Free Hugh Corbett 13 - Corpse Candle by Paul Doherty

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