Hugh Corbett 06 - Murder Wears a Cowl (26 page)

‘My Lady?’ Corbett insisted.

Fitzwarren looked up, her eyes slits of malice, and Corbett sensed her mind was slipping into madness.

‘The bitch,’ she hissed. ‘She plucked up her skirts and showed me her private parts! “See these, my Lady Fitzwarren!” she yelled. “Your husband fondled them, kissed and ploughed me because of the joys you could not give him!’” Fitzwarren rubbed her face in her hands. ‘I couldn’t believe it,’ she whispered. ‘But the whore described my husband, his skin, the colour of his hair, his walk, his posture, even his favourite oaths. According to the bitch, my husband used not only her but others of her ilk. I could not deny it for when we were in London my husband was often absent on the King’s business, or so he said.’

The old noblewoman laughed abruptly. ‘The bitch thought it was so funny. Here was I, serving those who served my husband so well! The girl kept pulling up her skirts, standing on a stool, flouncing her filthy nakedness before me. There was a knife on the table. I don’t know what happened. I picked it up and struck. The girl screamed so I yanked her hair back and slit her throat.’ Fitzwarren stared at Corbett. ‘How could he,’ she whispered hoarsely. ‘How could he consort with such women and leave me a laughing stock, the butt of every common prostitute’s jokes? Oh, I am no fool,’ she added. ‘The girl’s words raised ghosts in my own mind. How my husband neglected me and everything began to fester. Yet I found the whore’s death acted like a purge, cleansing my blood, purifying my mind, so I struck again. Each time I used a robe and cowl from the vestry at Westminster.’ She smiled. ‘Those fat monks never noticed that anything was amiss. I heard the rumours about their late-night revelries and saw them as a marvellous opportunity. I also thought of my dear departed husband and vowed that every month, on the anniversary of his death, a whore would die.’ She raised whitened knuckles to her lips. ‘Oh, I used to love it. I would prepare carefully, single out my victim and plot her destruction.’ Fitzwarren leaned over and tapped Corbett on the hand with her icy fingers. ‘Of course, you were right, you clever, clever boy. Now and again things went wrong. The whore Agnes saw me. Silly, silly girl! She thought she was hiding in the shadows but I saw the light glinting on her cheap jewellery, and her stupid face peering through the darkness.’ She rubbed the side of her cheek. ‘Her death was easy, but Lady Somerville was different. Usually I checked the robe I used, even cleaned it myself, but one day I made a mistake. You know how it is, Corbett? Dark red blood merges so well with brown. Then, of course, the fragrance of my perfume. Anyway, I caught Somerville holding the robe, she just stood and looked at me, and I smiled back.’

‘And Father Benedict?’ Corbett asked.

‘I knew Somerville would go to him,’ she spat out. ‘For she would find no joy with de Lacey.’ She smiled to herself. ‘Life became so, so busy. Somerville suspected and was already talking to Father Benedict. I knew he would take some convincing and I had already marked Isabeau down as my next victim.’ Fitzwarren gazed into the middle distance, talking as if to herself. ‘Somerville had to die and Father Benedict as soon as possible afterwards, before he could gather his dithering wits and realise what was happening. The following evening I visited Isabeau. I didn’t dream Agnes would arrive. The rest. . .’ Fitzwarren shrugged and put her hand inside her robe as if to scratch her chest, ‘well,’ she whispered then rose, bringing her hand back in a lightning lunge. Corbett saw the glint of a thin steel dagger in her hand. Yet Fitzwarren’s speed made her clumsy, instead of thrusting she tried to hack at his face. Cade jumped up and Lady Mary Neville screamed as Corbett seized Fitzwarren’s wrist, squeezing it tightly till his assailant, her face contorted with pain, let the dagger drop. Ranulf sprang forward, grabbed the woman, dragging her arms behind her back and expertly tying her thumbs together with cord from his pouch. Fitzwarren just stood, smirking in satisfaction.

‘Clever, clever boy,’ she murmured. ‘I paid those bastards well but trust a man to bungle matters.’ She threw her head back and laughed until Ranulf slapped her across the face. ‘Bastard!’ she screamed.

Ranulf seized her shoulder and whispered something in her ear. The old noblewoman drew away, her face pale with fright.

‘You wouldn’t?’ she hissed.

‘Oh, yes I would,’ Ranulf replied quietly.

Corbett just stood and watched this eerie pantomime being played out.

Again Ranulf whispered in the old woman’s ear.

