Hugh Corbett 17 - The Mysterium Read online

  Corbett blew on his mittened fingers and extended his hands over the nearby chafing dish, then picked up a parchment that Rastall had again confirmed was written in Boniface’s hand. The lettering was neat and precise, as if the author had carefully reflected before scribbling each word. The entries were elliptical: Hervey Staunton, Blandeford? Clerks? Messengers to St Paul’s Cross? Then beneath this, Walter Evesham? Ignacio Engleat? Clerks in the city? Corbett moved the manuscript around and glimpsed a sketch in the far right-hand corner: two letters, ‘B’ and ‘M’, separated by a heart pierced with an arrow. Was that a mere jotting? Some long-lost love of Boniface’s? He picked up the last piece of parchment. Grey and faded, it bore a list of names beginning with ‘Emma’, then others that sparked Corbett’s memory though he couldn’t place them: Odo Furnival, Stephen Bassetlawe, William Rescales. Beneath this the letters

  A flurry of noise followed by a creak in the gallery outside made him start. Footpad or Assassin had struck! He settled in his chair, allowing the exhaustion to seep in. When, he wondered, would he strike at this cunning killer? The piece of parchment slipped from his fingers and, eyes growing heavy, he drifted into sleep.

  Adelicia Ippegrave started awake. She’d been dreaming about walking through the moon-washed woodland of the abbey searching for Boniface. She was worried about the tapping that seemed to follow her. Pulling herself up on the cot bed, she realised the noise was coming from the shuttered window of her anker house. She picked up the small crucifix from the rough-hewn table beside her bed and crossed herself with it, whispering a prayer to St Michael against the prowlers of the dark. Then she drew a deep breath, took a tinder and lit the fat tallow candle in the lantern horn. Again the tapping on the shutters.

  ‘Adelicia,’ hissed a voice, ‘Adelicia, pax et bonum.’

  She moved across, opened the shutters and stood back. A rush of icy night air made her snatch up her mantle and wrap it about her shoulders. She stared into the blackness.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Why, sister, your sweet brother Boniface.’

  Adelicia caught her breath and sat down clumsily on a stool.

  ‘I don’t believe you!’ she gasped. ‘Show yourself.’

  ‘It’s best not, not the way I am now.’

  ‘Then how—’ Adelicia flinched as something sparkling was tossed lightly through the window. She scrabbled on the ground and picked up the circle of gold with its jasper stone.

  ‘Your ring.’ The voice was low, slightly mocking. ‘Your ring,’ it repeated. ‘Mother’s ring. You sent it to me.’

  Adelicia held the ring fast as tears pricked her eyes. ‘If you are Boniface, where have you been? Why have you come back now? Why didn’t—’

  ‘The past is closed, sealed, Adelicia. No going back down amongst the dead men. My hour has come, vengeance is here.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Sins reeking of malice and evil.’

  ‘But you said the past is sealed.’

  ‘So it is, except for sin. Its blossoms bloom rich and thick, they have to be culled.’

  ‘Are you the Mysterium?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you protested your innocence. You claimed to be guiltless, standing in the centre, pointing to the four corners. You wrote—’

  ‘That was then,’ came the whisper.

  ‘Did you . . .’ Adelicia’s mouth went dry, ‘kill Evesham and the others? Dreadful deaths. Even more, I’ve heard news from the city. I have been summoned by the royal clerk . . .’

  ‘Dogs nosing the muck,’ taunted the voice. ‘What do we have to do with royal clerks, Adelicia?’

  ‘Boniface, how did you escape?’

  ‘I will answer that if you answer me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘When you came to see me, when I was in sanctuary at St Botulph’s, did Evesham,’ the voice thrilled with hatred, ‘did Evesham, that limb of Satan, ask about a woman called Beatrice?’

  ‘No,’ whispered Adelicia, ‘but later, when you escaped, he and Engleat came to our house. They searched it from cellar to garret, but of course—’

  ‘I never kept anything there; well not much, did I, sister?’

  ‘No, no.’

  ‘And Evesham, what did he ask?’

  ‘He screamed at me about a woman Boniface, if that is who you are. Yes, he gave her name, Beatrice, that’s all. And now my question: how did you escape?’

