Paul Doherty - Spy in Chancery

'Be on your guard,' the King bleakly commented, 'the traitor could well be one of your companions. You are to find him, Master Corbett, trap him in his filth!'

'Shall I arrest him, your Grace?'

'If possible,' came the bland reply, 'but, if that is not feasible, kill him!'

Corbett shuddered and stared round the quiet, sombre church. He had come to pray and yet plotted death. He heard a sound at the back of the church and wearily rose. Ranulf would be waiting for him: the English clerk genuflected towards the solitary flickering sanctuary lamp and walked slowly down the nave.

Corbett breathed deeply, slowly, he wished to remain calm, even though he was certain there was someone in the church, lurking in the darkness, watching him.

The day after Corbett's visit to Notre Dame, the English envoys had sufficiendy recovered from the ordeal at sea to begin their journey, following the coast down to the Somme before turning south to Paris. They had brought their own horses and baggage across, a cumbersome trail of animals carrying supplies for my lords the Earls of Richmond and Lancaster, not to mention the clerks, scribes, cooks, cursors, bailiffs, priests and doctors. There was no obvious distinction in degree or status, the biting cold weather and shrill, sharp winds ensured everyone was wrapped in thick brown cloaks.

Now there was the usual chaos outside the small monastery they had lodged in after leaving the port, horses were saddled, two needed a farrier, one was lame, another had sores on its back; girths, bridles and stirrups were checked, broken or damaged ones repaired before clothing, manuscripts and other baggage were loaded noisily on to them alongside provisions purchased at exorbitant prices from sly-eyed merchants. The calm of the monastery courtyard was shattered by cries, shouted orders, curses and the angry neighs of nervous, highly-strung horses. A number of mongrels wandered in to share and spread the confusion, only to be chased away by an irate, stick-wielding lay brother.

Corbett sat on a ruined bench in the corner of the courtyard and morosely watched the chaos. The shouts and curses would have drowned the cries of the damned in hell; Corbett stared up at the huge tympanum carved above the monastery church door where, etched eternally in stone, the damned hanged by their bellies from trees of fire while more smothered in furnaces, their hands across their mouths, their stone eyes staring through plumes of smoke; Christ in judgement held the saved in his hands while the wicked were swallowed by monstrous fish, some gnawed by demons, tormented by serpents, fire, ice or tormented by fruits forever hanging out of reach of their starving maws. Corbett morosely concluded such terrors were nothing compared to the experience of being sent across the channel in freezing winter on an English embassy to France.

'Master Corbett,' the clerk groaned and got up as his servant, Ranulf, shoved his way through the crowded courtyard, the man's red hair glowing like a beacon above his white, anxious face. Corbett had saved Ranulf from the gallows some ten years before, now he was the clerk's faithful steward and companion, at least superficially, for Corbett knew Ranulf atte Newgate had a powerful interest in bettering himself at the expense of everyone else, Corbett included. Ranulf could lie, cheat and betray with a skill which constantly astonished and amused the clerk while Ranulf's pursuit of other men's wives would, Corbett privately maintained, bring his servant to a violent and sudden end.

Now, Ranulf was acting the role of the agitated, concerned servant, slyly hoping he could disturb his secretive, solemn master.

'It's Blaskett!' Ranulf said breathlessly. 'He says we are ready to leave soon and asks if your baggage is packed and loaded?' Blaskett was the pompous, arrogant peacock of a steward in the Earl of Lancaster's household. A man who loved authority and all its show like other men loved gold.

'Is our baggage loaded, Ranulf?' Corbett asked.

'Yes.'

'And are we ready to leave?'

'Yes.'

'Then why not tell my lord Blaskett!' Ranulf stared like a man who had just received a great secret, nodded and, turning on his heel, bustled back into the monastery to continue his malicious baiting of the pigeon-breasted Blaskett.

The English embassy departed just as the monastery bells were booming out for Terce; the French escort were waiting for them outside the monastery gate, a pursuivant of Philip's court, resplendent in scarlet and black, three nondescript clerks and two knights in half-armour, their sleeveless jerkins covering breastplates displaying the blue and gold of the royal French household. They were accompanied by a number of mounted men-at-arms, rough looking veterans, wearing boiled leather jerkins, steel breastplates and thick woollen serge leggings pushed into stout riding-boots. Corbett watched Lancaster and Richmond talk to the knights, documents were exchanged and, with the mounted escort strung out on either side of them, the English embassy continued its journey.

The Normandy countryside was flat, brown and still in the mailed fist of winter. Some hardy peasants, their russet cloaks belted around them, felt hats pulled over their eyes, attempted to break the ground for sowing: behind them, their families, women, even small children worked scattering marle, lime or manure to fertilise the soil. To Corbett, who had witnessed the ravages of war on the marcher counties during King Edward's Welsh wars, the land seemed prosperous enough. Nevertheless, he remembered the saying of Jacques of Vitry, 'what the peasant gains by stubborn work in a year, the lord will devour in an hour'. Justice was harsh, the lords of the manor in their walled, moated homes of wood and stone, exercised more justice than they did in England and every crossroad had its scaffold or stocks.

The villages were a collection of cottages, each with a small garden surrounded by a hedge and shallow ditch but Corbett was particularly struck by the number of towns, some old but others only in existence for decades; each was walled, the houses clustered around an abbey, cathedral or church. Sometimes the English stayed in one of these places, such as Noyon and Beauvis, where there was a welcoming priory or tavern spacious enough to host them. On other occasions, a variety of manors, royal or otherwise, were compelled to accept them. The French knights would flaunt their warrants, demanding purveyance which obliged the hapless lord or steward to feed the envoys and their entourage. Nevertheless, despite such hospitality, Corbett and his colleagues were left well alone by their French escort who treated them in a sullen, off-hand manner. On reflection, Corbett was not surprised, a state of armed truce existed between France and England with every indication that both countries might soon slip into war.

Corbett soon tired of the endless, daily tasks and problems of travelling though men like Blaskett thrived on them. The little things, the chatter, the gossip, who sat where, who was due what monies, it sounded glorious to be sent on an embassy to France: Corbett knew many of his colleagues would seize and enhance such an opportunity, forgetting the sores on their arses and thighs from constant riding, the rat-infested hostels, the rancid meat and sour wine which turned their bowels to water and the journey into a nightmare. The company of the great was no consolation, Lancaster was mean, sour-mouthed and taciturn: Brittany was conscious of his own importance, was eager to forget his recent military expedition to Gascony which had made him the laughing stock of the English court. The clerk, Waterton, seemed an amiable fellow, but he kept to himself except where women were concerned, almost rivalling Ranulf in sexual prowess. Corbett often heard the sounds of revelry at night, the slap of hand on some wench's soft bottom, the giggles, screams and cries of lovemaking.