Satan's Fire

Chapter 2

At the manor of Framlingham, Guido Reverchien, Keeper of the Templar Estates in Yorkshire, was making his daily, lonely pilgrimage along the pebbledashed path of the great maze. Guido made this pilgrimage, as usual, on his hands and knees, chanting the Divine Office of the Church in atonement for his sins. Guido, now in his sixtieth year, his hair and beard white, his skin almost burnt black by the sun, still believed he carried a great burden of sin. He had been a Templar knight, a warrior of Christ: one of those who had defended the walls of Acre in 1291 until the Mameluke hordes had swept across its walls and turned that Templar city into a sea of blood. Guido had escaped: shoulder to shoulder with his comrades, he had fought his way down from the quayside to one of the few remaining boats waiting to take him and other refugees out to the Christian fleet. Oh, Guido had fought! At times the narrow, dusty streets of Acre became ankle-deep in blood: yet, still, the city had fallen and he, Guido Reverchien, had been saved. Ever since that terrible night, Guido had suffered nightmares. Every minute of his sleep seemed to be trapped in the destruction of Acre.

As the years passed, Guido had reached the conclusion that he should have died in Acre. He should have fought on until the enemies of Christ had killed him and so given others the opportunity to escape.

‘Instead,’ Guido had whispered to his father-confessor, ‘I came back to England. I was given a comfortable benefice supervising the granaries, granges, fields and meadows of the Templar Order. Father, I am a traitor to Christ, I failed God. I must go back and be saved.’ Time and again his father-confessor had advised him that this was out of the question.

‘You are needed in England,’ he whispered back from behind the lattice screen. ‘You have your duties here.’

But Guide would not be comforted until his father-confessor had mentioned the maze. This lay to the side of the Templar manor: a great sea of high, cruel, privet hedge with narrow paths leading to its centre, where a huge wooden cross stood bearing the image of the crucified Christ.

‘You cannot go to Jerusalem,’ Father-confessor had confided. ‘But, Sir Guido, if you must atone for your sin; if you seek to do reparation; every day, just before dawn, go on your knees through the maze chanting the psalms.’

Now Guido did that. The pebbles dug deep into his knees but Guido saw this as his path to heaven as he shuffled along, the battered, wooden rosary beads slipping through his gnarled fingers. He knew the maze like the back of his hand. Every secret corner, each blind path. Sometimes Guido would deliberately take the wrong turnings intensifying his pain, feeling a release from his self-inflicted tortures. At last he reached the centre. His knees were now bloodied, the pain in his shoulders and arms intense. The sweat ran like water down his face.

‘I am in Jerusalem,’ he whispered, staring up at the cross. ‘I have kept faith!’ He crawled on his hands and knees to the stone base of the crucifix and looked up at the stricken face of his Saviour. ‘Domine,’ he murmured, striking his breast. ‘I have sinned before heaven and before Thee!’

Guido took a tinder from his pouch and lit the three squat yellow candles which stood in their iron spigots on the steps before the cross. He moved his knees away from the pools which had formed amongst the pebbles and watched the flames of the candle flicker in the dawn breeze. He stared up at the crucifix.

‘Just like Acre,’ he whispered. ‘A grey dawn, flames flickering.’

Guido narrowed his eyes; even the smell of that damned burning city seemed to haunt him. The candle flame grew stronger, suddenly there was fire all around him. Guido opened his mouth to scream just as a sheet of flame engulfed his body.

Edward of England was entering York with banners and pennants flying. Heralds walked in front of the long procession which wound its way under Micklegate Bar. Behind the king trundled a long train of carts and pack animals, lines of pike men and archers marching on either side. The city had been busy as an upturned beehive, because only at the last minute had the royal heralds proclaimed through which gate the king would come. Now all of York had turned out to greet him: the burgesses in their fur robes and ermine-lined cowls; their wives and daughters, clothed in the most costly sarcanet and samite dresses, their brows plucked, their lustrous hair covered by the most ornate head-dresses and veils. Parish priests in colourful chasubles had brought their parishioners as well as stoups of holy water and asperges rods to bless the king as he passed. The city council had done its best. The streets and sewers had been cleaned, the sore-ridden beggars driven away, the stocks emptied and the gibbets and their iron cages taken down. The Guilds of Corpus Christi and Trinity were well represented under their great many-coloured banners.

