Nightshade

5

Claypole gave vent to his fury and fear, yelling at his men to scatter and search even as Corbett, Ranulf and others from the manor galloped into the square. Claypole stared at the leading riders. It was like a dream. For a moment, just a brief while, those two royal clerks on their great destriers, cloaks fluttering about them, cowls up, their horses moving slightly sideways in an aura of misty sweat and hot breath, seemed like the Angels of Death entering Mistleham. Claypole shook himself from such a doom-laden dream and gazed around. Already, despite the early hour, the commotion had aroused the many households in the warren of chambers, rooms, garrets and attics fronting the square. Shutters were flung back, candles and lanterns glowed at windows, doors creaked open, dogs were barking. Father Thomas, a stole about his neck, hastened out of the Galilee porch of his church and, slipping and slithering, hurried across. He stared piteously at Claypole and Corbett’s retinue before crouching beside the fallen man. Jackanapes was not yet dead; his legs trembled, his feet in the pathetic old boots still shifted on the cobbles.

‘Jesu miserere,’ Father Thomas whispered. He stretched himself out on the slush and whispered the Absolvo Te, the final absolution, into the dying man’s ear, then opened the small pyx and forced the host between Jackanapes’ lips before swiftly anointing the dying man’s brow, eyes, lips, hands and feet.

Corbett, astride his horse, cloak gathered about, crossed himself and whispered the Requiem. Ranulf followed suit even as he turned in the saddle to gaze swiftly around the square. Claypole’s men were now returning. A search was futile, Ranulf realised that. Slayings like these were not new to the sons of Cain. In London the same happened every so often. A killer on the loose, some skilled archer, a veteran, his soul rotten with old grievances and ageing grudges, hating life and eager for death, would deal out summary judgement. Sometimes from a church tower or steeple, the dark mouth of a stinking alleyway or the window of a deserted tavern. Corbett caught Ranulf’s attention and raised a hand as a sign that he should stay.

‘He is gone.’ Father Thomas clambered to his feet, eyes brimming with tears. ‘Why should anyone kill poor Jackanapes?’

‘Two shafts.’ Corbett leaned over the corpse. ‘That’s not happened before, has it?’ He gazed around. No one answered. ‘One to the chest and one to the throat. The killer wanted to make sure Jackanapes was killed.’

‘So swift.’ Master Benedict forced himself through the throng. ‘Master Claypole,’ the chaplain turned to the mayor, ‘I was waiting for you here. I swear the marketplace was deserted. I saw no one. You came down, you rode towards Jackanapes, then that horn.’ He paused, gave the reins of his palfrey to a bystander and walked over to grasp the bridle of Corbett’s mount. ‘That’s how it was,Sir Hugh.’ The chaplain stared fearfully up at him. ‘That horn, followed by the whistling shafts, isn’t that true, Master Mayor?’

Claypole took a deep breath. Old memories were pressing deep upon him, images from a foul nightmare. He was truly fearful, yet he must hide it. ‘Lord Scrope did not come?’ he asked.

‘Apparently not,’ Ranulf snapped.

‘Then we must go …’

Master Claypole paused as Brother Gratian arrived, perched precariously on a palfrey that came trotting across the cobbles, the Dominican’s white and black robe flapping about. He clumsily pushed his mount through the bystanders, reined in and glanced down at the corpse.

‘God have mercy,’ he intoned. ‘God have mercy on us all.’

‘If we deserve it,’ Father Thomas added. ‘Look …’ He briskly summoned forward some of his parishioners, inviting them by name, issuing instructions for Jackanapes to be taken to the corpse house on the far side of God’s Acre. He then wiped his hands on his gown, muttering that he would join them, and hurried away.

