‘Oh!’ The priest smiled. ‘So you like our paintings?’ He took off his chasuble, folding it neatly before putting it on the altar steps.
‘Yes, they are original,’ Corbett replied.
‘I did them myself,’ Father Vincent replied grandly. ‘I am afraid I am not a very good painter but, in my youth, I was a huntsman, a verderer in the King’s service at Woodstock.’ The priest finished divesting and blew the candles out on the side altar. ‘So, you are the King’s clerk, are you?’ he asked. ‘So many visitors here! But you haven’t come to admire my handiwork, you’ve come about poor Passerel, haven’t you?’
The priest took them down the steps and pointed to the entrance to the rood screen.
‘That’s where the poor man fell, dead as a worm he was! His face all swollen, his body twisted in agony.’ He tapped Corbett on the shoulder and pointed to Maltote. ‘He can sit on one of the stools if he wants. He looks as if he’s not awake yet.’
Maltote happily complied as Father Vincent took Ranulf and Corbett out of the main sanctuary. He led them behind the high altar.
‘That’s where I left Passerel. I gave him a jug of wine and a platter of food, after he’d sought sanctuary. He didn’t say much to me so I left him. I told the crowd of scholars who pursued him here that, if they didn’t leave God’s Acre, I’d excommunicate them on the spot. I left the side door open and went to bed.’
‘Stay awake!’ a voice shouted. ‘Stay awake and be ready! Satan is like a roaring lion who wanders about seeking whom he may devour!’
Ranulf whirled round, hand on his dagger, at the sound of the voice which boomed like a bell round the church.
‘That’s only Magdalena our anchorite,’ Father Vincent apologised.
Corbett stared at the strange box-like structure built over the main door. It reminded him of a nest Maeve had built and placed in the trees during wintertime so the birds could come and feast.
‘You know nothing of Passerel’s murder?’ he asked.
‘Nothing whatsoever.’
‘Wouldn’t Magdalena have alerted you?’
‘Oh, she’s half-mad,’ Father Vincent whispered. ‘As I said, I gave Passerel his food and retired for the night. The side door was left open so, if he wished, he could go out to relieve himself.’
‘And he said nothing,’ Corbett persisted. ‘Nothing to explain his sudden flight from Sparrow Hall?’
‘No, he was just a frightened, little man,’ Father Vincent replied, ‘who bleated about his innocence.’
Corbett looked over his shoulder to where Ranulf was trying to shake Maltote awake.
‘Maltote!’ he ordered. ‘Go back to Sparrow Hall and wait for us there!’
Maltote needed no second bidding but lumbered down the church and out through the main door.
‘I’d like to meet the anchorite,’ Corbett said. ‘I understand she not only saw Passerel’s murderer but, many years ago, cursed the founder of Sparrow Hall, Sir Henry Braose?’
‘Ah, so you have heard the legends?’
Father Vincent led them down the church and stopped before the anchorite’s makeshift cell.
‘Magdalena!’ the priest called up. ‘Magdalena, we have visitors from the King! They wish to speak to you.’
‘I’m here,’ the voice replied. ‘In the service of the King of Kings!’
‘Magdalena!’ Corbett called out. ‘I am Sir Hugh Corbett, king’s clerk. I wish you no ill. I must ask you questions, but I do not wish to shatter your privacy by entering your cell. Before I leave, I would like to make an offering, so you can light candles and pray for my soul.’
Corbett saw the leather covering over the small window pulled slightly aside. He glimpsed a grey-haired, shabby figure shuffling along the narrow gallery, followed by the slap of sandals on stone steps. Magdalena crawled into the church. She was almost bent double, her dirty-white hair fell down to her waist. Her eyes were bright but Corbett was struck by the lurid manner in which she’d painted her face: the right cheek black, the left white. In her hands she carried a small, cracked hand mirror. She shuffled and sat down at the base of a pillar. Magdalena stared into the mirror, even as her thin, bony fingers clawed at the crude rosary wrapped round her right wrist, her lips moving soundlessly in prayer. She glanced up, her bright piercing eyes studying Corbett.
‘Well, dark-faced clerk? What do you want with poor Magdalena?’ Her gaze shifted to Ranulf. ‘You and your man of war. Why do you shatter my stillness?’
‘Because you see things.’ Corbett crouched beside her, taking a silver coin out of his purse.
