Hugh Corbett 17 - The Mysterium Read Online Free PDF Page A

felons?’
    ‘Cockaigne,’ Corbett replied, ‘is a fool’s version of life: a glutton’s kingdom where food and drink present themselves already prepared. Pigs trot up fully roasted, a carving knife deep in their flanks. Geese fly but they are already spitted and cooked. Larks, grilled to crispness, swoop into your mouth. Buildings are made of food; the roofs are pancakes, the fences sausages, dripping on the floor.’ He smiled at his companions’ puzzlement. ‘That is all I can say for the moment. It’s a place of nonsense where ducks are shoed and the hare chases the fox. Apparently it’s a cipher used by one of the King’s spies,’ he whispered. ‘God knows who he or she is, but,’ he stared into the darkness, ‘it’s quite apposite, eh?’ He pointed to the sheeted corpses. ‘A world turned topsy-turvy, where the innocent suffer and the guilty escape.’
    ‘Not now,’ Ranulf murmured.
    ‘I am not talking about those waiting to die,’ Corbett observed, ‘but Giles Waldene, the King of Ribauds, and Hubert the Monk. They both lie in the pits at Newgate. They did not join this affray. They’ll claim no knowledge of it and demand to be tried by their peers. I wonder.’ He pointed across the nave to where the captain of archers and his company were pulling the prisoners to their feet. ‘Did any of those suspect?’
    ‘What?’ Sandewic grated.
    ‘That in their midst was a traitor who would sell them body and soul to the King’s justice? Someone who, for profit perhaps, would turn King’s Approver and become their destroyer. God knows why that riot took place and who caused it. We may be doing God’s work, perhaps the King’s, but,’ Corbett added grimly, ‘the devil’s also! He must be ravenous for the souls of those we are going to judge.’
    ‘Such is life,’ Sandewic retorted. ‘Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between good and bad.’ He pointed across the nave. ‘Let’s not keep the demons waiting.’
    The trials began. According to law, the felons had no real defence. Indicted already, they’d then ‘broken from the King’s jail to carry out hideous depredations against the Crown’s good and faithful servants, as well as horrid blasphemy against Holy Mother Church’. Each of the prisoners gave his name to the parish clerk, who was sitting at the end of the table, busy keeping a record. The accused was then faced with a list of gravimina, or charges, and invited to reply, which was usually in the form of a curse or a mouthful of spit.When the question about the Land of Cockaigne was first asked, the parish clerk glanced up in surprise; thereafter each prisoner shook his head and continued with the usual tirade of abuse.
    Sentencing was a foregone conclusion: ‘Guilty!’ Corbett declared. ‘Proven as charged with no defence.’ Once sentence was passed, the condemned were hustled out into the cemetery. The Friar of the Sack, seated in the shadow of a buttress, offered to shrive them; some accepted, others refused. All were eventually dragged to the block, hands tied behind them. Two archers made each of them kneel, forcing the condemned man’s head to one side against the block whilst the executioner, with unerring accuracy, brought down the heavy double-headed axe. Its hard, chilling thud echoed through the opened corpse door, as Sandewic murmured, like the sound of hell’s gate slamming shut. Sometimes the prisoner protested and struggled, only to be knocked senseless.
    Corbett, mouth dry, continued. The line of prisoners shortened. Parson John, further down the nave, finished his ministrations and sat with his back to a pillar, watching the grim process of law being carried out. Corbett called a brief halt as the bells of other churches rang out the Angelus. From the nearby streets the market horns brayed, the signal for trading to cease so that the guildsmen and stallholders, as well as their customers, could adjourn to the taverns, wine booths, cookshops and