The Treason of the Ghosts

turds and, if he dies, when a King’s clerk is in
the town...’
    Blidscote
searched the crowd carefully. He recognised that voice. Master Adam Burghesh, a
former soldier, companion to Parson Grimstone, shouldered his way to the front.
    ‘Why,
Master Burghesh.’ Blidscote became more cringing.
    ‘Mistress
Sorrel is right,’ Burghesh added. ‘There’s no need for such humiliation.’
    Others
began to voice their support. Blidscote kicked the bag of ordure away. He
climbed back on the stand and loosened the clamp round Peddlicott’s neck and
wrists. Burghesh had a few words with Mistress Sorrel; the crowd, their
interest now dulled, drifted away.
    ‘Just one moment!’ Blidscote called out.
    Sorrel
turned. Blidscote climbed down and thrust his face close to hers. She flinched
at the stale beer on his breath.
    ‘One
of these days, Mistress, I’ll catch you at your poaching. I’ll put you in the
stocks and tighten the clamps very hard around that coarse neck of yours.’
    ‘And
one day,’ Sorrel taunted, ‘you may catch moonbeams in a jar and sell them in
Melford, Master Blidscote. Why not join me in the countryside?’ Her eyes
narrowed. ‘Perhaps you’ll come down to Beauchamp Place . I’ll tell you about what
I see as I roam the fields, woods and lonely copses. It’s wonderful what
Furrell and I learnt over the years. Do you like going out to the countryside,
Master Blidscote? Chasing young tinker boys?’
    Blidscote visibly paled and stepped back.
    ‘I...
I don’t know what you are...’
    ‘I
do,’ she smiled and, not waiting for an answer, pushed a path through the
crowd. She shooed away the apprentices who tried to catch her by the cuff, with
their shouts of, ‘ What do you lack, Mistress? What do
you lack?’
    Sorrel
reached the market cross and sat on the high step, the sack between her feet.
Most people knew Sorrel and her past. How her man had tried to help the
convicted Sir Roger Chapeleys, only to disappear some years ago. Sorrel had
become a common sight, roaming the countryside around the town. If anyone ever
stopped and questioned her, they received the same reply: ‘I’m looking for my
poor husband’s corpse.’
    For
some strange reason Sorrel truly believed Furrell had been murdered and his
mangled remains buried secretly without a blessing or a prayer. She was a
sturdy woman and, despite the disappearance of the occasional rabbit or
pheasant, honest in her own way. People, apart from the likes of Blidscote, left
her alone.
    Sorrel
hid her excitement, her heart beating fast, her throat constricted. This was
her day of salvation. This was the day she had prayed for before that little
battered statue of the Virgin Mary which she kept in her chamber in the ruins
of Beauchamp Place .
Justice would be done, the King’s authority would be
felt. This Sir Hugh Corbett would help resolve the mystery and find her
husband’s corpse. In her wanderings Sorrel encountered tinkers and travelling
chapmen, the Moon People, all the travellers of the road. She’d met some who
knew about this royal clerk.
    ‘Like
a greyhound he is,’ one reported. ‘Black and lean. He hunts down the King’s
quarry. He can’t be bought or sold.’
    Sorrel
had longed for this moment. She wanted to catch the eye of the royal clerk,
perhaps seek an audience. She glanced towards the entrance of the Golden
Fleece. No sign yet. On the corner of a nearby alleyway she glimpsed the
shuffling figure of Old Mother Crauford, grasping the arm of Peterkin the
simpleton. A strange pair, Sorrel reflected. Old Mother Crauford was as old as
the hills and, like any aged one, a true Jeremiah, full of the woes and
wickedness of her time. On many occasions Sorrel had tried to draw her into
conversation, especially about Furrell. Old Mother Crauford would hint at
things, macabre memories, how Melford was always a place of murder, but she
wouldn’t elaborate any further. Instead she became tight-lipped, sly-eyed and
would shuffle away.
    Sorrel
couldn’t blame her for her reticence. The young ones of the town whispered how
the old hag was a witch. Is that why she kept Peterkin close to her? For protection? Or just companionship? Sorrel wondered if they were blood kin. She studied the pair carefully. Old
Mother Crauford was berating Peterkin, wagging her bony finger in his face. Was
she still annoyed at how the simpleton had interrupted Sunday Mass? Or was it
something else? She noticed the old woman had taken something from