Satan in St Mary

to the city and the world, adding spicy details of how Duket's sister had performed in bed. It was this which led to the meeting in Cheapside and Crepyn's death. "
    The Chancellor shrugged. "We are well rid of Master Crepyn but the King is furious at Duket's death, yet astute enough to use the incident to investigate Crepyn's links with secret rebels as well as the professional thugs of the criminal world. "
    The Chancellor stopped and passed Corbett a small scroll of vellum tightly bound in the scarlet red ribbon of the royal chancery. "This is your commission, Master Clerk. You are to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of Duket and report directly to the King through me. You do understand?"
    Corbett accepted the scroll and nodded. "Oh, " he remarked, "are there records, manuscripts?"
    "What do you mean, Corbett?" Burnell asked.
    "Well, both men were merchants. Surely they kept horn books, records of their transactions?"
    "No, " the Chancellor firmly replied. "Duket's records show nothing and Crepyn's disappeared within hours of his death!" He paused. "Anything else?"
    Corbett shook his head.
    "Good, " the Chancellor smilingly concluded. "Then we wish you every success. " Burnell would have left it at that but was annoyed at the young clerk's imperviousness. "It is a dangerous task, " he added warningly. "These are dark pools you search and the mud and weeds could well drag you down and choke you!"
Three
    Corbett spent the greater part of the afternoon taking leave of his colleagues in the court of King's Bench. He knew well that he would not be missed. A stranger, he had many acquaintances but few friends and his temporary referral to a new assignment prompted little or no questioning. It was quite common for clerks to be reassigned to different tasks, a diplomatic mission abroad or, not so popular, an audit of one of the royal manors, or tramping the shires with the King's Justices in Eyre. Corbett removed certain of his belongings from a small leather trunk he kept in one of the record offices and wrapped them in a bundle; a few coins, the ring belonging to his dead wife, a lock of his child's hair, a spoon made out of cow's horn, and certain writing materials.
    Burnell had instructed him to begin his assignment immediately and Corbett did not delay. He thought of using his writ to draw monies from the Exchequer but he knew this would be a laborious task. The Exchequer clerks were suspicious of everyone, particularly other clerks. They would make him wait, examine the writ and then sparingly dole out the money. No, he decided, wrapping his cloak round him, he would draw some of his own money from a goldsmith in Cheapside, and then submit his account direct to Burnell. After all, money was no problem to him, he was
    paid good fees and the property in Sussex had been sold. Why keep a house when you have no home? Corbett tried to clear the depression from his mind as he left the Palace of Westminster. An hour candle fixed in an iron socket on one of the benches of the court told him it was three in the afternoon. The crowds were dispersing. The litigants with their pile of documents, lawyers elated or depressed, the serjeants, in their multicoloured robes, led lines of prisoners chained together out of the courts to be marched under guard to the Tun, Marshalsea or Newgate Prison.
    Corbett threaded his way through them all out of the palace and down to the river bank. He decided to brave the weather and hired a wherry sculled by the ugliest boatman Corbett had ever seen, who insisted on regaling him with the finer parts of his visit to the stews of the city the night before. Eventually, damp and cold, his ears ringing with the waterman's vivid description of his sex life, Hugh reached Queenshithe Wharf and made his way up towards St. Pauls. It was already dark. The last desperate tradesmen, eel-sellers and water carriers, were trying to squeeze as much trade as possible out of the day. The streets were emptying. Children pulled indoors, apprentices putting up the boards and setting out the horn lanterns, as ordered by the City Fathers to give some poor light to the streets at night.
    Corbett felt a gloom over the city and recalled Burnell's words about old quarrels festering like pus in the streets and alleyways of the city. He bought a penny loaf from a baker's last batch and snatched mouthfuls of it as he walked up Fish Street, picking his way around the puddles and heaps of rubbish, trying to