Paul Doherty - Assassin in the Greenwood

The bed chamber was as tawdry as the rest of the castle. A great battered four-poster shrouded in thick serge curtains dominated the room. A long, iron-barred chest stood at the foot of the bed. There was a table, some stools, two other chests, and in a corner a stout oaken lavarium bearing a large pewter bowl. At the other side of the room was a trestle bed with a straw mattress and some woollen blankets.

'Lecroix slept there?' Corbett asked.

Branwood nodded. Corbett kicked aside the dirty rushes and stood in the centre of the room. It was a stark, almost monastic cell. The walls were plastered with lime and the only windows were three arrow slits in the far wall. Branwood lit a cheap oil lamp and handed it to Corbett, who went across to the bed and pulled back the curtains. The bed was dirty and stale, the bolster, sheets and blankets faded and grimed with dirt. Branwood was correct. Sir Eustace's neglect of himself was more than apparent. Corbett scrutinised the sheets, bolsters and blankets but smelt nothing except stale sweat and body odour. He then examined the goblet still containing a little wine but this, too, seemed harmless as did the few sweetmeats on a pewter plate in the middle of the table. The flies had been busy over them. Corbett summoned up his courage, closed his eyes and popped one into his mouth, chewing it carefully until its cloying sweetness became too much. He went over to one of the arrow-slit windows and spat it out, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.

'Ranulf! Maltote!' he ordered. 'Examine the rushes!'

Whilst they did this Corbett tested the water, now stale and laced with dirt.

'Master,' Ranulf called out, 'there's nothing amongst the rushes.'

Corbett stared bleakly at Branwood.

'You are right, Sir Peter. There s nothing here, so how was Vechey poisoned?'

'I am no physician. Maigret said the potion must have been powerful. Henbane, arsenic or foxglove.'

Corbett picked up the napkin from the lavarium, it bore finger marks and Corbett caught the odour of sugar and sweetmeats. He remembered the sores round Vechey's mouth.

'What happens, Ranulf, if you have scabs and wipe your mouth with a napkin?'

'The napkin often grazes them and the bleeding starts again.'

'Well, that napkin was definitely used by Vechey. There are blood specks on it.' Corbett waved his hands in exasperation. 'There's nothing here,' he murmured. 'God knows how Vechey was murdered.'

'Come,' Sir Peter called, almost jovially. 'Sir Hugh, you must be tired. Let me at least show you around the rest of the castle then perhaps you can rest.'

Corbett was about to refuse but realised such information would be necessary and they all followed Branwood as he led them up the three floors of the keep and on to the battlements. Sir Peter stood by the crenellations with Corbett half-listening as he described the rest of the castle. The clerk relished the cool breezes and enjoyed the beginning of a glorious sunset. Then something in Sir Peter's words caught his attention. Corbett followed the direction of Branwood's outstretched hand and stared north, beyond the crowded houses and streets of Nottingham, where the green sea of forest stretched as far as the eye could see.

'You see the problem, Sir Hugh? How can you hunt a man in such a vastness? Horsemen are useless, foot soldiers are terrified. There could be an army hidden there and you would not realise until you stumbled into a trap.'

'Does the outlaw use horses?'

Sir Peter smiled maliciously. 'Now that's the outlaw's weakness. A poor horseman, he much preferred to go on foot. Of course, amongst the trees a mounted soldier is useless.'

He then led Corbett and his party down through the three floors of the great keep, along dusty passageways, under arches where the stone was fretted in a dogtooth pattern, and out into the dusty baileys. In the inner bailey the makeshift execution platform was now being washed down. Beside it, the decapitated corpses of the criminals were being shoved into arrow chests, the tops nailed down before burial in one of the town cemeteries. A grey-haired woman keened beside one of these whilst the hard-bitten soldiers took the decapitated heads and fixed them on poles, as if they were pumpkins, to display along the castle walls.

Half-naked children played in the dust, impervious to the horrors around them. Farriers were busy, the fires of the smithies blowing hot and fierce, and the sound of hammer on anvil was deafening. Chickens scrabbled for corn, competing with the lean, dirty pigs. A group of castle women washed clothes in vats of greasy water whilst a small girl, armed with a wand, tried to impose order amongst a flock of geese alarmed by the snarling of one of the mastiffs. In the outer bailey soldiers were training in a half-hearted fashion until Naylor appeared when they set to vigorously against the quintains and stuffed figures fastened on poles.

The castle was a military stronghold circled by walls, the great keep its hub whilst the garrison and their families slept in rooms and outhouses built against the walls. It was well served: Corbett saw the fowl coops, the small rabbit warren, its burrows already covered with nets as the warrener hunted for fresh meat and a large dovecot standing on the outskirts of a small orchard. Although the garrison seemed busy and purposeful, Corbett sensed that the castle was under siege, as if the garrison dare not venture beyond the gates.

'How many soldiers do you have here?'

Branwood stopped and stared up at the red-gold sky.

'A full muster. One knight, five serjeants-at-arms led by Naylor, twenty mounted halberdiers, thirty foot and about the same number of archers.'

Corbett looked up at the castle wall where Sir Peter's pennant, three golden castles on a sarcenet background, snapped defiantly in the evening breeze.

'Do you think it is wise to enter the forest tomorrow?'

'As I have said,' Branwood snapped, 'I have no choice. I have to display defiance to the outlaw. But, come, I will show you the cellars.'

He led them back into the keep, through an iron-studded door and into dark, cavernous cellars, well above a man's height, which stretched under the floor of the keep. The cellars had small alcoves or recesses; two mangy cats hunted in their darkness as Sir Peter led them by hogsheads of wine, iron-hooped barrels of beer, sacks of grain and other supplies.

'You said there were secret entrances?' Corbett asked.

Sir Peter, who had taken a sconce torch from the wall, beckoned them over to an alcove, moved a sack of grain and showed them a trap door.

'As I have explained, the castle is built on a stone crag riddled with passageways and tunnels. This is one entrance but there could be others we do not know about.'

'Don't these make the castle vulnerable?'

'No. If a siege began these trap doors would be sealed.'

He led them back up the steps and ordered Naylor to show them their own chamber, saying he had other pressing duties to attend to.

Corbett ignored the polite snub. Naylor took them to their own room on the second floor of the keep, the same passageway as Sir Eustace's. The chamber was long, low and black-beamed but fairly clean. The hard stone floor was swept and laid with fresh rushes, some still green and supple. The sheets and blankets on the trestle beds were clean. There were chests and coffers, some with their locks unbroken, a table, one box chair, a bench and a number of stools. The walls had been freshly limewashed though rather hastily: the workmen covering the flies that had died there and barely disguising the scrawled picture of a lion drawn by some long gone artist. There were pegs for their clothes and a large black crucifix bearing the twisted, tortured figure of the dead Christ.

Once Naylor was gone, a servant brought up a wooden tray bearing a jug of cold ale and some cups. All three drank thirstily and then began to unpack the saddlebags. Corbett saw Maltote pick up his sword belt to throw on the bed.