Corbett and Ranulf entered Paternoster Row and walked on into Cheapside. The streets were already filling up with people. The sky was bright blue and a warmish sun was gradually melting the snow so that it fell off the sloping roofs, crashing into the streets below. Londoners had decided to take advantage of the fair weather and Cheapside was thronged. Shop fronts were down and booths erected, the striped awnings flapping in a strong breeze. The goldsmiths, pelterers, furriers and parchment-sellers were all busy, intent on recovering the business lost during the bad weather. Ladies in fur-lined cloaks tripped through the snow followed by anxious maids; lawyers, making their way up into the nave of St Paul's to do business, swaggered haughtily by. There were men-at-arms from the Palace and Tower. Young children were everywhere and apprentices ran out from behind the booths, trying to catch the attention of would-be purchasers. Two beggars staggered by, each holding the other, for the ground underfoot was slippery. Now and again, snow would fall onto a striped awning to the anguished yell of a shopkeeper and the ecstatic cries of the urchins who swarmed everywhere.
Corbett felt as if he had come into a different world. St Paul's had been cold, dark, still in the icy grip of winter. Here, everything was bright, full of life, movement and colour. He and Ranulf forced their way through the crowds. Most people tried to keep to the centre of the street, well away from the sloping roofs and the ever falling snow. Shoemakers hammered away at their benches. Carters, having brought their goods into the city through the snow, had decided to celebrate and the taverns had no need to hang out garlands or signs to attract custom. The Sun on the Hoop, The Cock, The Red Door, The Bell and The Cat and Fiddle, were all doing a roaring trade. The cooks and valets stood outside the doors shouting, 'Hot pies!'; 'Hot good pies and cheese!'; 'Come and dine!'; and competed with cries of 'White wine of Alsace!'; 'Red wine of Gascony!': 'Wine of the Rhine!'; 'Wine of Rochelle!' The cold, the smells of cooking and the loud cries reminded Corbett how hungry he was. He stopped beside a fish stall to watch a furious debate between two vendors, which broke into a fight. One man was sent crashing against the wooden framework, spilling onto the slushy ground his wares of cod, salmon, conger, ray, sturgeon, herring, pilchards, and sprats. Immediately, these were picked up by urchins and, to the anguished cry of their owner, taken off without a 'by your leave' or a penny paid.
Corbett, usually a solitary man, often enjoyed mingling with the crowds and watching the different scenes. On one corner he saw a corpse lying covered in a rough awning. Around it the Wardman had called twelve people to sit in judgement. Some unfortunate had evidently dropped dead or been killed in a brawl and the local coroner was now empanelling a jury of twelve men to decide on the cause of death and what procedures should be followed.
Down the middle of Cheapside came a cart covered with a black cloth on which a white cross was painted. The horse, moving slowly and dolefully, had a bell on its bridle which tolled mournfully. A Carthusian monk carefully led the beast through the slush and dirt of the street. A bare-headed and bare-footed sanctuary man who had agreed to abjure the kingdom, his legs and ankles purple with the cold, walked down the street carrying a wooden cross before him, on his way to Bridgegate and accompanied by the Serjeant of his ward. Apparendy, he was a murderer who had taken sanctuary but then released himself from it by promising to abjure the kingdom. Corbett knew the felon had three days to reach Dover and quietly concluded that there was very little chance he would reach it: either he would die in the intense cold or the relatives of the person he had murdered would follow and kill him in some lonely spot.
For a few moments, the hubbub of the market-place died as a city officer, clad in a tunic decorated with a death's-head and grinning skulls, came up and rang a bell, proclaiming in a booming voice, 'Good people, of your charity, pray, for the soul of our dear brother, Robert Hinckley, who departed this life at nine o' clock last evening.'
