Paul Doherty: Satan's Fire

The king shrugged. ‘Well, sometimes it is. .’ He picked up his cloak from the back of the chair and swung it round his shoulders. ‘. . and sometimes it isn’t.’

‘We’d all like to go home to our wives and families,’ de Warrenne exclaimed, glaring like an angry boar at Corbett. Deep in his heart the earl could never understand why the king tolerated this clerk’s bluntness. Corbett bit his tongue. He felt like reminding the earl that if he was married to Lady de Warrenne, he’d spend as much time as he could as far away as possible from her. He looked at the king.

‘So, when can I leave, Sire?’

Edward pursed his lips. ‘By mid-April. I promise you, by the feast of Alphage, you will be released. But, meanwhile,’ Edward strode to the door, snapping his fingers for de Warrenne to follow, ‘I want that counterfeiter unmasked. I want you to keep an eye on the Templars. There are also over a hundred petitions from our good burgesses at York. You and that green-eyed rapscallion clerk of yours, Ranulf, can deal with them.’ The king paused, one hand on the latch. ‘Oh, and to show there’s no ill-feeling between myself and the grand master; go to the vintner, the master taverner Hubert Seagrave. He owns the largest tavern in York, just off Coppergate. Ask him for a tun of his best Gascony. Tomorrow, after I have sworn the oath, take it out to Framlingham. A gift from me to him.’

Corbett turned in his chair. ‘And will you go on Crusade, Sire?’

Edward looked innocently back. ‘Of course, Hugh. I have given my word. Once all the affairs in England are settled, then you and I, de Warrenne and all the rest, will go on Crusade to Jerusalem.’

And, chuckling softly to himself, the king swept out of the chamber, de Warrenne plodding behind him. Corbett sighed and got to his feet. He stared round the refectory, the huge, black cross hanging on the far wall and the brightly coloured triptych above the fireplace. He went back to the window and stared down into the courtyard. The king’s soldiers had persuaded two blind beggars to have a duel with wooden swords. The two hairy, ragged men lurched and struck at each other, staggering about, their wooden swords beating the air. Now and again the circle of soldiers pushed them back into the ring with roars of laughter.

‘Didn’t you have enough?’ Corbett whispered to himself. ‘Didn’t you see enough humiliation and bloodshed on the Scottish march?’

He sat in the window-seat. Since the end of January the king had been in his northern shires, launching raids across the Scottish border, trying to bring to battle or capture the elusive Scottish leader William Wallace. Corbett had become sickened by the hamlets and villages left as a black, smouldering mess, the corpses strewn about in pools of scarlet across the damp, broken heather. The columns of grey smoke, the stench of death and putrefaction, the gibbets full of corpses naked as worms. Cattle and sheep slaughtered, their bloated bodies fouling streams and wells, all consumed by the sea of fire which Edward, in retreat, had lit to burn everything behind him.

Corbett didn’t just want to go back to Maeve and Eleanor because he was missing them; he was also sickened by Edward’s ruthless drive to bring the Scots to heel; and by the intricacies and subtleties of court intrigues; by nobles like de Warrenne who believed they were lords of the soil and every other man and woman had been born to serve them. The two beggar-men were now crying. Corbett was tempted to ignore them but, rising, he thrust open the window.

‘Stop it!’ he yelled.

One of the soldiers was about to make an obscene gesture back, but his companion immediately recognised Corbett and whispered in the soldier’s ear. Corbett called over to a serjeant.

‘Take the beggars to the almoner!’ He shouted. ‘Give them bread and wine and send them on their way!’

The grizzled veteran nodded. ‘The lads are just amusing themselves, sir.’

‘There has been amusement enough!’ Corbett snapped. ‘Make sure your lads pay for their enjoyment. Organise a collection for the beggars!’

Corbett waited for the serjeant to carry out his orders then closed the window. He heard a rap on the door.

‘Come in.’

