Corbett walked back. The Gleeman paused, hands on his side, gasping for breath.
‘What is it, man?’
‘I forgot something about Griskin! When we cut him down from the scaffold and buried him. .’
‘Yes?’
‘His left hand had been cut off, severed completely at the wrist. I never understood why. I’ve heard stories, but I thought I should tell you.’
Corbett stared down the path; the mist was growing thicker. Behind him he could hear the boys shouting at him to come, how the abbey buildings were in sight, just a short walk, almost as if they could sense his apprehension.
‘I thank you, Gleeman.’ He raised his hand and bowed. ‘I am grateful; as you say, God knows why anyone should do that.’
He went back to join the boys, now skipping and leaping like hares in front of him. They passed through a gate into the abbey grounds. The boys, still dancing from foot to foot, asked him if he wanted anything else. Could they look around? Corbett called them closer and pressed a coin into each of their grubby hands.
‘No, no,’ he declared, smiling down at them. ‘Go back. The Gleeman is waiting for you. I think he has other errands waiting.’
The boys left as swift as lurchers, heading for the gate, jostling each other. Corbett watched them go. For a brief moment he felt a deep sense of envy at their innocence. They had no fear. To them this was not an icy, mist-strewn place where all sorts of demons and dangers lurked. He sighed and walked on across the snow-covered yards and gardens. Now and again a brother would pass him and whisper a salutation, Corbett would reply absent-mindedly; all he could really think of was poor Griskin, naked, bloated, and hanging from that lonely scaffold over those icy marshes. He had reached the small cloisters leading down to the guesthouse when he heard his name being called.
‘Sir Hugh, Sir Hugh!’
He turned round. The guest master came hobbling up, one hand held out, the other containing a leather sack bound and sealed at the neck. The monk handed this over, saying it had been left for Corbett at the abbey lodge, but by whom he couldn’t say. He then questioned Corbett about his lodgings. Were they warm and comfortable? Corbett nodded distractedly and the guest master, remembering other duties, hastened away.
Corbett walked into a shadowy alcove and lifted the bag up. It was of thick Spanish leather, the string pulled tight, the neck sealed with wax. He broke the seal and undid the knot, loosened the sack and put his hand in. He drew out a linen cloth containing something cold and hard. Even as he undid the folds, he felt a shiver of apprehension, then stared in horror at what he’d uncovered: a human hand, severed at the wrist, blackened like a piece of cured meat, and in between the forefinger and thumb, a blood-red tarot candle, its wick charred from burning. Corbett swallowed hard and tried to control the nausea in his stomach. Bile gathered at the back of his throat. He wanted to scream, to throw it away. He turned the hand over. The flesh had been smoke-dried, shrunk like a scrap of rotten pork. He placed it gently back in the linen folds and dropped the gruesome package back into the sack, tying the knot tightly. Then he sat down on a small bench in the alcove to control his breathing, the hot sweat on his back turning icy.
‘Griskin’s hand!’ he whispered.
He stared across at a small fountain covered in ice, the garden bed around it frosted and dead, then closed his eyes and leaned back. He knew what he’d been sent. A talisman, a diabolic token, the Hand of Glory, the curse of a hanged man. He fought to control his anger. He didn’t believe in such nonsense, but he recognised that Griskin’s killer, possibly Hubert the Monk, had done this to frighten him.
He took a deep breath, rose to his feet and walked through the abbey buildings until he found the smithy in the main stable yard. A lay brother stood at the entrance hammering a piece of metal with a huge mallet. The crashing stilled as Corbett approached.
‘What can I do for you, sir?’ The brother looked Corbett over from head to toe, then glimpsed the ring on his left hand. ‘Ah, you must be our guest, the King’s man.’
‘You have a fire,’ Corbett asked, ‘a forge?’
The man nodded. Corbett handed the sack over. ‘Do not look inside; burn it, burn it now!’
The smith shrugged, took the sack and walked inside. Corbett stood and watched the great door of the forge opened, the abomination was thrust in and the door closed.
‘Push it deeper into the coals,’ he urged.
The smith shrugged, opened the forge, pushed the sack further into the coals with a poker, closed the door again, then walked back outside.
‘Sir, what was in there?’
