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drained the cup, hid it beneath
a cloth and went along the passageway. He peered through the squint hole.
Ysabeau, his wife, stared bold-eyed back.
    ‘For
the love of God and all his angels!’ she exclaimed. ‘Deverell, this is my
house. Open the door!’
    He
turned the key in the lock and pulled back the bolts. His wife came in. He took
her basket from her and put it on the floor.
    ‘What’s
the matter?’ She peered at him. ‘You look as if you have seen a ghost!’
    ‘It’s
the coffin,’ he lied. ‘The one I made for the young girl, the wheelwright’s
daughter. It still upsets me.’
    ‘Well,
her soul’s gone to her Maker,’ his wife replied. ‘And you’ve heard the news?’
she continued. ‘The clerk’s arrived!’
    ‘Aye,
I know he has,’ Deverell almost shouted. ‘He’ll be asking his bloody
questions!’
    ‘Hush,
man,’ his wife soothed. ‘Everyone knows you told the truth.’
    ‘What’s
he doing?’ Deverell asked.
    ‘I’ve
heard from Adela, the clerk has called a meeting up at the church. He
apparently wants to question Sir Roger’s whelp and the other justice, what’s
his name?’
    ‘Tressilyian.’
    Ysabeau
walked down the passageway. Deverell closed his eyes.
    ‘So
it’s begun,’ he whispered. ‘God’s justice will be done!’
    Deverell
opened his eyes and stared at the crucifix nailed to the wall. At Sir Roger’s
execution, he reflected, hadn’t the knight vowed, just before he was turned off
the ladder, to return from the dead and seek justice?



Chapter 3
     
     
    The
crypt under the church of St Edmund ’s, Melford,
was cavernous and sombre. Rush lights and oil lamps sent the shadows dancing,
turning the atmosphere even more ominous. Sir Hugh Corbett stared at the
funeral ledges built at eyelevel around the chamber. Some of the coffins were
rotting and decayed, displaying fragments of bone. One entire casket had fallen
away and its yellowing skeleton lay on its side, jaw
sagging. Corbett thought it was grinning at him like some figure of death,
ready to pounce. He waited while Parson Grimstone loosened the lid of the
coffin which lay on trestles in the centre of the room. The priest took the lid
off and removed the purple cloth beneath. Corbett stared down at the waxen face
of the corpse within. Those who had dressed the young woman for burial had done
their best. Corbett moved the head with one finger. He stared at the mottled
bruises which ringed her throat like some grisly necklace.
    ‘It
looks like a garrotte,’ he remarked. ‘Where was she found?’
    ‘Near Devil’s Oak. Her body was tucked away beneath
a hedge. Two boys collecting firewood found it and raised the alarm.’
    Corbett
stared at the priest. Parson Grimstone was undoubtedly nervous — his eyes puffy
with lack of sleep, hands trembling. He looked as if he hadn’t shaved and his
black gown was marked with food stains. The parson placed the lid back on the
coffin and walked over to the stone chair built into the wall. He sat down next
to his friend Adam Burghesh and put his face in his hands.
    ‘You
are very upset.’
    Sir
Hugh Corbett went to stand over him. The priest looked up and swallowed quickly.
He was frightened, not just by the terrible murders which had occurred but by
the presence of this royal emissary, with his black hair tied in a queue behind
him, the long thoughtful face tense and watchful. Corbett would have been
called swarthy except for the peculiar strikingness of his high cheekbones and
those brooding dark eyes which never seemed to blink. They stared and searched
as if eager to remember every detail. Parson Grimstone didn’t like the look of
the King’s principal clerk of the Secret Seal. Sir Hugh was dressed in a dark
grey military cloak fastened at the neck; a brown leather sleeveless jerkin
beneath, leggings of the same colour, pushed into black, mud-spattered riding
boots on which the spurs still clinked.
    Corbett
took his gauntlets off and thrust them into his sword