Paul Doherty - Corpse Candle

‘What is it?’ Brother Dunstan asked fearfully. ‘A seizure?’

‘I don’t think so.’ Aelfric pressed the back of his hand against the dead man’s cheek. ‘Father Prior, Brother Hamo has been poisoned.’

Prior Cuthbert just shook his head. ‘He can’t have been! He can’t have been!’

‘He has all the symptoms,’ Aelfric insisted. ‘The pains were in his belly, not his chest or head. He was hale and hearty till he drank the ale and ate the bread and cheese.’

Prior Cuthbert gestured at the table.

‘Take your seats. No one must touch the food or drink. Brother Aelfric, you know something of noxious substances?’

The infirmarian picked up the jug of ale. He sniffed at it and carefully scrutinised what was left on the platter. He examined his own cup.

‘No one else is ill,’ Brother Francis declared.

Aelfric picked up Hamo’s small tankard. He took a sheet of vellum and poured the dregs out onto it. He then thrust the tankard towards Prior Cuthbert. The Prior could see the grains on the bottom, as if some powder had been distilled.

‘I do not think ale was poisoned,’ Aelfric declared. ‘Or the bread and cheese. The poison was placed in Brother Hamo’s tankard. I can detect no odour and, if there was any taste, the ale would hide it.’

‘What is it?’ Prior Cuthbert asked.

Aelfric, his hands trembling, put the tankard down on the table. He stared down at the dregs forming little pools on the piece of vellum.

‘God knows,’ he whispered. ‘I have many such powders in my infirmary. Whilst our herb garden contains henbane, foxglove, belladonna, potions which. .’

‘Can kill,’ Prior Cuthbert finished the sentence for him.

Brother Dunstan, collapsed in his chair, put his face in his hands and began to sob. Prior Cuthbert sighed.

‘Sir Hugh Corbett must be informed.’

Corbett was busy in Taverner’s chamber, with Ranulf the other side of the room, and Chanson on guard outside.

‘Who do you think killed our cunning man?’ Ranulf asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Corbett sifted through Taverner’s possessions, ‘but, looking at the corpse, it wouldn’t have taken a master archer. Mind you, an arrow straight through the heart requires some skill.’ He paused in his searches. ‘One thing is missing. There was no brand mark on Taverner’s forehead. I wonder whether it was because the assassin had to act quickly or because he doesn’t regard Taverner in the same way as Gildas?’

‘Or there are two assassins?’

‘Very good, my Clerk of the Green Wax. God knows what’s happening here? Taverner’s might not be connected to the other deaths.’

‘But why kill him?’ Ranulf demanded. ‘He was just a trickster.’

‘I think he was more than that,’ Corbett breathed. ‘Do you know, Ranulf, when I was questioning him, just for a moment, I thought I heard someone outside. I assumed it was Chanson returning with the books but, of course, we met him after with Perditus.’

‘So, what are we searching for now?’

‘I’m not sure, Ranulf-atte-Newgate. You knew the dead man better than I. I think he did not tell us the full truth.’

‘He wouldn’t know what that was if it jumped up and bit him on the arse!’

‘Precisely,’ Corbett replied. ‘I find it difficult to believe that Taverner simply turned up at St Martin’s with this farrago of nonsense. True, like any wandering sailor, he may have looked for a quiet port to shelter in, but put yourself in his place, Ranulf. If you came to this grand abbey with all its wealth, what would you do?’

Ranulf, at a half-crouch, turned.

‘I’d sit, wait and watch.’

‘Taverner did the same.’ Corbett opened a battered leather saddlebag and fished around inside. ‘Taverner would demand some surety, just in case his trickery went wrong. I have never yet known a villain who hasn’t got a bolt hole ready, should his villainy turn awry.’

‘Does the abbey hold bows and arrows?’

‘Probably more than a castle. They have to hunt, don’t they? Defend themselves. When we went into the storerooms I glimpsed baskets full of arrows as well as stacks of bow shafts.’

‘And the skill to use them?’

‘Most men can use a bow,’ Corbett declared absentmindedly. ‘Many of these monks were former soldiers. I wager a few were royal clerks. They would have been trained to stand in the battle line. I am truly intrigued by Taverner’s death. His assassin wanted him out of the way as quickly as possible. I wonder why?’

Ranulf watched as Corbett grasped one of Taverner’s boots and searched carefully inside.

‘You don’t think. .?’

‘Yes, I do.’ Corbett pushed his hand further down. ‘Do you remember when Taverner was about to lead us down to the cellars? He said he wanted to change his sandals?’

‘He did.’

‘I also think that he was busy hiding documents: Taverner knew I would be back. Ah, here we have it.’

Corbett drew out a small ledger bound by a red cord, as well as a thin, battered leather wallet, worn with age and covered in dark patches of mildew.

‘I thought as much.’

Corbett finished his search and went and sat on a stool, his back to the window so he could use the light.

‘Ha!’

‘What is it?’

‘Licences, warrants, letters of permission: some old, some new, some genuine, others probably forged.’

‘Why didn’t you persist with Taverner?’ Ranulf murmured. ‘Let me take him by the neck and shake him?’

‘Taverner had told us enough for one day. Like any cunning man he’d wait to find out the lie of the land, see what arrangements he could reach, what he might garner. A man like Taverner, Ranulf, as you know, doesn’t chatter like a squirrel.’

Corbett was about to continue when he heard the sound of running footsteps; a brief conversation outside and Chanson burst into the room.

‘Master, you are needed in what they call the Star Chamber — one of these monks has died!’

Corbett grasped the manuscripts he’d found in Taverner’s room and pushed them inside his jerkin. The old lay brother outside was deeply agitated and scurried off, shouting over his shoulder to follow hastily. When they reached the Star Chamber, Hamo’s corpse has already been laid out in a more composed fashion on the floor. Someone had brought a blanket and draped it over him. Ignoring Prior Cuthbert and the rest; Corbett went across and pulled the blanket back. One look was enough. Hamo’s popping eyes, gaping mouth and discoloured swollen tongue, the strange pallor of his face and the hard tension of his muscles, showed he’d been poisoned.

‘God save him!’

Corbett threw the sheet back over the face and got to his feet. He quickly muttered a requiem.

‘Poisoned!’ he exclaimed. ‘No man should die like that, certainly not a priest, a man dedicated to the work of Christ.’ He stared round at each member of the Concilium. ‘There is no brand mark on his forehead,’ Corbett declared. ‘But,’ he chewed the corner of his lip, ‘I suspect it’s the work of the same bloody-handed assassin!’

He paused as Brother Perditus brought Archdeacon Adrian, and both stood in the doorway.

‘What do you want?’ Corbett demanded.

‘I heard about the death,’ the Archdeacon replied. ‘I was talking to Brother Perditus about Abbot Stephen’s writings when the message arrived. .’ He swallowed hard. ‘I wish to be away from here. Prior Cuthbert, there’s no need for me to delay.’

‘Oh, there’s every reason.’

Corbett came across and tapped him lightly on the shoulder. The Archdeacon’s face was no longer jovial. A deeply frightened man, so agitated he couldn’t keep still, he tried to avert his gaze from the corpse sprawled beneath the blanket.