Abbot de Courcy did not seem perturbed by the fact that he, a Cistercian abbot, follower of the remorseless rules laid down by Bernard of Clairvaux for his monks, was seen in public with his arms round a nun. Nor did he seem inclined to release her even when one of these monks approached.
Brother Gregory slapped him on the back. ‘Quick thinking, my lord abbot. Who would ever have believed he would try to damn his soul to eternal hell fire by taking Hildegard with him? I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.’
‘Is she wounded?’ asked Hubert as if Hildegard could not speak for herself.
‘It’s de Lincoln’s blood, not mine,’ she mumbled.
‘No, I think you bleed here. Look.’ He tenderly lifted her shift away from the tear in her habit to reveal her shoulder.
‘A flesh wound only,’ she explained, conscious of all eyes watching them.
The serjeant came over and gingerly peered over the edge of the drop into the nave.
He turned to his men. ‘Go down and get that mess cleared up.’ His voice was hard. ‘Slow as Christmas,’ he growled. ‘Five constables bested by a couple of monks and a nun.’
His cold glance swept over Sir Maurice without comment.
Later, after a good meal at the George, the drama was told again with little variation on what Hildegard and Gregory had already recounted to the serjeant. Satisfied, he had gone off to attend the declining behaviour of the May celebrants, the streets by now sickly with the smell of trampled hawthorn blossoms, blood, urine and spilled ale.
They were telling the story again to Hubert and Brother Edgar when their hawk appeared. Gregory made room for him on the bench and poured him a beaker of wine. The boy looked flattered to be in such august company and glanced at the lord abbot in awe.
Egbert was smiling from Hildegard to Gregory. ‘We expected you to be having a quiet time of it,’ he observed. ‘It’s we, so we thought, who were faced with rough dealings in Lymington.’
‘That water front,’ agreed Hubert with a contented smile, ‘but nothing we couldn’t sort out.’
‘I’m still not clear who it was who set the windlass going to bring up the body of that poor youth,’ Egbert puzzled.
‘One of the windlass men deliberately led me astray,’ Hildegard explained. ‘No stranger came up to bribe the two of them. They were not even present. It’s against guild rules. That night they were simply in their usual haunt, a place called the Hawthorn. Gregory suspected as much when he went to cajole them into talking to him.’
‘I checked their story with an innocent drinker present in the Hawthorn on that same night. He had cause to remember because he lost a week’s wages at dominoes to Ulric. It suggested that someone else – de Lincoln as I thought – had been the stranger with the gift of gold willing to climb the steeple.’
‘Our young friar here smoothed our path. He led me to question the fellows who worked the windlass,’ Hildegard continued. ‘One of them was much less adept at lying than his partner. He didn’t say much. His face gave him away. We suspected that they weren’t in the steeple that night after all.’
‘But then, we didn’t know who was. Someone was, of course, in order to haul up the body. De Lincoln seemed to me to be the most likely candidate. But it made no sense. It had to be someone connected to the list of men who had given gold for the release of Sir Simon, someone who realised they might be betrayed, someone from the masons’ inner circle.’ Hildegard added. ‘That let out another suspect.’ She did not name Richard Medford who would have been as familiar as anyone with the plan of the cathedral and whose name was also on the list.
‘As you heard from his own lips it was the master’s brother-in-law, Sir Maurice, who decided to get rid of the traitor in their midst as soon as he saw an opportunity,’ Gregory took up the story. ‘As far as we can say, while the others, led innocently enough by Frank, trussed Robin up to teach him a lesson, Sir Maurice and Master Gervase came out from the house to find out what the commotion in the Close was that night. They intended to sort it out by imposing a few fines. We’ll probably never know the exact sequence of events but maybe Master Gervase told them off and took a note of who they were and then decided he could leave them to release Robin themselves. Perhaps he then turned back for home. Sir Maurice lingered, maybe saying he would stay to make sure they did as ordered, and then he had an idea. All he had to do was tell the lads he would handle Robin then climb up to the windlass and haul him out of reach.’
Gregory turned to Hildegard. ‘But there in the steeple you suddenly knew without any doubt that the guilty man was de Quincy. Why were you so certain?’
‘It was his ring. When he was strutting about I saw it flash. And then I remember the wound down the side of Frank’s cheek and what he had said when we hauled him from the shaft. It fitted.’
Gregory nodded. ‘Well observed.’ He took over. ‘When the masons realised what had happened and which way the wind was blowing they got together to protect their master by throwing everybody off the scent of his brother-in-law, a fellow notorious for his fiery temper. Of course, they were protecting their own jobs as well.’ He added, ‘The serjeant will get nowhere if he decides to appeal them and he knows it. Given the strength of local support for Sir Simon Burley anyone who sets out to help him earns everyone’s praise. It’s the general view that justice has been done by cutting down a traitor in their midst.’
