow to leave the forest for good. Horehound led the way through what he now called the Meadows of Hell, past strangely twisted trees with their branches stripped, all his secret signs and marks concealed by that freezing whiteness. Sometimes the trees gave way to small clearings. Horehound reckoned he was on a line north of the church, castle and tavern, deep enough within the trees for safety yet not far from help. The outlaw trotted on, trying to ignore the cold seeping through his battered boots and the roughly hewn arbalest, slung across his back, knocking his shoulder. He clutched the knife in the rope around his waist, plodding carefully, wary of the silence. Here and there were the prints of some animals. Horehound hated the snow; in spring and summer you could always tell if someone had passed, but the snow kept falling, covering tracks and prints, making life even more difficult. An owl, deep in the trees, hooted mournfully. Horehound paused. Wasn’t that an evil omen? True, the day was dying but it was not yet dark, so why should an owl be hunting?

They entered the glade where Waldus the charcoal burner’s wattle and daub hut stood protected behind its weathered picket fence. Horehound paused. Usually the smell of wood smoke would be strong and there would be a glint of light between the shutters, but all lay silent, cold and black. Horehound climbed over the fence, treading carefully across the sparse vegetable patch. The door hung loose with no one inside. Horehound grew afraid; he wanted to be away from here. Waldus was gone. Horehound felt a shiver of unease. If the charcoal burner went into the forest, surely his flaxen-haired wife would stay?

They continued on past the charcoal burner’s pit. On the edge of the glade something hung tangled from a bramble bush. Horehound picked this up. It was a rabbit skin, so fresh the blood was still glistening. It had been thrown there like a piece of rubbish. Now who would do that? Rabbits were scarce and precious enough. Who was skilled enough to trap this animal and throw away its skin? Horehound crouched down; he washed the skin in the snow, folded it neatly and put it in his bag. The rest watched carefully.

‘Why throw away a good rabbit skin?’ Hemlock asked. ‘Even Sir Edmund would use it, and he is a travelled man. I was a soldier once in the castle.’ Hemlock couldn’t resist the opportunity to boast. ‘Lady Catherine said that when she was in Paris, I don’t know where that is, but it’s a great city, even ladies’ robes are fringed with rabbit fur.’

‘Never mind that!’ Ratsbayne, a small, furtive-faced man, thrust himself forward. ‘I smell wood smoke.’ Ratsbayne sniffed at the breeze with his pointed nose. ‘Food!’ he moaned in pleasure.

‘It must be Waldus.’ Horehound trusted Ratsbayne’s acute sense of smell. They hurried along the narrow lane which snaked through the trees. Horehound glimpsed a glow of fire in the distance. Keeping to the line of trees, he approached the edge of the clearing and stared across the snow-covered glade. A fire crackled in the centre just where the ground rose before falling away the other side. He glimpsed the hunched figure of Waldus, but where was his woman, the flaxen-haired one? Why was he just sitting there? Milkwort pushed his way forward.

‘I’m afeared,’ he hissed. ‘Ratsbayne believes we are being followed but he’s always nervous. What’s wrong with Waldus?’

Horehound strode across, kicking up flurries of snow. Waldus sat slumped, and when Horehound touched his shoulder he toppled on to his side, revealing dead eyes, gaping mouth and that awful cut to his throat from which the blood had slopped out to drench his legs and jerkin. Horehound looked down the rise. More blood stained the snow. He glimpsed some bracken tied up in a bundle. A hand was sticking out of it, and Horehound, terrified, recognised a wisp of flaxen hair. Gibbering with fear, he stared around, the dying light on the snow confusing him. The rest of the group hurried up. Horehound instinctively knew this was a mistake. A movement between the trees, the crackle of bracken, alerted the rest. Dark shapes were emerging. What new horror was this?

Horehound drew his knife, whilst trying to loop off his arbalest, but he was shaking, his fingers sweat soaked. All around the glade echoed those ominous sounds, harsh clicks and the twang of bows. Horehound was hit just above the chest; he dropped like a stone as the rest of his followers died around him.

Corbett felt disgruntled when he awoke. The fire had burnt down and Ranulf and Bolingbroke had not returned. He crossed to the lavarium and splashed water over his face, and for a while leaned against the mantle drying himself. He thought about Lady Maeve and his children; he wondered what they would be doing and quietly wished he was with them. Corbett recognised his own dark mood, so he opened the straps of his saddle bag, took out a small psalter of hymns and songs which he had copied down, and for a while stood in front of the fire singing softly the ‘ Felte viri ’, a lament on the death of William the Conqueror, followed by three verses of ‘ Iam dulcis amica ’. He felt better afterwards but then recalled singing that second carol with Louis Crotoy in the porch of St Mary’s church in Oxford. He thought of his old friend’s cold, stiffening corpse, and this provoked him into action. He wanted to go back to the Jerusalem Tower; there was something about that death which puzzled him. He picked up his cloak, swung it about him and paused.

‘Old friend,’ he whispered, ‘are you still teaching me?’ That was it! He recalled Crotoy’s corpse, the heavy cloak which may have made him trip. ‘Nonsense!’ he whispered at the candle flame. Louis was old and cold and the weather outside was freezing.

Corbett rubbed his hands together and absentmindedly put on his war belt. He recalled the times he had seen Louis around the castle, that heavy cloak around his shoulders; he wouldn’t have carried it, he would have put it on! Why wait until you are in the freezing cold, especially if you are leaving a warm chamber?

Corbett blessed himself, whispering the Requiem for Louis’ soul, and hurried down into the yard. He carefully crossed the cobbles, took a sconce torch from its holder, reached the Jerusalem Tower and climbed the steps into the cold antechamber. The door still hung open. Corbett went up carefully into the musty darkness. He found what he had expected: all of Louis’ books and manuscripts had been cleared away, de Craon would have seen to that, but his old friend’s personal possessions were piled neatly on the bed. Corbett sifted through these, picked up the dead man’s boot and felt inside. He smiled as he gripped the loose heel and pulled it out. Taking it over to the far side of the chamber, where he’d placed the sconce torch in a bracket, he examined both heel and boot carefully. Hiding them beneath his cloak, he went back into the yard and stopped a servant.

‘You have a shoemaker here, a cobbler?’

‘Oh yes, sir, Master Luke, and a very good one too!’ the man chatted back. ‘Sir Edmund persuaded him to come from Dover-’

‘Good,’ Corbett interrupted. ‘Then seek him out and tell him to come to my chamber in the Lantern Tower, I need his skill.’ He thrust a coin into the man’s hand.

A short while later, as he placed a log on the fire, there was a rap on the door. A thin, wiry man came in, almost hidden by the leather apron he wore, face all shaven, head as bald as a pigeon’s egg.

‘Ah! Master Luke.’ Corbett wiped his hands on his jerkin and ushered the man to a stool. ‘I want you to look at this.’