Chapter One

When she woke up she was still sitting, albeit more stiffly, in front of the eye slit. What had roused her was the wind whining between the towers of the palace, howling over the slant roofs, snicketting inside her room through the window slit and making her cloak lift and shiver on the floor where she had dropped it the previous night. She could see the archbishop’s banner on the tower opposite. It was taut on its pole as the wind raked through it.

Out on the sliver of Thames visible between the buildings there was no sign of a war fleet.

Hastily throwing on her cloak she ran downstairs into the yard.

‘Did they come?’ she demanded from a passing servant.

His face was alight. ‘Did they heck! Turned back, didn’t they, the lily-livered losels! Blaming it on the wind again. Have they no oars?’ He raised a fist. ‘Engelond!’ and ran off, chortling with glee.

Relief flooded through her. They had turned back? It was impossible. Why would they do that? She would go to the Tower and try to get in to speak to Rivera.

After that, to Medford.

 

The streets were unsafe, the porter warned when he saw her leave. Ignoring his advice, she fought her way through a jostling crowd to reach the landing stage and managed to hire a wherry as far as the Tower.

 

With nothing to lose or to gain they were able to talk openly now and with a naturalness that in better times would have led to greater closeness. It could lead nowhere, however, and for that reason they held nothing back. Rivera was direct. With his familiar slanted smile that seemed to imply so much he asked, ‘So you’re interested in Sir Ralph Standish?’

‘Who told you that?’

‘My neighbour, Jack Kelt.’

‘How on earth would he know?’

‘Gets everywhere, Jack. We play chess. He talks. I talk. Then he makes a move and takes my queen. He was allowed to come and see me this morning.’

She was surprised by that. ‘However he got his information, he’s right. It’s far from your territory, though. Standish’s death was in Scarborough Castle. It strikes us as ambiguous. We’re looking into it.’

‘Why so?’

‘I’m surprised you don’t already know, as you seem to know so much else.’

‘Rumours about poison, then?’

She nodded. ‘We even have a suspect. But the evidence is only circumstantial and there’s no real motive, given the man’s allegiance to the same master as Standish and yourself, of course. It’s not our real concern. The coroner was satisfied. It’s only rumour from the household at Scarborough that prompts our interest, and the fact that before we left Bishopthorpe Palace one of the archbishop’s kitcheners died. It was only when we were on the road that we discovered that he’d been murdered and that he’d had a connection with Standish.’

‘Two deaths. And the link?’

‘Who knows? But there was almost a third death.’ She told him about the attack on John Willerby at St Alban’s.

‘A link there too?’

‘We can’t prove anything.’

‘So we’re talking here about the activities of Thomas Swynford?’ Rivera looked thoughtful but said nothing more.

Hildegard turned the conversation to other things. ‘Your informant was wrong about the French invasion.’

‘The fleet did set out. He was right about that. They were halfway across the Channel when something stopped them and they turned back.’

She risked the question that Rivera could have no interest in avoiding now and asked, ‘Did you tell Swynford something was going on in the Tower?’

‘He knew it was. That’s why he wanted me there.’

‘Did you have any idea they were making weapons?’

He shook his head. ‘Not until that moment when we stepped through onto the walkway and looked down.’

‘I wonder if Swynford suspected what was going on?’

‘He mentioned nothing of it to me. He thought they had a French go-between in there. I doubt whether he’d have been able to keep a secret about weapons to himself.’

‘Maybe he heard something in the last few days? When did you last report to him?’

He ignored the latter question. ‘I doubt he could have known what was going on,’ he repeated. ‘Brembre even managed to keep the secret from Medford.’

She smiled somewhat ironically. ‘Medford certainly thinks he knows everything. There was a grim pleasure in seeing him wrong-footed by the King. But I wonder …’ She bit her lip. ‘I wonder who else knew?’

When he made no reply she said, ‘If word got back to any of the King’s enemies about a secret weapon you can be sure they would use the knowledge to their advantage. They might even use it to do some sort of deal with the French. “We’ll give you the secret if you take care of Richard.” Something along those lines?’

‘That would be high treason.’

‘Do you imagine Gloucester or Bolingbroke care about that? They think they’re above the law.’ She looked steadily into his eyes. ‘Outside the circle of the King, who else could have known? Can you find out?’

He laughed. ‘In here? What sort of visitors do you imagine I have?’

 

Before she left, Rivera came right up to the window of his cramped cell. It was unlike the comfortable quarters of the nobleman he had interrogated: no fire, no chair, no bed, no table, just an overflowing bucket in the corner and enough room to take two paces before turning. But at least, so far, he had suffered no physical torture.

He brought his face close to the bars. ‘You betrayed me.’

The stale smell that wafted from within could not prevent her from moving closer. While the guard was looking away she whispered, ‘I did not intend that, Rivera.’

His eyes were bleakly compelling so that she was drawn to press her lips to his through the bars.

 

She was handing in her pass at the lodge when a servant caught up with her. Taking her at face value he addressed her as he would any townswoman. ‘Mistress, a missive from prisoner Rivera.’ He pushed a leather pouch into her hand. ‘Money for his housekeeper so she can eat. And would you also fetch him clean garments from his lodgings.’ He added, ‘It’s allowed for you to take it. We had it checked.’

 

The two men were sitting in the window casement when she was ushered in. They were playing chess. It looked as if Slake was losing.

‘Domina.’ Medford came forward, bowing, smooth as ever. ‘I understand you’ve just come from the Tower and have something to tell us?’

She had sent a note ahead of her arrival to make sure he would see her.

‘I believe you should free Rivera.’

‘Hah! I’ve no doubt you have personal reasons but do you believe we’ve got anything from him yet? He’s as close as an oyster.’

‘What you want from him is not what he yet knows. My view is this. The French turned back for a reason. It must have been a good one. The change in the weather is a poor excuse.’

Medford listened carefully but he still shook his head.

‘Domina, we are ahead of you. The reason they turned back is from fear, because their spies discovered we possessed the secret of the ribauldequins. King Richard knew this.’

‘But,’ she cut in, ‘haven’t they known about them for some time? Haven’t they had ships specially built to take them back when they capture them, as they hoped? What if they realised they could not get their hands on them, wouldn’t that deter them? It would have been a wasted effort if they had no hope of getting hold of them. Should our question be: who told them they’d been moved?’

‘You imagine someone warned them, last night after the King gave the order?’ He looked askance. ‘Someone in the King’s party?’

‘Not necessarily.’

‘Not the Bohemians. They’re utterly loyal to Queen Anne. You mean somebody in Mayor Brembre’s circle?’

‘It seems so.’

Having been caught out once, Medford evidently decided he ought to listen. ‘Do you have a name?’

‘I believe if you free Rivera he’ll be able to find a name for you.’

‘Have you so beguiled him he’s chosen to come over to our side?’

She ignored that. ‘Set him free. It’s the only thing to do. There are contacts who trust him. They can know nothing of any changed allegiance, if it exists. If he can find out who warned the French that the weapons had been moved it might lead you to the faction in the city who are plotting against the King. It might be one of Brembre’s aldermen, someone he trusts. So far the city has supported King Richard. Maybe now there’s a group gaining the ascendancy who intend to place their resources with the King’s enemies. Find the traitor. It will be proof of—’

‘Treason.’ Medford concluded as Rivera had done. For once his composure seemed to have been disturbed. ‘What do you think, Dean? Shall we allow the domina to loose her bloodhound?’

Slake got up and strolled over with a chess piece in his hand. He was smiling and in his crumpled velvet looked as benign as a well-fed cat. ‘That’s a very good idea, Domina. You believe your man will lead us to someone we would very much like to meet? Good.’ He grinned in a friendly fashion at Medford. ‘When the traitor tells us who his master is, all we have to do is get a nice sharp axe and chop off his head. Chop! Chop! Yes, let’s do that.’

 

Roger de Hutton. Unmistakably. Surrounded by his men, he was emerging from the Great Hall and came to a halt in Palace Yard. It was after midday and the first session had just ended. Hildegard could hear his voice from where she was crossing the yard some distance away and when she approached she could almost see his red beard bristling with rage.

His rant was directed at the behaviour of the dukes, especially Gloucester. His fellow barons also came in for a tongue-lashing. When Hildegard greeted him he swivelled to acknowledge her, then, beckoning her closer, launched back in.

‘The fools can’t grasp it, Hildegard! Gloucester’s trying to bring the chancellor down so he can get at the King. Can they see it? No they can’t! It’s nothing to do with rents and profits. The Ghent fiasco. All that. They must be blind not to see it – or are they just plain stupid?’

‘Both, I would imagine,’ agreed Hildegard to placate him. ‘What’s happened?’

‘Their arguments are ground so thin they’re near transparent!’ he continued in astonished anger. ‘Don’t the rest of those sot wits understand they’re a step away from deposing the King? What’s bloody wrong with the stupid oafs?’

Hildegard stopped him long enough to ask again what had happened.

‘They’ve just impeached de la Pole! Can you believe it? The King’s chancellor, for God’s sake, thrown into prison like a common criminal!’

When he calmed down enough to tell her more she heard that although de la Pole’s nimble brain and knowledge of his own innocence had given him hope that he would prevail over his enemies, the chamber was deliberately packed with the King’s opponents and he had no chance when it came to a vote. The indictment was couched in such apologetic terms, however, even the law lords knew they were on thin ice.

‘While the city of London celebrates survival, Gloucester and his cronies are destroying England! They’ve got rid of the treasurer as well, Fordham, the Bishop of Durham, poor sod.’ Roger seemed torn between helpless rage and astonishment that they could get away with it. ‘Then if that’s not enough,’ he continued, ‘Gloucester’s had the audacity to demand that all the King’s household should be dismissed and reappointed by the King’s own council – of which he’s now the head! Can you believe it? You can imagine what Dickon said to that.’

‘What did he say?’

‘After a few honest oaths he said, “I shall not allow the lowest scullion in my household to be dismissed at the behest of the council.” Then he walked out. He’s in the royal apartment at present with de Vere and Burley and a few others, deciding what to do.’

Roger gripped her convulsively by the hand. ‘At least the bloody French changed their minds, hey? I wonder how that came about?’

‘I’m told it was because the weather turned against them.’

‘Weather be damned. They can sail their own ships, can’t they? They’re bloody big enough!’ He gave her a long sceptical look. ‘The word is they were given a promise somebody couldn’t keep, then took fright at the reception they might be in for.’

‘Promise?’

‘King John of the French? That’s what I’m hearing. Remember what happened to the poor devil? Captured by us and then stuck in the Tower of London for years on end because his dukes wouldn’t pay his ransom? It gave Burgundy and his cronies free rein to run the country to their own advantage. I bet Gloucester wouldn’t turn his nose up at an opportunity like that.’ He called to his guards. ‘Attend me! We leave!’

‘Wait, Roger—’

‘Can’t. Got another blasted meeting.’

Ulf had been hanging around on the edge of the group listening to all this, and now he stopped long enough to tell Hildegard that de la Pole had had his lands declared forfeit and his title stripped. ‘Nobody’s safe,’ he warned as he turned to follow his lord. ‘I hope Secretary Medford isn’t asking you to do anything dangerous? He’s as much at risk as all the King’s party.’

They were just about to say goodbye when a herald appeared. The yard was full of people but everybody fell silent as he shouted, ‘Make way for the King!’

The same tall, fair, handsome young man she had seen in the Tower the previous evening came striding down the path in the direction of the royal barge. The yard rapidly emptied as the crowd followed. Ulf and Hildegard joined them.

