‘This cousin,’ Corbett asked, ‘what happened?’
‘Wounded at Acre,’ Claypole replied, ‘taken into the infirmary. Sir Hugh, if you read the accounts of Acre, or if you know anything about the fall of that fortress, it was every man for himself. Gaston died. There was little we could do.’
‘How do you know he died?’ Corbett asked.
‘I followed Lord Scrope when we decided to leave. He was determined to take his cousin with us, but when he entered the infirmary, Gaston was dead.’
‘And the Templar treasure?’
‘Why not, Sir Hugh? We’d fought hard, the infidels had breached the walls. Why should they have what we could take? So we seized what we could and fled.’
‘And Jackanapes?’ Corbett asked. ‘What did he say before he died?’
‘Oh, babbling as usual. How the Sagittarius had returned, something about claiming a reward. Nothing but nonsense.’
Corbett reflected on what he had seen and heard in the marketplace.
‘I wonder,’ he murmured, ‘I truly do!’
The conversation died as they entered the line of trees. A different world of tangled, snow-covered gorse that stretched like a chain linking the stark black tree trunks, their bare branches laced against the sky. A secret, furtive place of swift movement in the undergrowth, the ghostly wafting of bird wing, the sudden call of an animal or the crack of rotting bracken. Corbett’s hands slid beneath his cloak. He understood Ranulf’s fears about such a place. In the cities and towns, the Chancery of Hell dictated its villainy from narrow runnels or darkened nooks. Here it would be different. A shaft loosed from a knot of trees, a knife or axe sent whirling through the air or a cunning rope or caltrop to bring down a horse. A landscape of white menace harbouring God knew what evil that had crawled across the threshold of hell. Here the Sagittarius could hide cloaked by nature. To still his fears, Corbett thought of Maeve and smiled as he recalledthe lines of a romance she’d read to him over the Christmas holy days.
‘This village, Mordern?’ Ranulf, riding behind Corbett, spoke up.
‘Haunted and devastated,’ Claypole replied. ‘As I told Sir Hugh …’
His words trailed away as they broke from the forest into a broad glade with clumps of snow-covered trees and straggling gorse under its icy pall. Corbett reined in and stared across at the derelict buildings, their roofs long gone, the wattle and daub walls no more than flaking shells. Here and there an occasional stone dwelling. On the far side of the glade rose the tumbledown, weed-encrusted wall of the cemetery; beyond this the memorials of the long-forgotten dead circled the ruined church. Corbett studied this, an ancient chapel probably built before the Normans came, with its simple barn-like nave, jutting porches and squat square tower. Once an impressive edifice, but the tiled roof had disappeared, the windows were black empty holes whilst no doors or gates protected its entrances.
‘Some people call it the Chapel of the Damned,’ Claypole whispered.
Corbett glanced at him
‘I don’t know why,’ the mayor stammered.
Corbett just nodded, aware of the growing unease amongst the comitatus behind him.
‘Look, master, the corpses.’ Ranulf stretched out a blackgauntleted hand.
Corbett strained his eyes, secretly wishing his sight was better. The murmuring behind him rose as others glimpsed the horrid fruit of Scrope’s bloody work. Corbett wondered how many of these with him had been present at that hideous assault.
‘Sir Hugh?’ Ranulf was pointing again.
Corbett narrowed his eyes, searched and stifled a gasp. The snow hid the bloody mayhem, but now he glimpsed the eerily shaped mounds sprawled around the church. Frost-hardened and snow-covered heaps, each a corpse, the only sign being the glint of colour or a booted leg sprawled out frozen in its death throes. Corbett followed Ranulf’s direction and stared at the clump of oaks to the left of the church tower, branches burdened down as if with snow. In truth they were hanging corpses, heads skewered, necks twisted, hands tied behind them, feet dangling. Father Thomas and Master Benedict had already intoned the De Profundis. A young man amongst the escort was quietly sobbing; others were cursing.
‘You were here, Master Claypole?’
‘You know I was.’
‘Then you know what has to be done.’ Corbett urged his horse forward and reined in before one of the corpses hanging from a branch. Thankfully the decaying face was covered by a mask of icy snow. Corruption and the scavengers had plucked all dignity from it. He dismounted, leaving Chanson to hobble his horse, and went across into the church porch. A woman’s corpse, garbed in a long red gown, sprawled nearby. Corbett glimpsed the headstone Brother Gratian had mentioned. Its surface had obviouslybeen used to sharpen blades. He crouched beside the corpse. It lay face down, the once blond hair all matted with thick dirt, part of the outstretched arm gnawed clean to the bone. Despite the freezing chill, Corbett caught the stench of corruption. He swallowed hard, crossed himself and stood up.
‘Cut down all the corpses,’ he shouted. ‘You, sir,’ he beckoned to Robert de Scott, leader of Scrope’s retinue, ‘organise your men, collect dry kindle, build a funeral pyre. You’ve helped clear a battlefield before?’
The grim-faced captain nodded. ‘Aye,’ he slurred, then took a mouthful of wine from the skin looped over his saddle horn. He almost choked as Ranulf swiftly urged his horse forward and pressed the tip of his drawn dagger against the captain’s throat.
‘Sir Hugh speaks for the King!’ Ranulf’s voice was thick with anger. ‘You, sir, do not gobble wine when he speaks to you.’ He leaned forward and knocked the wineskin from the man’s hand. ‘No drinking!’ He stood high in his stirrups. ‘No eating, nothing until my lord Corbett says.’
The captain pushed back his cloak, hand going for his sword.
‘Come then!’ Ranulf teased. ‘Draw, sir, but I’m no unarmed madcap sheltering in a deserted church.’
Robert de Scott’s hand fell away.
‘How many of you,’ Ranulf shouted, ‘were here at the attack?’
Most of the escort raised their hands.
‘Well you’ve sown the tempest; now reap the whirlwind. Collect the corpses of those you killed.’ Ranulf ignored Robert de Scott and joined Corbett in the narrow porch of the church. ‘A bullyboy, ’ he whispered. ‘In God’s name, Sir Hugh, what was Scrope thinking of, to attack, to kill but then to leave these dead-’
‘True,’ Corbett interrupted, putting a hand on Ranulf’s shoulder. ‘Well done, good and faithful servant,’ he teased, quoting from the scriptures.
‘Sir Hugh?’
‘Ranulf, you are correct, why did Scrope leave them here? I can understand hot blood running, but later? Surely one of the great acts of corporal mercy is to bury the dead. Even the King does that,’ he added drily. He steered his companion into the church. ‘Despite our threats we’ll not get the truth from them.’ He indicated with his head. ‘I suspect Scrope came here to punish but also to search, but for what? I suspect whatever he was scouring for, he never found, so he left those corpses to frighten away the curious.’ Corbett peered around and whistled softly. ‘Truly named,’ he murmured. ‘The Chapel of the Damned!’ The walls of the ruined church were covered with creeping lichen, its floor a dark, squalid mess littered with the dung of fox, bat and all the wild creatures of the forest. The air smelt rank and fetid. Outside, the men were now busy under the shouted orders of Robert de Scott and Master Claypole. The three priests were chanting the psalms for the dead: Corbett paused and listened to the sombre words: