By the time they pushed their way inside the ale house they found the centre of attention to be the popinjay and Egbert himself. He was offering it a little dish of ale while it stood on his wrist. It pecked at the ale with every sign of enjoyment and when it finished it jumped on to Egbert’s head and began to clean its feathers to the delight of the onlookers.
Egbert said something to it in Latin and the bird replied, although whether it was simply a response to familiar-sounding words or to their meaning it was difficult to assess.
The owner of this exhibitionist bird stood by with a stoup of ale in his own hands, smiling round at everyone with his bright, noticing glance. Although he gave no sign, Hildegard felt that he was aware the minute she and Gregory stepped over the threshold.
Very slowly he began to entice the popinjay back into his keeping.
Egbert, losing his partner, sank back among the group of drinkers and in a moment appeared beside them. ‘Harmless enough,’ he murmured. ‘Come outside.’
When they were a few paces away he said, ‘He says he’s a priest from a vill near Bruges. He follows the trail of the trouvères, picking up enough scraps to stay alive, getting rich at times like this and living poor the rest of the time.’
‘A priest?’ queried Gregory.
‘Ex-priest. Thrown out on his ear for fornicating … or so he claims.’
‘That doesn’t surprise me.’ Hildegard recalled the way he stood so unexpectedly close when he was trying to offer her the bird. ‘Didn’t he find anybody to take that popinjay then?’
‘I think it was something else he was offering.’ He grinned. ‘Not what you’re thinking. It seems the bird is a sign understood by those in the know. A play on the word pope? Pope – popinjay? When I reached the ale house he was in a corner talking to a friar—’
‘Was it the Friar John who was so useful at Meaux last Lukemas?’
‘That’s where I’ve seen him!’ Egbert exclaimed. ‘I thought he looked familiar. He’s grown a little forked beard since then. Just like the one the king is said to have adopted.’
Gregory and Hildegard exchanged glances.
‘What?’ Egbert looked puzzled.
‘We were trying to find a link in all this and came up with the idea that it might be something to do with the king’s likely support for the men in russet.’ He lowered his voice as a well-armed fellow, whose mail-shirt looked like the real thing among all the motley, paced beside them down the street with exaggerated unconcern.
Gregory had need for caution. He was referring to Wycliffe’s disciples who travelled the country wearing rough russet gowns and reading openly in English from the parts of the Bible already translated – and risking persecution from the barons who ran the King’s Council for doing so.
To be seen as a Wycliffite was a dangerous activity now that the new regime of King Richard’s enemies was running the country. That the queen, Anne the Good, was a supporter of the theologian’s ideas, as were all her Bohemian court, strengthened the view that King Richard himself was a supporter of more freedom in religious matters, as his mother, the Princess Joan, had been too.
Egbert, however, seemed unconvinced. ‘I would imagine there are enough disagreements here without dragging in the king and his enemies. What about the animosity between the fishing folk and the abbey? That’s contentious enough.’
The armed man, apparently having heard enough, walked on.
‘You think Aelwyn and Edred trod on too many toes over that?’ Gregory asked, watching the fellow stride off down the street.
‘It’s as good a reason as any. Get shot of the troublemakers. Without a spokesman like Aelwyn the fishermen are more easily managed. Rid yourself of a go-between like Edred, and replace him with a sot-wit who’ll do your bidding: your job’s complete.’ He cupped one hand. ‘You’ve got them in your palm.’
‘That’s a grave charge against the abbey hierarchy. We were thinking more along the lines that the abbey were using Aelwyn to keep an eye on their own enemies. Whatever the case, how do you explain the feather in the water and our friend from Bruges?’
Nobody had any ideas.
‘Have you seen Luke, anyone?’ Hildegard asked when it was obvious they were getting nowhere. ‘He was with us one minute then gone the next.’
‘We’re trying to second-guess him and are meandering our way down to Selby’s house,’ Gregory explained.
Egbert nodded. ‘Lead on.’
The alleyway, known as Grope Lane and by other more ribald epithets as well, was as busy as the high street with crowds rolling shoulder to shoulder from one house to the next.
Doors were wide open to the houses where the girls were stationed and their strong-arm protectors lounged genially outside, swapping banter with the clients they knew. When they reached the house at the far end where Master Selby lived, its windows were ablaze with lights. A minstrel could be heard wailing some love ballad in the hall.