  ‘Sister, I simply walked through the door.’

  ‘But that’s . . .’ Adelicia hastened to the window and gripped the rough wooden sill. She stared bleakly into the darkness, but her visitor had gone.

  ‘I don’t understand.’ Hervey Staunton, Justice in King’s Bench, tightened his vair-lined cloak, then leaned over and rapped the dark green leather covering of the judgement bench in the chamber of oyer and terminer just off the great hall of Westminster. ‘I don’t understand,’ he sniffed, glancing quickly at his companion Blandeford, who also sat swathed in a costly robe, face all peevish.

  Ranulf leaned back in his high chair and stared around the comfortable lofty chamber. The walls were half covered in gleaming linen panelling, the pinkish-coloured plaster above adorned with paintings, cloths and triptychs all showing the same theme of justice, be it Daniel defending Susannah or Solomon deciding over the ownership of a child. He then glanced quickly at Chanson, Clerk of the Stables, now acting as court usher, sitting on a stool near the door. Outside, two burly men-at-arms, resplendent in their blue and gold scarlet livery, were ready to provide assistance.

  Ranulf smiled to himself when Staunton repeated his question. ‘Master Long-Face’, as Ranulf secretly called Corbett, seemed oblivious to everything except the sheets of parchment before him. He wondered if he should intervene. He leaned forward, but Corbett, quick as a cat, gently tapped the table, a sign to remain silent. Ranulf rearranged his writing tray, its ink pots of red, blue and green still warm to the touch, the sharpened quills gleaming like knives ready to be grasped, the smooth creamy parchment stretched out under the weights carved in the shape of grimacing gargoyles. The inquisition would soon begin, but Corbett was determined to emphasise his authority over these two arrogant officials.

  Corbett glanced up. He touched one of the two heavy candelabras, then his commission next to the crucifix, brushing this with his fingers before moving to the hilt of his sword lying with its point towards Staunton, his fingers finally resting on his seal. All these symbols of office should remind this precious pair that although they exercised the law, they were not above it. Staunton’s persistent questioning and objections faded into silence.

  In the yard below, a crier announced the removal of a corpse to a chapel. A voice began to bellow the ‘Requiem Aeternam’. Corbett waited for silence, staring down at the parchment, lips murmuring as if reciting a prayer. Ranulf watched. He would remember all this when Fortune’s wheel turned and he himself had to preside, to carry out judgement. He dreamed dreams. He fully understood the rancorous emotions that seethed through the chancery and palace: Evesham’s ambition, the cunning secrecy of Boniface Ippegrave, the arrogance of Staunton and Blandeford. The chancery was a ladder, slippery and dangerous, but for the agile and keen-witted it was a passage to the highest office in the land. Ranulf, with or without Corbett’s help, was determined to climb that ladder. He now understood the rules of the game. True, he was not a clerk from the halls of Oxford or Cambridge. He was a sharp, abrasive denizen from the city of the night, but so what? The only thing that mattered was the King. Edward’s will was law, and Ranulf was a King’s man heart and soul.

  One thing he did not understand, could not comprehend, was Corbett, a true enigma, a puzzle. Even Edward the King was baffled by old Master Longface. Ranulf could plumb the depths of Staunton’s arrogance when summoned to answer questions. Blandeford was no different. The corridors of Westminster were full of clerks and judges, justices and officials just like them, all intent on pleasing the King and carrying out his will, though
only those who did it successfully were noticed and rewarded. Corbett was different. Was that why Edward, with increasing frequency, took Ranulf aside to sit with him on the ale bench in the royal quarters and share a tankard or blackjack of ale? Ranulf always understood the drift of the King’s words. What would happen if the King wanted something but Corbett didn’t? What the King desired had the force of law. Ranulf accepted this; he just wished he could understand his master.

  Corbett was a highly successful clerk, yet he was so monkish. He loved his wife deeply and refused to attend the various suppers, banquets and parties organised by the court. He was more absorbed in the liturgy and ritual of the Church, and drew strength from these, firm in his insistence that chaos must be controlled through right law and prepared to vigorously enter the most violent affrays to enforce this. He was locked in his own prayer chamber; in the world but not of it, part of the world yet distant from it. A clerk who fervently believed in the Church and the law, and that without these the world, wicked though it was, would be infinitely worse.