‘So it has no chance of getting to court,’ Hubert hazarded.
‘None whatsoever.’ Gregory was emphatic.
‘We should have followed up what an old couple living across the Close told us,’ Hildegard said.
Gregory chuckled. ‘With all their bickering it’s a wonder they heard anything.’
‘Apparently they heard the voices of two men crossing the Close that night round about the time the racket started,’ she explained. ‘We failed to insist on names because they denied any knowledge of who the men were. They must have recognised them because both men are well-known, but they led us to believe they knew nothing ad we failed to insist.’
‘I doubt whether they could have agreed even on that point of fact,’ smiled Gregory.
‘But how could anybody conceive of such a plan?’ asked Hubert still shocked by events.
‘It was an opportunistic murder. When Gervase left them to untie Robin it was then Maurice must have had the idea of setting the windlass going.’
‘He’s a strong old devil,’ Jonathan commented
‘I couldn’t understand why the men hadn’t raised the alarm if they were working up there. That would have been the natural thing to do. Their excuse wasn’t convincing,’ said Hildegard. ‘They said they didn’t want the bother of being first finders.’ She frowned. ‘Another thing that puzzles me,’ she admitted, ‘is how Idonea has come to be married to the master after she vowed never to wed an old man.’
‘Hardly old,’ Gregory objected. ‘Surely no more than his mid-thirties.’
‘It’s ancient to a girl of sixteen.’
He conceded the point. ‘But you said de Lincoln came up with a reason.’
‘He told me she wants revenge for Robin’s death.’ She explained to the others.
‘Do you believe him?’
Hildegard frowned. ‘I don’t want to believe him. Nothing much he said proved to be true in the end, did it?’
‘Someone should warn the girl that she’s contemplating a great sin and if she goes ahead she will be damned for ever,’ suggested Hubert. ‘Even if so monstrous an allegation is true no crime has been committed so far, except in the girl’s heart for which if she sincerely makes confession she can be pardoned.’
He rose to his feet and looked down at Hildegard and Gregory in a rather critical manner. ‘I must say you two seem to have worked very closely.’
‘That’s true,’ agreed Hildegard spontaneously, ‘and I owe Brother Gregory a great debt for his unstinting protection.’
She smiled warmly at him until she caught sight of Hubert’s face set in familiar stern lines. Quickly she added, ‘And I owe my life to you, my lord.’
Hubert dismissed this with a brief gesture.
‘I must go and say my farewells,’ she told them, also rising to her feet. ‘First to Sister Elwis for her kindness and understanding and then to my daughter and her betrothed.’
‘And I shall accompany Friar Jonathan to the market cross to give him a helping hand against his Domincan rivals,’ smiled Gregory rising athletically to his feet. ‘Are you going to join us, Egbert?’
‘I surely am.’
‘After that,’ added Gregory, ‘I trust we are for the peace and harmony of the Abbey of Meaux!’
‘So pray we all,’ Egbert agreed.
Hubert watched Gregory leave with an ambiguous expression and when he turned Hildegard had already left.
Apart from the wrench of parting from her daughter yet again she was delighted to find that she had been welcomed whole-heartedly into Ivo’s family. Arrangements for their future were already underway. Ysabella would return to the countess as before and Ivo was to go down to his father’s mine in the West Country to gain some practical experience. A wedding was planned when both were sixteen. It all seemed most happily arranged.
Next she went to collect her things from her lodgings and say farewell to Sister Elwis and her nuns. Mistress Treadwell was present. ‘I’m only here as a lay sister, to try things,’ she told Hildegard. ‘I suppose I could do worse.’
On an impulse Hildegard decided to make one more call before she left.
The house of Master Gervase was still in celebratory mood after the wedding. Gervase was somewhat put out by Hildegard’s appearance at first until he realised she had not come to stir up trouble.
‘About my brother-in-law,’ he murmured when his housekeeper had plied her with wine, ‘he has strong views. I guessed he was at the bottom of it. I had no intention of shifting blame onto poor Frank but I had to protect Maurice because he did not know what he was doing. His righteous rages drive him to folly. He cannot control himself. Ever since France when he was most grievously wounded in the head we have had to watch him. He flares up without warning as if the devil has got hold of him and we are powerless to talk sense to the poor soul. I fear it was the head wound that has done for his senses for ever. And you see how it is in a place like this? Everyone believes that justice has been done. The guilty have been punished. One more skull adorning the town walls would change nothing in the destiny of the realm.’
