Crown in Darkness

noisily barking, wandered in from the courtyard and were busy sniffing amongst the rubbish. Erceldoun rose and looked down at Corbett. 'I must go,' he said. 'There are duties to be carried out.' He nodded at Corbett and walked out of the hall.
    The English clerk watched him go and realised that he, too, must return to the abbey. There was so much he had learnt, so many facts, so many happenings. His legs and back ached, he needed the quiet, clean, pure atmosphere of the monastery to settle his mind and probe all he had learnt. He gathered his cloak and entered the bailey, a calmer place than the previous day. He drew water from the well, splashed his hands and face and left the castle, a lonely, weary figure totally ignored by every one. Outside he stopped and realised that he would have to make his own way back. He remembered the dagger thrown during the banquet and decided it would be safer to return through the crowded town than venture into the marshy wooded countryside. He knew the way vaguely from the journey the night before and the careful directions given to him by the Prior.
    Corbett trudged down the beaten, muddy track; the sky was overcast and a light rain began to fall. A passing cart rolled by splattering him with mud and Corbett quietly cursed Burnell for sending him here. He reached the town and entered the Lawnmarket; there was a crowd gathered watching some wretch being dragged by horses across the open space to a waiting scaffold. The man, bound hand and foot, was pinioned to a sheet of hard-boiled leather, which the two horses pulled across the mud: the man screamed as the hard ground battered his naked back, while he had to endure the taunts and filth hurled by the onlookers, the strictures of the city officials and the droning monotony of the praying priest. Corbett did not stay but pushed through the throng of people and walked on. He kept to the centre of the street away from the rubbish which littered the entrances and walks of the miserable timbered houses. The shops and stalls were open for business: a cart bearing a ragged, crudely-drawn banner was used as a stage by a troupe of actors shouting words that Corbett could not understand. Shopkeepers bawled and yelled at him. "Hot sheeps' feet!" "Ribs of beef!" Greasy hands clawed at his arms but he pushed them off. The smell of fresh bread from a bakery made him hungry but he did not stop.
    Corbett was tired, depressed: the passing sights caught his eye: a dog, one leg shorter than the rest, sniffing at the bloated body of a rat: a cat running by, his mouth stuffed with baby mice, a beggar, white-eyed and sore-ridden, shrieking at young boys who were pissing over him. Corbett remembered the teachings of Augustine, "Sin is the breakdown of all relationships". If that was so, Corbett thought, then sin was all around him. Here in these dirty streets, a lonely English clerk: his wife and child dead, years gone: the only woman he had ever loved since, a convicted murderer and traitor, consumed by fire at Smithfield in London. Now, here alone amidst strangers who sought his death. He thought of Ranulf, his body-servant, and wished he was here, not sick with the fever, miles away in some English monastery.
    He passed the church of St. Giles, turned into another winding street and almost walked into the two figures standing there. Corbett muttered an apology and stepped to one side. One of the men moved to block his path. 'Comme зa va, Monsieur?' 'Qu'est ce que ce?' Corbett spontaneously replied, then repeated, 'What is the matter? I don't speak French. Get out of my way!' 'No, Monsieur,' the man replied in perfect English. 'You are in our way. Come! We wish to talk to you.' 'Go and be hanged!' Corbett muttered and tried to go on. 'Monsieur. There are two of us and two more behind you. We mean you no harm.' The Frenchman turned and beckoned with his hand. 'Come, Monsieur. We will not keep you. We will not harm you. Come!' Corbett looked at the two well-fed, thick-set men, and, hearing a slight sound behind him, knew there were more. 'I come,' he grimaced. The men led him down an alleyway, stinking from dog urine and heaps of excrement. They stopped outside a small house, single-storeyed, one window beneath its dripping, soggy thatch roof, and a battered ale-stake jutting out from beneath the eaves.
    There was one dank, damp room inside with an earth-beaten floor, two small trestle tables and a collection of rough stools fashioned out of old barrels.