Angel of Death

decorated with a death's-head and grinning skulls, came up and rang a bell, proclaiming in a booming voice, 'Good people, of your charity, pray, for the soul of our dear brother, Robert Hinckley, who departed this life at nine o' clock last evening.'
    The people round Corbett murmured a prayer and the death crier passed on. Corbett decided to dally amongst the stalls. Perhaps he could pick up something, a gift for Maeve, from the woollen caps, laces, ribbons, fringes of silk, thread, twine, silk, laces of gold, rings of copper, candlesticks, ewers, brushes, iron, – anything that she might find useful. He bought a small brooch, in the form of a cross with a dragon twisted round it, made out of hammered gold and attached to a fine silk-like chain. Corbett placed this carefully in his pouch, keeping his hand over it, for the place swarmed with cutpurses and pick-pockets also intent on making up any losses they had suffered during the heavy snowfall.
    Feeling hungry, he and Ranulf headed for a tavern. Inside, it was dank but warm and rather musty with a fire blazing in the huge grate in the far wall. Corbett, ignoring the evil-smelling rushes, chose a table far away from the other revellers, a group of dicers and a young woman who already looked far gone in her cups. The landlord, a stocky fellow with an apron tied round his waist, came up, his greasy hands held out in welcome. He offered sweet wines from Cyprus and Sicily but Corbett simply ordered two plates of meat and ale, warmed and heavily spiced.
    While they were eating Corbett nudged Ranulf. 'This morning, in the cathedral, did you learn anything I may have missed?'
    His servant shook his head and stuck his nose back in the tankard.
    'You are sure?' Corbett persisted.
    Ranulf deliberated, enjoying this rare moment. Corbett asking for his advice.
    'There was one thing,' he said slowly. 'What was that?'
    'At the altar,' Ranulf used the plates and tankards on the table as symbols, 'De Montfort stood in the centre?' -'Yes,' Corbett replied impatiently.
    'The two, one on each side. They would have stood close?'
    Corbett nodded.
    'Then it is possible,' Ranulf said, 'for one of them, or both, to place the poison in the chalice when it was returned?'
    Corbett grimaced. 'True. But still there is the great mystery, what Blaskett called the conundrum. What happened to the poisoned wine? When I examined the chalice, the wine was untainted and there was no smell to it at all.' Corbett still felt there was something just outside his grasp, something he had seen on that altar and it nagged at him now.
    He put down the tankard and leaned back on his stool against the wall. There was something wrong. He remembered the wine drops on the floor and the other drops which smelt of the poison on the altar frontal. Someone must have changed cups. But how had it been done? Surely, there were not two chalices? He had established that. He rose, tossed a few coins at the tavern-keeper and left, bidding Ranulf to take care of himself while he slowly walked back to his lodgings. There, having lit a candle and brought out his writing tray and scraps of parchment, Corbett began to list what he knew so far.
    Item De Montfort had been poisoned during mass.
    Item De Montfort was a man with a secret and private life.
    There were few details known about him except his liaison with the strange woman who had been seen on the edge of the sanctuary the day the priest had died.
    Item De Montfort was disliked by most of his colleagues and seemed to have no friends.
    Item De Montfort was supposed to give a sermon after the mass denouncing royal taxation. Instead, Edward had bribed him to give a speech confirming the king's right to tax the church.
    Item If de Montfort was poisoned, how?
    Item Why was it only de Montfort (who only drank from the chalice) killed yet not any of the priests celebrating mass with him?
    Item If de Montfort was poisoned from the chalice, what had happened to the poisoned wine?
    Item There could have been two cups. But who exchanged them and when? Was it possible that an exact replica had been made?
    The next morning Corbett rose early. He did not bother to call on Ranulf but, dressing in his best robes, made his way out into the streets. Plumpton had told him that de Montfort's funeral mass was to be held at eleven that morning. Corbett made his way slowly back to the cathedral, the problems he had listed the night before still ringing in his head. This was a mystery, one he