Satan's Fire (A Medieval Mystery Featuring Hugh Corbett) (16 page)

‘What do you want?’

A man stood in the doorway. He was dressed in a dark-brown tunic, a piece of rope around his protuberant belly, leggings of the same colour pushed into black, battered boots. Over his shoulder a woman peered nervously at Corbett and his companions. The clerk raised his hand in peace. The man put down the axe he carried, called off the dog and walked towards them.

‘Are you lost?’ he asked.

‘No. We are from the city.’ Claverley edged his horse forward. ‘We are investigating the remains found in the clearing.’

The man glanced away. ‘Aye, I heard about the excitement,’ he muttered. He shuffled his feet nervously and turned to shout something at the children.

‘Can we come in?’ Corbett asked. He pointed across at the well. ‘Perhaps a stoup of water and something to eat? We are hungry.’

‘Master,’ Maltote spoke up, ‘we have just — ’ He shut up as Ranulf glared at him.

Corbett dismounted and held his hand out. ‘I am Sir Hugh Corbett, King’s Clerk – and you?’

The woodcutter lifted his windburnt face, though he refused to meet Corbett’s gaze. ‘Osbert,’ he muttered. ‘Verderer and woodcutter.’ He glanced back at his wife. ‘You’d best come in!’ he declared grudgingly.

Corbett told Maltote to guard the horses and they followed the woodcutter and his family into their long, shed-like house. A fire burnt on the stone hearth in the centre, the smoke escaping through a hole in the room. At the far end was a loft reached by a ladder where the family slept: there were a few sticks of furniture and shelves with some cooking pots on them.

‘You’d best sit where you can.’ The woodcutter pointed to the beaten earth floor.

Corbett, Ranulf and Claverley sat near the hearth. Corbett chatted to Osbert’s wife, putting her at her ease whilst her husband filled pewter cups with water. The woman smiled, pushing back her hair, and leaned over to stir the pot which hung above the hearth.

‘It smells delicious,’ Corbett remarked, though the odour was less than savoury.

‘What do you want?’ Osbert asked. He served the water and sat down opposite them. ‘You are a king’s clerk. You are used to eating better than this. Your servants carry water-bottles so you don’t need a drink.’

‘No, I don’t,’ Corbett replied. ‘And you, Master Osbert, have very sharp eyes. As do I. You buried those remains, didn’t you?’

The woodcutter’s wife scuttled away to look after the children who sat near the wall, thumbs in mouths, watching their visitors.

‘You found the remains,’ Corbett continued. ‘And, because you are an upright man, you buried them. You dug a hole beneath the boulder, hoping that would keep wild animals out and, with your axe, scratched a faint cross on it.’

‘Tell him,’ Osbert’s wife pointed at Corbett. ‘He knows!’ she shouted. ‘Or we’ll all hang!’

‘Nonsense,’ Corbett exclaimed. ‘Just tell me, Osbert.’

‘It was just before dawn,’ the woodcutter replied. ‘I was out hunting a fox, one of the chickens had been taken. I heard a whinny and found the horse just off the road: its leg was damaged. The horse limped towards me. I thought I’d died and gone to hell: the mangled legs of its rider were still in the stirrups. Blood and gore drenched the saddle. The horse was blown: I took the remains and buried them beneath the rock. I said a prayer, then I brought the horse home. I threw the saddle down a pit. I couldn’t sell it, it was too soaked in blood.’

‘And the horse itself?’

Osbert swallowed hard and pointed to the pot. ‘We are eating it.’

Ranulf coughed and spluttered.

‘We are hungry,’ Osbert continued. ‘Hungry for meat. All the deer have gone. They’ve got more sense than to stay near the city.’ He spread his dirty hands. ‘What could I do, Master? If I took the horse to market, I’d hang for a thief. If I’d kept it, the same might happen. The animal was sick, its leg was damaged and I know little physic. I killed it: gutted its belly, salted and pickled the rest and hid it away in a little hut deep in the forest, hung over some charcoal to smoke it and stop the putrefaction.’

‘And what else did you find?’ Corbett asked. He took two silver coins out of his purse. ‘Tell me the truth and these will be yours; there’ll be no recriminations over what you did.’

Osbert wetted his lips and pondered but his wife acted for him. She went to the far end of the hut, climbed the ladder to the bed-loft and returned carrying a set of battered saddle panniers over her arm. She slung these at Corbett’s feet.

‘There was a little money,’ Osbert grumbled. ‘Now it’s all gone. I bought the geese with it. What’s left is there.’

