‘Is it suicide?’ Ranulf whispered.
Corbett studied the corpse, examining the nails carefully, the position of the knot behind the left ear. He lifted the shirt, examined the man’s torso, then sawed through the knot with his dagger. He tried to arrange the corpse in as dignified a pose as possible and covered it with Baddlesmere’s cloak.
‘He committed suicide,’ Corbett muttered. He pointed up at the rafters then at the bed. ‘So simple, to walk from life into death. Baddlesmere stood on the bed, fashioned that noose, put it round his neck and kicked the bed away.’
‘What’s this?’ Ranulf leaned across the bed and pointed to a carved scrawl on the wall.
Corbett studied this carefully and, looking amongst Baddlesmere’s possessions, realised the dead man had carved this, using the buckle of his belt, now worn down on one corner.
‘What does it say?’ Ranulf asked.
Corbett studied the words. ‘“
Veritas
,”’ he read, “‘
Stat in ripa
.” Truth stands on the bank,’ he muttered. ‘What on earth did Baddlesmere mean by that? The tag usually reads, “
Veritas stat in media via
”; “Truth stands in the Middle way”.’
‘I found him hanging!’
Corbett whirled round: de Molay stood in the doorway.
‘He was here last night, with a jug of water and bread. Two guards stood outside.’
‘And they heard nothing?’
De Molay shook his head. ‘They heard him moving around early in the morning: he was singing the “
Dies Irae
”. You know the sequence from the Mass of the Dead. How does it go, Corbett? “O Day of Wrath! O Day of Mourning! Heaven and Earth in Ashes Burning”.’
“‘See What Fear Man’s Bosom Renders,”’ Corbett continued, “‘When from Heaven the Judge Descendeth on Whose Sentence All Dependeth!”’
De Molay knelt by the bed, crossing himself. When the others came, Branquier. Legrave and Symmes, Corbett walked back down the stairs and out into the fresh air. De Molay joined him there, Legrave beside him.
‘Before you ask, Grand Master, Sir Bartholomew committed suicide.’ Corbett shrugged. ‘Overcome by remorse, fearful of what he had been implicated in, unable to accept the disgrace.’
‘I came up,’ de Molay remarked, ‘just to greet him as a brother.’ He glanced at Legrave. ‘He can’t be buried in hallowed ground.’
‘But, Grand Master,’ Legrave exclaimed, ‘he was my brother as well! I knew Sir Bartholomew. We fought at Acre together.’
De Molay glanced expectantly at Corbett.
‘Charity lies at the root of all laws,’ Corbett declared. ‘I do not think Christ will judge him as harshly as you do.’
‘Strange,’ de Molay murmured. ‘All these deaths by fire. When I was a child, Corbett, playing in the fields outside Carcassone, I taunted a witch, an old woman, who lived in a shabby hut built against the wall overlooking the ditch. With all the foolishness and ignorance of youth, I shouted that she should burn. She approached me, eyes gleaming.
“No, de Molay,”
she screeched back. “
You will die in fire and smoke
!”’ De Molay rubbed his eyes. ‘I always wondered what she meant. Now I know: there are different forms of fire and there are different kinds of death.’
And, not waiting for an answer, the grand master spun on his heel and walked away. Legrave followed him. Corbett watched them go then beckoned Ranulf and Maltote over.
‘Get your horses ready,’ he ordered. ‘I want you to go to York. Seek out Claverley.’ He dug into his pouch and handed them a small scrap of parchment. ‘Scour the city, buy these mixtures, but keep each separate. Claverley will assist you.’
‘Where shall we look?’
‘Among the charcoal-burners of the city. It may take some time, but remember what I said: keep each substance separate and bring them back as soon as you can.’
Within the hour, Ranulf and Maltote had left the manor. Corbett decided to stay in his own chamber. He examined this carefully, locking the shutters on the window before going out to find a long ash pole to lie across the bottom of the door. As he did this, Corbett noticed the gap between the door and floor. For a while, he stood and stared at the long piece of leather hung on the back of the door to exclude draughts. Corbett smiled. ‘I wonder,’ he murmured.
He had a vague idea how each of the victims had died, but not of the motive or the identity of the assassin. He laid out his writing implements on the table and, for a while, studied what he had written, trying to recall conversations, incidents, gestures and expressions. His mind kept going back to Baddlesmere’s death scene: the corpse swaying slightly and that enigmatic inscription carved on the wall.
