Song of a Dark Angel

had been to his master. The messenger paced up and down, clapping his hands, muttering they should immediately go back to London. Ranulf roared at him to shut up and sit down, or he'd brain him with a stool!
    'Who did it, Master?' Maltote asked.
    Corbett shook his head and described his visit to the Hermitage.
    'All I remember is the smell of perfume and that piece of wood coming down at me. The next moment I was on the beach. How did you find me, Ranulf?'
    'You told me to go there, Master.'
    Corbett closed his eyes and put his head back on the bolster.
    'Tell me about it.'
    'I rode further along the beach,' Ranulf answered. 'What a God-forsaken place it is, Master. I have seen enough seagulls to last me all the days of my life.'
    'But what did you find?' Corbett asked testily.
    'A small skiff or boat pulled high on the beach,' Ranulf answered. 'There's also a path, one of those sandy tracks leading up to the cliff top. I went up this. Something happens there, the place is used. I went back down. I examined the boat, nothing remarkable except one thing. The boat's seaworthy but, I am sure, in the stern, was a dark patch which looked like blood.' Ranulf shrugged. 'Though it could be something else. I then rode further along but I didn't like the look of the sea, angry and swollen. I rode back. I panicked myself because the faster I galloped, the sea seemed to be racing me. I intended to go up the path leading to the Hermitage.' Ranulf pulled a face. 'Then I saw you running.' He paused at a knock on the door and Selditch came in.
    'Sir Hugh,' he stammered, his fingers clutching at his large, protuberant belly. 'Is there anything I can do?' He waved his ink-stained fingers in the air like an old woman.
    'No, no,' Corbett answered quickly before Ranulf could reply. 'Master Selditch, I feel well and I thank you.'
    The physician disappeared.
    'I wouldn't trust him!' Ranulf snarled. He sniffed the air. 'He wears some sort of perfume, Master, as does the Lady Alice.'
    Corbett stared at the door and grinned at Ranulf. 'Thank God you came!'
    His manservant shrugged. 'Looking back, you would have probably reached the path in time. Your thick skull saved you. The murderer, God damn him or her, never counted on your regaining consciousness.'
    Corbett plucked at a loose thread in one of the blankets.
    'If you hadn't come, Ranulf, whatever you say, I would have drowned. You are not to tell the Lady Maeve.' Corbett stared across the room. 'I studied at Oxford, I became a clerk in the royal service. Sometimes I feel like a busy spider spinning webs or destroying those others weave. Yet, I admit, I don't understand human nature. What would my death have achieved? What would it profit to make Maeve a widow? And my child fatherless? The king himself would come here or send someone else and so it would go on until the matter was resolved.' Corbett rubbed his face. 'Perhaps I should hand over my seals! Say the day is done and go back to my manor house?'
    Ranulf hid his alarm and studied his master. In many ways he knew Corbett was right. Old Master Long Face was a chess player and very good at it, but in the hurly-burly of the narrow streets he was an innocent.
    'If you went, Master,' Ranulf replied slowly, 'the only difference would be that more murderers would walk away, wiping their lips and proclaiming their innocence.' He half-smiled. 'Leighton Manor may be quiet, Sir Hugh, but so is the graveyard.'
    Corbett touched the top of his bruised head gingerly and winced.
    'The shrewd voice of the common man,' he murmured.
    'When you fall into the gutter, Master, you have to be as cunning and as crafty as those you hunt.'
    Corbett looked at him sharply. 'What do you mean, Ranulf?'
    'Well, take our fat physician friend. Or Sir Simon Gurney.. What happened when some of King John's treasure was found?'
    'They sold it.'
    Ranulf sat on the edge of the bed.
    'And what do you think would happen, Master, if they found the rest?'
    Corbett narrowed his eyes. 'Are you saying they're searching for it?'
    'Well, they know about the secret of the treasure. Don't you think they would like to find it?'
    'But if they did and failed to inform the king, that would be felony, even treason.'
    'Oh, of course, they'd inform the king,' Ranulf replied. 'And, according to the law, demand their portion. What is it, a quarter of any treasure trove? Now Sir Simon, his wife and physician may be innocent and as white as the driven snow. They may have no hand in these