The deck master had started shouting for the lines to be thrown off as soon as he saw the King approaching and by the time Richard stepped on board with a small entourage the barge was already on the move, ripped into motion by the power of the tide. The oarsmen fell into place. Moments later the long sweeps were sending the barge swiftly downriver towards the palace at Eltham.

 

Rivera’s lodgings were outside the city walls on the Westminster side, not far from Roger de Hutton’s town house.

A woman with a worried-looking face answered her knock. ‘News of the master?’ she asked before Hildegard could open her mouth.

‘Let me in.’

She handed over Rivera’s pouch with the coins in it as soon as she stepped inside. ‘I’ve come to fetch clean clothes.’

‘So it’s true? He’s in the Tower? Jack Kelt said so.’

‘May I go up?’

She was nearly at the top of the stairs when the housekeeper called, ‘So you know where to go?’

Hildegard turned. Their eyes met and, with the look, understanding flashed between them.

 

His melancholy chamber. It was more empty than seemed possible from the mere absence of one man. Everything was as they had left it. The mulberry-coloured robe hanging on the door. The couch with the rumpled wolfskin. The two indentations in the pillows where they had lain their heads.

She found a chest with his clean linen in it and put a few pieces into her bag, folding on top a white habit with a hood. There was the badge of his Order, red and gold, lying on a book on the table and she carefully pinned it to his shirt.

When all was done she went over to the small shrine above the prie-dieu. Matilda must have been the one to light the candle in front of the image. A face with a resigned spirituality gazed out on the world from within its border of gold leaf. The painter had managed to catch a look of compassion in the face that recalled the way Rivera sometimes looked.

When she went down again Matilda came through from the back. She opened the door for her but before Hildegard went out she said hurriedly, ‘He’s a good man. You need to know that. He always denied it. He hated what he had to do but he’s good in his heart where it matters.’

Hildegard held out her hand. Matilda gripped it. Tears stood in her eyes. ‘They won’t rack him, will they?’

 

The city’s night of panic and defiance had given way to relief, thanksgiving and eventually debauchery. The air was filled with screams and shouts and the sound of things being broken. Before she set out even to Westminster to see Medford, Hildegard had heard the warnings to stay within the enclave of York Place. ‘The scenes out there are like Armageddon,’ opined the porter.

But she had her own view of defiance. There was too much to do. And anyway, Westminster had been safe enough.

Now, after leaving Rivera’s lodgings, which she had reached by asking the ferryman to drop her off at the narrow laup at the back of the house, she had to pass through crowds of exultant citizens spilling outside the walls into the fields and pouring in a noisy flow down Ludgate Hill to the Strand, where they would eventually fetch up outside Parliament. News of Gloucester’s insulting demands that sent his royal nephew marching out of the Great Hall had spread. Richard had acted with the sort of defiance everybody understood.

It looked as if they were going to celebrate but, knowing how volatile they were, it was easy to detect an undercurrent of violence in their behaviour. Civic authority had no control outside, nor even, at present, inside the walls. In the interregnum before the new mayor was sworn in nobody seemed to be in control. All along the route any taverns with ale left in the bottom of their barrels after the previous night were full of people nursing hangovers and doggedly drinking the dregs as if their defiance against the enemy had found another purpose.

As she hurried along Hildegard gathered that the annual election to choose the mayor had taken place earlier that morning in a rabble of fist fights, abductions, threats and the buying and selling of favours, and that the votes to elect the new mayor had already been counted. At the loser’s insistence they were being counted again.

When she eventually reached the Guildhall Brembre and his allies were standing around with expressions of dumb shock. She waited along with a massive crowd until the result was ratified, when a quietly thoughtful man called Exton took his place.

 

St Mary Graces. It looked as well fortified as the Tower.

‘Any news?’ she asked as soon as the door closed and they were alone. Thomas, his wounded leg resting on a padded stool, shook his head. He dipped his fingers into the sweetmeats Hildegard had brought him. ‘I have a feeling the abbot is avoiding me.’

‘Why would he do that?’

‘Because he has nothing to tell me about what he knows is uppermost in my mind – your fate at the hands of the Chapter.’

‘Thomas, in this turbulent time my personal problems cannot be uppermost. I mean to say—’

‘I’m not pretending I wasn’t worried last night when we expected the French to come roaring in. We’re on the front line here and would have had to deal with their wounded. It would have been a sore trial of our consciences. Even so, my thoughts are ever with you.’

Hildegard gazed at a patch of sky framed in a square of lattice. ‘My prioress is always warning me to be less impatient. The patience required to wait for their verdict is sent as a lesson to me.’

‘We all have to learn something—’ he broke off. ‘There is news. You got my note?’

‘Yes. That’s why I came over. I thought it was to do with the decision of the Chapter.’

‘It’s news from St Alban’s. Prepare yourself.’

‘What is it?’

‘The falconer, John Willerby. He was found dead three days ago. The news has just come through.’

‘But he seemed to be on the road to recovery when we left—’

‘He didn’t die from his wounds. He was poisoned. You remember that kindly monk who was attending him? He wrote to me in detail describing what happened. He was full of remorse that he had allowed it. He said the smell made them suspicious at once, that mousey smell of hemlock, and then before they could set their minds to the problem a man made a full confession to his priest. And then hanged himself.’

Hildegard took the seat Thomas offered. ‘Go on.’

‘The story is that he recognised Willerby from years ago when, so he said, Willerby had accidentally shot his daughter, a child of ten, when she was playing in the abbot’s chase. We can imagine the man was doing a bit of poaching at the time and took the child along with him. Such would be his guilt at being the cause of his own child’s death, when he saw the instrument of his guilt he decided on revenge.’

‘I see.’

‘I’m told Willerby was apprenticed to the St Alban’s falconer in the old days. Not the same fellow we met but the previous one. The bereaved man couldn’t believe his eyes when he sauntered in soon after we arrived. He blurted it out to Swynford who was in the mews at the time. Swynford told him there was only one thing he could do. If he was ever to call himself a man again he should get rid of him. I have this verbatim.’ He showed her the document in his hand. ‘Would you like me to read you what it says?’

She nodded.

‘Swynford says, “I don’t like that fella either. He’s done me and my master a great harm. Let’s put the rat out of his misery and I have a sure way of putting him down,” and he comes out with some plot to make the new bird attack him so it looks like an accident. “Frighten the bastard,” says he. All I have to do is go into the mews while their men are out and whack the fellow over the head and tie some carrion to him then get out. “Leave nature to do its course,” says he, “Let God decide.” Then this other fella come to me: “You heard what my master said – put the rat out of his misery. But keep it simple. You can do it with this if that first plan fails,” and he shows me some hemlock and says, “Do it with this for a safe job but only make sure I’m well down the road before you give it him.”’ Thomas frowned and lowered the pages. ‘So Swynford was away on the road to London when the attack occurred and so was the man who suggested hemlock.’ He indicated the pages of the confession. ‘He’s described here as Swynford’s retainer—’

‘His retainer being … ?’

‘Jarrold of Kyme.’

He gave a grim smile. ‘When Willerby did not perish from his wounds, this poor grieving fellow,’ he waved the sheets of vellum, ‘took the opportunity to get inside the infirmary and gave him a lethal dose of the hemlock Jarrold had supplied. End of story.’

Not quite the end, thought Hildegard. She said, ‘We always guessed Jarrold was more than Swynford’s tenant. Alexander Neville will not be pleased to find a member of his household has allegiance to anyone else, especially the vassal of one of the King’s enemies.’

 

After she left Thomas she went to the Tower and tried to get in to hand Rivera his things but the custodian shook his head. ‘No visitors, mistress.’

She went cold. ‘What are they doing to him?’

He shook his head again. ‘If that’s stuff for him you can hand it to me. I’ll make sure he gets it.’

Aware of the unlikelihood of breaking through the security that surrounded the Tower, she was forced to turn back.

 

There were no ferries to be had at the Tower steps. By now swarms of people were flocking round the landing stage, trying to get home, but with so many out on the streets and the increasing danger of violence after the election result, the pressure to get away had forced an unusual number of ordinary citizens to try to escape by water. All the boats were full and many ferrymen were refusing to come back into town because of the violence. There were no horses for hire either. When she approached a nearby ostler he told her, ‘All gone, mistress. Stay in your house and barricade the door. It’s going to get worse.’

‘I can’t stay in my house. I’m far from it,’ she told him, turning away.

She would have to walk. She pulled up her hood, checked that her knife was in reach, and set off.

The Tower, with its secret torture chambers, now lay behind her. It dominated the tenements around it, a white and deathly place against the darkening sky. She felt full of foreboding. The custodian had not confirmed that he was being tortured. In that, she told herself, was comfort. Medford had said he would get him released but then Medford said many things, or at least, allowed them to seem to be said.

It took an age to negotiate the teeming streets. Doing her best to avoid the unlit alleys and the most raucous mobs out looking for trouble, by the time she left the city gates on Ludgate Hill and had crossed the Fleet by its wooden bridge it was late afternoon and already getting dark. The prospect of night enticed rougher elements from their lairs, professional pickpockets and cut-throats, revellers drunk on ale, all were emerging from the backstreets, shouting obscenities as they reeled along looking for entertainment. There were women among them, young and old, children even, mindlessly hurling stones into the crowd.

She saw for the first time what it must have been like here in London during the Great Revolt, the hurling time, when the ideals of the leaders were brought into disrepute, compromised by the violence of the undisciplined mobs.

The air was thick with smoke from their naptha flares and in the light of the flames hundreds of faces passed before Hildegard’s gaze, looming out of the shadows with a lurid prominence – faces pockmarked, distorted by open sores, mouths lolling open to reveal blackened teeth, leering and graceless. But not their fault, she reminded herself; forced to live like brutes, they behave like brutes, their lives as hopeless and fractured by pain and poverty enough to send them mad.

The best of them had been exterminated in the great bloodletting that followed the Revolt. Now it had all come down to an undirected frenzy of hatred. Crazy on strong drink, they spilt over the paths, gesticulating and threatening anyone who fell foul of them. One of these gangs objected to Hildegard’s presence as she tried to walk past and they shouted some insult, but she ignored them and hurried on. One of the men, however, followed her.

‘You, bitch, are you French?’ He stabbed his finger into her shoulder.

She lifted her head long enough to assure him she was as English as he was, adding, before she could stop herself, ‘Sad be the day.’

‘Here!’ He gave her a push. ‘What did you say?’

Wishing she had bitten off her tongue, she tried to walk on but he stepped in front of her.

‘Bloody bitch!’

A group of four or five horsemen were riding up the street towards the city. They were about to pass as the man tried to pull at her headscarf and their leader brought his small cavalcade to a halt with a raised hand. ‘Hold it! Who’s this?’ he called out. Looking down at Hildegard he said, ‘I know you, woman. You’re that whore nun of Alexander Neville’s!’

Hildegard felt like sinking into the ground. His words had drawn in the rest of the drunk’s cronies. Now, high on a horse and with his massive war sword and glittering breastplate, the banner of the Earl of Derby cracking in the wind beside him, he momentarily managed to transcend his usual insignificant demeanour.

Before she could reply, her loutish attacker stepped up. ‘She calls herself a nun?’

‘She does indeed, master.’ His tone was unctuous. ‘We can imagine how rigorously she keeps her vows, eh?’ Swynford looked down at her. ‘Plying for trade in the stews, Domina?’ He laughed and his own men followed suit as if he had cracked a particularly witty joke.

‘Keep a civil tongue in your head, Swynford,’ she replied.

