The English clerk watched him go and realised that he, too, must return to the abbey. There was so much he had learnt, so many facts, so many happenings. His legs and back ached, he needed the quiet, clean, pure atmosphere of the monastery to settle his mind and probe all he had learnt. He gathered his cloak and entered the bailey, a calmer place than the previous day. He drew water from the well, splashed his hands and face and left the castle, a lonely, weary figure totally ignored by every one. Outside he stopped and realised that he would have to make his own way back. He remembered the dagger thrown during the banquet and decided it would be safer to return through the crowded town than venture into the marshy wooded countryside. He knew the way vaguely from the journey the night before and the careful directions given to him by the Prior.
Corbett trudged down the beaten, muddy track; the sky was overcast and a light rain began to fall. A passing cart rolled by splattering him with mud and Corbett quietly cursed Burnell for sending him here. He reached the town and entered the Lawnmarket; there was a crowd gathered watching some wretch being dragged by horses across the open space to a waiting scaffold. The man, bound hand and foot, was pinioned to a sheet of hard-boiled leather, which the two horses pulled across the mud: the man screamed as the hard ground battered his naked back, while he had to endure the taunts and filth hurled by the onlookers, the strictures of the city officials and the droning monotony of the praying priest. Corbett did not stay but pushed through the throng of people and walked on. He kept to the centre of the street away from the rubbish which littered the entrances and walks of the miserable timbered houses. The shops and stalls were open for business: a cart bearing a ragged, crudely-drawn banner was used as a stage by a troupe of actors shouting words that Corbett could not understand. Shopkeepers bawled and yelled at him. "Hot sheeps' feet!" "Ribs of beef!" Greasy hands clawed at his arms but he pushed them off. The smell of fresh bread from a bakery made him hungry but he did not stop.
Corbett was tired, depressed: the passing sights caught his eye: a dog, one leg shorter than the rest, sniffing at the bloated body of a rat: a cat running by, his mouth stuffed with baby mice, a beggar, white-eyed and sore-ridden, shrieking at young boys who were pissing over him. Corbett remembered the teachings of Augustine, "Sin is the breakdown of all relationships". If that was so, Corbett thought, then sin was all around him. Here in these dirty streets, a lonely English clerk: his wife and child dead, years gone: the only woman he had ever loved since, a convicted murderer and traitor, consumed by fire at Smithfield in London. Now, here alone amidst strangers who sought his death. He thought of Ranulf, his body-servant, and wished he was here, not sick with the fever, miles away in some English monastery.
He passed the church of St. Giles, turned into another winding street and almost walked into the two figures standing there. Corbett muttered an apology and stepped to one side. One of the men moved to block his path. 'Comme зa va, Monsieur?' 'Qu'est ce que ce?' Corbett spontaneously replied, then repeated, 'What is the matter? I don't speak French. Get out of my way!' 'No, Monsieur,' the man replied in perfect English. 'You are in our way. Come! We wish to talk to you.' 'Go and be hanged!' Corbett muttered and tried to go on. 'Monsieur. There are two of us and two more behind you. We mean you no harm.' The Frenchman turned and beckoned with his hand. 'Come, Monsieur. We will not keep you. We will not harm you. Come!' Corbett looked at the two well-fed, thick-set men, and, hearing a slight sound behind him, knew there were more. 'I come,' he grimaced. The men led him down an alleyway, stinking from dog urine and heaps of excrement. They stopped outside a small house, single-storeyed, one window beneath its dripping, soggy thatch roof, and a battered ale-stake jutting out from beneath the eaves.
There was one dank, damp room inside with an earth-beaten floor, two small trestle tables and a collection of rough stools fashioned out of old barrels. It was deserted except for a group sitting round one table being served ale by the frightened proprietor. A slattern, evidently his wife, looked on fearfully. A group of children, their dirty faces streaked with tears, clung to her tattered gown and stared round-eyed at the group of men who had commandeered the room and were now talking quickly in an alien language. Corbett immediately recognised de Craon, who rose as he entered, gave a half-mocking bow and waved him to a stool. 'It was good of you to come, Master Clerk,' he said in perfect English with only a trace of a French accent. 'I understand that you have been very busy in Edinburgh asking many questions, poking your nose into matters that do not concern you. Here,' he pushed a cup of ale towards Corbett. 'Come. Drink this. Tell us about the real reason you are here.' 'Why don't you ask Benstede?' Corbett retorted. 'You have no right to detain me here. Neither the English nor the Scottish courts will be happy to hear that French envoys are detaining people at their whim!' De Craon shrugged, his hands extended in an expansive gesture. 'But, Monsieur Corbett, we are not detaining you. We have asked you here and you have accepted our invitation. You are free to come and go as you wish. But,' he continued smoothly, 'now that you are here, I know you are too curious to let the matter drop.' He sat back on his stool, his brown, beringed hands gently folded in his lap, staring at Corbett like some understanding elder brother or patronising uncle. Corbett moved the cup of ale back across the table. 'No, you tell me, Monsier de Craon, why you are here and why you wish to speak to me?' 'We are here,' de Craon began smoothly, 'to represent our master's interests and to establish a better relationship between King Philip IV and the Scottish throne. We were achieving considerable successes right up to the moment of the late King's sudden and unfortunate death in which you show a great deal of interest.' 'Yes, it does interest me,' Corbett replied tersely. 'I am a good clerk. I am here at the request of the English court and they, like Philip IV, are interested in any information we can send.' De Craon shook his head slowly in disbelief. 'All of that,' he replied, 'could be done by Benstede, so why are you here?' He wagged an admonitory finger to fend off any protest from Corbett. 'I believe that you are not really interested in Alexander Ill's fall from a cliff. There are other secret reasons. Perhaps an alliance with the Bruces or the Comyns? Perhaps you even bear a secret claim by King Edward himself to be ruler of Scotland!'