They noticed Luke at once. He was standing on the opposite side of the alley, gazing up at one of the first-floor windows.
‘How young and innocent can a man be?’ Egbert asked. ‘What does he think he can achieve?’
The door-man recognized them from when they had been here before looking for Master Dickson. ‘You after that young fellow of yours?’ He pointed.
At that moment the window opened. The perfect oval face of a madonna appeared. It was Sabine. She shouted, ‘Are you still there, monk? Go away!’
Luke had the grace to look abashed. Even so he shouted back, ‘I must speak to you, Sabine. Come down.’
‘You can’t afford for me to come down. Do you have silver? … No, I thought not!’
‘I beg you. Look, I’m on my knees.’ With that he knelt, all the while looking up at her.
‘Don’t you understand? I’m working!’ The shutter slammed.
Luke got up and went across the alley to the door of the house. Before the door-man could stop him he went inside.
The man laughed. ‘How quick do you reckon he’ll be?’ And before anyone could reply he exclaimed, ‘That didn’t last long! Here he is now!’
Luke came tumbling out of the house in the grip of two thick-set men who dumped him out in the street, dusted off their hands, and returned inside.
A shutter opened a crack and Sabine stared down. ‘And don’t come back!’ She sounded irate but something appeared in her hand and she threw it out to land at Luke’s feet. He stepped forward to conceal it under the hem of his cloak. Further shouting ensued and then the shutter slammed again.
The door-man, distracted by the arrival of potential custom, did not see Luke quickly bend to pick up the item.
‘Let’s go. Talk later.’ With that, scarcely waiting for the others, he made for the end of the lane where the old path led up to the abbey. They followed.
Away from the seething crowd, Luke said urgently, ‘I knew there was a reason for that thread of gold. I just hope and pray I’m wrong. Wait until we get to the top then I’ll show you.’
They set off briskly up the steep incline. It was extraordinarily quiet once the town was left behind. Drifts of snow hung precariously from the cliff face and frost glinted on the paving trods forcing Gregory, who was leading the way, to issue a warning about where to set their feet.
Concentrating on not slipping and breaking a limb, they trudged after him as he picked his way upwards into the darkness. Starlight was inadequate to light the way. They began to slow down, out of breath at the steep climb, confused by the winding of the path into deep shadow and out again, until suddenly a shout was heard from out of the blackness in front. It sounded as if Gregory had fallen. Next came the unexpected clash of steel. It was followed by Gregory’s unmistakable warning to get back.
‘Does he mean us?’ Egbert pushed past Hildegard towards the sound.
Just then a couple of figures heavily swathed in cloaks and hoods swarmed out of the darkness below them. They kept coming on without a pause as if to mow them down.
Egbert swiveled, sword somehow in hand. Hildegard gaped. She had not known he had thought to arm himself. The lead figure reached out and tried to push her off the path so he could get to Egbert. Without thinking she lashed out, catching him by chance in the face.
She felt her fingernails snag down the length of his cheek to his jaw bone. He snarled something and lunged towards her. She side-stepped but he twisted quickly to catch hold of her wrist until he could grasp her round the neck. His face, up close to her own, visible as his hood slipped back, was fixed in a snarl of rage.
‘Don’t waste your time, nun. Out of my way!’
It was clear he had some more definite goal in mind. Ahead, Gregory must have drawn a sword. Her attacker plunged up the path to the place where his confederate had been lying in ambush. In the confusion it was impossible to tell how many had followed them up from the town. Blows and shouts and the shudder of steel on armour plate came confusingly from different directions out of the darkness.
A pale shape loomed beside her to materialize as Luke. He gripped Hildegard by the arm. ‘Leave them. They’ve got steel. Run for it!’
‘No, Luke. I have a knife.’ She drew out a long blade visible in the pale starlight. ‘Gregory is up ahead. It sounds as if he’s surrounded. Let’s go to him.’
They could hear Egbert taunting his attackers and two lumbering shapes appeared above them, indistinct in the shadows. There was a flurry of movement, difficult to make out, then one of them pitched over the edge of the path to roll with a curse down the snow-covered cliff until he was halted in a dark clump of thorns.
