The Butcher of Avignon (17 page)

She listened to the words droning on over the heads of the crowd but her thoughts were elsewhere. A plan had to be quickly made and it had to be foolproof. Lives were at stake.

The words of the petitioners drifted around her. The rich livings offered by Clement were dependent on the gifts of gold he received and the fealty he could expect in return. They were dependent on the sort of fidelity to him that would extend his empire.

The canon got his wish and must have been overjoyed to find he need never go short of the trappings of worldly wealth again.

Another petitioner followed, a priest seeking the benefit of a convent in Arbroath, and was less successful on the grounds that he already held the prebend of Dunkeld which he did not wish to relinquish. He left, chuntering to himself about injustice.

Then three Scots appeared together and put their pleas to the canons simultaneously. Clement intervened when he saw his influence diluted by their ambition. Better for him to spread his influence rather than concentrate it in the hands of one or two who might be seduced by the offer of richer pickings elsewhere and take a large chunk of his estate with them. She saw him bend his head and mutter something to one of the clerks who turned to his roll and began to scribble rapidly.

Hildegard could see John Fitzjohn among the crowd. His four men-at-arms were ranged about him. At least they were not trying their persuasion on the miners yet. Fitzjohn had not, to her knowledge, submitted his petition which he would have to do in public. It would be dependent on John and Peter being free with their trade secrets. It would be no good offering knowledge if it could not be laid hold of and used.

The purpose of such a gift was still a mystery. There must be new discoveries of silver or maybe even gold somewhere within the Papal States. The miners may not have heard about any new deposits, despite their confidence. As for what Woodstock wanted in return, it could only be the knowledge that he had a wealthy ally should it ever come to a military showdown with King Richard.

While her glance was ranging around the chamber she accidentally caught Hubert’s eye and quickly turned away.

The number of petitioners did not seem to dwindle. Half way through the morning another team of clerks took over, fresh and efficient, unstoppering their ink horns with relish while the others headed hungrily for the Tinel and the first sitting at dinner. Fitzjohn went out accompanied by one of his men, a big fellow, empty scabbard hanging like a broken arm. Both reappeared a few moments later looking relieved.

At least Fitzjohn had not yet sent his men to test the will of the miners.

An air of tedium began to settle over the onlookers. They stood stupefied listening to the petitioners as if comparing the gifts received by others with their own aspirations.

In this very hall, she thought, glancing round as she edged towards the doors, it is likely that the man who murdered Maurice is smiling and looking devout and maybe even scribbling down the details of some priest’s acquisitions or attending to his duties to his lord. He could be anyone here. He is going to get away with it. And there is nothing I can do.

She reached the door and was about to go through when a voice stopped her.

**

‘All right. Enough of the black looks. I didn’t mean what I said.’ A familiar voice in her ear. It was Hubert.

The scent of fresh mint and sandalwood swept over her as if to draw them together. She took a startled step back. Even then he seemed to be standing right over her.

She made to move away but he reached for her sleeve and gripped it so tightly she couldn’t escape without drawing attention to herself.

‘I don’t know what you mean, Hubert. Let me go,’ she demanded in a fierce whisper.

He held on. ‘Listen to me.’

‘Why should I if it’s to insult me again?’

‘Insult you?’

‘To tell me to go to hell, as you did not two days ago.’

‘I said no such thing.’

‘Oh no?’

‘Perdition. I said perdition. I swear, I only meant - ’

‘I have no interest in what you say you meant.’ She tried to prise his fingers open to free her sleeve to no avail.

‘I’m stronger than you.’

‘So, go ahead, take advantage of the fact. It just goes to show what you’re like.’

He moved closer, pulling her against him as he did so, murmuring, ‘And what am I like?’ He added in a deeper voice, ‘Hildegard? Answer me.’

‘Let me go, Hubert. Are you trying to cause a scene in public?’

‘Who cares about the public, if that’s what you call this mob. I don’t care what they think and I’m sure you don’t.’

‘I have to live here among these people, at least for a time.’

