Paul Doherty: Satan in St Mary

"Nonsense!" Corbett shouted and got to his feet. "Incantations, spells, dancing in circles, heathen rites and now treason. Is it worth being hung in chains above a fire at Smithfield?" He glared at Alice. "That, " he almost spat the words out, "is the punishment for sorcerers and traitors!"

Alice smoothed the creases on the front of her dress, her hands fluttering like small white birds hovering over a dark green field. She looked up at Corbett and he realized that she was calmer, the colour had returned to her face, but the light and laughter had gone from her eyes. "Your religion, " she replied, "may matter to you, mine certainly does to me. It is older than Christianity, was practised here even before the Romans came, but the church has driven it underground. "

"Then why the treason?" Corbett asked.

Alice shrugged. "King Edward has to die. He has smashed the Welsh and done great damage to the old religion, its shrines and graves in the west just like he did in Palestine. He was hated for killing de Montfort and crushing the Populares movement here in London! He deserves to die! He would have done, when he entered the city. Master bowmen, stationed on the tower of Saint Mary Le Bow, would have brought him down. Then we would have seized our arms stored around that church and risen in rebellion. "

Alice almost smiled. "We nearly succeeded but for Duket and his foolish murder of Crepyn. It was not that we mourned Crepyn though he was one of us, but more that Duket had to be killed. We know he suspected our true aims and might have bartered this knowledge for a pardon for Crepyn's death. Perhaps he deliberately chose Saint Mary Le Bow to draw the attention of the government. Bellet was a member of the Pentangle, his cemetery held stores of arms. Savel, the royal spy, discovered that and died. So we could not let Duket live. He threatened us all!"

"And me?" Corbett asked.

Alice's eyes slid away from his. "I don't really know. " Her voice was so low that he could hardly hear it. "As the Pentangle, indeed, as The Hooded One, I wanted you dead but, as an individual, I was anxious about the sentence passed and, so, so relieved to see you always walk away unscathed. The Pentangle, not I, decided that you must die. Twice, we tried in Thames Street, then we waited for you outside Saint Katherine's but the boy was early, he died and his corpse drew a crowd. When Bellet was arrested, we knew you would go to his house. But each time you were saved. We thought you had a charmed life and wished that you were one of us. "

"You are lying!" Corbett was almost shouting. "Somebody gave you information about where I was and what I was doing! Who was it?"

Alice beckoned with her hand and, when Corbett drew close, quietly murmured a few words into his ear. Corbett stared at her, smiled coldly and drew away. She could have told him outright but, getting close to her, he felt her soft lips near his face, smelt the perfume of her hair and body and realized he could still lose his soul in such a soft deadly trap.

Corbett shook his head and scuffed at the grass with the toe of his boot.

"Is the rest as I described?" he asked.

"Yes, " Alice smiled tightly, like a little girl admitting she was wrong when caught out in mischief.

"And the others?" he queried.

She looked at him sharply, the smile had gone. "Your King will have to hunt them down, Master Clerk, " she snapped.

"That will be easy. They are not far away, " Corbett murmured. "There are those at The Mitre, one will break. "

"And me? I am not afraid to die, " Alice whispered.

Corbett looked into her dark eyes and saw the terror there; she was lying and he knew that she was asking for pity. He crouched down and cupped her face in his hands. "I can do little for you, Alice, " he said gently. "I cannot get you a pardon, not for this. I cannot ignore you as some others may well use your name to buy mercy. You cannot hide for the rest of your life for, if you did, they would surely hunt you down. " He stopped talking and kissed her gently on her eyelids, tasting her tears. She was a murderess, a sorcerer and traitor but his love cut through such names.

"Listen, Alice, " he continued quickly, "tomorrow I will write my report for Burnell. The day after I will send it to him. That is the day he will strike, The Mitre will be surrounded. You must flee today. You must not inform the others. They are lost and, " he lied, "already under scrutiny.

Do you understand?" She nodded and he kissed her on the brow, smelling the faint fragrance of her hair.

Corbett rose and walked quickly away. He thought he heard her call his name but he did not turn back and dismissed it as the screech of a gull hunting in the mudflats along the river bank.

Eighteen

True to his word, Corbett spent the following day drawing up his report for Burnell, hoping that Alice would save herself and not warn the rest of her coven. Ranulf was still absent so Corbett asked Swynnerton to send one of his more intelligent squires into the city to see if anything untoward was happening in The Mitre. The squire returned late in the evening, quite drunk, but after Corbett had doused him in a tub of icy moat water, he recovered sufficiently to report that he had noticed nothing extraordinary.

Early the next morning Corbett finished his report; it contained all that he had told Alice with a few additional facts and observations. He re-read it then, satisfied, sanded and sealed it 'for the Chancellor only', and sent it into the city under an armed escort from the Tower. The task done, he wandered out of the Tower back to the place he had met Alice a few days before. The grass where they had sat still bore the scuff marks of their boots and the silence and lonely desolation of the ruins a marked contrast to the passion and fury he had felt when he had first visited the place. He was about to turn away when he saw a posy of spring flowers resting on the top of the wall, tied in a bunch by a small black silk glove. Alice had left them, knowing he would return. Corbett picked them up and slipped the flowers inside his jerkin and sat slumped against the wall,

cursing his luck, preferring anything rather than face the yawning emptiness in his heart.

Corbett stared across the fields and realized that he had one more task to accomplish. He hurriedly went back to the Tower and left hasty instructions for Swynnerton and Ranulf. From a cleric in the Tower he borrowed a thick, heavy, brown cloak with a cowl to cover his head, rubbed crushed ash into his hair and face and, disguised in both dress and behaviour like an old monk, left the Tower and took a barge to Westminster. He arrived at the usual place but, when he had slowly climbed the steps from the river, he ignored the usual route to the Great Hall and made his way instead to the main entrance of the abbey. Inside he ambled slowly up the great nave of the church not bothering to stare at the pure spotless white walls, the trellised stonework or the soaring majesty of the pillars which seemed to make the roof of the church float on air as if by magic.

Despite the thin sunlight streaking through the coloured windows, the abbey was dark and Corbett felt protected in his disguise. He knew his way around the abbey and slipped through a side entrance into the deserted cloisters where only an old monk sat on the low brick wall. The old man gaped with rheumy eyes and drooling mouth at Corbett, raising a skeletal hand in doubtful salute. Corbett nodded in return and walked on, forcing himself to keep to a slow shuffle, head bowed, hands concealed in the thick bell-like sleeves of the cloak. He looked around the cloisters, but they were empty except for the old monk and a raven which stalked across the ground, its cruel yellow beak jabbing at the thin sparse grass. Corbett continued on to the south-east corner of the cloisters, and sat down on the low wall, his head bowed as if in silent prayer, whilst his hands searched desperately at the stonework below him. Eventually he found it, a loose brick which could be slid in or out. Corbett pretended to drop something and crouched down to look for it. He found the brick was completely free of plaster and, when withdrawn, left a small gap.