The mayor and his aldermen had met the king outside Micklegate Bar and handed him the keys of the city on a purple cushion. They’d widened the king’s smile even more with purses full of gold and silver coins. Edward had expressed his thanks, accepting their protestations of loyalty and thrust the purses into de Warrenne’s hand.

‘Keep your eye on them,’ he whispered. ‘I don’t want a penny to go amiss.’

Just within Micklegate Bar, they stopped and listened as a choir of boys in white surplices sung a three-voiced hymn welcoming the king, praising his rule and extolling his victories. Then the royal progress had continued into the city itself, along the narrow streets, past the great houses with their beams painted a polished black, the plaster between gleaming a brilliant white in the morning sun. Despite the city ordinances, all the colourful underworld of York was also present. The whores and prostitutes in their low-cut gowns and orange and red wigs eyed the soldiers and tried to catch the eye of the mounted knights and sergeants-at-arms. The masterless and penniless alley folk were also there, sheltering in the shadows away from the sunlight, ready to flee at the approach of any city bailiff. The cripples, the song-chanters, the cut-throats, the foists and pickpockets had gathered around looking for easy prey. The stalls had been put away and the merchants and their apprentices, each in the colour of their guild, stood gawping, eager to catch a glimpse of their great king.

Edward did look the image of the Conquering Prince: a gold circlet round his iron-grey hair, his coat of chainmail, which Corbett had insisted he wear, covered by a golden samite surcoat. Edward rode his great destrier, Black Bayard, and its saddle and harness were of dark purple leather edged with silver. The king rode easily, one hand holding the reins, the other bearing a magnificent snowy-white hawk from Paris. Beside him, John de Warrenne, Earl of Surrey, dressed in half armour, carried the king’s personal banner, a golden lion rampant on a field of blood. Corbett rode just behind the king, restless and worried: his eyes constantly surveyed the crowds and the open windows on either side of the procession. Now and again he would feel the hilt of his dagger and glance anxiously sideways at Ranulf. His manservant, however, was more interested in smiling and blowing kisses at the wives and daughters of the burgesses. Every so often the procession would pause and the gloriously garbed heralds blew a silver fanfare before advancing further into the city, behind the fluttering banners bearing the arms of England, Scotland, Wales, France and Castille.

At the corner of Trinity, the king paused to watch a pageant. A scene from the Last Judgement; a massive tapestry from the Corpus Christi Guild, had been hung between two long poles on a frame mounted across three great carts. In garish colours the tapestry depicted the fate of sinners: legislators who had made bad laws were dressed in burning cloaks of sulphur, whilst corrupt lawyers were impaled and broken on the wheel. Edward chuckled at another scene depicting a group of monks, their pates shaven, being led by a monkey-faced demon to a boiling hot pit filled with venomous serpents. In front of this makeshift stage were groups of young women, all dressed in white, with green chaplets on their heads, singing a sweet carol welcoming the king. Edward listened attentively whilst stroking the hawk on his wrist. He then threw silver coins in front of the cart, kissed one of the young girls, and ordered the procession to continue. Corbett glared as Ranulf tried to imitate the king’s example, reaching out to seize one of the young maids by the arm.

They had just turned into Trinity when Corbett heard the whistle of the crossbow bolt flying by his head, between him and the King. One of the men-at-arms, walking alongside, dropped his spear and collapsed screaming and gurgling on the blood spurting out of his mouth. Corbett raised himself in the stirrups and yelled at the men-of-arms who ran forward: under Corbett’s and de Warrenne’s instructions, these circled the king, raising their shields to form a wall of iron around him. Corbett glanced quickly at the houses on either side.

‘There!’ Ranulf yelled.

Corbett followed his direction to the top-storey window of a tavern on the corner of an alleyway. He saw the casement and wooden shutter being pushed open again, a cowled figure lurking there and the thick snout of a crossbow. Again there was a whirr like a hawk falling to the kill, but this time the bolt smashed against one of the upraised shields.

‘Follow me!’ Corbett urged.

