The Law of Angels (8 page)

“Selling beeswax to Master Stapylton,” she told him, avoiding any mention of the disaster that had really brought her to town until she could talk to him in private. “But Master Danby has just told me Roger’s father died?”

Ulf turned his mouth down. “Poor old fella. But he had a good run as they say. Roger’s cut up, of course, even though he now gets the title.”

As if to make up for being ignored the master glazier made a sweeping gesture with one arm. “I’d deem it a privilege if you stepped inside, sister. You may better catch up on events over a mug of wine.”

“And you can cast your eye over the picture Lady Melisen wants the master here to turn into a window,” added Ulf. There was a strange gleam in his eyes that caused Hildegard to guess that something was going on. As Ulf didn’t elucidate she prepared herself for the unexpected.

The apprentice followed them inside.

Ulf hasn’t changed much, she was thinking as they took their places around a table in the window overlooking the yard.

It had been a year since they had last met and he was still the same affable fellow she had known all her life. Tall and broad-shouldered with an easy loose-limbed way of moving, even as a boy he had the look of somebody who could take care of themselves in any situation. It wasn’t surprising he had become Lord Roger’s right-hand man. The son of Earl de Hutton’s chief forester, he had risen to the rank of steward by sheer ability. The only thing different about him was his forever untidy shoulder-length hair. Bleached by the sun more than ever, it accentuated his tanned complexion and enhanced the ice blue sparkle of his eyes.

At present he was striding around Master Danby’s workshop, poking into everything with the greatest interest. “So this is the crucible where you work your magic!” he declaimed, straightening and spreading his arms to include the entire workshop. Danby puffed with pride. Ulf peered into some clay pots containing coloured powders ranged along the windowsill. “And this is?” He lifted one of them up.

“Pot metal,” explained Danby. “We buy in sheets of coloured glass from the Rhineland but paint on it what we wish. That’s where the real skill lies, the magic, if you like,” he added with a chuckle.

Ulf lifted the pot to his nose then replaced it on the long trestle that ran the length of the room. Content in his domain, a man at ease, Danby picked it up and replaced it on the windowsill. An orderly man as well as content, Hildegard observed.

Now the master sent his apprentice to call up a jug of wine from someone called Dorelia in a back room, then turned to his guests.

There was already one man present. He had gone unnoticed at first, but when Danby introduced him as his brother Baldwin, also a glazier, he stepped forward a pace from out of the shadows in a corner of the workshop and bowed his head to Hildegard. The brother was tall where Edric Danby was short, and he was thin as if deprived of sustenance, while his elder brother was well-covered, no doubt from the contentment of dining well. Baldwin’s hair was clipped close to his skull and he wore his capuchon pushed down round his shoulders in artful folds. A large jewel on a silver chain was displayed in the opening of his tunic. Hildegard looked at it twice. If it had been real it would have been worth a small fortune.

Baldwin was eyeing the visitors as if they were interlopers preventing him from conducting business. Hildegard noticed an empty beaker of wine in his hand. It showed he had been enjoying his brother’s hospitality for some time while he waited.

Ulf had evidently only just arrived. He was peering along the racks of glass and commenting on the colours.

“Those blue tablets of glass are from France,” Danby told him, happy to explain. “We mostly use glass from around Cologne as they seem to have good conditions for making it and it’s easier to get it by sea and upriver than by carting it the length of England from France. And there’s the trouble with the French as well. Makes supplies unreliable.” He slid a small tablet from the rack and held it up to the light. “Myself, I prefer the yellowish lustre of this Rhenish glass.” He handed the translucent tablet to Ulf with an air of pride.

The apprentice, face beaming at something that must have happened in the back kitchen, returned with a jug of wine and without being told poured a generous amount into four beakers including his own, refilled the one held out by his master’s brother, then went to sit on a stool next to a partly whitewashed workbench.

There was a pot on the bench with several sticks of charcoal and a few brushes of different sizes sticking out of it. A variety of other containers were set in an orderly fashion on a shelf at head level. The apprentice took one of them down. It was a receptacle for the off-cuts of glass that were of no further use and he selected a few pieces, put them in the mortar and began to grind them with the pestle.