Hildegard said only, ‘Some believe guild matters are best dealt with by the guild.’
‘Quite so,’ affirmed Gervase.
Before she left she was taken aside by Idonea. ‘I pray you’ve said nothing to my husband about that man de Lincoln and his worthless promises to me?’
Hildegard was astonished at this and could not imagine what promises de Lincoln might have made until she realised that he had probably planned to recruit Idonea into his network of informants – and had maybe promised even more.
‘He would have used you the way he used Robin, to speak against your friends.’
‘I know that now.’
Hildegard turned the subject to the girl’s choice of husband.
Idonea’s view was that she may as well marry a wealthy man and be miserable than marry a poor man and be miserable anyway.
‘Robin was not good husband material. I knew that all along. He really only wanted to sin with me and nothing more. Frank was right,’ she gave Hildegard a half smile, ‘but I beg you not to tell him so.’ As for any thoughts of revenge, she now dismissed that as mere angry talk. All was forgiven.
The glances she kept bestowing on Gervase were indulgent and Hildegard noticed that she treated him rather as a master would treat a dancing bear, with a certain stern kindliness and firmness of will.
Gervase was plainly delighted with his bride. Hildegard’s hope was that his shining adoration would surely deflect any fleeting intentions to do with henbane.
One final visit engaged her attention. It was to the cathedral where she found the spot where de Lincoln had fallen to his death. Nothing now remained of his iniquitous life. She stood looking up into the vast echo chamber of the steeple. Random sounds were augmented and they spun round the vast hollow before fading to nothing. Like our lives, she thought, like the minutes and years of our lives. And then silence.
Taking out her knife she knelt on one of the flagstones where the masons had recently been working and scratched a small cross in the stone. It was no larger than the knuckle of her middle finger and on both sides of the vertical she inscribed r and p – requiescat in pacem. She did not know now what level of misery and perhaps cruelty had brought de Lincoln to such a pitch of traitorous endeavour nor would she ever know. It would remain with him through eternity, his destiny, indeed.
A few days later Abbot de Courcy’s small group was at last ready to set out on the long journey by road up the length of England to their abbey in the East Riding of Yorkshire.
Together with four horses hired from the town ostler they had three pack animals to carry provisions and other necessities. These included a small, heavy object that Ulric solemnly handed over to Hildegard with a gruff, ‘From Frank. He can’t get out yet.’
‘Thank him,’ replied Hildegard, weighing the object in her hand.
Ulric hovered for a moment and when Hildegard lifted her head he muttered, ‘And my most deep apologies for the deception, domina. Like you we have our sworn mysteries which no man may admit on pain of death. Our loyalties are as firm as the rock with which we build.’
After he left, Hubert came over to have a look at what he had given her.
‘A gift?’ He looked at it with suspicion. ‘From whom?’
‘From a man whose life I saved,’ she replied. ‘A gift makes him feel easier about it. Just as I shall forever be in your debt.’
When she opened out the parcel she held it up. ‘How perfect!’ she exclaimed.
‘How seditious,’ Hubert observed dryly.
It was a perfectly carved hart, reclining with a chain round its neck, the symbol used often by King Richard and his followers.
‘I should have been more profuse in my thanks,’ Hildegard worried.
‘To save a life is beyond any gift,’ Hubert reassured her. He added hurriedly, ‘not that I see you as in any way beholden to me for that trifling incident in the steeple.’
They came out into the stable yard of the George, the town’s largest hostelry and the place where the couriers came in so it was no surprise just then to hear a horse ridden through the gates at speed and to see a courier tumble from the saddle with his bag falling from one shoulder.
‘My lords and masters!’ he roared as loudly as he could, still breathless from his ride. ‘I have news from Westminster!’
A crowd gathered at once.
He pulled a scroll from his bag and unfurled it.
‘Oyez! Hear this!’ A hush descended. ‘On the third day of May just past and by order of the King’s Council led by his grace the duke of Gloucester, it so happened that the lord Burley, Sir Simon, knight, was executed on Tower Hill for traitorously accroaching the king’s regality.’
There was uproar. Hildegard did not hear the rest. She gave a cry and Hubert held her in his arms as if he could shelter her from the news.
‘That’s that! Barbarism rules!’ Egbert punched one fist into the other as if he wished it was Gloucester’s head. ‘What now, friends?’
‘The country will be up in arms,’ Gregory observed. ‘We must prepare.’
Hubert took charge. ‘King Richard is now in the gravest danger. It makes it even more important to get back to Meaux as quickly as we can to rouse what resistance we can in the Riding. To horse!’