He dismounted, drew his sword and, with Ranulf and Maltote following behind, forced his way through the crowd, ignoring the chaos breaking out around them. They reached the shadows of the houses. Corbett looked up and cursed. He had lost his way. Then he saw the corner of the alleyway: a hooded beggar squatted there, hands extended. Corbett knocked him aside as he ran towards the entrance under a garish tavern sign swinging from its jutting pole. Yelling at Ranulf to go down the alleyway and guard the back entrance, Corbett entered the narrow, dark hallway. The people gathered there had no idea what was going on. Most of them were tapsters, scullions and maids. Corbett ordered them out of the way and ran up the narrow, shaky, wooden stairs. By now he was covered in sweat and had to grip the sword more tightly: he desperately wondered what he would do if he met the assailant. He tried to recall the window.

‘It’s at the top,’ he muttered to himself, and gingerly climbed the next flight of stairs. He was half-way up when he saw the smoke seeping out from under a doorway in a recess at the top of the stairs. He turned round.

‘Maltote!’ he ordered, ‘go back! Tell the taverner his house is on fire!’

Corbett, pinching his nostrils, tried the garret door. It was locked. He stepped back and kicked it open. Smoke curled and twisted, though most of this was pouring out of the open window. There was a chair just under the sill on which an arbalest lay, a collection of bolts beside it. On the floor next to this sprawled the corpse of a man blackened and burning. For a while Corbett could only stare, horrified by the eerie blue and yellow flames which danced over the blackening corpse.

‘God save us!’ Maltote muttered, coming up behind him. ‘Master, what kind of fire is that?’

Coughing and spluttering, Corbett broke from his reverie. He wrenched off a heavy curtain, tattered and holed, which hung on the back of the door and, urging Maltote to help, threw it over the burning corpse, dousing the flames. Others came up: the landlord and his helpers carrying pails of water. They threw these over the blanket and around the rest of the room. Corbett, however, noticed that, apart from some scorching, the fire had not caught either the walls or floorboards. At last the fire was doused. Nothing to show except the stench, scorch-marks, and a horrid sizzling as the water seeped through the curtain covering the corpse.

‘Clear the room!’ Corbett urged. ‘Maltote, get them all out!’

The landlord, a pot-bellied, balding fellow, began to protest as Ranulf burst into the room.

‘I saw no one!’ He gasped. ‘No one at all! What happened here?’

‘Clear the room!’ Corbett shouted. ‘You, sir-’ he pointed at the taverner ‘-wait for me below!’

Maltote and Ranulf shoved them from the room. Corbett pulled back the heavy curtain then gagged at the terrible stench. Maltote turned away to vomit on a pile of straw in the corner; Ranulf coolly squatted down beside the remains.

‘How did this happen?’ he asked, pointing to the crossbow and bolts on the stool.

‘I don’t know,’ Corbett replied. ‘Here we have a man full of life and malice. He takes a crossbow, shoots two bolts in an attempt to kill the king and then, a few minutes later, is a burning cadaver. He is consumed by a strange fire which does not spread to the walls or floorboards.’

‘It would have done,’ Ranulf retorted. ‘Eventually, the wood would have smouldered and then burst into flames. Our arrival here stopped it. The question is, who is he; and how did he die?’

Corbett forced himself to examine the corpse. The face and upper torso were all burnt. The eyes had turned to water. Any hair on scalp and face was now flakes of ash. Corbett swallowed hard.

‘Look.’ He pulled the blanket further down. ‘The top half of the body has been terribly burnt.’ He pointed to the hose and boots the man wore. ‘Yet these are only scorched.’

Corbett eased himself up and went across to the bed. A battered leather saddlebag lay pushed just under the dirt-stained bolster. Corbett pulled this out, cut the straps and emptied the contents on to the woollen coverlet: a Welsh stabbing dagger; a purse full of silver coins, and the soiled white surcoat of the Templar Order with its red cross on either side.

‘A wealthy man, at least for a soldier,’ Corbett observed.

He opened the neck of the purse and shook the coins into his hands. He put the silver on the bed and unrolled the scraps of parchment he’d also found. One was a very crude diagram which Corbett immediately recognised as a rough map of the road leading from Micklegate Bar up through Trinity. The other was a list of provisions bought by one Walter Murston, serjeant of the Templar manor at Framlingham. Corbett sat down on the bed.

