Hugh Corbett 13 - Corpse Candle (8 page)

A servant came to announce that the requiem Mass was about to begin. Corbett joined the community in the great abbey church with its long nave and shadow-filled transepts, cut off from the sanctuary by an ornately carved rood screen. The lay brothers gathered here whilst the monks sat in their stalls. Prior Cuthbert entered, garbed in the magnificent pontificals for the mass of the dead: black and gold vestments. The Abbot’s coffin, draped in purple cloth of gold, lay in state on trestles before the high altar.

Corbett was lulled by the rise and fall of the plain chant, the solemn words of invocation as censors swung, sending up billowing clouds of perfumed incense. The sanctuary was ablaze with the light from tall purple candles. The clerk felt as though he was in another world. He was aware of statues, the faces of gargoyles peering down at him; of Father Prior and his concelebrants moving round the high altar, lifting chalice and host, interceding with God for the soul of their departed brother. He was chilled by the final, solemn invocation to the Archangels of heaven that they go out to meet the Abbot’s soul and not allow him to ‘fall into the hands of the enemy’. Corbett became acutely aware of his own mortality and recalled Maeve’s warning about tasks such as this, investigating sudden, mysterious death, hunting down the bloody-handed sons of Cain. He found it difficult to accept, in the midst of so much peace, that members of this community, participating in this sacred, gorgeous ceremony, could have planned, plotted and perpetrated this foul murder. Nevertheless, that was the conclusion Corbett had reached and he would have to stay here until it was resolved.

Corbett gazed up at the stained-glass windows of the sanctuary. Darkness was falling. He glanced over his shoulder back through the rood screen. The shadows in the nave were growing longer like extended, dark fingers stretching towards him. Were Maeve’s warnings relevant to this sacred place? Would he and his two companions escape unscathed? He turned back and watched Prior Cuthbert solemnly wave incense over the coffin. Corbett had hunted many an assassin and, although he accepted the serenity and harmony of St Martin’s-in-the-Marsh, he had his own premonitions that the Abbot’s murder was the flower of a hideous plant with deep, twisted roots.

Corbett had not shared such macabre thoughts with his companions but this abbey, with its shadow-filled corridors and galleries, its lonely fields and gardens was just as dangerous as any battlefield, or the alleys in Whitefriars or Southwark. Indeed, death had already struck and would be all the more surprising and sudden in any fresh assault. Corbett’s hand fell to the hilt of his dagger. He studied the brothers in their stalls and the three celebrants, Prior Cuthbert, Hamo and Aelfric. They seemed to ignore his presence but now and again a cowled head would turn and he would catch a furtive glance or a sharp look.

After the Mass was finished Corbett returned to the nave. He leaned against a pillar as the brothers lowered the coffin into a prepared pit just before the Lady Chapel. Corbett said his own prayers, crossed himself and left. He walked down to the guesthouse and found Ranulf and Chanson fast asleep. Corbett returned to his own chamber. For a while he lay on the bed reflecting on what he had heard and seen but nothing made any sense. He drifted into sleep and was awoken by the abbey bell tolling the Vespers for the Dead. Again he joined the brothers in the sanctuary, sitting on a stool just within the rood screen. This time he joined in the singing. Corbett loved the melodious descants of plain chant and many of the vesper psalms were his favourites. Corbett was a strong, vigorous singer, and his participation provoked smiles and welcoming glances. The sanctuary was starker than it had been earlier in the afternoon. Only one candle glowed on the altar. Prior Cuthbert sat in the Abbot’s seat. Corbett had the opportunity to study the other brothers. Most of them were middle-aged men with a sprinkling of novices and newly professed brothers. He noticed a few stalls were empty. He recalled that Gildas the architect and stonemason, had not attended the meeting of the Concilium and wondered what had happened to him. Vespers drew to an end. Prior Cuthbert was about to give the final blessing when the service was interrupted by the sound of hurried footsteps. A sweating lay brother came hurtling through the door of the rood screen and stopped, one hand resting against the polished wood as he caught his breath.

‘Father Prior!’ he gasped. ‘Father Prior, you’ve got to come!’

