Paul Doherty - Song of a Dark Angel

'What's that?' he asked.

The room fell silent. Then Corbett heard it too – a pounding on the outer gate and Ranulf's voice. Master Joseph hurried out. Nettler told the other Pastoureaux to stay where they were. Corbett, Gurney and Monck followed Master Joseph out. They hurried across the yard. Master Joseph unbarred the gate. Ranulf pushed him aside.

'Master!' he called. 'Sir Simon!'

'What's the matter, man?' Gurney snapped.

'One of your servants – a huntsman or a verderer – has found the body of a girl. She's been murdered!'

'Oh, Lord help us!' Master Joseph's face paled. 'Oh, God forfend that! Master Nettler, stay here!'

Gurney had already hurried on to where Father Augustine and the physician stood by their horses. With them was a man dressed in a dirty brown leather jacket and leggings pushed into high riding boots. Gurney turned to him.

'Thomas, what is it?'

The man turned. His usually tanned, bearded face was now pale, his eyes had a haunted look.

'Further along the moors I was out looking for poachers' snares. There's a girl's body.' The man hawked and spat. 'You'd best come and see!'

He took off in a long loping run, Master Joseph hurrying behind him. The rest collected their horses and followed. They travelled about a mile across the moor and there, in a dip in the land just before a small copse, lay the girl's corpse. Her brown robe was thrust back over her young breasts, her legs spreadeagled, her hose pulled down about her ankles. The physician dismounted and went over to study the corpse. Corbett went with him.

'She's been raped!' Selditch said as they knelt beside her. 'Look at the bruises on her thighs.'

Corbett glanced fleetingly, then turned his attention to the thin rope tight around the girl's neck. He used his knife to cut it loose. He brushed back the girl's long, lustrous, black hair with a gentle hand and stared pityingly at the pathetic face, mottled and bruised, a trickle of dried blood at the corner of the half-open mouth. The eyes were wide open, staring blindly into the gorse. Corbett looked over his shoulder at Master Joseph, who was staring, pallid-faced, down at the corpse.

'This is Marina, isn't it?'

Master Joseph nodded.

'Then God help her!' Corbett whispered. He forced the girl's eyes shut and pulled down the long robe to cover her nakedness.

Ranulf, standing behind him, said sadly, 'She must have been beautiful.'

'Aye,' Corbett replied. 'A terrible death for a lovely girl. Sir Simon, she has to be moved.'

Gurney nodded. Telling Thomas the huntsman to control the horses, which were becoming nervous at the smell of death, he walked over and knelt beside the girl. He turned her face towards him.

'About sixteen summers old,' he murmured. 'I remember her baptism. Her father, Fulke, will be beside himself with grief.'

Father Augustine, whose sorry nag had found it difficult to keep up with the rest, finally arrived. He dismounted, studied the corpse and swallowed hard. He pushed the cowl of his robe back, knelt down and whispered absolution into the girl's ear, sketching a blessing above her. He got to his feet, wiping the wetness off his robe.

'We have to take her home,' he said. 'Master Joseph, do you have a cart?'

The Pastoureaux leader nodded and hurried back towards the Hermitage. Corbett went over to where Selditch was taking a generous swig from Gurney's wineskin before passing it to Ranulf.

'Master physician,' he asked Selditch formally, 'the girl was raped and then garrotted?'

Selditch lowered the wineskin. 'Aye, that's bloody obvious.' His face softened. 'I'm sorry,' he muttered. 'But the girl was an angel.' He looked at Gurney. 'I'm not sure whether she was raped and then killed or whether she was first strangled and then brutally abused.' He turned and looked towards the mist-shrouded woods and back at Corbett. 'Whatever you are here for,' he said dully, 'find out the truth about this. For the devil's come to Hunstanton!'

Corbett looked up at Monck. The black-garbed clerk had neither dismounted nor made any attempt to approach the girl's body. His face was more pallid than usual and Corbett saw a muscle twitching high in his cheek. He went over and touched Monck's ungloved hand. It was cold as a block of ice.

'Lavinius?'

Monck just stared at the corpse.

'Lavinius!' Corbett hissed. He grasped the man's arm and squeezed it. 'Master Monck!'

Monck broke from his reverie and stared down at Corbett, as if seeing him for the first time. His lips curled.

'Piss off, you bastard!' he hissed.

Corbett's hand fell away. He stepped back, appalled at the fury blazing in Monck's eyes, and spread his hands in a I gesture of peace.

'She's dead!' Monck whispered hoarsely. 'She's dead! And there's nothing that bloody priest or the bloody Pastoureaux can do to bring her back!' And, tugging violently at the reins of his horse and digging his spurs in, he turned and rode off in the direction of the manor.

'Master!' Ranulf hurried over. 'Master, what's wrong?'

Corbett merely shook his head. 'It's nothing.' Corbett declared. 'Nothing at all.'

And then he recalled the stories he had heard about Monck tittle-tattle from the clerks in the chancery, fragments of gossip around the court.

'The man's mad!' Ranulf muttered.

'Perhaps.' Corbett replied.

Master Joseph came back, leading a donkey pulling a flat two-wheeled cart. Maltote and Ranulf placed the girl's body gently on the cart. Gurney sent the huntsman on into the village.

'Tell them what has happened,' he ordered. 'Father Augustine will take the body to the church.'

The sad little procession made its way back, the cart bumping and jolting along the trackway that led down to Hunstanton. They skirted the manor and, a short while later, entered the village. The main thoroughfare was broad and rutted. The cart jolted, giving a strange life to the corpse which lay sprawled under the blanket. As they entered Hunstanton, Corbett saw a small crowd gathering. The women and children were first, then men came running from the fields, their tunics and breeches stained and heavy with dark clay. Small boys, carrying the slings they used to drive away marauding crows, trotted behind. Corbett looked at their red, raw faces, bruised by the cold, salty wind. He felt a pang of compassion at the fear in their faces. They wordlessly gathered around the cart and looked askance at their lord. Gurney pulled his hood back, shook his head and dismounted. He raised his hand, stilling the low moans and muttered curses.

'Marina, God rest her,' he announced, 'has been foully murdered out on the moors. I swear, by God and the king, her murderer shall be found and hanged!'

'What was she doing there?' someone shouted.

The question went unanswered as a heavy, thickset man, an anxious-faced woman in tow, hurried up and pushed his way through to the cart. He took one look at the body and turned away, clutching his chest, his fingers pressing deeply into the leather apron he wore. He tried to stop his wife from seeing what he had seen, but the woman struggled free and stood for a long moment looking down at the body. Then she slumped on to the cobbles beside the cart, mouth open, and gave the most wretched cry Corbett had ever heard. 'My baby!' she moaned. 'Oh no, not my Marina!' The cry was all the more pathetic in its thick rustic burr. She began to bang her head against the wheel of the cart. Her husband tried to raise her to her feet but again she fought free of him, the hood slipping back from her wispy, grey hair. She flung herself at Gurney, grasping his robe.

'Who would do it?' she cried. 'Who would do that?'

Her terrible sobbing stilled all clamour. Gurney looked at her husband.

'It is Marina?'

The man nodded, tears streaming down his face. 'I want justice, my lord,' he whispered. 'You shall have it.'