Paul Doherty - The Treason of the Ghosts

‘You were married?’ Corbett asked.

‘Many years ago. But she died and that was it. You get tired of death, don’t you, Sir Hugh? One night eating and drinking round the campfire with your friends, the next morning the same man takes an arrow in his gullet. I came back here, oh, about twelve years ago. I bought the old forester’s house behind the church but, if the truth be known, I returned to look after John.’

‘And Curate Robert?’ Corbett asked.

‘Oh, he’s what you described him as, an open book. A good priest but anxious, ever so anxious.’

‘What about?’ Corbett asked.

‘He likes the ladies.’ Burghesh’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Oh, there’s nothing wrong with that. Many a priest can cope with it. Curate Robert has gone the other way. He is constantly sermonising about the lusts of the flesh. It’s a joke amongst many of the parishioners.’

‘But a good priest?’ Corbett demanded.

‘Oh yes, he has a gift, especially with the young. A gentle man, his severe face hides a kind heart.’

‘Could someone like Margaret the miller’s daughter have approached him?’

‘It’s possible. But come, Sir Hugh, you haven’t broken your fast. Let’s leave Parson Grimstone.’

He took them out into the graveyard. The sun was now breaking through, turning the hoar frost on the grass to a glistening dampness. Birds swooped above the tombstones; somewhere a rook or raven croaked. They passed the half-finished cross. Corbett noticed the barrow, hoe and mattock, the freshly dug grave, the brown earth piled high beside it.

‘Poor Elizabeth!’ Burghesh murmured. ‘That will be her last resting place.’

‘You dug it?’ Ranulf asked.

‘Yes, I did. I act as verger, general handyman round the parish. I have to. Trade is good, everybody is busy, no one has time to spare. Oh, we have church ales, the paying of the tithes, but why should a man dig graves if he can earn more raising sheep?’

They passed the priest’s house and followed the path round, across a small yard housing stables, hen runs, chicken coops and a small dovecote. At the end of this yard stood a small orchard of apple and pear trees.

‘They give good fruit in summer.’ Burghesh stopped and stared at the branches. ‘But they need pruning.’

He led them through the orchard, which gave way to a small field. At the far end, flanked on either side by trees, stood the forester’s house. It was narrow but three-storeyed, with white plaster and black beams. Its windows had been enlarged and filled with glass, the roof was newly tiled.

‘It’s what I used to dream about,’ Burghesh confessed.

He led them along the path, took a ring of keys from his belt and opened the front door. The passage inside was stone-flagged but clean and well swept. The plaster walls were lime-washed and there were shelves holding pots of herbs. Corbett smelt lavender, pennyroyal, agrimony and coriander.

‘I’m a keen gardener,’ Burghesh declared.

He took them through, past the comfortable parlour, kitchen and buttery into the physician’s garden at the back. This was formed in a half-moon shape, ringed by a red-brick wall. Burghesh proudly pointed out how he had arranged the herbs according to their uses: herbs for bites and stings, herbs for the kitchen and household. He then led them back and made them sit at the thick wooden kitchen table whilst he served them home-brewed ale and freshly baked bread.

‘Are you a cook as well?’ Ranulf asked, enjoying himself.

‘No, I sell the herbs to the apothecaries and buy my bread.’

‘Are you a hunter?’ Corbett asked.

Burghesh threw his head back and laughed.

‘I’m as clumsy as a dray horse.’ He supped at his ale. ‘I understand we will be meeting again tonight?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Corbett recalled. ‘Sir Louis Tressilyian has invited us to supper.’

‘And Parson Grimstone. We’ll all be there.’

‘Tell me about Curate Robert’s peccadilloes.’

Burghesh hid a smile behind his tankard. ‘Who’s been talking?’

‘Well, no one has, but,’ Corbett smiled at his half-lie, ‘I think you know. The flagellation?’

‘Yes, Parson John’s often talked about it. He put a stop to it here. But,’ Burghesh sighed, ‘Curate Robert has been seen out in the countryside. God knows what sins he thinks he’s committed. We all have our secrets, eh, master clerk?’

Corbett was about to reply when he heard the sound of hurrying footsteps and a hammering on the door. Burghesh went down the passageway. Sir Louis Tressilyian, cloaked and spurred, Sir Maurice Chapeleys behind him, strode into the kitchen.

‘Sir Hugh, you are needed in Melford.’

‘What’s the matter?’ Corbett got up.

‘We met your man Chanson. Haven’t you heard? Deverell the carpenter has been murdered.’

Deverell’s house stood in its own ground between two alleyways: a broad, two-storeyed building with a garden plot and workshops. The area was thronged with people as Tressilyian and Chapeleys ushered Corbett through the front door into the kitchen. The curious, despite the best efforts of Blidscote and Tressilyian, had their faces pressed up against the window. Ranulf cleared the kitchen except for Deverell’s wife. She sat, white-faced and hollow-eyed in a chair, staring down at the bloodstain on the stone-flagged floor. Standing beside her was a neighbour who, by her own confession, had come to borrow some honey. She’d knocked and rapped but the carpenter’s wife had refused to open the door. The neighbour, a prim, self-composed woman, had taken one look through the crack in a shutter and raised the alarm.

‘I was in Melford,’ Tressilyian explained, ‘to summon the jurors who served at the trial. Blidscote found us in the marketplace. Sir Maurice searched for you.’ He pointed at Chanson sitting at the foot of the stairs. ‘He told us you had gone to the morning Mass.’

‘What happened?’ Corbett demanded.

‘Last night Deverell refused to go to bed. Apparently he was much disturbed by your arrival, Sir Hugh; drawn and fearful, as he had been over the last few days. He sat here, brooding and drinking, staring into the fireplace. Now his wife claims. .’

Corbett raised his head and studied the carpenter’s wife. She was pretty, with her long, black hair, but her face was piteous, grey and haggard, her eyes circled by dark rings. She sat, lips moving, talking to herself, almost unaware of what was going on around her. Now and again she seemed to catch herself, stare around, then go back to her own thoughts.

‘Continue,’ Corbett demanded.

‘Ysabeau,’ Tressilyian gestured at Deverell’s widow, ‘retired to bed. She could do nothing about her husband. He had locked and bolted the door, the same with the shutters. She was lying upstairs wondering what to do when she heard a knock at the door. She got up and went to the window. You’ve seen the porch in front of the house? The door is in a recess and she couldn’t see the visitor. She then heard a crash even as the knocking continued.’ Tressilyian paused. ‘Well, God save us, Deverell took a crossbow bolt just beneath his left eye. Killed instantly. His wife came hurrying down, took one look and fell into a deep swoon.’

‘Clerk?’ Ysabeau was staring at him with hate-filled eyes.

‘Yes, Mistress?’

‘Are you the royal clerk?’

‘I am.’

‘He feared you.’ Her upper lip curled. ‘He didn’t want you to come to Melford.’

‘Why not, Mistress?’

‘He never said. A man of secrets, my Deverell.’ She moved her dark eyes to Sir Maurice. ‘And you are the Chapeleys whelp? He was never the same after they hanged your father.’ She eased herself up in the chair. ‘Never the same,’ she repeated.