Free Satan in St Mary by Paul C. Doherty

haunches. Alice admired them all, particularly the young colts prancing and kicking about with their ungainly legs. The noise and smell was almost overwhelming. Soldiers, merchants, and the armed retainers of great lords moved from one group of horses to another, arguing and shouting prices with the owners.
    On another occasion, arm-in-arm, they went to watch a mummer's play in Cheapside and laughed at the antics of the clown with the great phallus and the blundering knight on his sorry nag. Then, they would move on to a cockfight or a bear-baiting show. Corbett did not like the latter with the huge animal, fierce pink eyes glaring at the dogs who would fasten themselves on him only to be shifted in a flurry of fur and blood as the bear clawed, growled and tossed himself free. Nevertheless, Alice would enjoy such sights, eyes intent, she would cry support for both bear and dogs. Corbett did not mind, he enjoyed such outings, proud of the beautiful woman alongside him and more than aware of the envious glances of other men.
    Time and again, however, Alice would return to Corbett's profession, his work in the lawcourts and his special task which he now tried to forget. After all, what matter if two rogues met, one knifed the other and then later hanged himself? Such crimes were common everyday occurrences in London, and so he hid his doubts and believed the picture he had formed about the events in Saint Mary Le Bow. He was happy, content and unconcerned about Burnell or the Chancery. Indeed, he reminded himself that he had enough wealth to leave his post, a small price for the happiness he had now found. Nonetheless, Alice kept asking him and Corbett considered taking her to the courts at Westminster but thought of Burnell and changed his mind. Instead they went to the Guildhall and the city court which sat there.
    He used his influence to gain access and thus hear the case of two impostors. Robert Ward and Richard Lynham. This precious pair, although well able to work and had their tongues to speak with, pretended that they were mutes who had been deprived of speech and went around the city carrying in their hands an iron hook, pincers and a piece of leather shaped like the part of a tongue, edged with silver and bearing the inscription "This is the tongue of Robert Ward". With such instruments and different signs, they tricked many people into believing that they were traders attacked and plundered by robbers, who had stripped them of their tongues as well as their goods, using the very hook and pincers these two now carried around with them. They claimed that all they could do was make a horrible roaring noise. The court soon proved this was a tissue of lies for both men could talk freely with the tongues they were born with.
    Consequently, they were sentenced to stand in the pillory for three days with the offending hook, pincers and counterfeit tongue slung around their necks. Alice laughed so much that Corbett had to almost carry her out of the Guildhall. She later confessed she found the law better sport than all the mummers' plays. She mocked the authority of the King and Church to such an extent that Corbett suspected she was one of the Populares, a radical, a follower of the dead de Montfort. Corbett was not too surprised. The city was full of them, friends and acquaintances in the Chancery and Exchequer were tinged with such sympathies even though de Montfort was dead, his body hacked to pieces and fed to the dogs some twenty years ago.
    Of course, Corbett and Alice became lovers, a kiss at first, an embrace, a meal late in the evening when the tavern was closed. Then, almost as if they were man and wife of many years, Alice took Corbett by the hands and led him up to her own room. A spacious room, almost like a solar, with large cupboards, chests, a table and stools on a polished floor covered in woollen rugs. The walls were green, spattered with gold stars and the small painted heads of men and women. There were