Assassin in the Greenwood

murmured. 'God knows that body has suffered enough!'
    Naylor rejoined them, marching purposefully through the long grass. He seemed more friendly and grinned at Corbett.
    'They are all ready. I've summoned them to the hall,' he announced.
    Ranulf, sitting on a stone wall sunning himself, squinted up at this serjeant-at-arms against whom he had taken an instant dislike. 'Who is ready?' he asked.
    Before he received an answer, three others came through the garden: a friar, small, balding and brown as a berry, his face glistening, eyes almost lost in rolls of fat. Beside him was a young clerk, with thick hair cut painfully short. He was dressed in a fustian knee-length sleeveless jupon. Underneath his jerkin was of padded silk with slashed sleeves, and on his dark head sat a small tasselled skull cap. A clerk, Corbett thought, but a fop. Nevertheless, he liked the fellow with his boyish face and laughing eyes. Beside him stood a severe figure with steel-grey hair and a long white face, his chin deeply cleft. He was dressed in a blue quilted gown, fringed at the neck and cuff with dyed black lambswool, which almost hid his spindly legs. Branwood waved them over.
    'Sir Hugh Corbett, may I introduce three members of my household. Friar Thomas, my clerk Roteboeuf, and Physician Maigret.'
    Hands were clasped and shaken, Corbett introducing Ranulf and Maltote. He glared as Ranulf winked fleetingly at his fellow. Corbett knew his manservant was already poking fun at the young clerk's name which, translated from the Norman French, meant 'Roast Beef. The quick-witted young man caught the exchange of grins.
    'My name,' he laughed loudly, 'indicates my origins but not the quality of meals received here in the castle.'
    The murmur of laughter, shared by all except Maigret and the sombre-faced Naylor, was halted by Branwood putting up his hands and loudly declaring, 'Sirs, we have problems enough but, I assure you, either the cook changes his ways or he goes!'
    'Who knows?' Roteboeuf quipped. 'Sir Eustace, God rest him, may have been poisoned by his own cook.'
    'He would not have died so quickly,' Maigret snapped, his eyes flickering with annoyance as he scratched the tip of his nose. 'Sir Eustace was murdered. And you, Sir Peter, had a narrow escape.'
    Corbett glimpsed the annoyance on Branwood's saturnine face.
    'What does the physician mean, Sir Peter?'
    'The night Sir Eustace died, we had been dining at table in the hall. I left after Sir Eustace. Later I returned for a half-finished cup of wine. I drank it but the taste was acrid so I threw it away. After I retired I began to retch and vomit. I spent the night in the latrines. My bowels had turned to water.' Sir Peter cleared his throat. 'The next morning I felt weak. I thought it was something I had eaten until Sir Eustace's corpse was found when I consulted Physician Maigret.'
    'He had been poisoned,' the doctor declared triumphantly, as if daring anyone to contradict him.
    'With what?' Corbett asked.
    'I don't know, but if Sir Peter had finished that cup of wine he would surely have died. I told him to fast for twenty-four hours and drink as much water from the castle well as possible.'
    Corbett stared round the group. 'You did say someone was waiting for us?'
    'Ah, yes, the two guards and Lecroix are in the small hall.'
    'The same two who guarded Sir Eustace's chamber?' 'Of course.'
    'Then we had better not keep them waiting. And I would like everyone,' Corbett continued, 'to be present at the interrogation.'
    They went back into the castle and into the small hall. Corbett noticed this too shared the general air of decay which hung over the whole castle. A dirty, flagstoned room, its narrow windows were protected by wooden shutters or a few glazed with horn. Along the hammer-beam roof Corbett glimpsed huge cobwebs and on the dirty white-washed walls hung dusty shields bearing the faded escutcheons of former sheriffs. The fireplace was battered and the grate still full of last winter's ash. There were no carpets or rugs on the floor which was instead thickly covered with lime. There were two wall seats covered in cushions but these were ragged and faded. There was very little in the way of furniture except two grease-covered trestle tables on the dais as well as a number of makeshift benches and stools. On one bench, pushed against the wall, sat three lack-lustre figures. They stood up as Corbett entered. The two guards looked morose and greasy-haired, while Lecroix,