Paul Doherty: The Peacock's Cry

‘Elizabeth Buchan,’ he began, ‘Beaumont’s friend. I have asked this before and I ask it again. Did Elizabeth shed any light at all on the dark mystery of her friend’s disappearance?’

‘She was distraught,’ Dame Catherine murmured. ‘Worried, but she said nothing to me.’

‘Or me,’ the chaplain added swiftly.

‘Lady Abbess?’

‘Sir Hugh, Elizabeth Buchan was clothed in the habit of a Benedictine novice at Godstow. A young woman. I had very little to do with her.’

‘And according to all of you, she said little if anything about Beaumont’s disappearance?’ Corbett glanced across at Ranulf, who refused to meet his eye. He promised himself that he would closely question the Clerk of the Green Wax at his first opportunity. In the meantime, his gaze swept the chamber. It was time to shake the tree.

‘So,’ he declared, ‘Margaret Beaumont disappears, yes? Was Elizabeth Buchan alarmed at first?’

‘No.’ Fulbert, the man-at-arms, spoke up, whilst Chaplain Norbert nodded in agreement.

‘I see.’ Corbett measured his words. ‘You should be more precise in your replies. Elizabeth Buchan did become concerned, but not at first?’

‘We all thought Margaret was just being foolish and would return,’ declared Dame Catherine. ‘When she didn’t, we thought she might have received outside help …’

‘Or fled to some distant, welcoming kinsman,’ the lady abbess added.

‘And when it became clear that she hadn’t?’

‘Well, we became highly anxious. I sent messages to the court, where Margaret’s family was also becoming agitated. The next thing,’ the abbess gestured at Ranulf, ‘a royal clerk appeared to assist, to investigate.’ Lady Joan’s voice, tinged with sarcasm, trailed off. Corbett glanced at Ranulf and caught the clerk’s look of pure hatred. He coughed, and Ranulf lowered his head.

‘Elizabeth Buchan,’ Corbett continued. ‘Is there anything that would explain why that young woman was violated and cruelly murdered, anything at all?’

‘She became quieter, more withdrawn in the last few days before her death,’ Dame Catherine declared. ‘On the morning before she was killed, I asked her what was wrong. She just clutched her psalter, smiled as she always did and walked away.’

‘Was she friendly with any particular novice or other members of your community?’

‘No. Margaret Beaumont was her only friend.’

‘On the day Elizabeth disappeared, who saw her last?’

‘As far as we know,’ the abbess replied, ‘our gardener Rainald.’

‘In which case, he should join us.’ Corbett’s tone was blunt, brooking no opposition. The abbess ordered Fulbert to fetch the gardener. Corbett indicated that Ranulf join him in the far corner of the parlour. Once he was certain they were out of earshot, he gently turned Ranulf so they had their backs to the others.

‘Ranulf,’ Corbett whispered, ‘you knew Elizabeth. Am I being told the truth?’

‘There is more to be said,’ the clerk replied evasively. ‘I suspect much more. We need to go back to Dame Imelda, the infirmarian, and check more closely on the state of the dead woman’s corpse …’

‘Murdered,’ Corbett reminded him. ‘Elizabeth Buchan was foully murdered. But I agree with you. It’s a pity I didn’t see the corpse as it was first found …’

‘Sir Hugh?’ the abbess called.

Fulbert had returned, Rainald the gardener dancing from foot to foot beside him. The newcomer was a short, wiry man with greasy spiked hair, a ruddy face and popping blue eyes. Strong and capable-looking, he was garbed in a dark-brown woollen jerkin with hose of the same colour pushed into thick soiled boots. The broad leather belt strapped around his waist carried a sheathed dagger, garden gauntlets, a set of small shears and a trowel all hanging from belt hooks. Fulbert mumbled the introductions. Corbett strode across and, to Rainald’s surprise, shook the gardener’s hand and pulled him close.

‘You, sir, were the last to see Elizabeth Buchan alive.’

‘Aye, apparently so.’ Rainald’s voice betrayed a thick country burr.

‘And you and Fulbert found her corpse the next morning?’

‘Aye, we did.’

Without another word, Corbett ushered Rainald to a chair and returned to his own seat, satisfied that his blunt introduction had caught people unawares. He was certain that lies were being peddled as thick as flies on a turd. He was determined to change this.

‘Master Rainald, when did you last see Mistress Buchan?’

‘Oh, late afternoon. Divine office had been sung, the day was a clear one. I saw her near the entrance to the maze. I don’t know what she had been doing there, but she hurried across to the convent building.’

‘Did anyone else see her after that?’

A chorus of denials answered his question. ‘So,’ he gestured at the abbess, ‘what then?’

‘Elizabeth was missed the following morning at matins, and at the first meal of the day in the refectory. At first we thought she might have gone out looking for Margaret. Then I became concerned, worried that she had followed her friend and fled. I ordered a thorough search of the nunnery and the grounds beyond. Rainald told me what he had seen, so I decided the maze should also be searched. I asked Fulbert and Rainald to do that. They are most skilled in threading that labyrinth.’

‘Why is that?’ Corbett asked.

‘I am the head gardener,’ Rainald declared. ‘I have to maintain it. It’s taken me some time, but I can find my way through it easily now.’

‘Whilst I,’ Fulbert confessed, ‘have so little to do here. After all, Godstow is hardly a castle along the Scottish march. Over the years, I have discovered the secrets of the maze, the different turnings.’

‘How long does it take you to walk from the entrance to the centre? Oh, by the way, there is only one entrance, yes?’

Rainald nodded.

‘From the entrance to Rosamund’s bower and the Creeping Cross,’ Fulbert declared, ‘I would say about half a circle on an hour candle. I have tested it. If I walk quickly, or run, it’s even less.’

‘And that morning?’

‘Rainald and I entered. We walked swiftly enough.’

‘Did you, on your journey, notice anything untoward?’

‘Nothing.’

‘And when you reached the centre?’

‘Silence. No birdsong.’ Fulbert drew a deep breath. ‘Just Elizabeth Buchan’s body, her robe and the kirtle beneath pushed back.’ He swallowed hard. ‘You could see the great bloodstain in her groin between her legs,’ he indicated with his hands, ‘and across her thighs, and here.’ He patted his stomach. ‘Her head lay twisted to one side, her face caked with blood from the crossbow bolt embedded in her skull. God have mercy on her, Sir Hugh, her face was all torn.’

‘Do you think the bolt was loosed close to her?’

‘Yes, it must have been. It was sunk deep, a jagged quarrel with stiffened flight feathers.’

‘And the arbalest itself?’

‘A small hand-held one, I suspect, though we did not find it.’

‘You still have that quarrel, the barb?’

Fulbert gestured at Ranulf.

‘It was one of mine,’ the clerk spoke up, ‘stolen from my belongings here.’ He did not meet Corbett’s eye. Others in the chamber moved restlessly.

‘I shall certainly return to that,’ Corbett declared. ‘So the poor woman was violently killed by a bolt to the head?’

‘Yes,’ both Fulbert and Rainald agreed.

‘And the blood?’

‘Congealed.’

‘The flesh, the woman’s skin?’

‘Cold as ice, the limbs turning rigid,’ Fulbert declared. ‘I have moved enough corpses on battlefields to know that Elizabeth Buchan had been dead for some hours.’