Corbett decided not to wait, but turned his horse’s head and made his way across the market square, up the side streets and ice-covered runnels towards the trackway that led across frozen fields to the dark forest circling the deserted village. Master Claypole pushed his horse alongside but Corbett ignored him. The clerk could make little sense of what was happening; he would just listen, observe, recollect, sift and analyse. Silence was best. Corbett tried to recall Maeve resplendent in her fur-trimmed nightgown, her rich hair tumbling down framing that beautiful face, those eyes full of mischief. He took a deep breath and glanced back. Father Thomas had joined them, urging his hack alongsideMaster Benedict. The rest, apart from Ranulf and Chanson, were retainers or town levies, a dark host of men, a black cloud moving across the snow-covered fields. Ahead of them a line of trees marked the edge of the forest. Steel-grey clouds pressed down as if they wished to cover the land criss-crossed here and there by hedgerows or long high mounds marking the end of one field and the beginning of another. A flock of birds mobbed an owl caught out in the daylight. Corbett glimpsed a fox, belly low, loping across a field.

The silence grew oppressive, despite the muttered conversations of the men. Father Thomas chanted the Dirige psalm for the dead. Chanson quietly teased Ranulf. The Principal Clerk of the Chancery of the Green Wax truly feared the desolate, forbidding countryside. Chanson was whispering stories about Drac, a hideous monster that lurked in the forest and came out seeking its prey especially on a sombre day like this. Corbett smiled grimly to himself. This was similar to marching in Scotland or along those Welsh valleys; the longer the oppressive silence lasted, the worse it became. He took a deep breath and, much to the surprise of everyone, wistfully sang a favourite marching song about a beautiful girl in a tower. The words were familiar, the tune simple to catch. Within a short while, other voices were raised in song, the melody echoing across the bleakness, bringing some warmth, dulling fears about the future and the memory of Jackanapes in his death throes. Once the singing ended, Corbett reined his horse in and turned to Claypole, who was staring curiously at him.

‘There’s nothing like a song, Master Claypole. Now, this village, you know the way?’

Claypole pointed to the trackway snaking between the trees.

‘There is only one path in, Sir Hugh.’

‘And Mordern,’ Corbett asked, ‘why is it deserted?’

Claypole pulled down the rim of his cloak, eager to impress this clerk.

‘About ninety years ago it was totally destroyed in the civil war between the King’s grandfather and the barons. A massacre took place around the old church; the place became cursed. Some people claim Lord Scrope’s ancestors sowed the earth with salt so the survivors had to move away.’

‘And you?’ Corbett asked.

‘Oh, I think the village lay too deep in the forest. Its inhabitants lacked the means to fell the trees and plough the land. So they simply used the war as an excuse to move away.’

‘Lord Scrope allowed the Free Brethren to shelter there?’

‘Why not?’ Claypole declared. ‘Others have. There is very little we can do about it: wandering tinkers, traders, even the occasional outlaw, moon people. Lord Scrope allows them to shelter and snare the occasional rabbit for the pot. As long as they don’t start poaching or hunting venison, he leaves them be. In the summer it’s different, the children go out there to play. When I was a lad I used to follow Lord Scrope there with his sister Marguerite and their cousin Gaston.’

‘This cousin,’ Corbett asked, ‘what happened?’

‘Wounded at Acre,’ Claypole replied, ‘taken into the infirmary. Sir Hugh, if you read the accounts of Acre, or if you know anything about the fall of that fortress, it was every man for himself. Gaston died. There was little we could do.’

‘How do you know he died?’ Corbett asked.

‘I followed Lord Scrope when we decided to leave. He was determined to take his cousin with us, but when he entered the infirmary, Gaston was dead.’

‘And the Templar treasure?’

‘Why not, Sir Hugh? We’d fought hard, the infidels had breached the walls. Why should they have what we could take? So we seized what we could and fled.’

‘And Jackanapes?’ Corbett asked. ‘What did he say before he died?’

‘Oh, babbling as usual. How the Sagittarius had returned, something about claiming a reward. Nothing but nonsense.’

Corbett reflected on what he had seen and heard in the marketplace.