On the path the fight continued, first Egbert emerging from out of the darkness then his assailant followed before he too went to join his companion down the cliff side. Egbert shouted to the full extent of his lungs and, further up, out of the blackness of the night, Gregory’s answering shout was heard. He sounded hard-pressed.
Without hesitation Egbert flung himself towards the sound of battle with Hildegard at his heels.
Four figures in concealing cloaks were crouched ahead, two above and two below with Gregory trapped between them. If he had been of a mind to escape, the cliff, sheer at this point, was not an option. He had no choice but to fight his way out.
Silhouetted against the night sky they saw him rise to his full height, lift his sword in both hands, then wait until one of his assailants made a move. The man sprang for Gregory’s throat but the monk brought the haft hard down on to the bassinet of his attacker who groaned at the impact and slid off the path into the shadows. A second man approached.
Having the advantage of the higher slope, he launched himself on to the place where he must have seen a glint of Gregory’s sword and the two of them locked and, still fighting, began to roll down the path, sliding almost to Egbert’s feet. He bent and grabbed the man by the sword arm but he wrestled free. As Gregory regained his footing, Egbert stuck the point of his sword under the attacker’s guard and twisted until he broke the sword loose from his grasp. A knife quickly appeared, dragged from the fellow’s belt, and he slashed out to ward off Egbert’s attempt to force him over the edge of the cliff.
Gregory, felled by another attacker’s full weight as he lunged out of the shadows, rolled out of range of his whirling blade and from his position on the ground was able to smash the edge of his sword hard across the greaves the other man wore. It did no harm but it made him stumble and gave Gregory the chance to scramble to his feet and beat him back, thrust by thrust, until he too made his way down the cliff to join his companions. Any other assailants had reckoned up the odds and melted into the night.
‘How many were there?’ Out of breath, Egbert peered through the darkness.
‘They’re gone. But what did they want?’ Gregory too was breathing hard.
‘Cutpurses,’ Egbert replied with asperity.
‘Well armed for cutpurses,’ Hildegard observed. She licked blood from the back of her hand.
All three stared intently down the side of the cliff to catch sight of any movement but, whether wounded or not, their opponents must have been making off in a definite silence towards the street.
‘I recognized that fellow who came bumping up behind us.’
‘How could you, Hildi? It’s too dark to see your hand in front of your face.’
‘His hood came off and he was close enough for every line to be visible. He was one of the abbey’s hired men.’
‘You mean you’d recognize him again?’
‘Definitely. Especially as I gave him a good clawing down the side of his face.’
A muffled shout came to them. It was from somewhere off to the left where Luke had last been seen.
They all peered to where a dark shape was groveling about in a snow drift some way off the path.
‘Is he wounded?’ Egbert stepped to the edge to get a closer look. ‘Want a hand?’
‘No, I’m coming up now.’
In a moment he was standing beside them. He was shivering and his chattering teeth were audible. He began to brush the snow off himself. Hardly able to speak, he muttered, ‘I know what they wanted. I threw it into the snow so they couldn’t get their hands on it.’ He patted something in his sleeve. ‘Let’s get back up to the abbey in case they come after us with reinforcements.’
The urgency in his voice sent them on at a brisk pace to the top without wasting time.
The refectory was in pitch darkness and they only found a candle and tinder after groping around in various niches. Bending their heads in the pool of light they inspected the object Luke now withdrew from his sleeve.
‘Why, it’s like the bursa the holy relic of St Hild is kept in!’ Hildegard exclaimed.
It was an object of great beauty. The workmanship was the finest Opus Anglicanum. It had once been a precious and expensive piece of work made to the highest standards of the Guild of Broiderers. There could be no doubt that it had once belonged to an abbey or similar place. The only obvious faults to mar it were a slight discolouration of the red dye where it had evidently been left in strong sunlight for too long, and several loose strands of embroidered gold thread.
Opening it they found nothing much inside apart from some dried leaves and flower-heads and, mysteriously, a tooth.
‘I’m glad none of us got killed for this.’ Egbert looked on it with some disdain.
Hildegard took out the phial containing the gold thread and laid it in between the close threads of gold. It would have matched if any of them had been missing. She turned it over. Everything seemed intact, although it was roughened in places by too much handling. ‘So this is what Sabine threw down to you. I wonder how she got hold of something like this?’