‘Something devilish,’ Corbett replied, ‘but fire will cleanse it!’
He stood for a while in the smithy, relishing its warmth, the smell of horses, hay, and roasting iron. Then he went across to a makeshift lavarium and, pouring water over his hands, washed them carefully, drying them on a napkin. He thanked the smith, took directions to the guesthouse and returned there. He could hear Ranulf and Chanson as soon as he entered the small downstairs refectory; they were singing, and Ranulf was teasing his comrade. Corbett stamped up the stairs. Ranulf and Chanson came out of their room to meet him, took one look at Corbett’s face and hastily retreated.
Corbett went into his chamber, slamming the door behind him. He slung down the small arbalest from his shoulder, took off his war belt and lay down on the bed. He found it difficult to concentrate. He tried to recall a Goliard song he loved to sing to Maeve: ‘Iam dulcis amica — now my sweet friend. .’ but the words and tune were difficult to recall. He swung his legs off the bed. Ranulf and Chanson knocked on the door and came in.
‘Master, we are sorry.’
Corbett brushed aside their apology. He could not tell them about where he’d been or his meeting with the Gleeman, so he fended off their questions in a flurry of preparations.
Ranulf leaned against the aumbry and narrowed his eyes. Master Long-Face was certainly agitated, but about what? Edward the King often took Ranulf aside and, leaning close, his right eye almost closed, would grasp the clerk’s arm until Ranulf winced with pain. The King would then instruct Ranulf to keep a vigilant watch on Sir Hugh. Ranulf had long realised this was not solely due to affection. In a word, Edward of England did not trust Corbett fully.
‘Too soft,’ he’d whisper. ‘Corbett has a heart and a soul, Ranulf.’ Then the King would add, ‘Which is more than he can say about us! Eh, Master Ranulf?’
The Senior Clerk in the Chancery of the Green Wax had never truly answered that question, either to himself or to the King. Ranulf had not decided what choices he would make. All he concentrated on was the road sweeping in front of him, the path to honour, power, glory and wealth. In truth, Corbett was that path, and so he had to keep Master Long-Face safe, not just for Maeve, little Edward and Eleanor, but more importantly for himself.
‘You are ready?’ Corbett, booted and spurred, his cloak tied about him, was ready to leave. Ranulf hastened to follow. They went down to the courtyard, where Chanson had prepared the horses. A short while later they left the abbey precincts. Corbett, slouched low in the saddle, allowed Ranulf and Chanson to lead as they wound their way up past St Queningate church and into the city. He felt strange. He had still to recover from the shock of that gruesome hand. He wanted to concentrate, yet the scenes around him came like images in a dream or wall paintings glimpsed in a church. A row of crows cawed on the side of a cart. Traders and tinkers hurried by, their trays full of trinkets, scent boxes, St Christopher medals, Becket badges, inkwells and quills. A relic-seller, his skin burnt dark by the sun, bearded, with fierce glaring eyes, was bawling how he was prepared to auction the Virgin Mary’s wedding ring, one of Christ’s shoe latchets, and a piece of the door from the church Simon Magus had built in Rome. A master of the drains and ditches, preceded by two ruffians carrying a tawdry banner displaying the city arms, proclaimed to all and sundry how ‘the flushing of the drains and sewers as well as the houses of easement on this side of the River Stour will be carried out before the eve of Christmas’. A group of nuns clattered by in their black soutanes, woollen pelisses, white linen caps and rounded boots. Nearby a beggar had frozen to death in the stocks and the officials were arguing about who should remove the corpse and bury it. Children in rags, feet bare, jumped over frozen yellow pools. Householders pulled sledges across the ice heaped with Yule logs and greenery to decorate their homes for the great feast. Stall-owners shouted prices above the clatter of the carts. Pedlars and pilgrims, merchants and moon people, rich and poor, cleric and lay, all jostled like a shoal of fish along the narrow streets, made even more crowded by the stalls and shops. Somewhere an Angelus bell tolled to remind the faithful to recite one Pater, one Ave and one Gloria. However, most of the faithful seemed more intent on following the delicious odours trailing from the alehouses, taverns and pastry shops where the makers were drawing out fresh batches of gold-encrusted pies full of hot minced beef, highly spiced to hide its age.