The people round Corbett murmured a prayer and the death crier passed on. Corbett decided to dally amongst the stalls. Perhaps he could pick up something, a gift for Maeve, from the woollen caps, laces, ribbons, fringes of silk, thread, twine, silk, laces of gold, rings of copper, candlesticks, ewers, brushes, iron, – anything that she might find useful. He bought a small brooch, in the form of a cross with a dragon twisted round it, made out of hammered gold and attached to a fine silk-like chain. Corbett placed this carefully in his pouch, keeping his hand over it, for the place swarmed with cutpurses and pick-pockets also intent on making up any losses they had suffered during the heavy snowfall.
Feeling hungry, he and Ranulf headed for a tavern. Inside, it was dank but warm and rather musty with a fire blazing in the huge grate in the far wall. Corbett, ignoring the evil-smelling rushes, chose a table far away from the other revellers, a group of dicers and a young woman who already looked far gone in her cups. The landlord, a stocky fellow with an apron tied round his waist, came up, his greasy hands held out in welcome. He offered sweet wines from Cyprus and Sicily but Corbett simply ordered two plates of meat and ale, warmed and heavily spiced.
While they were eating Corbett nudged Ranulf. 'This morning, in the cathedral, did you learn anything I may have missed?'
His servant shook his head and stuck his nose back in the tankard.
'You are sure?' Corbett persisted.
Ranulf deliberated, enjoying this rare moment. Corbett asking for his advice.
'There was one thing,' he said slowly. 'What was that?'
'At the altar,' Ranulf used the plates and tankards on the table as symbols, 'De Montfort stood in the centre?' -'Yes,' Corbett replied impatiently.
'The two, one on each side. They would have stood close?'
Corbett nodded.
'Then it is possible,' Ranulf said, 'for one of them, or both, to place the poison in the chalice when it was returned?'
Corbett grimaced. 'True. But still there is the great mystery, what Blaskett called the conundrum. What happened to the poisoned wine? When I examined the chalice, the wine was untainted and there was no smell to it at all.' Corbett still felt there was something just outside his grasp, something he had seen on that altar and it nagged at him now.
He put down the tankard and leaned back on his stool against the wall. There was something wrong. He remembered the wine drops on the floor and the other drops which smelt of the poison on the altar frontal. Someone must have changed cups. But how had it been done? Surely, there were not two chalices? He had established that. He rose, tossed a few coins at the tavern-keeper and left, bidding Ranulf to take care of himself while he slowly walked back to his lodgings. There, having lit a candle and brought out his writing tray and scraps of parchment, Corbett began to list what he knew so far.
Item De Montfort had been poisoned during mass.
Item De Montfort was a man with a secret and private life.
There were few details known about him except his liaison with the strange woman who had been seen on the edge of the sanctuary the day the priest had died.
Item De Montfort was disliked by most of his colleagues and seemed to have no friends.
Item De Montfort was supposed to give a sermon after the mass denouncing royal taxation. Instead, Edward had bribed him to give a speech confirming the king's right to tax the church.
Item If de Montfort was poisoned, how?
Item Why was it only de Montfort (who only drank from the chalice) killed yet not any of the priests celebrating mass with him?
Item If de Montfort was poisoned from the chalice, what had happened to the poisoned wine?
Item There could have been two cups. But who exchanged them and when? Was it possible that an exact replica had been made?
The next morning Corbett rose early. He did not bother to call on Ranulf but, dressing in his best robes, made his way out into the streets. Plumpton had told him that de Montfort's funeral mass was to be held at eleven that morning. Corbett made his way slowly back to the cathedral, the problems he had listed the night before still ringing in his head. This was a mystery, one he could not fathom, but he felt that if he had the missing pieces then the puzzle would fall into place. He walked up a still-deserted Cheapside. There were only a few beggars scurrying about; a baker stood in the stocks, next to him a fishmonger. The latter had sold stale fish, a serious offence in the city, as many doctors believed it was a cause of leprosy. The fishmonger stood there, hands and head caught in the iron clasp of the stocks, whilst beneath his nose hung a rotten fish. The baker next to him looked equally doleful. A sign had also been looped round his head. It said that Thomas-atte-Criche, baker, had been found guilty of the serious crime of stealing dough. Corbett looked at the man's miserable face.
'What did you do?' he asked, using the edge of his robe to wipe away some of the man's sweat.
