Corbett picked up the priest’s belt and placed it on the chair he’d just vacated. ‘You’ll come with me, Ranulf. We must have words with the King.’
‘First I’ll remove the corpse, I’ll even say a prayer for him. He did us all a favour, certainly the King. His grace will be pleased at such a silent death, no scandal, no public outcry, no trial. But before I join you at Westminster, I have certain business to complete.’
‘What business?’ Corbett asked sharply.
Ranulf refused to meet his gaze. ‘Master, you have your tasks and I have mine.’
Ranulf-atte-Newgate entered the Bowels of Hell, a tavern deep in the labyrinth of the needle-thin alleyways and runnels around White Friars. He paused just within the doorway, threw back his cloak and adjusted his war belt so that all could see the sword and dagger in their brocaded scabbards. Then he glanced around and smiled.
‘Home from home,’ he murmured, ‘sweet memories of my youth.’
The taproom of the Bowels of Hell was spacious and dark, a true hiding place for the counterfeits, cranks, cunning men, forgers, outlaws and wolfsheads from the nearby Sanctuary. They all clustered here in the juddering light of the squat, rancid-smelling tallow candles, a garish, motley gang of London’s underworld, all dressed in their tawdry finery, consorting with the bawds in their strumpet rags and shiny cheap jewellery. No one looked directly at Ranulf. They all recognised Corbett’s fighting man, his dagger-boy, a dangerous character made even more so by the ring he wore and the chain around his neck. They glanced quickly at him, then returned to their business, quietly praying that they weren’t his.
The clerk stood for a while, then moved over to the counter, a long board laid over a row of casks. Minehost, a former pirate in the Thames estuary who, as he often boasted, had escaped the scaffold on at least two occasions by murmuring the first line of Psalm 50, moved to present him with a tankard of his finest ale.
‘Brewed with pigshit,’ Ranulf murmured, pushing it away. ‘You’ll not have me fuddled, sir.’ He plucked at Minehost’s bloodstained apron. ‘I’ve talked to Mouseman. He’s lodged in a chamber at Westminster. He awaits his pardon being sealed by the chancellor.’
‘And?’ Minehost’s fat, sweaty face creased into a smile.
‘He mentioned a dog-man, a dagger-lad with a war hound.’
‘Never heard of him.’
Ranulf plucked at the apron again. ‘Very good,’ he hissed, ‘then I’ll be gone, but . . .’ His smile faded and he paused at the screeching of some whore as she was thrown to the floor and her skirts pulled back.
‘But what?’ Minehost asked.
‘I’ll be back with a comitatus.’ Ranulf pulled a face, moving his head from side to side. ‘I’m not too sure when, but late one night we will break in here. We’ll arrest all law-breakers and those who shelter them. I’ll try to be fair and careful.’ He moved his arm swiftly, knocking over one of the candles. ‘Sorry!’ He picked it up. ‘I’ll really try and make sure we are careful. I mean that no fire breaks out, that the bailiffs don’t plunder here or the treasure you’ve undoubtedly hidden away in the cellars below.’ Ranulf shrugged. ‘And, of course I’ll do my best to protect you personally.’
‘Over there.’ Minehost supped from the tankard he’d just offered. ‘In the far corner. He’s sitting facing you. He has a scar across his face.’
Ranulf smiled and swaggered across the ill-lit taproom, shoving aside bawds and pimps, boots scuffing the strewn rushes now turned to a mushy mess. From the cellar below echoed the raucous shouts of gamblers wagering on the cock fight about to begin. He reached the corner, picked up a fallen stool and pushed his way through to the great squat tun that served as a table. He took out his own dice and cup from his wallet and grinned cheekily at the gamblers.
‘Good evening, my lords,’ he intoned, ‘and a finer collection I’ve not seen, even on the execution cart bound for the Elms.’
