The Treason of the Ghosts

disappointed. She had expected to find the visitors in the
taproom but all three had disappeared. Taverner Matthew must have taken them up
to their chambers immediately.
    Sorrel
moved across, past the tables and stools, to a small window seat. A chapman,
sitting at a nearby table, was feeding morsels to his pet ferret. Sorrel
interrupted this; the ferret, nose twitching, jumped down from the table and
sped across to the sack. The man pulled at the string, then yelped as a rat sped out from beneath the wainscoting and scuttled across to
the rear door, the ferret in pursuit. For a while chaos and confusion reigned.
The tinker jumped to his feet and threatened Sorrel with his fist. She banged
the table with her cudgel until he backed off.
    ‘Well,
well, well!’ Adela, the saucy-eyed tavern wench, came sauntering over, her
luxurious hair piled back. Her smock was deliberately too tight for her fulsome
figure, the top laces of her bodice carelessly undone. ‘Have you come to see
the taverner?’ She tapped the sack with her sandalled foot. ‘He and Blidscote
are upstairs with the high and mighty ones.’ Adela wiped the sweat from her
face with the back of her wrist. ‘Come to seek out poachers they have,
Sorrel...’
    ‘Is
that correct, Adela?’ came the cool reply. ‘Then I’ll tell them what I’ve seen
down at Hamden Mere...’
    Adela’s
face coloured and she sauntered off, hips swaying.
    A
short while later the taverner came downstairs, shouting at the potboys to take
refreshment to his guests. Sorrel leant back and closed her eyes. The tinker
had now regained his ferret and moved to a different table. This corner of the
taproom was quiet. Sorrel relished the breeze coming in from the herb garden;
the smells from the buttery were especially fragrant. What was the taverner
cooking? Roasted capons, fat and succulent, venison, tender and juicy to the
bite, and simmering in an onion sauce? She heard a sound and opened her eyes.
Taverner Matthew stood over her, a frothing tankard in one hand, a platter of
bread and meat in the other. He put these down on the table and allowed two
silver coins to slip beneath the platter.
    ‘How
many?’ he asked.
    ‘Three
pheasants,’ Sorrel replied. ‘And I’ll bring two free, next time, if you allow
me upstairs to see the royal clerk?’
    The
taverner sighed and sat down on a stool.
    ‘I
would if I could, Sorrel,’ he replied kindly, ‘but they are tired and busy.
They say they have to wash, change and break their fasts. Corbett is already
sending out messages: there’s to be a meeting up at the church.’
    ‘What
will he do, this Hugh Corbett?’ Sorrel asked. ‘Find the truth, master
taverner?’
    ‘I
don’t know. He doesn’t speak much; the red-haired one is his mouthpiece.
Corbett’s courteous but a man of few words. The first thing he asked me was to
describe what happened the night Widow Walmer was killed and what I knew about
the other murders.’ He blew his lips out. ‘What can I tell him? Adela knew
young Elizabeth ,
and the night Widow Walmer’s corpse was found, men from the tavern hurried to
her cottage.’
    ‘And Molkyn and Thorkle?’
    ‘Now,
there’s a mystery.’ The taverner wiped his hands on his blood-stained apron.
    ‘Both
were on the jury, master taverner.’
    ‘Yes,
so they were. Others are now frightened. I’ve even heard whispers that Sir
Roger was innocent.’
    ‘Of
course he was,’ Sorrel retorted. ‘My man said he was.’
    The
taverner tapped her gently on the hand and shook his head sorrowfully. ‘I’ve
heard that song before, Sorrel. I’ve got business to do.’
    He
returned to the kitchen and Sorrel greedily drank from the tankard. A potboy
came over and, without a word, took the sack. Sorrel drained the tankard and
stared across the taproom. Should she try to see the clerk? She shook her head
and sighed. No, it would be best if she met him on her own ground. Anyway, she
had things to show him, the Moon People to meet. She fought back the tears.
Surely he would help her find poor Furrell? Perhaps prove that he’d told the
truth and might even have been believed, if the others...? Sorrel stared up at
the smoke-blackened beam from which flitches of ham and bacon hung to be cured.
She would love to show Corbett the bones, the strange things she had seen in
her wanderings, such as that eerie Mummer’s Man with his grotesque devil’s mask
and silent horse. But would he believe her? They had laughed at Furrell. And why?