Hugh Corbett 11 - The Demon Archer (15 page)

Ranulf blushed. ‘You misunderstand me, madam.’

‘Do I now? I have never misunderstood a man in my life! All sweetness and light, ready to play Cat’s-Cradle?’

‘That is not the case!’ Ranulf snapped, spots of anger high on his cheeks. He was mystified, baffled by what was happening, but the young woman’s face, her mannerisms, the shifting moods in those eyes, entranced him. Ranulf quietly cursed. He was tongue-tied. Strange, the woman reminded him of Lady Maeve, Corbett’s wife: she had the same effect. If he was honest, Ranulf felt overawed, even frightened, and this made him angry. He, Ranulf-atte-Newgate, clerk, bully-boy, fighting man! Alicia was still studying him.

‘You are telling the truth, aren’t you?’ she said quietly. ‘You really don’t mean any offence? I’ve never seen a man blush before.’ She gathered the reins up. ‘I am sorry if I was brusque.’

She stretched out a hand. Ranulf seized it and kissed the back of the leather glove. He glanced up. Alicia glimpsed the passion in his eyes and withdrew her hand.

‘They said your master was a strange one. But he keeps even stranger company.’ She raised a hand. ‘I bid you adieu, Master Ranulf-atte-Newgate.’

And, turning her horse, she cantered out of the yard. Ranulf watched her go. He felt like running after her, explaining exactly how he felt. Had he done the right thing? Shouldn’t he have offered to escort her? He heard a snigger and looked across. Two stable boys were watching him. Ranulf’s hand brushed the hilt of the dagger and both boys suddenly remembered they had tasks to do. He walked back into the taproom, where Corbett had finished his meal.

‘Ranulf, are you well?’ He gestured at the half-full trauncher. ‘Won’t you finish your meal?’

‘I don’t feel hungry.’

Corbett got to his feet. ‘Ranulf, in God’s name, what is the matter? Do you know that young woman?’

‘I wish to God I did!’

‘Ah, that’s it!’ Corbett put a hand gently on his shoulder. ‘Ranulf-atte-Newgate, the terror of the ladies, the man who even thought of becoming a priest!’

‘Don’t taunt me!’

‘I’m not taunting you.’ Corbett’s hand fell away. ‘It happens, Ranulf, it always happens as a terrible shock, and like death, we never know when.’

He studied Ranulf’s face, which looked paler than usual. Two red spots burned high in his cheeks, a rare sign when Ranulf was disturbed or agitated; his green cat-eyes gleamed as if he had been drinking.

‘There’s a time and a place,’ Corbett said. He took Ranulf by the arm and led him out through the taproom into the garden. ‘Always remember, Ranulf, the garden is the best place to plot.’ He grinned. ‘As well as to pay court. No listening ears, no watching eyes.’

They sat on a turfed seat. Corbett took his chancery ring and moved it so the sun glinted in the reflection.

‘What do we have here, Ranulf? Sunbeams or substance? Shadows or something more tangible? It’s the old dance, isn’t it? Whenever a murder takes place, people tell you what they want you to hear, make you see what they want you to see.’ He nudged his companion sharply. ‘Less of the lovelorn squire. Where is the keen-witted clerk of the Green Wax? Item.’ Corbett used his fingers to emphasise the points he made. ‘Lord Henry Fitzalan is very rich, powerful, disliked by all and sundry and he is killed during a hunt.’ He glanced at Ranulf but his manservant’s mind was elsewhere. ‘Item,’ Corbett continued. ‘Lord Henry was disliked by his younger brother over whose purse strings he kept strict control. Sir William was not present when Lord Henry was killed. Item – we have Robert Verlian, chief verderer. He hated Lord Henry for his lecherous intentions to his daughter. He, too, was not present when his lord was killed and inexplicably flees. Item – Sir William seems intent on placing the blame fairly on Verlian’s shoulders. Item – St Hawisia is now standing in that carp pond over there. Don’t you agree, Ranulf?’

‘Yes, yes, of course!’

‘Ranulf!’ Corbett exclaimed. ‘You are not listening to a word I am saying.’

The woebegone clerk mumbled an apology. Corbett secretly wondered if this was the first time the notorious Ranulf-atte-Newgate had been so smitten.

‘Item – we know that Sir William has been assisting his lord, the Prince of Wales. He probably brought Gaveston into Ashdown. He was helped in this by his sister, the indomitable Lady Madeleine. I suspect the man Sister Fidelis observed slipping into Lady Madeleine’s house was no less a person than the Gascon favourite. He probably sheltered in the priory waiting for the Prince of Wales to arrive. And?’

