For the first time she was able to take a good look at Ulric’s opponent on the other side of the board. He pushed his hood back a little. ‘You saw me in the yard the other day when you were having a word with Frank about his modelling. I was working next to him.’
‘If you say so.’ Short clipped hair, a wisp of beard, he was vaguely familiar.
‘He’s something to tell you. Tell her, Col.’
‘I saw Frank yesterday. After the hue and cry had given up.’
‘Where?’
‘I won’t tell you that yet. Right now everybody thinks he’s escaped over the town walls. But I know better. He’s found somewhere to hide inside the town. He’ll bide his time until he thinks it’s safe to come out again.’
‘But doesn’t he realise that the longer he stays away the worse it’s going to look?’
‘You never could tell Frank nothing.’
‘So where would he hide?’
‘Ah, that’s the big question. You mark my words, though. He’s found a hidey-hole.’
Hildegard eyed him doubtfully. She felt that Col probably did not have an inkling where Frank was. She asked him again. ‘Where did you say you’d seen him?’
He was in no hurry to tell her. He turned back to the domino board and began to consider his next move.
Already she was beginning to wonder how soon she could get out of here. She was sickened by the smell of unwashed bodies, urine, and stale food and by a group of girls, slatternly and looking used up, sprawled on one of the benches near the door to the stairs waiting for custom. Intermittent shouts erupted from among the drinkers with no apparent cause. The noise level was rising as more ale was downed.
Col was taking his time to reveal his secret and he made his next move with the dominoes as if he had all night, as perhaps he had, and then, eventually, he said, ‘It was as I was coming back along the river bank. I saw him, plain as day, on the other side of the trees.’
‘Near the Close?’
‘On the edge on that bit of rough land before you reach the Close.’
‘Was he with anyone?’
‘No. I was going to call out then I thought somebody might overhear so I cut through the trees to where I thought he’d come out but he’d vanished.’
Like thistle-down, thought Hildegard, remembering Jonathan’s words.
‘Have you told anybody else this?’
‘Only ‘im.’ He nodded towards Ulric and at the same time jumped a piece in a zigzag across the board and scooped up several pieces at once with a leer of triumph.
Ulric let out a groan. ‘You sneaky devil!’
‘I thought you’d seen it coming?’
They fell to a discussion of the finer points of the game and Hildegard got up to go.
‘Hold on. You’re not going to sprag on me to them serjeants, are you?’ Col glared at Ulric. ‘You told me she was on the level.’
‘So she is. I’ve spoken to the monk she travels with. He’s all right. He’s worked the road to Jerusalem. He’s nifty with a sword and knows when to use it.’
‘I’m not going to tell anybody anything,’ she interrupted. ‘Besides, what could I say? I don’t even know which bit of the river bank you were walking along.’
On an impulse she reached into her scrip and pulled out a couple of coins and let them drop onto the board. As she left she heard the scrape of boots as they stood up to follow.
By the time she reached the end of the street they were walking on either side of her. When they overtook her she let them lead the way.
It was a lonely stretch of ground with the dark snake of the river winding below a steep bank with a copse and rough ground covered in docks and thistles, and on the other side the water meadows stretching to the distant field strips. A path had been worn from their side of the river through the trees back towards the wall enclosing the cathedral close.
Somewhat alert, unsure how far she could trust them, Hildegard followed the two hooded shapes along the path and into the copse.
They did not stop there but continued out onto the other side to the rough ground Col had mentioned. ‘This is where I lost sight of him,’ he admitted, gazing round as if expecting Frank to materialise in front of their eyes.
‘Where does this path lead?’
‘Nowhere.’
‘What’s over on the other side of the Close?’
‘Behind the Cathedral? Just burgages behind a row of houses fronting onto Friary Lane.’
‘Anyone Frank knows there?’
‘He might. Nobody I’ve heard of. What about you, Ulric?’
‘Me neither.’
It was bleak hereabouts. She could see no reason for anyone coming over here. But there was that thin meandering path, the one they themselves had just taken. Any local would know about it.
‘Those houses across the Close are quite far away,’ she remarked.
Neither of them disagreed.
Standing under the trees she gazed across towards the massive edifice of the cathedral with the soaring steeple disappearing into the night sky. Between here, where Col claimed to have seen Frank, was nothing but undulating scrub with a few bushes dotted about.
They were not on the north side, on the devil’s side, where no-one liked to walk alone but it was bleak enough, a place suited to felons and murderers.
‘Have you searched the bushes?’ she asked. ‘Could he be hiding out somewhere like that?’
‘The hue and cry flattened them. They scoured every leaf and blade of grass. Even a rabbit couldn’t have escaped notice.’
‘Did you join them?’
‘Had to, hadn’t we? We’re liable.’
‘So you need to find him,’ she added, almost to herself, ‘or you’ll have to pay up.’
‘We’re off back to our ale, mistress.’ Col evidently did not know she was a nun. ‘Have you seen enough?’
‘I’ll just have a bit more of a look round.’
‘This is no place for a woman by herself,’ remarked Ulric. ‘Come on.’
‘Thank you for your concern. I’m sure the angels will protect me.’ As well as my knife, she added silently.
His face, little more than a blur in the falling darkness, expressed scepticism but the two men nodded and began to walk away.
Hildegard waited a moment then began to follow the narrow pathway where it trailed around out of the woods onto the scrub land. It seemed to have no purpose. And yet it existed, people had clearly walked it at some time and they must have had a reason.
It became hard to make it out in the gloaming. She lost it at one point then doubled back until she found it again. Eventually she came out among a few gorse bushes. They were in full bloom and stood as high as a man.
She hesitated. A faint sound seemed to come like a shift in the air. At first she thought it was the sound of singing from the cathedral before she realised the source was closer than that.
Cautiously she moved towards it. It was like a breath. Now it stopped. A thread of sound. As fine as thistledown.
She put her head on one side the better to hear.
It did not come again. The wind whispered through the trees. Nocturnal creatures scuttered in the grass. It was a bleak and lonely place. Fear could play tricks and invent sounds where none existed.
She was about to turn and follow the two men when something drew her forwards, deeper in amongst the gorse.
A man, if he eluded the hue and cry, could hide out somewhere like this, she decided as she wrapped one hand inside her sleeve and pushed the prickly stems to one side.
Here the path seemed to disappear but then she picked it up again where it ran on in a faint trail between the gorse. Shadows thickened. A breath of air like a hand brushed her face. She came to a halt.
There where the bushes opened out was something little more than a dark shape on the path. She stepped closer.