Free Hugh Corbett 17 - The Mysterium by Paul Doherty Page A

Corbett edged his stool closer.
    ‘Did you kill Lord Walter Evesham, Brother?’
    ‘Yes.’ Cuthbert lifted a hand, fingers so curled with inflammation it was more like a claw. ‘Yes, Sir Hugh, in my thoughts I killed him at least a score of times over the last twenty years, and I confessed as much in chapter. But in deed, in fact? No! Look at my hands, clerk, how could these fingers grasp a dagger, let alone Lord Walter’s head, pulling it back for the killing stroke?’
    Corbett studied that whiskered old face, eyes all troubled, those lined and furrowed cheeks.
    ‘I swear by the sacrament that I did not kill him. I hardly spoke to him, or he to me. Evesham suspected I knew his heart. I caught his secret glances. I saw him kneel in prayer, but his visitors brought him wine that he slurped, sweetmeats he gobbled. I heard him lying on his bed quietly humming. Does a pig take to singing, Sir Hugh? Does a cat shepherd the mice? Does the hawk protect the pigeon? I don’t think so. Evesham was plotting. No,’ Cuthbert shook his head, ‘he wrote nothing, he said nothing. He had no manuscripts here except the ones he borrowed from the library.’
    ‘I believe you, Brother. Now I want you to go back twenty years, to the fons et origo of all this. Describe to me what happened.’
    The lay brother’s hand went to his lips. He stared hard at Corbett, then sighed.
    ‘In the beginning I wanted to be a Carthusian, a strict order, but they said my health was too frail.’
    ‘You proved them wrong on that.’
    ‘No.’ Cuthbert tapped the side of his head. ‘They were right. In my mind I was too frail. I became a priest, serving as a curate here and there. I recalled the words of St Francis. I tried to preach the Gospel and I lived a chaste life.’ He smiled. ‘That was easy, as was poverty. I truly loved my calling. No archdeacon visited to lecture me on monies missing or the company I kept or the mistress I sheltered. I was a pastor, Sir Hugh, committed to the sheep, and not just their shearing.’
    Corbett caught the profound sadness of this soul.
    ‘Eventually I was appointed Parson of St Botulph’s in Cripplegate. I loved that church, my parish council, the routine of every day, until the Feast of St Irenaeus, the twenty-eighth of June in the year of Our Lord 1284. Have you ever read Irenaeus?’
    Corbett shook his head.
    ‘He said: “The things we learn in childhood become part of our soul.” Outside of the Gospels I’ve never heard a wiser saying. Anyway, on that day, late in the afternoon, I heard the hue and cry being raised, shouts of “Harrow! Harrow!” echoing along the streets. I left the priest’s house. I remember running carefully because a summer sickness had swept the ward, taking the old, the weak, the infirm, the dying. Burial plots had been dug before the summer sun became too strong and dried the ground. I did not wish to stumble into one of these. I reached the north door of the church and went in. I peered through the rood screen; a man crouched there clutching the altar. A royal clerk burst into the church, walking like God Almighty up the nave. He was booted and spurred, brandishing a sword, his face livid with anger. Evesham! The first time I’d ever met him.
    ‘I stood my ground. A man had taken sanctuary. According to canon law, he was not to be disturbed but allowed to stay. I asked Evesham to leave. Eventually he did, but first he demanded, on my loyalty to the King, whether there was a crypt, a cellar, any secret entrance. I replied no. How many doors? I told him four. Any windows a fugitive could wriggle through? I said that was impossible. He made me swear by the sacrament that I told the truth. I did so, and he stormed off. I could hear from the noise outside that all four doors were now guarded.’ Cuthbert snorted with laughter. ‘They even brought rope ladders and put men up the walls and on to the roof. I went into the sanctuary, and only then did I recognise Boniface