‘Or what?’ He gazed down with contempt into her face.

The lout had stepped up behind her and now, encouraged by Swynford’s manner, put an arm round her waist. ‘Come on, bitch, show us what they teach you in that nunnery of yours.’ He tried to drag her into his foul-smelling embrace but she slipped her knife from her sleeve and held it in front of her.

‘Try it!’ she warned.

He stepped back with an oath. ‘You, a nun? You’re no nun, you’re a bloody witch.’ He glanced back for support from his accomplices who were now beginning to goad him on. ‘We know what they do with witches in Paris!’ he shouted for their benefit. When they staggered closer, asking what the fun was, he shouted to them, ‘What do they do? They burn the bitches!’

One by one they took up the cry. ‘Burn! Burn! Burn the witch!’

Hildegard stood her ground with the knife still in her hand but Swynford drove his horse right up against her so she was trapped between the two groups. He snarled, ‘Neville’s not much use to you now, is he?’

She tried to duck under his horse’s head to make her escape but he drove the animal forward again and she stumbled back to avoid being trampled and bumped into the drunk, giving him the opportunity to grab hold of her round the waist.

‘Come on, lads!’ he bellowed. ‘Let’s have a bit of fun. Let’s burn the witch!’

They began to drag her back the way she had come, up Ludgate Hill towards the city. Swynford, roaring with laughter, shouted encouragement. His men, a gang of ill-kempt ruffians, their livery typically obscured, started up an excited chant and began to follow. It was plain they had been riding out looking for trouble and now they had found it. Swynford took out his sword and held it aloft.

‘A witch! A witch!’ he roared. ‘Let’s make this city clean! Out with witches!’

His yells, augmented by those of his henchmen, brought people running. Soon there was an excited crowd. Some took up the chant, not caring what it was about so long as they could join it; others stood dumbly, staring with a kind of horror at the witch who had been caught and was now being dragged along the street towards her just desserts.

The gates of the city lay in the distance but it was a place where the King’s writ did not run. And far behind, receding, lay the fields, gardens and orchards of the great houses along the Strand and, even more distant, Westminster, the seat of government where the rule of law was supposed to hold sway, and close by, on both sides of the lane, were the shuttered houses of the friars, the courts of the lawyers, the scribes and clerks, and no help anywhere.

A cart was found and was being dragged into the arena that had formed round her. She looked at it in horror. She knew that if she allowed them to force her into it she would be as good as dead. They may not be able to build a fire before help arrived, as it must, but they could tie a rope around her neck, sling one end over the nearest branch then whip the horses on.

This is the end of my life, she thought in cold fury. Among a rabble of drunks urged on by a traitor to the King. She turned on her captors. ‘You’ll regret this to the end of your days and beyond! Take your hands off me. At least permit me to walk to my fate!’

The idea of prolonging her ordeal appealed to Swynford and he encouraged them to make her walk step by step up the hill, and as they goaded her with jibes of witchcraft and naked orgies at the full of the moon and other obscenities their thwarted lusts could summon, the crowd grew so dense they had to use cudgels to carve a path for her. ‘Here comes the Queen!’ went the shout. ‘Behold the bitch, the Queen of Hell! Make way!’

People pinched her and snatched at her clothing, and tried to tear it. They crossed themselves, gazed in horror at what they saw as the embodiment of their worst fears. They spat and pulled her hair, the headscarf long since lost along with her knife. And she thought in despair: This must be my punishment for loving Rivera.

They were nearing the summit now, in a tumult of noise, when she felt someone hanging onto her sleeve, and glancing down, with the intention of shaking herself free, she saw that it was the very small man, Jack Kelt. He had wriggled his way to the front of the mob and was clinging onto her arm, and such was the pace that was being forced, he was having to run to keep up as Swynford’s henchmen quickened their speed in their eagerness to reach the top of the hill where the old gods were worshipped at the ancient place of sacrifice dedicated to the pagan king, Lud.

Now her captors were further pleased to discover that she was to be accompanied by a creature spawned by the Devil, as they saw it, and it confirmed their view that she was a witch, unnatural, a monster, and deserved to die.

The chanting increased to a frenzy.

Kelt was unbothered. The kicks and shoves now bestowed on him as well as on Hildegard were received as if to lighten her punishment. ‘Do not despair,’ he shouted above the tumult. The separate elements of the mob had meanwhile turned into a single entity, a devouring beast, a dragon with its head approaching the top of the long slope, its body bulging as more and more people flocked to join it, its tail tapering back down to the Fleet.

Then Kelt shouted, ‘Look!’

She followed his pointing finger.

Where the crowd opened out, there, striding down the hill, came a figure in white.

Without altering his pace he broke through the vanguard like a spear, scattering folk right and left, driving straight towards her through the thickest part of the crowd until he was brushing aside Swynford’s men-at-arms, shouting, ‘Back! Get back, you bloody animals. I claim this hostage!’

He grabbed the reins of Swynford’s horse and dragged him to a halt. Swynford still held his sword and was about to bring it lashing down when he realised it was Rivera who gripped the reins. ‘What the hell do you want, Brother?’

‘Listen to me!’ Those nearest fell silent. ‘I claim your hostage,’ he repeated in a strong voice that carried deep into the crowd.

The men-at-arms came to a confused halt. People began to quieten down to hear what was going on and their silence rippled all the way back to the most distant fringes of the onlookers until there was scarcely a sound. ‘What’s happening now?’ somebody asked.

Hildegard stood trembling with astonishment. Jack Kelt held her sleeve.

‘You owe me a debt, Sir Thomas,’ said Rivera in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear. ‘I’ve done you good service. Now I demand payment.’

‘Service?’ Swynford’s glance darted from side to side and he looked as if he was about to deny it but then he lowered his voice. ‘I’ve paid you—’

‘There is still one account outstanding. If you want blood in payment, take mine. I demand the release of this woman in exchange for myself. My saint commands and expects it.’

‘Rivera, no!’ Hildegard pushed forward.

He ignored her.

To Swynford he said, ‘I have your secrets. Release her or take the consequences.’

Swynford was busy working it out. His secrets? The look of fear on his face was abruptly replaced by cunning. ‘If that’s your wish. You? Instead of her?’

‘A heretic,’ one of his men helpfully suggested. ‘May as well burn one as another, Captain.’

Swynford glanced nervously at the crowd. Their mood was on a knife-edge. Outrage that their bloodlust was to find no outlet was simmering dangerously beneath the surface and Swynford was quick to read it. He made the decision to save his own skin, shouting, ‘You heard the heretic! His life for hers! What shall it be? Yea or nay?’

‘Death to the heretic!’

Swynford smiled. ‘So let it be!’

Raising his sword he spurred his horse forward, making sure his men had grasped what was happening. ‘Drag the heretic to the block!’

‘Death to heretics!’ came the response.

They held a more illustrious scapegoat now. Swynford began to lead the procession to its destination.

 

 

The crowd had started braying for a victim again and when news that the witch had been bartered for a heretic friar reached the outer fringes they howled with the desire to see his blood. No mere witch for them. Now they had a bigger prize. And the Pope had ordered heretics to be burnt and the King had taken no notice, but now they could put the matter right. Superstitious fervour drew in the doubters. Their own sins could be wiped clean by doing the Pope’s will. If he willed it, they would fulfil it and make sure of their place in paradise.

Hildegard stumbled, picked herself up, ran alongside Swynford on his horse, grasped the saddle. Her voice was harsh with fear. ‘You have no right of life and death, Swynford. You’ll hang if you do this. The law will punish you!’

‘There is no law.’

‘Then you’ll burn in hell! He’s innocent. You know he’s no heretic.’

He sneered down at her. ‘The Londoners, it seems, think otherwise.’

Hildegard turned to the people nearest. ‘Stop him, someone!’ But their bloodlust was not to be thwarted. There were jeers, more vicious jostling. Swynford rode on.

It was then Rivera turned back and reached out through the crowd for her, pulling her to his side. He put his arms round her and for a moment they seemed to stand in a vortex of silence with themselves at its centre. Nothing could touch them.

‘Rivera, he’ll take you at your word!’

‘Yes.’

‘You are wronged,’ she whispered passionately.

‘I am doomed,’ he replied.

The crowd churned on all sides but he seemed oblivious to them. ‘Medford released me. The name you want is Harry Summers. Follow the trail. It leads to the Queen.’

Oblivious to the jeers, he held her tightly in his arms. ‘Forget me, Hildegard. Don’t grieve. Death is the purpose of our existence.’

With one hand he quickly unpinned the red and gold emblem of St Serapion from his cloak and folded her fingers round it. He rested his lips briefly on her mouth. The mob forced itself between them. He looked back over their heads as if he wanted to say more but they were pulling him away up the hill.

Their hatred was redirected to a better target, to an alien friar, a man who could read books, who spoke languages, who probably practised the black arts and wove spells to destroy his neighbours. He was everything they were not.

Rigid with dread, Hildegard tried to find a way along the darkening street to summon help.

‘Where are they taking him?’ she shouted to someone being carried along in the surge beside her.

‘To Ludgate block.’

‘Axe the bastard, whoever he is!’ a voice shrieked.

‘He’s a French spy, like as not,’ another one claimed with malevolent satisfaction.

‘No!’ Hildegard’s voice was lost in the tumult.

The sun appeared in a lurid slant of light between the narrow tenements, painting everything the colour of blood. Armed gangs with lighted torches were still forcing a path up the hill but the procession had come to a halt there, people pressing so thickly to see what would happen next they formed a wall, blocking the street and allowing no one past. Jack Kelt had vanished long ago. Hildegard fought and shoved to get as close to the front as she could. She could just make out the figure of Rivera across a sea of onlookers. His white garments blazed against the deepening shadows as the sun sank behind the rooftops.

The torch-bearers were gathering round the place where he had been dragged by the guards and she thought some of them were trying to build a fire but then she saw Swynford, still astride his horse, gesture to one of his followers. A burly man built like a blacksmith stepped out from among the rest of them and drew a war sword.

Rivera seemed not to be aware of anyone. He was staring out across the heads of the crowd towards the river. He was standing quite still.

While the onlookers chanted and jeered and told them to get on with it, Swynford was giving instructions, nervously looking up and down the street. A lawyer’s clerk was found from somewhere, a priest was pushed to the front of the crowd. Rivera seemed oblivious to everything and went on standing without moving. Then she realised he was praying.

His expression transcended the hellish scenes around him. She remembered the icon in his chamber and realised she was seeing the same look of resigned compassion.

Swynford reached down from his horse and tapped him on the shoulder but even then it took a moment before Rivera made a move.

‘God’s will be done!’ somebody shouted from the crowd.

Rivera turned towards the sound. The words floated clearly in the deathly quiet that descended. ‘I am absolved. May you be absolved also.’

Hildegard began to fight her way towards him, but no one would let her through and the guards held her back with their pikes and she had to watch as he turned to the swordsman. In a nightmare she heard him ask, ‘Is the blade sharp?’

‘Sharp enough, magister.’

Swynford, detecting a note of doubt in his man’s voice, snarled, ‘Get on with it.’

Rivera raised his right hand. ‘So be it.’

Hildegard watched in horror as he knelt and rested his head on the block. She saw him make a small movement with one hand to push aside his hair.

The swordsman lifted his massive blade. As one, the crowd drew in a breath of expectation. Hildegard reached out. Help must come.

Then the blade swept down in a brutal arc. The crowd groaned. There was the crack of splitting bone. The sword rose and fell again. And for a third time it made its descent.

The chaos of public spectacle was reduced to the most intimate moment of death.

