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Paul Doherty: The Peacock's Cry

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Paul Doherty The Peacock's Cry

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‘Yes, yes we did.’ The chaplain’s voice faltered. ‘The lady abbess told me to abuse the body. I …’

Corbett stared at this corrupt young man. He curbed his anger; his task was to obtain confessions. Punishment would be left to others. He patted the chaplain on the shoulder and pointed to the chancery desk.

‘I want a full confession. Sit there and write it. Ranulf will stay with you until it is done.’ The chaplain, now sobbing, nodded his agreement.

Secretly elated, Corbett left the chamber. He gave instructions to two of the sheriff’s men, then strolled along the passageways and into the main church. Godstow lay strangely silent; the news of scandal brewing had spread like a mist through the nunnery. The good ladies had retreated to their chambers, shocked, frightened and wary of the sheriff’s comitatus: burly, rough soldiers who seemed to swarm everywhere, secretly amused at the outrage being so vigorously unearthed in this so-called house of prayer.

A few of these soldiers were in the sacristy, guarding the entrance to the passageway. Corbett marvelled how the entrance was so expertly hidden beneath the shelves of the aumbry. The lowest shelf could be lifted by hinges, and the paving stone beneath seemed like all the others except for an indentation at the edge where it met the wall. One of the sheriff’s men showed how this indentation could be used to lift the stone like a trapdoor. Only when he grasped it did Corbett realise it was not stone, but heavy wood finished and painted to pass as paving. Once it was pulled back, he could squeeze his way down on to the narrow steps.

One of the comitatus passed him a sconce torch, whilst another offered to accompany him. Corbett agreed, and carefully went down into the darkness. At the bottom, he lifted the torch, its dancing flame illuminating what looked like an ancient mine shaft – a narrow runnel just over two yards high and about the same across. The floor was of packed dirt, whilst the rock and earth the tunnel cut through was held in place by stout wooden pillars, beams, clasps and crutches. Corbett, his companion following behind, walked quickly forward. The tunnel was hot and reminded him of the maze, with its latent threat to close in on him. Now and again he passed ancient dressed stonework in the walls either side. He stopped to examine this, and his escort murmured how the sheriff, a local man, believed that Godstow was built over an ancient palace used by the Romans.

Corbett hurried on. He felt breathless, sweaty, the tunnel seeming to stretch like an eternity before him. At last he glimpsed torchlight, felt a freshness and heard voices. He called out, announcing himself. Sir Miles replied, telling him to be careful, as both walls and roof were beginning to crumble. Corbett shivered at the light rain of dust in the air. He reached the sheriff’s party clustered at the foot of some steps. Sir Miles explained how they led up to the bower, then pointed to the needle-thin runnel that continued past, stretching into the darkness.

‘We went along there,’ he explained, ‘but it’s now truly blocked.’

‘Let us get out of here,’ Corbett retorted. ‘Enough is enough.’ He climbed the steps and heaved a sigh of relief as he walked through the buttery into the main chamber of the bower, where two of the sheriff’s men stood guarding Lady Joan Mortimer. She looked as if she had aged, her face all stricken. Corbett went up close. She lunged, but the sheriff’s men held her fast. Corbett grasped her face between his hands and squeezed gently.

‘Your accomplice has confessed. Ranulf will read his admission to you soon enough.’

She tried to pull free, gathering spittle in her mouth, but Corbett moved his hands and pressed her lips. ‘This is finished,’ he rasped. ‘We are finished. Remember that …’

Corbett and Ranulf stood in the Magdalena chamber of Godstow nunnery. They had confronted the abbess with Norbert’s confession. She had murmured distractedly how she was not of the secular order and not under the jurisdiction of the king’s court. Corbett heard her out. She made no reference to their earlier friendship, or times in the past. A broken woman, talking to herself, she had joined Norbert in the cart commandeered by the sheriff to take them both to Oxford Castle to await the king’s pleasure.

‘They will plead their benefit,’ Ranulf remarked. ‘Be tried by the church courts, then what, Sir Hugh? Slapped on the face and banished for life to an austere religious house in some desolate place? In truth, both of them should be torn apart at Smithfield.’

‘True, true,’ Corbett agreed. ‘They will be imprisoned on bread and water in some religious house deep in a wasteland of bog and marsh. Nevertheless, before the year is out, Lady Joan will die from a violent fall down some steps, or choke on something she ate, or drown in a pool, and the same will happen to Chaplain Norbert. What makes it more bitter is that they know this. Murder will haunt them, play with them, then strike. The Beaumonts and the Buchans will not rest until this is done, and it is a justice of sorts.’

Corbett paused at the shrieking of a peacock. He clapped his companion on the shoulder. ‘My friend, is that the cry of a bird or the plea of some murdered soul? Believe me, Ranulf, before the month is out, we will hear that cry again.’

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