Crown in Darkness

analysed the events surrounding King Alexander's death, the more certain he became it was murder. But by whom? And how? Corbett felt hemmed in by the sheer frustration of the task assigned him. He gave Ranulf a brief description of what had happened but his servant, with a keen sense of survival, immediately tried to link events to the men who had attempted to attack them on the road from Leith. Ranulf believed the French were responsible; Corbett at first agreed, but then queried why they had waited so long and privately concluded that the attackers were from Lord Bruce's retinue.
    The days passed, the monks celebrated the Feast of Midsummer, the beheading of St. John the Baptist. Corbett attended the solemn High Mass in the Abbey church watching the celebrants in their blood-red and gold robes moving like figures in a dream amidst the constant plumes of fragrant incense. The melodious chant of the monks intoning the psalm caught his ear, "Exsurge Domine, Exsurge et vindica causam meam" – "Arise, O Lord, arise, and judge my cause". Corbett closed his eyes and made his own prayer, sending it up into the void. Did God really care that the Lord's Anointed, blessed with royal oils on hands, feet and brow, the descendant of St. Margaret with the blood of Edward the Confessor in his veins, had been destroyed, brought low, murdered, tossed off the top of a cliff like a spent leaf blown in the wind? Corbett realised the dangers of what was happening, he was becoming obsessed with this matter as he did with anything he could not solve, rationalise, arrange in neat columns. He must make some progress, he thought, impose some order on the chaos which faced him or Burnell would not need to order his departure from Scotland. He would leave of his own accord and accept the consequences.
    Therefore Corbett was relieved when, five days after his departure, the Prior's courier returned bearing an oral message. 'Thomas of Learmouth would only be too pleased to receive Hugh Corbett, clerk to the royal chancery of England.' 'Oh,' the Prior added almost as an afterthought, 'the courier also brought a personal message from Thomas.' 'What do you mean?' Corbett enquired. 'I have never met him and we know nothing of each other!' The Prior shrugged. 'It was nothing, just – "Tell Hugh that the pain Alice caused will disappear in time".' The Prior scrutinised Corbett's surprised face. 'What does it mean, Hugh? Who is Alice?' Corbett just shook his head and slowly walked away. He thought of Alice, beautiful Alice atte Bowe, the leader of a coven in London which had plotted against the King. He, Corbett, had destroyed the conspiracy and sent Alice to the fires at Smithfield. The very mention of her name awoke old pains; it was only much later on that he began to wonder how Thomas knew about Alice atte Bowe.
    The next day, with a lay brother as a guide, Corbett and Ranulf left the abbey and journeyed south. The weather had changed; summer in its glorious profusion of colours had transformed the land that Corbett had travelled through a few weeks before. A blue sky with white lacy clouds, green, blue-dashed moors and grasslands, the hills strewn with wild flowers of many colours and different hues. It was wild countryside, steep hills and grassy plateaux, scarred and gashed by steel-grey rocks and rapid, frothing rivers which tumbled down the hillside. The lay brother, a simple soul, could name the flowers, the different varieties of heather and the birds which wheeled and soared with joy above them: he also taught Ranulf a song in broad Scots about the dangers of being a young girl alone on the moors with a young gallant. The song and their laughter were so infectious that Corbett joined in. They travelled for days and on the third entered the Lauderdale valley. The lay brother pointed below to the rounded ivy-covered tower, the centre of a small peel-castle nestling on the banks of the Lauder River. 'Thomas the Rhymer's castle,' he commented. 'Come. Let us go down.'
    As they approached, Corbett realised the fortifications of Earlston were a square tower of pleasing proportions within a stockade or peel which Corbett had seen many times on his journeys into Scotland. It was surrounded by a moat spanned by a fragile bridge which they cantered across as quickly as possible into a dusty courtyard. This was small, containing a deep draw-well, stable, byre and storehouses, the latter no more than lean-to erections of timber plastered with clay. A