Baldwin spoke up. “Master Talcot wants to borrow yon journeyman of yours to draw the face of God.” He gave a somewhat contemptuous glance towards an inner chamber.

The apprentice’s head was bent over his task, tousled hair in disarray with the vigour of his movements, but when he heard what Baldwin said he looked up with a laugh, brushed a hand across his face and said, “That Master Talcot and them Barkers! His apprentice told me what he wanted, but I ask you, how’s God going to be heard if he’s wearing a mask?”

“Aye, well that was his theme,” Baldwin countered, “for what it’s to do with you, Jankin. He was in here shortly before you lot came back,” he addressed Danby. “‘Can we borrow that there apprentice of your brother’s?’ says he. I says, ‘What do you want with that grinning young ape for?’ ‘Not him,’ he says, ‘that otheren that draws like an angel.’ The daft bugger. ‘He’ll have your guts,’ says I, ‘that’s no apprentice. Proper journeyman he is and he’ll cost you.’ He went off then but said he’ll be back.”

Master Danby inclined his head towards the open door and called out to someone in the adjoining workshop. “Hear that, Gilbert? Get your s’en through here and let’s have a proper look at you.”

A young man appeared in the doorway of the inner chamber. He walked with a limp, his right leg taking little weight, and Hildegard saw that it was twisted from the knee down, a fact he tried to conceal with a cloak slung over one shoulder. Apart from that he was what the girls would deem handsome, being broad-shouldered and well-proportioned with a smooth, creamy complexion and good bones.

His hair was most remarkable. It was the colour of flax. Held smoothly back from his brow by a tie of leather, it swung forward level with his shoulders as he released it. Fine and straight and smooth, it shone like gold leaf.

His eyes were pale, silver-grey like November rain, and as translucent as the grisaille glass in the great north window of the minster. They swept the group with a bemused glint. “Have I copped it, maister?” he asked in a soft, foreign-sounding burr.

Danby cuffed him affectionately on the shoulder. “Nay, lad. It’s Guild of Barkers. Master wants to borrow your skills as they’ve got none of their own. The small price of a king’s ransom came up, eh, Baldwin?”

The brother shifted, eyeing everyone as if expecting a knife in his ribs. “That’s the long and the short of it.”

“What do you say, lad?” Danby gave Gilbert an encouraging glance.

He didn’t even think about it but said, “Aye, why not? But only if I get a cut of this ransom you’re talking about. What’s to do?”

“You’ll have to go along and find out,” replied Danby.

“They want the face of God on one of their masks and mebbe put an angel face or two on a couple of others. Lucifer. Second Angel … You’ll be good at that,” Baldwin added with an edge.

Gilbert ignored him. It was clear, however, that he was flattered to be asked and eager too, no doubt, to try his hand at something other than glass painting.

“You get along as soon as you like,” Danby told him. “I’m off to Stapylton’s soon to get the candles before he sells ’em off to some other devil.”

He turned to Jankin. “Did you tell mistress to come through?”

“I’ll go and remind her.” He jumped up with alacrity and went out.

Danby and Ulf were well into a discussion over the vidimus—the full-scale drawing the steward had come to see on behalf of Lady Melisen and Lord Roger—and they were just about to go through into the inner workshop to have a look at it when Jankin returned. He was followed by a young woman. She was about nineteen. Wearing a green gown.

“Mistress Danby,” he announced.

Her beauty made the room fall silent.

Chapter Seven

Even Edric Danby, who must have laid eyes on his wife a thousand times, seemed momentarily lost for words. Then he stepped forward and in a proud voice announced, “My wife, Mistress Dorelia Danby.”

With a smile that seemed convincingly unaware of the charged atmosphere, she glanced round, murmuring, “Guests, Edric? How pleasant.”

He ushered her to a seat by the kiln with as much gentleness as if she were made of the same glass he usually handled. “You’ll take a drink while I show the lord steward what we’ve drawn up so far?”

“Thank you, master,” she replied as by rote. She sat demurely by and sipped her wine, her wide violet eyes trailing equally over the nun and the assembly of men.

