Paul Doherty - Angel of Death

'How do you know that?' Surrey suddenly straightened up. 'Are you a doctor, Master Clerk?'

Corbett sighed. He always feared the enmity of the great lords, men born into greatness who deeply resented anyone on whom greatness was thrust. Corbett was the king's loyal servant; he had studied hard in the colleges of Oxford, worked long hours in cold, cramped scriptoria and libraries; but his elevation had been solely due to royal favour and this was always resented by nobles like Surrey. Corbett had never yet met one nobleman who accepted him for what he was, a clever clerk, a trusted servant of the king.

Nevertheless, Corbett knew how to survive in bitter court politics.

He bowed towards Surrey. 'My Lord is correct,' he smiled ingratiatingly, although he hated himself for doing so. 'I am not a physician but I have some knowledge of poisons.'

'Then you are a rare man,' Surrey interrupted.

Corbett felt the flash of anger seep through him and he bit his lip. Was Surrey insinuating he had something to do with the priest's death? He glanced sideways at the king, who had now risen and was dusting down his robes.

'My Lord,' Corbett began again slowly, 'because of various circumstances, I know certain matters of physic, yet it is common knowledge that a man whose face is still rigid in death, with a swollen tongue and mouth as black as the hole of hell, must have been poisoned. What we must find out,' he turned and looked directly at the king, 'is who poisoned him, where and how.'

Corbett gazed into the king's eyes though he would have cheerfully loved to have turned and stared at Bassett for, when he had announced the priest had been poisoned, he had heard the knight banneret's sharp intake of breath and a muttered curse. Corbett wondered why Bassett should be so concerned. What had it to do with him? But that matter would have to wait. Corbett knew what would happen. The king would tell him to find out the reasons for de Montfort's death, and not to rest until he either found the truth or produced enough information to make it look as if the truth was known.

'Your Grace,' Corbett insisted, 'this matter must be resolved. De Montfort came from a family which everyone knows you hated. He was also a clergyman, close to his Lordship, the Archbishop of Canterbury. He intended to give a speech after this mass denouncing your intention to tax the Church.' Corbett stopped and licked his lips, but the king seemed composed, somehow drawing himself back from the black pit of anger. 'People will say,' Corbett continued, 'that de Montfort was killed by you.'

The king turned his back to Corbett, hands outstretched resting on the tomb, head bowed beneath the great rose window as if lost in some private prayer. When he turned he looked weary.

'It is true what you say, Clerk,' he said softly. 'They will place de Montfort's death, like others of his accursed family, at my door. How can I ever ask the clergy for taxes when as a body they will rise and demand justice for de Montfort's murder?' He squinted at Corbett in the poor light. 'But how?'

'Two ways,' Corbett replied suddenly, almost without thinking. 'Either he was poisoned before mass began or -' 'Or what?' the king snapped.

'Or,' Corbett said quietly, 'the chalice was poisoned.'

Corbett saw even the king's face go pale at the blasphemy he had uttered.

'You mean,' Surrey interjected, 'that the wine, the consecrated wine, Christ's blood, was poisoned by somebody? Then it must have been someone who celebrated mass.'

The earl came across the room and stared into Corbett's eyes.

'You realize what you are saying, Clerk? That a priest or canons of this church, in the middle of mass, the most sacred of ceremonies, poisoned the consecrated chalice and gave it to de Montfort to drink?'

'I do,' Corbett replied, gazing back steadily. He turned towards where the king stood. 'I urge Your Grace to order a guard placed round the high altar and that none of the chalices or patens or anything else be removed until we have examined them.'

The king nodded and muttered a quiet command to Bassett, who bustled from the room.

