Paul Doherty - Satan in St Mary

"You must realize, Sir Edward, that I would not make this request unless I had good cause. I suspect that this man is an accomplice to murder, involved in treason which may threaten the very life of the King. You simply cannot stand aside, wash your hands of the matter and say that it is nothing to do with you. Moreover, " he added cautiously, "if I am proved correct, the King will have good reason to be grateful to you. "

Swynnerton turned away from the window, the doubt and uncertainty clear in his face and eyes. He carefully stroked his small goatee beard while searching for a way out of the problem presented to him. He sighed, went to the door and summoned in one of his attendants, ordering him to call the captain of the guard immediately. A short while later, a burly, red-haired, thick-set man came into the room. He had the rugged, sun-tanned features of a professional fighting man. His very presence, dressed in half armour, and the stance he adopted when he entered the room indicated a man who would take orders and follow them to the letter. Swynnerton went over and clapped him on the shoulder.

"John Neville, may I introduce our guest. Master Hugh Corbett, Clerk in the Court of King's Bench. "

Corbett felt Neville's eyes look him up and down, quietly assessing him. "Have you ever fought, Master Clerk?" The voice was clear and authoritative.

"Yes, " Corbett replied. "I saw some service in the Welsh counties when the King was chasing numerous Welsh princes up and down their valleys. It was an experience I shall never forget, and to be quite candid, I am not too eager to repeat. "

Neville grinned, showing a row of yellow, broken teeth. "I thought as much, " he replied. "I pride myself on being able to distinguish between those who have fought and those who have not. I simply think it rather strange to have a man I judge as a fighter in the garb of a clerk. "

"Master Corbett, " Swynnerton interjected, "is not here to do any fighting but to ask us to do it for him. Whatever he says, do!" Swynnerton then left the room and Corbett realized that the cunning old soldier had carefully covered both bets. If Bellet was arrested and later protested, Swynnerton could claim that he had no real part in it. If Bellet was arrested and Corbett was proved correct, then Swynnerton could bask in the reflected glory. Corbett, smiling at the adroit way the constable had dealt with him, took Neville by the arm and quietly confided what he wanted him to do.

After he had finished, Corbett would have liked to have left the Tower and gone to see Alice but, as he admitted to Ranulf when he returned to their quarters, he was too frightened to go out into the streets of London. It might well have been he, not the young boy, Simon, who could be lying outside the church of St. Katherine with his throat cut from ear to ear. Ranulf received the news of the young man's death with the same nonchalance Corbett had seen that day he had chosen him from the line of condemned men at Newgate. Death was a natural order of things, a daily risk, an occupational hazard, though he agreed that Corbett should stay in the Tower. Corbett also realized that he could not leave until Neville returned with the priest and put him to the question. He shuddered when he thought of this. Bellet would be taken to the dungeons beneath the White Tower and left to the tender mercies of the torturers and their skilled finesse in extracting information from the most recalcitrant prisoners.

Corbett then spent hours waiting by a window until Neville and a company of archers brought the priest, tied and bound, into the inner ward. He did not go down to meet them but, even from where he stood, he could see that the priest, for all his anger and protests, was a very frightened man. Bellet and his escort disappeared from view as they turned down a long row of stone steps leading to the dungeons. Corbett knew he would have to wait. He wrote a short note to Alice and sent Ranulf out with it, instructing him to inform Alice that he was safe but not to tell her of his whereabouts. He knew that if she had that information, she too would be in danger. After which, Corbett wrapped his cloak around him and lay on the bed awaiting for Neville to send for him.

It had been dark for some time when Corbett was aroused from an uneasy sleep by Neville roughly shaking his shoulder. "Come, Master Clerk, " he whispered hoarsely. "You had better join us. " Corbett got up, relieved himself in the garde-robe in the corner of the room, washed his hands and face in a bowl of cold water and, drying his hands and face with his cloak, followed Neville out down to the dungeons. The soldier led him down the long row of narrow steps that he had seen the priest descend a few hours earlier. Then Neville turned right, following the line of the Tower to a small door at the base of one of the turrets. They entered and Corbet felt he had arrived in what must be the very antechamber of Hell. It was a low-roofed room, cold and damp. The torches fixed in rusting sconces on the walls flickered and spluttered and he could smell the damp earth beneath his feet mingling with the smell of smoke, charcoal, blood, sweat and fear.

The room was empty of all furniture except for open braziers clustered together at the far end, besides which were two or three small stools. There were chains and manacles hanging from the wall but his eyes were drawn to the small macabre group at the far end.

As Corbett approached, he realized that there were three men stripped to the waist, black scraps of cloth wrapped around their foreheads to keep the sweat from running into their eyes. Their bodies glistened with sweat and they kept turning to the braziers, pulling out long rods of iron, the handles wrapped in cloth to protect their hands. He saw one of them take a glowing iron bar and place it against what he thought was a shadow near the far wall until he heard a terrible scream and saw the shadow jerk and writhe. He then became aware that it was the priest hanging by his wrists from the chains, stripped of all his clothing except for a loincloth. His body was covered in long gaping wounds where the hot metal bars had been pressed. Corbett hid his revulsion, knowing that this was not the time for pity. This man may well have been responsible for Duket's death, for the death of the young boy, Simon, and for the two criminal assaults on himself. The only fear Corbett experienced was a secret dread that the man might actually be innocent.

"Has he answered the question I asked you to put to him?" Corbett rasped. Neville shook his head.

"No, " he replied. "He says he had nothing to do with Duket's death. " Corbett almost felt his heart skip a beat and his mouth went dry with fright.

"Has he said anything?"

Neville grinned. "He has said enough. He keeps calling on the Lord Satan to help him and that is not the sort of prayer you would expect a priest to say!"

Corbett went round the braziers, pushing his way past the torturers, who looked expectantly at him as if waiting for fresh orders to apply their burning metal bars.

He could see that their victim had had enough. Bellet's face was bloodless and the eyes crazed with pain, the thin, bony, pathetic body of the priest had reached the limit of his endurance.

"Well, Master Priest?" Corbett whispered. "We meet again, though in quite unexpected surroundings!" He went closer, almost whispering through the priest's sweat-soaked hair so only he could hear. "Lawrence Duket, did you murder him?"

Bellet turned his face slowly towards him, his eyes narrowing as he tried to swim out of the circle of pain which had engulfed him. "This is your doing, Clerk! You whoreson get!" he cursed. "You are no more than a country bumpkin. You don't know with whom you are dealing. You and your sort will soon be swept away. " Bellet grunted and tried to lift his body to alleviate the racking pain in his chest and legs.