‘Magdalena sees many things in the darkness of the night,’ she replied. ‘I have seen demons spat out from hell and the glory of God light up the sanctuary. I am the Lord’s poor sinner.’ She tapped the mirror against her face. ‘Once I was fair. Now I daub my face black and white and keep the mirror close at hand. Black is the badge of death. White the colour of my winding sheet.’
‘And what other things do you see?’ Corbett asked. He pointed up to her cell. ‘You kneel above the church door. Have you seen the Bellman?’
‘I heard him,’ she replied. ‘The night he pinned one of his proclamations on the door, breathing heavily, gasping for air. Now, says I, there’s a man pursued by demons! But it’s only right,’ she continued, her voice becoming sing-song. ‘Sparrow Hall is cursed. Built on sand.’ Her voice rose. ‘The rains will fall, the winds will blow! That house will fall and great will be the fall thereof!’
‘What curse?’ Corbett asked.
‘Years ago, Dark Face.’ She touched Corbett on the side of his mouth. ‘Your eyes are hooded but gentle. You should not be with me but with your wife and child.’ She glimpsed the surprise in Corbett’s eyes. ‘I can see you are a lady’s man,’ she continued. ‘My husband had your looks. A keen man, he went and fought for the great de Montfort. He never came home — hacked and cut his body was, like collops of meat on a butcher’s slab. I and my boy were left in the house. We lived in the cellar and passageways, dark but safe.’ She blew the spittle from her lips, her rosary cracking against the mirror. ‘But then the Braose came; arrogant he was, carrying his head as if it was something sacred. Him and that beautiful bitch of a sister! Threw me out! My child died and I cursed them!’ Magdalena rattled the rosary beads. ‘Now the Bellman comes, warning of impending death and destruction.’
‘But you don’t know who the Bellman is?’ Corbett asked.
‘A demon sent from Hell! A goblin who has not done yet!’
‘And you saw poor Passerel die?’
Magdalena’s head came up, a cunning look in her eyes.
‘I was kneeling before my window,’ she replied. ‘Eyes on God’s holy light.’ She pointed down to the sanctuary. ‘I hear the door open and a dark shape creeps in like a thief in the night. Aye, that’s how it happened. Sprung like a trap! Passerel, the stupid man, drinks the wine and dies in his sin before the All Mighty. Oh!’ She closed her eyes. ‘What a terrible thing it is for a sinful soul to fall into the hands of the living God!’
‘What was the shape like?’ Corbett asked.
Magdalena was now studying the silver piece Corbett held.
‘I couldn’t see,’ she replied wearily. ‘Hooded and cowled, no more than a shadow.’ She scrambled to her feet. ‘I have spoken enough.’
Corbett handed over the silver piece, and the anchorite scuttled back up the staircase. Father Vincent led them out of the church.
‘What happened to the jug and cup?’ Corbett asked.
‘I threw them away,’ the priest replied. ‘They were nothing much: the like you’ll see in any tavern.’
Corbett thanked him. They walked down the cemetery path and out under the lych-gate.
‘Shall we have something to eat?’ Ranulf asked hopefully.
Corbett shook his head. ‘No, first let’s visit St Osyth’s.’
‘We learnt nothing back there,’ Ranulf declared.
‘Oh, perhaps we did.’ Corbett smiled back.
They took directions from a pedlar and went down an alleyway and into Broad Street. The day was proving a fine one. The thoroughfares were packed: carts full of produce, barrels and casks jammed the street and strident noise dinned the air as shops and stalls opened for another day’s business. Hammers beat in one place, tubs and vats were being hooped in another, the clinking of pots and platters came from the cook shops. Men, women and children moved down the streets, in shoals, pushing and jostling. The houses on either side leaned out, their buckling walls held up by posts which impeded progress even further. Carters and barrow boys fought and cursed with each other. Porters, drenched with sweat under the burdens they carried, tried to force their way through by lashing out with white willow wands. Fat merchants, grasping money bags, moved from shop to stall. Chapmen, their trays slung round their necks by cords, tried to inveigle everyone, including Corbett and Ranulf, to buy the geegaws piled there. At one point Corbett had to stop, pulling Ranulf into the doorway of a shop. However, an apprentice, thinking they wished to buy, plucked at their sleeves until they were forced to continue on their way.