The Treason of the Ghosts

insisted, ‘should a young woman
come out into the lonely countryside to meet someone? How would she know where
to go? I wager she could scarcely read.’
    ‘I
don’t know, clerk, but if you come with me, I might enlighten you.’
    Corbett
gripped the reins of his horse. ‘It’s truly dark,’ he murmured.
    ‘You
are not just referring to the night, are you, Corbett?’
    ‘No,
I’m not.’ He shivered. ‘Do you believe in ghosts, Sorrel?’
    ‘I
believe the dead walk and try to speak to us.’
    ‘I
hope they speak to me,’ Corbett replied. ‘All those poor women so barbarously
ravished and murdered. Surely it’s time their ghosts betrayed this killer.’



Chapter 6
     
     
    Corbett,
leading his horse, followed Sorrel across the ditch and into the water meadow.
The ground was wet but still firm. Corbett felt as if he was walking along a
dreamlike landscape: the surrounding trees and bushes were bathed in moonlight;
Sorrel was striding in front of him, swinging her cane, singing softly under
her breath. A hunting owl flew like a white shadow above them. Corbett’s horse
started and he paused to let it nuzzle his hand. He couldn’t help thinking of
Maeve watching her husband, a royal clerk and manor lord, going across
night-wrapped fields with this mysterious woman. The owl, which had reached the
far trees, now began to hoot, low, mournful but clear on the night air.
    ‘My
man,’ Sorrel said over her shoulder, ‘always claimed owls were the souls of
priests who never sung their Masses.’
    ‘In
which case,’ Corbett replied, ‘the woods should be full of such birds!’
    Sorrel
laughed and walked on.
    ‘What
can you tell me about the people of Melford?’
    ‘Oh,
I could tell you a lot, clerk, but then they’d realise you’d been talking to
me. I think it’s best if you found out yourself. I’ll show you what I have and
let you think. However,’ she paused and waited for Corbett to draw level with
her, ‘you said you were in a maze so let me help you. Blidscote is fat and
corrupt. Deverell the carpenter has a lot to hide and Repton the reeve is cold
and hard. That’s the problem, master clerk, isn’t it? If these men were here,
or their wives or sweethearts, they’d tell similar tales about me.’
    ‘Old Mother Crauford?’ Corbett asked. ‘Melford’s
Jeremiah?’
    ‘Oh, she and that Peterkin! Let me put it
this way, clerk: there may be a Mummer’s Man who wears a mask but the likes of
Crauford and Peterkin also wear masks. They are not what they seem to be, but what
they truly are escapes me. She mutters and moans. He acts fey-witted, runs
errands for this person or that and spends his coins on sweetmeats.’
    ‘And Melford’s history?’
    The
woman stopped and tapped her stick on the ground. ‘As you can guess, I am not from
Melford. I wandered here twelve years ago and met Furrell. He was kind and
taught me the ways of the countryside. I thought, what’s so bad about this?
Better God’s trees and meadows than the piss-washed alleyways of—’
    Corbett
was sure she was about to add ‘ Norwich ’
but she bit her lip.
    ‘Furrell
claimed Melford was a strange place. A settlement stood here even before the
Romans came. Do you know who they were, clerk? Weren’t they led by William the
King?’
    Corbett
laughed and shook his head. ‘No, no, different people, different times.’
    ‘Anyway,’
Sorrel continued, eager to show her knowledge, ‘Furrell believed wild tribes
lived here: they sacrificed people — ‘ she pointed to
a distant copse — ‘on great slabs of stone or hanged them from the oak trees.’
    ‘Do you
think that’s why Old Mother Crauford believes Melford is a place of blood?’
    ‘Perhaps,’
Sorrel murmured. ‘I’ll show you something tonight. You can also meet my
friends.’
    ‘Friends?’ Corbett queried.
    ‘Moon
People,’ she explained. ‘They have tales which might interest you. But I want
to show you something, clerk, something which intrigues me.’
    She
walked on more purposefully. They were now going downhill. Corbett glimpsed the
river and the dark mass of Beauchamp
Place , its jagged walls and empty windows clear
against a patch of starlit sky. Corbett recalled memories of a haunted house
near his own village when he was a boy. He remembered being challenged to spend
a night there and his mother’s anger when she found his empty bed.
    At
last they reached a makeshift bridge which crossed a narrow, evil-smelling
moat.
    ‘Sometimes,