Corbett rose, wrapped his cloak about him and walked slowly round the bare, bleak room. Burnell had summoned him to Westminster at the end of March and blundy announced that, because of the sudden and mysterious death of King Alexander III of Scotland, Corbett was to travel to Edinburgh and ascertain the true cause of the Scottish King's death. Corbett had cursed, cried, pleaded and begged, but Burnell was adamant. The Chancellor had sat impervious behind his great desk and quietly ticked off on his white, plump, bejewelled fingers, the reasons he had chosen him; Corbett was a trained Chancery clerk, an expert in legal affairs, young enough (was he not in his thirty-sixth year?) to withstand the rigours of a journey. Corbett had war experience, fighting for King Edward in Wales and, Burnell added quietly, Corbett had already, shown that he could be entrusted with secret business and confidential matters. Corbett had reluctantly agreed and so Burnell handed over letters of introduction for the Scottish court and to Benstede, Edward's special envoy to Edinburgh.
Corbett stopped pacing round the room, slumped on to the stool and crouched over the small, red-hot brazier to warm his chilled fingers. Then had come the strange part for Burnell had made it quite clear that Corbett was his special emissary, not the King's. He was to report only to the Chancellor, and certainly not to the King or Benstede. No one was to know why Corbett was really in Scodand. He was to write direct to Burnell and only use as envoys the members of the escort who accompanied him into Scotland. Corbett had asked the reason why but Burnell had brusquely dismissed him.
Corbett picked up the pen again and began to write. 'I have met Benstede and he has told me a litte of what is happening in Scodand. On the evening of 18th March, King Alexander III was feasting with his court at Edinburgh Castle, (Benstede himself was there). Alexander suddenly announced that, despite the fierce storm raging outside, he intended to ride to his manor at Kinghorn where his new queen, the French princess, Yolande, was awaiting him. Alexander III of Scotland, ever a sanguine man, refused to listen to any advice and departed the palace, hastening along the road to the ferry at Dalmeny where he hoped to take a boat across the Firth of Forth. There, the ferrymaster also tried to dissuade him but Alexander was insistent and so the ferrymaster rowed the king and two of his squires across the three miles of water to the burgh of Inverkeithing where the royal purveyor met them with horses. Once more an attempt was made to turn Alexander from his impetuous journey, but the King refused to listen and he and his squires galloped off into the howling darkness. Apparently the little party lost contact with one another and the next morning the King was found dead on the seashore below the cliffs, his neck quite broken.' Corbett bit the quill of his pen before continuing. 'Naturally, certain questions spring to mind immediately.
Item – Why did Alexander insist on returning to his wife on such a wild night, braving the very dangerous crossing of the Firth of Forth and an equally perilous ride to Kinghorn?
Item – Why the sudden haste and with so small an escort? Item – If it was lust for his young wife, then surely he could have waited? Alexander III of Scotland had been married before to the late lamented Princess Margaret, sister of our good Lord, King Edward. Princess Margaret died in about 1275 and King Alexander III did not marry his second wife, Yolande of Dreux, until October 1285. In the intervening ten years the Scottish King had hardly been a chaste man and was accustomed to pursuing women. According to common report he would brave all weathers to visit matrons and nuns, virgins and widows, by day or night as the fancy seized him, sometimes in disguise, often accompanied by only a single servant. He did this on the night of his death. But why? He was no longer the fresh, young groom for he and Queen Yolande had been married some five months. Indeed, there is a rumour that the Queen is bearing his child.
Item – If the King was so overcome with desire, surely there were other ladies of the court who could have assisted him in this matter. Indeed, when he landed at Inverkeithing the royal purveyor is alleged to have said -"My Lord, stay with us and we will provide you with all the desirable ladies you want until the morning light". Benstede told me this to indicate the King's lustful mood. I cannot understand why such an offer was refused and such a dangerous journey undertaken, especially when there is gossip that King Alexander and Queen Yolande were not passionately attached to each other. Item – It would appear that Alexander made a spontaneous decision to leave for Kinghorn but, if that is so, then why was the purveyor waiting for him at the far side of the Firth?'
Corbett sighed and read through his notes before continuing. 'There must be satisfactory answers to all of these questions and I will try to find and communicate them to you without raising suspicion, although this will be difficult. The general situation in Scotland has stabilised. Alexander left no immediate heir but the barons have already sworn allegiance to the young princess of Norway. She claims the throne through her mother, Alexander's daughter, who married King Eric of Norway. She is only a child and absent from the country, therefore a Regency Council of Guardians has been set up. This consists of my Lords Stewart and Comyn, the Earls of Buchan and Fife and the Bishops of St. Andrews and Glasgow. I will write again. God save you. Written at the Abbey of Holy Rood, 16th May 1286.'
Corbett checked the letter before rolling and sealing it clumsily with wax. His fingers were numb with cold and writing for so long. He got up and poured himself a cup of cheap, rather bitter wine, and went to sit on the narrow straw-filled pallet of a bed. He had told Burnell that all was well. Yet it was not. There was a tension, a feeling of lonely menace in the royal palace of Holy Rood. Too many prophecies about Alexander's death and, though little Margaret of Norway was the acknowledged heir, there were others with claims to the throne and many more prepared to seek their own advantage in the confusion caused by a disputed succession, not least the powerful Scottish families whom Alexander had kept so firmly under control during his long reign. Corbett swung his legs onto the pallet and thought of the question the great Cicero used to ask about any murder – "Cui bono?" – who profits? Who did gain from King Alexander's fall into blackness on that dark night? Was the fall an accident or the brutal murder of a royal prince, Christ's anointed? Corbett was still thinking on this as he fell into an uneasy sleep.
TWO
The day after Corbett finished his letter to Burnell, he felt refreshed enough to begin his search for some answers to the questions he had raised in it. He used his time to recuperate, chatting to the monks in the monastery, visiting their small library and scriptorium where some of the monks, exempt from the offices of Terce, Sext and None, worked throughout the day so they could use the poor daylight to their best advantage. Corbett loved libraries, the smell of parchment, vellum and leather, the ordered shelves and total commitment to study. He felt at ease sitting at a small desk surrounded by the paraphernalia so beloved of any industrious clerk: inkhorns; finely honed quills, thin cutting knives and small grey stones of pumice for smoothing the white scrubbed parchment. Corbett chattered to the monks, he could not understand their native tongue but many were fluent in Latin or French. They informed Corbett of the divisions in their country, the difference between the Highlands held by the ancient Celts and the South Lowlands dominated by the Anglo-Norman families such as the Bruces, Comyns, Stewarts and Lennoxes, very similar in their ways to the great families of England who served the great King Edward I. Indeed, as the Prior, a tall, austere man with a dry, sardonic sense of humour, pointed out, many of the monks in birth, education and tradition were really no different from Corbett. The clerk could only agree and soon felt at home in Holy Rood, offering to help the brothers in their scriptorium, exchanging ideas and constantly praising what he saw.