The Treason of the Ghosts

wife.’
    ‘Oh, that poor, benighted thing.’
    ‘Did
Furrell ever come and see you?’ Corbett asked.
    The
parson shook his head.
    ‘Yes,
he did!’ Robert the curate declared. ‘And it was just after Sir Roger had been
executed.’
    ‘And
what happened?’ Parson Grimstone asked.
    ‘Don’t
you remember, Father,’ the curate insisted, ‘you met him in the parlour.’
    Grimstone
blinked. Corbett stared at him closely. The parson’s face was vein-streaked
around the nose. Corbett noticed three dark blotches: one on his neck, the
other on his forehead, the third on his right cheek. Corbett recalled what his
physician friend had told him in London — how such blotches were the mark of an inveterate drinker.
    ‘Yes
he did.’ Parson Grimstone asserted himself. ‘He came in and told fantastical
stories of how Sir Roger was innocent. I didn’t believe him. In fact, I only
half listened but he did say something interesting — about a Mummer’s Man. But
Furrell was always full of tales.’
    ‘Why
does Sorrel still search for his corpse?’ Burghesh asked. He came over and
stood beside the chair and patted the parson on the shoulder.
    ‘What
do you mean?’ Corbett asked.
    ‘Well,
I’m not a countryman,’ the old soldier replied, ‘but you have seen the land
round here, Sir Hugh. Every piece is grassed over, whilst Furrell and Sorrel
knew the woods like the backs of their hands.’
    Corbett
followed his drift. ‘Of course,’ he murmured. ‘A newly marked grave might be
ignored by a stranger but someone like Sorrel would find it soon enough.
Whilst, if you dig a plot on meadow land, a shepherd or labourer would notice
it, not to mention wild animals, who can sniff decaying flesh and dig it out.’
    ‘So
his corpse must be well hidden,’ Ranulf declared.
    ‘Aye,
that’s what convinces me about Sir Roger’s innocence,’ Corbett continued.
‘Furrell spoke in his defence and Furrell disappeared.’
    ‘He
could have run away.’
    ‘Nonsense!’ Corbett glared at Curate Robert. ‘God knows Sorrel
loves him and, undoubtedly, he loved her. She believes that he has been
murdered and I accept that. Let’s go back to Molkyn the miller.’ Corbett sat
down on one of the chests. ‘Do you remember those puzzles we used to play as
children? Jumbled words which carry a message? Or pieces which, rearranged,
form a picture of a knight on a horse or a maid in a castle? My mother, God rest her, always taught me to look for one particular
word or piece, that was the key.’
    He
rubbed his boot against the shiny wooden floor and gazed under his eyebrows at
Ranulf, who had his head down, trying to stifle a laugh. Whenever old Master
Long Face indulged in whimsy, it was a sign that matters were becoming
dangerous. The Clerk of the Green Wax wondered what curious dealings were
forming in his master’s teeming, busy mind.
    ‘And
Molkyn the miller is such a piece?’ Curate Robert asked.
    ‘Very good, sir! Very good indeed!’ Corbett
breathed. ‘Molkyn the miller — an oaf, a wife-beater, a
bullyboy.’
    ‘That’s
no way to speak of the dead!’ Parson Grimstone snorted.
    ‘Very true, sir. But that’s not what I say, that’s his family’s
opinion. I visited the mill last night. A less grieving group of people couldn’t
be found, especially his young daughter, pretty Margaret. How old is she —
eighteen, nineteen summers? Did she ever come and ask to be shriven?’
    ‘Robert
spends more time than I do in the shriving pew.’
    ‘And
I am bound by the seal of confession.’
    ‘So
you are, so you are.’ Corbett crossed one leg over the other and played with
the rowel of his spur. ‘And her father, Molkyn the miller? A man who feared neither God nor man.’
    ‘We’ve
told you about him.’
    ‘And
I am asking you again, on your loyalty to the King. Did Molkyn the miller ever
come here and speak to you about matters not covered by the seal of confession?
Curate Robert, God knows you are an honest priest and your face is like an open
book.’
    ‘Aye,
he came one afternoon, about five years ago, around the same time Sir Roger
Chapeleys was arrested. He knocked at the door of the priest’s house and said
he wished to see the Bible.’
    ‘The Bible!’ Ranulf exclaimed.
    ‘Yes,
he asked about certain verses from Leviticus. I was surprised but he was so
insistent. Now Molkyn could read but not Latin. It was about ten verses in all.
I can’t remember the actual chapter but it was the Mosaic prescription