Hugh Corbett 10 - The Devil's Hunt by Paul Doherty Read Free Book Online Page A

laden with produce for the city markets. As he passed the open doorways of shabby tenements, Corbett glimpsed children and beldames warming their knees before the fire, and sullen lamps glowing in the darkness. On every street the houses huddled on either side, interspersed by a tangle of alleyways and trackways still rough and slippery after the rains. Nevertheless, as always in Oxford, the streets were thronged. Merchants in fur-lined robes marched purposefully in their high, leather Moroccan boots. Servitors went before them to brush aside screaming children or barking dogs. Franciscans, Dominicans and Carmelites made their way to their respective houses: some walked in devout silence, others were as noisy and chattering as magpies. On a corner a gong cart, full of dung and ordure from the sewers, was now being used as a punishment post. A fellow who had sold faulty cloth had been forced to stand waist-deep in the dung whilst lashed to the wheels were other traders found guilty by a Pie Powder court of selling rotten meat, tawdry goods or trying to break the price code set by the market beadles. Next to this, a dog-whipper, the cage on his cart full of fighting, snapping curs, was formally arresting a lean-ribbed mongrel whilst a group of scruffy urchins screamed abuse and claimed the dog belonged to them. The dog-whipper, his sulphurous face ablaze with fury, cursed and yelled back.
    Corbett sighed and dismounted, telling Ranulf and Maltote to do likewise. They took a short cut up Eel Pie Lane which led them on to the High Road. Here Corbett ran into roaming bands of scholars, wags, braggarts, hedge-creepers and rascals from the University, all dressed in their tawdry finery: the short gowns of the bachelors, the tattered hose and shabby jackets of the commoners. The air rang with the noise of different accents and tongues as students spilled out of the Halls or the lecture chambers of the schools. Lost in their own world, the scholars shouted and sang, pushed and shoved each other, totally oblivious of the good citizens and burgesses of the city. These passed the scholars with muttered curses and looks of disdain. Here and there some Masters or lecturers strutted like geese, heads swathed in woollen hoods lined with silk, which proclaimed their status and importance. Behind them beggar scholars, youths unable to pay the fees, staggered along carrying books or other baggage for their masters. Beadles and proctors, the disciplinarians of the University, also strode by wielding lead-tipped, ash cudgels. As they passed the students fell silent, though their presence did little else to curb their high spirits and boisterousness.
    Corbett paused, wrapping the reins round his hands, staring up and down the High Street. This had changed: there were more houses on either side, so densely packed that their gables met to block out the light. Pushed in between these, were the cottages of the poorer folk, padded with reeds, straw or shingles which the rain had turned to a soggy mess. The market stalls on either side of the High Road had now re-opened after the downpour and were doing a busy trade. Jostled and pushed, Corbett had to move on. Behind him Ranulf lifted one boot and groaned: the mud and dirt were ankle-deep and he looked pityingly at a group of urchins who, despite the weather, were playing in mud half-way up their legs. Ranulf bit back a curse. He would have loved to have roared his irritation at Corbett trudging so stoically ahead of him but the noise was growing more deafening. Corbett abruptly turned left, going down a sordid alleyway. It was quieter here and, when he led them into the yard of the Red Lattice tavern, Ranulf sighed with pleasure. He joyously threw his reins at a surly ostler who came out quietly cursing at these new arrivals who’d disturbed his rest.
    ‘Something to eat and drink,’ Ranulf murmured, rubbing his stomach, ‘would satisfy the inner man.’
    ‘Just a little wine,’ Corbett retorted.