The Treason of the Ghosts

hand. ‘Oh, never mind. Let’s
go on, the light is fading.’
    They
went down a narrow lane, out along the back streets, past the garden plots,
piggeries and outside stables of the cottagers’ houses. They turned right up a
cobbled track and reached the crossroads, a slight rise providing a good view
of the surrounding countryside. A little of this was plough land but most of it
meadows, dotted with sheep. Small copses and lines of hedgerow broke the
greenery. To Corbett’s left, the beginning of a great forest which stretched
north. He shaded his eyes and caught a glimpse of the river Swaile.
    ‘Prosperous
land,’ he murmured. ‘Well cleared and watered. It makes me homesick.’
    He
wondered what Maeve was doing at their Manor of Leighton. Would she be in the
kitchen doing business with the steward and bailiffs, checking their accounts,
planning what they were doing tomorrow? Eleanor would be tottering around
whilst Uncle Morgan would be leaning over the crib-cradle tickling Baby Edward.
Or, if Maeve wasn’t looking, trying to pick him up and play with him once
again.
    ‘I
hate this place!’
    Corbett
started. Sir Maurice had moved ahead and was staring up at the great gallows
post, its three stark branches black against the evening sky. Corbett had
studied a map of Melford. Of course, this was the spot where Sir Roger had been
executed. The scaffold was immense, its main post sunk
deep into the earth and strengthened by mortar. Sir Louis was also staring up,
as if fascinated by the sharp hooks at the edge of each outstretched beam. Sir
Maurice crossed himself and sat for a while, head bowed. The cold breeze caught
their cloaks, tugging at their hoods.
    ‘It
was here?’ Corbett asked. ‘Were you present?’
    ‘No,
he wasn’t,’ Tressilyian whispered back. ‘He was only a lad. His servants kept
him at the manor, Thockton Hall.’
    Corbett
was about to continue his questioning when Sir Maurice cursed and jumped down
from his horse. He walked over to the scaffold. Corbett glimpsed a piece of
parchment fluttering on a nail just above the base of the beam. Sir Maurice
snatched this off and brought it back.
    ‘It’s
the same as on the gravestone,’ he murmured, handing it to Corbett.
    The
parchment was a greasy piece of old vellum: in the fading light Corbett made
out the red scrawl: ‘REMEMBER!’
    ‘Someone
has been busy. Sir Maurice, may I keep this?’
    His
companion nodded. Corbett folded the scrap of paper and slipped it into his
wallet. The clerk stared around. The crossroads and the surrounding fields were
not so pleasant now. The breeze was cold, the sky more grey and threatening, the misty haze like a shifting gauze veil. A feeling of
dread, of quiet menace pervaded. The lives of many in Melford had been
blighted. The secrets they nursed, hidden sins, could surface and manifest
themselves in brutal and bloody death, especially on an evening such as this.
    At
Tressilyian’s insistence they rode on, Chapeleys slightly ahead of the others.
Corbett considered drawing Tressilyian into conversation about the trial but
decided that this was not the time nor place. The
justice himself seemed to be in a dark mood, keeping his head down, chin tucked
into his cloak, cowl pulled across his face. Corbett realised that Tressilyian
must also be alarmed, seriously concerned that he had
condemned and supervised the execution of an innocent man. The silence grew
oppressive. Corbett could understand why Ranulf, a creature of the alleyways
and streets of London ,
felt fearful in the countryside, especially in this quiet time before dusk as
if the creatures of the night were waiting for darkness to fall. The path they
had taken was nothing more than a broad, rutted trackway, ditches on either
side and high, prickly hedgerows. Every so often this line would be broken by a
gate or stile.
    Corbett
reined in, forcing the other two to stop. ‘I am a stranger,’ he reminded them.
‘I am trying to get my bearings. This is Falmer Lane ?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘And
the village of Melford lies — ‘
Corbett gestured with his hand — ‘to the south? The church stands at one
end. We have streets and thoroughfares, the marketplace in the centre, then it curves slightly out into the countryside?’
    ‘You
are not such a stranger,’ Tressilyian replied. ‘But yes, that’s a good way of
describing the town.’
    ‘So,
there are many trackways and thoroughfares out?’
    ‘Yes I told you. Melford has grown as