Spy in Chancery

acquaintanceship backed by royal letters and warrants would ensure a welcome. He was not disappointed: an ancient, ever-smiling, lay brother ushered them into an austere guest room, served them with stoups of ale and muttered that the Prior would join them as soon as Vespers ended. He then sat opposite them, smiling and nodding, as Corbett and Ranulf drank the ale.
    Eventually, as the priory bells boomed out, the Prior bustled in, he embraced Corbett, clasped Ranulf's hand and speedily agreed they could stay. Two small cells were provided, their walls still gleaming from fresh coats of lime whitewash. Both men bathed, sharing a huge tub or vat in the monastery laundry room and, after changing their soaked, salt-encrusted cloaks, went down to the rectory.
    Afterwards, Ranulf decided to wander in the monastery grounds catching as he said in crude mimicry of Corbett, the best of the evening breezes and, openly ignoring Corbett's order to see to their belongings, sauntered off. Corbett glared at his retreating back, sighed and made his way down to the chapel. It was dark and cool, the dusk only just kept at bay by huge candelabra whose pure flames sent the shadows moving like ghostly dancers. At the far end of the sanctuary behind the carved chancel screen, the monks were standing in their stalls chanting Compline, their words rolling like distant thunder, echoing the pure notes of the leading cantor.
    Corbett squatted in the nave at the base of a huge rounded pillar and let his mind be caught and soothed by the rhythmic singing. He heard the cantor's 'Dixi in excessu Meo, omоtes homines Mendaces'-'I said in my excess all men are liars', Corbett ignored the deep-throated response of the monks. Were all men, he wondered, liars? Were all women? Was Maeve? He felt the bittersweet sense of her loss clutch his heart. Would he see her again? Would she remember him, or let the memories seep away like water in the sand? The monks intoned the paean of praise which marked the end of their office: 'Gloria Patri, Filio et Spiritu Sancto'. He sighed, rose, stretched his cramped muscles and walked through the cloisters to his cell.
    There, he took his writing case and penned a swift letter to Maeve which he hoped the Prior would give to some trader, pedlar or fisherman. Corbett sealed it with a blob of red wax, realising it would take weeks, if ever, before it reached Neath.
    Then, quickly he scratched down the conclusions he had learnt:
    Item – There was a traitor on Edward's council.
    Item – The traitor was corresponding with the French and, possibly, traitors in Wales.
    Item – This treachery had begun after the Earl of Richmond's disastrous expedition which had lost England the Duchy of Gascony.
    Item – Waterton the clerk: his mother was French, his father a rebel against the King: he lived beyond his means, was courted by the French and secretly met Philip IV's spy-master. He was a former clerk in Richmond's household and also seemed to have some connection with Lord Morgan of Neath.
    Item – Was Waterton the traitor? Or was it his master, the Earl of Richmond?
    Corbett stared into the darkness but only saw Maeve's lovely face and felt a cold loneliness grasp his soul in its iron-hard fist.
    Robert Aspale, clerk of the Exchequer, felt equally lonely. He had been sent to France by the King as his agent to oversee matters there. By 'oversee' Edward, of course, had meant 'spy'. The King had been most insistent that Aspale leave, adding that his emissary to South Wales, Hugh Corbett, had failed to return or even communicate with the English court. It should have been Corbett, Aspale thought, here, in this tavern on the outskirts of Amiens, but Edward had said he could wait no longer and so Aspale would travel to Paris posing as a merchant from Hainault. He would enter France through the territory of Edward's ally, Guy Dampierre, Count of Flanders: Aspale was fluent in the different tongues and dialects of the Low Countries and posing as a cloth merchant looking for fresh trade in the great markets of Northern France would prove easy.
    Secretly, however, Aspale was to discover if aiiy of Edward's agents and spies in Paris were still alive as well as try to unearth the secret designs of Philip IV. He carried a belt round his slim waist, its pouches filled with gold which could open doors and, more importantly, loosen tongues: courtesans, petty officials, impoverished knights, servants and retainers. They all heard gossip, bits