Angel of Death

the Chancery, until Maeve arrived, and continue the work he did there every day, instead of walking in the sewer of human ambitions, greed, lechery and murder which surrounded de Montfort's death. Eventually, tired and weary, Corbett removed his boots and lay on his bed. He looked up into the darkness and waited for his servant to return, pretending to be asleep when Ranulf lifted the latch to his chamber and stealthily entered. His servant, taking a cloak from a bench, placed it carefully over his master and, extinguishing the candle, tiptoed out. Corbett smiled ruefully. He knew Ranulf and Ranulf knew him. His servant would know his master would never fall asleep with the candle lit but they both pretended. Corbett wondered how much more of his life would be pretence. Would it always go on like this? At last, his mind tired of whirling round, chasing shadows, dredging up memories, fell into an uneasy sleep.
    The next morning Corbett, regretting his idleness of the previous day, rose and busied himself. Ranulf was roused and sent to Westminster with two letters: the first to the king; the second, Corbett hoped a royal messenger would deliver to Maeve, some time over the next few weeks. He instructed Ranulf to meet him at The Standard in Cheapside and, as his servant ran down the stairs, Corbett condnued with his other tasks. There were provisions to be bought, matters to be dealt with. Finally, having dressed and armed himself, he wrapped a heavy, military cloak around him, went downstairs and out into Bread Street.
    The city was still covered with a thick mist which made the figures he passed seem like phantasms from a dream. Underfoot, the ground was now slippery and ice-hard. Corbett stayed in the middle of the street and tried to avoid the hard-packed snow which was still falling off the roofs, whilst making every attempt not to slip into the sewer which ran down the middle. Corbett soon found walking was now a very dangerous occupation. He stopped to help a fat-bottomed mercer's wife who had slipped onto her backside, a look of absolute amazement on her face. She would have sat there for the whole day, being taunted by urchins, had Corbett not come to help her. He strolled onto Cheapside and, turning right, entered the church of St Mary-le-Bow.
    Corbett remembered the church when its doors and windows had been covered up with briars and the main gate barred. The whole place was excommunicated by the Archbishop of Canterbury, because it had been the headquarters of a satanic coven plotting against the king. Corbett recalled all this as he entered the church, fleetingly remembering Alice who had led the coven and with whom he had become deeply infatuated. He thought of her dark face and secretive eyes, realizing with a pang how the passage of years had still not really healed that wound. Now, however, St Mary's was different: clean, freshly painted, with new rectors installed and the school there recognized. It was now Corbett's parish church. In fact, he belonged to its fraternity of Corpus Christi, a society including aldermen, mercers, merchants and tradesmen, who had joined together for social and religious reasons. Corbett paid money every year for a chancery priest to sing masses for the repose of the souls of his wife and child and, though they did not know it, for the soul of Alice-atte-Bow, the leader of the satanic coven.
    Corbett chatted to the priest, ensured all was well and became involved in a brief debate with one of the aldermen of the ward. London was divided into wards; it had twelve such, each with an alderman who supervized most of the secular and religious affairs in his quarter. Each person living there had to pay a tax. Corbett, although he could well afford it, had always resisted this because, by royal ordinance, clerks, together with knights and squires, were exempted from the levy. The alderman, however, was now insisting Corbett should pay for Ranulf; but the clerk evaded the issue claiming that because Ranulf was an apprentice-at-law he should also be excluded from this local tax. The alderman regretfully agreed. Corbett, however, failed to add that Ranulf s knowledge of the law was honoured more in the breach than in its observance. He also neglected to mention Ranulf s new addition to the ward.

13
    As he moved from St Mary-le-Bow down Cheapside into Poultry, Corbett realized the city was at last trying to reassert itself against the inclement weather. The courts had certainly been