‘Item – ’ Ranulf spoke up. ‘We have an outlaw, a wolfs-head. He seems to do little damage but he has waged a vexatious war against Lord Henry, despatching cryptic messages, making reference to the “Rose of Rye”. We now know the owners of that tavern killed themselves, the result of Lord Henry’s lechery.’

‘Good,’ Corbett mused. ‘Item – we have the corpse of the young woman killed by an arrow to the throat. Her naked body is buried in the forest; it is later dug up and placed outside the priory gates. Item – we have a number of local notables whom we would like to interrogate more closely. The Franciscan, Brother Cosmas, had no love for his dead manor lord and we know he was an archer.’

‘So is our taverner,’ Ranulf interrupted. ‘We also have this hermit. He may have known, seen or heard something.’

‘True,’ Corbett agreed. ‘But there’s one person missing, isn’t there? Or rather two. This mysterious physician Pancius Cantrone. What was his relationship to Lord Henry?’

‘And who else?’ Ranulf asked.

‘Why, most learned of clerks, the lady we have just met.’

Ranulf started.

‘Don’t jump like a hare in March.’ Corbett patted him on the knee. ‘And don’t let your wits be fuddled. Alicia Verlian is a redoubtable young woman. I would wager that she can draw a bow and hit the mark.’

‘But she was at home the morning Lord Henry was killed!’

‘No, Ranulf, her father said he left her there. How do we know she didn’t follow, take a bow and quiver of arrows with her? We do know that someone left such weapons in one of the hollow oaks. She also has a horse. She could murder as quickly and expertly as anyone else.’

‘I don’t think so.’ Ranulf set his mouth in a stubborn challenge.

‘Fine, fine,’ Corbett replied softly. ‘But let’s keep up the hunt, Ranulf. What else do we know?’

‘That the King is not being truthful with us.’

‘Yes.’

‘And why did the French want Lord Henry to lead the English envoys to France? In the main,’ Ranulf concluded, ‘that’s the challenge which faces us.’

Corbett got to his feet. ‘So, I will leave you to think sweet thoughts and compose a poem. Tonight we journey to Ashdown Manor. It harbours all our opponents.’ Corbett rubbed his hands. ‘And, of course, there’s one name I must not forget, my arch-enemy, that Lucifer in the flesh, Seigneur Amaury de Craon.’

Corbett strode back into the tavern. Ranulf watched him go and then put his face in his hands. He couldn’t understand what was happening. One minute he was eating his food, the next he was looking on a face which made his heart skip, his blood race. ‘Lecherous and hot as a sparrow’ Maltote had once called him. But not now! He felt no spurt of lust! Ranulf just wanted to be with the woman, to sit on a chair and watch the different expressions on that lovely face. Engrossed in this way, Ranulf was hardly aware of the shadow which slipped into the garden and stood beside him until the unexpected guest shuffled his feet and coughed loudly. Ranulf glanced up.

‘Ah, Master Baldock. What do you seek?’

‘This morning,’ the groom replied, ‘there was no one to look after your horses. I am a free man . . .’

‘You seek employment, Master Baldock?’ Ranulf smiled. ‘It’s possible. But, come, sit down next to me. Tell me all you know about Alicia Verlian.’

 

The Louvre Palace was the private preserve of Philip IV of France. The gardens around it, with their flower beds and herb plots, orchards, fountains, carp and stew ponds, were the delight of his life. Only he and his close confidants were allowed to walk and rest there. Indeed, members of his household, particularly those who felt the lash of his cutting tongue, were reluctant to accept an invitation to what Philip called his ‘Garden of delights’. At the far end of this garden, in its own enclosure, stood what Philip called his ‘orchard of the hanged’. Its ancient pears and apple trees carried a different fruit, besides those the good Lord allowed to grow in glorious profusion. Here, Philip’s executioners and torturers hanged those guilty of crimes against their royal master: a cook suspected of poisoning; a door-keeper found guilty of selling secrets to foreign merchants; clerks who had been too garrulous in their cups and, above all, English spies whom Amaury de Craon’s agents tracked down and captured. The place stank of death. The corpses were gibbeted until the smell became too offensive, at which point Philip would order them to be cut down and buried in the derelict cemetery his torturers called ‘Haceldema’, a Jewish term for the ‘field of blood’. Sometimes Philip would summon suspects there. He would take them by the arm and walk round the trees, pointing to the rotten fruit, describing the crimes and felonies of each miscreant. Such a walk always jogged the memory and loosened the tongue, but this time it had failed.