The crush of onlookers at the front fell back, scattering those behind, and the crowd like a wave, without a mind, moving on instinct, drew in on itself, away from the horror. And then a roar broke out and cries of release rent the air.

Hildegard uttered one howl of grief and loss.

 

 

It was Ulf, holding her protectively in his arms, and they were somehow free of the passers-by and standing lower down the hill in the shelter of a building. He was murmuring, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t realise who he was.’

 

The de Hutton house on the Strand. Night.

Hildegard felt as if she would never sleep again. How could she? When, around prime, the noises from the chamber below convinced her that the household was awake, she somehow prepared herself for whatever was to come. In her hand, she found Rivera’s red and gold emblem, its shape indented into her palm. She pinned it underneath her shift and went down.

‘I have to see Medford,’ she announced when she came face-to-face with Roger de Hutton on the way into the hall. Ulf was beside him and stepped forward.

‘I’ll be ready shortly.’ He turned to Roger, ‘If I may be released for an hour, I’ll escort her.’

‘I’ve sent a message across to York Place to tell them you’ll be staying here when you get back. You’ll be safer.’ Roger led her in to break the night fast.

She sat in the hall and stared at the bread and wine put in front of her but did not touch it.

Ulf returned to tell her he was ready to leave when she was.

She lifted her head. ‘What happened afterwards?’

‘Some Dominicans came out of their priory and took him into one of the chantries along there. Swynford and his accomplices had disappeared by the time we arrived. The crowd handed over half a dozen of the ringleaders. We took them to the Fleet. They’ll hang this morning. We came as soon as that little fellow, Kelt, alerted us.’

‘Why did the rats not try to stop it?’ demanded Roger.

Ulf took her hand. ‘He was the one who saved you from drowning, wasn’t he? The one who looked after you. I’m sorry.’

 

When she came down carrying her cloak, Edwin Westwode had arrived. The look of concern on his face showed that they had explained everything. Together they left for Westminster with Ulf and a couple of bodyguards.

Hildegard had no fear of being waylaid by mobs or cut-throats on the way there and would have gone without an escort. It didn’t matter one way or the other now. Nothing mattered. She was seeing everything through a heavy gauze. It absorbed her grief. She felt nothing could get through it to touch her. She lived lightly behind it.

 

Medford. In black velvet as usual. A white linen shirt with elaborate cuffs. More than ever he looked like a tall child in its best clothes. Now, she knew, he was a child who pulled the wings off flies.

Dean Slake was by his side as usual.

Medford was expatiating, uninvited, on his reason for living.

‘To protect my liege, His Grace the King, from the machinations of his enemies. To maintain his glory and splendour, to increase profit and establish peace in his realm. Richard is our anointed king, our one hope for victory against the French. Without him we are nothing. We exist solely to do his will.’

He turned to Hildegard.

‘You have information for me?’

‘The name you want is Harry Summers.’

Edwin made an exclamation of surprise. ‘Harry? But I know him!’

Medford swivelled. ‘Go on.’

‘He was my predecessor at Bishopthorpe Palace. He was Archbishop Neville’s private secretary.’

‘Where is he now, do you know?’

‘He’s with the Duke of Northumberland. I haven’t seen him for ages.’

‘Northumberland’s staying up near Clerkenwell,’ broke in Ulf. ‘Roger de Hutton was dining there a couple of nights ago.’

‘What are we waiting for?’ Dean Slake was at the door.

Medford gestured to the others to follow, calling, ‘Horses, Slake! And armed guards!’

 

Northumberland had an imposing house and was famous for barring the Duke of Lancaster, Gaunt, from the gates of his castle during the time of the Great Revolt, when Lancaster had been booted out of Scotland and feared to return south until the troubles had died down. By that time news had already reached him that the mob had burnt his Savoy Palace to the ground. The north was safer.

On the ride over to Northumberland’s, Slake mentioned this insult to Gaunt and his continuing opposition to Gloucester, but Ulf was of the opinion that he was a slippery customer and said he wouldn’t trust him as far as he could throw him – and given his girth that wouldn’t be far.

Hildegard listened but felt no inclination to add anything. The streets seemed abnormally quiet now. The new mayor, Exton, although he had not yet received his chain of office, had sworn in dozens of new constables and given them broad powers to clear the streets. Curfew was enforced once more. The void that had been filled by men like Swynford with their own militia was now filled by the official forces of law and order. Even Gloucester, seen parading around with his army, the fox’s brush swinging from his lance, was now asked to stay outside the walls.

When they arrived at Northumberland’s stronghold Medford pushed in straight past the guards on duty with a peremptory ‘King’s business!’ Slake followed. It was up to Ulf to explain that it was nothing to look affronted about but rather a matter for pride to be visited by the King’s secretary, abrupt of manner though he was.

Hildegard followed the men up to the solar.

The Duke was truculent and as irascible as Roger de Hutton but ten times more powerful, owning vast tracts of land as one of the marcher lords in the border country between Scotland and England. He was known to have got rich on running arms between the two old enemies.

Slake, smiling despite the frosty reception, introduced them. ‘Mr Medford, the King’s secretary. And I’m Will Slake, Dean of the Signet Office.’

‘What about it?’ asked Northumberland in his strong northern accent.

‘We understand you retain a clerk called Harry Summers?’

‘What if I do?’

Smiling peacefully Slake said, ‘Mr Medford and I would like to speak to him.’

Without taking his glance off Slake, Northumberland cuffed a page on the head. ‘Fetch him.’

While they waited Northumberland looked his visitors over and seemed to find nothing to like. He grudgingly acknowledged Ulf but had nothing to say to Hildegard.

It was surprising that he was so vastly popular with the Londoners but it was entirely because of his insult to Gaunt and he rode his popularity as if by innate right.

A young man came in, hair somewhat tousled, and, still tying the laces of his shirt, bowed elaborately to his lord.

Northumberland merely growled, ‘Playing skittles again, you bloody wastrel?’

When Summers looked round at the visitors his glance alighted on Edwin and his face lit up. ‘Westwode, you old devil. What are you doing here? How are you, fella?’ He strode forward and clapped Edwin on the back.

Edwin shot a glance at Medford but was clearly pleased to see Summers. ‘Going well, Harry?’

‘Still keeping the old quill sharpened.’

Medford looked irritated. ‘We have some questions for you, Summers.’ He turned to the Duke. ‘Is there a privy chamber where we might conduct this business?’

Northumberland nodded towards an inner door and they all trooped inside leaving the Duke glaring after them.

‘Well,’ asked Summers with a bright smile, ‘what brings you here? I don’t understand. How can I help?’

 

Slake was at his most affable. He got into conversation about skittles and when Summers was off his guard he slipped in a question about allegiance, but Harry Summers, his face lacking any trace of guile, affirmed outright his support for the King.

‘We’re all King’s men in the north, everywhere but Pontefract, Pickering, Knaresborough and Scarborough.’ He listed them on his fingers. ‘Lancaster’s got them in his iron fist. You should hear the Duke fuming. “He’s placed his bloody castles so he’s got me cut off from the south of my own country. Is he trying to throw me into the arms of the Scots?”’ A look of alarm crossed his face. ‘I don’t mean to imply … not that he would—’

‘You mention these Lancastrian strongholds,’ Slake cut in with a disarming smile. ‘Did you and the archbishop visit many of them?’

With a puzzled look at Edwin, whose master the archbishop now was, he shook his head. ‘Why would we? We’d enough to do with church business. Oh, except of course for Pickering Castle. His Grace loves to hunt, and of course we sometimes ended up at Scarborough after a day out.’

‘Tell us about it.’ Medford spoke for the first time.

‘About hunting?’

‘About Scarborough Castle. You must have been there when Sir Ralph Standish was constable?’

‘We were, as a matter of fact.’ Summers looked bewildered but evidently believing there was no harm in it answered in a straightforward manner. ‘His Grace thought he’d better have a look at this new placeman of Gaunt’s, so we went over there after a good day out. They spent the evening in discussions up in Standish’s solar. It was at the top of a tower looking out over the sea one way and the moors the other. Amazing place. You could hear the sea booming on the rocks way below.’

Hildegard heard Medford sigh but he allowed Summers to continue.

He was saying, ‘I have good cause to remember those steps leading up to the top.’ He grinned. ‘Standish had a flaming temper, even worse than Neville’s. He threw me down them and I had a bump on my head for a week.’

‘What made him do that?’ asked Hildegard while everybody stared at Summers as if they couldn’t believe their eyes.

‘He thought I’d been listening in. I was astonished that anybody should harbour such suspicions about an archbishop’s clerk. It’s outrageous. But here I am, going up the stairs to give His Grace a message, when the door at the top suddenly flies open. It’s Standish. He’s shouting something over his shoulder like: “I’m owed! Get it? It’s not my fault things went arse over teat. They owe me!” And a voice comes from inside: “And if they don’t pay their debt?” Standish again: “I shall take the truth to where it will do most harm!” Then the archbishop: “And where is that?” And then Standish mentions you, Mr Secretary. He says, “Ask Medford!” And then he comes flying out, knocks me over, picks me up and gives me a great shove sending me back down the stairs. I was never so astonished in my life.’

‘And, apart from Archbishop Neville, do you know who was inside the chamber at this time?’ asked Medford.

 

On the way back they had to ride down Ludgate Hill. Hildegard found her cheeks were wet as if a shower of rain had passed over without being noticed.

‘So did Standish have something to tell you?’ Slake asked Medford.

‘Don’t you think I would have informed the King?’ Medford stared straight ahead.

‘It’s to do with the rebellion,’ announced Slake, continuing, ‘we know Standish was one of the traitors at Smithfield.’

Hildegard wiped the back of her hand across her cheeks. ‘The Abbot of Meaux heard a rumour along those lines.’

‘Go on,’ said Medford.

‘Apparently Standish was paid to get rid of Tyler. He was also instructed to assassinate Richard in the confusion they expected to follow. Standish was rewarded with Scarborough Castle by his master—’

‘Lancaster,’ put in Slake.

‘And,’ she continued, ‘maybe he thought he had a right to the rest of his payment, whatever it was, despite the fact that he failed in the final detail. Maybe that’s what he was so furious about when Summers was there. Neville must know.’

Medford looked furious.

Slake gave Medford a glance. ‘If Standish had come to you with a story like that, names and so on, and you’d told the King, then all hell would have broken loose. There might even have been a second rising.’

‘It would have been a clear case of treason and would have led to civil war. Richard would not have wanted that.’

Hildegard stared at Medford.

His tone was clipped as, avoiding her glance, he added, ‘Not after the vengeance brought down on his people after the rebellion with those endless executions. He would not want to be the cause of more bloodshed.’

‘He wouldn’t,’ agreed Ulf, not having observed the expressions on the faces of the two men. ‘Good Queen Anne earned her name by stopping the executions. It was her first request to Parliament after being crowned. Obviously Richard would be behind it, knowing what we do about his distress at seeing the rebels hang without trial.’

‘Just think, if you’d known about Standish’s role,’ observed Slake to Medford, ‘you could have quietly got rid of him. Events up there filter down to London at a snail’s pace. Luckily for us the bloody flux did it instead.’

 

‘How is little Turnbull getting on?’ Hildegard asked Edwin as he was about to leave them outside York Place. Ulf had already had to peel off at the de Hutton house but Haskin and the rest of the group, including the bodyguards from the Signet Office, had remained. Now they came to a halt.

Edwin gave a half smile at her mention of the boy. ‘I hear he’s doing well. Apparently Swynford taught him nothing. But they’ve started from scratch and feel they’ll make something of him even yet. He has the will, they say.’

