The Treason of the Ghosts

else’s to anyone who will listen. Don’t forget, he organised
the search of Sir Roger’s house.’
    Corbett
gripped her hand.
    ‘You
are saying he was bribed to find that evidence?’
    ‘I
thought you were sharp,’ she teased. ‘Why should Sir Roger kill a girl, steal
her tawdry effects and keep them at his manor? You should think more clearly
and act quickly...’
    Corbett
caught the laughter in her voice.
    ‘...otherwise
Master Blidscote will join Thorkle and Molkyn. They will soon be lowering his
fat corpse into the soil.’
    ‘And finally?’ Corbett asked.
    ‘Ah,
yes. The Mummer’s Man. ’
    ‘The Mummer’s Man?’
    Sorrel
laughed deep in her throat. ‘Once, many years ago, I learnt a little Latin. Do
you remember that line from the gospels, clerk, when Judas decided to betray
Christ?’ She paused. ‘It reads something like, “Judas left and darkness fell .“ Melford’s like that. Once darkness falls, all kinds of
things happen. That’s the problem with people who live in towns. They think
that if they can get out into the fields and woods they are alone, but they are
not. I see things, some are comical, some are sad. Oh, not just the lusty swain
wishing to swive the wench of his choice. Other things. Men like that young curate, Robert Bellen. Now he’s a strange one. I’ve caught
him down near the river Swaile, kneeling naked in the mud, except for his loin
cloth, bruising his back with a switch, eyes closed, lips moving in prayer.’
    ‘That
is fanciful.’
    ‘No,
clerk, it’s the truth. Why should a young man, a priest of God, feel he has to
punish himself like that?’
    Corbett
swallowed hard. He’d heard of such practices in monasteries and abbeys, the
desire to flagellate, to punish oneself. Sometimes it was just an extreme form
of mortification, in others a deep sense of guilt. Did not King Henry have
himself whipped through Canterbury for the murder of Thomas a Becket?
    ‘Do
you have dealings with Bellen?’ he asked.
    ‘Very
little but I thought it was a tragic sight, master clerk. Why should a young
priest wish to do that? What secret sins does he hide?’
    ‘Could
he be the killer?’
    ‘All
things are possible, Sir Hugh. He made little attempt to hide himself the day I
saw him.’
    ‘And Parson Grimstone?’
    ‘A goodly man. He likes the trencher, his roast pork, his capon
served in sauces and cups of claret, but I’ve heard no whisper of scandal about
him. Sometimes short-tempered. He and the other one,
Burghesh, they are inseparable, like two old women gossiping with each other.’
    ‘And the Mummer’s Man?’ Corbett asked.
    ‘It
happened just before the killings began again. Furrell had mentioned something
about a man with a mask riding a horse but that was years ago. I said he was
drunk, deep in his cups. Anyway, the day was quiet, one of those beautiful
times when the weather is changing. I was in Sheepcote Lane ; it’s a narrow path across
the fields. I was enjoying the sun, nestling behind an outcrop of rock when I
heard a horse. Usually the place is deserted but I looked over and, just for a
matter of heartbeats, I glimpsed this man dressed in a cloak. On his head he
wore one of those mummer’s masks, the sort travelling actors use when they
appear in a morality play. This one belonged to the player who takes the part
of the devil, blood-red, twisted mouth, horns on
either side. I was so shocked I immediately hid. He was past me in a trice. I
wouldn’t have thought anything of it. Perhaps a young man
playing a joke? There is so much revelry here. Then I recalled Furrell’s
words: how one of the travellers he encountered, passing through, had seen
something similar.’ She touched Corbett’s hand and pointed to a gap in the
hedge leading into the water meadow. ‘I must go.’ She tapped her walking cane
on the trackway. ‘If you wish, you can join me.’ She made a drinking gesture.
‘I have some very good wine...’
    Corbett
stared into the darkness. ‘You saw Elizabeth Wheelwright going across the
fields about Devil’s Oak?’ he asked. ‘Weren’t you suspicious? Why didn’t you
follow her?’
    ‘I
saw no one else, master clerk. I do not belong to Melford. Few people like me
but, in the main, I am tolerated. I don’t want to be accused of snooping or
prying where I shouldn’t. I saw Elizabeth go into the copse. No one else was around, there was nothing suspicious, so I walked on.’
    ‘So,
she must have met her killer? Why,’ Corbett