Free Hugh Corbett 14 - The Magician's Death by Paul Doherty

bundle of cloth, dark greens and browns, and a glimpse of reddish hair. Alusia stood, gripped by a numbing fear. Wasn’t that Rebecca’s hair? Weren’t those her colours? Breath caught in her throat, she stooped and pulled at the bundle. The corpse rolled back: sightless eyes, a blood-caked mouth, and just beneath the chin, that awful bloody wound with the crossbow quarrel peeping out. It was Rebecca, and she was dead yet alive, for Alusia could hear a terrible screaming.
    The discussion in the council chamber had grown more heated, Bolingbroke striding up and down, obviously angry that he and Ufford had risked their lives, with Ufford paying the ultimate price, merely to steal a copy.
    ‘It was necessary,’ Corbett shouted. ‘His Grace the King has taken a deep interest in Friar Roger’s writings. We had to make sure that the book we held, our copy of the Secretus Secretorum , was accurate. I have compared the two, and as far as I can see, with all their strange symbols and ciphers, they are in accordance.’
    Sir Edmund sat watching this confrontation; Ranulf was quietly enjoying himself. He liked nothing better than watching old Master Longface in debate. Moreover, he knew Bolingbroke of old as a passionate man, and Ranulf, who had done his share of fleeing from those who wished to kill him, sympathised with his anger.
    ‘What we must look at, William,’ Corbett kept his voice calm, ‘is the logic of the situation.’
    ‘Logic?’ Bolingbroke retook his seat. ‘Sir Hugh, I know as much about logic as you do, we are not in the schools now.’
    ‘Yes we are.’
    Corbett smiled, then paused as the servant whom Sir Edmund had summoned brought in a fresh jug of ale and soft bread from the castle ovens. He was glad of the respite as the drink was poured and the bread shared out.
    ‘We must apply logic.’ He spoke quickly as Bolingbroke filled his mouth with bread and cheese. ‘What concerns me is not the copy, or what happened when you stole it, but why Magister Thibault came down to that cellar on that night of revelry. Why did he bring that young woman with him?’
    ‘Ufford had no choice but to kill them!’
    ‘I’m not saying he did. Walter was a dagger man through and through. What I suspect is treachery. Let me describe my hypothesis. Here we have two clerks of the English Secret Chancery, scholars from the Halls of Oxford, pretending to be scholars at the Sorbonne. The order goes out, our noble King wants the French copy of Friar Bacon’s Secret of Secrets . You and Ufford cast about, searching for it. A traitor emerges from amongst the French, this mysterious stranger who offers you the manuscript.’
    ‘He didn’t offer,’ Bolingbroke answered, his mouth full of cheese. ‘He simply told us where it was and promised that we would receive an invitation to Magister Thibault’s revelry.’
    ‘Do you know who this person was?’ Ranulf asked.
    Bolingbroke shook his head.
    ‘No, we never met him; he communicated through memoranda left at our lodgings. I have shown you those I kept; the others I destroyed.’
    Corbett nodded. He had scrutinised the scrawled memoranda. The Norman French was written in a hand he didn’t recognise, providing information for his two secret clerks.
    ‘What I do know,’ Bolingbroke continued, sipping his ale, ‘is that a month before Magister Thibault’s revelry, this Frenchman discovered what we were looking for and, in return for gold, told us where it was and how we could take it. I think that somehow or other he alerted Magister Thibault and brought him down to that cellar. We were to be trapped there but Magister Thibault was an old sot, full of wine and lust, and perhaps he refused to believe what he was told or didn’t realize the significance. More importantly, this traitor also told Seigneur Amaury de Craon and the Hounds of the King what was happening. We were fortunate. We were supposed to be trapped either at Magister Thibault’s or at our lodgings in the