Hugh Corbett 14 - The Magician's Death (25 page)

‘Ranulf. What is this?’

‘Where did it come from?’ Ranulf asked.

‘Alusia’s gown is thick, it was caught in the thread.’ Corbett pointed to the sharp end of the wire.

Ranulf took it out to the doorway, turning it over in his hands. ‘It’s a crude brush,’ he declared, ‘the type used to remove mud and dirt from linen. Once it has been weakened by the water you scrape it off. My mother had one. She carried it on a cord from her belt. Alusia must have been wearing it on the day she was killed.’

Corbett felt a tingle of excitement in his stomach. ‘I wonder,’ he whispered. ‘Ranulf, go and ask someone where Alusia worked. Would she wash clothes?’

As Ranulf hurried off, Corbett went back into the death house and stood between the corpses; eyes closed, he prayed that what he had discovered would be of use.

‘Sir Hugh!’

Corbett opened his eyes. Ranulf had returned.

‘Alusia worked in the buttery. She never washed clothes.’

‘Mistress Feyner,’ Corbett whispered, ‘she is the laundrywoman, Ranulf.’ He crossed himself and led Ranulf out of the death house. ‘Go and fetch her,’ he declared. ‘Bring her to my room but don’t alarm her.’

Corbett was seated in the chair in front of the fire when Ranulf ushered Mistress Feyner into the chamber. He rose to greet her, grasping those strong hands and guiding her to the high-backed chair opposite. Mistress Feyner had been crying until she was red-eyed, yet she was watchful, tense.

‘Mistress Feyner, you are a widow. Your husband was a carpenter.’

‘He was, and a very good one,’ she declared.

‘He was also a crossbowman,’ Corbett continued, ‘serving the King’s armies.’

‘What are you saying?’

‘Do you still have his arbalest? His quiver of quarrels, perhaps two or three of those?’

Mistress Feyner remained silent. She glanced across at Ranulf.

‘I don’t want to talk while he is here.’ She pointed at Ranulf. ‘I don’t like his eyes.’

Corbett glanced at Ranulf, pulled a face and indicated he should stand outside. Once he had gone, Corbett leaned closer.

‘Mistress Feyner, Phillipa was your only daughter. A man can never understand a mother’s love. You knew what was happening, didn’t you? How your daughter was clever at the church school, quick with her numbers, able to read the words, but the other girls didn’t like that, did they? Matters grew from bad to worse, especially when Phillipa began to talk about the mysterious Goliard, the landless knight who lived in the forest. In truth there was no Goliard. Phillipa was a dreamer, much taken with Martin, the man-at-arms. Mistress Feyner, did you know . . .’ He paused, wondering whether to tell this mother what Ranulf had hurriedly informed him of while she had waited outside.

‘What?’ Mistress Feyner stretched a hand out to the fire but held Corbett’s gaze. ‘What are you going to say, King’s man? That she flirted with Martin and made the others even more jealous. So what?’

‘You know what I’m going to say,’ Corbett replied. ‘Those girls drove Phillipa out into the forest; their constant bullying, their cruel mockery forced your daughter away. They turned her wits. Only the good Lord truly knows what happened out there in the green darkness. Phillipa took her own life. You sensed that, didn’t you? You, the loving mother, knew she would never return.’

The woman tried to reply, but her lower lip quivered. Despite her roughened skin, her face had turned pale.

‘Even when she had gone,’ Corbett continued evenly, ‘the whispering didn’t stop, the mockery. Did you hear the words “good riddance” muttered? You were distraught, beside yourself with grief. You hid it well as your sorrowing turned to anger. You are a castle woman, Mistress Feyner, I suspect you have been one all your life. Sometimes when the armies march, the women go with them. Your husband must have instructed you on the use of a crossbow; how to place the bolt in the groove and wind back the winch, how to prime it well and have it ready. Crossbows come in all sizes. I’ve seen one which can be carried in one hand, but the bolts are always deadly. You are strong after years of bending over the vats and scrubbing; you have good muscular arms and wrists. An arbalest would be easy for you to use, especially so close.’

The woman lifted her hand, but Corbett continued.

‘You knew your daughter was dead, forced out by those other wenches, cruelly treated and abused, so you waged war against them. You reasoned,’ he shifted in his chair, ‘that something must have happened to Phillipa. You would have liked her body found, but you had no doubts about her fate and that the people responsible had to be punished.’

