Angel of Death

could not fathom, but he felt that if he had the missing pieces then the puzzle would fall into place. He walked up a still-deserted Cheapside. There were only a few beggars scurrying about; a baker stood in the stocks, next to him a fishmonger. The latter had sold stale fish, a serious offence in the city, as many doctors believed it was a cause of leprosy. The fishmonger stood there, hands and head caught in the iron clasp of the stocks, whilst beneath his nose hung a rotten fish. The baker next to him looked equally doleful. A sign had also been looped round his head. It said that Thomas-atte-Criche, baker, had been found guilty of the serious crime of stealing dough. Corbett looked at the man's miserable face.
    'What did you do?' he asked, using the edge of his robe to wipe away some of the man's sweat.
    'My servant,' the man gasped. 'People brought dough into our bakery. They put it on the table. I was supposed to put it into pans for baking but I had a secret door in the table. My apprentice would sit underneath the table and remove parts of the dough. I would then bake the loaves and give them to the women who had brought me their dough. The rest I would collect, bake fresh bread and sell it.' The baker spat. 'I should not have trusted that apprentice. He turned on me.' He looked lugubriously at Corbett, his fleshy face ashen with the pain of the iron clasp round his neck. 'I must stand here till sunset.'
    Corbett nodded sympathetically and passed on; the man would not have to stand long; on a winter's day sunset would be early.
    Corbett reached Paternoster Row and went into the cathedral grounds, the gates having been opened as soon as prime was finished. At the doors, vergers were in attendance. Corbett whispered to one and was allowed up into the nave. Sconce lights had been lit in the choir sanctuary and the great candles on the high altar flared and dipped against the darkness. The stalls were already filling with the cantors for the mass, and between the choir and the steps of the sanctuary stood de Montfort's coffin. Corbett walked up and studied it; made of polished pinewood, it rested on crimson-draped trestles. On each side of the coffin, purple candles flickered in black wrought-iron candlesticks. Someone had placed a flower on the coffin-lid. Corbett looked around and glimpsed in the far corner, near where she had stood before, the woman he had last seen on the day de Montfort died. There were a few other people, mostly mere spectators, stark proof that the dead man had had few friends. Corbett was about to go across to the woman but she suddenly turned on her heel and walked quickly down the nave. Corbett watched her go and, leaning against a pillar, waited for mass to commence.
    At last the Requiem began. Like the mass Corbett had attended with the king many days earlier, it was celebrated by five or six canons, the main celebrant being Sir Philip Plumpton. Corbett had to refrain from smiling, Plumpton had hated the dead man, yet here he was interceding before God for de Montfort's soul. The requiems were sung, the coffin blessed, incensed and taken out into the graveyard on the shoulders of six stout men, preceded by vergers and servants of the cathedral, bearing banners depicting the Virgin Mary, St George and St Paul. These three standard-bearers walked ahead of Plumpton, followed by other canons and a group of young boys, all dressed in white, bearing tapers. The coffin was surrounded by torch bearers, fifty-six in number, each representing a year of the deceased man's life. The bier, now covered with cosdy cloths of gold, was followed by a group of ladies sobbing loudly, all dressed completely in black with lace veils over their heads. Corbett dismissed them with a supercilious glance as professional mourners. He had no time for people who profited from the dead. He watched as the long sorrowful procession wound its way out of the cathedral to a far corner in the grounds, where a fresh mound of earth denoted de Montfort's last resting-place.
    Corbett stood by the door hearing faintly the mumblings of Plumpton as once again he asked God to take his beloved servant, Walter de Montfort, into his safe-keeping. The body was lowered into the ground, Corbett heard the clumps of earth falling on the wooden coffin-lid and the procession came back into the cathedral. Corbett sensed the mourners' relief that it was all over. The door closed and from outside Corbett heard the faint clatter of the spades