Philip now sat in his garden bower and looked across at the bloodied, bruised face of Simon Roulles, that perpetual English scholar who had, at last, been caught. Philip, his face impassive, his corn-coloured hair falling down to his shoulders, smoothed his moustache and well-trimmed beard and scrutinised the English spy.

‘You are in deep pain?’

Philip’s eyes moved to the black-clad torturers standing behind their victim.

‘Monsieur Roulles has been on the wheel?’

The red-masked executioner nodded.

Philip wetted his lips. Roulles was barely conscious. He was lashed by cords to the chair. Philip picked up a napkin and gently dabbed at the streak of blood trickling out of the corner of the English-man’s mouth.

‘Do you know, Simon?’ he murmured. ‘I always wanted to meet you.’

Roulles’ lips moved but no sound came out.

‘No, no, it’s useless.’ Philip scratched his head in annoyance. ‘It is futile. You do understand my English?’ Philip didn’t wait for an answer. ‘It is futile,’ he repeated, ‘to claim that you are an English scholar, to demand to be expelled from France on some ship leaving Calais or Boulogne. You carry letters claiming to be a Frenchman. You have a fictitious cousin in the countryside. But it’s all lies, it’s all shadows. Your master, Sir Hugh Corbett . . .’

‘He is not my master!’ The words were spat out.

‘Of course, he isn’t. I do apologise. Edward of England never lets his left hand know what his right hand is doing. Still, you are an English spy. You ferret out secrets and send them back to your Prince.’ Philip leaned across and again gently wiped the Englishman’s mouth. ‘Would you like some wine?’

One of the torturers picked up a jewel-encrusted cup and held it to his victim’s lips. Roulles lapped like a dog, allowing the wine to swill round his mouth. He knew it would be the last he ever tasted. His whole body was a sheet of flame. He’d been placed on the wheel and spun round and round while the torturer had struck at his arms and legs, pinching his flesh with burning tongs. The same questions, time and time again. What had he learned? What had Mistress Malvoisin told him? Simon had not broken, confident that the messenger he had despatched to England would already have handed the secret to his royal master.

‘I ask you again,’ Philip said. ‘Or it’s back to the wheel. I do not wish that, Monsieur Roulles, I want you to tell us the secret.’

‘But, if you know what it is,’ Roulles gasped as his lips bubbled blood, ‘it is no longer a secret. You do know it, Philip of France.’

The king leaned across the table and smacked him with the back of his hand. The amethyst ring he wore gouged the prisoner’s cheek.

‘The secret?’ he repeated. ‘And, if you tell me it, I’ll tell you one.’

Roulles attempted to smile. Like a dreamer he kept going in and out of consciousness. Sometimes he was back in Oxford. At others he was in a tavern singing a carol with friends and the snow was falling outside. Or King Edward was walking arm-in-arm with him through the rose gardens of Westminster.

‘Do you know Pancius Cantrone?’ Philip asked.

Roulles jerked.

‘You must know him,’ Philip insisted. ‘And the scandalous tittle-tattle he depicts as the truth.’

‘I know of no such man.’

‘Come, come, Master Roulles. Let me refresh your memory. Monsieur Malvoisin, before he died in a most unfortunate boating accident, believed he had learned certain secrets.’

‘It’s the truth!’ the prisoner blurted, fighting a wave of nausea. He must not collapse; if he could only ignore the pain!

‘No, no, Monsieur Malvoisin shared this gossip with Signor Cantrone. Somehow or other you discovered it.’

Roulles kept his head down.

‘You are going to die,’ Philip continued remorselessly. ‘Either quickly or at the end of a rope in my orchard.’

Roulles refused to reply.

‘What was the secret?’ Philip insisted. ‘Is that why your master sent you to Paris?’ Philip nodded to one of the torturers, who yanked back Roulles’ head. ‘Lord Henry Fitzalan is dead,’ he declared. ‘Killed by an arrow to the heart. And as for Signor Cantrone. Well, Seigneur Amaury de Craon is now within breathing distance of him. Or perhaps you’ll take comfort that the secrets you discovered have been despatched to England. That pedlar, the chapman, the tinker, the trader, what’s his name? Ah yes, Malsherdes. You think Malsherdes reached Boulogne and took ship to England?’

Roulles tried to concentrate. Despite the agony in mind and body, he thought of little Malsherdes and his pack pony going along the cobbled streets of Paris and out into the countryside.