‘This is,’ Griffyths declared, ‘the most hideous depths of hell, Sir Hugh. I’d give a year’s wage to be back in the loveliness of South Wales.’
Corbett didn’t answer. He remembered the ‘loveliness’ of South Wales! Trees clustered together, the light barely piercing them, the grass underneath slippery. He recalled waiting with men-at-arms and archers for the Welsh bowmen with all their hideous skill to appear and loose their shafts, a rain of death clattering against their armour before disappearing as swiftly. .
‘You’ve served in Wales, Sir Hugh?’
‘Of course.’
‘And you never met the Mouldwarp? He is an ugly-coloured, dismal, lurking character with a hump. He wears a ragged thread-bare cloak and his every limb is blacker than a blacksmith’s.’
Corbett paused and put a hand on the archer’s shoulder.
‘Griffyths, we are going to a place more ominous and threatening than any monster prowling the woods of South Wales or, indeed, any night-walker on these streets. I bid you say your prayers.’
‘St Botulph’s?’ Griffyths refused to be abashed. ‘I know of it, sir. I’ve heard the stories. I was there at the battle. All kinds of legends flourish about it being haunted, a place where people disappear. Is that true, Sir Hugh?’
Corbett sighed, tapped the archer on the shoulder and led him on. ‘Listen, Griffyths, what I want you to do is guard me and watch that church. Now, this monster from the Welsh woods, have you ever met him?’
He allowed Griffyths to chatter as they made their way through the streets, until eventually they reached St Botulph’s. Here the Welsh archer fell silent. The heavy mist thinned to reveal the gnarled yew trees and crumbling cluster of tombs. The church itself looked silent and forbidding. No beacon light glowed in its steeple, no sound carried. God’s acre was strangely empty, as if the beggars and the other dispossessed who usually sheltered there had recognised the sinister atmosphere and fled. Griffyths threw back his cloak, hand on the hilt of his sword, muttering prayers in Welsh. He pointed to the main door and whispered something about the recent battle. Corbett patted him on the shoulder and led him into the trees, along the path to the corpse door. Griffyths abruptly paused, one hand on Corbett’s arm.
‘Sir Hugh, did you hear that?’
Corbett stared into the mist closing behind them.
‘What?’
‘A footfall, something snuffling.’ He forced a smile. ‘Like the Mouldwarp.’
‘Ghosts.’ Corbett smiled, tapping the archer’s broad forehead. ‘Ghosts in here, Griffyths.’
He brought out the keys and eventually found the correct one. The corpse door creaked open and they entered the nave. A musty, damp smell seeped out of the chilly blackness to greet them. Corbett, recalling where the sconce torches were positioned, took out a tinder and moved to the left, feeling along the wall. Griffyths followed, muttering incantations against the Evil One, his boots slithering over the paving stones. Corbett lit a torch and used it to fire the others. The flickering flames created a ghostly atmosphere along that cavernous nave with its fat rounded pillars and shadow-filled aisles. The light picked up the vivid wall paintings proclaiming the story of Man’s fall from Paradise and his constant battle against the powers of hell. Painted faces, scowling, angry, beseeching, lovely and ugly, celestial and demonic, peered out as Corbett, followed by a now subdued Griffyths holding a sconce torch, made his way round that haunted church, carefully inspecting everything. He confided to Griffyths that they might have to wait for the full light of day, though he was certain no secret cellar, recess, crypt, tunnel or passageway existed. The church grew bitterly cold. Griffyths voiced his unease as they went up into the sanctuary towards the sacristy. Corbett teased his companion, promising that they would soon break their fast before a roaring fire in some nearby tavern. He unlocked the sacristy door, then went back into the church, where a thought occurred to him He returned to the sacristy and stared down at the place where Parson John must have been assaulted and bound. A sound echoed from the church.
‘Griffyths?’ exclaimed Corbett.
