Chapter 4
Postquam Primus homo Paradiseum
liquerat. . Gravi peonas cum prole luebat.
Ever since man first lost the garden of
Paradise, he has paid for it with bitter sorrow.
‘On the killing at Lindisfarne’
Corbett stared at the piece of parchment, yellowing and well thumbed. It could have been ripped from any manuscript or book, whilst the pen strokes were clumsy and almost illegible. On peering closer, however, he noticed how each word as on the warning sent to Castledene, was carefully formed, as if the writer was trying to imitate a young scholar with his horn book. He had little doubt that the would-be assassin in the forest had followed him here and struck again. He placed the piece of parchment on the table and sat down on the stool, stretching his hands out to welcome the crackling warmth from the small brazier. For a short while his unease, that nagging, numbing fear, returned. He hated this uncertainty. It evoked memories of fighting in Wales, of the sudden ambush: it was what he feared most, imagining some messenger galloping along the snow-clogged lanes to Leighton to inform Maeve she was a widow, their children fatherless.
Corbett took a deep breath, murmured a prayer and began to hum the Salve Regina to comfort himself, to dispel the darkness from his mind. Time passed. He dozed for a while, being roused by the abbey bells clanging out a fresh summons to the monastic community.
‘It must be time,’ he whispered to himself. ‘Knowing Master Griskin, he’ll be early rather than late.’
Corbett stood up, pulled his boots towards him and put them on, hopping from foot to foot. He opened a coffer and took out his war belt with sword and dagger in their sheaths, as well as a small arbalest and a quiver of bolts. Picking up his cloak, he doused the candle under its cap-guard and went to the next chamber. Ranulf was busy teasing Chanson about his leg. Corbett quickly told them what had happened. Ranulf wanted to see the scrap of parchment, but Corbett just shook his head. ‘Leave that for a while. If the assassin wanted to kill me he would have tried harder. He is attempting to frighten me.’
‘Is he succeeding?’
Corbett smile drily. ‘To a certain extent, yes, but I suspect it is only fear he wishes to create. He dare not kill the Keeper of the Secret Seal here in Canterbury; that would bring the King’s wrath down upon this city. Hubert Fitzurse, the Man with the Far-Seeing Gaze, understands that. No, no, he wants me to stay out of what he calls his affairs, not to meddle; which means, Ranulf, that he has unfinished business in this city.’
‘Are we for the Guildhall, master?’
‘No, Ranulf, we are for the Chantry Chapel of St Lazarus here in the abbey. I have to meet an old friend.’
Corbett turned on his heel. Ranulf pulled a face at Chanson, shrugged, grabbed his own war belt and cloak and followed quickly after.
They went along the freezing cloisters, across snow-bound gardens and through the Galilee Porch into the abbey church. Corbett paused to admire the magnificence of its nave, a miracle of airy vaults, sweeping arches, squat columns, transepts, ambulatories, chantry chapels, stone-eyed statues, grinning gargoyles and sombre table tombs. The light was poor, so the stained-glass windows were dull, turning the nave into a place of shifting shadows, a true antechamber between life and death; a field of souls where the spirits of the dead swirled whilst tapers and candles glowed like heaven’s beacon lights. Gusts of shifting incense trailed their fragrance, and the sound of their boots echoed strangely on the stone-paved floor.
Ranulf shivered. He stared down the nave at the soaring rood screen with its stark cross bearing a tormented Saviour. Through the doorway beyond he could glimpse the choir stalls and a gilded corner of the great high altar. Corbett adjusted his sword belt and walked through the half-light. Ranulf followed, aware of the tombs either side almost hidden by the gloom. Despite his attempts to educate himself, to model himself upon his master and deal with facts and hard evidence, he was still plagued by the nightmares and experiences of his childhood. By stories about armies of demons prowling through the twilight looking for their quarry, and gargoyles in churches which, at certain times, sprang to life, ready to swoop upon their unsuspecting victims.
‘Master,’ he asked, ‘what are we looking for?’
‘Griskin,’ Corbett replied over his shoulder.
‘Griskin?’ Ranulf laughed. ‘Little pig? Who is that? Why?’
Corbett held his hand up for silence. They crossed the nave and entered a gloomy chantry chapel. A small altar stood to the left at the top of some steps; before this were two prie-dieux with a bench behind them. The narrow window in the far wall was glazed, yet the light was poor. Ranulf stared round at the wall paintings depicting Lazarus being raised from his tomb, Christ healing lepers, Namaan the Syrian bathing in the waters of the Jordan on the instruction of Elijah.
‘Griskin?’ Corbett pulled forward his sword and sat down on the bench. ‘I knew him in the halls and schools of Oxford. We called him “little pig” because of his love of pork, and to be honest,’ Corbett grinned, ‘because of his looks.’ He glanced up at Ranulf. ‘You may remember him? You met him once at the Exchequer of Receipt in Westminster.’
Ranulf nodded, though for the life of him he couldn’t recall Griskin.
‘Anyway,’ Corbett continued, ‘Griskin was no scholar of the quadrivium and trivium. More importantly,’ his smile faded, ‘his parents became lepers. He left the halls and schools to look after them. He never finished his studies. A good man, Ranulf, with a fine voice, slightly higher than mine, but when we sang the Christus Vincit. .’ Corbett shook his head and Ranulf suppressed a groan. He could never understand his master’s love of singing. ‘Anyway, Griskin’s parents died in a Bethlehem hospital outside London, and Griskin applied to the Chancery for a post. He became a nuncius, a messenger. Griskin enjoys one great talent: he is an excellent searcher-out.’ Corbett tapped his foot on the hard paving stones and stared at the cross on the small altar. ‘If anyone can find anyone, it’s Griskin. Now when we returned from the West Country and His Grace the King,’ Corbett tried to keep the sarcasm out of his voice, ‘wanted me to go to Canterbury, he gave me some of the facts about what had happened here, about Blackstock and his half-brother Hubert. Before I left Westminster, I dispatched a letter to Griskin telling him what I knew and asking him to search the countryside north of Orwell, as well as here in Canterbury, for any trace of Hubert the Monk. To cut a long story short, Ranulf, I said I would meet him here on this day, between the hours of eleven and twelve, in the Chapel of St Lazarus at St Augustine’s. Griskin would like that. He has a special devotion to that saint because of his parents’ condition.’
‘And it is now between the hours of eleven and twelve,’ Ranulf declared, ‘and he has not yet appeared. Perhaps he has been delayed because of the snow?’
‘No.’ Corbett shook his head. ‘I received confirmation from Griskin that he’d be here. He always keeps his word. He’d have told me if he couldn’t.’ Corbett was about to get to his feet when he gasped and pointed at the altar. ‘Ranulf!’
At first Ranulf couldn’t see what he was indicating. Then he saw it, on the white lace-edged altar cloth: a small golden cross on a silver chain.
‘Jesu miserere!’ Corbett breathed, getting to his feet. He pushed between the prie-dieux, strode up the steps and grasped the chained cross, turning it so it glittered in the poor light.
‘What is it, master?’