The door of the hospital opened slowly and Corbett gazed speechlessly at the two harridans who staggered into the church; their clothes were mere rags around their emaciated bodies, their hair was thin and straggly, they looked like twin witches with their hooked noses, rheumy eyes and slack, slavering mouths. They chattered and cackled like half-wits, crawling towards the tables, snatching mouthfuls of bread and slurping noisily from pewter wine cups. The stench of their unwashed bodies drew even Ranulf from his reverie.
‘Sweet Lord!’ he muttered. ‘We needn’t wait until death, Master, to see visions of hell!’
Lady de Lacey noticed their revulsion and strode over.
‘Master Corbett, how old would you say those women were?’
‘They are ancient crones.’
‘No, no. Both have yet to reach their thirty-fifth year. They are street-walkers raddled and ageing, rotting with disease, the discarded objects of men’s lust.’
Corbett shook his head. ‘I disagree.’
‘What do you mean? Men have exploited them!’
‘And they have exploited men — though, I suspect, where men had the choice, they had none.’
De Lacey stared at him shrewdly.
‘So-called “good men” used these women,’ Corbett continued. ‘Upright citizens, burgesses who sit on the council, walk in the Guild processions, who go to Mass on Sundays, arm-in-arm with their wives, their children running before them.’ Corbett shrugged. ‘And such men are liars and their marriages are empty.’
‘Most marriages are,’ de Lacey retorted. ‘A wife is like a chattel, a piece of land, a possession, a horse, a cow, a stretch of river.’
Corbett thought of Maeve and grinned. ‘Not all wives.’
‘The Church says so: Gratian wrote that women are subject to their husbands. They are their property!’
‘The law of England,’ Corbett replied, ‘also says that a man guilty of treason should be hanged, drawn and quartered but that does not mean it is right.’ He smiled at de Lacey. ‘You should read St Bonaventure, my Lady. He says “between husband and wife there should be the most singular friendship in the world”.’
De Lacey’s harsh face broke into a genuine smile. ‘Ah,’ she replied as she turned away, ‘and if pigs flew, there would be plenty of pork in the trees!’
Corbett watched her go over and talk gently to one of the old crones.
‘She’s formidable,’ Ranulf muttered.
‘Most saints are, Ranulf. Come, let us go.’
Later that night Corbett lay beside a sleeping Maeve in their great four-poster bed, staring up at the dark tapestry awning above him. He had chased the problems facing him round and round his tired mind but, though he had suspicions, there were no firm conclusions, nothing he could really grasp. He remembered the sights at St Katherine’s, the two ancient street-walkers, Lady de Lacey’s gentle care and his remarks that a man and wife should be the best of friends. He glanced at Maeve sleeping quietly beside him. Was this true? he wondered. Strange; he kept remembering Mary, his first wife, and the memories had become more distinct after his meeting with the Lady Neville. Corbett closed his eyes, he couldn’t go down that path, the past was best left alone. He chewed his lip and wondered what to do when this business was over. He had seen the filth, the degradation of the street-walkers. Perhaps he should do something and not just turn up his nose and walk on the other side of the street. In France, he thought, at least they tried to control the situation, an official known as the King of Riddles imposed some sort of order and afforded a little protection to the ladies of the night. In Florence, action was more drastic, brothels were controlled by the city authorities who actually appointed clerks to work in what was termed ‘the Office of the Night’. But surely the Church could do something apart from just condemn? Hospitals, refuges? He must advise the King that something should be done, but what? Corbett’s mind drifted sleepily over the possibilities.
At the very moment their master was slipping into sleep, Maltote and Ranulf, with rags wrapped round their boots to muffle their footsteps, stole downstairs, unlocked the side door and crept out into the darkened street. Ranulf ordered Maltote to keep his mutterings and curses to himself as they slipped along Bread Street where Ranulf had hidden a nosegay of roses in a small crevice in the alleyway. He had stolen these earlier from a merchant’s garden in West Cheap. Ranulf sighed with relief, the flowers were undisturbed, and they continued on up the alleyways, passages and runnels to the old city wall, past the Fleet prison and into Shoe Lane where Lady Mary Neville lived. Ranulf refused to let Maltote even whisper, keeping a wary eye on the watch and one hand on his dagger against the footpads, cutpurses and sturdy beggars who prowled the night looking for prey.
Outside the darkened house, Ranulf stopped and, using his old skills as a burglar, carefully edged up the wall, securing footholds in the white lathed plaster and on the rim of the supporting black beams; hissing and muttering, he told Maltote to climb on a lower window sill and hand up the roses the young messenger was forlornly holding. Ranulf worked expertly, using the many holds and gaps in the plaster around the window sill of what he guessed to be Lady Mary’s bedchamber, until the whole area was circled by a garland of roses. Some would fall but Ranulf had taken enough to intrigue and fascinate this only love of his life. He then jumped down, laughing softly and, with Maltote in tow, hurried back to Bread Street.
In another part of the city, Hawisa, a young courtesan, recently arrived in London from Worcester, tripped along Monkwell Street near Cripplegate. She had spent the evening comforting an elderly merchant in the room behind his shop whilst his wife and family had gone on a pilgrimage to St Thomas of Canterbury. Hawisa lifted the hem of her murrey skirt, taking great care as she picked her way round the mounds of refuse, jumping and giggling with fright as the rats scurried back to their holes. At last she reached the end house built against the old crumbling city wall and the basement cellar the wool merchant had bought for her. Hawisa was tired and so glad to be home in a chamber which she had decorated and furnished to suit her own comfort. She put the key in the lock, turned it, then froze as she heard a sound behind her. Another rat? Or someone else? She stopped, certain it was a footfall she had heard in the street above her. She stepped out of the porch and looked back up the darkened steps. Nothing. She went back and fumbled with her key then started as she felt a light touch on her shoulder.
‘Hawisa,’ the voice whispered, ‘I have been waiting for you!’
Hawisa smiled, face up, just as the killer’s knife swept towards her neck, ripping it in one long, bloody gash.
Chapter 9
Corbett was breaking his fast in the buttery early next morning when the entire house was disturbed by a pounding at the door. He anticipated the news even as he swung the door open and saw the under-sheriff, Alexander Cade, dishevelled and unshaven, standing there.
‘There’s been another murder, hasn’t there?’ Corbett said softly.
‘Yes, about four hours ago. A prostitute named Hawisa was killed outside her own tenement.’
Corbett waved him in. ‘The dead will wait for a while,’ he murmured. ‘You have broken your fast?’
Cade shook his head. Corbett led him into the kitchen and seated him at a table, pushing a bowl of wine and a trancher of dried meat and fresh brown loaves towards him. Cade ate and drank voraciously, wolfing the food down whilst Corbett watched him curiously: despite his hunger, the under-sheriff seemed upset.