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belt. Yes, I’m frightened
of you, Grimstone thought. Even more so of his companion — what was his name?
Ah yes, Ranulf-atte-Newgate: tall, red-haired, dressed like his master. A fighting man despite his status as a clerk
in the Chancery of the Green Wax. Burghesh had whispered that he was
Corbett’s bullyboy. Grimstone glanced quickly at Ranulf’s white, clean-shaven
face, those lazy, heavy-lidded green eyes. He reminded Grimstone of a feral cat
which stalked the graveyard. A brooding man, Ranulf stood with his back to the
door, watching his master, who, in turn, seemed fascinated by this rib-vaulted
crypt.
    ‘A strange place to gather.’ Burghesh broke
the silence. ‘Couldn’t we have met elsewhere?’
    ‘It’s
cold,’ Robert Bellen complained.
    The
curate sat hunched in one of the chairs almost obscured by the great central
pillar which supported the roof.
    ‘The
place reeks of death.’ Walter Blidscote, the plump, red-faced, balding bailiff
of Melford shook his head so vigorously his jowls quivered: his numerous chins
pressed down against the military cloak which swaddled him like a blanket does
a baby.
    ‘A good place for justice.’ The young,
blond-haired Sir Maurice spoke up. He had thrown his cloak on to the ground and
sat slightly forward, tapping his gloves against his knee. He shuffled his feet
impatiently as if he expected the royal emissary to hold court there, and then
declare his dead father innocent.
    ‘Who
built it?’ Corbett asked. He walked round the circularshaped crypt, stooping to
look into the coffin ledges. ‘I have never seen the like of this.’
    ‘There
used to be an old Saxon church here,’ Grimstone
explained. ‘It was pulled down in the reign of the second Henry. This used to
be a burial place. They built the present church over it. The coffins are those
of the previous parsons though the practice of burying them here has now
stopped.’ He laughed abruptly. ‘I will join the rest out in the cemetery.’
    ‘Why
did you ask to meet here?’ Burghesh demanded. ‘You can see Parson Grimstone is
not well.’
    ‘For two reasons.’ Corbett sat down on a chair. He
moved an oil lamp on the ledge behind him and placed his gloves beside it. ‘As
you know, I am lodged at the Golden Fleece where, I suspect, the walls have
ears.’ He smiled with his lips though his eyes remained hard. ‘Secondly, I
wanted to view the corpse. By the way, why is that placed here and not in the
church?’
    ‘It’s
the custom,’ Grimstone sighed. ‘This is our death house. The poor girl was
found last Monday. Her corpse was brought into the church yesterday evening.
Tomorrow morning it will be placed before the rood screen. I will sing the
Requiem Mass and the burial will take place immediately afterwards.’
    ‘It’s
certainly a dour place.’
    Corbett
scratched his head. He licked dry lips. He would have preferred to be back at
the Golden Fleece. He, Ranulf and their groom, Chanson, had arrived
mid-morning, just as the church bells were tolling the Angelus. Blidscote had
been waiting in the taproom. Corbett suspected he had drunk more than was good
for him. The clerk had insisted on viewing the corpse as well as questioning
certain people more closely. He would have preferred Burghesh to be elsewhere
but Parson Grimstone was in a dither. He’d insisted that his friend accompany
him from the spacious, well-furnished priest’s house behind the church.
    ‘Why
has a King’s clerk, the keeper of the Secret Seal,’ Blidscote now spoke
carefully, trying to remove the drunken slur from his words, ‘decided to grace
this market town?’
    ‘Because the King wants it!’ Corbett
snapped. ‘Melford may be a market town, master bailiff, it’s also the haunt of
murder — brutal deaths which go back years. What is it today?’ He squinted
across the chamber. ‘The Feast of St Edward the Confessor, October the
thirteenth, the year of Our Lord 1303. Five years ago,’ he pointed across at
Sir