***
It was with heavy hearts that they left the town of Salisbury with a sense that things would never be the same, neither for themselves, nor within the realm of England, now that the rule of law had been so decisively flouted. At least the count of skulls above the town gate had not increased by these recent incidents and if Master Gervase could keep his brother-in-law under control it was likely that the law-makers in Westminster would not bother to disturb the peace and order of such a distant place.
About the rest of the country they were not so easy in their minds. After a few hours hard riding on the route northwards they eventually slowed their horses for a short rest and to break open their saddlebags for something to eat. They were still within the domain of the New Forest and found a sheltered grove where a shallow stream puttered between the trees. While their horses drank Gregory disappeared into the bushes and Egbert unpacked the saddlebags
‘It’s almost too horrible to imagine the array of skulls on London Bridge,’ Hildegard admitted as soon as Egbert came to sit beside them on a grassy, daisy spangled hillock.
‘It’s a villainous time. Let’s hope the blood-letting is over now Gloucester has had his way.’
Egbert agreed. ‘Barbaric events, indeed, and not ones I expected to find on returning home to England.’
‘Those victims of the so-called duke had all their lives before them,’ Hildegard continued. ‘I simply can’t help mourning for them. I will never forget them. They were loyal to King Richard. And for that they earned an agonising death. How could it be allowed to happen? How could the good, ordinary folk in London allow it? Those men had wives and children, and daily hopes and fears like all of us. Loyal knights dedicated to duty and honour. Loyal, despite all threatened horrors, to the king. How can such barbarity thrive in this blessed land? How?’ She glanced round the shimmering grove. ‘How beautiful it is here. We have a country full of blessings, fertile acres, enough to feed all and enrich all. But some, driven by greed and ambition, men like Gloucester, Arundel and Warwick, seem to want to despoil it merely for their own selfish ends. How sad it is. How pointless. An advantage gained at another’s expense is no advantage at all. Can they not see that the good of all is more important than the good of one?’
Hubert nodded agreement. ‘This is the way of the world and we can only go on doing what we believe in and strive to speak truth as and when we see it. Try not to grieve too much, Hildegard.’
Just then there was a shout from within the woods and in a great disturbance of foliage Gregory burst into view. He was beaming. ‘Come, friends, I have something to delight you!’
Egbert grumbled but even so rose to his feet. ‘What is it?’
‘Come and see!’
‘I hope it’s worth getting up for. I’m as comfortable as a pasha lying here in the sun. Is it really worth it?’
‘You’ll see!’
The two monks disappeared into the undergrowth and Hubert reached out to pull Hildegard to her feet. ‘What do you think he’s found?’
‘Some rare plant, maybe a beautiful vista or a perfect shade of green?’
They followed the others into the thicket down a winding path and eventually, above the swishing of the branches as they pushed a way through they heard a roaring sound that after a moment they identified as the crashing down of tons of water onto rocks. The next moment Hubert parted the branches to reveal a brilliant slash of white, maybe twenty feet high. It was a water-fall tumbling from the top of a cliff into a natural bowl of rock where it gurgled and bubbled and was as translucent as glass, not frozen to holy stillness as in the abbey windows but in perpetual and enchanting motion.
Gregory’s face was wet when he turned, smiling at their joy in this unexpected sight. ‘Come and drink! It’s pure and cold and better than wine.’
Egbert was already on hands and knees scooping up the water and throwing it in great handfuls over his head, making his tonsure gleam. He took a deep drink from cupped hands. ‘He’s right, you two. Let’s fill our water bottles before we leave.’
It was as Gregory and Egbert had said, the water crystalline, cold, wonderfully cooling after their ride in the hot sun. Hildegard took off her coif and wet her hair. The two monks dragged their abbot into the pool up to his knees and the three of them tussled like young oblates. ‘This reminds me of that place in Outremer,’ Hubert exclaimed, laughing and struggling to keep his feet. ‘Remember when we found that oasis in the middle of the desert?’
‘Shall never forget that,’ agreed Egbert. He went to stand underneath the waterfall and the other two joined him. Gregory threw aside his habit onto the bank and stood in his britches before begging Hildegard’s forgiveness and she called back that she did not mind and only wished she could join them.
She remembered another time when the men had enjoyed some horse-play in the water, just as now. It had been in Avignon when she had come upon them unexpectedly in one of the small courtyards where water was piped up from underground into an ornamental pool. She had longed to join them then just as she did now. As if reading her thoughts Hubert waded back to her on her seat on a rock.
‘We have many miles of hard riding ahead and in this heat too. Who knows when we shall have chance to cleanse ourselves and be at ease. If you want to take advantage of the water I give permission.’ He held out a hand. ‘The lord will not resent your enjoyment of the gifts he provides. Come. Take off your habit and enjoy his beneficence.’