  ‘We are waiting, Sir Hugh?’ Staunton declared wearily.

  Corbett’s head came up. ‘Of course you are, my lord. I too am waiting. The King is waiting, God is waiting. You are not here to parry words with me, or debate the finer points of the law, but to answer certain questions under oath.’ He gestured to where Chanson sat near the door, next to him the lectern holding the Book of the Gospels. ‘You have both taken the oath?’

  ‘Of course,’ Staunton and Blandeford chorused.

  ‘Then you know the punishment for perjury?’

  ‘Sir Hugh!’

  ‘I am just reminding you, my lords.’ Corbett sifted through the parchments and sat back in his chair, staring up at the raftered ceiling. ‘Very well then, we’ll go back twenty years. Both of you were chancery clerks, specialising in the affairs of the city, dealing with the Great Ones at the Guildhall?’

  ‘Of course,’ Staunton snapped. ‘We still are. You know that, Sir Hugh. We hold our commissions for matters affecting the city and the rights of the King in London.’

  ‘Very good, very good,’ Corbett murmured. ‘Then let’s go back to the murders by the Mysterium. You knew nothing of them?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Did you know Boniface Ippegrave?’

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘Were you his friend? Some people, including his grace, claim you were.’

  ‘Some people are wrong, though not the King. He has now been apprised of the full facts. Ippegrave was an acquaintance, a man we liked,’ Staunton shrugged, ‘but nothing special. He was not, how can I put it, of our household. We did not consort with him at night. We did not sup or revel with him till the early hours.’

  ‘No, no, I am sure you did not. So can you explain why, in his scribblings, Boniface Ippegrave should mention your names?’

  ‘Why not?’ Blandeford blurted out before Staunton could stop him. ‘Why shouldn’t he scribble down our names? I know what you are talking about, Sir Hugh, I have seen the same scraps of parchment.’

  ‘You have?’ Corbett leaned forward.

  Blandeford looked as if he was going to bluster, but Staunton, acting the serene judge, held up a hand. ‘Sir Hugh, Sir Hugh, when the Mysterium was unmasked and Boniface Ippegrave disappeared, everyone was fascinated by the details. We knew that Ippegrave’s chancery pouches were being emptied and the evidence collated. Master Blandeford and I, like many others, sifted through it. You must have done the same.’

  Corbett smiled, narrowing his eyes.

  ‘I was young and tender then, Sir Hugh,’ Staunton purred, ‘more concerned with the business before me than with what had happened. Oh, of course I remember the rumours, the scandal. We picked at what morsels we could, but everything else was hushed, hidden away like the pyx in a tabernacle.’ He pulled a face. ‘As for our names being on that list, who knows. Did Ippegrave suspect us?’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘God knows,’ came the bland reply. ‘Perhaps,’ he shrugged, ‘we were intended victims.’

  ‘So, on your oath, you know nothing of those matters?’

  ‘What his grace the King has already told you covers everything we knew.’

  ‘Very good, very good.’ Corbett wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. ‘And so we move forward twenty years. My lord Staunton, Master Blandeford, you have both prospered well, waxed wealthy and powerful under the King’s protection. Of course your relationship with the city has deepened and become more, how can I put it, enriched.’

  ‘What are you implying?’ Blandeford accused.

  ‘I am implying nothing,’ Corbett snapped. ‘That is the situation. Walter Evesham was Chief Justice in King’s Bench. You, my lord Staunton, are a judge, whilst Master Blandeford here is your senior clerk, a minor justice who one day hopes to join you in your pre-eminence – true?’

  Staunton nodded, watching Corbett carefully.

  ‘Now,’ Corbett chewed the corner of his lip, ‘your mandate is to keep an eye on the city merchants, the powerful ones, those the King loves to tax and often does, those with whom he clashes. What happened regarding Evesham? How did his fall begin?’

  ‘We received information, anonymous messages, that our chief justice was no Angel of Light,’ Staunton replied tersely. ‘This information, so the writer claimed, came from the Land of Cockaigne, another word for nonsense, except that such testimony maintained that Evesham was hand in glove with two leading gang members: Giles Waldene and Hubert the Monk.’

