The Butcher of Avignon (14 page)

He was nodding his head.

She could not tell whether it had been news to him or not.

He gave her a sudden flashing smile. ‘Keep up the good work, domina. A word here, a word there, eh? I am confined to my bed for yet another day. You have been most helpful.’ He leaned forward. ‘I shall ensure that the appropriate examiners are aware of your assiduous work when the question of preferment at the Priory of Swyne comes up.’ He gave her a searching glance. ‘That is the reason your prioress sent you here, is it not? In order to further your personal ambition?’

A jolt passed through her while she was grappling with the unpleasant view of spying he had just drawn, and she quickly covered her aversion to what he said. ‘Most certainly, my holy mother is ever considerate for the welfare and benefit of her sisters as you will no doubt remember. I’m fortunate that she believes I might follow her precedent in time.’

She changed the subject to the rain and the floods it had brought and later, as she left, warned herself to be more guarded in future. Despite his conciliatory manner he had almost managed to make her say more than was wise. His eyes had needled into her face as if to extract secrets from her. It was easy to see him inviting some poor fool to confess more than was safe and then bring down the severest penalty of the inquisitors.

Her ignorance of any other motive than greed must have been convincing. It happened to be the truth. He could not suspect the prioress’s purpose in sending her here. She hardly knew it herself. Presumably, if he had known the prioress well he would have a good idea of her opinions. She was ever blunt about her superiors and unfailingly forthright in her views on those who ruled, took their helping of taxes and expected uncritical loyalty in return.

Her allegiance, as Hildegard knew, was unwavering, too, on the subject of the right to the English throne. Only one man had that right. Richard had been anointed with the holy chrism as King of England at the age of ten, an event witnessed in Westminster Abbey by all the prelates, nobles and shire knights of England when they gave their oath of fealty. That was enough to offer him her unstinting loyalty.

The prioress, like Hildegard herself, owed nothing to the Butcher of Cesena and his vassals.

**

There was something in the lining of her sleeve. She pressed it with her fingertips, decided she was not mistaken, and pushed her sleeve up to have a look inside. The thick seam was about an inch deep and when she worked inside it she discovered the small silver charm given her by the apothecary earlier. She had quite forgotten it. Now she wondered how Athanasius had managed to get on without it.

Sighing she thought about taking it along to him but could not summon up the enthusiasm to enter his foul-smelling lair so soon.

What if he had the plague, or something similar? She had managed a discrete look at his neck when she had attended him and had seen no buboes there. Hopeful that he would have warned everyone if he had been really sick she put his ailment down to his advanced years and the cold weather.

He had no heating whatsoever in his cell. Not even a hand warmer. He was like the prioress in that respect. She never seemed to feel the cold and perhaps the two elderly monastics were more similar than she realised. Both brought up under the same harsh discipline. Thriving on austerity. Given to a life of secret affinities. What little she was learning about Athanasius’s character told her that much. Alike. Yes. And yet in some way she had not fathomed, not alike in any profound way, in spirit deeply different.

In an ill-humour, she decided to go and watch the boys at the quintaine. It would be their exercise time about now, between tierce and mid-day. And besides, she needed some fresh air after the foulness in the magister’s cell.

**

On her way to the tilt yard she had to cross the Great Courtyard past the entrance to the tower where the miners were incarcerated so she cut briskly across and went up to the guard. He gave her an odd look with something she read as triumph in it but she ignored him as he nodded her through and she began the long climb to the top floor.

The fact that she had nothing to tell them yet would be a disappointment that could not be helped.

**

‘Where’s John?’

Peter looked up gloomily from his chains. He was huddled in a corner of his cell on a pile of straw with an empty mug upended beside him. The cell was dark and filthy. He himself looked lonely and utterly dejected.

He lifted a mournful face to meet her gaze. ‘They’ve separated us. It can only mean we’re about to be dragged before the officials of the inquisition.’

‘Are you accused?’ she asked in alarm.

He shook his head. ‘They’re being as nice as pie. They simply want to know our guild secrets.’ He spat into the straw. ‘No chance.’