‘I’ve neglected him. Maybe I can take him out so he can see something of London.’ Medford moved his horse on impatiently at what was nothing to do with affairs of state. Hildegard leant forward with a quick glance over her shoulder. ‘We could visit that herb garden at Stepney His Grace mentioned?’

 

 

Poison. Back to that.

Before she went on to her guest lodgings at the abbey to pick up her things to take them over to Roger de Hutton’s place, she asked for a private word with Medford. Slake was in attendance, of course.

‘It’s this, Mr Medford. I’d forgotten it until now. He told me the trail leads to the Queen.’

‘What do you make of it?’

She shrugged.

‘So is that all?’ His brooding glance sent spiders up and down her spine.

‘That’s all. I thought it might make sense to you. Maybe I’m missing something?’

‘I would imagine that’s a rare occurrence.’ His dark glance followed her to the door as she took her leave.

 

From Standish to the Queen. He knows I’m getting close, she thought without any feeling. Am I in danger?

No time to ponder the issue. It was of no interest one way or the other. The purpose of life is death. That’s what he believed. She remembered his little chamber. The wind rattling the casement. The street singer with his melancholy lament. And firelight. The way his mouth curved when he smiled. Wolfish, she had once thought. I am being devoured.

 

They set out next day shortly after prime to get the best of the morning, little Turnbull on a pony, Haskin on a tough old warhorse, Hildegard riding astride a palfrey, and a couple of silent men-at-arms from Medford’s Signet Office. Keeping an eye on me, she guessed. But when the secretary had offered them he said, ‘We don’t want you to come to harm, do we, Domina?’

 

The old friar who ran the gardens was a spry eighty-year-old with a shock of white hair. Once a successful merchant, he had made a fortune in his retirement for his adopted Order by importing and selling herbs and medicinal plants. He was said to possess the widest variety in the kingdom. They were sent from all over the world, more than one hundred and forty-two different kinds, all named and described together with their virtues in a book he had just written.

When he noticed Hildegard and her escort outside the lodge he walked up towards them with a hoe over one shoulder, a smiling figure at home between his sparkling beds of plants. After a formal greeting he offered her bodyguards some refreshment with his own servants in the lodge, then turned to little Turnbull. ‘Now, young master, do you know your plants?’

‘Not all, magister,’ the boy admitted with beguiling honesty.

‘Well, take this trowel,’ he fished one from his pouch, ‘and go and find some mint, parsley and chives. Dig up a little root of each to take back to York Place with you. Your gardener there can make use of them and you can watch them grow.’

After he ran off the old man turned to Hildegard. ‘So, Domina. What can I do for you?’

‘I crave a remedy for grief, magister.’

‘I can see that. Have you tried a warm fireside, a glass of honey in wine and some friendly conversation?’

‘I fear I need stronger treatment.’

‘Follow me.’

He led her to a lean-to at the side of the lodge. Inside it was perfumed with bunches of sweet-smelling herbs hanging from the rafters. Along the back wall were rows of tinctures and other cures in blue and white pots, sealed and stoppered to maintain the potency of the contents. He took one down, uncorked it and poured a quantity into a phial and put it into her hand.

‘For the torments of the body brought on by despair. Best applied by a loving friend but failing that it will still work its magic if you give it time. And this,’ he continued, taking down a glass flagon filled with a dark liquid.

After pouring some into a clean bottle he turned his kindly scrutiny on her as she tucked both physicks into her bag. His kindness made it easy to ask him the question that had been puzzling her.

‘It’s this plant,’ she explained, pulling the stems she had picked in the bishop’s garden in Lincoln from the container in her scrip. ‘I cannot identify it nor work out what its virtue is.’

He took the now-dried leaves, sniffed them, crumpled one between his fingers, then gave her a shrewd glance.

Just then little Turnbull bounded up, calling, ‘I have them, magister. All correct.’ He was about to show them his gatherings when he saw the leaves in the magister’s hands.

‘Ah, you’ve got some of that as well.’

‘Do you know what it is?’ the old man asked him.

‘I do. It’s hart’s tongue.’

‘It is indeed, young fellow. At least, that’s what some call it. How do you know it?’

‘My previous master had some in Lincoln. It’s like gold, he said, paving our way to fame and fortune.’

‘He said that, did he?’

‘And he called it “white hart physick”.’

The white hart. King Richard’s emblem.

 

‘Right,’ said Medford after Hildegard told him what she suspected. ‘We’ll bring him in. See to it, Dean.’

Hildegard put out a hand. ‘Will you grant me a request?’

Medford raised his eyebrows.

‘Allow me to speak to him first?’

 

‘I’m looking for Jarrold of Kyme.’

‘Try the buttery, Domina.’

It was the quiet time, after the first sitting of the day and before the second and the kitchens were empty, floors swept clean, the pots and pans in gleaming rows, the knives, ladles and other utensils hanging from hooks. Shadows and silence. A cat sidled round a door. Rats defeated. Hildegard walked through the labyrinth of passages until she found him.

He appeared to be busy, stuffing things into a hempen bag.

‘Leaving?’ she asked.

He looked up. ‘What if I am?’

‘Going anywhere interesting?’

‘I am, Domina, as it happens. For what it’s got to do with you,’ he added.

She waited to see if he would expand on his boast.

He did.

‘I’ve been commanded by the Great Council to attend the King in his kitchens as master herberer.’ He smirked.

She reached forward. ‘And is this one of the herbs you’ll be using?’

He snatched it back. ‘Plenty more where that came from if you want some.’ The idea made him snigger but he said no more, merely tightening the strap on his bag and offering her a challenging look.

‘Do you plan on ever going back to York?’ she asked.

‘I’ve wiped the dust of that bloody hole from my boots. Me, I’m staying put.’ He made as if to push past her. He smelt of sweat and decaying leaves.

She stood her ground. ‘It’s a pity about Martin.’

He jerked to a stop. ‘What about him?’

‘Being dead.’

Neither of them made a move to cross themselves.

‘He had it coming.’

‘Why so?’

He shook his head. ‘I’m saying nothing against him. He wasn’t a bad lad, just misguided.’

‘In what way?’

‘Leave it.’

‘I don’t feel like leaving it. I feel I owe it him to find out why he died.’

‘Why ask me?’ he sneered. ‘I’d think it was bloody obvious to a halfwit. You’d die if you were hit on the back of the head and chucked in a vat of ale.’

‘Is that what happened?’

‘I can think of worse ways to go.’ He began to laugh then stopped when he saw her expression. ‘What?’

She continued to stare at him.

‘What are you looking at me like that for?’

‘What did you hit him with?’

Jarrold looked astonished for a moment then gave a snarl. ‘Don’t think you can pin it on me.’

‘Only His Grace, his clerk, the bailiff in Bishopthorpe and myself know he was hit on the back of the head. And you.’

‘Piss off out of my way, you bloody nun.’

She barred his way as he tried to barrel past her from out of the buttery and there was a brief struggle in the doorway when she thought he was going to hit her but she clung onto him and said fiercely, ‘You could not know he was hit over the head unless you did it, Jarrold! You could not know!’

‘So, who’s going to listen to you?’

‘Why did you have to kill him? Was he about to announce what he knew about Standish?’

‘What about Standish?’

‘What did you use to get rid of him? Hemlock?’

‘So obvious! I’m a master of my trade. Credit me with some skill! I’d use something more subtle.’

‘Such as?’

He considered her for a moment but was unable to resist the temptation to tell. ‘What Martin saw me feeding to the rats. He guessed I’d used it on Standish as well.’

He took out his knife.

‘That Scarborough lot were glad Standish was dead – being rebels as they were. I knew they wouldn’t let on. On the contrary,’ he smirked, ‘they were cheering me, just like they were the other day at York Place when I killed some more rats. It was only bloody Martin, sanctimonious sot wit. Then when he saw me turn up at Bishopthorpe he was scared shitless …’

‘So who paid you?’

‘Paid? What makes you think I was paid?’

‘You surely didn’t do it for nothing? Who paid you?’ she insisted. ‘Was it Swynford?’

‘Don’t be stupid. He didn’t want Standish dead, why would he?’

‘So who was it?’

‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.’

‘Try me.’

He gave a derisory laugh. ‘You mad bitch – I’ll tell you who it was. Then this! See it? What is it?’

‘It’s a knife …’

He waved it in her face. ‘The mastermind who set it—’ ‘Hey, that’s no way to treat a lady!’ It was Dean Slake, jaunty as ever, suddenly materialising as if from nowhere.

Hildegard turned in astonishment to see Medford as well, strolling in from the storeroom next door. The storage spaces were divided by wooden partitions with bars up to the ceiling to allow air to circulate but to prevent theft. Every word must have been audible on the other side.

Slake had picked up a cleaver from the kitchens at some point and was beating it against the palm of one hand as he approached. ‘Now then, Jarrold of Kyme,’ he said affably. ‘Why don’t you come with us?’

Before Jarrold could move Slake went right up to him, put him in a headlock and, before their eyes, slicked the cleaver down Jarrold’s front from ribs to belly. It made no sound but left a red trail under the ripped fabric of his shirt. Jarrold’s expression was one of astonishment. Hildegard saw him stare down as Slake twisted the cleaver and his guts began to spill out into his hands. When Slake let go he staggered forward a pace or two, reaching for the wall opposite, leaving streaks of blood down the white lime wash as he clutched for support. He began to slide slowly, slowly, to the ground.

Medford stood over him when he was still. ‘Dean Slake. I’ve said it before, you’re a hasty fellow. Now we’ll never know what he wanted to tell Hildegard.’

 

‘Slake has blocked off the trail that leads from Scarborough by way of Bishopthorpe and Lincoln.’

Edwin and Thomas were gaping at her as she told them what had happened. She began to believe they thought, as Jarrold had, that she was mad, but then Edwin got up to pace about Thomas’s chamber and he was firm. ‘I didn’t tell anybody how Martin was murdered. And of course His Grace would not do so.’

‘It sounds as if Jarrold has got his just desserts.’ Thomas made the sign of the cross. They had told him about their meeting with Harry Summers and now he asked, ‘Jarrold seemed about to tell you he was acting on instructions from someone you know, Hildegard. So who was it? Someone who was at Scarborough Castle the same time he was working there?’

‘Was it the unnamed guest in the chamber with His Grace when Standish had his outburst and pushed Harry down the stairs?’

‘Can we find out?’ Thomas looked from Edwin to Hildegard and back.

‘By necromancy probably.’ Edwin got up hurriedly and went to the window. ‘I can’t see me going up to His Grace and asking outright.’

‘Best to leave it for now,’ Thomas suggested. ‘Maybe we’re not meant to know.’ He looked troubled.

Hildegard persisted. It was no time for avoiding the truth. ‘Jarrold was adamant he was not acting on Swynford’s instructions. He took pleasure in hinting that it was someone else. It was his big secret. But who was it? Things happened too quickly. I’d no idea Medford and Slake were listening in. It was stupid of me. I should have expected that.’

‘Only someone as devious as they are would think along those lines,’ Thomas assured her. ‘Did Medford give any excuse for what Slake did?’

‘He tried to suggest that he acted on impulse. To protect me. Impetuous Slake.’

Edwin gave a snort. ‘Like hell he is. I hope Harry’s going to be safe. He didn’t say anything that would make him seem dangerous, did he?’

Hildegard shook her head. ‘Medford thinks he’s a fool. Slake said, “I do believe I could beat that fellow at chess,” and Medford replied, “I’m sure you could. And so could a babe in arms.” He’s safe, Edwin.’

