Satan in St Mary

never seen him before, though he guessed that the man was an ex-soldier turned professional murderer. He felt nauseous at his escape, sheathed his dagger and, leaving the corpse for the scavengers, continued warily to his lodgings.
    His banging awoke his sullen landlord, who looked surprised when Corbett demanded a jug of wine and a cup, and brought them without demur. Corbett grabbed them, muttered his thanks and climbed the stairs to his garret. There, he sat on his bed and poured himself a generous cupful of the wine but only drank when he was certain his trembling had ceased. He considered the danger he had just come through, recognizing that the attack was planned and wondering who had the resources to mount it. Corbett sat, chin in hand, his tired brain going round and round like a stupid dog chasing his tail. Burnell was wrong.
    Corbett felt out of his depth in the murky, treacherous depths of city politics. This was not the Chancery, white-walled clean-smelling redolent of wax, ink and freshly scraped vellum with everything neatly filed and ordered. He knew that world and was at home in it. Now, he was out of his depth even with Alice. He was still deeply attracted to her but even there he felt something was wrong, threatening, though did not know what. He needed someone to rely on, someone to protect his back, someone to lead him safely through the maze of the city's underworld.
    The next morning Corbett, refreshed, turned once more to the problem, but it was not until early in the afternoon that an idea had formed in his mind. He returned once more to Westminster and sought an urgent audience with Burnell. The Chancellor was preparing to travel to meet the King at his palace of Woodstock, outside Oxford. The carriage and carts were being organized and marshalled in the palace courtyard and, though on the point of departure, the Chancellor stayed to hear Corbett's request and, despite his puzzlement, immediately granted it. A clerk was called, the required letter was written out, hot wax poured on it, the Chancellor even had his own seal brought back to validate the document and so silence any questions it may provoke. Corbett then bowed, muttered his thanks, and, after requisitioning a horse from the palace stables, rode north along Fleet Street to Newgate Prison
    The prison was really a collection of buildings, small towers along the old city walls bounded by the odiferous city ditch. Their overall command was under the nominal custody of a keeper and other officials often no better and sometimes much worse than the prisoners within. In theory, the city granted money and alms towards the upkeep of the prisoners but in actual practice, very little of this money reached the inmates. Not that any of them were there long enough to experience the people's generosity. Justice was swift and the phrase 'tried on Wednesday, hanged on Thursday' was correct. The prison was divided into debtors, aliens and felons. The latter experienced the worst conditions, cramped, two or three to a cell, or the many pits beneath ground. Every week these pits were emptied, the prisoners drawn up, shackled and put into carts to be taken to The Elms or Smithfield to be hanged.
    The prison officials were engaged in just such an exercise when Corbett arrived. The carts were already half full, the greasy, black-garbed gaolers impatient to be off. The prisoners, young and old, stood like stunned oxen, listless, dirty, frightened, yet eager to get on, to be through with the nightmare and so be done with it. Corbett immediately used his warrant from Burnell to halt the proceedings while he walked amongst them, a living man amongst the dead. He looked at their faces, the evil, the bland, the good, the innocent and, above all, the young. He felt a terrible compassion for them all and used his influence to get the young taken back to the cells, abruptly informing the keepers that the Chancellor himself would review their cases. Then he continued his scrutiny until he found the person he was looking for, a youth of about sixteen or seventeen summers, black tousled hair, with a filthy face and clothes, though there was a mark of defiance and sardonic amusement in the clear blue eyes.
    "What is your name?" Corbett asked.
    "Ranulf. And what is yours?" came the quick reply. The voice was sharp with a city accent.

"I am Hugh Corbett, Clerk in the Court of the King's Bench and I may have a pardon for you!" The blue eyes shifted and the boy turned