Corbett left as quickly as he could, secretly pleased about the honour shown to him but quietly cursing the King for getting his own way.
Back in the robing room, de Warrenne wiped his eyes as he shook with laughter at the King’s duplicity. For a few seconds Edward basked in the Earl’s admiration then suddenly he leaned towards him.
‘John,’ Edward whispered. ‘I love you as a brother but if you ever draw your dagger on Corbett again, by my crown, I’ll kill you, myself!’
Corbett returned to his own chamber and absent-mindedly began to collect his belongings, tossing them into saddle bags. Maeve would be furious, he thought. Her beautiful, placid face would become pinched with anger, her eyes would narrow and, when she found the words, she would damn the King, his court and her husband’s duties. Corbett smiled to himself. But, there again, Maeve would soon be placated. She would be proud of the knighthood and pause a while before returning to her ripe description of Corbett’s royal master. Then there was Eleanor: three months old and already showing signs of being as beautiful as her mother. A lusty, well-proportioned girl. Corbett had been teased that he wanted a son, but he didn’t really care as long as Maeve and the child were healthy. He sat on the edge of his bed and half listened to the sounds from the castle bailey below. The child must be healthy! He thought of his first wife Mary and their daughter, dead so many years now. Sometimes their faces would appear, quite distinct in his mind, at others they would seem lost in a cloying mist.
‘It can’t happen again,’ Corbett muttered to himself, tapping his boots on the floor. ‘It can’t happen again!’
He picked up the flute lying on the bed and gently played a few notes. He closed his eyes and, in the twinkling of an eye, he was back down the years. Mary was beside him, the little girl, so quickly gripped by the plague, tottering about in front of her. Other memories followed, the cunning, shrewd look of Robert Burnell; the beautiful, passionate face of Alice-atte-Bowe. Other faces appeared, many killed or trapped in their own terrible treasons or subtle murders. Corbett thought of the King’s growing irascibility and dangerous swings of mood and he wondered how long he would stay in the royal service.
‘I have enough gold,’ Corbett muttered to himself. ‘There’s the manor in Essex.’ He shook his head. ‘The King will not let me go but how long will the King last?’ Corbett stared at the floor, running the flute between his hands, enjoying the texture of polished wood. ‘It’s treason,’ he whispered, ‘to even consider the death of a king.’ But the King was well past his sixtieth year and when he died what would happen then? The golden-haired Prince of Wales was a different kettle of fish with his love of hunting, handsome young men and the joys of both bed and board.
When the old King dies, Corbett wondered, what would his successor do? Would the new king need him, or would he be replaced? What would Maeve say? The thought of his wife recalled the King’s words about de Craon.
‘I wonder what that red-haired, foxy-faced bastard wants?’ Corbett muttered. He got off the bed and crossed to the table littered with parchment. Two pieces caught his eye. First, a dirty thumbed piece of vellum; the writing on it was a mixture of numbers and strange signs which the cipher his spy had used in Paris. Next to it, neatly written out in green-blue ink was the translation of the cipher by one of the clerks of the Secret Seal. Corbett picked this up, read it quickly and cursed. He had meant to tell the King about this. The spy, ostensibly an English trader buying up wines in the Paris market, had seen the English fugitive and outlaw Richard Puddlicott in the company of Philip IV’s Master of Secrets, William Nogaret, at a tavern just outside the main gates of the Louvre Palace. Puddlicott was a wanted man in England: a thief, a murderer who had killed a royal messenger but, above all, he was a trickster. No one had a clear description of Puddlicott but his fraudulent behaviour had wiped out the profits of many a merchant. He had been a clerk at Cambridge but now used his considerable wit and intelligence to separate people from their hard-earned wealth and kept reappearing either in England or France with his nefarious schemes. No law officer had managed to seize him or lay him by the heels. Corbett’s spy in Paris had sent a description of a blond-haired man with ruddy cheeks and a slight limp. Yet the King’s seneschal in Bordeaux had also described Puddlicott as black-haired, of sallow complexion, well proportioned in all his limbs.
Corbett re-read the letter. All the spy had learnt was that the Master of Secrets had been talking to Puddlicott, but about what, he could not tell except Nogaret had seemed most welcoming and attentive.
‘I should have told the King this!’ Corbett repeated to himself and, striding to the door, with the documents clutched in his fist, he bellowed for a clerk to take them immediately to the King.
Afterwards, Corbett stared round the untidy room. His agitation, caused by his recent meeting, had now subsided; it was best, he concluded, if he left immediately.
‘The sooner gone, the sooner done,’ he murmured. ‘Now, where is the honest Ranulf?’
Corbett’s manservant, the honest Ranulf, was in the great hall squatting in a corner with guardsmen of the royal retinue, slowly inveigling them into a game of dice. The red-haired, pale-faced manservant looked around solemnly, his green, cat-like eyes serious and unblinking.
‘I have little skill in dice,’ he murmured.
The soldiers smiled for they thought they had trapped a coney in the hay. Ranulf jingled his purse.
‘I have some silver,’ he said, ‘as has my companion here.’ He turned to Corbett’s groom and ostler, the blond-haired, fat-faced Maltote who sat next to him like some innocent plough boy. Maltote smiled owlishly at the soldiers and Ranulf grinned as he drew them into his trap. The dice was thrown, Ranulf lost and then, amidst shouts of ‘Beginner’s luck!’, he began to win. He was fully immersed in the game when he saw the soldiers look up fearfully just as he felt his master’s iron grip on his shoulder.
‘Ranulf, my dear man,’ Corbett whispered sweetly. ‘A word in thine ear.’
Ranulf glowered up at him. ‘Master, I am in a game.’
‘Ranulf,’ Corbett said. ‘So am I. A word, away from your friends.’
Ranulf clambered to his feet and Corbett led him away, still gripping his shoulder tightly.
‘Master, what is wrong?’ Ranulf winced as Corbett’s fingers dug into his shoulder.
‘First, Ranulf, I told you not to use those dice against the King’s soldiers. They are hard-working men and you are not here to fleece them of every penny they earn. Secondly,’ Corbett released his grip, ‘you are to return to London immediately.’
Ranulf dropped the look of mock innocence and grinned mischievously.
‘Thirdly,’ Corbett continued, ‘we need to pack our belongings.’
‘Master,’ Ranulf whispered hoarsely. ‘I am winning.’
‘I know you are, Ranulf, and you’ll give every penny back! Maltote?’
Ranulf wandered dolefully back, raising his eyes heavenwards as Maltote passed him. Corbett looked at the young groom anxiously.
‘You are not carrying any weapons?’ he asked warily.
The lad smiled.
‘Good!’ Corbett grinned back, marvelling at the innocence in the lad’s cornflower-blue eyes. Never had Corbett met a soldier such as Maltote who knew so much about horses, was so skilled in their treatment and management but was so hopeless with weapons. If Maltote carried a knife he’d either cut himself or anyone about him. If he carried a bow he would trip himself up or poke the eye out of some innocent bystander, and he was as dangerous as any enemy if he carried spear or sword.
‘Maltote! Maltote!’ Corbett murmured. ‘Once you were an innocent horse soldier, a good cavalryman and now you have met Ranulf.’ Corbett flinched at the look of admiration in his retainer’s eyes. ‘Yes, yes, I know,’ Corbett muttered. ‘What Ranulf does not know about dice, women and drink is not worth knowing. But we are for London. We must leave immediately. Take two horses from the royal stable, ride as fast as you can and inform the Lady Maeve that Ranulf and I are following.’ Corbett licked his lips. ‘Tell her,’ he concluded, ‘we are not going to Wales but will stay a little longer in London.’