Hugh Corbett 10 - The Devil's Hunt Read Online Free PDF Page A

harassment.’
    ‘Why doesn’t the King,’ Maeve asked, ‘just close down Sparrow Hall?’
    ‘Oh, the Bellman would love that,’ Corbett answered. ‘Then the entire University as well as the city would see the King conceding defeat. It would be embarrassing in the extreme: Sparrow Hall was founded by Lord Henry Braose, one of Edward’s principal captains, who fought resolutely against de Montfort. Braose was given some of the dead earl’s lands and revenues, and he used these to buy buildings in Oxford, near St Michael’s Northgate. The Hall itself - and I remember it well - stands on one side and, across the lane, there’s the hostelry where the scholars stay: a large five-storey house with gardens and courtyards.’
    ‘If the Hall was closed -’ Simon tapped his fingers on the table ‘- the Bellman would indeed laugh. Many see Sparrow Hall as cursed, founded and built on the blood of the so-called great Earl. They even say his ghost haunts the place seeking vengeance.’
    ‘Who are the Masters there?’ Corbett asked.
    ‘Well, Alfred Tripham is the Vice-Regent. Until Ascham’s and Copsale’s deaths there were eight Masters. Now Tripham is in charge with five others: Leonard Appleston, Aylric Churchley, Peter Langton, Bernard Barnett and Richard Norreys, the Master of the Hostelry. Henry Braose’s younger sister, the Lady Mathilda, also has a chamber in the Hall.’
    ‘That’s unusual! - for a woman to be given residence in an Oxford Hall?’
    ‘Lady Mathilda,’ Simon replied, ‘is a good friend of the King. She’s constantly petitioning the Crown for further recognition of her dead brother and extra grants to enlarge the Hall.’ Simon pulled a face. ‘But the Exchequer is exhausted, the treasury’s empty.’
    ‘And no one at the Hall knows anything about the Bellman or about Copsale’s death?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘And Ascham?’ Corbett asked.
    ‘He was the librarian and archivist,’ Simon replied. ‘A great friend of the founder. Five days ago, late in the afternoon, Ascham went into the library. He locked and bolted the door, and the window was shuttered. He lit a candle but we don’t know whether he was working or looking for something. When he failed to arrive at the buttery, the Hall bursar, William Passerel, went looking for him.’ Simon shrugged. ‘The doors were forced and Ascham was found lying in a pool of his own blood, a crossbow quarrel in his chest. But he didn’t die immediately.’
    The clerk pushed back his stool, opened his pouch and passed across a piece of parchment. Corbett unrolled it.
    “‘The Bellman fears neither King nor clerk,”’ he read aloud. ‘“The Bellman will ring the truth, and all shall hear it.”’
    The message was written in the same script as the proclamation.
    ‘Turn it over,’ Simon remarked.
    Corbett did so and noticed the strange symbols daubed in blood. ‘P ASS E R...’ He spelt out the letters.
    ‘Apparently,’ Simon explained, ‘Ascham wrote that in his own blood as he lay dying.’
    ‘But that’s almost the name of the bursar you mentioned at the hall?’
    ‘Yes, William Passerel,’ Simon replied. ‘But no action can be taken against him. For most of that day, when Ascham died, Passerel was in Abingdon on official business. He returned and went straight to the buttery, and then decided to look for Ascham who was his friend.’
    ‘And the library was sealed?’ Corbett asked.
    ‘The door leading to the passageway was locked and barred from the inside. The garden window was shuttered. There are no other entrances.’
    ‘Yet,’ Corbett said, studying the scrap of parchment, ‘someone not only shot Ascham but was able to leave this note? And Passerel the bursar still remains free?’
    ‘Oh yes, there’s no evidence against him. Passerel can prove he was in Abingdon. Servants attested that when he came back he went straight to the buttery.’ Simon gave a lop-sided smile. ‘There’s one further problem. Passerel’s