The Treason of the Ghosts

the
church?’
    ‘It’s
the custom,’ Grimstone sighed. ‘This is our death house. The poor girl was
found last Monday. Her corpse was brought into the church yesterday evening.
Tomorrow morning it will be placed before the rood screen. I will sing the
Requiem Mass and the burial will take place immediately afterwards.’
    ‘It’s
certainly a dour place.’
    Corbett
scratched his head. He licked dry lips. He would have preferred to be back at
the Golden Fleece. He, Ranulf and their groom, Chanson, had arrived
mid-morning, just as the church bells were tolling the Angelus. Blidscote had
been waiting in the taproom. Corbett suspected he had drunk more than was good
for him. The clerk had insisted on viewing the corpse as well as questioning
certain people more closely. He would have preferred Burghesh to be elsewhere
but Parson Grimstone was in a dither. He’d insisted that his friend accompany
him from the spacious, well-furnished priest’s house behind the church.
    ‘Why
has a King’s clerk, the keeper of the Secret Seal,’ Blidscote now spoke
carefully, trying to remove the drunken slur from his words, ‘decided to grace
this market town?’
    ‘Because the King wants it!’ Corbett
snapped. ‘Melford may be a market town, master bailiff, it’s also the haunt of
murder — brutal deaths which go back years. What is it today?’ He squinted
across the chamber. ‘The Feast of St Edward the Confessor, October the
thirteenth, the year of Our Lord 1303. Five years ago,’ he pointed across at
Sir Maurice, ‘his father, Lord Roger Chapeleys, was hanged on the common
scaffold outside Melford for the murder of those maidens and a rather rich
young widow. What was her name?’
    ‘Goodwoman
Walmer,’ Sir Maurice replied.
    ‘Ah
yes, Goodwoman Walmer. Sir Maurice was only fourteen years of age but, since he
reached his sixteenth year,’ Corbett smiled at the young manor lord, ‘he has
sent letter after letter into the royal chancery, stoutly maintaining his
father’s innocence, that a terrible miscarriage of justice has taken place. Now
the King could do little. Lord Roger was tried by a jury before Louis
Tressilyian. Evidence was produced, a verdict of guilty brought. The King could
see no grounds for a pardon so sentence was carried out.’
    ‘My
father was innocent!’ Sir Maurice shouted. ‘You know that.’ He pointed
threateningly at Grimstone.
    ‘How
do I know that?’ the parson retorted.
    ‘Before
he was hanged,’ Sir Maurice found it difficult to speak, ‘you shrived him. You
heard his last confession. Did he confess his sin?’
    ‘I
cannot tell you what was said under the seal of confession.’
    ‘You
can tell us what wasn’t said,’ Corbett declared.
    ‘You
told me!’ Sir Maurice shouted.
    ‘It’s
true. It’s true.’ Grimstone rubbed his hands together. ‘Sir Roger did not
confess to any murder.’
    ‘He
was held here, wasn’t he?’ Corbett asked, staring round the crypt.
    ‘Yes,’
Grimstone confirmed. ‘This sometimes serves as a prison. There is only one
entrance, which can be heavily guarded. I did hear Sir Roger’s confession but,
you must remember, he was held here for two weeks pending his plea for a pardon
from the King. He was also visited by an itinerant friar. He may have
confessed—’
    ‘Enough,’
Corbett declared. ‘Let us move to the present, to October 1303. In the summer
of this year, a young peasant woman was found murdered. Three days ago,’ he
gestured at the coffin, ‘another victim was slain in the same way by a
garrotte, as were Goodwoman Walmer and the other victims five years ago.’ He
gestured to the bailiff. ‘What did the locals call the assassin?’
    ‘The
Jesses killer,’ Blidscote replied. ‘When one of the victims was killed, a local
poacher, Furrell, was in the vicinity. He was frightened and hid, said it was
pitch-dark. He heard the girl scream followed by the tinkling of bells, like
those attached to the claws of a falcon or hawk.’
    ‘And
where is this Furrell?’ Corbett asked.
    ‘Disappeared,’
Blidscote replied. ‘No one knows where he went. Some people claim he ran away. Others that, drunk as usual, he stumbled into one of the mires or
swamps. There are enough of those in the woods around Melford.’
    ‘He
was probably murdered!’ Sir Maurice explained. ‘He was the only one who claimed
my father was innocent.’
    ‘Now,
why should he do that?’ Corbett asked.
    ‘I
don’t know. He disappeared shortly after the