The monks informed him about the court, the current scandals and, more especially, that the young French princess, widow of Alexander III, was still residing at Kinghorn Manor. Corbett decided to visit her and the Prior offered a guide. Corbett gratefully declined this though he did accept a thick serge cloak with a capuchon or hood for, though it was May, the weather was still cold and, wrapped in this, Corbett left the monastery on the most docile cob he had ever ridden. The clerk used a crudely-drawn map sketched out by one of the monks to guide his horse from the craggy plateau of Edinburgh down onto the road to the ferry at Dalmeny. The same route, Corbett reflected, Alexander had taken that fateful night some two months earlier. Now, the weather was calmer; a clear jewel-blue sky across which puffs of white clouds were sent scudding by a stiff breeze. In the distance, Corbett saw the glint of sunlight on the waters of the Forth and, around him, a late spring was making itself felt in the clumps of wild white flowers, soft green grass and the constant chatter of song-birds.

Corbett turned his long, tired face to the sky and for a moment understood the sheer joy and beauty of Francis of Assisi's "Canticle to the Sun". Then he came to where the rutted track he was following crossed another and saw the three branched gallows, each with its blackening, bird-pecked burden. His mood swung in violent contrast and Corbett felt despair, a terrifying sense of the world's sin, a deep malevolence in the affairs of men. "And the serpent entered Eden" Corbett muttered to himself and goaded his horse over the track, across the flimsiest of bridges and up into the village of Dalmeny. It was really more of a hamlet, a collection of long houses built with timber, wattle and daub on cobbled footings while thatched roofs covered both living-quarters and byre.