Paul Doherty - Prince of Darkness

Corbett smiled.

'I'd not forgotten, Ranulf. However, as Scripture says, "Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof." Let's fid our bellies and try the ale.' Corbett looked slyly at Maltote. 'And, who knows, you may teach Ranulf the finer points of dicing!'

Laughing and joking, they pushed their way into the tavern's huge taproom, choosing a table near the great roaring fire. Corbett shouted for jacks of ale, demanding they be served the landlord's best

'None of your watered stuff!' he shouted. 'Or I'd have the ale-masters down here!'

The landlord, a thin ashpole of a man, completely bald except for a stray lock of hair which constantly drooped over his eyes, wiped his greasy hands on a dirty apron, served them and scurried off. Corbett tasted the thick heady ale, pronounced himself satisfied and leaned forward.

'Thank God we are free of Godstowe,' he murmured.

'Do you know what happened, Master?' Ranulf asked anxiously. 'Which one of those well-fed bitches is the murderess?'

'It's more complex than that, Ranulf.' Corbett sipped from his blackjack. 'On Sunday the eighth of September, Lady Eleanor Belmont was murdered in her chamber. Her neck was broken without any sign of a struggle and there are no reports of any intruders. The good sisters,' he looked sardonically at Ranulf, 'whom you just referred to, were all in church. Lady Eleanor was seen alive when the Nuns of Syon were all in public view of each other, just before Compline.' Corbett paused. 'This includes all those who knew her well: the Lady Prioress, the two Sub-prioresses, and our comely Dame Agatha. They all sang their psalms and went to the refectory. Afterwards, the Prioress, anxious about Lady Eleanor, went to her chamber but found the woman murdered.' He threw a quizzical look at Ranulf. 'The corpse was then moved to the foot of the stairs to make it look like an accident.'

Ranulf swilled the beer around in his tankard.

'So, the murderer or murderess must have been an outsider?'

'Yes,' Corbett answered. 'Father Reynard was a suspect but I now know he was busy riding to Woodstock. Anyway, the poor man's dead and beyond suspicion.'

'Gaveston could have sent assassins.'

'True. But as I have said, any outsiders would have been noticed. The porter, drunk as he always is, would have raised the alarm. Anyway, why should Gaveston or the Prince do that? I have just discovered that Gaveston was probably poisoning the Lady Eleanor with a slow but subtle potion.' Corbett rubbed his chin against the palm of his hand. 'Yet that too, raises problems. If Gaveston was sending these powders, killing the Lady Eleanor by degrees, surely the poison should eventually have worked? So if Gaveston was already trying to murder Lady Eleanor, why would he abruptly change his methods?'

'But,' Ranulf interrupted, 'if the Lady Eleanor was not murdered by any of the good sisters… if she was not murdered by Gaveston, if no one stole across the priory walls, what did happen?'

Corbett shook his head.

I don't know. Riders were seen in the forest the day Eleanor Belmont died.' He shrugged. 'But I can see no connection between their presence and the lady's death.' He grinned at Maltote, who was staring at him open-mouthed. 'There are other mysteries,' he continued. 'What were the identities of the young man and woman killed near Godstowe some eighteen months ago?'

Ranulf smacked his lips and placed his tankard on the table.

I can help you there,' he said. 'The tavern wench at The Bull told me how the landlord glimpsed the young lady and her companion riding through Godstowe.'

Corbett nodded.

'Yes, you told me that. Did he see anything else?'

'One further tiring I have learnt from the wench. The landlord claimed a well-dressed young man also passed through the village about the same time. He walked his horse outside the tavern but left Godstowe just before the young woman and man were seen.

'Didn't you learn anything more?' Corbett snapped. 'A description, further details?'

'Master, I went back time and again.' Ranulf shrugged. 'It was the same story, glimpses, nothing else.'

He looked at Corbett's troubled face.

'Master, let's go back to Lady Eleanor's death. If the murderer was not from Godstowe, and any normal outsider would have been noticed, perhaps there's a third possibility?'

'Such as?'

'A professional assassin who climbed the walls and murdered the woman without anyone catching sight of him.'

Corbett leaned back on the bench and stared up at the smoke-blackened beams. Ranulf was right If all the nuns were in Compline, if no one was spotted stealing over the convent walls, then the only logical conclusion was a professional assassin. Was this the de Montfort murderer, killing Lady Eleanor to embarrass the English crown? Or was the assassin sent by the King, his son, Gaveston, or even the French?

Ranulf coughed.

'Of course, Master, there is one final explanation.' 'Which is?'

'That the Lady Amelia is a liar. She could have gone to Lady Eleanor, murdered her, and then moved the body downstairs.'

Corbett nodded. Ranulf's theory made sense. Lady Eleanor would have opened the door to her Prioress.

'Or,' Ranulf grinned, 'perhaps the ancient ones, Dame Elizabeth and Dame Martha – maybe they are not as innocent as you think. The same could apply to one of the Sub-prioresses.'

Corbett smiled. Ranulf was correct So many suspects, yet so few answers. He let the conversation drift. Ranulf teased Maltote about his love life while Corbett ordered the evening meal: roasted capons stuffed with herbs, hare cooked in wine, and a dish of vegetables, leeks and onions smattered with garlic and thyme. They were half-way through their meal when the landlord appeared in the middle of the room, shouting: 'Master Corbett! Is there a Hugh Corbett here?'

The noise in the taproom stilled for a moment, even the fanners in the comer drunkenly arguing about the price of wheat; two harridans from the town shrieking at each other over an upturned barrel; and a group of young bloods, garishly dressed in costly silks, noisily roistering before a night out on the town. Corbett rose and beckoned the fellow over.

'There's a boy outside,' the landlord said. 'He has a message for you.' 'From whom?'

The fellow wiped his dripping nose on the back of his hand.

'By St Paul's, I'm a taverner not a messenger! The urchin simply said he had a message which he must give only to you.'

'Then bring him in.'

'He says he's afeared.' The landlord turned and spat into the dirty rushes. 'For God's sake, man, he's just outside the door!'

Corbett shrugged, told Ranulf and Maltote to keep the flies off his food and went out. In the gathering dusk he saw the boy, his back to him, staring down the darkening street

'What is it, lad?'

The boy turned. Corbett couldn't make his features out because of the hood pulled over his head. He saw the pig's bladder lying at the boy's feet, very similar to the one he had seen two children playing with on Holborn thoroughfare. The boy turned and Corbett suddenly sprang back. The long, thin stiletto missed his stomach by inches.

'Who are you?' Corbett whispered, backing away. 'What is it, boy?'

He was defenceless. He had left his sword belt and dagger in the tavern. He could hardly believe a young boy of no more than ten or eleven could be playing such a deadly game. The small, cowled figure shuffled towards him. Again the knife snaked out Corbett caught the boy by the wrist and gasped in surprise at his strength. He shoved his would-be assassin away and, as he did so, the hood fell back and Corbett stood transfixed in fear. No boy but a manikin, a midget of a man. Corbett had never seen such evil in someone so small: black hair slicked back against the head like the ears of a wet rat; tiny, soulless eyes and a face as twisted and as sour as a rotten apple. To his left Corbett heard a slithering on the cobbles. He glanced over and his heart jumped into his throat. A second small figure now crept out of the darkness and started to edge towards him. Corbett glimpsed the arbalest in the midget's hand and, in the poor light, the shimmering sharpness of the lethal bolt waiting to be tired.