‘We have not finished vespers,’ the Prior replied, leaning down from his stall. ‘You know the rule, Brother Norbert, Divine Office is never interrupted.’

‘It’s Gildas!’ the lay brother gasped. ‘On the burial mound in Bloody Meadow!’

The Prior looked at Corbett who grasped the lay brother by the arm and led him out. The man was shaking.

‘He’s dead!’ he gasped. ‘Oh sir, he’s dead! In a hideous way!’

‘Show me.’

Corbett almost pushed the lay brother down the nave, aware of others following him. They went out through the main door. Corbett flinched at the blast of cold night air. He glanced up; the sky had remained overcast and it was pitch black. He had to depend on the lay brother as they raced across the cloisters and gardens, down pebble-dashed paths and out through what the lay brother described as the Judas Gate. Corbett waited until the others caught up with him, Prior Cuthbert and members of the community carrying blazing pitch torches.

‘The ground is hard underfoot,’ the Prior declared.

He led Corbett across the meadow. The clerk’s eyes grew accustomed to the darkness. To his left he was aware of a long line of trees. He heard a bird call and saw the great burial mound looming up before him. The lay brother pointed upwards. Corbett grasped a torch and, slipping and cursing, he climbed to the top. The corpse of Gildas sprawled there. Corbett covered his mouth as he saw the hideous wounds to the side of his head. In the flickering flame of the torch he glimpsed a dark bubbling mess. He was aware of staring eyes and the hideous mark, in the shape of a ‘V’, which had been branded on the dead man’s forehead.

NEC MIHI VERA
LOQUI PUDOR EST
 
NEVER BE ASHAMED TO
SPEAK THE TRUTH

 
ANON

Corbett, helped by the lay brothers, managed to slide the corpse down the frost-encrusted grass. In the torch light, Gildas’s face, with that fearsome brand mark and the great open wound in the side of the head, drew horrified gasps and muttered prayers. Ranulf and Chanson, alarmed by the commotion, also joined them. For a while chaos reigned until Prior Cuthbert, at Corbett’s insistence, ordered the corpse to be taken to the death house under the care of Brother Aelfric. A cowled, shadowy figure thrust through the group, ignoring the protests of the brothers. When he reached the corpse, the man pulled his hood back to reveal a mass of wiry grey hair, glittering sharp eyes and a face half hidden by a luxurious beard and moustache. He was short and squat and smelt like a midden.

‘You have no right to be here!’ Brother Hamo declared.

Corbett realised this was the Watcher by the Gates.

‘I don’t give a fig what you think,’ the fellow grated. ‘I have warned you before and I will warn you again.

The demon Mandeville is loose and Death rides in his retinue!’

Corbett half smiled as he recognised the misquotation from the Book of Revelation.

‘And you!’ The Watcher turned, pointing at Corbett. ‘I saw you arrive. You are the King’s emissary? Come to wreak justice. Well, your Abbot is dead.’ He stared round the group.

‘And by the way you smell, you’d think you were!’

Ranulf grasped the man by the shoulder but the hermit shook him off.

‘Ah now!’ he exclaimed, peering up at Ranulf. ‘There’s a pretty boy, a street fighter if I ever saw one. Not like your master, eh? And, as for my smell, that’s because my body’s ripe.’ The Watcher’s voice fell to a dramatic whisper. ‘As are the bodies of these monks for death!’

‘That’s enough!’ Corbett intervened. He gestured at the lay brothers. ‘Take the corpse away!’

The hermit was about to leave.

‘No, sir, you’ll stay.’ Corbett lifted a hand. ‘I do not wish to hear your protests.’

The Watcher now preened himself.

‘I’ll follow where the King’s emissary says,’ he declared dramatically. ‘And I’ll thank you for a goblet of wine and some meat, juicy and hot from the spit.’

‘You’ll get that,’ Corbett stared down at him, ‘only when I learn why you are here. You didn’t see the corpse. So, how did you know he bore the brand of Mandeville on him?’

The Watcher looked crestfallen. He would have backed away but Ranulf now blocked his path.

‘Questions first, food later,’ Corbett declared. ‘Prior Cuthbert, Brother Hamo, let’s return.’

