They passed the priest’s house and followed the path round, across a small yard housing stables, hen runs, chicken coops and a small dovecote. At the end of this yard stood a small orchard of apple and pear trees.
‘They give good fruit in summer.’ Burghesh stopped and stared at the branches. ‘But they need pruning.’
He led them through the orchard, which gave way to a small field. At the far end, flanked on either side by trees, stood the forester’s house. It was narrow but three-storeyed, with white plaster and black beams. Its windows had been enlarged and filled with glass, the roof was newly tiled.
‘It’s what I used to dream about,’ Burghesh confessed.
He led them along the path, took a ring of keys from his belt and opened the front door. The passage inside was stone-flagged but clean and well swept. The plaster walls were lime-washed and there were shelves holding pots of herbs. Corbett smelt lavender, pennyroyal, agrimony and coriander.
‘I’m a keen gardener,’ Burghesh declared.
He took them through, past the comfortable parlour, kitchen and buttery into the physician’s garden at the back. This was formed in a half-moon shape, ringed by a red-brick wall. Burghesh proudly pointed out how he had arranged the herbs according to their uses: herbs for bites and stings, herbs for the kitchen and household. He then led them back and made them sit at the thick wooden kitchen table whilst he served them home-brewed ale and freshly baked bread.
‘Are you a cook as well?’ Ranulf asked, enjoying himself.
‘No, I sell the herbs to the apothecaries and buy my bread.’
‘Are you a hunter?’ Corbett asked.
Burghesh threw his head back and laughed.
‘I’m as clumsy as a dray horse.’ He supped at his ale. ‘I understand we will be meeting again tonight?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Corbett recalled. ‘Sir Louis Tressilyian has invited us to supper.’
‘And Parson Grimstone. We’ll all be there.’
‘Tell me about Curate Robert’s peccadilloes.’
Burghesh hid a smile behind his tankard. ‘Who’s been talking?’
‘Well, no one has, but,’ Corbett smiled at his half-lie, ‘I think you know. The flagellation?’
‘Yes, Parson John’s often talked about it. He put a stop to it here. But,’ Burghesh sighed, ‘Curate Robert has been seen out in the countryside. God knows what sins he thinks he’s committed. We all have our secrets, eh, master clerk?’
Corbett was about to reply when he heard the sound of hurrying footsteps and a hammering on the door. Burghesh went down the passageway. Sir Louis Tressilyian, cloaked and spurred, Sir Maurice Chapeleys behind him, strode into the kitchen.
‘Sir Hugh, you are needed in Melford.’
‘What’s the matter?’ Corbett got up.
‘We met your man Chanson. Haven’t you heard? Deverell the carpenter has been murdered.’
Chapter 12
Deverell’s house stood in its own ground between two alleyways: a broad, two-storeyed building with a garden plot and workshops. The area was thronged with people as Tressilyian and Chapeleys ushered Corbett through the front door into the kitchen. The curious, despite the best efforts of Blidscote and Tressilyian, had their faces pressed up against the window. Ranulf cleared the kitchen except for Deverell’s wife. She sat, white-faced and hollow-eyed in a chair, staring down at the bloodstain on the stone-flagged floor. Standing beside her was a neighbour who, by her own confession, had come to borrow some honey. She’d knocked and rapped but the carpenter’s wife had refused to open the door. The neighbour, a prim, self-composed woman, had taken one look through the crack in a shutter and raised the alarm.
‘I was in Melford,’ Tressilyian explained, ‘to summon the jurors who served at the trial. Blidscote found us in the marketplace. Sir Maurice searched for you.’ He pointed at Chanson sitting at the foot of the stairs. ‘He told us you had gone to the morning Mass.’
‘What happened?’ Corbett demanded.
‘Last night Deverell refused to go to bed. Apparently he was much disturbed by your arrival, Sir Hugh; drawn and fearful, as he had been over the last few days. He sat here, brooding and drinking, staring into the fireplace. Now his wife claims. .’
Corbett raised his head and studied the carpenter’s wife. She was pretty, with her long, black hair, but her face was piteous, grey and haggard, her eyes circled by dark rings. She sat, lips moving, talking to herself, almost unaware of what was going on around her. Now and again she seemed to catch herself, stare around, then go back to her own thoughts.
‘Continue,’ Corbett demanded.
‘Ysabeau,’ Tressilyian gestured at Deverell’s widow, ‘retired to bed. She could do nothing about her husband. He had locked and bolted the door, the same with the shutters. She was lying upstairs wondering what to do when she heard a knock at the door. She got up and went to the window. You’ve seen the porch in front of the house? The door is in a recess and she couldn’t see the visitor. She then heard a crash even as the knocking continued.’ Tressilyian paused. ‘Well, God save us, Deverell took a crossbow bolt just beneath his left eye. Killed instantly. His wife came hurrying down, took one look and fell into a deep swoon.’
‘Clerk?’ Ysabeau was staring at him with hate-filled eyes.
‘Yes, Mistress?’
‘Are you the royal clerk?’
‘I am.’
‘He feared you.’ Her upper lip curled. ‘He didn’t want you to come to Melford.’
‘Why not, Mistress?’
‘He never said. A man of secrets, my Deverell.’ She moved her dark eyes to Sir Maurice. ‘And you are the Chapeleys whelp? He was never the same after they hanged your father.’ She eased herself up in the chair. ‘Never the same,’ she repeated.
‘There was more found.’ Blidscote opened his wallet and handed across a scrap of parchment squeezed into a ball. ‘Apparently Deverell held that. It was found near his corpse.’
Corbett undid the parchment: it was yellowing and dirty, tattered at the edges. The scrawled words were like letters from a child’s horn book.
‘It’s a quotation,’ Corbett murmured. ‘From the commandments.’ He smiled at Ranulf. ‘We seem to be having many of these. Have you read it, Master Blidscote?’
‘Aye, Sir Hugh.’
‘What does it say?’ Sir Maurice demanded.
‘ “Thou shalt not bear false testimony.”
‘He didn’t.’ Deverell’s wife half rose from the chair, her face a mask of fury. ‘He didn’t bear false testimony.’
Her neighbour coaxed her back, patting her gently on the shoulder.
‘There’s a true mystery,’ Blidscote continued, ‘about Deverell’s death.’
‘Explain!’
‘Well, Sir Hugh, the shutters were still barred, all the doors to this house were locked. So how was Deverell murdered? How did the killer manage to pass this message to the victim?’
Corbett stared at the pasty-faced bailiff. It was still early morning yet Blidscote had been drinking even though he hadn’t recovered from the previous night’s bout. You are frightened, Corbett thought: at the appropriate time I’ll squeeze your ear like a physician would a boil and see what pus comes out.
‘I mean, I had to force the door,’ Blidscote stammered.
Corbett looked behind him and saw the lock buckled. He walked across, opened the door and stood in the porch. On either side rose plaster walls. He glimpsed the Judas squint high on the right side.
‘Apparently Deverell refurbished this door,’ Blidscote explained. ‘It took a battering ram to force it.’
‘And there’s no other open entrance to the house?’ Corbett demanded, aware of the others joining him in the porch.
‘I tell you, Sir Hugh,’ the bailiff whined, ‘the back door and the shutters were all locked. The neighbour became concerned. She peered through a crack in one of the shutters and saw the body lying on the floor. She pounded and yelled. Eventually Ysabeau unlocked the door and the alarm was raised.’