‘I’m going to call in at Northumberland’s place and warn him anyway. He’s one of the best. A bloody good chess player as it happens.’ He stared moodily into the fireplace. It contained a small lick of flame, the most the monks would permit.

Thomas looked at him with kindness. ‘Don’t despair, Edwin. Trust in God. Things are not always what they seem.’

‘I’ll be glad to get back home to Yorkshire. I’m sick of this snakepit. You can’t trust anybody.’

Medford had shattered his illusions, Hildegard realised. She put a hand on his shoulder. There might be an even worse disillusionment to follow.

Edwin was about to continue when the door opened and a page thrust his head round it.

‘His Grace, Abbot de Courcy of Meaux.’

Hildegard stiffened in alarm. But then Hubert came striding into the chamber, coming to an abrupt halt when he saw Thomas had visitors.

‘Brother, forgive me – I had no idea—’ He broke off as his glance raked the room and came to rest on Hildegard. His eyes lit up. ‘My messenger surely can’t have reached you already? He must have wings!’

‘Messenger?’ She remembered to make a small obeisance.

Hubert’s face was sparkling with pleasure. ‘I sent him out straight after tierce with instructions to inform you we have a judgement.’

‘Judgement?’ It seemed she could only repeat his words like a fool.

‘On your divorce.’

She held the word back and simply stared at him. She had forgotten that.

He came over to her and she was aware that Edwin and Thomas had tactfully turned away to continue a separate conversation.

Hubert looked carefully into her face. ‘You look ill, Hildegard. I hope you haven’t been worrying about this issue?’

‘No.’

There was a pause. She could think of nothing to add.

He lowered his voice. ‘You’re being very brave about it. The Chapter took their time, I’m afraid, but they agree that it should be possible. They say you’re free of any promises made to Ravenscar. You’ll have to reaffirm your vows to us. But that should be no hardship.’

She could only stare at him. Hubert had none of the louche sensual pragmatism of Rivera. His austerity, his air of authority and straight dealing were like fresh rain on the confusion that had gone before. He was smiling with great warmth, plainly concerned by her appearance, searching her face for an explanation. She felt suddenly tired. She swayed and he jerked out a hand. ‘Are you ill?’

‘I fear so.’

‘Thomas!’ he called over his shoulder. ‘Have you no page in attendance? Can’t you see Hildegard needs help?’

Thomas sprang to his feet, winced when he leant too heavily on his injured leg, then plumped down again as Edwin got up instead, saying, ‘Let me.’

He gave Hubert a reproachful look. ‘You cannot know what Hildegard has been through, My Lord Abbot.’

 

‘There was no need to tell Hubert all that, Edwin.’

‘He would have had to discover it some time and it was best coming from me.’

‘My gratitude, then.’ The abbot had said nothing when Edwin told him about the mob’s violent attack and the subsequent beheading of one of Swynford’s spies. He had looked at her with concern when the clerk had gone on to tell him about Jarrold’s gutting, right there in front of her, and his anger was at once obvious, forcing Edwin to remind him, with many apologies for being so forthright, that even he could not stand against the King’s secretary without calling down trouble on his own head and probably that of his Order.

‘He will claim that the Cistercians are traitors and only here on sufferance. He’ll persuade the King to clear you out, just as they’ve cleared out so many other alien monastics.’

‘Close St Mary Graces?’ replied Hubert robustly. ‘I’d like to see him try.’ But it was true. They all knew Medford could persuade the King to do it in the interests of the state.

Now Hildegard drew her horse to a halt and called Edwin to stop. ‘There’s a little chapel here,’ she told him. ‘I’d like to go inside for a moment. Do you mind waiting?’

Haskin and the two Signet Office guards drew up behind them. When Haskin saw what she was going to do he said he would come inside as well. Just to be on the safe side. He swung down from his horse.

 

It was a small place, dark, its coloured glass letting in little light and the frescoes of St Margaret emerging in triumph from the belly of the dragon, the Devil in disguise, visible only dimly. The colours swam out of the shadows, ochre, black, purple, and a red pigment like dried blood.

A few candles were guttering under the east window where a coffin stood with its lid closed. She went over and looked at the flames. They were dancing like things living and taunting her with their vitality.

There was an inscription on the coffin lid, written in an educated hand. To our dearly beloved brother and martyr in Christ, Francisco Rivera.

Of its own volition her hand dashed forward, scattering the candles. Wisps of smoke rose and vanished followed by the smell of singed fabric.

Haskin touched her on the shoulder. ‘My Lady, come away now.’

 

The King, it was announced, was refusing to leave Eltham until a delegation of forty aldermen, including the new mayor, would come to hear his side of his grievance against the Duke of Gloucester. It was contrived, however, that the Duke with his two allies, Arundel and Edmund, another of the King’s uncles, turned up instead. Armed to the teeth. Insolent to the point of treason. Laying down the law as they intended to interpret it.

They claimed that if the King did not return to Parliament within forty days, it was written that it should be dissolved. Then he would certainly not get any money.

This was ancient law, they lied, and if he did not do their will he could be deposed and another member of the royal family would rule in his place. King or not, he had to obey the law of the land or lose his crown.

Unable to get any sort of legal advice that would have satisfied his opponents, Richard, nineteen years old, with no money and no army of his own, conceded. He arrived in the royal barge at Westminster quay on the twenty-eighth of October, the Queen, pale and plainly ill, by his side. They held hands like children. Richard put his arm round her when she stumbled and the Bohemian, Petrus de Lancekrona, helped him carry her into the palace.

Gloucester, fox’s brush swinging on its lance, followed, smirking. The Earl of Derby was not far behind. Attired from head to foot in green and gold, looking like a king himself, he crossed the yard to a storm of applause. The cheers followed him inside, where the King would hear the level of the crowd’s support.

Later that day King Richard made a surprise announcement. He had decided to name his heir. For the security of the succession and the peace of the realm he had chosen the one who would next wear the crown. It was to be a cousin, the Earl of March, thirteen-year-old Roger Mortimer.

 

The severed limbs nailed to the doors of various strategic buildings and symbolising the body of the realm had been forgotten in the more pressing and unsymbolic drama taking place in Parliament. Now the mystery of the body parts was brought back into public awareness when one of the hands was discovered shortly after lauds on the feast of Saints Ethelred and Ethelbert.

It had been thoughtfully stuck on a pike above London Bridge on the side facing out across the Thames to Southwark, so that anyone entering the city as curfew was lifted that morning would be sure to see it.

News of its appearance swept through the cobbled streets where the market was being set up, and down to Westminster almost as swiftly as a hawk could fly.

If the perpetrators of such barbarity intended to clarify their gruesome message, it was still at best ambiguous. Was it meant to represent the hand of God, the saviour who had caused the wind that drove the French from English shores? Or was it meant to affirm the power of the King – bow down all ye who enter here – and offer a warning to his enemies? Was it meant as instruction to the city men to give the King their support against his enemies? The discussions went on with varying levels of acuity in all the taverns, at all the stalls, in the streets and byways and the courts and yards and ginnels, until Hildegard thought she would be driven mad by it.

‘It’s a civic matter,’ Thomas told her with conviction on the day he happened to be allowed to walk again. He had arrived by wherry at Westminster, discovered she was still staying with Roger de Hutton, and had made his way, limping, and with waning confidence in his infirmarer, halfway up the Strand.

‘It stands to reason,’ he said over a beaker of wine in Roger’s solar, ‘the other parts have all been posted up at sites within the city walls. It’s meant to scare the apprentices into obedience. Exton has already started to root out anybody who doesn’t agree with him.’

Roger growled something about the monk’s strange idea of reason and pointed out that the rest of the body hadn’t shown up yet.

Shortly after midday his complaint was satisfied. The head, wearing a makeshift crown of willow wands, was discovered nailed to the broken gates of the Savoy Palace.

A terrified servant brought the news. ‘It’s just across the street!’ he bawled out, tumbling over his own feet and throwing himself in front of the first figure in authority he could find. It happened to be Ulf, just then crossing the courtyard with a message to the vintner to bring up extra supplies to the solar. The steward followed him out into the street.

‘Show me,’ he commanded.

The frightened lad led him along until they reached the small crowd that had already gathered and were gaping up at the bloodied human remains with its crown awry.

‘Hildegard must not see this.’ Ulf dragged the boy back with him and handed him over to the under-kitchener. ‘Give him something to steady his nerves then tell him to shut his mouth. I’m going up to inform His Grace right this minute.’

It was impossible to keep something like this a secret for long. After a mumbled explanation to Roger, Ulf approached Hildegard where she sat in a niche. Everything about him showed that he had news he was reluctant to impart.

‘You’ll find out sooner or later, Hildegard. Somebody else is bound to recognise him. It’s Hugh de Ravenscar.’

She stood up.

Roger had sworn to kill him. Ulf too. Now they both looked stunned.

‘It’s justice,’ said Ulf. ‘Don’t waste tears on him.’

‘Tears?’ She had forgotten what tears were and now merely groped for her goblet and took a sip.

Ulf had heard a few murmurs from the onlookers outside the Savoy and now told her, ‘It’s being seen as a warning to the King’s enemies.’

‘Some good may yet come of it, then,’ Thomas said after a pause. ‘It might deter the Duke of Gloucester and his cronies from trying to steal what is not theirs.’

Thomas was somewhat optimistic. Another view was soon sweeping London. The severed head was a warning to the King himself. Obey your subjects or you’ll finish up with your head crowned with thorns and stuck on a pole like any other traitor.

 

‘Who would like to accompany me to Westminster?’ Hildegard asked. It was nones. Parliament would soon rise for the day.

Ulf offered at once and Roger, strapping on his sword belt, got up as well. Thomas, unable to hide his limp, said he hoped a horse could be found for him, if Roger would be so kind.

With an armed escort, the three of them set out and arrived in Westminster shortly after the doors of the chapter house had been flung open.

‘I should have been in there this morning,’ remarked Ulf without regret.

‘And I should have been in the other place,’ Roger pointed out. ‘To hell with the bastards.’ He shot a glance at Ulf. ‘What’s she brought us here for?’

Hildegard rode alongside him. ‘There’s someone we need to see, isn’t there?’

One of the shire knights was leaving as if he couldn’t get out fast enough. He recognised Ulf and came over. ‘You missed nothing, fella. The carve-up is now complete. I abstained. I doubt they’ll ask me again. I’m off to the country to save my life.’ He reached up to grasp Ulf by the hand and the steward got down off his horse and gave the man a bear hug. ‘Watch your step, Geoffrey.’

When he was out of earshot Ulf said, ‘He’s a rare bird. He’s called Geoffrey Chaucer. He’s Richard’s court poet but he’s retained by Lancaster on account of his wife. She’s the sister of the Duke’s mistress.’

‘Which one?’ Roger asked.

‘Katharine Swynford.’ The Duke had countless women but his liaison with Thomas Swynford’s mother was the longest lasting and most fertile in terms of the children she had borne him outside the law.

‘I saw her in Lincoln.’ Hildegard commented. There were other concerns on her mind at present.

A figure she recognised left the chapter house with a crowd of other men and she watched as they swarmed across the yard, some elated, others with grim faces. They disappeared into the nearby tavern.

‘That’s that, then,’ observed Roger with a covert glance in Hildegard’s direction. ‘What are we doing next?’

‘I understood you’d offered to escort me?’ she replied with something of her former spirit. ‘Now I’m going to go over there,’ she gestured towards the tavern. ‘You can accompany me or not, as you please.’

