Free Spy in Chancery by Paul C. Doherty Page B

more than one person?
    Item: How did the traitor communicate his informaton to the French?
    Corbet studied his scrap of parchment while the candles burnt low. At last he threw it to one side, logic could not help when there was insufficient information, he snuffed the candles and lay down on his trestle bed. There was something else but it eluded him until, almost on the verge of sleep, Corbett suddenly remembered that the file of letters he had seen earlier in the day were written in a familiar hand: Corbett recalled his meeting with Waterton in the writing chamber in Paris and realised Waterton was the clerk responsible for transcribing the letters to the hostages.

NINE
    The following day, Corbett sent a surly Ranulf to make enquiries around Westminster. It was almost dark when his servant returned, his temper greatly improved. 'The Earl of Richmond,' he boldly announced, 'was in the Midlands, he had been a member of a diplomatic mission to meet certain Scottish envoys for secret negotiations and would be back in Westminster by tomorrow evening.' Corbett, satisfied, spent the next two days on his own affairs: he needed certain clothes: an indenture was drawn up with the goldsmith who banked his monies and he took Ranulf to a bear-baiting in Southwark but left, sickened at the sight, and moved on to watch a miracle play, 'The Creation', staged on a huge raised platform, fashioned out of long planks thrown across a dozen carts.
    Corbett felt bored by the story but admired the strange devices; the massive inflated pigskins filled with water for the great deluge, the ark moving across the stage, the flaps of metal waved to create thunder and the voice of God. Corbett stood and marvelled though he kept one hand on his purse and half an eye on the pickpockets and cutpurses who gathered like locusts on occasions such as these. The crowd was packed, students, clerks in russet gowns, the beaver hats of the merchants, the gauze veils of the ladies, the ermine-trimmed cloaks of the courtiers and gallants.
    Corbett moved along, not too concerned that Ranulf had disappeared, he bought a hot pie from a baker and walked slowly through the crowd, enjoying its warmth and colour while the meaty spicy juices filled his mouth. He visited a few shops, stopped to hear a pedlar sell his wares which, to the surprise of his incredulous audience, contained the asp which bit Cleopatra of Egypt, Moses' foreskin, a strand of Samson's hair and a glossy rack which bore the image of the Archangel. Corbett always revelled in such foolery, the direct opposite of his own cold and logical life.
    Darkness had fallen by the time he reached his lodgings and slowly made his way upstairs. He paused at the door, astonished by the cries and shrieks from within. He gently pushed the door ajar, stared in through the crack and saw Ranulf, naked as the day he was born,, cavorting with a young girl whose red hair covered her like a veil as she twisted and turned, her white body wrapped around Ranulf, her face filled with pleasure which closed her eyes and formed her mouth into an 'O' of constant pleasure.
    Corbett withdrew, angry at himself as well as Ranulf. He quietly tiptoed downstairs and went out into the street and the warmth of a nearby tavern. He chose a table near the great pine log fire and tried to dismiss what he had just seen. He felt guilty, angry and strangely envious; he was frightened of women, he had loved two and both had gone. One taken by the fever, the other, the lovely Alice, a traitor to the King. He dug his face deeper into the tankard, hoping no one else would see the tears which scalded his eyes. God knew he missed both and mourned the gap they had left. Corbett, he thought, the cold, calculating clerk, like some device from a stage, efficient, capable but lacking in warmth.
    He eventually returned to his lodgings slightly drunk on ale and self-pity. He looked suspiciously at Ranulf but was too embarrassed to mention what he had seen, instead