Read Hugh Corbett 15 - The Waxman Murders for Free Online

under peine forte et dure – she would be laid in the cobbled yard of the Guildhall and pressed with wood and weights until she did so.
    Wendover was in such an agony of mind, he was hardly aware of his duties or his surroundings. He was oblivious of the biting cold, the stark, empty, white-sheeted enclosure, the soaring curtain wall he was resting against and, in the distance, the brooding manor house of Maubisson. He was truly facing his own sea of troubles. Not only did he have Lady Adelicia’s imprisonment to deal with, and the charges which might be laid against him; there was also the business of the Cloister Map and, of course – Wendover shook himself from his day-dreaming – the safeguarding of Maubisson. He left the shelter of the curtain wall and gazed across the hard-packed snow at the manor house, a huddle of dark buildings ranged along the brow of a hill. He could glimpse slivers of light between the shutters over the narrow windows. As he walked closer, straining his eyes, he could make out the outline of the great hall with its gabled wings either end, as well as its porch and steps lit by flickering cresset torches fixed in sconces on either side of the cavernous main door. A strange place, Maubisson. Given a French name by a God-obsessed merchant who had decided to build a church in the old English style that existed before the Conqueror came. A long nave had been raised, really nothing more than a hall; a tower was supposed to be added, but the merchant went to his eternal reward before his idea ever took shape. There had been no consecration and Maubisson had fallen into the hands of the Crown and the city corporation. Over the years other wings had been attached: two-storey buildings of plaster and wood on a stone base which formed a quadrangle with an arched double gateway at the back; that gate, together with the courtyard within, was closely guarded by Wendover’s men, as was each side of the building as well as the front door.
    Wendover stared up at the sky. Night was fading; soon it would be morning. He moved further away. All was still. The owl in the trees had flown on, whilst the dog fox yipping at the cold as it hunted in the undergrowth along the curtain wall had fallen silent. Wendover began to walk the perimeter. He checked the guards as far as he could see, but the snowdrift was rather too deep for the arduous climb up the hill to the porch, so instead he returned to the main gate, sighing with relief at the shelter it provided. He wondered how the foreigners inside were coping. Had they recovered from their journey sickness? Castledene, as well as that interfering city physician Desroches, had been most insistent that Paulents and his family be kept safe and secure. Wendover suspected that the knight was more concerned about protecting the precious possessions of the merchant than anything else.
    Wendover walked across to the campfire, crouching down amongst the other city guards to warm his hands and take his share of the strips of meat cooked to almost black on the oil-soaked pans thrust into the flames. He drank some watered wine and waited. At last it came: the bells of the cathedral, St Augustine’s and other city churches tolling the hour for Lauds and the Jesus Mass. He rose to his feet, tightened his belt, pulled his cloak about him and walked towards the main door. He felt tired, and the journey up the slight incline where the snow had drifted deeply seemed to take an age. He shouted at one of the guards on the main steps to come and help him. The man floundered down to meet him holding a lantern.
    ‘Thanks be to God,’ the guard yelled, extending a staff for Wendover to grip. ‘At least it’s stopped snowing.’
    Wendover grunted in reply as he grasped the pole and pulled himself forward, free of the drift. He climbed the steps to where the rest of his guards were grouped around the fire at the top, lifted the heavy brass door weight, carved in the shape of a mailed fist,