‘You are vowed to maintain the secrets of your guild.’

‘Vowed before our guild brothers. These inquisitors can weedle all they like with their thumb-screws and pincers, they’ll get nothing from me.’

‘And what would they do anyway with the knowledge, should, heaven forfend, you ever yield to their persuasion?’

‘What can they do with it?’

‘They have mines of their own, do they not?’

‘Coal. That’s about it.’

‘They have mountains.’

‘Silver and gold in them? Who knows? We’ve never heard anything about it and you can be sure word would have leaked out one way or another if they had.’

‘So what use are you to them?’

Peter shrugged his shoulders.

Hildegard considered the matter for a moment. ‘Peter, tell me, why do you think they brought you here?’

He shook his head. ‘Pope’s men? A bunch of Burgundy’s militia? Who can unravel their weave?’ He sat up, suddenly alert. ‘Have you found out something?’

‘I was here the morning Woodstock’s man rode in with his retinue. It was still dark, in that time just before dawn. Moments after Fitzjohn arrived a wagon came storming into the Great Courtyard. By this time everybody was trailing inside the palace. The wagon didn’t stop but disappeared round the corner towards the sumpter yard. There were barrels in it. Large ones. I saw them clearly under the flap by the light of the torches his guards carried as it swept round the corner. It meant nothing to me at the time. But, given your description of how you got here, I believe they were the barrels you and John were carried in. Remember, we stumbled across each other the very next day?’

‘That was our first day here. Go on.’

‘You see what it means?’

He gave the matter no more than a moment’s thought. ‘Obviously Woodstock gave this Fitzjohn fella the order to have us abducted?’

‘Yes, and it coincides with the impeachment of the king’s closest advisors and the plot against de la Pole.’

‘That’s what it looks like. But Woodstock’s a member of the King’s Council. He’s a prince of the blood royal. It’d be the same as treason to go against his nephew. To have dealings with King Richard’s enemy?’ He looked alarmed. ‘I hope they won’t think we had anything to do with it. We were abducted, plain as a pikestaff.’ He struggled up onto his knees the better to see into her face. ‘Tell me, why would Woodstock want to bring us here?’

‘Maybe he wants to send a gift to Pope Clement.’

‘What for?’

‘In return for the funding of an army?’

Peter uttered a restrained oath. ‘Us?’ He looked mildly flattered. ‘Clement, without any mines of his own, is given a gift - of two miners? Experts in the extraction of gold and silver from base rock? That’s rich! Doesn’t Woodstock realise we’d be less use than a pair of wax daggers?’

**

The shield fixed on the swivelling prop of the quintaine banged again and again as the English boys galloped their New Forest ponies towards it and jabbed their short wooden lances into it. There was a hard incentive to get it right and hit the target in the middle because if they missed, the shield would slam back into them before they could gallop their ponies out of the way and they would finish up by being knocked humiliatingly to the ground in front of everybody.

They were doing well when Hildegard arrived to watch. Hitting the target with a sound as regular as a beating heart. How adept they were could mean the difference later between life and death. If they were knocked off their horses on the battle-field they would have a gruelling time of it. The skill to remain in the saddle and deal hard knocks was vital.

Their young faces were flushed with the excitement of competition. The French boys were no less skilled than their rivals. Between them the will to win was friendly if ferocious. Maybe later, if they were lucky, they would avoid the battlefield altogether and merely compete in jousts against each other and become the darlings of some fair maid whose colours they would carry in their helmets from one gilded royal tournament to another. With this possibly rosy future ahead of them, she could understand how their exertions might fill them with such open, youthful joy.

On the sidelines stood one, however, who was refusing to compete. It was the boy she had seen weeping in the chapel, whom she now knew was called Elfric. He was watching intently, by no means indifferent to what was going on. Hildegard could not understand why he remained on the sidelines. He had a short sword in the sheath on his belt and rubbed the palm of one hand over and over against the hilt as if itching to fight.

