Paul Doherty - The Treason of the Ghosts

‘Skilful,’ Corbett murmured. ‘Everyone’s trapped. Peterkin must deliver the message. He’s told to show the victim a coin so she’ll believe him. Now, do you understand, Mother?’

‘I do.’ The old woman’s eyes brimmed with tears. ‘God knows, poor Elizabeth wouldn’t dream of telling anyone else. They’d either follow her to the place or race her to it. Of course, no one really believes poor Peterkin. It might be some madcap notion. She wouldn’t want to appear foolish. .’

‘Yes, but Elizabeth, like the other victims, had her curiosity whetted. Peterkin’s message was so clear yet so mysterious. The town’s simpleton had been paid to carry it so it must mean something. She wouldn’t dare tell anyone and so sealed her own fate.’

‘What was his voice like?’ Ranulf asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Peterkin wailed. ‘A soft voice.’

‘Have you ever heard it before?’

‘For God’s sake, Sir Hugh!’ Mother Crauford exclaimed. ‘The man wore a mask!’

‘Did you ever follow him out?’ Ranulf asked.

Peterkin, eyes terrified, shook his head.

‘After the first death what could I do?’ he wailed. Peterkin rubbed his hands together, tears streaking his dirty face. ‘I was frightened, I was frightened. Where could I go to? Poor Peterkin!’ He beat his chest.

Corbett glanced at Ranulf and shook his head. Peterkin acted more stupid that he really was but what he said possessed its own logic. He was like a trained dog, governed by greed and fear, sent hither and thither on his master’s commands.

‘You’ll catch him.’

Mother Crauford glanced up at Corbett, who now got to his feet, tightening his war belt.

‘Oh, I’ll catch him. Like a bird in a net. And then I’ll hang him, Mother Crauford, on the scaffold outside Melford, like the cruel soul he is.’

Corbett walked to the door. He put his hands on the latch.

‘And now you know why I call this place Haceldema?’ she called after him.

‘Oh yes, Mother, I do.’

Corbett glanced back. Mother Crauford had dried her tears.

‘You had your suspicions from the start, didn’t you?’

Mother Crauford blinked away her cunning look.

‘Couldn’t you have done something?’ Corbett asked.

‘I am an old woman, clerk. I haven’t got a bullyboy.’ She plucked at her dusty gown. ‘I don’t carry sword and dagger. Nor can I produce the King’s Writ, with a piece of wax on the end, telling everyone to stand aside and bow their heads. You talk of help? How could I mumble my suspicions? Have you ever seen a woman burnt for witchcraft, Sir Hugh? Watched her old body hang above the flames whilst her eyes bubble and her skin shrivels like that of rotten fruit? Don’t act the preacher with me!’

Corbett smiled grimly and nodded in agreement. They went out to where Chanson was holding their horses. Corbett refused to answer Ranulf’s questions but swung himself into the saddle, riding ahead during their short journey up to the mill.

This time Corbett did not stand on ceremony. When Ralph the miller came out, shouting and gesticulating that he was a busy man, Corbett rapped out an order. Ranulf drew his sword and brought the flat of its blade down on the young man’s shoulder.

‘Keep a civil tongue in your head!’ the Clerk of the Green Wax warned. ‘My master has a terrible temper.’

Corbett swung himself out of the saddle, gave the reins to Chanson and pushed open the kitchen door. Ursula was standing by the fire. She was not fully dressed but wearing a dark-brown robe fringed with squirrel fur, tied round the waist by a cord. She didn’t look so pretty now, her face heavy-eyed with sleep. She pushed the hair away from her face.

‘I thought you were Molkyn,’ she said archly. ‘He used to come charging in like that.’

‘Molkyn’s dancing with the devil!’ Corbett snapped. ‘And what a dance it will be, eh, Ursula? Your husband was corrupt, a dishonest bullyboy, and those are just his petty crimes.’

‘What do you mean?’ Ursula’s face paled.

‘Why did you send Margaret to be Widow Walmer’s companion? To get her out of the house? Away from Molkyn?’

‘Why?’ she stuttered.

‘I’ve been to many towns and villages, Mistress. I have seen what happens to men who commit incest with their daughters, who abuse their own children! A sin which stinks in the eyes of God and man!’

‘How dare you?’

‘Oh, I dare,’ Corbett replied. He stared round the kitchen. ‘You are Molkyn’s second wife, aren’t you? How old was Margaret when Molkyn lurched into her bedchamber? Twelve, thirteen?’

‘How do you know all this? It’s a lie!’

‘Is it?’ Corbett asked. ‘Molkyn may have killed his first wife. He certainly abused his daughter and, when you married him, you stumbled on his little nest of hideous secrets. But you are a good woman, aren’t you, Ursula, behind the bold glance and pert reply? You protected Margaret. You warned Molkyn. Someone else learnt the miller’s secret. When Molkyn was chosen by that lazy, dishonest bastard Blidscote to sit on the jury and try Sir Roger Chapeleys, the time of retribution had arrived. Molkyn was blackmailed: find Chapeleys guilty or all of Melford would discover his secret sin.’

Corbett sat down on a chair at the table.

‘And what else was Molkyn told? Suspicions about his first wife’s death? Or that his second wife, pretty and winsome, had entertained Sir Roger on more than one occasion when Molkyn was away?’

Ursula swayed slightly on her feet. She went across to a cupboard and, opening it, splashed wine into a goblet. She drank it greedily, the drops running down her chin.

‘I wonder who knew,’ Corbett said. ‘For the first time in Molkyn’s life, he was trapped. Motivated by fear and the lust for vengeance, he hammered the nails into Sir Roger’s coffin, he and Thorkle.’

Ursula sat down and clutched the table.

‘It’s a pity Lucy isn’t here.’ Corbett rose and slammed the door shut. ‘She has a lot to hide as well, doesn’t she? Molkyn was told other secrets. How Lucy lusted after young Ralph, Molkyn’s son. Thorkle was more pliant. No man likes to be proclaimed a cuckold. Molkyn wanted Sir Roger’s death and he had been given information about Thorkle. I can imagine it happening. Do what I say, Molkyn would bully Thorkle, or they’ll be planting cuckold horns on you for as long as you live. I don’t think Thorkle would need much persuasion. He, like Molkyn and the rest, had no love for Sir Roger.’

‘You have no proof.’ Ursula tried to reassert herself.

‘Yes he does, Mother.’

Margaret, in a nightshift, a cloak about her, sandals in her hands, had crept quietly down the stairs to stand in the shadows. She came forward and crouched by the fire, stretching out her hands.

‘You are well, master clerk?’

She looked over her shoulder, her pale face lit by a smile. Her beauty looked fragile in the morning light, blonde hair cascading down to her shoulders.

‘When you first came here I thought you’d be back. The King’s crow, ready to pick at the rottenness in our lives. Oh yes, that’s what they call you,’ she smiled. ‘The King’s crow: dark-eyed and sharp-beaked, eh?’

She got to her feet and sat on the bench between Corbett and her mother.

‘Our Father who art in Heaven,’ she intoned. ‘Do you know what my idea of a father is?’ Margaret’s blue eyes filled with tears, lips quivered but she controlled herself. ‘What was your father like, Corbett? Did he come to tuck you into bed at night? My father joined me in mine. Molkyn with his big, burly body and heavy hands.’

‘And you confessed this?’ Corbett asked. He hid his own sorrow at the hurt in this young woman’s face.