‘Ranulf, put everything back into the saddlebag. For God’s sake,’ he waved at the blackened remains, ‘cover that. Here we have,’ he continued, ‘Walter Murston, a member of the Templar Order, who tried to commit treason and regicide. He fired two bolts at our king but then, in a matter of minutes, is consumed by a mysterious fire.’

‘God’s punishment,’ Maltote intoned.

‘If that was the case,’ Ranulf jibed, ‘most of York would burst into flames.’

Corbett got up and stared out of the window. The royal cavalcade was now on its way. The crowd was staring up at the tavern. A curtain of men-at-arms, shields locked together, lances out, now ringed the tavern. On the stairs outside there was a heavy footfall and a deep voice cursing every taverner as ‘fatherless, misbegotten spawns of Satan’. Corbett grinned.

‘My lord of Surrey is about to arrive,’ he murmured.

The chamber door crashed back on its leather hinges.

‘Poxy knaves! Ingrate bastards!’ de Warrenne shouted, his red face covered in sweat. He lumbered into the room like an old bear. ‘Well, Corbett, you bloody clerk! What do we have here?’ The earl pulled back the ragged coverlet and stared down at the corpse. ‘Fairies’ tits! Who’s he?’

‘Apparently a serjeant, probably an arbalester of the Temple Order,’ Corbett replied. ‘He came into this chamber with his crossbow and tried to slay our king.’

‘And who killed him?’

‘We were just debating that, my lord. Maltote thinks it was God, but Ranulf believes that if every sinner in York was to be so punished, the whole city would be a sea of fire.’

De Warrenne hawked and, going back to the door, bawled down the stairs. A group of royal archers came up.

‘Take that out!’ de Warrenne ordered. ‘I want it dragged to the Pavement in York and hung from the highest gibbet!’

The archers neatly stripped the bed and wrapped the corpse in soiled sheets. De Warrenne looked out of the corner of his eye at Corbett. ‘Oh, and get some bloody lazy clerk to write out a notice: SO DIE ALL TRAITORS. Fix it around the bastard’s neck!’

De Warrenne hustled the archers and their grisly burden out of the room, slamming the door behind them. ‘And the bastard’s name?’

‘Walter Murston.’

‘The king will want an answer to all this.’ De Warrenne snapped. ‘I don’t trust those bloody fighting monks!’ He came over and kicked the ash away with his boot, spurs jingling on the wooden floor. He stared through the window. ‘I am frightened, Corbett.’ He whispered. ‘I am terrified. I was with the king thirty years ago when the Assassins tried to kill him. A man pretending to be a messenger.’ The old earl narrowed his eyes, breathing heavily through flared nostrils. ‘He got so close, so quickly. The king was quick. He brained him with a stool. Now they are hunting him again.’ He gripped Corbett’s arm; the clerk stared unflinchingly back. ‘For God’s sake, Hugh, don’t let them do it!’ De Warrenne glanced away. ‘We are all dying,’ he murmured. ‘All the king’s old friends.’

‘Tell His Grace,’ Corbett replied, ‘that he will be safe. Say that I will join him at the abbey of St Mary’s.’

De Warrenne stomped across the room.

‘Oh, my lord Earl?’

‘Yes, Corbett.’

‘Tell the king I will not return to Leighton Manor.’ He forced a smile. ‘At least, not until this present business is finished.’

He paused and listened as de Warrenne stamped down the stairs, hurling abuse at everyone in the tavern below. Ranulf and Maltote were standing in the corner watching open-mouthed.

‘What’s the matter, Ranulf?’ Corbett asked. ‘If you don’t close your mouth, you’ll catch a fly.’

‘I’ve never heard de Warrenne call you Hugh,’ Ranulf replied. ‘He must be very frightened. .’

‘He is. The Assassins’ boast is never hollow.’ Corbett closed the window. ‘But let’s leave. This place stinks. Ranulf, bring that saddlebag.’

‘Who are the Assassins?’ Maltote asked.

