‘Can I help you?’
Corbett turned to greet the handsome-faced Chaplain Norbert. He was clothed in a dark green robe, a cambric shirt beneath displaying a starched white collar. On his feet were slippers of light blue with gold and silver buckles. He bowed in a slightly mocking way before strolling towards them.
‘Father, I would like to see one of your albs, and’ – Corbett held up a hand – ‘tell me is there any other robe, cloak or tunic in this convent that is white from head to toe?’
Norbert’s hand went to his mouth as he made to answer the question. Corbett immediately noticed that the priest was wearing doe-skinned gloves and asked why.
‘I was working in the chantry chapels checking the parchment of certain missals and psalters. Some of these are old, precious, and need real care. Now, Sir Hugh, as far as I can recollect, the alb is the only item of clothing in Godstow that would fit your description. Let me see.’ He crossed to an aumbry, pulled back the heavy curtain and took out a long garment of pure white linen with hood and close-fitting sleeves. It was ornamented across the back with six small pieces of cloth of gold. Ranulf exclaimed in pleasure as Corbett closely examined the alb before handing it back.
‘White from head to toe,’ he murmured. ‘With pieces sewn on to provide a shimmer of light.’
‘What is this?’ Dame Alice demanded. ‘Why are albs so important?’
‘You have two missing?’ Corbett enquired.
‘Why, yes, how did you know?’ asked the sacristan in surprise. ‘They have been missing for some time. I informed Chaplain Norbert.’
‘And I told the lady abbess.’
‘Who would steal two albs?’
‘Sir Hugh, some people would steal anything.’
Corbett murmured his agreement and went back into the church. Norbert followed. The postern gate in the main door opened and Dame Catherine stepped through, sweeping up the nave like a war cog under full sail.
‘Your clerk of the stables said you wanted to see me here.’
Aware of Father Norbert behind him, Corbett walked down to meet the novice mistress, then stopped between the gleaming choir stalls.
‘Dame Catherine, you claim that Elizabeth Buchan and Margaret Beaumont were often reprimanded for laughing, whispering,’ he shrugged, ‘gossiping during divine service?’
‘Yes, yes they certainly were,’ she replied pettishly.
‘Which were their stalls? I understand that each member of this community, as in most religious houses, is given a particular place so that those in authority know immediately who is absent, or distracted or falling asleep instead of participating in the divine office.’
‘Here.’ Dame Catherine crossed to the lowest row of stalls on the gospel side of the sanctuary. She indicated two seats at the far end, close to the sanctuary steps. Corbett went in. He lowered the movable stall and sat down. He felt under the seat, and his fingers touched the misericord, the usual grotesque carving. He got up, crouched down and raised the sedilia of the two stalls occupied by Beaumont and Buchan. There was a carving or misericord on each. The first depicted an ale wife being carried off by demons to be tossed into hell’s mouth. The second showed a pig with tonsured hair and dressed in monkish robes being birched by a devil.
Corbett lowered both seats and sat down. He stared at similar carvings on the bench rail in front of him and smiled: those two novices would have had to stare at such images five or six times a day. He glanced up. Chaplain Norbert and the two nuns stood in the sacristy door, gaping curiously across at him. He hid his satisfaction at what he had seen. He rose, thanked them for their help, genuflected towards the pyx and left the church, followed by Ranulf.
‘Master, what was all that about?’
Corbett stopped and pressed his forefinger gently against Ranulf’s mouth. ‘My friend, soon,’ he whispered. ‘For the moment let us proceed circumspecte agatis – with great care, prudence and cunning.’
For most of the next week, Corbett remained closeted in his thoughts. He attended the midday Mass, after which he would light tapers before the statue of Our Lady of Walsingham in its shrine to the left of the high altar. Occasionally he returned to sit in the stalls, and he also took to wandering the precincts of the nunnery: its cloisters, outhouses, yards, baileys and gardens. He stayed well clear of the maze, murmuring that it was a mansion of murder and the abode of sin.
Four days after the slaying of Vicomte, the clerk was buried in God’s Acre in Godstow, following a simple Requiem Mass. Once they had finished dining on the funeral collation in the refectory, Corbett, lost in a deep reverie, plucked at Ranulf’s sleeve.
‘Let us adjourn,’ he declared, ‘and you be scribe for my thoughts.’
Corbett locked the door to his guest-house chamber. Ranulf laid out his writing instruments on the chancery desk, then sat on the chair with Corbett close beside him on a stool.
‘Muri aures hic habent,’ whispered Corbett. ‘The very walls here have ears. So, as we begin, let us be most prudent and expedient. Let us not repeat what is well known, but list my conclusions.’
Ranulf dipped his quill pen in the ink pot carved in the shape of a grinning babewyn, and smoothed out the long piece of creamy-coloured vellum held down by small chancery weights.
‘First,’ Corbett began, his voice hardly above a whisper, ‘Elizabeth Buchan and Margaret Beaumont steal two albs and pretend to be ghosts, a mummer’s game often played out during the season of All Hallows. However, in their nightly hauntings, did they see something highly suspicious here in Godstow? Elizabeth Buchan mentioned as much to you, Ranulf, but never elaborated. Second, Margaret Beaumont wants to escape. She hints to her friend that someone here in the nunnery will help her. Beaumont also insinuates that she’s the one who knows about something very irregular happening at Godstow.
‘Beaumont disappears completely, she and all her possessions. However, her great friend Elizabeth Buchan is not concerned until she realises that Margaret truly has vanished. Her kin know nothing of her; they appeal to the king, and you, Ranulf, are dispatched here to investigate. Third, Elizabeth Buchan now changes. She becomes fearful about her friend and wary for her own safety. She believes she is being threatened by great danger. She borrows that arbalest from you, Ranulf.’ Corbett paused abruptly. ‘Of course,’ he whispered, ‘now that was a mistake, using it to attack us.’
‘Master?’
‘No, no.’ Corbett raised a hand. ‘Let us continue. Elizabeth Buchan is seen near the maze, then she too disappears. The following morning she is found, raped and murdered, slain by a crossbow bolt to the brain.’ He paused. ‘We must challenge this version of her death.’ He emphasised his points on his fingers. ‘Elizabeth Buchan was a virgin, a young woman. She would have fought her attacker. Vigorous and strong, she would have resisted intensely. Moreover, there should be signs of this not only on her clothing but, more importantly, on her body itself: bruises and scrapes, wounds on her hands, knees and elsewhere. If she was raped, she was taken violently, and again some part of her would have been seriously bruised. But again, nothing.
‘Elizabeth Buchan was allegedly killed in the maze near the steps to the Creeping Cross. However, I could detect no blood there. In addition, according to all the evidence, she died silently. Listen.’ Corbett held up a hand as the shriek of a peacock carried across the nunnery. ‘A peacock cries and is clearly heard. A young woman is raped at the centre of a maze, let us say at dead of night, but not a sound is heard. No real wound to the body to testify to such an assault. Nothing but a bolt to the head and a bloodied groin. No, Ranulf, Elizabeth Buchan was killed elsewhere, swiftly, silently and up close.’