The gamblers, their unshaven faces betraying their nervousness, peered back warily from hoods and cowls. The man sitting opposite, with a greyish scar running from his left eye right across his face, hastily scooped up the few silver coins, hands disappearing beneath the table. Ranulf just shrugged and shook his own dice.
‘Call a number.’ He smiled at the dog-man. ‘You go first!’
‘I don’t want to gamble. I have no silver.’
‘You have a war hound. Choose a number.’ Ranulf rolled the dice. ‘Seven!’ he exclaimed and rolled again. ‘Eight.’ He picked up the dice. ‘My number’s higher. I’ve won your dog.’
‘I didn’t wager it.’
‘Why, where is it?’
‘I don’t have one.’
‘You did have,’ Ranulf grinned, ‘but you had to kill it in St Botulph’s cemetery . . .’
The dog-man’s knife hand came out above the table. Ranulf was swifter, a clean straight thrust into his opponent’s throat. The dog-man choked, gagged and spluttered, hands beating the air.
‘You tried to kill my friend, my master,’ and pressing again on the dagger, Ranulf watched the soul-light in those dark eyes fade before withdrawing his blade. The dog-man, coughing blood, collapsed over the table, sending tankards and platters hurtling to the floor. The hubbub in the tavern immediately stilled. Ranulf rose, leaned over, wiped his blade on the shoulder of the dead assassin, pocketed his dice and stared down at the other gamblers, who sat hands gripping whatever weapons they carried.
‘
Pax et bonum
.’ Ranulf smiled and leaned down. ‘You’ll agree, sirs, won’t you, it was self-defence?’
‘As clear as day,’ agreed a gaunt-faced rogue to Ranulf’s right. ‘I’ll take any oath that it’s the truth. We all would, wouldn’t we?’ His companions, eager to plunder their dead companion, nodded vigorously in agreement.
‘So it is.’ Ranulf re-sheathed his dagger. ‘There truly is honour amongst thieves. Gentlemen, I bid you good night.’
Edward the King considered it to be a very good night as he lounged in front of the great hearth-fire in the Jerusalem Chamber at Westminster. The King gulped his claret and stared appreciatively at Corbett, who sat on a chair opposite. Edward was about to smile but stiffened. Corbett was looking at him strangely. He recognised that look, unblinking, as if the Keeper of the King’s Secret Seal was trying to probe the royal soul, demand an answer to some nagging question.
‘Hugh,’ the King lifted his goblet in toast, ‘you are indeed a good and faithful servant. I listened to your report and my heart leapt with joy. Evesham and Engleat are gone – no prattling there – Waldene and Hubert dispatched to hell, their gangs broken, a warning to those Great Ones in the Guildhall. Arrogant peacocks with a host of kites and ravens at their beck and call.’ Edward loosened the braids of his quilted jerkin. ‘All gone,’ he murmured. ‘I’ll confiscate Evesham’s house and his treasures. More importantly, Parson John. Thank God, thank God for what he did. There’ll be no trial, no scandal, no trumpeting abroad.’ Edward wanted Corbett out. He felt uncomfortable. ‘Now, Hugh, there’s a strange business in Kent, a haunted manor house where—’
‘Sire?’
‘Hugh?’ Edward curbed his growing nervousness.
‘Why did you allow Evesham to burn his manuscripts?’
‘What use were they?’
‘Did they contain secrets harmful to you?’
‘Possibly, but I wouldn’t know, would I.’ The King grinned. ‘They were secret.’
‘And what did you really plan for Evesham, sire? A long stay in Syon, then he’d turn King’s Approver, reveal all the wickedness about the city, the Great Ones at the Guildhall? And why did you ask me to investigate? Did you suspect that Staunton and Blandeford had murdered Evesham after seizing some of his records? Knowing that precious pair, I’d have their chambers searched for any information hurtful to you. Did you, did they, always entertain suspicions about Boniface Ippegrave’s guilt?’
Edward bared his teeth in a smile.
