The Butcher of Avignon (36 page)

She considered making the switch then creating a disturbance of some kind. With everything in disarray maybe no-one would notice something had been tampered with. It was a poor plan but she could come up with nothing better.

**

Grizac was standing in a shaft of sunlight that slanted in through the window slit. He had something cupped between his palms. Athanasius was urging him to do away with it.

After greeting them both Hildegard went over to have a look. ‘What is it, your eminence?’

Cautiously he opened his cupped palms a crack and held them towards her. She saw something fluttering inside. ‘A butterfly,’ he murmured as if a loud voice would disturb it. ‘Caught out in the wrong season. I fear the poor creature will perish.’

‘A butterfly is often compared to the soul.’ She echoed his quiet tone.

He gave her a grateful glance.

Athanasius broke in. ‘If it will die then it might as well die sooner rather than later.’

‘You might say the same for us all,’ Grizac riposted.

‘I do. Frequently,’ snapped Athanasius. He seemed irritated by Grizac’s concern. ‘Put it out of its misery, do. It’ll be better off dead.’

Sadly Grizac went to the window slit. Slowly opening his hands he encouraged the creature to fly out. It fluttered for a moment or two, beating its wings against the stone embrasure until it found a direction. In a trice, it disappeared. ‘At least it has a chance now,’ he murmured. He turned back into the chamber. ‘We are all equal, magister, down to the very least of God’s creatures.’

‘Tell that to the head of any monastery or, indeed, to his Holiness himself, and do you imagine the crowned kings of Europe regard themselves as equal to their peasants?’

‘How they regard themselves has little to do with how they are seen in His eyes,’ murmured Grizac, sticking to his point.

‘Come now, I told the domina you had returned to entertain us. This is doleful stuff. What can you tell us that we don’t already know?’

‘Fire and water do not mix.’

‘An allusion to our guest Fitzjohn and his activities down by the ferry?’

Grizac nodded his head. ‘It was an act of malice. It could achieve nothing. I’m told his birds had already flown.’

‘
Non malicia sed militia,
’ quoted Athanasius sagaciously.

Hildegard picked up on the allusion. ‘Our founder would agree. Bernard of Clairvaux was not averse to military action. In the cause -’ she added hurriedly, ‘of furthering the interests of our Order - and the will of God.’

‘Quite right, domina. Without malice or the military hope is all we’d have.’ Athanasius had only smiles for her as earlier that day.

Despite that she felt something dangerous in the air and wondered if she was about to blunder into a trap.
Do not trust him.
She glanced from Grizac to Athanasius and back.

‘Hope is truly all we have,’ Grizac replied before she could speak. ‘My hope is that one day the man who murdered my dear Maurice will pay the full penalty.’

‘Are the pope’s men no nearer solving the mystery?’ she asked.

He shook his head. ‘He was only an acolyte. No-one of importance to them. That he was stopped in his robbery is their only concern.’

Athanasius, sharp as a whiplash, asked, ‘You knew him better than anybody, why did he do it?’

Now she saw what sort of entertainment Athanasius had in mind. Grizac went white. Fear seemed to dry the words in his throat.

‘Come,’ Athanasius persisted, ‘you must have had some inkling that he was making plans?’

‘No, I swear I did not.’ Grizac, first white, was now red. ‘How could I be expected to read his mind?’

‘You must have kept him short of the rewards that make a servant loyal,’ Athanasius stated. ‘He therefore decided to help himself.’

Grizac allowed himself to be bullied into staging a defence. ‘He was as honest as the day. I would trust him under every circumstance.’

‘Then you’re a gullible fool.’ Athanasius curled his lip at how easily he had lured Grizac into his trap. ‘But we know, don’t we, that you’re no fool, Grizac.’

‘I knew nothing, I tell you! I thought he was happy. I swear I knew nothing until I saw him lying there in the treasury with his - with his -’ he cleared his throat.

‘A word?’ Athanasius persisted. ‘You must have uttered a word that he could construe as an invitation to ransack the pope’s treasury for you?’

‘Not a word. I swear. What use have I for gold and rubies?’