Corbett emptied the contents out: a jerkin, two pairs of hose neatly darned, a belt, a collection of small metal pilgrim badges and statues of saints, cheap geegaws to be bought outside any church. Finally a few scraps of parchment. Corbett studied the faded ink on these.

‘Wulfstan of Beverley,’ he announced. ‘A seller of religious objects and petty relics.’ He glanced at Claverley and Ranulf. ‘Why on earth would someone kill poor Wulfstan? Cut his body in two, send his horse galloping madly into the darkness and burn the top half?’ Corbett threw the saddlebag at Claverley. He got to his feet and pressed the two coins into Osbert’s hands. ‘Next time you go to Mass,’ Corbett added, ‘pray for the soul of poor Wulfstan.’

‘I did what I could,’ Osbert muttered. ‘God assoil him. Is there anything else, Master?’

Corbett asked, ‘In the forest, have you ever glimpsed a rider, masked and cowled?’

‘Once,’ Osbert replied. ‘Only once, Master, just after I found the horse. I was out cutting firewood on the edge of Botham Bar road. I heard a sound so I hid in the bracken. A rider passed, dressed like a monk. His horse was a nag and the cloak was tattered but I glimpsed a great two-handed sword hanging from the saddlehorn. I thought he was an outlaw so I stayed hidden until he passed.’ The woodcutter pulled a face. ‘That’s all I’ve seen.’

Corbett thanked him. They left the woodcutter’s, collected their horses and rode back on to the Botham Bar road. Ranulf and Claverley immediately became involved in a fierce argument over the eating of horseflesh. Maltote, pale-faced, could only feebly protest.

‘To eat a horse!’ he kept exclaiming. ‘To eat a horse!’

‘You would,’ Claverley called back. ‘My father told me how, in the great famine outside Carlisle, they caught rats and sold them as a delicacy.’

Corbett urged his horse on, only stopping when he came to the place where Wulfstan’s burnt remains had been found.

‘What are you looking for?’ Claverley called out as Corbett dismounted and walked into the line of trees.

‘I’ll tell you when I find it,’ Corbett replied.

He walked further in and crouched down to examine the great scorch-marks on the earth. He then drew his sword and began cutting the brambles and long grass. As he did so, Corbett glimpsed more, though much smaller, scorch-marks. And on the trees which fringed the undergrowth, Corbett noticed scratch-marks, as if some great cat had clawed the back, gouging and scarring it.

‘What on earth caused this?’ Claverley exclaimed, coming up behind him.

Corbett looked back towards the road where Maltote sat on his horse staring soulfully at them.

‘This is what I think happened,’ Corbett explained. ‘Someone came here to practise with the fire which burnt Wulfstan and the others.’

‘It looks as if the devil himself has swept up from hell,’ Claverley intervened. ‘His tail scorched the earth and his claws gouged the trees.’

‘Yes, you could sell such a story in York marketplace,’ Corbett replied. ‘But I am sure the Lord Satan has better things to do than journey up from hell to burn grass and brambles on the Botham Bar road. No. Somebody was practising with that fire, whilst the marks on the trees are made by arrows.’

‘So, the killer was firing arrows?’

‘Possibly,’ Corbett explained. ‘He created small fires, for God knows what reason, and practised shooting arrows using the trees as targets. Now I think he was so busy, so confident under the cover of dusk, that he failed to notice Wulfstan. Our poor relic-seller came trotting along the Botham Bar road, journeying to some village or market town to sell his geegaws. Now anyone else would have gone hastily by or even turned back. Wulfstan, however, was a pedlar, a man who loved to travel and collect stories as he did. He stopped where Maltote now is, probably calling out through the dusk. The assassin turns. He has been recognised. His horse stands nearby. He hurries up, draws his great two-handed sword hanging from the saddlehorn and rushes towards Wulfstan. The relic-seller would sit startled, frightened, immobile as a rabbit. He’d raise his hands to his face as the assassin swings that terrible sword, slicing his body in two with one savage cut.’

‘And the horse bolts?’ Ranulf asked.

‘Yes, the violent stench of blood sends the poor nag stampeding down the road. Our killer then sets the top half of the corpse alight. In doing so, he not only prevents any identification but finds out, for his own devilish curiosity, the effect of this strange fire on human flesh.’

‘And, of course,’ Claverley intervened, ‘Wulfstan being a pedlar, a stranger to these parts, no one came forward to declare he is missing.’

‘Master.’ Ranulf pointed to the scorch-marks on the ground. ‘How can a man control fire? We have a tinder which can be clumsy to strike, especially in the open air. Or you can kindle a fire and take a burning stick or piece of charcoal, but this killer seems to be able to summon it out of the air.’ Ranulf stared into the green darkness of the trees. ‘Isn’t that magic? The use of the black arts?’