‘So do I.’

‘It’s up to you if you care so little for your reputation.’

‘It’ll make no difference to my reputation. They’ll assume you’re my concubine. It’ll give you more status.’

‘Get away from me!’

‘It’s the custom here, hadn’t you noticed?’

‘What is?’

‘Every churchman of standing has a lover, a handsome boy or a beautiful woman. It’s the necessary pass to gaining preferment. It demonstrates that they can be bought. Slack morals apply across the board. Would you deny me the chance to become a cardinal?’

‘This is monstrous! Let me go!’

‘We’ll soon be back at Meaux.’

‘And do you intend to make concubines the custom there?’

His teeth were very white when he smiled, face razor-boned, hawklike, skin tight, unlined. He murmured, ‘If we follow Pope Clement maybe he’ll insist?’

She tried to move away again but the crowd was surging into the next ante chamber taking them both with it and it was impossible to force a way out, especially with Hubert grasping her sleeve.

She turned back to him in fury but with her voice low. ‘Do you want to cause a scandal and get me dragged before the court?’

‘It would never come to that. Not here.’ Despite his words he slowly released her. ‘Is this really how it’s going to be?’

‘How else?’

She swivelled, bumped into someone, nearly stumbled, but managed to avoid the hand Hubert put out. In a moment the crowd had shuffled between them and she made her escape.

When she got out into the corridor she was trembling. ‘Damn him,’ she muttered. ‘Damn him, damn him to perdition and damn him to hell, both.’

**

She could not trust him. Despite that strange remark
if we follow Pope Clement
he seemed to have no doubt he was on the path to preferment. And she could help! She felt like spitting bolts of iron. It certainly explained his presence here as more than the conventional one of following orders. He had so far failed to mention the terrible events taking place at home. Burley. Neville. Tresilian and the rest, indicted on charges of treason. Beheading their possible punishment.

It showed his indifference to the fate of the king and of England itself if such men as these could be attacked and receive no comment from him.

He was here in Avignon, at the behest of Clement. He was what she had long suspected, a spy, and now he had returned to the heart of the secret network that spread throughout Europe with England as its target. He was about to climb to the next rung of the ladder in the pope’s hierarchy.

Obviously she could not trust him. It was futile even to think it.

**

And who could she trust now? She had to help the miners to safety. She could not sit by and let good, honest, loyal men be tortured for their innocent part in the games played by the enemies of King Richard. Beset by enemies, she could think of only one source where she might find allies.

A tug on her sleeve as she stood uncertainly in the ante chamber made her turn. As if summoned by her thoughts, it was Peterkin.

‘I’ve been trying to catch up with you since I saw you listening to the petitioners.’ He beamed. In a conspiratorial voice he added, ‘Come up to the next floor after tierce and wait at the top of the steps if you will.’

He drifted back into the crowd like a wraith.

**

Edmund and the guild of pages. She would listen to Edmund and see how she might help him against Fitzjohn. The least she could do was to counsel patience. His time as an esquire would soon be over. He would come of age. Then men like Fitzjohn would have no power over him. She would do what she could although she did not hold out much hope that Fitzjohn could be persuaded to treat Edmund more reasonably. He was not so different as at first appeared to his younger brother, Escrick Fitzjohn. Chips off the old block. As like their father John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster, as made no difference.

She made her way up the spiral stair that led to the friar’s cell, thinking how the attendants were able to get in anywhere, they were so much part of the busy daily scene.

They could ask questions among the other members of the retinues. Find out who had been where and when. No-one bothered much about them. She had already seen Peterkin obtaining information for Fitzjohn in the kitchens. She did not doubt that he had been sent there on purpose now she had seen more of what went on.

They could certainly find out a few things for her too if she asked them. From the French pages, perhaps, who were here at the time of Maurice’s murder. And maybe it was even one of them who had issued what might have been a dare to Maurice. Maybe he was now in fear that he would be found out and accused of murder.

