The Cat Tavern, less than a bow shot from Salisbury Cathedral, was host to several customers on this wet day. This was despite the weather that drew people to seek shelter and more to do with the tavern-keeper and his ale. She had discovered at once that it was remarkable for its quality.
He was a genial fellow, she observed, the sort who keeps his own counsel and sides with no-one. Torrential rain somewhat heavier than a mere April shower had continued ever since she and Brother Gregory had arrived in Salisbury. The monk had just left for one of the little offices of the day and Hildegard was thinking about returning to her lodgings. With her ale mug empty only the thought of the soaking when she stepped outside was giving her pause for thoughtt.
Retying a kerchief over her face to protect it from the wet, she glanced up suddenly when the tavern door flew open and a tall, athletic-looking fellow of middling years burst in.
He shook the rain from off the shoulders of a grey cloak the way a dog, emerging from a pond, shakes off water droplets. He kept his hood up.
‘By St Thomas!’ he exclaimed, ‘it’s enough to freeze your bollocks off out there. Call this April? More like November.’
The tavern-keeper remained po-faced. ‘I have a remedy especially for you, sir.’ He indicated the range of barrels along the wall.
‘I’ll have a stoup of your best brew then, master. These monks of Sarum are canny brewers.’
The tavern-keeper patted the barrel nearest and cocked one eyebrow at him. ‘The usual?’
With his back to the rest of the drinkers, the newcomer slapped a silver penny onto the counter but before the tavern-keeper could reach for it the stranger placed one large hand over it. ‘First, a question.’
‘Try me.’ The tavern-keeper’s expression did not alter.
Before the man replied, Hildegard saw him flick a glance from under his hood at the muffled towns folk, and give a shrug. With her own hood up she busied herself in re-knotting the lace of her leather scrip. Apparently judging himself and the tavern-keeper to be alone, he leaned towards him and asked in an undertone, ‘Has a woman been in here?’
‘A woman?’
‘Know what one of them is?’
‘I do, friend. And I wouldn’t be without mine.’
‘Well, has there?’
‘What like?’
‘Tall, skinny, eyes like sea glass.’
‘Glass? You mean you can see through them?’
‘Yes, and you feel she can see through you.’
‘Most uncomfortable, sir. Why would you search out one such as that?’
‘Not uncomfortable at all. In fact - ’ the stranger lowered his voice and Hildegard, interest aroused, leaned forward as if her only concern was with re-lacing her boots. ‘I would say it makes her rather more challenging,’ she heard him say, ‘and for that reason I would say - exciting.’
‘Each to his own,’ replied the tavern-keeper. ‘Now, speaking for myself, I prefer a woman who - ’
‘I fear we’re getting off the topic.’ The stranger moved the hand concealing the penny in inch closer to the tavern-keeper and fixed him with a look.
The taverner affected little interest in the coin and began to busy himself with the spigot of the ale barrel, murmuring, ‘As you know we get plenty of women in here, praise St Thomas, so tell me more, if you will.’
‘A tough, tall, troublesome wench, not above thirty or maybe thirty-two? Or even,’ he added, musing, ‘even older, for I doubt she’s above witchery to increase her allure.’ He chuckled. ‘Despite that she’s nobody’s fool. She’s a woman who’ll give as good as she gets. A wild woman when roused but a lamb and most peaceable when the world runs right.’
‘With so much detail, this is your own absconding woman we’re talking about, I surmise?’ He slapped the brimming tankard onto the counter.
The customer did not so much as glance at the ale set before him. ‘She’s not a woman to belong to any man. She’s her own woman. A femme sole. A mystery woman, one with questions about her, about who she is and where she’s from. She has no qualms about wearing a nun’s habit either, if the occasion warrants. Above all, friend, arises the question concerning her reason for being here in your fair city? You understand me?’
‘A watchful and observing woman, is she?’
‘Very definitely the spying type.’
‘And in these times, therefore, dangerous.’
‘Undoubtedly - for anyone with something to hide.’
‘Then all men must fear her.’ The taverner smiled. ‘I believe, sir, that should she walk in here I’d spy her spying me. Praise be, to my knowledge she has not so honoured us and does not know my wife.’