‘She told me about it,’ Luke explained. ‘It was the one that covered the relic until the Abbot decided it did not do St Hild justice.’
‘I expect Hertilpole also judged that the reliquary would look more impressive with a new one.’
Luke nodded in agreement. ‘This one was acquired by Aelwyn but I know not how, some favour to the sacristan perhaps. The point is he gave it as a gift to Sabine. She was using it to contain a few keepsakes as you see: a flower Aelwyn had given her and the first milk tooth shed by Torold. And then you found that single give-away thread, Hildegard. I just thought, if I can persuade her to let me have it for a while so that we can see if the threads match, it would maybe help find the murderer.’ He looked confused. ‘I did not want to suspect her. And now I see there is no torn thread. We have no reason to believe she was in the apple store after all.’ He looked as if he might shed tears of relief.
Hildegard gave the little bursa a careful appraisal, saying, ‘You thought the thread we found might match?’
The bursa was passed from hand to hand until it reached Luke again.
‘So how did you think a thread from it might have appeared in the apple store?’
‘I asked her point-blank if she’d been up there. The reason is obvious, isn’t it? No-one is above suspicion. This is something I noticed she always held close. When I asked if I might see it again she said it had disappeared the night her cottage was set on fire by Dickson’s men.’
Gregory gave a sceptical shrug. ‘Convenient.’
While the men talked Hildegard felt something snag on her fingernail. When she looked the smallest thread was torn and clinging to it.
‘So one of them stole this thing,’ Egbert was saying, ‘and then they stole some novices’ garments from the laundry, blocked the vents, chose some apples, barred the door to prevent Aelwyn from getting out, and then walked away?’
‘And the bag finishes back with Sabine?’ Gregory could not have looked more sceptical. ‘If she had not thrown it down to you with every sign of being willing to do so, I would not believe her story. I would imagine it was she who had prevented Aelwyn’s escape from the store and therefore done away with him. But as it is … she would have been taking a risk letting you get your hands on this.’ He shrugged and looked thoughtful.
Hildegard held her tongue. It was a small thing she had discovered but its meaning might be momentous. She needed a better light before destroying Luke’s dreams again.
‘Why would anybody be carrying it when they went to the store?’ Egbert was asking.
‘To put apples in?’ Hildegard turned to Luke. ‘So how does she say she got it back?’
‘I know not. You saw how it was. She would not speak to me. I was as surprised as anyone when she decided to throw it down. Have you thought she might be shielding someone, perhaps because she’s afraid of retribution? You know how things are here.’ He looked worried.
‘If they only knew, they need have no fears,’ remarked Egbert. ‘We’re as far from discovering who they are as we are from discovering what the moon is made of.’
To Hildegard it seemed like a deliberate gesture by Sabine to throw them off the scent. If it had been stolen on the night of the fire by one of Dickson’s strong-arm louts, why should they believe he had returned it? A pang of conscience? That seemed unlikely. A thief and a mercenary would be more likely to sell it on to somebody for a profit.
Maybe Sabine, never having lost it in the first place, had thrown it down to Luke in an attempt to show she was innocent? Or maybe she really was frightened of retribution and Luke’s worried face was justified?
She touched him on the arm. ‘If I’m sure of anything, Luke, it’s that Sabine can look after herself.’
It didn’t mean she thought she was innocent.
Sister Aveline poked her head out of her adjoining chamber when she heard Hildegard in the corridor some time later after the men had left. ‘A message for you. A young lad came looking for you but he said to tell you he would return.’
‘Was it Torold?’
‘Don’t expect me to know the names of these wretches. It’s not one of my obligations.’
Her door closed.
After debating the matter with herself for a while, Hildegard eventually pulled on her cloak once more to go outside. She found the contrast startling.
While they’d been discussing the bursa indoors, outside there had been a fresh fall of snow. The foregate lay in ghostly silence. Her boots crisped into it and left a trail of prints as she entered the cloister garth through the night gate. The monks were all abed by now and nothing disturbed the stillness of the night.
With a forgotten childish delight she made the first prints into the perfectly even snow on the garth and headed to the door that would lead through various passageways and courts into the infirmary. It must surely have been Torold who had come looking for her. She would quickly speak to him then go back to bed.
