‘Master Constable, your prisoner has escaped!’
Sandewic, muttering curses, stormed through the corpse door and stared around in surprise.
‘It’s empty!’ he shouted. ‘Sir Hugh, where is your clerk? Where’s Chanson?’ He went back shouting the groom’s name, his voice echoing vainly through that sombre church.
‘Go on,’ Corbett urged, ‘bring your men in. Search this church from door to door, every crevice, nook and cranny. See if you can find Chanson.’
Sandewic, baffled, did as he was told. The bells of other churches were ringing out the hours before he came back shaking his head.
‘He’s disappeared,’ he exclaimed, ‘just like Boniface Ippegrave did. Sir Hugh, is he hiding here?’
‘I will tell you,’ Corbett took off his gauntlets, ‘but not here. Sir Ralph, tell your lieutenant to lock the church and take your men back for a blackjack of ale at the Tower. You, my friend,’ he touched the constable’s whiskered face, ‘will join me and my companions in the most cheerful tavern we can find.’
A short while later, closeted in a partitioned area to the left of the great roaring fire in the taproom of the Golden Thistle, Corbett finished the last morsels of his delicious venison. He cleaned his horn spoon, slipped it back into his belt pouch, grasped his blackjack of ale and sat back. The tavern was small, clean and sweet-smelling, a stark contrast to that icy, ghostly church and cemetery. He waited for his companions, equally ravenous, to finish their own food before toasting them with his tankard. Sandewic kept staring at Chanson, shaking his head in disbelief. He was brimming with questions about how the clerk had disappeared from St Botulph’s. Chanson had been waiting for them here, crouched on a stool next to the spit boy, advising him how to baste the pork with mingled spices that gave the taproom its mouth-watering aromas.
‘Sir Ralph, I’ll tell you in a while,’ began Corbett, ‘but first I want to go back twenty years.’ The rest, nursing their tankards, listened intently. Corbett closed his eyes, then opened them and smiled around. ‘Boniface Ippegrave was not the Mysterium; Walter Evesham was.’
‘Never!’ Sandewic exclaimed. ‘Walter Evesham may have been a rogue, but a professional assassin. . He was the one-’
‘Yes, Sir Ralph, he was the one who trapped Boniface Ippegrave. He committed him into custody but allowed him to escape to sanctuary at St Botulph’s. Let me explain. Sir Ralph, you have fought in Wales and Scotland. Soldiers kill because they have to, because they are frightened or to defend themselves. Sometimes, sodden with ale or blood lust, they can commit horrible crimes, but in the main, most people don’t want to kill for the sake of it. However, whilst serving with the King’s troops I — and I am sure you too, Sir Ralph — came across those who love the smell of blood. They take to killing as a bird to flying. They enjoy it. They relish it. I remember one serjeant-at-arms who loved to hang Welsh prisoners taken in battle. He’d kick them off the scaffold, closely savour their every struggle and watch the life light fade in their eyes. No one was safe from him, women, children, even those of his own kind who refused to carry out his orders. I believe Evesham was of similar ilk. I have a friend, a physician,’ Corbett sipped from his tankard, ‘at St Bartholomew’s in Smithfield. One night, while sharing a jug of ale with him, he talked about such men, who appear to have two souls, conflicting personalities. Like the old Roman god Janus, they glance either way at the same time. They can be charming, intelligent, courteous, but change their circumstances and they become angry, homicidal, violent and vengeful. I believe Walter Evesham was one of these, two souls in one body: the upright judge, the faithful clerk, but beneath that a killer, a murderer, someone who relished mayhem. A soul who’d have liked nothing better than to see the world burning, and he certainly did his best to achieve that.’ He paused and drew a deep breath.
‘Evesham was born on the Welsh March at the manor of Ingachin. He served in the royal levies in Wales, where his appetite for blood was probably whetted. He journeyed to London. A mailed clerk, he soon secured employment in the chancery at Westminster. He was lonely but he was ambitious, hungry for power. He was attracted to both the law and its opposite, the very mayhem it tries to control. He was also a man in a hurry. I suspect that from the very beginning he mixed with the underworld, the wolfsheads and outlaws. It would be so easy. I recently walked from the palace to the abbey, passing through the Sanctuary, which shelters men who would do anything for a favour or a silver coin. Evesham recognised that and relished it. I am also certain that in those early days he met those limbs of Satan — what Ranulf would describe as two cheeks of the same arse — Giles Waldene and Hubert the Monk. They too were beginning their career of lawlessness. A friendship developed between this pair and the royal clerk, but more of that in a while.’
‘Those three names,’ Ranulf asked, ‘Bassetlawe, Furnival and Rescales?’
‘I suspect, though I have no evidence, that Evesham killed them. The coroner ruled that they died natural deaths. Of course all three were bachelors, old men; who would care? Evesham did. He saw them as obstacles to his promotion, so all three went into the dark. Evesham also moved in courtly circles, where he met his darling Clarice, but he was already married to Emma. Now there is nothing like a marriage to help a good man up the slippery ladder of preferment. Evesham, although he had a child by the Lady Emma, found his first marriage irksome. A rising star in the court and chancery, he wanted to begin again. Lady Emma and her maid Beatrice were out doing good, visiting the almshouses, when they were attacked.’
‘By Waldene and Hubert?’
‘I suspect so. I have no proof, not yet. Lady Emma died in that violent affray. Fleschner, Coroner of Cripplegate at the time, hastily dismissed the incident in four lines. I suspect that both he and his inquiry were controlled, or rather hindered, by Evesham. Emma’s death, lamentable indeed, was dismissed as just another hideous street attack. Was the finger of suspicion pointed at the mysterious Beatrice, who simply disappeared? I don’t know — not yet. Walter Evesham acted the grieving husband, throwing his hands in the air, wailing and moaning, pleading to the King for justice. Secretly, though, he rejoiced. He was now the lonely widower, free to go hunting for a more profitable dowry. Even more important,’ Corbett placed his tankard back on the table, ‘an unholy pact had been created between Evesham, Waldene and Hubert the Monk. They were hand in glove in their villainy. At the same time Evesham was very able, erudite and skilled. He soon won the attention of old Burnell, the chancellor, but he wanted more. You see, he just didn’t kill for profit. He murdered because he enjoyed it. I cannot plumb the machinations of his dark soul, but he wanted to taunt both the very Crown and the lord he served, and so the Mysterium emerged.
‘Now, London is a seething pot of intrigue, murderous mayhem and unrest. Intense rivalries divide the Guilds, the merchants, the city fathers. The Great Ones at the Guildhall are not above using the likes of Waldene and Hubert the Monk for swordplay in Cheapside or elsewhere. However, if a merchant hires a dagger man, and that dagger man is caught, he will confess all. Evesham was cunning and subtle. He would approach a merchant and send him a short, curt message: “Your enemy is my enemy. St Paul’s VI, 2” or something similar. Of course the merchant or city father concerned would be intrigued. It might take some time to work out the reference to St Paul, but we all know about the great hoarding. Perhaps Evesham then sent another message explaining in greater detail what he was offering: the removal of a rival, a wife, someone who threatened his client. Let us say the merchant concerned agreed-’