‘At The Wolfshead tavern, Southwark,’ Fitzwarren replied. ‘The former hangman, Wormwood.’

Ranulf nodded and stepped away. Corbett snapped his fingers at Cade.

‘Take her,’ he ordered, ‘to some chamber in the White Tower. She is to be held there until the King’s wishes are known.’ Corbett nodded at Lady Mary Neville, who sat white-faced, eyes staring, mouth half-open. ‘Ranulf, see the Lady Neville home.’

Corbett sat down as Cade hustled a now passive Fitzwarren to the door. Ranulf gently helped Lady Mary Neville to her feet and, with one protective arm around her, left the Chapter House without a backward glance. Corbett watched the door close behind them and leaned back in the chair, hugging his chest. He stared into the dark emptiness. ‘It’s all over,’ he whispered. Yet was it? As in war, victims and wounds remained. He would draw up his report, seal it with the secret signet, and pass on to other matters. But what about Cade and his young doxy Judith? Puddlicott and his brother? Young Maltote? The monks of Westminster? The Sisters of St Martha? All had suffered because of this. Corbett sighed and rose wearily to his feet and wondered what Ranulf had whispered to Lady Fitzwarren.

‘He’s changing,’ Corbett murmured. Lady Mary Neville, he thought, only emphasized these changes more: Ranulf was more cautious, more ruthless in his self-determination and Corbett had glimpsed the burning ambition in his manservant’s soul. ‘Well, well, well!’ Corbett tightened his sword-belt round his waist and then grinned to himself. If Ranulf wants more power, he thought, then he will have to accept the responsibility that goes with it. The clerk’s grin widened as he decided Ranulf would be responsible for informing the formidable Lady de Lacey of what had been happening in her Order.

The clerk stared around the gathering shadows. So much had happened here, the chamber seemed to echo with the vibrant passions revealed there. Corbett recalled Fitzwarren’s sardonic dismissal of him as a clever boy. He grinned sourly. ‘Not so clever!’ he muttered. He had always prided himself on his logic and yet that had actually hindered his progress: he had believed that Warfield, Puddlicott, de Craon, the killer and the murder victims were all inter-woven. He should have remembered how logic dictated that all parts do not necessarily make the same whole and that fortune, chance and coincidence defy the laws of logic. The only common factor was Westminster, its deserted abbey and palace. Corbett tapped the table-top absent-mindedly. ‘The King must return,’ he whispered, ‘set his house and church in order!’

Corbett left the Chapter House, walked through the abbey grounds and hired a wherry to take him down river. He was still thinking about Ranulf as he pushed open the door to his house and heard the commotion from the solar above: baby Eleanor’s shrieks, the shouting and thumping of feet and, above all, the beautiful wild singing of Welsh voices. Corbett leaned against the wall and covered his face with his hands. ‘Now,’ he groaned, ‘my happiness is complete!’

The door at the top of the stairs was flung open and Corbett forced himself to smile as Maeve, leaning on the arm of a stout, long-haired figure, shouted, ‘Hugh! Hugh! You’ll be ever so pleased! Uncle Morgan has just arrived!’

Ranulf left the Lady Mary Neville on the corner of her street in Farringdon. He gently kissed her fragrant fingers, nodded perceptibly as she murmured how grateful she was for his protection, and watched the beautiful young widow walk down to the door of her own house. She stopped, her hand on the latch and looked back up the street to where Ranulf stood, legs apart, thumbs thrust into his sword-belt. She pulled her hood back, shook her hair free and, raising her fingers, blew him the sweetest of kisses. Ranulf waited until she had gone in and smiled, fighting hard to control his own elation which wanted to make him shout and cry for joy.

Yet Ranulf had decided that the day’s business was still unfinished. He walked back into the city, visiting a fletcher’s shop just off West Cheap, before hurrying as fast as he could down to Thames Street and the barges waiting at Queenshithe. He would have liked to have stopped at Bread Street or even visited Maltote in St Bartholomew’s but Ranulf was determined to carry through what he had decided. If his master knew, or even suspected, Corbett would use all his power to hinder and impede his plans. Ranulf drew his cowl over his head, wrapped his cloak more tightly about him and clambered into a two-oared wherry. He kept his face hidden, curtly informing the boatman to drop him in Southwark just beneath London Bridge. So, whilst a powerful oarsman pulled his little craft across a choppy Thames, Ranulf clutched his sword and carefully plotted how to carry out his plan. He only hoped the Fitzwarren hag had told the truth. Ranulf had threatened that if she did not give him the information, he would tell every whore in London about her. Yet her confession was the easy part. Southwark at night was regarded as London’s own entrance to Hell and Ranulf knew that The Wolfshead tavern had a worse reputation than the devil himself.