Ranulf, his manservant, now a fully fledged clerk in the Chancery of the Green Seal, swaggered in, his red hair tied in a knot behind his head. Proud of his clerkly tunic of light blue edged with squirrel fur, Ranulf stuck his thumbs in the broad swordbelt fastened round his waist. His cat-like eyes twinkled in a smile.

‘Are we going home, Master?’

‘No!’ Corbett snapped, ‘we are not.’ And he went back to the table.

Ranulf quickly made a face at the blond-haired, bland-faced Maltote, Corbett’s messenger.

‘Good,’ he whispered.

Corbett whirled round. ‘What holds you at York, Ranulf?’

‘Oh, nothing, Master.’

Corbett studied him carefully. ‘Do you ever tell the truth, Ranulf?’

‘Every time I open my mouth, Master.’

‘And you have no lady-love here? No burgess’s buxom wife?’

‘Of course not, Master.’

Corbett turned back to his writing tray. Ranulf pulled a face behind him and quietly thanked God that Corbett hadn’t questioned him about the burgess’s buxom daughters.

‘So, we are staying?’

‘Yes,’ Corbett wearily replied. ‘We’ll take lodgings in St Mary’s Abbey. Meanwhile, we have work to do. You have the petitions?’

Maltote hurried across, carrying a thick roll of vellum. ‘This is what the clerks have received.’

Corbett gestured at his servants to sit on either side of the table.

‘We’ll work for two more hours,’ he declared.

As Corbett reopened his writing case, Ranulf looked across at Maltote and raised his eyes heavenwards. ‘Master Long Face’, as Ranulf had secretly nicknamed Corbett, was not in the best of humours. Nevertheless, both men helped as Corbett began to work through the roll of vellum containing all the petitions the council had received, once the good burgesses of York knew the king was visiting their city. Every town had the right to petition the Crown, and Edward took such matters most seriously. The Chancery clerks would collect individual petitions, write them out again in a fair hand on sheets of parchment which were then sewn together. One of Corbett’s functions, whenever he was at Court, was to deal with such requests. This collection of petitions covered a multitude of affairs: Francesca Ingoldsby complained against Elizabeth Raddle for assaulting and beating her with a broomstick on a pavement in the presence of their neighbours. Matthew Belle complained against Thomas Cooke for assault and striking him in the face with a poker at the Green Mantle tavern. Thomasina Wheel sought a licence to go beyond the seas to St James’s Shrine at Compostella. Mary Verdell alleged she’d lost a cloak and believed Elizabeth Fryer was the culprit. John de Bartonon and Beatrice his wife complained against the vicar of their church who constantly trespassed upon their property. On and on the petitions went. Corbett ordered some of them to be sent to the city council, others to the sheriff, or the mayor; a few he kept for the king’s consideration. One, in particular, he did scrutinise: it was from Hubert Seagrave, ‘king’s vintner in his own city of York’, seeking permission to buy two messuages of land adjoining his tavern.

Corbett smiled across at Ranulf. ‘We can deal with this one ourselves,’ he muttered. ‘I am to collect a tun of wine from Seagrave and take it to the Templars at Framlingham.’

Ranulf, busily writing down his master’s decisions, just mumbled a reply. Corbett returned to the roll, noticing how a growing number of petitions from individual citizens, as well as some from the commonality of York, complained about the strange and mysterious events happening at the Templar manor at Framlingham. One man, John de Huyten, complained of lights burning late in the manor house, with hymns being sung at the dead of night. A batch of further petitions complained about how, since the Templar commanders had arrived at Framlingham, the gardens and estates of the manor were very closely guarded, and ancient rights of way across the Templar estates were now closed. A petitioner, Leofric Goodman, carpenter, declared how he had been ejected from Framlingham. He had been hired to work in the manor: he had gone upstairs to repair a shutter on a window but a Templar soldier had accosted him and driven him away with threatening and violent language.