Corbett followed the lay brothers who carried the corpse back through the Judas Gate, across the abbey grounds to the white-washed infirmary. A chamber at the far end served as a corpse room. A great wooden table like that of a butcher’s stall stood in the centre. Trestle tables ranged round the sides bore bowls, jugs and jars of ointment. A single candle glowed. At Aelfric’s instructions, sconce torches were hastily lit, making the hollowed, canopied chamber even more macabre and ghoulish. Gildas’s body was placed on the table where Corbett studied it more carefully. Ignoring the rictus of horror carved on the dead man’s face, the clerk reckoned the brand mark was about an inch long.

‘That was burnt in,’ Corbett declared, ‘with a branding iron, probably after he was killed.’

He turned the head and looked at the bloody mess of what used to be the side of the monk’s head, now a congealed mass of blood, bone and brain. Corbett examined this carefully and, using the point of his dagger, lifted out small grains of stone. Helped by Aelfric, he turned the corpse over on its face. He felt a large bump, a raised bruise, at the back of the head. The hands were dusty but Corbett noticed the little red cuts on each wrist. The rest now clustered around: Prior Cuthbert, Hamo, Aelfric, Ranulf and Chanson, with the Watcher standing between them.

‘He was killed by a stone,’ Corbett declared, ‘dropped from a great force on to the side of his head.’

‘But surely, Sir Hugh,’ Prior Cuthbert stood, hand over his mouth, gagging at the grievous wound, ‘Gildas was a soldier, he would have resisted.’

‘No, I think he was struck first at the back of the head, probably with a club, and would drop to the ground stunned. The attacker then tied his hands behind him and brought down a heavy stone and crushed the side of his skull. He also took a branding-iron and put the bloody mark on his forehead. Now, why is that, eh? When was Gildas last seen?’

Prior Cuthbert turned and whispered to Hamo, who hurried off. He returned a short while later with the lay brother Perditus. A brief conversation took place between the monks. When Perditus glimpsed Gildas’s head, he retched and, holding his mouth, had to leave for a while. When he returned, he was wiping his lips.

‘I saw Brother Gildas this morning, when I delivered the Prior’s message about the meeting of the Concilium in the abbot’s quarters!’

‘Did anyone else see him?’

‘I saw him a short while later,’ Hamo declared. ‘I went across to consult him regarding some building work in one of our granges.’

‘Where was this?’ Corbett demanded.

‘The far side of the abbey,’ Hamo declared. ‘That’s where Gildas had his workshops, rather a lonely spot.’

‘And he had stone there?’

‘Oh yes, cut and hewn.’

‘And a brazier?’

‘Yes.’

Prior Cuthbert paused, rocking backwards and forwards on his feet.

‘What is it?’ Corbett demanded.

‘I have just realised,’ the Prior replied. ‘What with your meeting this morning, Sir Hugh, the requiem Mass and Abbot Stephen’s funeral, no one has seen Brother Gildas for the rest of the day.’

‘What I suspect . . .’ Corbett declared. He paused and felt the corpse’s hands, shoulders, legs and ankles, the cadaver was already beginning to stiffen. ‘I suspect Brother Gildas has been dead for hours. Notice the hardness of the muscle, the chilling flesh, the stomach beginning to swell. Gildas was probably killed this morning in his workshop. The attacker stunned him, tied his hands and crushed his skull. But then he hid the corpse and, under the cover of darkness, brought it out and laid it on the tumulus: that’s where you saw it, wasn’t it?’ Corbett glanced at the Watcher.

In the light of the torches, the Watcher looked even more grotesque with his broad shoulders and squat body, dark eyes, straggling hair, moustache and beard, his face as brown as a nut. He reminded Corbett of some wood goblin or forest sprite. He was certainly strong enough to kill a man like Gildas and carry his corpse out here.

‘I know what you are thinking.’ The Watcher by the Gates stamped his foot. ‘You think it’s me, don’t you?’

‘And why not?’ Corbett declared. ‘You may have grey locks but you are strong and thickset, and your arms are muscular. You babble about Mandeville’s ghost. You know the corpse had a brand mark and you have no right to be wandering this abbey.’