'My servant,' the man gasped. 'People brought dough into our bakery. They put it on the table. I was supposed to put it into pans for baking but I had a secret door in the table. My apprentice would sit underneath the table and remove parts of the dough. I would then bake the loaves and give them to the women who had brought me their dough. The rest I would collect, bake fresh bread and sell it.' The baker spat. 'I should not have trusted that apprentice. He turned on me.' He looked lugubriously at Corbett, his fleshy face ashen with the pain of the iron clasp round his neck. 'I must stand here till sunset.'
Corbett nodded sympathetically and passed on; the man would not have to stand long; on a winter's day sunset would be early.
Corbett reached Paternoster Row and went into the cathedral grounds, the gates having been opened as soon as prime was finished. At the doors, vergers were in attendance. Corbett whispered to one and was allowed up into the nave. Sconce lights had been lit in the choir sanctuary and the great candles on the high altar flared and dipped against the darkness. The stalls were already filling with the cantors for the mass, and between the choir and the steps of the sanctuary stood de Montfort's coffin. Corbett walked up and studied it; made of polished pinewood, it rested on crimson-draped trestles. On each side of the coffin, purple candles flickered in black wrought-iron candlesticks. Someone had placed a flower on the coffin-lid. Corbett looked around and glimpsed in the far corner, near where she had stood before, the woman he had last seen on the day de Montfort died. There were a few other people, mostly mere spectators, stark proof that the dead man had had few friends. Corbett was about to go across to the woman but she suddenly turned on her heel and walked quickly down the nave. Corbett watched her go and, leaning against a pillar, waited for mass to commence.
At last the Requiem began. Like the mass Corbett had attended with the king many days earlier, it was celebrated by five or six canons, the main celebrant being Sir Philip Plumpton. Corbett had to refrain from smiling, Plumpton had hated the dead man, yet here he was interceding before God for de Montfort's soul. The requiems were sung, the coffin blessed, incensed and taken out into the graveyard on the shoulders of six stout men, preceded by vergers and servants of the cathedral, bearing banners depicting the Virgin Mary, St George and St Paul. These three standard-bearers walked ahead of Plumpton, followed by other canons and a group of young boys, all dressed in white, bearing tapers. The coffin was surrounded by torch bearers, fifty-six in number, each representing a year of the deceased man's life. The bier, now covered with cosdy cloths of gold, was followed by a group of ladies sobbing loudly, all dressed completely in black with lace veils over their heads. Corbett dismissed them with a supercilious glance as professional mourners. He had no time for people who profited from the dead. He watched as the long sorrowful procession wound its way out of the cathedral to a far corner in the grounds, where a fresh mound of earth denoted de Montfort's last resting-place.
Corbett stood by the door hearing faintly the mumblings of Plumpton as once again he asked God to take his beloved servant, Walter de Montfort, into his safe-keeping. The body was lowered into the ground, Corbett heard the clumps of earth falling on the wooden coffin-lid and the procession came back into the cathedral. Corbett sensed the mourners' relief that it was all over. The door closed and from outside Corbett heard the faint clatter of the spades as the grave-diggers covered the coffin. He waited for a respectful while before walking across the sanctuary; there, he genuflected before the winking light and went into the sacristy. Plumpton was divesting, amice, alb, stole, all the paraphernalia priests seemed to think they needed when they spoke to God. The priest knew Corbett was behind him but the clerk had to wait until Plumpton was divested and only then did he greet him.
'Master Corbett, I cannot say it's a pleasure to see you again.'
'Sir Philip,' Corbett replied cheerily. 'I am here on the king's business.' On any other occasion Plumpton would have groaned out loud for he had begun to hate this inquisitive, hard-faced, cat-eyed clerk who would not leave the dead alone and kept coming back to ask questions.
'What is it?' Plumpton snapped.
'On behalf of the king, I would like you and the other four celebrants of the mass officiating when de Montfort died, to join me in the sanctuary.'
'What is this?' Plumpton stepped back, his eyes narrowed in amazement. 'Why don't you leave this terrible business alone?'
