Paul Doherty: The Peacock's Cry

After the Jesus Mass the following morning, Corbett, followed by Ranulf and Sir Miles, walked into the sacristy, where Chaplain Norbert was divesting assisted by Dame Alice.

‘You are well, Father?’

‘Yes, and blessings on you too, Sir Hugh.’

Corbett took the alb the chaplain had just taken off and passed it to Dame Alice.

‘Sir Hugh?’

‘Your hands, Chaplain Norbert, may I see them?’

Norbert swallowed hard and extended both hands, turning them so Corbett could inspect them closely.

‘Sir Hugh, what is this?’

‘Nothing, nothing.’ Corbett walked towards the door leading from the sacristy into God’s Acre.

‘Tell me, Chaplain,’ he turned back, ‘what is your greatest fear? There is a heroic Saxon poem called Beowulf …’

‘I have heard of it.’

‘A member of the warrior Beowulf’s shield ring claims that each person – you, me, Sir Miles, Ranulf, even Dame Alice here – nourishes one great fear. For Ranulf it might be constriction around the throat, for me heights, for Sir Miles thunder and lightning. So what is yours? I am curious following a discussion with my learned colleague Ranulf. Tell me and I will be gone.’

‘Water. Drowning! As a boy I fell into a millpond and almost died. The miller’s son saved me.’

‘Saved you for what, Father Norbert?’ Corbett smiled. ‘I will be gone. You and Dame Alice are to be escorted back to your respective chambers and detained there.’

‘You cannot-’ they chorused.

‘Oh yes I can, and yes I will.’ He paused as Chanson knocked on the door and almost fell into the sacristy.

‘Sir Hugh, Sir Hugh,’ he gasped. ‘Rosamund’s twine has been laid out. Fulbert has taken the posse to the centre of the maze and they have begun their work.’

Corbett ignored the exclamations from both chaplain and sacristan.

‘Good, Chanson. Go back. Now that the twine had been laid, all will be well. Remember, you are to concentrate on the bower and the Creeping Cross. The ground is to be scrupulously searched. Sir Miles,’ Corbett turned back to the sheriff, ‘once our two worthies here are locked away, I would be grateful if you would join your posse in the maze.’

‘What are we searching for?’

‘You will know when you find it. I doubt if it will take long. Tell me immediately. Ranulf, stay with our good chaplain here.’

‘And you, Sir Hugh?’

‘I am going to light tapers in front of the Lady Chapel. One for you and me, Ranulf, one for the Lady Maeve and my children, and one,’ Corbett stared directly at Father Norbert and Dame Alice, ‘for the grace to help trap a murderer.’

Corbett stayed for some time on the prie-dieu before the statue of Our Lady of Walsingham. Chanson came and went with various messages. Lady Joan, using all her authority, demanded that she and Corbett meet in the Magdalena chamber. Corbett ignored the peremptory summons and remained deep in thought.

The hours of the nunnery were rung, the community filed into church. Corbett retreated to his own quarters in the guest house, lying on the bed half asleep until Chanson crept in and whispered what Stapleton and his comitatus had found in Rosamund’s bower. On hearing this, Corbett swung his legs off the bed, splashed some cold water on his face at the lavarium and strolled out to meet the lady abbess in the Magdalena chamber. She was alone, and rose, her mouth full of protests. Corbett pushed her back into her chair and took a stool to sit beside her.

‘You love peacocks, Joan Mortimer, because you are one, you always have been. You preen, you strut, and the years haven’t changed you.’

‘How dare you!’ she exclaimed, her face suffused with rage.

‘I dare as you dare as we dare,’ Corbett mocked. ‘You are a murderess, Joan Mortimer; you are also guilty of fornication with Chaplain Norbert. Your secret sin was discovered by Margaret Beaumont, so you killed her and then Elizabeth Buchan.’ He paused. His adversary’s face seemed to crumple, showing her age as well as the terror that must have sparked inside her narrow, selfish soul. ‘Good.’ His voice was almost soothing. ‘Now I shall tell you who you really are. A woman who, in her own words, wanted everything, much more than being the bride of some lord or the mother of a brood of children. No, you wanted power, status, luxury and protection. Holy Mother Church provided that, and so you eventually entered this beautiful Eden, the ancient nunnery of Godstow. A royal appointment to one of the most comfortable sinecures in the kingdom. You are in all things the Domina, the true lady of the manor, the chatelaine of the great castle, one of the lords spiritual. You live in an atmosphere of luxury and the most comfortable piety. Your word here is law. You have all the delicacies of the table as well as the opportunity to wield real power and make your presence felt.’

‘I had a vocation,’ she protested.

‘So did Judas,’ Corbett countered. ‘You had all the pleasures and all the trimmings of life, but the cowl doesn’t make the monk nor the veil the nun. You always did admire a good-looking man. You have almost an insatiable hunger for flattery and praise. Years ago, when I used to talk to you – and I remember this well – you would listen but your eyes would wander, and if they really liked what they saw, you would make your hasty excuses so as to pursue your new quarry, whoever or whatever had caught your fancy.’

‘You are resentful, prejudiced,’ she spat back.

‘I am truthful. Norbert became your chaplain here. A handsome young man. Possibly a former soldier. Lean, strong and educated, with more than a dash of courtly courtesy. I wonder if he was the first; I doubt it. You became lovers. The abbess and her chaplain, a fairly common occurrence. We even have mummer’s plays mocking such a relationship. However, you can only mock what you know. All was well until the arrival of Margaret Beaumont and Elizabeth Buchan. Two headstrong, wily and wilful young ladies. I doubt you liked them, and I suggest they responded in kind. They decided to stir the placid pond that was Godstow.’ Corbett watched the abbess closely. He sensed he was correct. He just hoped the sheer logic of his argument and the traps he had prepared would prove sufficient to bring this woman and her accomplice to justice.

‘Elizabeth and Margaret,’ he continued, ‘stole two white albs and pretended to be the ghost of Rosamund, or some such nonsense. They acted the part, going to various places, Margaret here, Elizabeth there. They would flit around, energetic young women who could race away and escape pursuit. Now I admit,’ Corbett spread his hands, ‘this is only conjecture for the moment. However, Margaret Beaumont, on one of her hauntings, stumbled on a great secret: the scandalous relationship between the lady abbess and her chaplain. God knows what she saw, where, when and how, but I have my suspicions.

‘I suggest she whispered some of what she knew to her boon companion Elizabeth, who perhaps did not believe it. Margaret also pointed out how along a bench in front of their choir stall was a misericord, a gargoyle carving in the usual grotesque fashion.’ He pointed at the abbess. ‘You know the kind. They can be found in churches up and down the kingdom. They mock conventional piety, they remind us how we are all sinners. Carvings such as a pig garbed as a prelate, a cat being a cardinal. In this case, a priest mounting a woman like a stallion would a mare. Elizabeth and Margaret thought this was very apposite; hence their mocking name for you: “Gargoyle”.’

Lady Joan flinched, though her face remained impassive, her eyes sharp and watchful. She was recovering from the shock, desperately seeking a way out of the closing trap.