Cornelius stared around. This was a deserted area. Certainly no one else had witnessed the incident. Intrigued and smelling profit, Cornelius pulled on Pegasus’ halter and, with wheels rumbling, the death cart and its custodian rattled along the alleyway. The corpse collector stopped just before the mouth of the alleyway. He pulled a spindle-like dagger from its ring on his leather belt and hurried forward to kneel by the young woman’s corpse. He could tell she was young from the texture and colour of her hair, her rounded, silky soft arms and what was left of her face. She had been killed instantly with a dagger thrust to the heart, the bodice of her dress heavily soaked in bubbling blood. Afterwards, the young woman’s assassin had pounded her face with a rock taken from a nearby crumbling wall. Cornelius’ quick, darting gaze took in the bracelets and rings on the young woman’s fingers and wrists; the gold chain around her swan-like neck, the brooch pinned to the neck of her gown; her clothes and leather boots looked costly enough, too.
‘Some pretty little whore,’ Cornelius murmured to himself. ‘No need to display her.’
The corpse collector swiftly stripped the corpse of its gown, petticoat, linen underclothes and boots, the tawdry jewellery disappearing into his cavernous belt wallet. Cornelius then lifted the young woman’s corpse, marvelling that her smooth, marble-like skin was still warm from life and, despite the ragged, bloody mess to her chest and face, exuded a faint perfumed fragrance. Standing on tiptoe, Cornelius tipped the cadaver, her long blonde hair now free of its clasp floating down her back, into the death cart to join the remains of a drunk found drowned in a horse trough and those of a beggar man, crushed by a fall of masonry whilst sheltering in a derelict, rotting tenement. Cornelius wiped his hands on his leather jerkin and froze. Whoever had killed that young woman could well be lurking nearby watching him. The corpse collector breathed out slowly.
‘All in all,’ he whispered reassuringly to himself, ‘a good night’s work.’
He tapped his now heavy wallet and wondered what he should do. If the assassin was still close by and watching, he would surely not object to what Cornelius had done. Nevertheless the corpse collector realized he was vulnerable. He could not run away, leave Pegasus, the cart and its grisly load. He licked dry, cracked lips and made his decision.
‘To you who dwell cloaked in the darkness.’ Cornelius paused; he liked that, recalling his early days as a stroller, a mummer who played his part in the miracle plays. ‘What you have done,’ Cornelius continued, ‘is a matter between you and God. Your victim lies dead, her face unrecognisable, and now she lies stripped of all raiment.’ He patted the sacks hanging from the slats along the side of the cart. ‘Her corpse will be taken to the Gate of Heaven, soaked in lavender, sheathed in linen and buried in the common grave unclaimed and unnamed.’ Cornelius paused, eyes and ears straining into the dark. Satisfied, he grasped Pegasus’ halter and slowly moved on, shoulders hunched, belly pitching. Nothing occurred. Cornelius relaxed. He stopped and looked over his shoulder at the dark mass of St Erconwald’s rising against the night sky. Did the killing he’d witnessed have anything to do with what was happening there? he wondered. Had not a royal scrivener called Lebarge taken sanctuary in St Erconwald’s? Murder and mystery were certainly active in that parish. After all, why should someone kill a young woman, pound her face into an unrecognizable, blood-splattered mess, but not filch her trinkets? Cornelius pulled a face. In the end that was not his business, and the corpse cart, carrying the naked cadaver of the young whore Hawisa, trundled into the gathering night.
Sir John Cranston was thinking about Oliver Lebarge as he strode, and now again stumbled, down the street leading to his house. Cranston had stayed at the Lamb of God to be entertained by Mine Hostess with more wine and the most succulent strips of pheasant meat. Now he intended a good night’s sleep, even though after the events of the day his mind continued to tumble like dice in a hazard cup. He reached the door of his house. He was fumbling for the key on his belt when he heard the hiss of steel and, quick as a twirling coin, he brought sword and dagger slithering from their sheaths to confront the mailed men who emerged out of the blackness. Two of them carried torches. Cranston glimpsed the White Hart, the King’s personal emblem, the insignia of the Cheshire archers.
‘Peace, Sir John.’ A figure strode through the mailed men and took off his helmet, pushing back the mailed coif beneath to reveal the sallow, lined face of Sir Simon Burley, the King’s personal tutor and close advisor. Others also stepped forward to be recognized, including Walworth, Mayor of London. Cranston resheathed his weapons.
‘Simon, gentlemen, this is no way to call on a comrade in the dead of night.’
‘Jack, my old friend,’ Burley replied, ‘this truly is the very dead of a night that stretches out before us all. Great danger lurks in the darkness! Treachery, betrayal, the breaking of oaths and the deadliest treason. You must come with us.’
‘Must!’ Cranston exclaimed. ‘Must? I am the King’s own officer. I have knelt, placed my hands between his and sworn a personal oath of fealty to King Richard.’
‘Sir John, it is the King and his mother, the Princess Joan, who demand to see you …’
Within the hour, Cranston and the rest disembarked at King’s Steps and made their way up the narrow lanes which brought them under the magnificent, soaring turrets and towers of Westminster Abbey. They entered by the south door close to the cavernous crypt. The abbey, despite the late hour, was lit with torches, creating a shimmer of light and dancing flame against the great drum-like pillars that guarded the resplendent sanctuary, which also served as the royal mausoleum, housing the tombs of the Plantagenet kings. At the centre of this mass of carved stone rose the gloriously decorated shrine of Edward the Confessor, erected above and around the magnificent marble sarcophagus of the saintly king whom the Plantagenets regarded as the ancestor and patron of their royal house. Nearby stood the Confessor’s throne and beneath it the Stone of Scone, once used to hail the kings of Scotland, until it was seized by Edward I and hurried south to become part of the coronation regalia of the kings of England. In the fluttering candle-flame the great wooden throne with its elaborately carved jewelled back and armrests seemed to dwarf the young boy sitting on the purple-cushioned, gold tasselled seat.
Cranston and his party immediately went down on their knees, daggers drawn, points turned towards their hearts, in an act of complete obeisance. The young boy chuckled and in a ringing voice, light and carrying as any chorister, ordered them to resheath their daggers. He added that they were his loyal friends, accepted into the love and protection of Richard, King of England, France and Scotland, Lord of Ireland … The titles echoed through the shrine. Once finished, Richard leaned forward, bidding them to look upon his face. Cranston did and returned the boy-king’s infectious smile even as he secretly wondered at this angel-faced lad with his golden hair, snow-white skin and the strangest light-blue eyes.