‘I wonder,’ he murmured, ‘I truly do!’

The conversation died as they entered the line of trees. A different world of tangled, snow-covered gorse that stretched like a chain linking the stark black tree trunks, their bare branches laced against the sky. A secret, furtive place of swift movement in the undergrowth, the ghostly wafting of bird wing, the sudden call of an animal or the crack of rotting bracken. Corbett’s hands slid beneath his cloak. He understood Ranulf’s fears about such a place. In the cities and towns, the Chancery of Hell dictated its villainy from narrow runnels or darkened nooks. Here it would be different. A shaft loosed from a knot of trees, a knife or axe sent whirling through the air or a cunning rope or caltrop to bring down a horse. A landscape of white menace harbouring God knew what evil that had crawled across the threshold of hell. Here the Sagittarius could hide cloaked by nature. To still his fears, Corbett thought of Maeve and smiled as he recalledthe lines of a romance she’d read to him over the Christmas holy days.

‘This village, Mordern?’ Ranulf, riding behind Corbett, spoke up.

‘Haunted and devastated,’ Claypole replied. ‘As I told Sir Hugh …’

His words trailed away as they broke from the forest into a broad glade with clumps of snow-covered trees and straggling gorse under its icy pall. Corbett reined in and stared across at the derelict buildings, their roofs long gone, the wattle and daub walls no more than flaking shells. Here and there an occasional stone dwelling. On the far side of the glade rose the tumbledown, weed-encrusted wall of the cemetery; beyond this the memorials of the long-forgotten dead circled the ruined church. Corbett studied this, an ancient chapel probably built before the Normans came, with its simple barn-like nave, jutting porches and squat square tower. Once an impressive edifice, but the tiled roof had disappeared, the windows were black empty holes whilst no doors or gates protected its entrances.

‘Some people call it the Chapel of the Damned,’ Claypole whispered.

Corbett glanced at him

‘I don’t know why,’ the mayor stammered.

Corbett just nodded, aware of the growing unease amongst the comitatus behind him.

‘Look, master, the corpses.’ Ranulf stretched out a blackgauntleted hand.

Corbett strained his eyes, secretly wishing his sight was better. The murmuring behind him rose as others glimpsed the horrid fruit of Scrope’s bloody work. Corbett wondered how many of these with him had been present at that hideous assault.

‘Sir Hugh?’ Ranulf was pointing again.

Corbett narrowed his eyes, searched and stifled a gasp. The snow hid the bloody mayhem, but now he glimpsed the eerily shaped mounds sprawled around the church. Frost-hardened and snow-covered heaps, each a corpse, the only sign being the glint of colour or a booted leg sprawled out frozen in its death throes. Corbett followed Ranulf’s direction and stared at the clump of oaks to the left of the church tower, branches burdened down as if with snow. In truth they were hanging corpses, heads skewered, necks twisted, hands tied behind them, feet dangling. Father Thomas and Master Benedict had already intoned the De Profundis. A young man amongst the escort was quietly sobbing; others were cursing.

‘You were here, Master Claypole?’

‘You know I was.’

‘Then you know what has to be done.’ Corbett urged his horse forward and reined in before one of the corpses hanging from a branch. Thankfully the decaying face was covered by a mask of icy snow. Corruption and the scavengers had plucked all dignity from it. He dismounted, leaving Chanson to hobble his horse, and went across into the church porch. A woman’s corpse, garbed in a long red gown, sprawled nearby. Corbett glimpsed the headstone Brother Gratian had mentioned. Its surface had obviouslybeen used to sharpen blades. He crouched beside the corpse. It lay face down, the once blond hair all matted with thick dirt, part of the outstretched arm gnawed clean to the bone. Despite the freezing chill, Corbett caught the stench of corruption. He swallowed hard, crossed himself and stood up.

