The Treason of the Ghosts

the
Golden Fleece. You could be on the other side of the moon and no one would
know.’
    Deverell
felt a spurt of anger. ‘How do you know about me?’ he asked.
    ‘Oh,
it’s obvious, carpenter: the way you walk, the way you talk. A
man who keeps to himself. You have a lot to hide.’
    ‘Who
are you?’ Deverell snarled.
    He
would have got to his feet but the self-proclaimed friar took a step back and
his hands fell from his sleeves. Deverell glimpsed a long dagger.
    ‘Don’t
lose your temper,’ the visitor warned. ‘That would be no use, my brother.
Silence is your best protection. Now, I have your word on that? The same story as before?’
    ‘You
have my word.’
    ‘Good.’
The friar pointed to the gate. ‘Go and draw the bolts and I’ll be gone.’
    The
carpenter obeyed. He swung the gate open and returned to the workshop.
    ‘Go
into your house, then come and bolt the gate behind me.’
    Deverell
obeyed. He stepped into a small storeroom which adjoined the buttery. He heard
his gate creak and went back. The workshop was deserted and so was the yard. He
hurried to the gate and stepped into the alleyway but it was busy, thronged
with people. Deverell searched but he could see no friar and, thanks be to God, no Sorrel either.
    Deverell
stepped back into the yard. He bolted the gate and leant against it. His body
was coated with sweat. He found his legs wouldn’t stop trembling. He slid down
to the cobbles, arms across his chest, trying to control his panic. He closed
his eyes. All he could see was Sir Roger Chapeleys standing in the execution
cart, being taken down from the church, along the rutted track towards the
gibbet.
    ‘ O miserere nobis Jesus ,’ he whispered.
    When
he opened his eyes, Deverell noticed the cut on his hand had stopped bleeding.
He spread his fingers out like a priest giving a blessing.
    ‘ Pax vobiscum ,’ he whispered
to the ghosts of his former life thronging about him. ‘Peace be with you.’
    Deverell
got to his feet and, still shaking, returned to his house. He entered the
clean, scrubbed kitchen and, grabbing a cup, broached the small barrel of Bordeaux a grateful
customer had given him. He filled the cup to its brim and sat at the kitchen
table, drinking greedily. He hadn’t witnessed Sir Roger’s execution but others
had described his death throes, how the body had jerked and dangled at the end
of the rope. Why? Deverell asked himself. Why was it so necessary for that man
to die? He heard a rattle on the front door. He drained the cup, hid it beneath
a cloth and went along the passageway. He peered through the squint hole.
Ysabeau, his wife, stared bold-eyed back.
    ‘For
the love of God and all his angels!’ she exclaimed. ‘Deverell, this is my
house. Open the door!’
    He
turned the key in the lock and pulled back the bolts. His wife came in. He took
her basket from her and put it on the floor.
    ‘What’s
the matter?’ She peered at him. ‘You look as if you have seen a ghost!’
    ‘It’s
the coffin,’ he lied. ‘The one I made for the young girl, the wheelwright’s
daughter. It still upsets me.’
    ‘Well,
her soul’s gone to her Maker,’ his wife replied. ‘And you’ve heard the news?’
she continued. ‘The clerk’s arrived!’
    ‘Aye,
I know he has,’ Deverell almost shouted. ‘He’ll be asking his bloody
questions!’
    ‘Hush,
man,’ his wife soothed. ‘Everyone knows you told the truth.’
    ‘What’s
he doing?’ Deverell asked.
    ‘I’ve
heard from Adela, the clerk has called a meeting up at the church. He
apparently wants to question Sir Roger’s whelp and the other justice, what’s
his name?’
    ‘Tressilyian.’
    Ysabeau
walked down the passageway. Deverell closed his eyes.
    ‘So
it’s begun,’ he whispered. ‘God’s justice will be done!’
    Deverell
opened his eyes and stared at the crucifix nailed to the wall. At Sir Roger’s
execution, he reflected, hadn’t the knight vowed, just before he was turned off
the ladder, to return from the dead and seek justice?



Chapter 3
     
     
    The
crypt under the church of St Edmund ’s, Melford,
was cavernous and sombre. Rush lights and oil lamps sent the shadows dancing,
turning the atmosphere even more ominous. Sir Hugh Corbett stared at the
funeral ledges built at eyelevel around the chamber. Some of the coffins were
rotting and decayed, displaying fragments of bone. One entire casket had fallen
away and its yellowing skeleton lay on its side, jaw
sagging. Corbett