The door from the garth clicked shut behind her. Something about the delay in the sound was unexpected. She half-turned her head. There was nothing there.
The slype lay ahead. It was a narrow passage running between the separate buildings in the abbey. The cresset at the entrance had gone out. She set off into the darkness with a hand on the wall on each side to guide her.
Ahead lay the infirmary. It was visible at the end of the slype as a shadow hulked against the sky. Its sloping roof lay under a fresh blanket of snow.
Within, tended by Brother Dunstan and his assistants, would be the sick and old, tossing sleeplessly in private pain. With luck, Torold would still be busy if Brother Dunstan had made good his promise to keep the lad close in the early days of his grief.
With hands groping into the darkness, she stepped between the narrow walls and had almost reached the end when a definite sound behind her made her halt. This time she knew she had heard something. The uncanny silence that followed made the hairs on the back of her neck rise.
‘Who’s there?’ she called.
There was no answer.
‘I know there’s someone there. Why don’t you speak?’ Anger made her voice sound overly loud and the echo bounced between the stone walls. There was still no response.
She held her breath and listened. A sound came with the stealth of a cautious footstep. Slowly a shape was beginning to emerge out of the darkness. Ghost-like, it was making its way towards her – not in silence now but with the steady tread of iron-shod boots as it came near.
She waited, scarcely breathing. It wasn’t a monk then. It was more like … Was it a mercenary, one of the armed men used to frighten the fishermen?
Because it was so dark, with no window slit to allow in any light, she could not tell how close they were when they stopped. Enraged, she shouted, ‘If you’re not going to speak to me then back off!’
Turning, about to run out into the open, she felt something grasp her cloak, and drag her to a stop. She hit out to free herself but whoever it was holding on to it had a strong grasp and would not let go.
‘Get off! Who are you?’
She had a sensation of body-heat as the unknown figure loomed over her. A wreak of ale was almost reassuringly human. It was not a wraith from the land of the dead. A silent struggle ensued as he grasped hold of her and tried to wrestle her to the ground. She grasped at leather, at gauntlets, at part of a hauberk, difficult to identify as they eluded her grasp.
A strip of linen was tied over the lower part of his face in the style of a mercenary and, still silent, he began trying to bundle her towards the end of the slype. She saw the glimmer of starlight and the blue waste of snow on the paving stones in the next yard.
Tumbling out into the open, she was almost glad to have been forced outside until she saw that the yard was enclosed by walls. It was a trap.
In a glimmer of light the figure gripped her round the neck.
With an angry dash, she ripped off the linen strip to reveal a face. It made her stiffen with dread.
Claw marks made a bloody track down one cheek as far as his jaw. Instantly it told her he was out for revenge.
He might have been thought handsome in a ruthless, aggressive, hard-mannered way except that his eyes were set too close together. Now they sparked with hatred.
One hand gripped her chin and turned her face up to what little light there was.
‘I knew it was you on the cliff side earlier with those cloister creepers,’ he ground out. ‘Why waste your time with them?’ He was breathing heavily. The sour stench of ale was stronger as he looked down into her face. ‘What you need, nun, is a real man, not a monk.’ His lips twisted in derision. ‘What about it? I can do more for you than those two brothers-in-arms. Are they sodomites like all their kind?’ He dragged her against his hard, muscular body. ‘I can tell you, I’m not.’
She tried to draw back. ‘Why did you attack us?’ Her voice wavered as her thoughts speeded up. Where was her knife? Surreptitiously she felt for it in her sleeve but he was alert to her slightest movement.
‘Is this what you’re looking for, my lady?’ With a sneer he brought up his left hand. In it the long blade of her own knife flashed close to her eyes.
‘Are you going to blind me?’ Her voice was under control now.
He registered the change. ‘Not so, my lovely. I want you to witness every holy moment of our union. This’ll be the first time I’ve had a nun.’
Without any other preliminary he was already reaching under his mail shirt to fumble at the buckle of his belt.
It was her only chance. Dashing a hand against the knife he was grasping she rammed one knee hard into his groin. In the moment before his head snapped forward and knowing that she must not waver, she wrenched her knife from out of his briefly weakened grasp and drove the hilt up under his chin, ramming his head back with all her strength. He gagged, recovered and jerked forward again, trapping her against the wall.