  ‘And how was this information given to you?’

  ‘By letters delivered at Westminster, left with this clerk or that.’

  ‘You have examples? You have brought the documents? I would like to see them.’

  ‘Of course.’ Staunton snapped his fingers, and Blandeford leaned down and picked up a small sack. He handed this to Corbett, who undid the knot at the neck and emptied the contents on to the table. The scraps of parchment were all about the same size. The vellum was of poor quality; the writing was large, in dark blue ink. Corbett sifted amongst them even as he realised they could have been written by any scribe, scribbler or clerk at the chancery. Nevertheless the information they contained was striking: allegations that on this indictment or that, Lord Walter Evesham had shown great favour to either Waldene or Hubert the Monk, members of their gangs being released without charge or trial. Corbett quickly calculated that there must be at least ten or twelve such pieces of parchment. Most contained the same kind of information, with names and dates. He organised them into a pile and, ignoring Staunton’s protests, gave them over to Ranulf, who was busy transcribing Corbett’s questions and the answers he received. Ranulf picked up an empty bag off the floor, put the documents in it, tied it securely and placed it in a coffer on the small table beside him. Staunton made to protest.

  ‘Don’t.’ Corbett lifted a hand. ‘My lord, you know the law. This is a commission of oyer and terminer. I will take whatever evidence I require.’

  ‘You will return them?’

  ‘When I have finished.’ Corbett lifted his arms and leaned his elbows on the arms of his chair. ‘Of course you received more information.’ He held out a hand. ‘I will have that too.’

  Again Staunton nodded, and Blandeford handed over more scraps of parchment. These were different, providing the times and dates of nocturnal meetings between Walter Evesham and the two gang leaders at Evesham’s mansion in Clothiers Lane. Corbett studied them sifting amongst them.

  ‘At first we couldn’t believe it,’ Staunton murmured, ‘but then we brought the information to the King. We organised a watch and, as you know, entered Walter Evesham’s house and found him deep in conversation with the two riffler leaders. There was the question of gold that had been stolen from the mint. The King decided that Evesham, Waldene and Hubert the Monk should be committed for trial. He hoped to execute all three as a warning to the rest. Evesham threw himself on the King’s mercy. He promised a full confession that would de
tail everything.’

  ‘Did you get one?’ asked Ranulf.

  ‘No, Evesham’s murder ended all that. However,’ Staunton sighed, ‘the information at least gave us the power to arrest and detain Waldene and Hubert’s gangs. We thought it best to keep the leaders separate from their followers. They were all placed in Newgate and would have later gone on trial in Westminster Hall, but of course, Evesham’s murder frustrated all this. His detailed confession would have been vital, but once he was dead, the King had no choice but to free the two gang leaders.’ Staunton shrugged. ‘Ostensibly they had done no wrong. Evesham was holding the stolen gold; there was no evidence linking them to it. They maintained the pretence that they had been summoned by Evesham to his house, and how could they refuse the King’s chief justice?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I understand all that,’ Corbett waved his hand, ‘but this Land of Cockaigne? Do you know its author, the spy who gave you such information?’

  ‘Sir Hugh, if we did, we would tell you.’

  ‘But you do have other information?’ Corbett insisted. ‘Waiting outside is the clerk who rejoices in the name of Lapwing as well as a string of other aliases as long as anyone’s arm.’ He paused as Staunton shifted uneasily in his seat.

  ‘My lord,’ Corbett sighed, ‘am I to drag it out from you word for word, letter by letter? Lapwing is your man, isn’t he? You are on oath.’

  Staunton glanced at Blandeford, who simply stared down at his hands.

  ‘Answer the question.’ Ranulf lifted his head. ‘My lord, I am waiting for your answer, an answer that is on oath.’

  ‘There is no need to talk to me like that, clerk.’

  ‘There’s every need,’ Corbett replied. ‘We are not here to while away the time. I want the truth. The man known as Lapwing is a beneficed clerk. He knows Latin and Norman French. He is well dressed, courteous and educated. He is or was your spy. Yes or no?’