‘But there was more than that at stake, surely?’ The monk’s voice was dangerously insinuating.

‘Believe me, I know nothing about it. Nothing! How could I?’ He spread his arms, struggling to regain his confidence.

Hildegard suddenly wished Edmund would come in. His perception of what a man looks like when he’s lying would have been useful. Grizac sounded honest and yet his response was flustered. His change of colour suggested some deep emotional conflict. What’s more, he knew Athanasius knew more than he was telling. He was being played with, cat with mouse.

Hildegard watched him closely. Now he was turning away with face averted to move to the window. He peered out through the slit as if searching for the butterfly he had released.

Athanasius wore an expression of smug satisfaction. ‘I fear his Holiness will not take a lenient view of the matter. It will not be ended yet. To enter the treasury, the seat of power, is worse than heresy.’

‘Worse?’ Grizac rallied. ‘I fear you overstate the case. And besides, the lad is dead.’

‘Quite so.’ Athanasius folded his hands on his chest and smiled with contentment. ‘A just reward, my friend. A just reward.’

**

‘Your eminence?’ Hildegard hurried to catch up with Grizac after they left at the bell for nones and he had reached a corner of the passage before he swung round to face her.

‘Don’t try to catch me saying something when he could not,’ he grated.

They stared each other, poised at the top of the steps. Hildegard was stunned by the transformation in Grizac’s manner. His antagonism made her falter for an instant.

He pushed his face forward into hers. ‘Tell your mentor I know who the guilty man is and I know who his master is! Tell him that if you wish!’ He turned in a crackle of stiff brocade and made off down the stairs.

They were the same Stairs of Honour where she had first encountered Hubert and his two supporters and now she went to the arch in the brickwork and watched Grizac descend all the way to the bottom, robes billowing, without slackening speed.

**

He knew who had killed Maurice? As much at a loss as before Hildegard went up to her chamber to rest. She had some planning of her own to do. But Grizac knew who the killer was and would not name him? Did he also know why Maurice had gone to the treasury? He must do. He had strenuously denied knowing anything about it. But he must be lying. Do not trust him.

She wondered if it was a bluff. Athanasius blamed him for sending Maurice into the treasury. That must wrankle. Yet, as he had pointed out, he had no need of riches. Nor did he have a reason to interfere in the pope’s barter with Woodstock. He was a Clementist. What Clement wanted he must want.

If pushed, would he have named the man behind it all? He could not know it. If so, someone would be in custody by now.

Thoughtfully she checked the contents of her scrip. Earlier she had seen Carlotta and Fondi with their little daughter sitting on his shoulders going into an apartment further along. She had been appalled. Her suspicions ran amok. So close to her own chamber. Too close for comfort. How had Carlotta managed that? What did it mean?

Feeling trapped she decided she would have to be on her guard every minute of every night and every day if she didn’t want to finish up like the Scottish nun.

**

Later, sometime before vespers, she heard a noise outside and went to the window to look down into the garden. She saw Carlotta and Flora with a few servants entering through the wooden door in the wall. Carlotta went to drape herself languorously on the low wall that encircled the spring while Flora played with a ball.

Deciding to go down, attack being a better sort of defence than cringing here in her chamber, she soon found the stairs that led to the garden.

Carlotta greeted her suspiciously and at once demanded to know if she expected to find Hubert here.

‘I hadn’t given him a thought,’ Hildegard replied. That was true anyway, her mind was full of other things at present. Uppermost at present was how she was going to find out whether Fondi and Carlotta had visited her chamber.

She offered Flora some sugared almonds she happened to have with her. Bel Pierre, half asleep in a basket, managed to eat his fill, and the time passed until the bell tolled and it was time to go up for the evening office.

Everyone began to move off in Carlotta’s wake, one of the maids carrying the squirrel in his basket while Flora skipped ahead.

Suddenly the maid let out a cry. Bel Pierre had woken up, jumped out of the basket and vanished up the stairs. Everyone ran after him except for Carlotta who yawned and carried on towards her apartment.

‘Leave the filthy animal,’ she called down when she saw everyone scurrying around in vain. ‘He’ll soon appear when he wants feeding.’