‘Truth doesn’t stand on the bank,’ Corbett murmured. ‘It stands in the middle way. What did Baddlesmere mean by that nonsense?’
He slept for a while, then got up and went down to the kitchen to beg for some food; a surly, hard-eyed retainer almost flung it at him. Later in the afternoon there was a knock on the door, de Molay asking if all was well? Corbett shouted that it was and returned to his studies. He decided to concentrate on the first item of evidence: the assassins’ warning. Once again Corbett noticed how there were two versions.
‘Why, why, why?’ Corbett muttered to himself. ‘Why are they different?’
There was the message left in St Paul’s with which the Baddlesmere version agreed, as did the words spoken in the library: these three differed slightly from Claverley’s and the one pushed into his hand on Ouse bridge. Every story, Corbett thought, has a common source, be it a love poem or some message. It only changes when it’s passed on. Baddlesmere learnt about the warning when the king met de Molay and the other Templar commanders at the Priory. But why was the warning delivered to him on Ouse bridge the same as that given by Claverley? Corbett’s hand went to his face.
‘Oh, sweet God!’ he murmured. ‘So much for your fine logic, Corbett!’
He returned to his scribblings, following a new direction, concentrating on when the warnings were given as well as the recent attack on him in York.
Corbett looked up. ‘The Templars may have been in York when the warning was passed,’ he whispered, ‘but they were definitely gone when I was attacked.’
He snatched his pen up. Ergo, he wrote, the attack was planned by someone else. Corbett nibbled the tip of the quill. Once he had suspected Baddlesmere and Scoudas; in reality both men were innocent, more absorbed in their own sin than anything else. Corbett drew two circles on the parchment, then drew a line joining them. He got up, opened the shutter and stared out at the dusk. Some of the riddle was resolved, the how and the why, but who? Whom did Baddlesmere suspect? And what did that inscription mean? Was it a pointer to the truth? A warning to the assassin, or both? ‘
Veritas stat
’ Corbett translated as ‘Truth stands’, but ‘
in ripa
’? He went back and began to play with the words, changing them round, but this proved nothing. He picked up the warning the little boy had given him on Ouse Bridge, then he looked down at his jottings: did I, Corbett wondered, tell anyone about that? And, if not, who amongst the Templars mentioned it? He racked his brains but his eyes were growing heavy. He made sure the door was secure, wrapped his cloak around him and lay down on the bed.
Chapter 13
Ranulf and Maltote returned later the next morning. Both were unshaven, rather bleary-eyed, but loudly protesting how they’d only found what Corbett had ordered after a thorough search. Night had fallen, the curfew had been proclaimed, the city gates shut, so they’d hired a room in a tavern just near Botham Bar Gate.
‘Aye, and you tasted the local ale?’ Corbett observed crossly.
Ranulf held his hands up, his eyes round with innocence.
‘Master, a mere drop, a mere drop.’
‘Let us see what you have brought,’ Corbett snapped.
Ranulf undid the saddlebag and brought out three large pouches, each containing a powder. Corbett opened, sniffed and felt each of them carefully. The smell was acrid but not pungent.
‘In the open air,’ he observed, ‘it would raise no alarm or suspicion.’
They slipped out of the guesthouse, around the manor and into the maze. Corbett took his hornspoon out of his pouch and, following Bacon’s instructions, carefully mixed the powders together. He stirred them with his fingers until all three substances were mingled. He then piled it in a heap, took a lighted candle out of Ranulf’s hand and placed it near the fire, urging Ranulf and Maltote to stand back. The candle flame gutted and went out. With some difficulty Corbett relit it. This time the flame was stronger, the candle melted, the flame moving back to where the dark powder lay in a small heap. Corbett’s heart sank in despair but then the flame caught the powder, there was a crackle and the flames leapt greedily into the air, scorching the earth beneath. Corbett studied the flames’ blueish tint whilst Ranulf and Maltote stared in amazement.
‘I’ve never seen oil burn so quickly or so fiercely,’ Ranulf muttered.
‘I’ve seen something like it,’ Corbett declared. ‘When farmers burn the dry stubble in autumn: sometimes the fire runs faster than a man.’ He stamped on the flame, wary lest it raise the alarm.
They left the maze and walked into the ring of trees where Corbett picked up a dry stick. Once again he mixed the substance: he smeared the wood, leaving one end free which he lit with Ranulf’s tinder. This time the effect was even greater. The flame, as soon as it reached the substance, burnt so fast and greedily that Corbett had to stamp it out with his boot.
