‘And the rape?’
‘I don’t think she was raped, certainly not when she was alive. As I’ve said, there are no defence wounds.’
‘I have,’ Ranulf chose his words carefully, ‘heard of men abusing a woman’s corpse.’
‘No, that is not the case here, I am sure of it. Elizabeth Buchan was not killed in that maze but elsewhere, and her corpse was abused not for some filthy pleasure but to make it look as if she had been ravished. Other evidence also makes me conclude that the accepted story is a farrago of deception. How could she have entered that maze and threaded its treacherous paths to reach the centre, a herculean task during the light of day, surely an impossible one when darkness had fallen? No, no, she was taken there by someone else.’
‘Vicomte believed there was an easy way to thread the maze. He argued that somewhere there must be a map that would demonstrate this.’
‘Did he now?’
‘Yes, some secret entrance hidden in the outer wall of hedge.’
‘Vicomte said something more interesting when we were discussing the secret of Rosamund,’ Corbett declared. ‘He argued how mysteries and riddles, complex and complicated though they might be, often have a simple solution.’ Corbett rubbed his chin. ‘I wonder,’ he mused. ‘I wonder if he was right. We should explore such a possibility, would you agree?’
‘Master, of course. Oh, by the way, why were you so interested in those choir stalls?’
Corbett laughed softly and rose to his feet. ‘Ranulf, a seed of deep suspicion has been sown and is ready to come to flower. First, though, send Chanson to the sheriff, Sir Miles Stapleton, at Oxford Castle. On the king’s authority he is to raise the shire’s posse, his own comitatus, and bring them here. They should be prepared to camp close by. This matter is urgent …’
Once again Corbett withdrew into himself, making lists and wandering the precincts of the nunnery, excusing himself from invitations to this or that. Four days after Vicomte’s funeral, the Sheriff of Oxford, Sir Miles Stapleton, a balding, sour-faced man, rode into Godstow with a comitatus of thirty soldiers. Corbett was there to greet him. He and Stapleton knew each other from years previously. Lady Joan and the senior nuns of the convent protested at this incursion of armed men. Corbett, who had given them prior warning, ignored their objections and immediately ordered the comitatus to probe the entire hedge wall of the maze under the sharp watch of Sheriff Stapleton and Ranulf. The search lasted a full day. Nothing was found, so Corbett ordered it to be repeated, but they found the same: there was only one entrance to the maze, with no secret path or passage in.
‘Does this,’ Ranulf asked as they sat in a guest-house chamber, ‘hinder your conclusions?’
‘No, no, far from it. Though,’ Corbett tapped the side of his head, ‘one tantalising mystery remains.’
‘Which is?’
‘Elizabeth Buchan was murdered. Margaret Beaumont was also led like a lamb to the slaughter, but her corpse has not yet been found. So, Ranulf, ask our good friend Sheriff Stapleton and his comitatus to do a thorough sweep of the woods around Godstow, no more than a mile from the walls. Then I will take action.’
After two further days, Stapleton reported that they had scrupulously searched the copses and woods looking for freshly dug earth, any sign of a makeshift grave. They’d found nothing. Corbett listened carefully.
‘Very well,’ he murmured. ‘Beaumont’s corpse must be hidden here in Godstow. So, Ranulf, Sir Miles, I am now ready to spring the trap I have prepared, but,’ he smiled thinly, ‘one thing at a time. These murders are going to be resolved not as in some cases before the King’s Bench or the justices of oyer and terminer. Oh no, they will be settled by bluff, trickery and deception. We were led into a maze of deep conceit, and deep conceit will lead us out. Now, these are my instructions …’
After the Jesus Mass the following morning, Corbett, followed by Ranulf and Sir Miles, walked into the sacristy, where Chaplain Norbert was divesting assisted by Dame Alice.
‘You are well, Father?’
‘Yes, and blessings on you too, Sir Hugh.’
Corbett took the alb the chaplain had just taken off and passed it to Dame Alice.
‘Sir Hugh?’
‘Your hands, Chaplain Norbert, may I see them?’
Norbert swallowed hard and extended both hands, turning them so Corbett could inspect them closely.
‘Sir Hugh, what is this?’
‘Nothing, nothing.’ Corbett walked towards the door leading from the sacristy into God’s Acre.
‘Tell me, Chaplain,’ he turned back, ‘what is your greatest fear? There is a heroic Saxon poem called Beowulf …’
‘I have heard of it.’
‘A member of the warrior Beowulf’s shield ring claims that each person – you, me, Sir Miles, Ranulf, even Dame Alice here – nourishes one great fear. For Ranulf it might be constriction around the throat, for me heights, for Sir Miles thunder and lightning. So what is yours? I am curious following a discussion with my learned colleague Ranulf. Tell me and I will be gone.’
‘Water. Drowning! As a boy I fell into a millpond and almost died. The miller’s son saved me.’
‘Saved you for what, Father Norbert?’ Corbett smiled. ‘I will be gone. You and Dame Alice are to be escorted back to your respective chambers and detained there.’
‘You cannot-’ they chorused.
‘Oh yes I can, and yes I will.’ He paused as Chanson knocked on the door and almost fell into the sacristy.
‘Sir Hugh, Sir Hugh,’ he gasped. ‘Rosamund’s twine has been laid out. Fulbert has taken the posse to the centre of the maze and they have begun their work.’
Corbett ignored the exclamations from both chaplain and sacristan.
‘Good, Chanson. Go back. Now that the twine had been laid, all will be well. Remember, you are to concentrate on the bower and the Creeping Cross. The ground is to be scrupulously searched. Sir Miles,’ Corbett turned back to the sheriff, ‘once our two worthies here are locked away, I would be grateful if you would join your posse in the maze.’
‘What are we searching for?’
‘You will know when you find it. I doubt if it will take long. Tell me immediately. Ranulf, stay with our good chaplain here.’
‘And you, Sir Hugh?’
‘I am going to light tapers in front of the Lady Chapel. One for you and me, Ranulf, one for the Lady Maeve and my children, and one,’ Corbett stared directly at Father Norbert and Dame Alice, ‘for the grace to help trap a murderer.’
Corbett stayed for some time on the prie-dieu before the statue of Our Lady of Walsingham. Chanson came and went with various messages. Lady Joan, using all her authority, demanded that she and Corbett meet in the Magdalena chamber. Corbett ignored the peremptory summons and remained deep in thought.
The hours of the nunnery were rung, the community filed into church. Corbett retreated to his own quarters in the guest house, lying on the bed half asleep until Chanson crept in and whispered what Stapleton and his comitatus had found in Rosamund’s bower. On hearing this, Corbett swung his legs off the bed, splashed some cold water on his face at the lavarium and strolled out to meet the lady abbess in the Magdalena chamber. She was alone, and rose, her mouth full of protests. Corbett pushed her back into her chair and took a stool to sit beside her.
‘You love peacocks, Joan Mortimer, because you are one, you always have been. You preen, you strut, and the years haven’t changed you.’
‘How dare you!’ she exclaimed, her face suffused with rage.