‘In life she must have been comely,’ he whispered, lifting the shift to examine the girl’s rounded thighs and flat stomach. As he pressed his hand down against the cold, hard flesh, he caught the faint smell of herbs.
‘Sir Hugh, what are you looking for? This is unseemly.’
‘Death is unseemly, murder is unseemly. I made a vow. I will see the person who killed this young woman hang.’
Corbett noticed the purple patches on the arm; they looked like bruises. He noticed also how the skin was scraped, and when he turned the corpse over, similar marks could be seen on the shoulders and the back of the neck. He heard voices outside, so he repositioned the corpse, pulling down the shift and covering it with the shroud cloth.
‘What I am searching for, Father, is a solution to this mystery. How a young woman comes to be found on a lonely trackway with a crossbow bolt in her chest.’ He tapped the makeshift coffin. ‘When the corpse was brought in yesterday, you were there. How was she garbed?’
‘A dark green gown, boots on her feet. I accompanied the leech back here. Beneath the gown she wore a kirtle, thin and patched; she was dressed like any other girl in the castle.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ Corbett mused, walking to the door. He went out into the castle yard. Although it was still snowing, people were busy about their tasks. Small bonfires had been lit, water was being drawn from the well, stables opened, children and dogs chasing around. The blacksmith was firing his forge, shouting at his apprentices to bring more charcoal. A horse, more skittish than the rest, and glad to be free of its stables, whinnied, its hooves pawing the air. Bakehouses and ovens were lit, barrel-loads of food, slabs of salted meat and baskets of not-so-fresh bread being wheeled down to the tables, boards laid across trestles, where the garrison would muster to break its fast.
Corbett walked around, watching the people at their work, now and then returning a greeting. A young woman came tripping along the cobbles, a heavy basket in her hand. Corbett stopped her, took the basket from her and, looking down, realized they were greasy pots and pans from the kitchen being taken to be scrubbed in vats of boiling salted water. The girl was pretty, her thin white face shrouded by reddish hair.
‘Why, sir, thank you.’ Her accent was thick, rather musical, the words clipped, running breathlessly into each other.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Why, Master, Marissa.’
‘Tell me, Marissa . . .’ Corbett carried the basket across the yard, and the other women stood back, gaping at this powerful King’s man helping one of their own. He placed it down on the cobblestones, as far away from the fire as possible so that it would not be scorched. ‘Tell me, Marissa,’ he took a coin out and, grasping the girl’s chapped hand, made her take it, ‘do you have a cloak?’
‘Oh no, Master.’ She must have glimpsed the disappointment in Corbett’s face. ‘But I can always borrow one.’
‘And if you were to leave the castle?’
‘Then I wouldn’t ask for one,’ she grinned, ‘otherwise people would know that I was leaving.’
Corbett turned away in disappointment, as he realised why Rebecca wasn’t wearing a cloak.
‘Sir Hugh.’
He looked round. Bolingbroke, nursing his sore head, came trudging through the snow.
‘I drank too much,’ he confessed. ‘I had to go straight to bed. Now the cold is sobering me up.’ He squinted at Corbett, who saw the cut marks on his cheek where the clerk had tried to shave himself. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’m prying.’ Corbett smiled. ‘I should say trying to discover something about that murder yesterday morning.’ He gestured round at the inner ward, now busy as any marketplace. ‘There’s nothing, and de Craon has insisted on an early start.’
Corbett led Bolingbroke across to the hall to break their fast. Ranulf was already there, keen and sharp as a knife, trying to persuade Chanson, who looked much the worse for wear, to eat some bread and take a sip of watered ale. De Craon and his entourage entered, and pleasantries were exchanged before they adjourned to the solar, which was reached by going down the passageway which ran under the minstrels’ gallery. A warm, comfortable chamber, sure protection against the freezing cold, its walls were cloaked in heavy woollen drapes of dark muted colours. The polished wooden floor was covered by turkey carpets and the fire in the great hearth was already merry and full, its flames roaring up. A long walnut table dominated the centre of the chamber, a high-backed quilted chair at each end, with similar chairs arranged along both sides. On the table lay writing trays containing ink horns, sharpened quills, pumice stones and a small jar of fine sand. At either end stood a hardened leather drum, its cap thrown back to reveal cream-coloured rolls of vellum and parchment. The Catherine wheel of candles had been lowered from the black-beamed ceiling. Each container held a costly beeswax taper, so as to provide good light for those at the table, and three sets of brass candelabra had also been lit for good measure.
The seating arrangement was agreed upon: Corbett and de Craon at the ends, their clerks and advisers along either side. Father Andrew came to intone the Veni Creator Spiritus. Corbett pronounced himself satisfied and, leaving Chanson to sit with the other henchmen on either side of the mantled hearth, took Ranulf and Bolingbroke back to his own chamber. He felt in the toe of one of his riding boots, took out a ring of three keys and crossed to the iron-bound coffer at the foot of the bed.
‘This used to be the castle treasury,’ he explained, slipping two of the keys off the ring. ‘It’s the work of a craftsman, constructed specially in the Tower of London. You’ll not find its like anywhere. All three locks are distinctly separate; we shall each hold a key.’
He distributed the other two keys, the locks were turned, and Corbett pushed back the lid and, helped by Ranulf, lifted out the red quilted Chancery box. This, too, possessed two distinct locks, to which Ranulf always carried the other key. Corbett broke the red and green seals, and the locks were turned. Inside was a further lid which only Corbett could unlock in order to draw out the leather pouches containing the leather-bound copies of the Secretus Secretorum, and other manuscripts of Roger Bacon. Each pouch had been sealed by the King himself using his signet ring, pressing it into the blood-red wax.
‘The King was most insistent.’ Corbett smiled at his two companions. ‘He regarded these as he would any treasure in the Tower.’ He took out the Secretus Secretorum, with its dark red Spanish leather cover, its clasp containing a brilliant amethyst. ‘This is not,’ he winked at Bolingbroke, ‘the manuscript you stole from Paris, but the King’s very own.’
He put the pouches and what they contained on the floor.
‘I’ve also brought my own ciphers, as well as the various ones used in the Secret Chancery, not to mention those used by myself.’ He got to his feet, brushing the dust from his knees. ‘Not that they have done any good,’ he sighed. ‘Friar Roger’s cipher resists everything I know.’
Sir Hugh gave the manuscripts to Ranulf, telling him to put them back in their pouches and relock the coffers. They were about to leave when there was a pounding on the door, and one of Sir Edmund’s stewards burst into the chamber.