‘You should have used gloves,’ Ranulf remarked, watching his master clean his hands on his jerkin. ‘A thick, leather pair of gauntlets.’
Corbett looked down at his hands then back up at Ranulf.
‘Gloves?’ he whispered. ‘Do you remember the leather fragments you found? Gauntlets!’ he exclaimed. ‘That’s the only trace the assassin left.’
‘What do you mean?’ Ranulf asked.
‘The fragments of leather,’ Maltote volunteered, ‘that we found near the scorch-marks: the assassin must have burnt the gauntlets he used.’
Corbett walked deeper into the trees. He now knew who the assassin was, but how could he prove it? What evidence could he offer? He told Ranulf to conceal the bags of powder and they returned to the guesthouse. Corbett asked his companions to find something to eat whilst he returned to studying Baddlesmere’s map.
‘It’s not of the entire city,’ Corbett murmured, ‘but only the area around Trinity.’
He then studied the inscription Baddlesmere had written on the wall. Last night Corbett had thought the words formed an anagram, a complicated puzzle or riddle. He translated them back into English, rearranging the letters, but all his conclusions were nonsense. Finally he translated them into French and clapped his hands in surprise: Baddlesmere, too, knew the identity of the assassin. However, in those last moments before death, he could not bring himself to name his brother Templar, so he had purged his conscience by leaving this mysterious phrase.
Ranulf and Maltote returned, bringing food from the kitchen. By Corbett’s face, Ranulf realised that ‘Old Master Long Face’ was closing his trap. ‘Drawing up a bill of indictment,’ he whispered to Maltote. ‘Like any hanging judge.’
‘You do know, don’t you?’ he called out.
Corbett put his pen down and turned. ‘Yes, I know the assassin and I think I can prove it.’
‘Logic,’ Ranulf exclaimed, ‘as always.’
Corbett shook his head. ‘No, Ranulf, not logic. I applied that and made a dreadful mistake. You work on a premise and then believe that everything will fit into place.’ He rose and stretched. ‘Because of my arrogance and because of my logic, I made a terrible error. Poor Baddlesmere was closer to the truth than I.’
‘What’s a premise?’ Maltote asked, his mouth full of bread and cheese.
‘You start with a statement,’ Corbett replied. ‘Such as “All Men drink ale; Maltote is a man; therefore he drinks ale.” But the premise is wrong. All men don’t drink ale: it’s not an undisputed fact. Therefore, every statement you make based on that must be wrong.’ Corbett pulled his stool over to where his companions sat with their backs to the wall, sharing the bread and cheese piled on a pewter plate. ‘I believed there was a coven in the Templar Order intent on wreaking vengeance against the Crown both here and in France. I therefore concluded that the murders here at Framlingham and elsewhere were merely the work of that coven. I was wrong.’
‘So, what is the truth?’ Ranulf asked.
Corbett shook his head. ‘Eat your bread and cheese.’ He paused as he heard a sound in the gallery outside. ‘We have to leave here as quickly as possible,’ he urged. ‘Ranulf, pack our bags; Maltote, go down to the stables, saddle the horses. I want to be gone within the hour.’
Maltote grabbed a chunk of cheese and hurried out. Ranulf took one look at Corbett’s drawn face and hurriedly packed their belongings. Corbett carefully put away his writing implements, checking the chamber, ensuring they had left nothing behind.
‘Hide the books Maltote brought,’ he hissed. ‘And the three bags of powder?’
‘They are kept separate,’ Ranulf assured him.
They left the guesthouse and went down to the stableyard. Maltote had already led their horses out: he was busily trying to harness the small but evil-tempered sumpter pony. Corbett helped, checking harness and saddle girths. He was surprised at the silence of the manor, then he heard the clink of metal behind him and Ranulf’s muttered curse. He swung round: the mouth of the stableyard was now cordoned off by Templar soldiers, helmeted and armed, each carrying an arbalest. On either flank stood their serjeants and officers.
‘Mount,’ Corbett ordered. ‘If necessary, ride through them!’
Corbett edged his own horse forward. An order rang out: one of the crossbowmen raised his crossbow and a bolt whirred through the air over Corbett’s head. Fighting to control his panic as well as his restless horse, Corbett rode on. Again the order was issued. This time the crossbow bolt whirred past his face; another smacked the cobbles in front of his horse, making it whinny and shy.