'This is clever,' the king said slowly. 'Whatever happens, we must be careful. Do we accept de Montfort's death and protest our innocence, for we are innocent, or investigate it? If the latter, each of those canons must be interrogated, which might cause a public scandal – and still we could find nothing. Indeed, we could be accused of trying to put the blame on innocent people.' The king chewed his lower lip and ran a beringed hand through his steel-grey hair. He took off his chaplet of silver and laid it unceremoniously on top of the tomb. 'What do you advise, Surrey?'

'Let sleeping dogs lie!' the earl answered quickly. 'Leave it alone, Your Grace!'

'Corbett?'

'I would agree with my Lord of Surrey,' Corbett replied. 'But there is one thing we have forgotten.' 'What is that?'

'The chalice,' Corbett replied. 'Do you remember, my Lord? You were to receive communion under both kinds. We must ask ourselves, was the chalice poisoned for de Montfort to drink? Or, Your Grace, was it poisoned for you?'

The king rubbed his face in his hands and looked up at the gargoyles above the stone dog's-tooth tracery. Corbett followed his gaze. There, angels jutted out of the walls, their cheeks puffed to blow the last trumpet; beside them, the faces of demons, eyes protuberant, tongues lashing out perpetually in stone. Beneath these gargoyles, in a glorious array of purples, golds, reds and blues, was a painting of heaven: a golden paradise where souls of the blessed in white robes armed with golden harps sang to a Christ eternally in judgement, while beneath their feet, in a hellish haze of red and brown, scaled demons with the heads of monsters and the bodies of lions put the souls of the damned through unspeakable tortures. Corbett watched the king take all this in. Surrey, bored by what was going on, leaned against a wall and stared down at the ground as if he had nothing to add to Corbett's conclusions. The king walked over to the clerk, so close Hugh could smell the mixture of perfume and sweat from the heavy, gold-encrusted robes.

'In this church, Hugh,' the king said softly, ignoring Surrey's presence as of no consequence, 'lies the body of another English king, Ethelred the Unready. The sword was never far from his house and all the heavens seemed to rage against him. Is that to be my fate?'

Corbett could have felt some sympathy but as he watched the light blue eyes of the king, he wondered again whether Edward, the most consummate of actors, was simply allaying his own fears.

'This murder must be resolved,' the king continued. 'Not because of de Montfort's death,' – he almost snapped the words out, 'I wish him good riddance and others of his ilk. But if someone intended to kill me, Corbett, I want him found.'

'If that is so, Your Grace,' Corbett replied quickly, eager to escape this baleful royal presence, 'it is best if I examine the altar and the chalice. You agree?'

The king nodded. 'Go. We shall wait for you here.'

Corbett re-entered the sanctuary. The candles had been extinguished and the church cleared. In the far corner, Winchelsea and his host, the Bishop of London, stood in close conversation with Bohun and Bigod. Other nobles and ecclesiastical dignitaries stood round, their faces full of false concern, as if they had taken the events of that morning as a personal shock. A few canons stood gaping at the high altar now ringed by royal men-at-arms, who would allow no one through. Most of the people had left, though the drama of the morning's events the singing, the chants and the dreadful death hung as heavy in the air as the fragrant clouds of incense.

Corbett stopped, noticing a figure at the foot of the sanctuary steps. It was a woman dressed in a kirtle of white and gold damask and a mantle of the same material, trimmed with ermine and fastened around her shoulders by great lace bows of gold and silk, each with its rich knob of gold tassel. Her fair hair hung down her back, held in place by a thin, silken net studded with gems. Her face was long and smooth, almost regal if it hadn't been for the bold eyes and the sly twist of her mouth. Corbett had never seen her before. At first he thought she may have been a lady of the court but he looked closer at the painted lips and nails and dismissed her as a high-class courtesan, maybe a mistress of one of the great ones still standing in the sanctuary, or even that of a canon of the church. Corbett wryly remembered the old proverb: the cowl doesn't make the monk; many priests were as ardent for the ways of flesh as they were when they preached publicly against the same sins in their pulpits. Corbett was about to turn away when the woman suddenly called out in a rather harsh voice.