‘Cut down all the corpses,’ he shouted. ‘You, sir,’ he beckoned to Robert de Scott, leader of Scrope’s retinue, ‘organise your men, collect dry kindle, build a funeral pyre. You’ve helped clear a battlefield before?’

The grim-faced captain nodded. ‘Aye,’ he slurred, then took a mouthful of wine from the skin looped over his saddle horn. He almost choked as Ranulf swiftly urged his horse forward and pressed the tip of his drawn dagger against the captain’s throat.

‘Sir Hugh speaks for the King!’ Ranulf’s voice was thick with anger. ‘You, sir, do not gobble wine when he speaks to you.’ He leaned forward and knocked the wineskin from the man’s hand. ‘No drinking!’ He stood high in his stirrups. ‘No eating, nothing until my lord Corbett says.’

The captain pushed back his cloak, hand going for his sword.

‘Come then!’ Ranulf teased. ‘Draw, sir, but I’m no unarmed madcap sheltering in a deserted church.’

Robert de Scott’s hand fell away.

‘How many of you,’ Ranulf shouted, ‘were here at the attack?’

Most of the escort raised their hands.

‘Well you’ve sown the tempest; now reap the whirlwind. Collect the corpses of those you killed.’ Ranulf ignored Robert de Scott and joined Corbett in the narrow porch of the church. ‘A bullyboy, ’ he whispered. ‘In God’s name, Sir Hugh, what was Scrope thinking of, to attack, to kill but then to leave these dead-’

‘True,’ Corbett interrupted, putting a hand on Ranulf’s shoulder. ‘Well done, good and faithful servant,’ he teased, quoting from the scriptures.

‘Sir Hugh?’

‘Ranulf, you are correct, why did Scrope leave them here? I can understand hot blood running, but later? Surely one of the great acts of corporal mercy is to bury the dead. Even the King does that,’ he added drily. He steered his companion into the church. ‘Despite our threats we’ll not get the truth from them.’ He indicated with his head. ‘I suspect Scrope came here to punish but also to search, but for what? I suspect whatever he was scouring for, he never found, so he left those corpses to frighten away the curious.’ Corbett peered around and whistled softly. ‘Truly named,’ he murmured. ‘The Chapel of the Damned!’ The walls of the ruined church were covered with creeping lichen, its floor a dark, squalid mess littered with the dung of fox, bat and all the wild creatures of the forest. The air smelt rank and fetid. Outside, the men were now busy under the shouted orders of Robert de Scott and Master Claypole. The three priests were chanting the psalms for the dead: Corbett paused and listened to the sombre words:

‘True, true!’ he whispered. ‘Sin stalks this Chapel of the Damned, Ranulf. Ghosts gather, pleading for vengeance. Blood, spilt before its time, demands Christ’s retribution!’

Gloomy and shadow-filled, the church had been stripped of all movables, reduced to a mere skeleton of mildewed stone. The light pouring through the lancet windows did little to disperse the ghostly aura. Corbett walked slowly up the nave and paused where the rood screen must have stood.

‘Nothing!’ He gestured around. ‘Nothing at all, Ranulf! Yet the Free Brethren must have had baggage, panniers, baskets.’

‘Plundered by the rogues outside,’ Ranulf murmured. ‘Master, what is all this? What else are you searching for?’

‘I don’t know.’ Corbett walked into the darkened sanctuary and stared up at the small, empty oriel window. ‘I truly don’t.’ He walked into the sacristy, a long, narrow chamber, its walls plastered and fairly clean. He prodded at the dirt on the floor with the toe of his boot, then walked further down.

‘Master?’

‘I suspect this was the refectory of the Free Brethren.’ Corbett crouched down and sifted amongst the dirt. ‘See, Ranulf, the imprint of table legs, and look, here’re those of a bench. I am sure Scrope’s men must have plundered everything.’ He rose and walked to the door at the far end. He lifted the latch and opened it. Ranulf glimpsed Scrope’s retainers, dragging a corpse from a ditch near the crumbling cemetery wall. Corbett slammed the door shut. ‘They mended this door to make it secure. They met here to sit and discuss. I wonder what?’

