‘Why didn’t you just disarm them?’ Ranulf asked. ‘Take them by surprise, holding them prisoner for questioning?’
‘But I did,’ Scrope murmured, rubbing the corner of his mouth. ‘I did, Master Ranulf! I sent Brother Gratian here with a formal summons that they present themselves either here or in the guildhall.’
‘And their response?’
‘They mocked me,’ Brother Gratian replied. ‘They said they would beat me like a dog and go about their business. They did not have to answer to any summons or to any lord.’
Corbett nodded understandingly. Scrope was preparing a defence that would be accepted before King’s Bench or any court in the land. He was lord of the manor. He had wellfounded suspicions that a coven posed a real danger to the King’s peace. He had sent them a formal summons to appear in his court to answer the charges. They had not only refused but mocked his messenger.
‘Early in the morning on the Feast of St Ambrose I summoned my own men,’ Scrope declared, ‘and levies from the town, about a hundred and fifty men in all. We entered the forest carefully. Itook my mastiffs Romulus and Remus with me. We would use them to make sure that none escaped …’
‘Did they have guards, sentries?’ Corbett asked.
‘Oh yes. He was killed, offering resistance, and the alarm was raised. Once again I sent Brother Gratian forward, carrying a cross. He pleaded with them to surrender. They replied with,’ Scrope pointed to an arbalest, ‘a crossbow bolt. My men attacked. The Free Brethren resisted where they could but they hadn’t time to arm themselves properly. We forced the church. It was all over very swiftly. Eight were killed outright; the other six were seriously wounded. Eve was killed. Adam received a blow here.’ Scrope pointed to the side of his neck. ‘I asked him to confess, and he just cursed me. My blood was up; the heat of battle still thrilled me. I ordered him and the rest to be hanged on the nearest trees. By the time the Jesus bell tolled it was all finished.’
‘Then what happened?’
‘We searched the village, especially the church,’ Scrope declared. He paused for effect, lifted his hand and snapped his fingers. ‘We found these …’
4
Who knowingly received the said treasure?
Brother Gratian picked up two pieces of parchment and handed them to Corbett. The first was a skilfully and very neatly drawn map of Mistleham Manor, particularly its walls, gardens and grounds, the Island of Swans and the reclusorium. The parchment was of good quality, the ink a deep black. The second was a coarser parchment but easy to read, short and terse, an indenture in which Robert Picard, master of the cog Mortmain, promised to take, sometime before the eve of the Nativity, the Free Brethren of the Holy Spirit to a port of their choosing in Hainault, Zealand or Flanders, the choice being made once they boarded his ship. The price fixed was half a mark per person, the date on the indenture December 1303. Corbett smiled to himself. Picard was a well-known rogue, notorious for smuggling, closely watched by the sheriffs of East Anglia: a character the clerks of the Exchequer would love to interrogate. He was, however, as wily as a snake. He must have heard about the massacre and would disappear for months.
‘See, Corbett?’ Lord Scrope could hardly contain his glee. ‘I was justified in my attack. This coven was causing mayhem on mylands, concealing weapons, pretending to be what they were not. They had a map of my manor and an indenture to take sudden flight. Tell that to his grace the King.’
Corbett ignored the implied insult.
‘Did you discover anything else?’
‘No.’
‘Why did you leave the corpses? Why not bury them?’
‘A warning to everyone else, especially the people of Mistleham.’ Scrope leaned forward. ‘Don’t forget, Sir Hugh, as Master Claypole remarked, the Free Brethren did have their admirers and supporters amongst the townspeople. I wanted this matter to be brought to an abrupt end.’
‘Are you sure they all died; no one fled?’
‘No one,’ Scrope declared. ‘I took the two mastiffs, Romulus and Remus. They searched but they could detect no trail, no sign of any fugitive. Moreover, I inspected all the corpses, as did Brother Gratian and Father Thomas; they knew their faces, they could account for each and every one of the Free Brethren.’
‘Too true,’ the parish priest murmured sadly, ‘all dead. May God rest them. My lord,’ he turned to Corbett, ‘vengeance has been carried out; they must be given honourable requiem, the corpses disposed of somehow. Yet now,’ he added wistfully, ‘the ground has grown very hard.’
‘I will come to that,’ Corbett intervened. ‘So,’ he turned back to Scrope, ‘the Free Brethren are all dead?’
‘Yes.’
‘When you searched the church, you discovered the weapons and those two documents?’
‘Yes.’
‘Anything else?’
‘No.’
‘And yet,’ Corbett continued remorselessly, ‘it’s not finished. This Bowman, this Sagittarius, has emerged to exact vengeance. He has already killed five-’
‘Seven!’ Scrope retorted. ‘Most of the killings take place on lonely paths, someone coming out of a door, but the last two, Eadburga and Wilfred, were slain in God’s own daylight in our marketplace.’
‘So this Sagittarius must be a master bowman,’ Corbett declared, ‘someone very skilled, moving fast.’
‘I would say so.’
‘And the victims are chosen at random?’
‘So it seems,’ Lady Hawisa interjected, ‘but all were young people, Sir Hugh, full of life and love.’ She smiled at Ranulf.
‘Revenge, then,’ Corbett declared, ‘for the killings at Mordern? So there must have been a fifteenth member?’
‘We know of no such person.’ Scrope scratched his head. ‘I have questioned Brother Gratian and Father Thomas on this. Master Claypole also has done his searches. There was no fifteenth member.’
‘Or someone deeply devoted to the Free Brethren?’
‘But who?’ Lady Hawisa asked. ‘Sir Hugh, you’ve heard my husband. The Free Brethren had friends amongst the young of the town, but a skilled bowman, someone prepared to kill and kill again?’
‘True,’ Dame Marguerite intervened. ‘Wilfred and Eadburga were killed just outside St Alphege’s, where I was sheltering. Master Benedict was guarding the side door. I’d come to meetLady Hawisa; we were talking. Sir Hugh, it was so sudden, that horrid horn sounding.’
‘Horn?’ Ranulf asked.
‘Always, before the Sagittarius strikes,’ Scrope murmured. ‘Three blasts of a hunting horn.’
‘Then death comes showering down,’ Benedict whispered.
‘And now he has struck at you.’ Corbett gestured at Lord Scrope. ‘Your two mastiffs were killed last night. How could that be done?’
Scrope just shrugged. Corbett decided not to pursue the matter any further. He would have to reflect. Both he and Scrope knew that in Wales, enemy bowmen had crept into the King’s camp and loosed their deadly shafts at anyone they chose. He could imagine that something similar had happened last night at the manor. The Sagittarius scaling the curtain wall, probably dressed in a white cloak, moving swiftly. The dogs, dozing by the fire, would be aroused, dark shapes against the snow and glowing flames, an easy enough target for a skilled archer.
‘So, to answer my earlier question.’ Ranulf half smiled. ‘The mastiffs were slain because they were at Mordern?’
‘Or as a warning,’ Brother Gratian declared.
‘But there is more, isn’t there, my lord?’ Father Thomas leaned forward, hands fluttering.
‘Two nights ago,’ Lord Scrope had lost some of his arrogance, ‘the same day Wilfred and Eadburga’s corpses were laid out in the church, Father Thomas received a visitor. He didn’t call himself the Sagittarius but Nightshade. God knows why he took such a repellent title; however, he threatened that unless I make full confession of all my sins at the market cross, more vengeance would follow.’