The boys eventually began to tire of the quintaine and she turned to go but it was then Elfric stepped forward. He marched up to the tallest of the French boys and with a fine gesture of defiance threw down his glove.

At a distance she could not hear what was said but the challenge was accepted, bringing cheers from the onlookers. She saw the two boys draw swords.

Suddenly Edmund was beside her. ‘Watch this, domina.’ She noted the change in the way he addressed her as if someone had corrected him. ‘Elfric is our best swordsman. Small though he is he’s very quick. This should be good.’

‘Are they properly protected?’ she asked. ‘Neither boy seems to be wearing mail.’

‘They have hauberks on under their tunics,’ he replied nonchalantly. Clearly protection was the least of his interests.

‘I must insist, Edmund. I know it’s not for me to instruct you but you seem to have no master present. I’m sure that if you had he would insist that those two wear the proper apparel.’

‘Oh leave them, domina. They must test themselves. Elfric feels he has just cause against the French boy.’

Hildegard frowned. She could not stand by and watch. They were really no more than children and they were obviously putting themselves in danger. Just then the tall, big-boned figure of Sir John Fitzjohn himself entered the yard. He took in at once what was happening and let out a bellow of rage. In a few long strides he crossed the yard and grabbed the two swordsmen by the scruff of their necks. His language showed that he was unaware of a nun’s presence.

Hildegard smiled with relief nevertheless. In her opinion he had appeared in the nick of time. The boys knew it too. Sheepish looks were exchanged. One or two bystanders began to sidle away, disowning their fellow miscreants.

The words ‘brawl’ and ‘like peasants’ was heard. She decided the rest of Fitzjohn’s language was best forgotten,

As the two were dragged off for punishment she noticed that Edmund was closely following them with his glance, never once taking his eyes off them. His fists were bunched at his sides. When she looked at his face his expression was as hard as stone.

**

Hildegard laid a pile of the local currency she had obtained from the money changer on the table between them.

‘So,’ she invited, filling his beaker of wine and pushing it towards him, ‘I’d like to ask you a few questions.’

‘You would, would you.’

‘Indeed I would. It’s about the murder of the young man in the treasury.’

‘What’s that got to do with me?’

‘I was told there were two guards on duty at the treasury. Now I hear there was three.’

The guard folded his arms across his chest.

‘Is that so?’ she prompted.

‘What if it is?’

‘Will you tell me about it?’

‘You’re a strange one to be asking questions. What’s it to do with you?’

‘I’m English.’

He seemed satisfied with that and nodded. Then his eyes narrowed. ‘Who’s putting you up to this?’

‘Nobody.’

‘Is it the magister?’

‘Who? Brother Athanasius?’

‘That’s ‘im.’

‘I understand the dead boy was English. I have an interest for that reason.’

‘Fair enough.’

‘Well then?’

‘Well what?’

Curbing her irritation she asked, ‘So who was it found him?’

‘I did.’

‘The other guards said they found him.’

‘Only when they were given the alarm. By me.’

‘Where did you find him?’

‘Lying dead as you saw him when you came down with the magister and the cardinal.’

‘Was that you with the light?’

‘It was.’

‘Had anything been moved from the time when you found him and we came down?’

‘Not as far as I know.’

‘Was he dead when you found him in there?’

The guard gripped the edge of the table. ‘Now look here what are you suggesting? I told you - ’

‘I only ask for form’s sake. That wound didn’t look like one you professional fellows would inflict. It was more like the work of some back alley cut-throat. In fact, I doubt whether you would have inflicted any wound except what might naturally happen as you took him into custody.’

‘That’s right. I’m glad you see the situation with common sense.’

‘I do my best,’ she replied and before he could butt in again she asked, ‘So now, captain, can you remember what time you found the body?’

‘It was between matins and lauds. Nearer lauds.’

‘Is that as close as you can estimate?’

‘Lauds then. At the start of lauds.’

‘And where was his Holiness. Was he present?’

‘Not him. Of course not.’

‘Where was he?’

‘Where do you expect? In his chapel saying his prayers.’

‘Alone?’

‘With his priest and one or two others.’