Flora was in tears.

‘He must have hidden himself behind one of the tapestries,’ Hildegard suggested. ‘We’ll soon find the little fellow.’

The servants searched with care but he was nowhere to be found. A man with a broom was summoned and banged it into corners they could not reach but with no more success.

‘Go up, Flora, and we’ll continue the search,’ Hildegard told the weeping child. ‘We’ll soon find him. He can’t have gone far. Leave the basket with me and I’ll bring the naughty little fellow to you as soon as we find him.’

‘It’s my bedtime,’ sobbed Flora. ‘I want him. I want Bel Pierre. I can’t sleep without him.’

‘You might have to, just this once. I promise by the time you wake up in the morning he’ll be safe and sound beside you.’

The howling child was taken upstairs by her maid and after a fruitless search the servants followed one by one. Hildegard stood in puzzlement. The squirrel must have gone up into the guest apartments. She was just about to go up there herself when she noticed a small shadow on the stair where they had already looked ten times over. But there he was, as large as life. With the enticement of one of the remaining sugared almonds she managed to get him into the basket and drop the lid.

It was then an idea came to her. She almost laughed aloud. But no, it was surely impossible. Nevertheless, she returned to her chamber thinking,
Bel Pierre, you may have saved the King of England.

**

Vespers came and went. The lamps were lit. Then compline, night prayers, and the swell of constant crowds subsided, leaving the passages and public chambers empty, giving way to a gradual shutting down of the household until only the slippered night servants sat around in quiet groups waiting to be summoned by insomniacs waiting for the midnight office to begin.

The stair well leading down to the lower floor was as black as pitch. She had to feel her way along the passage with one hand scraping along the wall while holding onto the squirrel’s basket with the other. Her scrip was buckled to her belt and weighed heavily against her as she moved.

The floor levelled out. Now it was only a few paces down a short corridor to the apothecary’s workshop. Guided by the strong scent of his elixirs she paused when she reached the door then, ears pricked, she cautiously turned the ring. The door slid open and she stepped through.

A heavy, aromatic silence greeted her. Pausing for a moment to get her bearings she was eventually able to make out hundreds of bunches of dried herbs hanging from the beams above her head. Like bats, she thought with a shiver. Nothing stirred.

Over by the bench where the cures were dispensed were a few jars and wooden utensils, a pestle and mortar, a set of scales, and a rack of knives. Not wasting time here she stepped carefully over to the far door. If it was locked she would have trouble prising it open with her knife but to her joy it opened at her touch and she stepped inside.

It would be too much to hope that the poison that had already by its mere existence caused three deaths would be openly displayed and yet, with the apothecary’s oblique character in mind she could see him doing such a thing, amused by his own secret knowledge, flaunting it in the face of his unsuspecting customers.

With the open shelves as her first search, then, before she tried the aumbry where he had kept the silver talisman, she stepped close up, lit the taper she had brought, and began to read the labels.

Two rows of clay pots with wax stoppers were arranged precisely on the shelves along with glass demijohns and a shelf of small glass phials with wax lids. Everything was labelled with the names of ingredients she recognised. Sometimes the lettering was difficult to make out but all of it made eventual sense.

Nothing suspicious here.

The end of the third shelf was reached without anything unexpected being found either. Then she started on the fourth shelf at eye level. It was quite soon, in among the wolf bane and the hemlocks, that she saw something she did not recognise.
Urb.Md.

Abbreviated as most were, the label bore similar lettering to the others. There was nothing to mark it out as different except for the meaning of the letters. She knew the latter half could stand for mandragora, only lethal in concentrated amounts. But
Urb?
Latin for town. Or did it indicate the town of Urbino? Certainly it was something she had never come across before.

Mandragora from Urbino? A shiver went through her as another piece of the puzzle seemed about to fall into place.

Everyone knew where Fondi hailed from. His break with the Duke of Urbino, a staunch supporter of Pope Urban, had been very public and caused a scandal that echoed round the monastic world.

The reason the paw marks of a squirrel had been found in her bed chamber the other day was still unexplained.

Fondi.

Was he the answer?