‘Sir Hugh?’

Corbett walked over to where Ranulf was peering at the wall. He pointed at the thick black etchings painted there. Corbett opened the door to allow in more light. At first they could not make out the words – several attempts had been made toobliterate them – but eventually Corbett distinguished the verse inscribed there:

Rich, shall richer be,

Where God kissed Mary in Galilee.

Beneath these words were drawings, though most of them had been cut away with a knife. Corbett glimpsed a tower, a siege machine, a man on a couch.

‘I wonder,’ he whispered, ‘is this the work of the Free Brethren or someone else? They’ve certainly been done recently, not years ago.’ He walked back into the sanctuary, staring at the dirt-covered flagstones. From outside drifted the shouts and cries of those collecting the dead. Corbett continued his scrutiny, telling Ranulf to do likewise.

‘What are we looking for?’

‘You’ll know when you find it,’ Corbett murmured.

Father Thomas came in and said that the dead were now collected and the funeral pyre was being prepared. Corbett went out. The corpses, fourteen in all, lay along what was the old coffin path. The retinue from Mistleham now stood about, faces visored against the seeping stench of rottenness. Corbett moved from corpse to corpse. Decay as well as the forest creatures had wreaked their effect, shrunken flesh nibbled and gnawed, faces almost unrecognisable. Corbett crossed himself and murmured a prayer.

‘Beautiful they were, Sir Hugh.’ Father Thomas stood next to him. ‘Like angels, and so full of life. God curse Lord Scrope! Endowed with all God’s gifts, they could sing beautifully and dance like butterflies.’

‘You are sure they are all here?’

‘Oh yes.’ The priest indicated two of the corpses. ‘Adam and Eve, their leaders and the painters.’

Corbett remembered the scrawl on the sacristy wall.

‘Father, does this mean anything to you: “Rich, shall richer be, Where God kissed Mary in Galilee”?’

‘No.’ The priest shook his head. ‘Where’s it from?’

‘I found it written on the sacristy wall. You said they were painters, Father?’

‘You must visit St Alphege’s and see their work. Do so quickly. Lord Oliver has promised the whole church will be repainted and regilded, the same for St Frideswide. Perhaps it is reparation for this, but come, Sir Hugh, the rest are waiting.’

‘Let them!’ Corbett turned. ‘Master Claypole, Robert de Scott.’

The mayor and the captain of the guard left the huddle of men. The captain was no longer swaggering. Corbett gestured at them to follow him a little further. They did so, pulling down their visors.

‘You were involved in the attack on this place?’

‘You know that.’

‘And afterwards?’

‘We searched the church and other buildings,’ Master Claypole replied.

‘You took all their possessions?’

‘Yes.’

‘But those are King’s goods.’

‘Sir Hugh, there was next to nothing,’ Claypole replied.

‘A matter Lord Scrope must account for.’ Corbett studied the aggressive faces of these two men: hard of soul, hard of heart and hard of eye, they would show little mercy to any enemy.

‘Sir Hugh.’ Master Benedict, with a doleful Brother Gratian trailing behind, approached. ‘The men are freezing cold.’

‘And so am I.’ Corbett stared at the gentle-faced chaplain; he looked pale, distinctly unwell. The clerk glimpsed streaks of vomit on the front of his gown.

‘We must say the prayers, Master Benedict and I, then be gone,’ Gratian murmured. ‘Sir Hugh, this is a haunted, benighted place. I am hungry and freezing cold. I feel the ghosts about me. I understand Father Thomas has brought the holy water and sacred unguents.’

‘And I have the oil.’ Master Claypole spoke up. ‘Sir Hugh, beneath the snow we’ve found dried kindling. We have also brought faggots, dry wood sheltered from the damp.’

