Sir Hugh Corbett 11 - The Demon Archer

didn’t wait for Corbett to take it but went to the door and brought the clapper down with a resounding crash. Corbett looked up at the windows. He suspected the ladies inside hadn’t even risen for the day. As Ranulf had caustically pointed out, they worked so late at night. Ranulf was now enjoying himself, bringing the clapper up and down until a voice shrieked: ‘We have heard! We have heard!’
    There was a sound of locks being turned, bolts being drawn. The door swung open. A tall, greyhaired woman, a fur-lined gown over her shoulders, peered out heavy-eyed at them.
    ‘The Dulcis Domus,’ she told them, ‘is closed until dusk.’
    ‘Oh, is that what you call it?’ Corbett pushed the door aside. ‘The House of Sweetness! And you must be Roheisia Blancard?’
    ‘If you are sheriff’s men,’ Roheisia answered, glaring at the little official behind Corbett, ‘we have paid our dues, as members of the corporation who visit here could attest!’
    Corbett surveyed the passageway, quietly marvelling at the comfortable opulence. The air was fragrant with beeswax candles, pots of herbs and the savoury smells of cooking. The paved floor was covered with woollen rugs; the wooden linen-panelling gleamed like bronze.
    ‘Roheisia Blancard?’ he said quietly.
    ‘Yes, and you?’
    ‘I am the King’s clerk, Sir Hugh Corbett. This is Ranulf. I think you know the gentleman who accompanied us.’ Corbett tapped the sheriff’s man gently on the shoulder. ‘Now you may leave.’
    Ranulf almost pushed the protesting official out of the door back into the street. He closed it and pulled across the bolts.
    ‘Now, madam.’ Corbett walked closer. ‘I carry the King’s warrant. I want the truth from you. Or I’ll send to Arundel Castle , have you all placed in carts and transported to London for questioning.’
    ‘There’s no need to threaten.’
    ‘I am not threatening, madam. I’m promising. Françoise is dead, murdered in Ashdown Forest .’
    ‘I see. I see,’ Roheisia said. ‘Then you’d best come with me.’
    She led them off the passageway into a small parlour, a well-furnished room. The fire in the grate had already been lit. On the walls hung gaudy paintings, garish, not well done but purporting to show scenes from the Old Testament and the classics. They all had one motif in common: plump young wenches in various stages of undress. Roheisia pushed two chairs up in front of the fire while she sat on a bench alongside the wall.
    ‘Do you want something to eat or drink?’ she mumbled, clawing her grey hair away from her face.
    ‘No, madam, just the truth and the quicker the better.’
    ‘Françoise came from Abbeville,’ she began. She fought back the tears and lifted her face. ‘She had been mistress to a nobleman who turned her out so Françoise stole a considerable part of his treasure and fled to Rye.’ She shrugged. ‘Like is drawn to like. I met her and we decided to share our resources. We bought this house and keep it well stocked with plump, fair flesh.’
    ‘And why did Françoise leave?’
    ‘I don’t know.’ She saw the warning look in Corbett’s face. ‘Truly, sir, I don’t. A month ago, she took a horse from the stables, filled some saddlebags and said she would be away for two or three days but she’d come back a wealthy woman. Now, you can take me to London , you can burn and tear my flesh but that’s all I know.’ She leaned back against the panelling and looked up at the ceiling. ‘How did she die?’
    ‘An arrow to the throat. Her corpse was stripped and buried in a shallow grave. We suspect she was disguised as a man.’
    Roheisia laughed deep in her throat. ‘That’s the way Françoise always dressed when she travelled.’ Her eyes became wary. ‘Françoise, how can I put it, she did not like men though she liked to act the part herself. She could swagger and curse with the best of them. If she was in Ashdown then she must have been travelling to see Lord Henry Fitzalan.’
    ‘Do you know he’s dead as well? Killed by an arrow?’
    The woman looked startled.
    ‘No, no, I did not.’
    ‘It will become common knowledge soon enough. But what makes you think she was visiting Lord Henry?’
    ‘Because he always visits us and he’s the only person in Ashdown Françoise knew.’
    ‘Lord Henry often came here?’
    ‘Oh, a true cock of the walk our manor lord.’ Roheisia grinned. ‘But, before you ask, Françoise shared her bed with no man. She entertained