Paul Doherty - The Demon Archer

‘By the time you returned, the hunters and verderers were too far ahead of you and, because they lacked your skill, your discipline, the deer were driven too fast into Savernake Dell. When you reached the dell you realised something terrible had happened. You knew you could be accused, as indeed, Sir William did, so you fled.’ Corbett paused. ‘Not home, because you knew Alicia wasn’t there and what was the use of putting yourself in danger? So you fled into the forest, didn’t you?’

‘You are in God’s house,’ Brother Cosmas’ harsh voice commanded. ‘And in his sanctuary.’ He pointed to the silver pyx. ‘Beneath the appearance of bread, the Lord Jesus dwells among us. I have given you sanctuary, taken you as a guest.’ His voice became softer. ‘Not because of the law of the church, Robert, but because I believe you. Where was Alicia?’

Ranulf was now walking up and down like a man taken by shock.

‘Where was your daughter? Had she taken a horse?’

Verlian just blinked. He was now staring at Ranulf.

‘Had she taken a bow and arrow?’ Corbett added. ‘Alicia is the daughter of the verderer. She can draw and loose. Hadn’t she once threatened Lord Henry with that?’

Verlian opened his mouth to reply.

‘Don’t lie,’ Corbett warned him. ‘If you lie, Robert, I cannot help you or your daughter. So, don’t say you didn’t know where she was. Alicia has visited you here. You must have asked her and she must have told you.’

‘Tell them, Father!’

Alicia, shrouded in a brown cloak, stood at the entrance in the rood screen; in her hand she carried a linen bundle tied with a piece of string. She pulled back her hood and glanced quickly at Ranulf, who blushed and looked away.

‘I’ve brought you some oatmeal cakes, Father.’ She thrust these into the Franciscan’s hand. ‘You can share them with whoever you wish.’ She went and crouched beside her father, put a protective arm round his shoulders and stared defiantly at Corbett. ‘You are a dangerous man, Sir Hugh. You know they are talking about you at the Devil-in-the-Woods. How you sit and brood like a cat.’

Corbett smiled. ‘In which case, mistress, you have nothing to fear from me. I am the King’s cat. I only hunt those who disturb his barns.’

‘My father is frightened. He’s a verderer, Sir Hugh, and a good one.’ She gently stroked her father’s hair. ‘He’s used to the forest. The people who live there; the animals, their tracks, their secret pathways. And then, in what must have been the twinkling of an eye, his lord turns to lechery and that lord is killed.’

Verlian raised his head, his cheeks soaked in tears.

‘What could I do?’ he pleaded. ‘If I was turned out where could I go? I was born in these parts, sir! Ashdown is my world, my life.’

‘And you know that, master clerk, don’t you?’ Alicia demanded. ‘You are a cat, you sit and you think.’

‘So, you’ve visited the Devil-in-the-Woods tavern again?’ Corbett asked.

‘I did this morning.’ Alicia didn’t look at Ranulf. ‘I wanted to see someone but he’d already left. One of the pot boys, however, said that he woke long before dawn. It’s his job to kindle the fire. You, Sir Hugh, were already in the taproom, wrapped in a cloak, contemplating the white ash in the grate as if you had been there all night.’

‘I need little sleep.’ Corbett held her gaze. ‘I came down and read some letters. I studied a Book of Hours but I could make little sense of it. I sat and brooded about Lord Henry’s death and your father, whom I now wish to question. I wondered why the hunt had gone wrong? Why he took so long to return? Why he didn’t flee back to your house?’

‘And what else did you think?’

‘I will tell you that, mistress, when you tell me where you were.’

‘There’s a cemetery behind this church. My mother lies buried there. It’s the one place in this forest I felt safe from Lord Henry and his henchmen. I took a horse, a small palfrey, and I rode there. I collected some wild flowers, left the horse at the lych-gate and put the flowers on my mother’s grave. I sat and talked to her for a while.’ Alicia ignored her father’s muted sobs.

‘And afterwards?’

‘I left the cemetery and rode back to our house but I did so slowly. I wondered what Father and I should do for the future. By the time I reached Ashdown, isn’t it strange, master clerk, the future had been decided for me. Lord Henry was dead and my father was in flight.’

‘And do you often take a bow and a quiver of arrows to your mother’s grave?’

Alicia’s face suffused with rage.

‘Yes!’ she hissed through clenched teeth. ‘And I tell you this, clerk, if I had met Lord Henry on the way, I would have put an arrow in his heart!’ Her eyes glittered with hatred. ‘But God disposes and someone else did that!’

Corbett rose from his stool. ‘Brother Cosmas, I thank you for your help. Sir William’s soldiers will be arriving soon. .’

‘Master!’

Corbett felt Ranulf touch his sleeve. If Alicia’s face was red with anger, Ranulf’s was white. He was gnawing the corner of his lips, his fingers tapping the dagger in his belt.

‘Master, a word with you?’

Corbett bowed coolly to the rest and followed Ranulf out of the sanctuary to a small side chapel dominated by a large statue of the Virgin and Child. Ranulf thrust his face close to Corbett.

‘Why didn’t you tell me about this?’ He tapped the side of his head. ‘Your brain clatters and turns like a wheel of a busy mill. I may be your servant but I am also a Clerk of the Green Wax: the King’s commission bears my name.’

Corbett went round him and, taking a taper, lit one of the small night-lights on the iron rail which ran beneath the statue of the Virgin.

‘One for Maeve,’ he murmured. He took another. ‘One for baby Eleanor! One for my unborn child.’ He took a fourth and put a coin in the box which, he noticed with some amusement, was cemented into the floor near the statue. ‘And one for my lovelorn Ranulf!’

‘I do not think it’s amusing, Sir Hugh!’

‘Murder never is, Ranulf. I didn’t tell you because I knew.’ He came back to his clerk. ‘I knew,’ he continued, lowering his voice, ‘what you would do. But, yes, I sat in the taproom this morning. I thought about Verlian, the hunt, his later flight. It’s a matter of logic, Ranulf. Sometimes, God forgive me, love and logic clash. I am no threat to you or to Alicia. But murder is murder. The King’s law is the King’s law. Justice must be done: that’s why you are a Clerk of the Green Wax, to enforce that. Otherwise we are no better than the animals in the forest where only the swiftest and most powerful survive.’

‘Lord Henry was powerful.’

‘And, Ranulf, Lord Henry was vulnerable. Think about it. If a great lord can be cut down with impunity, no matter what he was, or what he did, then no one is safe. You know that, be he a lord in his manor or a clerk on the streets of Oxford.’

Ranulf smiled ruefully.

‘But you do not think Alicia is the assassin?’

‘I’ll be honest, Ranulf, I don’t know.’ Corbett ticked the points off on his fingers. ‘She hated the Lord Henry. She was in the forest when he died. She was riding a horse. She carried a bow and quiver in the use of which she is skilled. Finally, there are no witnesses to where she was or what she did. So, like it or not, at this stage of the hunt, Mistress Alice is much suspected but nothing is proved.’

He looked over his shoulder; Brother Cosmas was now standing over the verderer and his daughter. Corbett gently pushed Ranulf deeper into the shadows of the side chapel.

‘There’s more to this forest and its people than meets the eye.’