‘Are you sure, King’s man?’

‘Oh I’m certain. You had the motive and you had the means, your husband’s arbalest.’

‘I am Mistress Feyner, not some soldier.’

‘True,’ Corbett agreed, ‘you are Mistress Feyner the laundrywoman; who would suspect you? You moved amongst those young women like a pike amongst carp, choosing your victim. You could listen to all the chatter, who was going where, what they had planned, where they would meet. You also have some status in this castle. You could lure a wench here or there to lonely spots, like midden heaps or outhouses.’

Mistress Feyner sat like a woman in a dead faint, head down, hands resting in her lap.

‘You have a covered cart inside the castle walls, full of dirty washing or baskets of clean linen for Master Reginald. You can move that cart around the castle on any pretext, such as collecting laundry or exercising the horses. Who gives Mistress Feyner a second glance? Who senses the murderous anger seething within you? Yes, Mistress Feyner?’ She did not look up. ‘I don’t know how you lured the other victims, but as for Rebecca, well, you heard about her plans to visit her friend’s grave in the cemetery of St Peter’s in the Wood. You offered both Rebecca and Alusia a ride in the cart. On that particular morning, a cold December day, with the light hardly broken, Rebecca came first and you were waiting for her with the arbalest loaded. She hadn’t even collected her cloak. She died in an instant, and you wrapped her corpse in a canvas cloth and lifted it easily into the cart where it would lie well hidden. I’m sure when we inspect the cart we will find traces of your murderous work. Alusia arrives, and of course Rebecca isn’t there. You become impatient and leave. No one stops you, no one thinks that Mistress Feyner is an assassin, whilst your horses really pull a death cart. You reach St Peter’s church, Alusia steps down and hurries off. You go to the tail of the cart, let down the flap, pull out the canvas-bound corpse, unroll it and leave it by the side of the trackway. Only for a few heartbeats are you vulnerable or exposed, then you are gone.’

‘I could have been seen.’ Mistress Feyner’s voice was gratingly harsh.

‘Seen? By whom? I’ve been along that trackway, it is too close for any of the outlaws to come. You can see back down the path and ahead, whilst the cemetery wall would hide you from Father Matthew locked away in his house behind the church. You have claimed one more victim but now you are wary. King’s men have arrived in Corfe. I take a vow, at the time rashly, to hunt the killer down. You may have decided to pause for a while until I was gone, but Alusia was dangerous. She may have seen or heard something as she went into the cemetery. Perhaps she may have wondered why neither of you saw the corpse on your way down to the church. You knew she would never leave the castle. However, because of the chatter, you knew of her friendship with Martin. Alusia was nervous, stretched like a bowstring. Did you give her some false message from Martin to meet him here or there, some lonely spot? If things went wrong, you could always allege you made a mistake or were misled. On that night you were waiting for her, perhaps in the usual lovers’ tryst, that ruined passageway leading down to the old dungeons. You killed Alusia, wrapped her body up and hid it. But you made one mistake.’

Corbett picked the wire brush from the sack beside him and held it under Mistress Feyner’s nose.

‘The dead don’t just stand and watch, woman; they sometimes help. You made a mistake, one of your brushes was found on Alusia’s corpse. Why should she have that? She never worked in the laundry room.’

Mistress Feyner lifted her head and smiled sweetly.

‘Sir, how clever you are.’ The smile faded. ‘How clever you are,’ she repeated. ‘I really don’t know what was wrong with my Phillipa. Sometimes I thought she was with child, but if she was,’ the woman chatted on, ‘she would have told me, wouldn’t she? Sharp as a pin she was, King’s man. Oh, she had her ways, her dreams and madcap tales. She listened too intently to Lady Constance’s stories about mysterious knights, yet she was as bright as a button, my Phillipa, sharp as a dagger. Like her father she was, yes, he fought with a crossbow but he was also a skilled carpenter; he could carve out of wood and make such shapely things. Father Matthew complimented her. She understood a little Latin and French and he was teaching her to read from the lectern in church, and that was the problem. Those harridans were jealous of her! Harassed her, bullied her.