'Why not ask the king?' Corbett said. 'You will have the opportunity if you refuse.' Plumpton sighed, and spun on his heel and stomped out.
Corbett stood looking round the sacristy, at the cupboards, the huge leather iron-bound chests, all padlocked, some of them with three, even four clasps; the barrels full of candles of various hues denoting their purity; boxes of sanctuary lights, tapers, casks of incense, nothing of real interest. He walked to where Plumpton had left a huge cupboard unlocked and pulled the door open. Inside were all the vestments the priests used in their services, each arranged in colours denoting the different liturgical seasons of the year. On the far left he saw the chasubles which had been used at that fatal mass and, going deeper into the cupboard, examined each of them minutely. One of them caught his attention and he studied the stain on it. Then, breathing quickly with excitement, Corbett closed the door as he heard footsteps in the passageway outside. Plumpton, accompanied by the other canons, stormed into the room. They were all angry at being called away from their different duties to dance attendance yet again on a common clerk. He could read their minds and knew the rancour they must feel for him. Only Blaskett and de Luce seemed calm.
Corbett waited for a while before speaking.
'Sir Philip, if you would, please.' He stepped aside and Plumpton brushed past him, the others following up the sanctuary steps, until they all stood before the altar. Corbett, who had picked up a plain pewter cup he had seen lying in the sacristy, asked the canons to arrange themselves as they were at the fateful mass, whilst he took the place of de Montfort. Once they had done so, Corbett made them go through the rite of communion. The cup was passed down, first to those on his right, de Eveden and Ettrick, the latter sent it back across the altar to Blaskett, who passed it to de Luce, Plumpton and so back to Corbett. One thing the clerk did notice, Ranulf was right: shielded by the rest, either de Eveden or Plumpton could have administered poison without the others noticing, though there was still the risk of alerting de Montfort. Moreover, if Plumpton or de Eveden was the poisoner, each would have noticed the other. Did the two conspire together? Corbett dismissed the thought as too fanciful, for the two men disliked each other intensely. There was no comradeship there, no feeling of conspiracy. Corbett was about to thank and dismiss them when suddenly a voice called out behind him.
'And the Angel of the Lord came down into the sanctuary and cleansed it with his sword!' Corbett turned and looked towards the anchor house. There in the slit he could see the bright eyes of the hermit glaring out at him. Corbett went down the stairs.
'What is it you want, man of God? Who is God's angel?'
'Why,' the anchorite's voice rang out clear as a bell, 'it is you, God's emissary sent to bring justice, and if not God's at least the king's.'
'Then, if you can see things so clearly,' Corbett said wryly, on the point of spinning on his heel and walking back to join the rest, 'could you not see who actually killed de Montfort?'
'I can see what you have been doing,' the voice replied. 'I have been working on the conundrum facing you.' 'And what is the solution?'
'Quite simple. You are wondering how the others could drink from the chalice after de Montfort, yet they live but he died. Am I not correct?'
Corbett nodded, watching the eyes intently.
'But they have not told you. Ask them.'
'Ask them what?'
'Ask them how many times de Montfort drank from the cup. Remind them of their Canon Law. Before a chalice is given as a symbol of peace, the celebrant always drinks a second time. The first time he drinks at the communion, the second time as the symbol of the kiss of peace. Why not ask them?'
Corbett twisted round and looked up at the canons. They had no need to answer, it was written in all of their faces.
'Sir priests,' he called out. 'It would be best if you waited for me. Perhaps in the sacristy.'
This time they went as dutifully and meekly as lambs.
Corbett moved closer to the anchorite's gap.
'Tell me, man of God, what did you see? Is there anything else I should know? What happened when de Montfort collapsed?'
All he received in reply was a quiet chuckle.
'Tell me,' Corbett insisted.
'I saw nothing,' the anchorite replied slowly. 'When de Montfort fell, so did I, on my knees here in my cell, to pray God would have mercy on his sinful soul. That is all the help I can give. Except one thing. Take care, Master Clerk. These canons wish you dead.'