With relief Hildegard rid herself of the clinging folds of her woollen habit and slipped with a cry of joy into the cold water and soon she was standing under the falls with the others. For a pleasant hour they enjoyed their play until Hubert called them together. He pulled on his white habit and slicked back his dark, damp hair before he spoke.
‘Before we leave this sacred pool I have something to say to you. The time has come for us to remember those persecuted men of King Richard’s court and offer prayers for their eternal souls. I hereby name them, one by one.’ And he repeated the names Favent had announced so gleefully with the addition of one more, Sir Simon Burley.
They stood in reverential silence, bearers of compassion, their thoughts bent on the souls in their flight towards heaven and the abbot finished by praying for the bliss that would surely be theirs forever. ‘Amen,’ he concluded.
Before they left, while the remains of their thin repast were being cleared away, Hubert stood aside for a moment with Hildegard. He could see she was still troubled and tried to find the sort of words that would comfort her.
‘I know you feel that we could have done something to save those victims of the Council’s malice but sometimes,’ he suggested, ‘we can only bear witness to the truth in the privacy of our own conscience. The heart,’ he added, ‘is a privy chamber - where each of us dwells in solitude. We can often do no more than remain true to our belief that goodness will eventually prevail.’
Gregory was listening from a few paces away and now he bestowed a kind glance on Hildegard. ‘Hubert, my lord, forgive me, forgive me Hildegard, but in connection with the privacy of the heart I believe that before we travel further the domina may wish to say something to you on that score.’ He strode off to attend to some trifling detail to do with his horse’s bridle.
‘What’s this about?’ Hubert looked wary.
‘I can’t think what he means,’ Hildegard stalled. She was in a panic. It was easy to guess what Gregory meant. Although she knew he had spoken with the best of intentions she wished fervently that he had kept his thoughts to himself.
Hubert gripped her arm. ‘What is it?’ he demanded with characteristic urgency. ‘Is it something to do with you and Brother Gregory? I know he holds you in great regard.’
‘Of course not. It’s nothing - ’
‘Or maybe,’ peering into her face and trying to read it, his voice full of guilt, ‘you have already decided to leave the Order because of me? I know I demanded a decision when we reached Meaux.’ He grasped her more firmly by the arm. ‘Is it that?’
‘Of course not, no. It’s simply nothing,’ she repeated. She avoided his glance.
‘Tell me at once, Hildegard. I insist. I’ve suspected for some time something is weighing on your mind. It’s more than the events in Westminster.’ He frowned. ‘Tell me,’ he lowered his voice, ‘am I making it impossible for you to keep your vows as you would wish? ’
‘Not quite, no.’ She placed one hand over his. ‘I trust you to keep your vows, my lord, as I shall endeavour to keep mine.’ Then, noticing his expression, she felt the heat of shame rise up her throat and into her face. ‘Gregory sees something like a chasm forever lying between us,’ she admitted, scarcely able to speak.
‘A chasm? Well, that’s true!’ he exclaimed. ‘There’s no mystery there. Our vows are a chasm. Is it that?’
She shook her head.
‘So are you going to withhold the truth from me forever?’
‘It’s connected to the plot against the king last year. And my part in foiling it.’ On a lower note, almost mumbling, she added, ‘And therefore it is to do with - ‘ she faltered, ‘with Rivera.’
She bent her head. His name was out between them now. It existed in all its potency and pain. She dare not raise her eyes to his. The tragic and forbidden passion that had drawn into its nets both herself and Rivera was now exposed in the very sound of his name.
A long silence followed. Hildegard was in an agony of despair. She knew she had thrust a sliver of glass into Hubert’s heart. She lifted her glance to his and her eyes were full of something too complex and too fleeting to name.
‘Rivera?’ His face had a guarded look. ‘I understand.’ His voice roughened. ‘Do you think I do not?’
‘I pray you can understand something which remains a mystery to me, about the heart and how it works against our will and better selves.’
In response Hubert took her by the hand and gently raised her fingers to his lips. ‘This is the chasm between us? My dearest Hildegard. I expect there are many chasms if we look for them. But we tread lightly, you and I. We always have.’ He offered the warmth of his lips to her finger-tips once more. ‘I trust we will always have the wisdom to live within the mystery of the heart and its ways.’ His eyes kindled with the love that has no need to be expressed in words. ‘May we always be together in compassion and amity, my beloved and only one.’
He gripped her hand once more before letting it go. ‘Now, back on the long road home! We ride northwards to the Abbey of Meaux!’