‘No,’ Corbett retorted. ‘I could call up Satan from hell but, whether he comes or not is another matter. This killer wants us to believe he has magical powers, the key to all sorcery.’

‘And this mysterious rider,’ Claverley asked. ‘He might be the killer; he did carry a great two-handed sword.’

Corbett kicked at the scorched path. ‘Perhaps. But, Master Under-sheriff, we must go: other matters, just as pressing, await us.’

They remounted their horses and rode down Botham Bar road. As they approached York, the road became busier: traders and pedlars making their way out of the city, packs and fardels on their backs: a dusty-gowned Franciscan of the Order of the Sack leading an even more tired mule. A beggar pushed a wheelbarrow in which an old man sprawled, his legs shorn from the knees down: both looked happy enough after a day’s begging and, drunk as sots, raucously bawled out filthy songs as the barrow staggered along the road. Peasants huddled in their carts, their produce sold, and a woman and two children walked wearily, leading a cow. A royal messenger galloped by, his white wand of office tucked into his belt; the soldier riding behind him wore the resplendent livery of the king’s chamber. Everyone drew aside to let them pass and, shortly afterwards, had to do the same again as a Templar soldier urged his foam-flecked horse along the road.

‘I thought all Templars were confined to Framlingham?’ Claverley asked.

‘Probably a messenger,’ Corbett replied. ‘I wonder what’s so urgent?’

They pressed on. Botham Bar came into sight, the great iron portcullis raised like jagged teeth over the people passing through. On top of the gatehouse were poles bearing the severed heads of malefactors and, on either side of the gateway, makeshift gallows had been set up. Each bore its own grisly corpse twirling in the late afternoon breeze, placards slung round the necks proclaiming their crimes.

‘The king’s justices have been busy,’ Claverley declared. ‘There’s been sessions of gaol delivery all of yesterday.’

‘Where are you taking us?’ Corbett asked.

‘To see the Limner.’

‘The what?’

‘The Greyhound: my nickname for the best counterfeiter in York.’

They continued under Botham Bar, along Petersgate, past the foul-smelling public latrines built next to St Michael the Belfry Church, and into the busiest part of the city. The market stalls were still open. The narrow streets thronged. The taverns were doing a roaring trade. One man lay in the middle of the street in a drunken stupor whilst a friend lying alongside tried to beat off marauding hogs, much to the delight of passers-by. The stocks were also full. Some malefactors were fastened by the neck, others by the arms and legs. One apprentice had his thumbs only clasped into a finger press for helping himself to his master’s food. Two whores stood in the pillory, heads shaven, shouting abuse at the crowd whilst a drunken bagpipe player tried to drown their cries as a bailiff birched their bare bottoms. On the corner of a street Corbett and his party had to stay for a while: a group of officials from the alderman’s court had raided a tavern to search out old wine, long past its freshness. They’d seized three barrels and were trying to stave these in whilst, from the windows above, the landlord, his wife and family pelted the bailiffs and everyone else with the smelly contents of their chamberpots.

At last the bailiffs restored order and Claverley led them on along Patrick Pool and into the Shambles. The smells and dust caught at their noses and mouths: the butchers’ and fletchers’ narrow street, which ran between the overhanging houses, was covered in offal and black blood. Flies massed there, dogs and cats fought over scraps. The crowd, eager to buy fresh meat, thronged around the stalls from which gutted pigs, decapitated geese, chickens and other fowl hung. At last Claverley lost his temper. He drew his sword and, shouting, ‘
Le roi, le roi!
’ forced a passage out on to the Pavement, the great open area fronting All Saints Church.

Here the crowds thronged before the grim city prison. Outside its main door stood a line of scaffolds, each three-branched, on which executions were being carried out. The condemned felons were led out from the prison, taken on to a platform, pushed up a ladder, where a noose was fixed round their neck. The ladder was then turned and the felon would dance and kick as the hempen cord tightened round his throat, choking his life out. Corbett had seen such sights before in many of the king’s great cities. The royal justices would arrive, the gaols would be emptied, courts held and swift sentence passed. Most of the felons didn’t even have time to protest. Dominicans, dressed in their black and white robes, moved from one scaffold to another whispering the final absolution. The crowd thronging there sometimes greeted the appearance of a prisoner with curses and yells. Now and again a friend or relative would shout their farewells and lift a tankard in salute. Claverley waited until the prison door opened, then pushed his way through into the sombre gatehouse. The doorkeeper recognised him.