With the lavender-soaked cloth pressed to her face she made her way along the passage at the top of the steps until she came to the nail-studded door.

The stink of fox. That was what came suddenly to mind. But it was a gryphon that had brought death, not a fox.

**

The old monk was reading at his lectern, peering myopically with a polished glass that enlarged the letters on the page.

‘And so the mystery remains,’ he murmured, half to himself but audibly enough. ‘Like a book forever closed to us. So be it.’ He raised his glance and looked across the chamber. ‘We are told that so far everything in the treasury has been accounted for. Is that not good news, domina?’

‘If it was a dare to get inside the treasury then it is only to be expected that nothing was taken.’

‘And that is now your considered view?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘You sound uncertain?’

‘It is a great sorrow to me that a young life should be thrown away on a dare.’

‘Ah, yes, mortality, that most transient of states, how lightly we hold it. It is like playing with a bird, sometimes it quickly flies away and is gone forever.’

He spoke in the tones of one who could not see himself in the role of the bird but only and always as the one with the power to play.

This was such a sudden insight into his character that it broke over her like shattering glass: his indifference to the death of a young man with his life before him. Maybe he did not know what it was to lose someone close to his heart.

Maurice must have kin, a mother wondering how her boy fared away from home, a father perhaps, sisters whose thoughts embraced him. She had seen his brother Elfric and his grief-stricken face and could not forget it.

She realised she was staring at Athanasius as she tried to understand the workings of his heart when she heard him saying, ‘…but our search for the pretty little dagger must still go on, of course.’

She gazed at him in confusion before she properly understood. ‘Yes,’ she replied belatedly, ‘I suppose it is a costly thing. Clement would not want to lose such an item as that.’

‘Quite so. You will do what you can to find it.’

**

He takes a lot on himself to be giving me orders, Hildegard grumbled to herself as she reached the fresh air outside his chamber. I’ve come across arrogance before, she thought bitterly, Hubert de Courcy for instance, but Athanasius is more deeply dyed in his own superiority, less given to self-doubts than Hubert.

It made her reconsider the old man’s role here. Was he simply a corrodian, living out his last days on a papal pension as she was led to believe?

Most corrodians offered something in return for their bed and board. If not money, then service. What did Athanasius offer?

**

Before keeping her meeting with Edmund she wanted to look in on the prisoners to find out if Peter was back from his visit to the office of the inquisition. The guards, she was pleased to note, had been reduced to one. It was the fellow on duty earlier. He was beginning to accept her, even though he put on a suspicious face when he examined the bread, cheese and flagon of wine she was carrying.

‘Go on in, then,’ he growled gesturing up the stairway.

Fearing what she would find she climbed the familiar steps and pushed open the door at the top. To her relief Peter was sitting up in the straw and seemed unharmed.

‘What did they do?’ she asked.

‘Gave me a thorough questioning but without any of the business with the finger nails. Mebbe they think I’m the soft one.’ He grinned. ‘That’s how I’m playing it. They’re getting nowt from me but stories.’ He tapped the side of his head. ‘They think I’m an addle wit.’

John, still clearly in pain, asked, ‘So when do we get out of here, domina?’

‘I have a plan,’ she whispered with a glance towards the door. She was aware that the guard had followed her up. She put a finger to her lips.

The guard poked his head into the cell. ‘You lucky lads,’ he observed when he saw Hildegard pouring out two beakers of wine. ‘Better treatment than I get at home.’

Hildegard lifted her head. ‘Would you like to share a beaker with us, captain?’

He wasn’t a captain but he blossomed and sidled into the cell. One hand came out to take the clay pot. ‘
Merci. A Dieu!
’ He gulped it back in one as if fearing to be caught, and returned the empty pot.

‘You’re welcome,’ she told him. ‘I know I can trust you to look after these two poor fellows for me.’

He said something she translated along the lines of ‘you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours,’ and leered in a way perhaps intended to be friendly.

After a moment or two he sidled out again.

‘This, what you just mentioned,’ murmured John with a glance towards the door. ‘What does it entail?’