‘I’ve got better wine in my slop buckets than they’ll have in there,’ Roger began to point out when Hildegard dismounted and threw him the reins of her horse. ‘Come on, Ulf. I’m going to fetch him outside.’

When she looked back Roger was holding the reins of two extra horses in his hand with the possibility of a third as Thomas gingerly dismounted.

 

 

The tavern was bursting at the seams with the sort of people who like hanging around anybody with the lustre of political power about them, and as well as them there was the big crowd from the Commons who had just come in. Guy de Ravenscar was easy to spot. He stood head and shoulders above most of the local men.

Hildegard went straight up to him. ‘Was it you?’

She didn’t offer any of the usual greetings and when he saw her face he peeled off from his companions and asked, ‘What’s the matter?’

‘Come outside.’

People were staring as she pushed her way back through the crowd to the door and somebody shouted, ‘You’re doing well there, Guy.’

But then they were outside and she was turning on him shouting, ‘Did you do it?’

‘Do what, my dearest—?’

‘Don’t give me all that. The head. It’s horrible – that thing! Is it your doing?’

‘What is this?’

She took him firmly by the arm. ‘Did you, Guy. Tell me! That head, nailed to the Savoy gates. Who put it there? It was you, wasn’t it?’ Tears suddenly welled up and she felt she was having to fight for breath. She slapped his face and began to punch him. A crowd formed. Nobody interfered. Guy gripped her by both arms.

‘Steady on! What’s happened?’

Ulf stepped forward and explained, succinctly, adding, ‘I know I vowed to deal with the bastard but I would never have done anything so barbaric.’

Guy’s jaw seemed to sag. He released her and she stood panting for breath, shouting, ‘I don’t even care what happens to him! I don’t care! Don’t you understand? I can’t breathe.’ She was choking. ‘Did you, Guy? Was it you who nailed him up there?’

His strange reaction made her falter. He was staring at her with his mouth open. He looked back at the tavern then turned to face her. ‘I think I must have.’

‘What?’

Ulf took a step forward.

Guy suddenly seemed unsteady on his feet and groped his way to a nearby wall and sat down with his head in his hands. Hildegard and Ulf followed.

After a moment Guy rubbed his hands over his face and lifted his head. ‘My men are loyal to me and I to them. I hated Hugh. Everybody knew that. I’d no idea how much I hated him until I met him again in the city. Didn’t you hate him, Hildegard, truly, in your heart? You have as much reason as anybody.’

She shook her head. ‘He was as he was. My only ambition was never to set eyes on him again. I don’t hate him. There’s too much sorrow in the world to make room for hatred.’

‘I don’t have your nature. I hated Hugh and despite that …’ he gestured vaguely in the direction of the Savoy ‘ … I still do. I feel no sorrow. If that’s what’s happened then he’s got what he deserved. But I fear I may have brought him to such a hideous end by allowing my men to think I would welcome it. I fear they have fulfilled what they see as their duty to me.’

He stood up. He seemed dazed. It was easy to see that he believed what he was telling them. Somehow he pulled himself together and managed to explain. ‘They’re wild border men. Used to everyday brutality. It’s how they survive. They live by simple rules. If they see that I’m dishonoured, they’ll take revenge on my behalf. Their allegiance to me is absolute. They know no other law.’

He took an unsteady step. ‘The city is no place for them. They are too savage, too free. Parliament is finished. I’m going back to Wales to raise men for King Richard. He’s going to need longbowmen. I beg you, do not detain them. My wild Welsh archers may yet save England.’

 

He went back into the tavern and Ulf and Hildegard were returning to where Roger was still waiting with the horses when they saw him emerge with half a dozen subdued but rough-looking men-at-arms. A few girls from the tavern straggled out after them with lewd comments and invitations to return.

Their horses were brought up. Guy swung into the saddle, the raven still hanging by its neck from his pike, and began to lead his men in the direction of the horse ferry. When he drew level with the de Hutton group he raised one hand in salutation and one or two of his men glanced over and then quickly away.

Ulf helped Thomas into the saddle. Hildegard leant her head against her horse’s neck for a moment and closed her eyes.

When she looked up, her brother-in-law’s small army had gone.

 

Later they discovered that before he left the city for good, Guy had made sure the head was taken down and he paid for a mass at All Hallows by the Tower, the little church where his brother had attacked Hildegard in the early days of her stay in the capital. Appropriately it was near Petty Wales, between the river and the Tower, where his men had hunted down their liege lord’s inglorious sibling and dealt him their own form of justice.

Hildegard doubted she would ever see Guy again. She had failed to get his measure. He had looked pleased enough when he set off with that jaunty salute. It was clear he was going home to consolidate his claim on his lands and not to mourn but to celebrate.

 

After compline later that day, when the kitchens at Roger de Hutton’s town house were quiet, Hildegard went down to boil some water. In her hand were some fresh leaves of hart’s tongue, a gift from the old gardener, Henry Daniels.

While she waited for the water to boil she thought of the wasted man-hours spent poring over arcane legal texts as the monks at St Mary Graces discussed her situation. She had been a widow before and she was a widow now.

The water began to bubble and she poured it over the crushed leaves, stirred them, watched small flecks rise to the surface, and let it steep. Old Daniels had told her what the plant’s virtue was before she left. Turnbull’s master had called it white hart physick, so pure the hart will never breed. Daniels’ words had been more prosaic. It’s a spleenwort, he told her, to promote women’s courses. When it was ready she strained it into a cup then lifted it to her lips and drank.

 

 

These days it was easier to get a ferry now that Parliament had ended. Most of those called had returned to their manors in the shires or to their great castles in far-flung corners of the realm.

Westminster Hall was again peopled only by the shadowy figures with business at the court of Chancery or the King’s Bench. The sightseers and the pilgrims in Palace Yard had found other places to visit, and after they departed the food sellers, the jugglers, singers, card sharps and other mountebanks had no trade so they too left, and even the chained bear no longer sat outside the tavern. That once boisterous place was again host to no more than a few regulars who regained their former positions by the windows and went back to watching the world go by.

The abbey, too, lost its guests and resumed the ancient pattern imposed by the followers of St Benet. Choirs of monks sang, undisturbed, the offices of the day from matins to nightfall and the only ripple on their serenity was the sad and sudden death of their abbot, Nicholas Lytlington. His legacy, his precious Missal, was hoped to outlast the plotting of the city men, the chicanery of the barons and the rise and fall of kings. He had voted for King Richard. The abbot’s death was sudden but he was, as Ulf told Hildegard, a very old man, an alleged son of Edward the Third by one of his mistresses. He would be missed for many years and no one thought his death in the slightest degree sinister.

The shrine beside one of the abbey bridges in honour of St Margaret, the helper of women, was empty too, although the altar was decked with late roses from the gardens at Eltham. Queen Anne and her entourage had just left when Hildegard reached the threshold and looked in. A sacristan was dousing candles.

She walked on towards the landing stage where Thomas and Edwin were waiting. There were several ferrymen to choose from, but as they strolled along the quay to make their choice one of them called up to them. He knew them, he claimed.

It was the same man who had taken Hildegard and Thomas downriver shortly after they arrived in London.

He asked what they thought now to the great capital.

They were polite and non-committal. In response he told them he had made a small fortune over the last few weeks and would be sorry to see the last of the outsiders leave.

‘By, you wouldn’t believe the passengers I’ve had in my boat while Parliament’s been on,’ he told them, pulling strongly from the shore as soon as they were aboard. ‘Magnates, burgesses, knights; I even had the King’s secretary in here the other night. Took him all the way down to Eltham, I did, when Dickon was refusing to come out.’

Thomas murmured his interest. Encouraged, the boatman continued. ‘Aye, and he knows your part of the world. How about that? Says it’s rough country. He was up there a couple of years back, he says, on king’s business.’

Hildegard sat up. ‘Whereabouts was he? Did he say?’

The boatman allowed the craft to ride the tide with only a token pull on the oars. ‘A wild place, he says, by the sea. A great castle high on a cliff.’

‘Scarborough, maybe?’ she suggested.

‘Aye, that’s the place. Been there yourselves?’

 

‘So everything is clear,’ Hildegard frowned. ‘Or is it?’ She got up to pour some of the archbishop’s Gascon wine into their beakers, then sat down in the corner of the cloister where they had gone to keep out of the wind.

The talkative boatman had dropped them off at York Place, where Edwin had to make some final preparations before returning north and Hildegard, belatedly, had been granted an audience with His Grace. Thomas was planning to leave with the Meaux contingent just as soon as Abbot de Courcy gave the command, but for now was not needed.

Many in Neville’s retinue had already packed up and the wagons, surrounded by prowling cats, were being loaded with baggage and filled the main yard amid all the mayhem of departure.

She waited for her companions to say something. Edwin spoke first.

‘It was Medford in the tower chamber with Archbishop Neville when Standish had his outburst and threw Harry down the stairs.’

‘Medford who sealed the butcher of Smithfield’s fate.’ Thomas frowned. ‘No doubt he would claim that Standish had to be silenced to avert civil war.’

‘And it was Jarrold, the poisoner, who was commissioned to do the job,’ Hildegard added. No wonder he had given that knowing smile when he had taunted her with the name of his secret master. Afterwards he must have found refuge at Bishopthorpe where Neville knew all about him. But then Martin got into the picture.’

‘He must have threatened Jarrold with the rumours over Standish’s sudden death. And, of course, he may have known something more specific, like what poison was used, working side by side with him in the kitchens there. Jarrold must have been desperate to shut him up—’

‘Then Martin made the mistake of trying to warn him off by telling him that he’d already confided his suspicions to his friend Willerby, the falconer.’

‘Frightened that everything was spinning out of control, Jarrold must have acted out of desperation. Later he appealed for help to the lord of his manor at Kyme, Sir Thomas Swynford.’

‘That’s what the argument in the chapel must have been about,’ Hildegard suggested. ‘Not about a woman at all. I thought Jarrold was lying when he said that to Swynford. And of course, he couldn’t tell him the truth.’

Rain, falling in the garth, the smell of wet fabric, puddled footprints on the floor and then that sign, his arm round Willerby, this is the man. And Swynford devised his devilish plot.

‘It’s a lord’s duty to protect his tenants just as it’s their duty to serve. You understand that too, Edwin.’ Thomas turned to the clerk.

Edwin was staring across the yard to where, his own master, the archbishop had appeared. He jerked round. ‘Quite right, Thomas. Quite right.’

They agreed that fate had offered up the perfect instrument to finish the job of obliterating the trail that led from Standish, through Martin, to Jarrold – the grieving father at St Albans.

‘Jarrold might have got away with it even then. He seemed to have no real motive for being involved. In fact, quite the reverse.’

‘But then Rivera perceived a wisp of smoke that led us to Harry Summers.’ Rivera’s name caught in her throat. ‘And there we got our motive,’ she continued. ‘To prevent Standish from revealing the entire conspiracy to assassinate the King. Who better than a master in the art of poison? Now only one mystery remains.’ She hesitated. ‘Medford believes the conspiracy continues—’

‘But where’s the secret in that?’ asked Edwin. ‘Gloucester, Arundel and Bolingbroke are open about their enmity.’

‘Couching their ill will in the hypocritical tones of men who pretend to be acting from altruistic motives,’ Thomas agreed. ‘When we all know they’re driven by greed and the lust for power. Indeed, where is the mystery?’

‘Even the secret of the Tower is out. The King’s cracker gun did its job. It kept the French away and now it’s safe in Windsor Castle where it can be perfected by the Queen’s compatriots.’

