Sir Hugh Corbett 11 - The Demon Archer

been placed there along with pure white lilies. Malvoisin could apparently stand it no longer. Standing by themselves , he’d turned and whispered, ‘Not an infection of the lung.’
    ‘What?’ Cantrone had asked.
    ‘Not an infection of the lung,’ Malvoisin had repeated, keeping his voice low, speaking out of the corner of his mouth, eyes glittering, rubicund face flushed with wine. ‘She was poisoned.’
    Cantrone had gone cold but Malvoisin, cunning as ever, had chosen his moment.
    ‘You know that I speak the truth.’
    His watery eyes had held those of Cantrone and the Italian physician had given way to the doubts seething within him. Afterwards, when the church was empty and the incense hung like a forgotten prayer, curling up towards the stone ceiling, Cantrone had taken Malvoisin aside.
    ‘If you repeat what you said,’ he whispered, ‘it’s the scaffold for both of us!’
    Malvoisin, now sobering up, had glanced nervously around.
    ‘My duties are finished now,’ he’d declared. ‘I have had enough. It’s time for peace, a little quiet.’
    Malvoisin had resigned his post in the household. The general expectation was that Cantrone would seek the vacant preferment, but the Italian had studied intrigue as well as physic. He had noticed the men who had followed him to a tavern or stood outside his house when darkness fell. Cantrone knew the signs like a good physician should. He’d packed his coffers and fled in the dead of night. First to Italy and then, by sea, to the English-held city of Bordeaux . Even there he had felt hunted; he was looking further afield when he had met Lord Henry Fitzalan. The English milord needed a physician and, impressed by Cantrone’s skill, had offered him a place in his household. Cantrone had quickly accepted. Weeks turned into months. Cantrone discovered Fitzalan was high in the English court, a trusted envoy to France . So, to make his own position more secure, Cantrone had revealed his own dark secrets. Lord Henry Fitzalan seemed delighted. Cantrone had come to trust him, the only person he had ever done in his long, suspicion-laden life. Fitzalan had used those secrets against the French, hinting at what he knew both at meetings and in letters.
    Cantrone reined in his horse and raised his eyes to the interlacing branches above.
    ‘I was a fool,’ he muttered, ‘to put my trust in him!’
    Lord Henry had sworn that Cantrone would never have to accompany him to France . However, in the confusion following Fitzalan’s death, Cantrone had discovered that, although Lord Henry had given his solemn word, when he reached Rye , Cantrone would not have received sweet kisses and embraces of farewell. Instead he would have been bundled aboard some ship and handed over to the French. In return for what? More influence? More power? A bag of gold? Cantrone dug his heels in and the gentle cob ambled on. How could Lord Henry betray him when he had done so much?
    Now Lord Henry was gone and Sir William? A blunt, naive young man, it was he who had unwittingly revealed that when they reached Rye , Cantrone would not have returned to Ashdown Manor. Did Sir William know the dark secret? Would he offer him protection? Cantrone shook his head. He doubted it. Sir William was more interested in clearing every vestige of his brother from his manor. Household retainers, servants, even grooms were being told to seek employment elsewhere.
    Cantrone had kept well away from Seigneur Amaury de Craon but, on one occasion, he had caught the French envoy studying him; those cunning eyes had smiled and Cantrone had glimpsed more danger there than in a chamber full of horrors.
    Cantrone breathed in then wrinkled his nose at the smell of rotting vegetation. He had been unable to find Lord Henry’s Book of Hours, which was the Place where he kept all his secrets, but Cantrone had turned, like the snake he was, striking hard and fast, using the information he himself had discovered to earn more gold. He would return to Ashdown, collect his valuables and be away before nightfall, hide in one of the Channel ports and perhaps go north to Flanders , Hainault or even to the Baltic and German states.
    Cantrone could have hugged himself. A simple sentence and he had provoked such suspicion and laughter in Lord Henry’s soul, one thing had followed another. Now he had the means to leave!
    A sound just to his right made him rein in his horse. He peered among the trees. He was in no danger here. The