‘If and when she does come in as well she might - ’ he lifted his hand from the coin on the counter and pushed it across, ‘there’ll be more where that comes from. You know me and you might remember her name. She travels as Mistress York.’
Hildegard froze in astonishment. She pulled her hood further down over her face.
How could anyone here know that name? Unless, she thought with dismay, they had knowledge of her recent past. The feeling of unease as she and Gregory had travelled through the forest returned. It had meant something after all. They had been followed. That fellow at the alehouse in Lepe taunting the soothsayer to draw out his affinity - he had worn grey. She took a quick look at the grey cloak of the stranger now. It could easily be one and the same.
She waited to hear what he would say next.
The tavern-keeper was gazing at the coin but did not pick it up. ‘It’s going to cost you to pay every ale-man in Salisbury in pursuit of this woman. Let’s hope she’s worth it when you finally apprehend her. But tell me, how shall I redeem my reward for this information when I obtain it?’
‘If you don’t see me in here, send to me at Clarendon Palace.’
The man swivelled on his heel, his ale untouched, and walked out.
After a considered pause, the tavern-keeper came across to Hildegard. With a backward glance towards the door, he murmured, ‘That’s a rare and oblique fellow. Did you hear all that?’
‘I did.’
‘He’s the type to wield a knife if he thought to force his point of view - and bribery failed him.’
‘My opinion also, master.’
‘Whether you know him or not - and I do - I suggest you go out through the back - unless you wish to make my earning of his tainted coin too easy?’
For a brief moment Hildegard lifted the tip of her hood to reveal the eyes the visitor had described as sea glass, a trait the tavern-keeper himself had noticed as soon as she walked in accompanied by a tall, rangy-looking monk with a sword ill-concealed beneath his riding cloak.
‘Further, I suggest you keep well out of his way if you can, Mistress York, if that’s your name.’ He glanced pointedly at the small wooden cross just visible in the opening of her cloak. It was the only visible evidence that she was a monastic.
She pushed it out of sight. ‘I shall heed you’re advice. My gratitude, master.’ She rose to her feet, ‘and my thanks also for your good ale.’
As Hildegard walked away through the rain, she was puzzled. She recalled the jostling men on the quayside at Lepe, the crowd in the ale house, the slam of a door at the refuge in the Forest last night. And now, here was someone asking for her by a name she had not used for over a year. It was her alias when on secret work for the king. What could this stranger want of her? Worse was the fact that he knew of her alias. It was alarming. No-one outside the secret world of intelligence should know it. In fact, the last time she had used it was when she went to Santiago de Compostela to light a hundred candles for the soul of her murdered lover, Rivera.
At that time an assumed identity had been the safest way to travel. It had also been a sign of her uncertainty about her vows, one of which she had broken over and over again without remorse.
But who else could know the name Mistress York? The rest of the pilgrims on that long journey, her travel companions, had known it, taking at face value the widow from Yorkshire, but that was all they knew. There was one here in England, however, a man she had been forced to trust with her life. He knew. But that was the sum of it.
It can only be him, she thought now with a jolt of fear and rage. He has betrayed me. And he is here. I have seen him. I knew I had made no mistake.
It had been a strange and unexpected encounter taking place soon after she attended prime in the cathedral this very day of her arrival.
She had been unable to believe her eyes. To meet someone here in Salisbury from that ill-fated autumn in London was too astonishing. Even now, as she thought about it, doubts crowded her mind. Surely it was out of the question that he, of all people, should have mentioned her name to anyone? He certainly knew it, though. It had been his job to know everything relating to the safety of King Richard.
It had been during the fateful October parliament last year, a desperate period when, with France on the brink of invasion, the barons, led by Thomas Woodstock and the earl of Warwick had made their first attempt to impeach King Richard’s trusted chancellor, Michael de la Pole. A trumped up charge had been levied which de la Pole had easily defeated as the Parliamentary Rolls showed. But it was clear the charge had been meant as an underhand threat directed at the king himself. The man she had met by chance in the cloister that morning, like a ghost from the past, had been in Westminster at the dark heart of events during that fateful autumn.
He was the only man in England, apart from his deputy, who knew of her alias.
His name was Richard Medford, one-time Head of the Signet Office, a master spy in the service of the king.