Satan in St Mary

fortified gate and mass of London Bridge rising ahead of them. They did not approach the bridge but turned off down an alleyway which led to the river where they secured passage on a boat to Westminster. Corbett was not looking forward to the coming interview with the Chancellor and wished he could go back to The Mitre, the soft, calming embrace of Alice's body and be done with this matter once and for all.
    Yet, like a man in a dream, he left the boat when it docked and followed the well-worn path to the Great Hall, envying the clerks writing quietly in their stalls or scurrying about on some important business. He reached Burnell's room and, taking a deep breath, asked the clerk outside to announce him. The man went ahead but returned followed by the pompous Hubert, who dismissed Ranulf with almost a girlish flicker of his eyes and thrust a leather chancery pouch into his hands. "The Lord Chancellor has had to leave, " he loudly proclaimed. "He has gone to join the King at Oxford. He asked me to leave you this and, " he extended a sealed writ, "these orders. "
    Hubert glared at Corbett. "Well, " he snapped. "Aren't you going to open the letters?"
    Corbett smiled, realizing that Hubert did not know what was in the document and was probably dying with curiosity to find out. "No, " Corbett replied slowly. "The Lord Chancellor gave me specific instructions not to open these in the presence of any junior clerk!" He then turned away and walked down the Great Hall, Ranulf trotting behind, with Hubert rooted to the spot, looking as if he was suffering from an attack of apoplexy. As he walked, Corbett opened the writ and found that it was simply a licence to reside in the Tower and have the right to leave and enter whenever he wished.
    Ranulf, walking behind, quietly groaned at the weight of the saddlebags, tired of the aimless walking about and wondering where he would spend the night. He wished, despite the crossbow bolts, that he could go back to Thames Street. He thought of the lady of the house and almost groaned with pleasure. She was sulky and arrogant but he had seen the way she had looked at him and knew he could possess her. She might be a grand merchant's wife with her swaying hips and gartered hose but, on a feather bed with those legs about him, he would make her happy. Yet, not now and he almost cried when he followed his inscrutable master into the boat and instructed the oarsman to take them to the Tower Wharf.
    Despite his mood, Ranulf decided to enjoy the journey, exchanging ribald insults with the boatman while Corbett sat and stared moodily into the water. The boat passed the Baynards Castle, the Steelyard and other craft, long and small, still making their way along the river. Eventually, the boat sped under London's house-laden bridge with its nineteen arches each protected by starlings, wooden boat-like structures which prevented boats crushing into the hard stone arches. Then on, past Botolph's Wharf,
    Billingsgate and the Wool Quarry until they berthed under the soaring stone mass of the Tower.
    The formidable rings of walls, fortresses and towers dominated the south-east corner of the capital and overawed both Ranulf and Corbett as they crossed the moat and went through successive towers, many of them in the process of being redeveloped, into the inner ward which surrounded the four-square, central donjon or White Tower. Corbett and Ranulf were challenged as they approached each gateway but, on producing Burnell's writ, Corbett and his companion were allowed to proceed. In the inner ward, a burly Yorkshireman, a serjeant from the garrison, told them to stay, while he went looking for the Constable, Sir Edward Swynnerton. He was gone a while, leaving both men in the freezing cold to stare about them and take in their surroundings.
    The bailey round the White Tower was quiet though Corbett could see that the building operations in the Tower would begin again in the spring. Bricks were stacked round the huge kilns where they were made, sand and gravel were strewn across the ground and huge oaken beams lay in lop-sided heaps. The Tower was almost a small town in itself. Rows of wooden stables, a pigeon loft, open-fronted kitchens, barns and hen coops all huddled together round the walls. There was a small, bare tree orchard in one far corner and the wood and plaster houses of the officers of the Tower in another near the main entrance. Corbett moved across to where Ranulf was staring at a derelict