‘I’ll tell you later. What I want to know is why a member of the Templar Order is carrying out their instructions!’

They walked back down the stairs and into the taproom, a low, dank chamber, its ceiling timbers blackened by a thousand fires. At the far end, near the scullery door, sat the landlord surrounded by his slatterns; he was gulping wine as if his life depended on it. He took one look at Corbett’s face and slumped to his knees, clasping his hands before him.

‘Oh, Lord have mercy on me!’ He wailed, staring piteously, though Corbett’s grim face did nothing to ease his panic. He almost grovelled at the clerk’s feet. ‘Master, believe me, we had nothing to do with it!’

Ranulf drew his sword and brought the flat of its blade down on the man’s shoulder. ‘If you had,’ Corbett’s red-haired servant taunted, ‘within a week you’ll hang, then you’ll be quartered and your pickled limbs dangled above Micklegate Bar.’

The landlord grasped Corbett’s cloak. ‘Master,’ he groaned, ‘mercy!’

Corbett knocked away Ranulf’s sword and pushed the man back on to his stool.

‘Get your master a cup of the best wine. The same for me and my companions,’ he ordered one of the slatterns. ‘Now, listen sir,’ Corbett pulled a stool up and sat close, his knees touching the landlord’s. ‘You have nothing to fear,’ he continued, ‘if you tell the truth.’

The landlord could hardly stop shaking. Ranulfs sword was one thing, but this soft-spoken clerk was absolutely terrifying. For a while he could only splutter.

‘You are in no danger,’ Corbett reassured him. ‘You can’t be held responsible for everyone in your tavern.’ He took the wine a servitor had brought and thrust it into the man’s hand. Corbett sipped from his own then put it down: the wine was good but the sight of a fat fly floating near the rim turned his stomach. ‘Now, who was the man?’

‘I don’t know. He came here last night. A traveller. He gave his name as Walter Murston. He paid well for the garret: two silver coins. He ate his supper and that’s the last I saw of him.’

‘Didn’t he come down to break his fast?’

‘No, we were busy preparing for the king’s entry to York.’ The landlord groaned and put his face in his hands. ‘We were going to have a holiday. One minute we are by the doorway cheering the banners and listening to the trumpets, the next. .’ The man’s hands flailed helplessly.

‘And no one else was with him?’ Corbett insisted. ‘No one came to visit him?’

‘No, Master, but there again the tavern has two entrances: front and back. People come and go, especially on a day like this.’ The man’s voice trailed away.

Corbett closed his eyes and sat, recalling how he had struggled through the crowds. He had knocked that beggar aside as Ranulf had gone down the alleyway. Corbett opened his eyes.

‘Wait there,’ he ordered, and went out of the tavern.

‘What are you looking for?’ Ranulf hurried up behind him.

Corbett walked to the mouth of the alleyway and stared down. It was a narrow, evil-smelling tunnel between the houses, full of refuse and wandering cats. Two children were trying to ride an old sow which was lumbering amongst the litter, but there was no sign of the beggar.

‘Master?’ Ranulf asked.

Corbett walked back into the taproom.

‘Master taverner, in London, and I suppose York is the same, beggars have their favourite haunts: certain corners or the porch of some church. Does a beggar-man stand on the corner of the alleyway, on the other side of your tavern?’

The landlord shook his head. ‘No, Master, no beggar would stand there. It’s well away from the stalls, and the alleyway really goes nowhere.’ He smiled in a display of red, sore gums. ‘After all, my customers are not the sort to part with a penny.’

‘In which case, Master taverner, go back to your beer barrels. You have nothing to fear.’

Corbett beckoned at Ranulf and Maltote to follow and they walked back into Trinity Lane.

‘Sir.’ A serjeant of the royal household came up, one hand on the hilt of his sword, the other cradling his helmet. ‘The Earl of Surrey told us to stay here until you were finished.’

‘Take your men, Captain,’ Corbett ordered. ‘Rejoin the king at the abbey. Tell my lord of Surrey I will be with him soon. Our horses?’

The soldier raised his hand and an archer came forward, leading their three mounts.

‘You’ll have to walk them,’ the soldier observed. ‘The streets are now packed.’

