The Treason of the Ghosts

a
staff. I have left it amongst the trees with my leather bag. Surely I would be
safe with a royal justice, the handsome Sir Maurice and the fearsome King’s
clerk? And, as for being unaccompanied, now who would hurt a poor beggar
woman?’
    ‘I
saw you earlier,’ Corbett declared, ‘in the copse at the top of the meadow
where Devil’s Oak stands.’
    ‘And
I saw you.’ Sorrel looked up at the sky and sighed. ‘So, it’s true what they
say. You are a sharp-eyed clerk! Come to chase the devil from Melford, have
you? By God and all His angels, he needs chasing!’
    ‘Watch your tongue!’ Tressilyian snapped.
    ‘My tongue and my manners are my own!’ Sorrel’s face
took on a pugnacious look. ‘You are not in your court now, Sir Louis. Because
of you, my man has disappeared, just because he told the truth!’
    Corbett looked over his shoulder at Sir Louis, who
just shrugged. This was no accident. Sorrel had followed them from Melford. She
had even learnt a little about him.
    ‘Sir
Louis, Sir Maurice!’ Corbett called out. ‘I have kept you long enough. I must
return to Melford.’
    ‘You
will be my guests?’ Sir Louis asked. ‘Tomorrow night a dinner at the Guildhall? You and your companions?’
    Corbett agreed. He stood and watched both knights
leave. The woman
didn’t move.
    ‘You’d
best get your bag and staff,’ Corbett smiled. ‘I’ll wait for you here.’
    The
woman crossed the small ditch, hurried amongst the trees and came back, the
leather bag slung over her shoulder, a stout walking cane in one hand. She also
brought a cloak which she’d slung around her shoulders and clasped at the
throat. She winked at Corbett.
    ‘I
have two cloaks. This one’s stolen. It’s best not to let the royal justice know
that.’
    ‘You
want to speak to me, don’t you?’
    ‘Yes,
clerk, I wish to speak to you.’
    ‘Where
do you live?’
    ‘In Beauchamp ruins. Common pasture
there. No one exactly knows who owns what so they can’t clear me out.’
She looked at Corbett’s magnificent bay gelding. ‘Can I ride your horse?
Please. I always wanted to be a lady and ride high in the saddle.’
    Corbett
helped her up, shortening the stirrups, then grasped
the reins.
    ‘Now,
you won’t ride off,’ he joked, ‘and claim you found the horse wandering?’
    Sorrel
leant down and stroked Corbett’s cheek with her calloused hands.
    ‘You
have a priest’s face, olive-skinned and smooth-shaven. You tie your hair back
like a fighting man. Your eyes are sad but sharp. You remind me of a trapped
falcon. Are you trapped, royal clerk?’
    Corbett
grinned.
    ‘That’s
better.’ She smiled back. ‘You can be quite the lady’s man but you’d have
scruples about that, wouldn’t you?’
    ‘I
didn’t know it was so easy to read my mind.’
    ‘Oh,
I haven’t. However, when you sit in the inglenook at the Golden Fleece, it’s
marvellous what you hear. Your reputation precedes you, Sir Hugh Corbett. The King’s man in peace and war. Are you the King’s man?’
    Corbett
recalled Edward’s face, harsh and lined, the cynical eyes, the way he talked to
him but his eyes would shift to Ranulf as if the Clerk of the Green Wax was
more his confidant: the man who, perhaps, would do things not covered by the
law.
    ‘I
try to be,’ Corbett replied. ‘But it’s getting dark, Mistress. I am cold, I am
hungry and you have a tale to tell.’
    He
urged the horse forward, walking alongside. He glanced up. Sorrel was riding as
if she was a lady, eyes half closed, humming under her breath.
    ‘You
are comely enough,’ he said. ‘What’s your real name?’
    ‘Sorrel,
that’s what Furrell called me. That’s what I am.’
    ‘And
why do you wander the woods?’
    ‘I
don’t wander, I am searching.’ Her voice was hard. ‘I am looking for Furrell’s
grave.’
    Corbett
paused. ‘You are so sure he’s dead?’
    She
tapped her forehead and chest. ‘I truly am. I want to find his grave. I want to
pray over his corpse. If I can discover his grave, perhaps I can unmask his
killer. He was a good man. I was a wanderer. I met Furrell twelve years ago. We
exchanged vows under a yew tree in the graveyard. We were man and wife, as
close and as handfast as any couple blessed in church. Oh, he was merry. He
could play a lute and dance a lively jig. He was the best hunter and woodsman.
He could creep up on a rabbit, silent as a shadow. We never went hungry and we
sold what we didn’t need.’
    ‘Poaching’s
a dangerous