Corbett walked into the passageway to inspect the door. Cuthbert followed and explained how the inside bar was clasped by a great wooden screw to the thick, heavy lintel. The bar had been loosened and split, but Corbett could see how it could be raised and lowered across the door to rest in the clasp on the other side; the same device was used in many tavern chambers.
‘Why are there bars on the inside and outside?’ Ranulf asked. ‘Was Evesham truly a prisoner?’
‘Oh no.’ Cuthbert shook his head. ‘During the day, that door hung open. Our great sinner, brought to repentance, could, and often did, wander Goose Meadow, though he kept close to the chapel as if he found it safe. At night he lowered the inside bar and insisted I do the same with the outside one.’
‘Was he frightened?’ Ranulf asked. ‘Did he dread the very thing that caught him out?’
‘I tell you, I do not know.’
Corbett asked to examine Cuthbert’s cell.The lay brother agreed and showed how a similar bar was fastened to the lintel of his door, a crude but effective device to secure the chamber from the inside. Corbett closed the door and brought the bar down. It fitted neatly into the wooden clasp on the other side.
‘It was the same in Evesham’s cell,’ Cuthbert offered, ‘and can be found in many chambers in this abbey.’
Corbett nodded, then unbarred the door and went out into the passageway, where baskets, long canes, a mattock, hoe and buckets were all neatly stacked. Cuthbert explained how he was responsible for the shrubbery along the curtain wall, as well as the small garden plot on the other side of the chapel. Corbett heard him out. Once again he asked for a list of Evesham’s visitors and what happened the day before he died. The lay brother replied, adding that he’d neither seen nor heard anything untoward. Corbett thanked him and went back up to the chapel, Cuthbert following.
‘Sir Hugh?’
Corbett turned.
‘I know what you are thinking.’ The lay brother hobbled closer.
‘In which case,’ Corbett smiled, ‘you’re a better man than I. So, Brother, what am I thinking?’
‘That I murdered Evesham; my heart was so hot against him.’
‘Oh no.’ Corbett patted him on the shoulder. ‘Evesham died most mysteriously, that is obvious, but I suspect that in this matter we must ignore the obvious.’
Corbett and Ranulf left the chapel, but not before they had examined the door bolts and the shutters over the windows. Everything seemed in order, no scrape, no mark or sign of violence. Corbett took a deep breath as they walked out and closed his eyes for a few heartbeats. The hunt had begun! He walked over to where Ogadon sprawled. The mastiff growled softly but now recognised there was no threat. Corbett crouched and stroked the animal’s silky head, smiling at those sad red-brown eyes.
‘Ogadon is placid now,’ Cuthbert came alongside him, ‘because he knows you. In the middle of the night, however, a stranger. .’
Corbett rose and studied the ledge where the servitor would leave the wine cup and platter. He noticed the stains beneath and caught the piece of cord attached to the bell, which hung in its own housing. He pulled the cord; the bell clanged noisily.
‘We all have to die, yet so many are frightened of the corpse house,’ explained Cuthbert. ‘Hence the bell. They do not want to enter the chapel, but that assassin, God’s vengeance on Evesham, certainly did.’
4
Hoodman blind: blind man’s bluff
Corbett half listened as he stared round. The light was stronger, and the great meadow stretching back to the abbey glistened in the sunlight. The bells of the church clanged abruptly, summoning the brothers for the day Mass. Corbett walked around the chapel; Cuthbert, trailing beside him, solemnly assured him that apart from the door and the two narrow windows, no other entrance existed. Corbett followed Ranulf into the dense line of trees, shrubs and bushes that screened the abbey grounds from the great curtain wall. He approached and examined this. It was built of sheer smooth stone at least four yards high. The top, Cuthbert reminded him, was covered with sharp fragments embedded in a barred ridge of cement. Corbett whispered to Ranulf, who nodded, smiled at Cuthbert and walked back towards the abbey. The lay brother, eyes narrowed, watched him go.
‘A true clerk,’ he murmured, ‘hauberked and mailed. A lusty fighter, eh, Sir Hugh? Ambitious too; you can smell that from him as you would incense from a monk.’
‘A good man,’ Corbett replied. ‘True, hot-blooded, but Ranulf has a soul as well as keen wits.’
‘Why has he left?’
‘To ask Father Abbot a few things, as well as to inform him that I intend to visit the Lady Adelicia.’
‘Adelicia, you must understand, doesn’t like royal clerks.’
‘Who does?’ Corbett grinned. ‘We’re a flock of very ambitious men, but if you could show me?’
Cuthbert led him past the chapel and up a slight rise into a thick fringe of trees and bushes. They followed a well-trodden path into a small glade, peaceful and green, with lush spring flowers already blooming. In the centre of this greenery stood a small, circular stone building of grey brick surmounted by a concave red-tiled roof. The building reminded Corbett of a dovecote. Its walls were about three yards high, and at the front, facing him, was a square window sealed with painted black shutters each perforated with eyelets; the door beside it was low and narrow. A short distance away stood a wooden table, a high-backed chair and a prie-dieu set before an ancient oak; enclosed high in the tree’s massive trunk was a gilded statue of the Virgin Mary holding her Child beneath an ivory crucifix. Corbett walked around. He glimpsed a small red-brick well with a rope and a leather bucket that could be lowered by hand. A pleasant, serene place, the glade conjured up images of fairy cottages in a mythical wind-swept greenwood.
‘Mistress Adelicia, you have a visitor,’ Cuthbert called.
‘I know, a royal clerk. How such men brighten our lives, eh? I will see him.’ The voice carried strong.
‘I shall leave you here,’ Cuthbert murmured and walked away.
The shutters on the widow swung back, and Corbett approached.The ivory-skinned face staring back at him was smooth, narrow-featured, framed by a creamy wimple beneath the dark blue capuchin of a Benedictine nun. The eyes, however, redeemed the harshness of the woman’s face; large and clear, they stared direct and frank with a hint of amusement.
‘You are, sir?’
Corbett introduced himself. ‘You won’t come out?’ he added.
‘No, clerk, I feel safe here. I can and do leave, but not now. I’ll listen to your questions. I know that Evesham has, thank God, gone to a higher court to answer for his sins.’
‘Which are?’ Corbett drew closer, and caught the sweetness of herbs and soap.
‘Arrogance, cruelty, greed.’
‘You know nothing of his death?’
‘Of course not.’
‘But you are pleased?’
‘No, I am satisfied.’
‘Did he ever visit you?’
‘No, I wanted nothing to do with him.’
‘Yet he came to this place, where you and Cuthbert Tunstall shelter?’
‘Yes, clerk, sheltering from the violent tempest he caused in all our lives.’
‘Yet he came to make atonement. Did he ever ask to see you?’
‘Once. I refused.’
‘Too little, too late?’ Corbett asked.
‘No, no.’ Adelicia’s voice turned soft. ‘God save me, I’ll be truthful. Brother Cuthbert and I did not believe Evesham’s protestations. ’
‘Why not?’
‘As the root, so the flower, clerk. Can a man like Evesham change so swiftly, so dramatically? I don’t think you believe that either.’