Paul Doherty - The Treason of the Ghosts

‘A strange place to gather.’ Burghesh broke the silence. ‘Couldn’t we have met elsewhere?’

‘It’s cold,’ Robert Bellen complained.

The curate sat hunched in one of the chairs almost obscured by the great central pillar which supported the roof.

‘The place reeks of death.’ Walter Blidscote, the plump, red-faced, balding bailiff of Melford shook his head so vigorously his jowls quivered: his numerous chins pressed down against the military cloak which swaddled him like a blanket does a baby.

‘A good place for justice.’ The young, blond-haired Sir Maurice spoke up. He had thrown his cloak on to the ground and sat slightly forward, tapping his gloves against his knee. He shuffled his feet impatiently as if he expected the royal emissary to hold court there, and then declare his dead father innocent.

‘Who built it?’ Corbett asked. He walked round the circular-shaped crypt, stooping to look into the coffin ledges. ‘I have never seen the like of this.’

‘There used to be an old Saxon church here,’ Grimstone explained. ‘It was pulled down in the reign of the second Henry. This used to be a burial place. They built the present church over it. The coffins are those of the previous parsons though the practice of burying them here has now stopped.’ He laughed abruptly. ‘I will join the rest out in the cemetery.’

‘Why did you ask to meet here?’ Burghesh demanded. ‘You can see Parson Grimstone is not well.’

‘For two reasons.’ Corbett sat down on a chair. He moved an oil lamp on the ledge behind him and placed his gloves beside it. ‘As you know, I am lodged at the Golden Fleece where, I suspect, the walls have ears.’ He smiled with his lips though his eyes remained hard. ‘Secondly, I wanted to view the corpse. By the way, why is that placed here and not in the church?’

‘It’s the custom,’ Grimstone sighed. ‘This is our death house. The poor girl was found last Monday. Her corpse was brought into the church yesterday evening. Tomorrow morning it will be placed before the rood screen. I will sing the Requiem Mass and the burial will take place immediately afterwards.’

‘It’s certainly a dour place.’

Corbett scratched his head. He licked dry lips. He would have preferred to be back at the Golden Fleece. He, Ranulf and their groom, Chanson, had arrived mid-morning, just as the church bells were tolling the Angelus. Blidscote had been waiting in the taproom. Corbett suspected he had drunk more than was good for him. The clerk had insisted on viewing the corpse as well as questioning certain people more closely. He would have preferred Burghesh to be elsewhere but Parson Grimstone was in a dither. He’d insisted that his friend accompany him from the spacious, well-furnished priest’s house behind the church.

‘Why has a King’s clerk, the keeper of the Secret Seal,’ Blidscote now spoke carefully, trying to remove the drunken slur from his words, ‘decided to grace this market town?’

‘Because the King wants it!’ Corbett snapped. ‘Melford may be a market town, master bailiff, it’s also the haunt of murder — brutal deaths which go back years. What is it today?’ He squinted across the chamber. ‘The Feast of St Edward the Confessor, October the thirteenth, the year of Our Lord 1303. Five years ago,’ he pointed across at Sir Maurice, ‘his father, Lord Roger Chapeleys, was hanged on the common scaffold outside Melford for the murder of those maidens and a rather rich young widow. What was her name?’

‘Goodwoman Walmer,’ Sir Maurice replied.

‘Ah yes, Goodwoman Walmer. Sir Maurice was only fourteen years of age but, since he reached his sixteenth year,’ Corbett smiled at the young manor lord, ‘he has sent letter after letter into the royal chancery, stoutly maintaining his father’s innocence, that a terrible miscarriage of justice has taken place. Now the King could do little. Lord Roger was tried by a jury before Louis Tressilyian. Evidence was produced, a verdict of guilty brought. The King could see no grounds for a pardon so sentence was carried out.’

‘My father was innocent!’ Sir Maurice shouted. ‘You know that.’ He pointed threateningly at Grimstone.

‘How do I know that?’ the parson retorted.

‘Before he was hanged,’ Sir Maurice found it difficult to speak, ‘you shrived him. You heard his last confession. Did he confess his sin?’

‘I cannot tell you what was said under the seal of confession.’

‘You can tell us what wasn’t said,’ Corbett declared.

‘You told me!’ Sir Maurice shouted.

‘It’s true. It’s true.’ Grimstone rubbed his hands together. ‘Sir Roger did not confess to any murder.’

‘He was held here, wasn’t he?’ Corbett asked, staring round the crypt.

‘Yes,’ Grimstone confirmed. ‘This sometimes serves as a prison. There is only one entrance, which can be heavily guarded. I did hear Sir Roger’s confession but, you must remember, he was held here for two weeks pending his plea for a pardon from the King. He was also visited by an itinerant friar. He may have confessed-’

‘Enough,’ Corbett declared. ‘Let us move to the present, to October 1303. In the summer of this year, a young peasant woman was found murdered. Three days ago,’ he gestured at the coffin, ‘another victim was slain in the same way by a garrotte, as were Goodwoman Walmer and the other victims five years ago.’ He gestured to the bailiff. ‘What did the locals call the assassin?’

‘The Jesses killer,’ Blidscote replied. ‘When one of the victims was killed, a local poacher, Furrell, was in the vicinity. He was frightened and hid, said it was pitch-dark. He heard the girl scream followed by the tinkling of bells, like those attached to the claws of a falcon or hawk.’

‘And where is this Furrell?’ Corbett asked.

‘Disappeared,’ Blidscote replied. ‘No one knows where he went. Some people claim he ran away. Others that, drunk as usual, he stumbled into one of the mires or swamps. There are enough of those in the woods around Melford.’

‘He was probably murdered!’ Sir Maurice explained. ‘He was the only one who claimed my father was innocent.’

‘Now, why should he do that?’ Corbett asked.

‘I don’t know. He disappeared shortly after the trial.’

‘Did he speak on your father’s behalf in court?’

Sir Maurice flailed his hand. ‘Furrell was a vagabond, more drunk than sober. He slept out in the ruins at Beauchamp Place. Who’d give credence to his story? He proclaimed his views in court and the Golden Fleece. He said my father never fled along Gully Lane the night Goodwoman Walmer was murdered.’

‘Yes, but your father,’ Blidscote spoke up, ‘did admit to visiting Goodwoman Walmer that evening. Sir Roger must have passed Gully Lane on his way home.’

‘Are you saying my father is guilty?’ Sir Maurice sprang to his feet.

‘Hush now!’ Corbett ordered.

‘Well, are you?’ Sir Maurice advanced threateningly on the bailiff.

Ranulf-atte-Newgate slipped quietly across the room and put his hand on the young man’s shoulder.

‘I suggest you sit down,’ he smiled. ‘If my master says something, it’s best if you obey.’ He pressed hard. Maurice’s fingers went to the hilt of his dagger. ‘Don’t do that.’ Ranulf shook his head. ‘I beg you, sir, please!’

Sir Maurice stared into those slightly slanted green eyes and swallowed hard. Corbett he found daunting but this fighting man, smelling of a slight fragrance, mixed with horse sweat and leather, and those green eyes which smiled yet held his unblinkingly. . Sir Maurice breathed in deeply and retook his seat. Only then did he notice Ranulf pushing the throwing dirk back into the leather sheath beneath his wrist.