The wherryman, intrigued at Ranulf’s silence, thought his passenger was going to visit one of the notorious Southwark brothels and refused to let him land until he had given him stark advice on how to get his money’s worth at The Golden Bell tavern where the bawds rutted like stoats for a penny and would do anything for two. Ranulf thought of the poor pathetic corpses he had seen, smiled bleakly and, once ashore, headed into the warren of alleyways which led off from the riverside. No lamps or torches flared here. The tenements and hovels huddled together and Ranulf felt he was picking his way through a darkened maze. Yet he knew Southwark came to life at night: cut-throats, pickpockets, pimps, vagabonds and outlaws roamed the alleyways looking for prey amongst the weak and unarmed. The runnels were cluttered with filth of every kind which reeked like the rotting decay of a charnel house. As Ranulf moved deeper into the darkness, dark forms emerged from narrow doorways but then slunk back as soon as they saw the hilt of Ranulf’s dagger and sword.

At last he found The Wolfshead, a small, dingy tavern with narrow slit windows out of which poured the sounds of violent roistering. Ranulf pushed the rickety door open and stepped into the stale, noisy half-light. As he entered, the din fell away. Ranulf pulled his cloak aside, the sword and dagger were noted and the hum of conversation continued. A greasy, fat-faced tapster hurried up, bobbing and curtseying as if Ranulf were the King. His greedy little eyes took in the fine fabric of Ranulf’s cloak and the leather, well-heeled boots.

‘Some ale? Some wine, Master?’ he whined. ‘A girl? Perhaps two?’

Ranulf beckoned him closer and grabbed the man by his food-stained jerkin.

‘I want Wormwood!’ he muttered. ‘And don’t lie, you slob of lard! He and his companions always meet here. They can be hired, yes?’

The fat tapster licked his lips, his eyes darting like those of a trapped rat. ‘Don’t look!’ he hissed. ‘But in the far corner, Wormwood and his companions. They are here. What is it you want, Master? A game of hazard?’

Ranulf pushed him away. ‘Yes. Yes,’ he muttered. ‘A game of hazard.’

He shoved the man aside, walked over to the corner and stared down at the four gamblers rolling cracked dice from a dirty cup. At first they ignored him but then the one-eyed man in the corner looked up; his face was narrow, thin and made all the more vicious by the rat-trap mouth and the dagger wound under his good eye; his greasy hair was parted in the middle and fell in straggling locks down to his shoulders.

‘What is it you want, bucko?’

‘You are Wormwood?’

‘I am. And who are you?’

‘Someone recommended you!’

‘For what?’ Wormwood’s hands went beneath the table as did those of his three companions.

Ranulf beamed at all of them. They looked what they were: footpads, cut-throats, men who would slit a baby’s throat for a groat. Unshaven faces, sly glittering eyes; Ranulf saw that one of them nursed a wound in his shoulder and knew that he had found his prey.

‘I want to hire you,’ Ranulf announced. ‘But first I’d like to gamble some of my gold.’

Wormwood’s hands, as did those of his companions, came back from under the table. Ranulf noticed the rags tied round their fingers and saw the lime stains. He knew how professional assassins had their own hallmark. Some would use the garrotte, others the crossbow, whilst these beauties used lime to blind their victim before striking with dagger and sword. Wormwood spread his rag-covered hands.

‘So, you wish to hire us but first you want to dice?’ He smirked at his companions. ‘Mother Fortune, my dear brothers, is smiling on us tonight. Landlord!’ he called out. ‘Bring a stool for our friend. A jug of your best wine and five cups! He’ll pay!’

The landlord hurried up but kept his face hidden as if he suspected what was to come. A stool was brought and the wine served. Wormwood shook the dice in the cup.

‘Come, Master, guests first!’

Ranulf shook the dice and threw a ten then passed the cup to the fellow sitting to his left. Each had their throw and, slurping their wine and shouting abuse, they all threw less than Ranulf. The dice cup came round again.

‘The best of three!’ Wormwood announced angrily. ‘And we’ll see the colour of your gold just in case you lose!’

Ranulf slipped a piece on to the table and his companions gazed greedily at it. Ranulf picked up the dice cup.

‘Strange!’ Wormwood exclaimed.

‘What is?’ Ranulf smiled back.