Hugh Corbett 14 - The Magician's Death Read Online Free PDF Page B

wheel as the torturers broke legs and arms with their mallets.
    ‘I cannot lay down my arms, I have no manuscript.’ He spread his hands. ‘I demand safe passage.’
    The line of men facing him, dressed like the others, began to walk towards him, ominous figures of death. Ufford murmured an act of contrition and crouched, sword and dagger out, and the silence of the street was shattered by the clash of arms and the hideous screams of the Englishman as he died.
    In a narrow, reeking runnel scarcely a mile away, William Bolingbroke crouched in a filth-strewn corner, his leather bag between his feet. At the mouth of the alleyway squatted a beggar who’d told him that the Hounds of the King were swarming along the riverside. So what should he do now? The waiting cog was out of the question. He tried not to think of Ufford, but reflected instead on their master, Sir Hugh Corbett. What would he expect Bolingbroke to do? What was the logic of the situation? This was his best protection, his sure defence against any danger, now or in the future. Bolingbroke chewed on his lip and carefully plotted his way through the maze confronting him.

Corfe: October 1303
    The ancient ones believed that Corfe Castle in the shire of Dorset was the work of giants, a grim mass of masonry which stretched up to the sky. Towers, battlements, crenellated walls and soaring gateways dominated the fields, meadows and thick dark forests which stretched down to the coast. On that freezing night, the Feast of Saints Simon and Jude, the castle was shrouded in darkness broken occasionally by the glint of light from the flaring torches and crackling braziers ranged along the battlements to provide light and warmth for the sentries.
    The outlaw known as Horehound, however, was glad of the freezing cold. No parties would leave the castle, so its constable would not be hunting him and his companions. The outlaw hid deep in the shadows of a great oak tree. A more pressing problem was hunger. The roe deer had been too fleet, whilst such a hunt would always provoke suspicion. Consequently Horehound had laid his rabbit traps and, with his leather sack over his shoulder, intended to see what the early-evening harvest had brought in. He grasped his crossbow and sought reassurance by touching the knife thrust through the leather belt around his waist. He felt comfortable in the clothes he had stolen from a merchant taking wine to the castle, a foolish knave who thought he could sit on his cart and rattle along the trackways of the forest without surrendering the usual toll, a skinflint who hadn’t bothered to pay out for an escort. Horehound had taken his clothes and his wallet but let him keep his wine, cart and horse. The outlaw appreciatively rubbed his woollen jerkin and pulled the heavy black cloak closer. He listened to the darkness for any sound. Sometimes the constable sent out his verderers and huntsmen, but Horehound could hear nothing in the dark of the night.
    Horehound picked himself up and decided to move on. He knew the paths and could use the castle like a sailor would a star on an unknown sea. He moved easily; he knew there would be no one in the forest tonight. No danger lurked there. He loped like some hunting dog taking its time, certain of its quarry. The real danger was out in the open, in the meadows or pasturelands, or the great expanse before the castle. The track snaked before him. Now and again Horehound paused to crouch and sniff the air before continuing. He reached where he had set his traps, only to be bitterly disappointed: the rabbits caught had already been devoured by the vermin of the forest, some fox, weasel or stoat pack. Nothing was left but the remains caught in the wire or the tarred wooden rope. Horehound cursed under his breath. He had what? Eighteen or twenty souls to feed, three of them old, five women, two children.
    He continued on, reaching the broad track which would lead down to the main castle gate. He looked to his