Corbett nodded. He ordered the pyre to be completed as swiftly as possible and the corpses laid out. He glanced up at the sky; the day was drawing on. He and Ranulf returned to the Chapel of the Damned and continued their search. Although Ranulf was close to him, Corbett felt a prickly unease: the shifting shadows, the pallid light, the sense of ominous brooding and lurking menace. A mood not helped by the odd scrap of wall painting depicting the horrors of hell or the battered, snarling faces of babewyns, gargoyles and exotic beasts carved on corbels and plinths.

‘Sir Hugh,’ Ranulf was kicking with his boot at a paving slab just beneath one of the narrow windows, ‘there’s an iron ring here.’

Corbett hurried across. The ring was embedded near the edge, rusting but still strong and secure. He tugged and the entire stone loosened. Assisted by Ranulf, he pulled it free, sliding it across the next stone as a gust of musty air made them cough.Corbett grasped the lantern and glimpsed the steep, narrow steps leading below.

‘Ranulf, there’re more lantern horns outside. Take one, get it lit and come back.’

A short while later, the lantern horns glowing, Ranulf shouting at the curious now congregating in the porch to busy themselves elsewhere, Corbett led the way down. At the bottom of the steps he lifted the lantern and quietly whistled.

‘A crypt,’ he murmured. ‘Look, Ranulf.’ He pointed to cresset torches, still thick with pitch, fastened in their sconces. Ranulf hurried across and lit some of these. The light flared, illuminating the long, sombre chamber with its curiously bricked walls and the remains of battered pillars that must once have reinforced a ceiling above. The floor was of shale, patched here and there with faded tiles; crouching down, Corbett studied the elaborately intricate designs, then the ledge that ran either side of the chamber. More torches were lit. The light glimmered. Ranulf shouted; Corbett glanced up. At the far end of the room, piled against the wall, rose a heap of shattered skeletons. Corbett hurried down to inspect the grisly pile of cracked dark brown bones, a hideous sight in the dim light. The stench was noisome. He drew his sword and sifted amongst the shards; sharp ribs, leg and arm bones and cup-like skulls.

‘God rest them. These have been dead a long time,’ he muttered.

‘And the stench?’ Ranulf asked.

Corbett sifted the dust with the point of his sword.

‘Herbs thickly piled on but now decayed. Rosemary, withered hyacinths, cypress leaves and new shoots. This is an old charnel house, Ranulf, a place of gloomy midnight. All that is missing,’he glanced over his shoulder, ‘is a screeching owl, a cauldron of bubbling mandrake, and it could be a warlock’s cavern, but no.’ He sheathed his sword. ‘The truth is that the soil outside is hard to dig, hence the village’s eventual decay. Accordingly, every so often the inhabitants of Mordern would empty God’s Acre for fresh burials and bring the bones of their long-departed down here. I suspect the church above was built on something more ancient still, when Caesar’s people ruled this island.’ He walked round, pausing near the ledge, and, in the light of the lamps, studied the ground. ‘Food and wine?’ He picked up scraps of bone and hardened bread. ‘Why should anyone eat or drink in such macabre surroundings?’

‘Unless they were hiding.’

‘John Le Riche,’ Corbett replied. ‘And richer still? I wonder if that verse applies to him. Did the Free Brethren hide him here? Which,’ he got to his feet, ‘brings us to a more pressing problem, Ranulf. If you were a member of that Westminster gang, fleeing through the wilds of Essex with treasures stolen from the King’s own hoard, you would be very careful, surely?’

‘Of course.’

‘And you wouldn’t proclaim the fact. Yet Le Riche, cunning enough to break into the royal treasury, astute enough to escape the King’s searchers, finds sanctuary in Essex but then becomes a babbling infant. He actually turns up at Mistleham guildhall offering to sell a dagger belonging to the King. A dagger not of English origin but Saracen, which would certainly arouse suspicion. Master Claypole and Lord Scrope are not telling us the truth, but that will have to wait. What I do suspect is that this crypt was used to house Le Riche; he hid here, the Free Brethrenfed him. They probably also stored their weapons here against the curious. They made mistakes … No, no,’ he shook his head, ‘no they didn’t, at least not then.’