Once they had left Trinity, Corbett was forced to agree. Now the royal procession had swept on, Micklegate was thronged. The stalls had been brought out and it was business as usual: traders, hawkers and journeymen trying to earn a penny in the holiday atmosphere of the city. Corbett walked his horse, Ranulf and Maltote trailing behind: they made slow progress. Outside St Martin’s church, a troupe of players had erected a makeshift stage on two carts and were depicting, to the crowd’s delight, a play about Cain and Abel. As Corbett passed, God, a figure dressed in a white sheet with a gold halo strapped to the back of his head, was busily marking Cain with a red cross. If only it was so easy, Corbett reflected: if the mark of Cain appeared on the forehead of every assassin or would-be murderer.

‘Do you think that Templar acted by himself?’ Ranulf asked, coming up beside him.

‘No,’ Corbett replied. ‘How long, Ranulf, did it take us to leave the king’s side and reach that garret room?’

Ranulf paused as a group of children ran by, chasing a wooden hoop; a mongrel followed, the corpse of a scrawny chicken in its mouth, hotly pursued by an irate housewife, screaming at the top of her voice.

‘They talk strangely here,’ Ranulf declared. ‘Faster, more clipped than in London.’

‘But the girls are just as pretty,’ Corbett replied. ‘I asked you a question, Ranulf; how long do you think it took us?’

‘About the space of ten Aves.’

Corbett remembered pushing through the crowds, losing his way, then entering the tavern and going up the stairs.

‘You think there were two, don’t you?’ Ranulf asked.

‘Yes, I do. The door to the room was locked, probably by the crossbowman’s accomplice as he left. I noticed the key was missing.’

‘So it was the beggar you went looking for?’

‘Perhaps, though that doesn’t explain it,’ Corbett continued. ‘Murston must have fired those two bolts. Yet how could a professional soldier be killed in such a short time, offering no resistance? And then his body be consumed so quickly by that terrible fire?’

‘The other person could have killed him,’ Ranulf replied, ‘then ran downstairs and pretended to be the beggar you knocked aside.’

‘That’s only conjecture,’ Corbett replied.

He gripped his horse’s reins more tightly as they entered the approaches to the bridge across the Ouse. The bridge was broad; stalls had been set up alongside the high wooden rails where traders could offer fish ‘Freshly plucked’, so they shouted, ‘from the river below.’ Corbett stopped, told Ranulf to hold the horses, and went to look through a gap between the palings. To his right, he could see the great donjon of York Castle then, turning to his left, he glimpsed the towering spires of York Minster and St Mary’s Abbey.

‘What shall I tell the king?’ he murmured to himself, ignoring the curious looks of passers-by. He looked down at the river swirling past the starlings of the bridge, and the fragile craft of the fishermen bobbing there. These rowed against the tide, struggling to hold their nets, whilst avoiding the mounds of refuse which swirled about, trapped by the great pillars of the bridge. Corbett couldn’t make sense of the Templar’s death: a fighting man, so expertly reduced to burning ash! He walked back towards Ranulf and, as he did so, a little beggar boy ran up, a penny in one hand, a piece of parchment in the other. He chattered to Corbett. The clerk smiled and squatted down.

‘What is it, boy?’

The smile on the urchin’s thin face widened. He thrust the dirty piece of parchment into Corbett’s hand. The clerk unfurled it and the boy ran away. As he read it, despite the bustling crowds and the warm sunlight, Corbett’s blood ran cold.

KNOWEST THOU, THAT WHAT THOU POSSESSES SHALL ESCAPE THEE IN THE END AND RETURN TO US, the message read. KNOWEST THOU, THAT WE GO FORTH AND RETURN AS BEFORE AND BY NO MEANS CAN YOU HINDER US.

KNOWEST THOU, THAT WE HOLD YOU AND WILL KEEP THEE UNTIL THE ACCOUNT BE CLOSED.

Corbett studied the scrawl on the parchment: the sequence of the verses was slightly changed but the threat was just as real. He glanced up: the boy was gone, impossible to follow. Somewhere in the crowds the Assassin had been watching them, tracking their every footstep. The dead Templar had not been alone, he had merely been a pawn — and the game was only just beginning.