Maubisson Hall, however, possessed a unique, frightening dreadfulness. At first glance the chamber was an exquisitely comfortable one, with dais, tables, benches and chairs; tapestries and coloured stiffened cloths hung against the walls. Candlelight glittered from precious vessels, whilst smoke still curled from the mantled hearth and the air was faintly sweet with the odours of cooking. These just emphasised the hideousness of the corpses: silent, twisting shadows hanging by their necks, held tight by thick tarred rope. Dangling from ugly iron brackets driven into the wall, the corpses were suspended like half-empty sacks; legs, feet, arms and hands trailing, heads slightly turned as if peering into the darkness beyond.
Corbett ignored the exclamations of those around him and walked across. He studied the stout L-shaped brackets, pieces of iron hammered into the wall either side of the shuttered windows from which lanterns could be slung. Near each corpse a stool or chair had been pushed away. Corbett had seen enough hanged men and women to last him a thousand lifetimes: corpses blacker than charcoal, cavities carved from their eyes by yellow-beaked crows, faces pitted and holed by kites, hollow bones rattling beneath tattered rags. In contrast the Maubisson corpses seemed almost alive, except for those half-open glassy eyes, gaping mouths and protuberant tongues.
‘An entire family,’ he murmured.
‘Where is Servinus?’ Castledene exclaimed. ‘Their bodyguard? He’s not here!’
Corbett only half heard him, eyes straining up through the darkness. He wanted to catch the expressions on those dead faces, to remember their ghastliness so that when he began to pursue their assassin he would never forget, show no mercy, offer no pardon.
He stepped back. ‘Cut them down!’ He gestured at Ranulf, shaking his head in an attempt to clear from his mind the nightmare image of his own family in such a hideous situation. ‘For God’s sake, man!’ he added to Castledene. ‘This is an abomination! Have them cut down.’
They all helped. Tables, chairs and stools were pushed close, daggers drawn. Corbett tried to ignore the hiss of trapped air from the corpses as the nooses round their necks were cut. At length all four — Paulents, his wife, their son and their young flaxen-haired maid — lay side by side on the floor.
‘I’ve sent for Parson Warfeld from St Alphege’s,’ Castledene declared, ‘as well as the city physician Peter Desroches. They’ll both be here soon.’
Corbett crouched at the feet of the row of corpses. Paulents’ face was slightly contorted; his wife and son and the maid looked as if they were asleep: so young, yet they were all marred by that gruesome purple-blue circle round their throats, the strange colour of their skin, the way their lips appeared swollen. Corbett tried to ignore the dead faces as he carefully inspected wrists and nails, the backs of hands and heads, sniffing at parted lips. He pressed his hand against Paulents’ face, then felt the muscles of the shoulder, chest and stomach.
‘They must have been dead some hours,’ he declared. ‘At least to my reckoning, their corpses are beginning to stiffen.’
‘Desroches will examine them,’ Castledene declared.
‘Aye, and so will I, Sir Walter.’ Corbett continued his scrutiny. ‘Mirabile dictu!’ he exclaimed, getting to his feet.
‘What, master?’ Ranulf came over, beads of sweat lacing his brow, his usual reaction to the sight of any hanging. It was a fate he himself had almost suffered many years earlier, being saved only by Corbett’s intervention.
‘Mirabile dictu,’ Corbett repeated. ‘Marvellous to say! I’ve inspected the corpses, at least cursorily, yet I can detect no mark or blow, no sign of force or poison.’ He shrugged. ‘As I’ve said, at least to my scrutiny.’ Corbett walked towards the dais, ever watchful of who was now in the hall. Castledene was standing over the corpses. Wendover and Chanson guarded the doorway; the retinue stood behind them staring in at this abomination.
‘No one has touched anything?’ Corbett turned to Wendover.
‘Nobody, sir,’ the captain retorted. ‘I’ll go on oath. I came in.’ He gestured across to the corpses. ‘I saw those. I immediately left and sent a message to Sir Walter. Everyone had to wait outside until my lord arrived.’
Corbett noted Wendover’s obsequiousness to Castledene. He stepped on to the dais and stared at the table laid out so elegantly.
‘Everything can be accounted for,’ Wendover sang out. ‘Not a porringer, goblet or platter will be found missing.’
Corbett grunted and moved along the table: five chairs, no sign of a sixth. Paulents must have occupied the throne-like chair in the centre, his wife on his right, his son on his left; further down the maid and the hired mercenary Servinus. They’d apparently eaten welclass="underline" the main platters bore the remains of pastry, chicken, slices of beef and some sauce now dried hard. The tablecloth was of shimmering white linen. Corbett glimpsed stains, some minuscule black dots. He bent down and studied one of the platters. Mice and other rodents had apparently been busy. He scrutinised the wine goblets, jugs and water beakers. He could neither smell nor detect anything tainted. No sign of disturbance was evident. The chairs were pushed in to the table whilst the rushes on the floor betrayed no marks of bodies having been pulled from the table, dragged off the dais towards those dreadful iron brackets.
‘Master?’
‘Yes, Ranulf.’ Corbett turned.
‘Do you think it could have been suicide?’
Corbett shook his head. ‘No, this was foul murder, a massacre.’ He pointed down at the corpses. ‘Their killer isn’t trying to mislead us but terrify us. This, he or she is saying, is how I deal out death.’
‘She?’ Castledene came over.
‘No.’ Corbett shook his head. ‘That was a mistake. A man, a powerful one, cunning and deadly, is responsible for this.’
‘But how?’ Castledene hissed.
‘Sir Walter, I need urgent words with you alone. Ranulf, guard the hall. Allow no one but the parson and physician to enter.’ Corbett extended a hand. ‘Sir Walter, there must be a chamber above stairs? Ask for braziers to be placed there, fired and glowing, but no wine or food, nothing from here.’ He walked over to Wendover. ‘You’ve searched the rest of the manor house?’
‘Once I sent the messenger, yes, sir, from attic to cellar, stable and outhouse. We found nothing untoward, nothing sinister, no sign of forced entry.’
‘And when you came in, no one could have slipped out?’
‘My lord,’ Wendover gestured at the men thronging behind him, ‘they’re all city guards wearing the corporation livery.’
‘So?’
‘And we had a password.’
‘Which was?’
‘Maubisson,’ Wendover replied. ‘One guard always called that out to any other. No stranger, no intruder was seen either entering or leaving.’
‘So where is Servinus, Paulents’ bodyguard?’
‘Nowhere,’ Wendover gabbled. ‘God knows, Sir Hugh! We’ve searched, we were vigilant. There is, was, no sign of him!’
Corbett nodded. Whilst Castledene hurried to prepare an upstairs chamber, Corbett returned to the corpses. In truth, the more he observed, the longer he walked that darkening chamber with those gruesome corpses laid out stark on the floor, the more mystified he became. It certainly wasn’t suicide, yet there was no mark of violence, of intrusion, no sign of any assassin. Nothing except the four corpses and the fact that Servinus was missing. He turned round. Wendover was standing in the doorway talking to one of his guards.
‘You, sir.’ Corbett called him over. ‘Why were Paulents and his family so closely guarded?’