Paul Doherty - Song of a Dark Angel

When he awoke the next morning, Ranulf and Maltote, still fully dressed, were lying on their beds looking, as Ranulf would have put it, as happy as pigs in a mire. Corbett opened the shutters. The wind had dropped, the mist had almost gone and he glimpsed an ice-blue sky. Rubbing his hands against the cold, he washed, shaved, dressed and went down to the buttery. The hour candle on its iron spigot made him realize how late he had slept, for the flame had already reached the tenth circle. Gurney came in, cheery-faced, stamping his feet and blowing his hands.

'Good morning, Hugh. Why do horses always give trouble in winter?'

He poured himself some mulled ale and hungrily snatched mouthfuls of bread and meat as he walked up and down the buttery. Alice came in with Selditch. They stood discussing the day's events, the atmosphere jovial because Monck had already gone walking.

'By himself as usual,' Gurney added wryly. 'Never have I met a man who liked his own company so much.' Then he put his tankard down as a clamour came from the front of the house. With a clatter of boots Catchpole came rushing into the buttery.

'Sir Simon!' Catchpole leaned against the door jamb to catch his breath. 'Sir Simon, Sir Hugh, you'd best come, now!'

'What's the matter?' Alice asked, her voice high.

Catchpole wiped the sweat from his face. 'I've been down to the village. They've caught Gilbert and his mother.'

'Oh, Lord save us!' Gurney grabbed his cloak and shouted at the servants to prepare the horses.

'What are they doing?' Corbett asked.

'They are pressing Gilbert to plead – the old way, under a heavy oaken door with weights on top.'

'And Gunhilda?'

'They have brought out the ducking stool.'

Gurney hurried from the buttery. Corbett went back to his own chamber. He put on his sword belt, boots and cloak, and looked despairingly at his two servants. They were still snoring their heads off. Corbett hurried down to join Gurney and Selditch who stood, booted and spurred, in the yard, shouting for their horses. They left the manor a few minutes later, accompanied by six of Gurney's burlier servants and thundered down the path towards the village.

The green in front of the tavern was full of people milling about. For a while all was confusion; mud, dung and even a few rocks were thrown at Gurney's party. Gurney's retainers, using the flats of their swords and their whips, eventually imposed order and forced their way through. The scene at the edge of the pond was terrible. Gilbert lay pinned beneath a heavy door on which boulders and iron weights had been placed. The flaxen-haired young man was semi-conscious, quietly moaning to himself. Fulke the tanner was kneeling beside him, shouting at him to confess. Further along, the villagers had rolled a massive tree trunk to the edge of the pond and, over this, slung a long pole with a small chair at one end. To this was strapped a pathetic old lady, tied like a sack of straw. Her ragged clothes were soaked, her long, grey hair slimed with pond water. A group of burly villagers, under Robert the reeve's direction, swung the poor woman in and out of the icy water whilst the crowd, women and children included, simply shouted: 'Confess! Confess! Confess!' 'This is murder!' Corbett shouted.

He strode over and pushed the reeve away. Behind him Gurney and the rest began to clear the weights and the heavy door from the prostrate young man.

'You have no authority here!' The reeve's face was ugly and red, swollen with anger and ale.

Corbett drew his sword.

'I am Sir Hugh Corbett, the king's representative here. And that woman will be tried only by due process of law!'

A low grumble of protest greeted his words. Emboldened, Robert the reeve took a step forward. Corbett, gripping the hilt two-handed, raised the sword.

'What are you going to do, Robert?' he said softly. 'Attack me?'

The reeve hastily stepped back.

'Bring the bitch in!' he shouted over his shoulder.

The ash pole was pulled back and the ducking stool lowered into the shallows at the edge of the pond. Corbett splashed up to it.

'Oh, Christ, have pity!' he breathed.

Gunhilda's dirty grey hair was clamped to her lined, seamed face. Corbett took one look at the heavy-lidded, half-open eyes and the sagging jaw and knew it was too late. He felt for the blood beat in her neck and her scrawny wrists, but there was not even a nutter. Drawing his dagger, he slashed the woman's bonds and took her up in his arms. She was as light as a child. He walked back up the muddy green.

'You bastards!' he roared.

The reeve quietly slunk away. Gurney and Catchpole came up.

'Corbett, what's the matter?'

'The old woman's dead!' Corbett answered. 'Murdered by these bastards!'

He walked on and placed the old woman's corpse on a table that stood outside the tavern. He arranged the body carefully, pulling the dirty skirts over vein-streaked, spindle-like legs. He listened once more for her heart beat.

'Dead from drowning or from shock.' He stared at Gurney. 'Either way, Sir Simon, this woman was murdered.'

Two of Gurney's men brought the blond young man towards him. Corbett went over to him, put his hand gently under his chin and raised his face. Gilbert was obviously slightly simple, slack-jawed and heavy-eyed. An ugly swelling had closed one eye and bloody bubbles frothed at the corner of his mouth. He was also a mass of bruises from head to toe.

Corbett took a wineskin from one of Gurney's retainers and forced it between the young man's lips.

'He is a murderer!' Robert the reeve shouted. With a throng of villagers behind him he had rediscovered his defiance.

Corbett glared at the reeve's fat, pompous face.

'You and your friends are murderers!' he shouted. 'Gunhilda is dead and her blood is on your hands!'

Gilbert's strangled moan echoed Corbett's words.

'This man,' Corbett shouted hoarsely, 'must be tried by the due process of law before the king's justices. He is now my prisoner.'

Father Augustine pushed his way through to the front of the crowd. Gurney, standing now beside Corbett, beckoned him forward.

'Father, couldn't you have stopped this?'

The priest's eyes flickered from Gurney to Corbett. He licked his thin, dry lips and stared shamefacedly down at the old woman's corpse.

'I tried to,' he muttered, 'but their blood lust was up. You can't blame them, Sir Hugh. Marina's corpse lies cold in my church. Who will answer for her death, eh?'

Gurney snapped his fingers at his retainers. 'Take the woman's corpse to the church. Father, I'll pay the burial dues.'

'And the young man?' Corbett nodded towards Gilbert, who was straining at his captor's arms and staring slack-mouthed at his mother's bedraggled body.

'Take him to the manor!' Gurney told his men. 'Get Master Selditch to tend his wounds!'

Corbett stared round at the villagers.

'The king and his court lie nearby at Walsingham. He will not be pleased to hear of this violence and disorder. And any person who lifts his hand against Gilbert puts himself beyond the king's peace.'

'Sir Hugh speaks the truth,' Gurney confirmed. 'A terrible evil stalks this place. More violent deaths have occurred in the last few months than in living memory. So, go! Disperse to your homes!'

They went. There was some grumbling from hot-heads, but already wiser minds were beginning to prevail. The crowd broke up, the women hustling their children back to their cottages, the men remembering that ploughing and harrowing had to be done. Gilbert was bundled into the saddle of one of the retainer's horses and a taciturn Gurney led them back to the manor house. Just before they entered the gates, he pulled his horse alongside Corbett.

'Hugh, I thank you.'

Corbett looked at him.

'I know what you are thinking,' Gurney said. 'Perhaps I should have shown more force, but these are my people. I held Marina at her baptism.'