Corbett shrugged. ‘I cannot comment on that, Sir Walter. I have my doubts. Why should Servinus wait to come to a foreign country to strike? At a closely guarded manor like Maubisson, in the depths of winter, in a strange city? How did he do it without resistance from his victims? How did he escape?’ He shook his head. ‘All I know is that the matters before us are as dark and bleak as the weather outside. We stand on the edge of a tangled forest of evil deeds, full of danger; we must thread our way carefully through it.’
Chapter 6
Dies irae et vindicatae.
A day of wrath and vengeance.
A short while later, Corbett and Ranulf mounted their horses, cloaks pulled tightly about them, and left the Guildhall. They made their way up the Mercery, turning right towards the corner leading to the Butter Cross, then along Burgate, which would take them to Queningate. Darkness was closing in. The air was still bitterly cold, the ground slippery as the ice hardened, yet the stalls and shops were very busy. The narrow, dirt-filled streets were illuminated by flaring torches, the light pouring through tavern and alehouse doors and windows. The shifting murk, the din, clamour and foul smells reminded Corbett of a wall painting in a church depicting the streets of hell. The rakers and scavengers were out with their dung and refuse carts. Pilgrims in their worsted cloaks, displaying pewter badges depicting the martyred head of Becket or the ampulae or miniature flasks representing the martyr’s blood, battled to make their way to and from the cathedral. They screamed abuse at the apprentice boys who darted from the stalls like grey-hounds to pluck at sleeves and cloaks, shouting their goods, inviting passers-by to inspect ‘ninepins for sale all in a row’, ‘boots of Cordovan leather’, ‘candles white and pure as a virgin’, ‘hot pies’, ‘spiced sausages’, ‘sharp knives’.
Tavern hawkers and idlers were encouraging two drunken women to fight; each would hold a penny in her hand, and the first to drop it would be judged the loser and dipped in the freezing water of a nearby horse-trough. A city serjeant fighting to control a loose donkey tried to intervene, whilst bawling for the market bailiffs with their metal-tipped staves to assist him. A chanteur stood on a plinth at the corner of an alleyway off the Mercery; he was telling a group of gaping pilgrims to pray most urgently and earnestly before Becket’s shrine: ‘Because,’ he declared, ‘the time of doom is fast approaching.’ The chanteur informed the pilgrims how he had recently returned from Paris, where a friend had invoked demons to advance him in his studies. On his deathbed, just in time, this friend had been persuaded to repent; as his fellow scholars assembled to sing the funeral psalms around his bier, the man fell into a deep sleep. He dreamed his soul plunged into a dark, sulphurous valley where a gang of fiends tossed his soul about, whilst others prodded him with claws which surpassed the sharpness of any earthly steel. When the man eventually woke up, he vowed to change his life, went on pilgrimage to Becket’s shrine and received God’s calling to enter the Benedictine order. So, the chanteur concluded, they too must pray most earnestly to save themselves from the traps and lures of Satan.
Corbett half listened to this man, clamorous as a sparrowhawk, as he waited for the street to clear before him. At last they moved on and reached the centre of Canterbury, with its great Buttery Cross soaring above the stalls and booths. On the top step a Crutched Friar was delivering the sentence of excommunication against a felon who had dared to rob his church.
‘I curse him by the authority of the Court of Rome, within or without, sleeping or waking, going or sitting, standing and riding, lying above the earth and under earth, speaking, crying and drinking; in wood, water, field and town. I curse him by Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I curse him by the angels, archangels and all the nine orders of heaven. I curse him by the patriarchs, prophets and apostles. .’ On a lower step, totally ignoring the friar, a relic-seller pointed to his leather chest, claiming it contained the stone where Christ’s blood was spilt, a splinter from the Lord’s cradle, a certain crystal vessel bearing shards of the stone tablet on which God had inscribed the law for Moses, straps from Jesus’ winding sheets and fragments from Aaron’s robe. A gang of burly apprentice boys standing around him demanded that the miraculous chest be opened to show them such wonders. The relic-seller refused and a brawl ensued. Market bailiffs and beadles were busy at the stocks, locking in foists, roisterers and drunkards alongside breakers of the King’s peace or the market regulations. A deafening clamour of noise dinned the ear. Corbett looked up at the great mass of Canterbury Cathedral rearing above him, black against the darkening sky. He cursed quietly, and Ranulf, riding slightly behind him, leaned forward.
‘Master, what is it?’
‘I still have the King’s special task to do,’ Corbett murmured, his words almost lost beneath the noise of the market. ‘Perhaps tomorrow.’
Eventually they had to dismount and lead their horses. The ground underfoot was thick and mushy, dung and mud mixing with the refuse thrown from the stalls and taverns. A moonman pushed his way through, wheeling a barrow with a small bear chained to it. Corbett wondered idly where he was going, only to be distracted by a loud-mouthed apothecary who plucked his sleeve, claiming he had an electuary distilled from silver which would cure all ills. Corbett shrugged him off as he glimpsed a goldsmith’s sign. He told Ranulf to hold the horses and walked over. He wanted to divert himself for a while, and was resolved to buy something unique for Lady Maeve.
The merchant behind the stall quickly appraised Corbett from head to toe and immediately led him into the back room of his shop, where he took down an iron-bound coffer locked with three clasps. He opened this and showed Corbett an array of diamonds, pearls, emeralds and sapphires which he called by fancy names such as ‘Bon Homme’, ‘The Dimple’, ‘The Barley-corn’, ‘The Distaff’, ‘The Cloud’, ‘The Quail’, ‘The Chestnut’, ‘The Ruby King’. Corbett studied each one, promised the man he would return and left the shop.
Rejoining Ranulf, Corbett grasped the reins of his horse and they walked on. Ranulf realised that any attempt at conversation would be futile, whilst he himself was eager to drink in the various sights of the city, catch a pretty eye or win a smile from some lovely face. At last they were clear of the main trading area. The bells of the city began to clang out the tocsin, the sign for the market to close and all good citizens to return to their homes. They passed the churches of St Mary Magdalene and St Michael, then turned left, following the route they’d taken into the city, along the old boundary wall through Queningate and out into the countryside. Once mounted, Ranulf spurred alongside Corbett to question him about what happened at the Guildhall, but he received little satisfaction.
‘I know nothing.’ Corbett reined in and stared up at the sky, where the clouds were breaking up. He murmured a prayer. ‘At least there’ll be no more snow tonight.’ He sighed. ‘What I must do, Ranulf, is reflect and think.’ His horse skittered on the trackway. ‘And this is a lonely place. Come now, God knows who follows us.’
On their return to St Augustine’s, they found Chanson, much improved, sitting in the small refectory enjoying a dish of rabbit stew with onions and a pot of ale specially brewed at the abbey. Corbett and Ranulf took off their boots, changed, washed their hands and faces and came down to join him. The room was well lit by torches and candles on the table and heated by braziers in every corner. It was a pleasant refectory with paintings on the wall depicting Christ’s Last Supper and his meeting with the disciples at Emmaus. A soothing and relaxing place. Ranulf insisted on telling a story about a stingy abbot and his grasping guest master. A visitor once sheltered in their abbey for the night. He was given only hard bread and water, and a thin straw mattress to sleep on. In the morning he protested to the guest master, who simply shrugged off his complaints. As he left the abbey, the visitor met the abbot and immediately thanked him for his lavish hospitality.