‘And that riot in Newgate? Staunton and Blandeford’s work through their creature Lapwing? You separated the gangs from their leaders. Master Lapwing agitated them, spreading the lie that one coven was about to turn King’s evidence. Why weren’t the prisoners lodged in the Tower? Was the keeper of Newgate told to look the other way? Did he have his secret orders? Lapwing plotted well. He spread a mess of lies about how St Botulph’s could be fortified, that it had a secret passageway out. You wanted to destroy those gangs, separate them from their leaders, and shatter Waldene and the Monk’s power. Perhaps they too, if they survived the pits, could be persuaded to sing the same hymn as Evesham, but Evesham’s murder foiled all that. How could you threaten those two coven leaders if your principal witness was dead? More importantly, Waldene and the Monk, when they were released, were no longer powerful, their retinues annihilated. Whatever, you arranged that riot. The two gangs, caught in open rebellion, would face summary justice, a warning to all the other covens and dagger-men in the city.’
Edward noisily tapped his fingers against the quilted arm of his chair.
‘Lapwing,’ Corbett insisted, ‘he provoked that riot. So did Staunton and Blandeford. In the end, sire, you achieved what you planned: the total destruction of two of London’s most violent gangs. But Lapwing should pay for what he did, as should Staunton and Blandeford.’
‘Lapwing is to be released,’ the King snapped, ‘and restored to office. Staunton and Blandeford are good, faithful servants of the Crown.’
‘Innocents died that day,’ Corbett continued as if talking to himself, ‘poor men and women hastening about their God-given lives. Some were going to the stalls, others to church to pray. They were slaughtered like pigs, the women raped and abused.’
‘Sir Hugh . . .’
Corbett slipped the chancery ring off his finger and took off the delicate silver chain around his neck. He placed these carefully on a nearby footstool and rose.
‘I’ll not be going to Kent, sire.’
‘Hugh?’
‘I have resigned from office. I am tired, sick at heart and weary. This is finished and so am I. It’s time for me to be gone.’
‘Hugh, for the love of God, don’t leave me. Not you.’ Edward slammed down his goblet and sprang to his feet, fingers tapping the hilt of his dagger.
‘Really,’ Corbett smiled thinly, ‘will it come to that one day? Sire, I bid you good night.’ He turned and walked out of the chamber, letting the door slam shut on Edward’s shouts.
Ranulf, waiting outside, sprang to his feet.
‘Sir Hugh?’ He stared anxiously at his master’s grim face. The door to the Jerusalem Chamber was flung open and Edward stormed out.
‘Hugh, please!’
‘Master?’
Corbett ignored the King. He clasped Ranulf on the shoulder.
‘As you said, old friend, you have your tasks, I have mine. You know where I am going; you may follow if you wish.’
Edward grasped his arm, but Corbett shook him off, not even bothering to look at him. Then he started purposefully down the darkening gallery, the King’s passionate pleading echoing after him.
Author’s Note
The Mysterium
is of course a work of fiction, but it is based very firmly on events that did occur during the reign of Edward I. All the elements mentioned here figure prominently in the tumultuous history of medieval London: the wealthy merchants, their links to the underworld and its powerful gangs ever ready to answer their masters’ call. Edward I never trusted Londoners, and Sir Ralph Sandewic, Constable of the Tower, is a real historical figure who kept strict watch on England’s capital city from its Tower. Riots and escapes from Newgate were common, escaped felons often took sanctuary only to be violently seized and immediately decapitated.
Edward I did pride himself on his love of the law, though when it came to it, he honoured it more in the breach than the observance. Sir Walter Evesham is based on a true historical character, Chief Justice Sir Thomas de Weyland, who fell from grace and fled to sanctuary. The legal system of Edward I and the violent underworld it tried to control is described in very great detail in my non-fiction work,
The Great Crown Jewel Robbery of 1303
, which also explains why human skin was left pinned to a door in Westminster Abbey!
Paul Doherty