 

A final feast, lavishly augmented by all the leftovers, the scraps, the sudden gifts of venison and birds of the air from other barons with too many vittles uneaten in their larders, was set.

Brembre, ex-mayor, but still accompanied by his overlarge entourage, was howling with rage about the Duke of Gloucester. ‘Whoever heard of a king being overruled by his council?’ he fumed. ‘But without an army or the money to raise one what can he do?’ He patted his bulging money bag. ‘But we must not despair. I may not be mayor but I’ve still got the power of gold to offer.’ He turned to the archbishop. ‘And you’ve done well to get yourself elected onto the council, Alexander. You can safeguard Richard’s interests from there.’

‘I fear I’ve been invited merely as a sop to Gloucester’s critics. He’s making it as difficult as he can, demanding that we remain in London throughout the year of the council’s term. As if I can leave my northern flock for a year. He knows it’s impossible.’

Neville, unlike Brembre, had the look of a man who had lost the fight. A realist, thought Hildegard, or was Brembre the realist when he imagined they could still fight back? She recalled Guy de Ravenscar and his promise of a Welsh contingent of bowmen.

‘Others will rally to the King’s support, will they not?’ she asked Brembre.

‘Most certainly. Sir Simon Burley, Robert de Vere, Michael de la Pole when he’s sat out his prison term, all as loyal as you want. They’ll muster their forces. I’ll back them.’

‘I hear Richard insisted that he should be the one to supervise de la Pole’s sentence. The upshot is he’s invited him to Windsor Castle for Christmas as his honoured guest!’ Neville suddenly smiled. ‘He has style, our beleaguered King. I applaud him.’

‘You’ll be at Windsor as well?’

Neville nodded. ‘But I shall stay in London in the meantime to see which way the wind sets in.’

‘I’m invited,’ Brembre told him. ‘I’m keen to find out how far these Bohemian lads have really got with their firecracker experiments.’

‘What are they calling ’em, tarasnishs?’

‘Some Bohemian word like that. I prefer “bombard” or “firecracker” myself. It certainly sent Charlie boy scurrying off home with his wooden castles and his Spanish warships! The wind’s changed, oh dear! Down the market they’re claiming it was the hand of God came down to save us, the sot wits!’

‘If somebody from our side told him they were more advanced than they are, I’m not surprised he ran for it.’

‘Exton,’ said Brembre with satisfaction. ‘An old ally of mine.’ He chuckled and exchanged a knowing glance with Neville.

‘It was a clever bluff.’ The archbishop smiled. ‘Let them think the King would meekly offer them the keys to the city along with the fort of Calais the minute they showed up. Then hint that it was a trap to lure them in so they could be blasted to kingdom come by our secret weapon.’

‘Exton’s servant did a grand job. He put the wind up Charles and his dukes all right with his hints to their spies. The ultimate weapon of destruction!’ Brembre roared with laughter. ‘I don’t mind losing my mayor’s chain to Exton. We city men are in it together. If the dukes won’t save our skins, we can do the job ourselves. Hand of God, my arse!’

‘How far have they got with their invention?’ Neville asked.

‘Not far, although they’re experts at this sort of thing, they tell me. It stands to reason. Prague’s known as a city of alchemists. They understand gunpowder. Richard’s brother-in-law Wenceslas fosters their researches. What we need now is for our own merchants to put their hands in their pockets.’

‘City of alchemists?’ Neville raised a smile. ‘Is that why de la Pole’s so fond of the place?’

‘He likes it for the dancing and the good times. He says those Bohemians are more like Yorkshiremen than his own countrymen here in the south. When he was there with Simon Burley to bring the new Queen back he said they had a fine time. Music and merrymaking, he says, with a bit of alchemy thrown in.’ Brembre lifted his goblet. ‘Here’s to the cracker guns, real or imaginary. Let’s hope they blast the King’s enemies to kingdom come!’

 

Neville invited Hildegard into his privy chamber later. He seemed vague, as if something had shaken his confidence and was unsure how to proceed.

His falcon was sitting on a perch draped in scarlet cloth with the gold chain round her leg, and he went over to her and ruffled her feathers. ‘It’s the sweetest thing to watch a falcon stoop to her prey. Not sweet for the prey, of course.’ He glanced up. ‘I thought you were going to bring us down.’

‘My loyalty would have prevented it.’

He gave a sad smile. ‘Yes, I believe it would.’

He left the falcon and came to stand close so he could speak more confidentially. ‘I had to send you and Edwin to talk to that fellow in the Tower to keep you off the scent. We didn’t know what was being cooked up there, of course.’ He gave a tentative smile. ‘We’re living in uncertain times. Gloucester’s hatred for Richard runs deeper than you can imagine. He and Bolingbroke are determined to pursue him to the end. He is not mad. They really mean to destroy him. We know greed drives Gloucester, spite is Arundel’s motive, Bolingbroke thrives on jealousy and ambition, and poor Edmund tags along not quite sure what’s happening. I’m on the King’s council and I’ll do my best to protect Richard’s interests, but how long I can play both ends I don’t know. They’ll be coming after me next.’

Hildegard remembered the journey down to London, the attack on their convoy, the attempted theft. ‘You still have the cross?’

‘They will no doubt send hired men after it again. But they’ll never find it. I’m the only person who knows where it is and nothing will ever prise the secret from me. Not even you, Hildegard.’

He wore a disillusioned smile. ‘If it had any real power we would know it by now. It possesses only the power we ourselves invest in it. In these end days nobody gives it credence. We live in a godless world.’

He put a hand on her arm. ‘Jarrold came to see me, you know. He told me what he’d been paid to do. I said I would hear his confession but otherwise he was on his own. I had no idea it had led to murder.’

‘No one could have guessed that.’

‘That may be so. But what about you, Hildegard? I know where my path leads. Don’t be brought down with me when I fall. Go back to your grange at Meaux and live there in seclusion doing good and humble work. Live like that for the natural span of your days.’

 

 

If his death was not to have been in vain she had to solve the enigma of his last words: Follow the trail, it leads to the Queen. It could not simply imply that there was a plot – everyone knew as much – so might it be better to ask: what form does the plot take?

 

Thomas sent a messenger inviting her to St Mary Graces to say farewell until they met again at Meaux. Aware that the abbot would be present, and suspecting that perhaps he was the instigator of Thomas’s invitation, she made some feeble excuse and instead Thomas, alone, came down to the de Hutton house on the Strand.

‘I’m travelling back with Hubert tomorrow,’ he told her. ‘He was disappointed you were unable to come over. He’s flooded with last-minute obligations to his hosts and couldn’t get away. He sends his greetings and says he’s looking forward to meeting over a flagon of wine when you get back to Meaux. There’s talk that he’s going to represent us at the general synod in France next year,’ he added.

‘Will you go with him?’

‘I would deem it a great honour but am hardly worthy.’

Hildegard smiled.

When he asked her how she was travelling back she told him Roger was insisting she travel with his entourage.

‘You’ll be safe enough with those men-at-arms of his.’

‘What about you, Thomas, are you able to ride?’

He nodded. ‘I’ll manage. I just hope I can keep up with Hubert. He rides like a madman.’

 

She was no nearer making sense of Rivera’s words when the time came to say goodbye. Roger, Ulf, even Haskin, stood about in the yard looking uncertain.

‘It would take too long to explain. But it’s something I need to do. I’ve already been to see the abbot at St Mary Graces. He gave me his permission and his blessing.’

‘So you’re travelling down to Canterbury when?’ asked Ulf.

‘Tomorrow.’

Roger looked sceptical. ‘And then across into Normandy, over the mountains and down into Spain? Well, the saints preserve you, Hildegard. You wouldn’t catch me going on pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella.’

Ulf looked troubled but said nothing to add to Roger’s verdict. He came over to give her a hug. ‘I’ll be married when you next see me.’

‘I hope you have every possible happiness and the joy of many children.’ She returned his hug.

‘Steady on,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to take a second look at her first.’

‘I’m sure she’s beautiful.’

 

The boat drifted towards the gap between the houses and the ferryman rested on his oars while his passenger took her time.

Moving, shifting, magical. She saw him coming out of the house, holding out his hand to her.

Rivera.

She blinked the image away. She would never come to terms with it. His eternal absence. The loss.

At her sign the boatman allowed the boat to drift back into the outgoing tide.

 

 

Turning away, she caught a sudden sight of Jarrold. He was back, then.

Standing at a bench at the far end of the kitchens, he was on the point of turning out one of the leather bags she had seen him with earlier. A servant was picking up a sharp knife to begin work on the herbs that came spilling out. Jarrold reached into another bag at his feet and made a second pile further along the bench where someone else could get to work. Then he came towards the door carrying the two empty bags.

As he passed she took the opportunity to detain him. ‘I need some herbs for my cures, master. Can you tell me where you obtained those?’

For some reason he looked affronted. ‘They’re not cures. Who said they were cures?’

‘Most herbs can be considered as such.’ She withstood his belligerent stare without flinching.

Observing that she was not going to be put off, he lied. ‘Brought them from Lincoln myself.’

‘They look fresh.’

‘If you want fresh, try Henry Daniels.’ He walked off.

When she woke up her entire body was weeping. She lay puzzling over the dream until it was time to leave.

 

Abbot de Courcy came flying up the road from London on his black destrier, galloped under the stone arch into the courtyard at Meaux and dismounted in a billow of dust. He threw his cloak to a nearby servant. A few moments later Thomas followed. When he dismounted, his leg still encased in bandages, he was less agile than the abbot and gave a bemused smile at the monks who had gathered in the yard to welcome the travellers home.

‘Well ridden, lad.’ Hubert clapped Thomas on the shoulder making him wince. ‘I hope you’ll ride like that when you come to France with me next year.’

‘You mean I’m coming to Clairvaux?’

‘I do.’ Hubert swept on into his private lodge leaving his servants to follow with his things.

Despite his obvious delight to be back in his own domain, over the next couple of weeks the abbot began to walk more frequently to the bridge across the canal dividing his abbey from the adjacent grange, where it had been his practice to meet Hildegard after vespers to discuss matters of mutual concern to both establishments.

Now he stood alone, staring down into the darkly flowing water until the winter sun slipped behind the bare-branched oaks and he had to find his way back to the abbey by starlight.

After a few evenings of this he made his way to the bridge as usual, but then, instead of staring at the water as it rushed underneath, he strode across to the building on the other side and rapped peremptorily on the door.

A face appeared at the grille.

‘Is Hildegard back from London?’

There was a moment of confusion in the darkness inside. ‘She has left England, My Lord.’

‘What?’

‘She has gone on pilgrimage.’

‘I gave no such permission.’

‘I understand she obtained permission from the Abbot of St Mary Graces, My Lord.’

Hubert made his way back to the bridge. He halted halfway across and put both hands on the parapet and stared into the water without moving.

There were running footsteps and a servant from the grange appeared. ‘My Lord Abbot?’

He turned almost savagely. The servant ran up, placed a small vellum roll into his hands and fled back to the other side.

Only when he was alone in the privacy of his chambers did he rip the seal off and read the message: When you receive this I shall have set out on the road to Compostela. Forgive me. It is not, as you believe, an easy matter to reaffirm my vows. Hildegard.

Eventually he went to the window where he used to watch the light from her chamber window until it went out after vigils.

Compostela. The field of stars.

Outside, a lantern. The high walls. The drifting sound of nuns singing the night office.

In his mind’s eye he saw a figure clad in white receding down a long straight road under a high sun until it became one with the horizon.