She gripped his hair in her free hand, pulling his head backwards, and as he broke free and plunged towards her she used his own momentum to yank him forward so she could side-step and smash him face-first into the stonework.
He sank to his knees.
Not waiting to watch him struggle to his feet, she ran as fast as she could to the far side of the little yard with the knife still miraculously in her grasp and only when she felt sufficiently far off did she dare swivel to face him again.
He was kneeling in a cursing heap at the foot of the wall and clutching his face, not going anywhere.
With a gasp of relief she pulled open the wall door and stepped into the adjoining passage.
Something soft and living was on the other side.
She screamed.
In the forbidden precinct.
A hooded monk in black took hold of her.
It was Hertilpole.
Apart from a sharp intake of breath he made no other sound at her sudden eruption from the yard but merely gripped her by both shoulders and thrust her against the wall.
‘Let me go!’ she gasped, astonished at his roughness.
Illuminated by the flickering flames from a wall sconce nearby, his face creaked into a smile before his lips twisted at a sudden thought. He asked, ‘Have you come to see me? Is that it?’
She gaped at him.
‘I’ve been expecting you,’ he continued. ‘But at night? No, I didn’t expect this!’
‘No, I …’ Why would he imagine she would visit him?
He lowered his head so he could speak more intimately. ‘Have you come to add something to that insulting offer for the relic? I’m very willing to discuss matters at greater length. I did not entirely expect you in the middle of the night, but if that is your choice and desire, I accept, most readily, my dear.’
Smiling with his terrible, humourless smile, he gripped her by both arms and began to push her rapidly along the corridor ahead of him until suddenly he thrust her backwards and there was nothing behind her and she was falling and realized it was a door that had opened into a candle-lit chamber and she was falling backwards, unable to help herself until she landed on a heap of something soft amid the unexpected scent of old vellum and parchment. She realized with astonishment that they were in the muniments room and she was lying on a pile of documents. She had hit them with sufficient force to knock the breath from her body.
Hertilpole was on top of her at once. He stifled her as he found her mouth and pressed lips like cold marble over it. He was pressing hungrily to urge a response.
For one vile moment the memory of her returning mercenary husband when he had lured her into the crypt of St Bartholomew’s surged before her. The remembered horror of imminent rape by a man she had believed to be long dead gave her the strength to resist this new and shocking attack by a monastic now. This time there was no Rivera to save her as there had been then.
Calling on the power of an angelic host for strength, she fought to free her mouth from his lascivious searching and punched him about the face and head to his obvious astonishment.
‘Be still!’ he hissed. ‘Make no noise!’
In the glowing light of a dozen candles she saw his eyes narrow with contempt at her resistance. At first he pretended it was due to excitement until he began to realize it was repugnance, a personal affront, a challenge to his authority and sense of entitlement. That a mere woman should resist him enraged him.
Sprawled under him she could scarcely move off the mound of documents, the writs, the affidavits, the leases and cartularies, the lists of tolls and fines and ancient obligations recorded in the archives, and when he gripped her face between wiry fingers so that he could force open her mouth she gagged as he inserted his tongue between her lips.
Revolting as it felt, she had no choice but to clamp her teeth together and bite as hard as she could. He roared with pain and flinched back. She saw him raise a fist in fury.
The brief pause gave her time to wriggle from under him. His fist pounded into the pile of vellum, missing her by inches. Crawling over the mound of documents, she hurled herself on her knees towards the open door but he followed with a shout of rage, dragging her back by her skirts and with a handful of fabric in his grasp began to haul her back into the chamber. He was surprisingly strong.
During the intense struggle that followed he knocked against the candelabra with its rich complement of beeswax candles and as it swayed hot wax fell on the documents underneath. The candelabra fell, setting alight the dry pages they were lying on. There was a flash and a sheet of flame engulfed the chamber. It gave Hildegard time to scramble from his grasp and drag herself into the corridor.
The narrow vaulted passage yawned in both directions. First she tried one way, plunging into the darkness, her gasping panic taking over but then, after a backward glance noticing a line of light under a far door, she fled towards it as recklessly as a moth to a flame.