‘On Harvest Sunday last, during Mass, I could see their spiteful glances, laughing behind their fingers. Phillipa, all pale, left the church, saying she felt sick. I never saw her again. Sir Edward was kind, a search was made, but I knew my Phillipa.’ Mistress Feyner tapped her breast. ‘Here, in the sanctuary of my heart, I knew something had happened. The weeks passed, Phillipa never returned, I accepted she was dead and grieved silently. I heard the tales, the gossip, about that skulker who calls himself a man-at-arms.’ Mistress Feyner was looking at a point above Corbett’s head, letting her heart gush out the hatred which curdled there. ‘That horde of bitches never grieved, not a tear fell over Phillipa, no one ever comforted me, no one ever grieved. I knew they were guilty. I held them responsible.’

She glanced at Corbett and blinked.

‘In the end it was so easy. My husband’s arbalest was clean and oiled. I had three quivers of quarrels; I vowed to use them well. I began with those who gossiped and sneered the most; they came like flies to the honey pot. So stupid, so easily trapped. Rebecca, sidling up beside the cart when it was in the outhouse as I was loading Master Reginald’s linen. All concerned she was about visiting her friend’s grave. False tears in her eyes, stupid mouth pulled down in grief. Grief?’ Mistress Feyner spat the word out, talking to Corbett as if he was a fellow conspirator. ‘Grief? She had never once asked about Phillipa, my daughter who had no grave. I killed her so easily in that darkened place.’ She paused, nodding to herself. ‘You’re right. The cart is high, it’s so easy to hide a corpse.’ She laughed sharply. ‘She wanted to visit her friend; I thought, well, why not join her? As for Alusia,’ she shrugged, ‘she may have seen something so I pretended Martin wished to see her near the ruined doorway. It’s a pity he didn’t come. I judged him guilty as well.’

‘You left her there?’ Corbett asked.

‘Oh yes. The next morning, before dawn, I decided to exercise the horses. No one gave me a second glance, why should they bother about me? They didn’t even care to make a proper search for my daughter. It was a dark morning, the mist curling. I carted the corpse down to the marsh.’ She sighed. ‘I thought it would sink, but I don’t really care. Phillipa has been found, she’s back, and as for you, sir . . .’

Mistress Feyner got to her feet, stretching out her hands as if she expected them to be bound. Corbett, surprised, sat back in the chair and the laundrywoman moved as swiftly as a cat. She picked up the iron poker from the hearth, swinging it, aiming for Corbett’s head. He threw himself forward, head down, and the iron bar whirled above him. He moved to grab Mistress Feyner but she had already dropped her weapon and was running for the door.

‘Ranulf!’

Mistress Feyner swung the door open and Corbett followed in pursuit, only to realise Ranulf wasn’t there, but at the foot of the steps. He came pounding up, alarmed by the noise and the crash of the door. Mistress Feyner turned right, fleeing further up the spiral staircase. Corbett and Ranulf followed. The steps were steep, twisting sharply as they followed the line of the wall. Corbett felt a little dizzy whilst Mistress Feyner, light on her feet, raced ahead. On the storey above she stopped to send some wood, stacked in a window embrasure, rattling down, impeding Corbett’s progress. He and Ranulf kicked the obstacle aside, and by the time they glimpsed her again she had reached the top, bursting through the door on the roof of the tower. She tried to bolt it from the outside, but in her haste was unable to draw across the rusting iron. Corbett paused, gasping for breath, his sweat-soaked hand slipping down the mildewed wall. The reek of this ancient place made him cough and splutter on the dust swirling through the air.

‘I want her alive, Ranulf.’ He put his hand on the latch. ‘There is no place for her to flee. I want to know why she attacked me.’

They opened the door to be buffeted by the icy wind. Mistress Feyner had reached the battlements and stood with her back to one of the crenellated openings. She seemed all composed, a smile on her lips. Corbett edged gingerly across the hard-packed ice.

‘Surrender!’ he called out. ‘Give yourself up to the King’s justice.’ He beckoned with his hand as he moved forward.

Mistress Feyner climbed up into the gap, holding the stone either side, bracing herself against the wind which sent her hair and gown billowing.

‘Please,’ Corbett begged, ‘there will be mercy as well as justice.’

‘What does it matter, King’s man?’ Mistress Feyner called back. ‘What does anything really matter now?’ And spreading her arms as if they were wings, she fell back.

Corbett and Ranulf, slipping on the ice, strode across. Steadying themselves against the battlements, they peered over. Mistress Feyner lay below, black and twisted against the snow. Already a dark puddle shrouded her head like some sombre nimbus. People were hurrying across, shouting at each other.