‘Our visitor has arrived.’
‘The Moon People?’
‘They got tired of waiting,’ Sorrel explained. ‘They watch the hours as regularly as a monk does his office.’
Corbett stared up at the night sky. Aye, he reflected, and I watch mine. What time was it? He had left the church with Sir Louis and Sir Maurice about an hour before nightfall. It must be at least, he reckoned, three hours before midnight and he still had other business to do: Molkyn’s widow to speak to for a start! He heard a sound. Sorrel, holding the sconce torch, was standing in the doorway.
‘Come on!’ she urged.
They reached the cobbled yard. Sorrel’s visitor was standing in the middle. Corbett made out his shadowy outline.
‘I stood here deliberately.’ The voice had a strong country burr. Corbett recognised the tongue of the south-west. ‘I didn’t want to startle you.’
The man stepped into the pool of light. He was tall. Raven-black hair, parted down the middle, fell to his shoulders; sharp eyes like a bird, crooked nose, his mouth and chin hidden by a black bushy moustache and beard. He was swarthy-skinned and Corbett glimpsed the silver earrings in each earlobe. He smelt of wood smoke and tanned leather. The stranger was dressed from head to toe in animal skins: the jacket sleeves were of leather, the front being of mole’s fur, with leggings of tanned deerskin pushed into sturdy black boots. He wore a war belt which carried a stabbing dirk and a dagger. Bracelets winked at his wrists, rings on his fingers.
The stranger studied Corbett from head to toe. ‘So, you’re the King’s clerk?’
‘You should have waited,’ Sorrel accused. ‘I would have brought him.’
The man’s gaze held Corbett’s.
‘I did not want to meet him,’ he replied insolently. ‘I don’t like King’s officers, I don’t like clerks. I only said I would see him because you asked. What I’ve got to say isn’t much. You said you’d bring him to see me if you could.’
Corbett glanced at Sorrel and smiled. He was intrigued by how much this woman had planned what had happened this evening.
‘You find me amusing?’ the man asked dangerously.
‘No, sir,’ Corbett replied wearily. ‘I do not find you amusing. You are the leader of the Moon People, aren’t you?’
‘One of its clans.’
‘You came here, not because you’re tired of waiting, but because you did not want me in your encampment?’
The man’s eyes flickered.
‘You don’t like court officials,’ Corbett continued, ‘because they stride amongst your wagons like the Lord Almighty. They steal your goods, bully your men, harass your women. They take your horses and accuse you of crimes you did not commit. They will only go away if you offer silver and gold. Do you think I am like that, sir? I tell you, I’m not!’ Corbett undid his purse and took out two silver coins. ‘You come here out of friendship to Sorrel. Go on, take these for your pains!’
The man took the coins.
‘You are an ill-mannered lout!’ Sorrel exclaimed. ‘This clerk’s no Blidscote.’
The Moon man extended a hand. ‘My name is Branway. I’ve come to tell you something.’
Corbett grasped his hand.
‘I’ll tell you what I want, here under God’s sky. In that way you know I am telling the truth. I belong to the Moon People. We travel from Cornwall to the old Roman wall in the north. We have our carts and our ponies. We have coppersmiths, seamstresses, carpenters and painters. We buy and sell and, yes, when our children go hungry, we steal. We know the King’s kingdom better than he does. We arrived here two days ago and we’ll be gone tomorrow morning.’
‘What do you mean?’ Corbett asked.
‘We have to use these roads,’ Branway explained, ‘and we can’t help passing by Melford on our way to the coast. But you’ll find none of our women wandering the lanes. Over the years some have disappeared.’
Corbett took a step closer. ‘You mean disappeared, not run away?’
‘Oh, I know what you are thinking, clerk. We have taken into our care some of the poor wenches who flee from your cities and towns. Our women do not run away. It’s common talk amongst the Moon People how, over the years, six or seven of our women have disappeared: in the main, young girls stupid enough to wander out, intrigued by what the market holds. They left and never came back. We searched but did not find. I’ve heard the same amongst other travelling people. That’s all I can tell you.’
‘But surely you’ve gone to the Guildhall?’
Branway threw his head back and laughed. ‘And get beaten for our pains! No, master clerk, we just avoid Melford, whilst our women are kept within the encampment.’
‘And have you seen anything amiss?’
‘I’ve told you what I know: no more no less.’
The man nodded at Corbett, kissed Sorrel on each cheek and walked off into the darkness.
Corbett watched him go.
‘I must leave too. I thank you for what you’ve told me.’
Corbett nodded at Sorrel, bade her good night, collected his horse and crossed into the water meadow. For a while he paused and looked up at the sky, reflecting on what he’d learnt.
‘True,’ he whispered into the darkness, ‘this is a place of hideous murder!’
Chapter 7
Walter Blidscote was having nightmares. He wasn’t asleep but he wished to God he was. After he had met that terrifying clerk in the crypt beneath St Edmund’s Church, Blidscote had strode off wielding his staff of office. He had walked quickly, pompously, with all the authority he could summon up. Once away from prying eyes, he’d slumped beneath a sycamore tree and allowed his fat body to tremble. Sweat had trickled down his back whilst his stomach squeezed and winced so much he had to retreat deeper into the trees to relieve himself.
Blidscote had been petrified.
‘I am living in the Valley of Ghosts,’ he’d whispered, staring round. He believed he could see shapes amongst the trees. Or was it just the branches in the curling mist? Blidscote felt he was being haunted. He recalled the words of a preacher: how a man’s sins, like hungry dogs, can pick up the scent and come howling down the passage of the years. Blidscote’s mind trailed back. He couldn’t forget the day of Sir Roger’s execution: Chapeleys standing on the cart, the noose round his neck. He’d protested his innocence, shouting that one day he would have his vengeance.
Blidscote stared at his hands. Were they covered in blood? Or was it just dirt? He wiped them on his hose and felt the cold mud beneath him. What happened if that keen hunting dog of a clerk started to dig up the bones of the past? This was not some local matter. The King had intervened. The great council at Westminster had issued warrants under the Great Seal. Blidscote knew something about the law. Sir Hugh Corbett may stand in his dark clothing and travel-stained boots but he represented the Crown. He could go anywhere, see anything, ask any questions. God and his angels help any who tried to impede him! Blidscote had so much to hide. Sometimes he sought consolation in being shriven, in confessing his secret sins in church, in vowing repentance, in lighting candles, but still the burden on his back grew heavier.
Blidscote became so frightened, he got up and walked back into the town for company. He’d visited a dingy alehouse. Now he was sickened at what he had drunk so quickly from the polluted vat and the dirt-encrusted, leather tankard. He had enjoyed a quick fumble with a greasy potboy in one of the outhouses but the ale fumes were now dulled, his sense of pleasure replaced by remorse. Blidscote stumbled along the lanes, making his way towards the square and the Golden Fleece. Guilt perched on his shoulder like a huge crow. He’d ignored Corbett’s request to visit the families of the victims. They would tell him nothing. Images came and went like fiery bursts in his befuddled mind. Blidscote was a boy again, snivelling-nosed and ragged-arsed, standing before Parson Hawdon, the old priest who had served St Edmund’s Church long before Parson Grimstone ever came.