‘What do you mean, master?’

‘Scrope’s story – that a verderer was wandering in the woods and by chance came across some of the Free Brethren practising archery – that doesn’t ring true; it’s not logical, is it? Here are a group who were planning a secret attack, yet practised with their weapons in the greenery where verderers, foresters, beggars, wandering tinkers and chapmen could see them.’ Corbett pointed down the chamber at the pile of bones. ‘They were collected,’ he said, ‘and piled there deliberately.’ He went back and moved the bones away to reveal the great beam embedded in the wall beyond. ‘Ranulf, bring the lantern closer.’ His companion did so. ‘Look.’ Corbett pointed at the countless fresh marks in the thick dark beam.

‘Archery,’ Ranulf whispered. ‘A target post.’

‘It’s possible.’

‘Sir Hugh,’ Ranulf gestured at the far end of the crypt, ‘they came down here and used this central pillar as a target. If they could hit that in this murky place, they would strike anything in God’s own daylight.’

‘So,’ Corbett declared, ‘if they were practising their archery down here, and I think they were, why go out in the greenwood where the world and his wife might come upon them? One lie after another, eh, Ranulf? We will have to start again. Question Scrope and Claypole closely, show we are not the fools they think we are …’ He paused abruptly. ‘Did you hear that, Ranulf?’ He put a finger to his lips, then the sound came again: the long, chilling blast of a hunting horn.

‘It could be Master Claypole or Robert de Scott,’ Ranulf said hurriedly, ‘calling in their men.’

‘I doubt it!’ Corbett declared.

They hastened up the steps into the church and out of the nave. As they did so, another horn blast trailed away. Corbett stared round. The funeral pyre was almost prepared, the corpses lying between layers of kindling, bracken and dried wood. One of the comitatus was already pouring oil but the rest were scattering, looking for arms. Claypole came round the church towards them, his white face all sweat-soaked.

‘Sir Hugh, the Sagittarius is here.’

‘Who called him the Sagittarius?’ Corbett asked.

‘Sir Hugh, that’s the name given to him.’

‘But that’s not the name, is it?’ Corbett glimpsed Father Thomas emerging from the trees with a pile of kindling in his hand. ‘That’s not the name that was told to Father Thomas when he was visited in his church.’

‘Sir Hugh, what does it matter?’

‘Yes, yes, I agree.’ Corbett drew his sword and stepped out of the porch. ‘Ranulf, for the love of God tell those men to use their wits. If the Sagittarius is here, the church is their best defence.’

Both clerks went out calling to the escort to fall back. Corbett tried to ignore the thought of that nightmare killer, bow drawn, arrow notched, slipping through the trees searching for a victim. For a while there was chaos and confusion. Corbett organised some of the men to watch the treeline, whilst the others fell back to the church.

‘Nothing!’ Robert de Scott called out. ‘I can see nothing at all.’

Corbett chose ten men and led them out into the trees,spreading out, moving forward towards what he considered to be reasonable bowshot, a perilous walk through the coldest purgatory: trees and gorse soaked with ice and snow, all shrouded by that heart-chilling silence. Eventually he summoned the men back, strode out of the trees and ordered that the pyre be lit. Sacks of oil drenched the wood and bracken, the corpses hidden between. Father Thomas blessed the pyre once more, sprinkling it with holy water using the asperges rod and stoup he’d brought. One Pater and three Aves were recited, then the torches were flung. Everyone withdrew as the flames roared and plumes of black smoke curled above the trees.

‘They’ll see it in Mistleham,’ Master Claypole declared.

‘Then they’ll know what is happening,’ Corbett replied. ‘God’s judgement, and that of the King.’