Paul Doherty - Corpse Candle

‘It might have been the osculum pacis ?’ Corbett queried. ‘The kiss of peace?’

‘In the dead of night, out in a lonely meadow?’ Prior Cuthbert gestured with his hands. ‘If you had seen Abbot Stephen’s face the day I accused him, you’d know I spoke the truth.’

The Prior put his face in his hands and began to sob uncontrollably.

Corbett sat in the Abbot’s chamber. Ranulf had returned to the guesthouse. Outside the day was drawing on and darkness was falling. They had left Prior Cuthbert to his grief. The man had become so distraught it would have been cruel to question him further. Corbett could make little sense of the Prior’s confession. Who had been with the Abbot on that moonlit night out in Bloody Meadow? The clerk sat and meditated, his eyes growing heavy as he turned over and over in his mind the different possibilities. Brother Luke’s enigmatic account of Sir Reginald; Prior Cuthbert grieving over his own malice; Abbot Stephen, a priest with a reputation for holiness yet so secretive. Corbett closed his eyes and slept. He started awake as the bells of the abbey marked the time for Divine Office.

Corbett got up and opened the shutters. Would the assassin strike again, he wondered? Or would he be more cautious since his attack on Brother Richard had been repelled?

‘If only,’ Corbett murmured to himself, ‘if only I could resolve Abbot Stephen’s death: that’s the loose thread.’

He was about to return to his chair when he heard a pounding on the stairs and muffled groans and cries. Corbett hastened to the door and flung it open. Perditus stood gasping. If Corbett hadn’t caught him, he would have collapsed into his arms. The lay brother’s face was bruised, and cuts bloodied his hands and face.

‘In God’s name!’ Corbett exclaimed.

He half dragged the man over to a chair and sat him down. Perditus was trembling. Corbett quickly felt his head and patted his arms, looking for serious wounds.

‘What happened?’ he asked.

Perditus just sat, mouth open, now and again wincing, hands going up to the bruises on his face.

‘Are you wounded?’ Corbett asked.

The lay brother refused to answer. He was ashen-faced, and a trickle of blood bubbled at the corner of his mouth. Corbett hastily filled a goblet of wine, walked across and held it to Perditus’s lips. He heard footsteps outside and Ranulf entered. Corbett held up a hand to fend off his henchman’s questions.

‘What’s the matter, Perditus?’

Corbett crouched by the lay brother, studying him carefully. The bruise just under the eye was now coming out, and there was a similar one on his left jaw. He had cuts on his cheeks, hands and wrists. Corbett felt his chest and back.

‘I’m all right.’ Perditus gulped at the wine. ‘I had been out to Bloody Meadow, and I was just nearing the Judas gate on my way back when I heard a sound as I went past some bushes. I whirled round to find myself under attack. I couldn’t see who it was: he was masked, cowled and hooded. He was about to strike me on the back of the head with a club. I moved to the left and he caught me on the chin then smacked me again here, on the cheek. I grappled with him, but he had a dagger in his right hand, and one side of the blade was very sharp. I tried to get a good grip but it was difficult as the blade turned.’ He stretched out his hand. ‘At one time he caught me here on the cheek with it. It cut like a razor. I pushed him away. I thought he’d attack again but he turned and fled.’

‘Shall I go after him?’ Ranulf moved to the door.

‘No,’ Corbett declared. ‘The attacker will be gone.’ He urged Perditus to drink more wine. ‘And you had no sight of him?’

‘His cowl was securely tied and never fell back in the struggle. A leather mask covered his face. I only glimpsed his eyes and heard his grunts.’

‘Was he strong?’ Ranulf asked.

Perditus drained his cup. ‘Well, he was fairly muscular and wiry but I would say he was an older man. He wasn’t like you.’ Perditus pointed at Ranulf. ‘I could hold my own against him. I was aware of his strength slipping. His belly was soft, with a slight paunch. He must have realised that if the struggle continued, he would have the worst of it, so he fled.’

‘Do you think he was waiting for you?’

‘I remember that as I was walking past the gate, the bushes were swaying in the wind. The ground underfoot was slippery, icy, that’s how I heard him. I heard the ice crack and turned just in time.’

‘Did he speak?’

‘No, apart from gasps and groans, he said nothing.’ Perditus looked woebegone and scratched his close-cropped hair. ‘I had the impression he was waiting there for anyone.’

Corbett moved away and closed the door.

‘That would make sense,’ he declared, coming back. ‘The night is dark and cold. You had your cowl up?’

Perditus agreed.

‘And, of course, you would be walking slightly hunched against the cold. He might have mistaken you for one of the older brothers, realised his mistake and fled?’

Corbett was about to continue when a bell began to clang noisily. Perditus sprang to his feet, so quickly he became unsteady. Ranulf caught him and urged him to sit down again. Corbett walked to the door and threw it open.

‘That’s the tocsin!’ Perditus gasped. ‘The alarm! Something has happened in the abbey! I must. .’ He tried to rise.

‘No, you go to your chamber.’ Corbett grasped him by the arm. ‘I mean that, Brother, lie down on your bed. I’ll tell Aelfric to come and see to you. You have no other wound or bruise?’

Perditus winced and held his left side.

‘The attacker hit me here but. .’

He was distracted by the tocsin, its tolling echoed across the abbey. Corbett escorted Perditus along the passageway to his own chamber, which was smaller and starker than the Abbot’s. Corbett made him sit on the side of his bed and told him to stay there. Ranulf lit candles from an oil lamp. Corbett picked up some of the books lying on the floor and placed them on the table. The tocsin continued to toll.

‘Stay there!’ Corbett ordered.

Followed by Ranulf, the clerk hastened from the chamber and down the stairs. Once they were outside, the source of the crisis was obvious. The cold night air brought the smell of burning and, glancing up, Corbett saw the glow against the night sky from the far end of the abbey.

‘A fire,’ he declared. ‘I wager a shilling to a pound, Ranulf, it’s not an accident.’

The whole abbey was now roused. Monks, breaking off from their different duties, hastened across the abbey grounds. Corbett and Ranulf followed. The smell of burning grew stronger and thick tendrils of smoke curled around them. They came round the abbey church, across the cemetery and through a line of trees. Corbett and Ranulf paused. One of the abbey’s main storehouses, a timber and plaster building on a red-bricked base, was ablaze from end to end. Flames leapt out of the windows, the plaster was cracking and buckling. Even as they looked, a part of the roof caved in with a crash and the flames roared up to the sky. Prior Cuthbert hadn’t arrived but Richard the almoner was busy organising the community to fetch slopping buckets of water from a nearby well. Some of the monks who’d been working there already had blackened faces and hands, their robes stained with dust and ash.

‘It’s impossible.’ The almoner came over, mopping his face with a wet rag. ‘Wouldn’t you agree, Sir Hugh?’

Corbett stared at the building. Although ablaze from end to end, at least it stood alone with little danger of the fire spreading.