The archer slipped out into the sanctuary. Corbett loosened his own sword, then startled at a clatter. He stepped out of the sacristy and immediately retreated. The church was dark, the sconce torches doused. He peered round the lintel of the door. Only one cresset still flamed.
‘Griffyths?’ he shouted. A click alarmed him, and he threw himself down even as a crossbow bolt whirled like some angry wasp above his head. He slammed shut the door to the sanctuary, pushing across the rusty bolts at top and bottom, then unlocked the door to the outside and hastened into the mist-strewn poor man’s lot, the burial ground for strangers lying to the north side of the church. Hot sweat cooling in the freezing air, he slammed the door shut and fumbled with the keys but couldn’t find the correct one. He slipped the bunch into the pocket of his cloak and drew both sword and dagger, edging out across the waste-land trying to control his panic. This was his nightmare, one that had haunted him ever since he had fought in Wales, whether it was here in this graveyard or in some lonely copse or filthy alleyway. He was facing death, hunted by an assassin hungry for slaughter.
Slipping and slithering on the icy ground. he made his way around wooden crosses, stumbling over mounds, ruts and holes. A sound forced him to stop and turn. A shape moved in the mist. Corbett crouched. He glimpsed a mongrel scavenging at the dead underneath their thin layer of dirt. The dog turned, a bone between its jaws. Corbett lunged with his sword, and the dog yelped and fled. Immediately a crossbow bolt hissed through the air to smash against a headstone. Corbett stared back at the church. He’d made a mistake: he’d have been safer inside. He took a deep breath and whispered a prayer. The mist was thinning, the light strengthening, but he was not safe. St Botulph’s, now seen as accursed, was desolate; very few would enter here. His attacker, armed with a crossbow, would simply hunt him down, drive him into a trap or wait for a mistake.
A low growl made him turn swiftly, and in doing so he struck one of the wooden crosses, which snapped and broke. Corbett however could only stare in horror at the huge mastiff, belly low to the ground, creeping towards him. He kept still, recognising the breed. Royal levies had used them in Wales and Scotland: a war dog with a spiked collar to protect its thick, muscular throat, the hound had been trained to hunt silently. The assassin had released it to track Corbett down, flush him out and, if he stood still or tried to defend himself, attack. The mastiff growled again, huge cruel jaws slightly open, sharp, tufted ears going back, black eyes intent on its prey. Corbett stepped to the right. The dog, muscular flanks quivering, halted, eyes intent on him. A twig snapped. The assassin was also creeping forward. Corbett crouched down and caught the pungent smell from the freshly dug burial mound over which the fallen cross lay. He recognised the odour of the unadulterated heavy lime used by the grave-diggers. He dropped his sword. The soil was hard, the lime lay loosely strewn. He collected a brimming handful in his gauntleted hand. The war hound half rose, and Corbett lunged, throwing the lime at that great ugly head just as the dog charged. The lime, a congealed mess, hit the hound as it sprang. Corbett moved swiftly to one side. The dog had misjudged its leap, and Corbett scored it with the tip of his dagger. The hound turned in a swirl of muscular black flesh but then broke its stride, confused by the ugly knife wound to its flank as well as the lime burning its eyes, nostrils and mouth. Its great head went back as the lime scorched deeper, and Corbett lurched forward and, grasping his sword, drove it deep into the dog’s exposed throat. The hound rolled in agony on to its side.
Corbett moved swiftly at a half-crouch back to the sacristy door. A bolt winged dangerously close, but he reached the door and hurled himself inside. He scrambled up and pushed one bolt home, then raced out of the sacristy through the sanctuary, down the steps and across to the corpse door, which he slammed shut. Hands trembling, he snatched out the bunch of keys, finding the correct one as a hideous yelping echoed from outside. Then he sank to the ground, pressing his sweat-soaked face against the icy-cold flagstones. He heard the sacristy door rattle, then silence. He waited. A short while later the door beside him shook violently. Corbett pulled himself up.