Paul Doherty - Prince of Darkness

'Hugh! Hugh!'

Corbett looked up. Maeve stood in the doorway, one of his cloaks wrapped about her. Despite his anxieties, he was struck by her beauty: the silver hair, the skin which glowed like burnished gold in the candle light, and those blue- violet eyes now heavy with sleep.

'What are you staring at, man?' she asked.

'You know what I am looking at,' he murmured.

He rose and snuffed out the candles and led her back into the bed chamber.

'Hugh, what are you doing?' Maeve struggled free and faced him gravely. 'For God's sake, it's the middle of the night! I awake and find my bed cold and you gone.' She smiled, letting her cloak drop to the floor, and put her arms round his waist. 'The King's letter, isn't it? The business at Godstowe?'

He took a deep breath.

'Yes, and tomorrow I must go there. As soon as Ranulf returns.'

She made him sit down on the edge of the bed beside her.

'The woman was murdered, wasn't she?' Corbett nodded. 'Yes, I fear so.' 'And the King will be held responsible?' Corbett rubbed his face in his hands. 'Yes, I mink he will. If a scandal breaks, God knows what will happen.' He took her hand in his.

'For forty years, Maeve, there has been no civil war in England. Yet the Lady Eleanor's death could cause one.'

She shivered and rolled under the thick coverlets.

'Hugh,' she murmured, 'you will not solve it now, in the middle of the night!'

He smiled bleakly.

'Perhaps there will never be a solution, not even in the full light of day.'

Ranulf-atte-Newgate, body servant to Hugh Corbett, turned his horse on to the sun-baked track which led round to Leighton Manor just as the bell of the village church tolled the Angelus. He turned and watched the labourers bent low in the fields gathering the stooks of corn and placing them in great two-wheeled carts. He heard the sound of their laughter, a woman singing a lullaby to a child held at her breast; now and again, carried on the breeze, the shouts of children playing on the banks of a brook as their busy parents gathered in the harvest

Ranulf had been up to London on his master's business in the Chancery as well as calling on certain goldsmiths in the Poultry. He had also visited his son, the glorious offspring of one of his affairs. Ranulf was pleased that the boy was looking more like him as every day passed: the same, spiked reddish hair, generous mouth, freckled face, snub nose and cheeky green eyes, sharp as a cat's. The child had been born months earlier in the depths of winter and Corbett had persuaded Ranulf to give him to some foster-parents in Threadneedle Street. Ranulf had agreed but then changed his mind, taken him back, and promptly lost his son in a tavern. A saucy, heavy-bosomed wench had caught his eye, Ranulf had put the baby down, went to take his pleasure then walked home, forgetting about the little bundle he had entrusted to the tavern-keeper's wife. On Corbett's advice he had subsequently returned the child to his heart-broken foster-parents.

'A good decision,' Ranulf murmured to himself.

He loved the boy but never could remember where he had left him last A squirrel chattered, a bird flew out of a gorse bush. Ranulf's hand went towards his dagger. He felt uneasy in the countryside, missed the city and wished that Corbett would return to their house in Bread Street, but his master's new wife, Maeve, had changed all that. Ranulf groaned to himself. He lusted after most women. In fact, Ranulf found any women of whatever degree or age attractive, if not for seducing, then as a useful target for his good-natured bantering or teasing.

Maeve-app-Llewellyn was different Ranulf feared her. Those chilling blue eyes which seemed to be able to read his every thought; her shrewd management of his master's affairs, be it buying a field or placating that old grey granite-faced King. When Maeve was there Hugh seemed to relax, even smile. Ranulf stirred, easing his aching backside as he urged his horse through the manor gates. She had changed Corbett Oh, his master was still secretive and withdrawn, but more even-tempered, cooler and more calculating. On previous occasions Corbett had worked in the Chancery, accepting individual assignments for the old King. Now all that had changed. Corbett acted as if he loved the intrigue, building up a system of spies which stretched like some huge net from Rome to Avignon, Paris, Lille, Edinburgh and Dublin.

Ranulf reigned in his horse and listened to the sound of the woodland as Maeve had urged him to. He shook his head. He would give a gold piece to hear the sound of the hucksters and coster-mongers of London, the lusty shouts of the apprentices and the raucous bawling of stall-holders. He looked around him. There was too much space here, the air was too fresh and the prospect of hard work imminent. There were no soldiers for Ranulf to draw into a game with his loaded dice or crooked chequer-board. No pretty girls to make eyes at and, above all, no Mistress Sempler, the voluptuous young wife of an ageing woolsmith.

Ranulf smiled like the cat who has drunk the cream. He had spent a pleasant time the previous evening consoling the good lady during her husband's absence. He thought of her white, soft as satin body, nubile and generous as she stood dressed in nothing but her head-dress and gartered hose. He groaned again, cursed softly, and urged his horse up into the grassy area before the manor door, scattering the lazy sheep grazing there.

Ranulf, however, could never be despondent for long: after all, his master was now the landlord of well-stocked bams, granaries, and lush meadows, and Ranulf could always pretend he had been very busy in London and so earn some reward. He licked his lips as he dismounted and assumed a doleful expression. He had rehearsed his speech. He would present matters in their worst light, depicting the toils and tribulations he had endured in pursuing his master's business… yet he had scarcely prepared himself for what happened. Corbett was waiting just inside the oak-panelled hall, cloaked, booted and spurred; his saddle bags, packed and strapped down, were being taken out by a servant. Ranulf expected the worst when he saw the grin on Corbett's face.

'Benedicte, Ranulf!' he exclaimed. I have been waiting. We are off to Godstowe Priory in Oxfordshire. Your son, how is the little cherub?'

Ranulf caught the sarcasm in his master's voice and grinned. His master loved little Hugh, or Hugolino, but often described him as a monster, a true son of his father, from his spiked hair to his innate ability to fall into mischief.

'Well, Master, as well as can be expected,' Ranulf replied, glimpsing Maeve coming out through the chancery door. She looked resplendent in a simple white wimple and a long, dark maroon dress clasped at the neck with silver-white bows, rather spoilt by the heavy belt she wore round her swelling waist, which bore most of the keys to the manor chambers. As usual Maeve looked solemn though Ranulf saw the mischief dancing in her eyes.

'You had a pleasant time, Ranulf, in London?'

The servant was going to lie but Maeve caught his glance.

'Yes, Mistress.'

'No excitement or frivolity?'

'Of course not,' Ranulf muttered. 'Just hard work.'

He glanced away but Maeve continued her inquisition. She would find out about Mistress Sempler whether he liked it or not, so Ranulf mumbled some excuse and fled to his own chamber. He washed his face in the lavarium, packed a new set of saddle bags, plucking what possessions he could find from his customarily chaotic chamber, and went down the side stairs out to the front of the manor where a groom had brought fresh horses and a sumpter pony. In the hall Maeve was growing truculent at Corbett's strictures against baiting Ranulf.

'You will miss me?' he asked, changing the conversation abruptly, grabbing her by the hands and pulling her close.