Almost at once Baldwin muttered something about having to be off, threw back his drink and slipped from the workshop without another word. Jankin picked up his pestle again and Gilbert said something about going on down to have a word with Master Talcot before he got too drunk to make sense. He lingered, however, when he noticed Hildegard’s attention turn to some small pieces of vellum on a nearby shelf.

The master had referred to the vidimus.
Let us see.
But the drawings that had caught her eye were small preparatory sketches made with what looked like silver point. Danby was eager to tell her that they were the prototypes for the full-scale drawing. The one on top showed the Virgin crowned in splendour, a subject apparently chosen by Melisen. Hildegard smiled. No unpleasant scenes of torture or spiritual suffering for Roger’s young wife.

Danby placed the drawing on the trestle. The details had not been filled in and the face of the Virgin was a mere oval.

He spread the others out one by one.

Some were plainly bordered patterns, stylised oak leaves, a few shields, interlaced flowers and two figures which must surely be the donors. Roger was recognisable from the rich garments he was wearing, his broad shoulders, horse-rider’s legs, Norman beard exactly replicating their model.

Ulf stayed the master’s hand for a moment. “Whose work is this?”

Master Danby gestured towards Gilbert. “That young devil’s,” he said.

Ulf was grinning. “A most wicked likeness, brother!”

Gilbert stared humbly at the floor.

The figure representing Melisen was a rough outline of a woman with long hair, and it was this that the two men began to discuss. “He’ll draw her from the life, of course,” said Danby. “It’s what she’s asked for. But be sure to tell Lord Roger that I’m only doing as requested. It’s not my preference. That’s not coming into it.”

“You won’t take the blame for anything. Don’t worry on that score. Otherwise, no problems?”

The master chuckled. “None whatsoever. Tell him I’m honoured by his choice.”

Ulf replaced the sketches on the trestle. “I don’t know whether you know this, but you should.” He lowered his voice. “Your brother asked for a cut of the action. He even sent somebody to the Hutton stand we’re erecting to plead his case.”

“He did what?” The master looked put out. “That was somewhat forward of him.”

“I told Lord Roger so. He said he’d prefer the organ grinder to the fool.”

“I’ll not pass that comment on,” replied Danby with a rueful smile. “Baldwin’s working away a lot, somewhere over in the West Riding, and maybe he’s hoping to spend more time back home. He wouldn’t mean anything spiteful by trying to muscle in, I’m sure.” Despite his defence of his brother he was clearly upset. His wife looked on without comment. The apprentice continued to pound the shards of glass into powder with a faraway expression on his face.

“Whatever the case,” Ulf continued, “my lord is very well pleased with what he’s seen of your work so far.” He raised his stoup and clashed it with that of his host. Danby, smiling, looked, even so, somewhat wounded by his brother’s apparent disloyalty.

*   *   *

Hildegard left when Ulf did and they came to a stop on the corner of the street before parting. “That journeyman really has a skill out of the ordinary,” she commented. “Danby’s a lucky man.”

“He is. Gilbert would be setting up on his own but for the fact that he’s a foreigner. He’ll find it difficult here, even with his master’s support.”

“Where’s he from?”

“Some way down south, midlands somewhere. He appeared six months ago.” He gave her a sidelong glance.

“Oh,” she replied, taking in the possible implication that Gilbert had been outlawed in another shire.

“Yes,” he confirmed. “No doubt Danby suspects what he’s taken on as well.”

“I believe the master’s a man who runs his life according to where his heart leads him,” she observed. The burden of having to admit to what had happened at Deepdale made her attempt at a smile falter.

Ulf, aware of every nuance of her expression, bent his head. “There’s something wrong?”

It was then, omitting nothing, she told him about the destruction of the grange.

He was enraged by the time she finished. “Why didn’t you tell me straightaway?”

“You were at the workshop on business. I’m telling you now.”

“So who the hell were they?” He ran a hand through his hair in bewilderment.

And so she told him about the poisoned gift of two runaways the prioress had sent from Swyne. He smiled wryly at that description but was clearly furious by what had happened. “You might have been slaughtered.” He gripped her by the forearm and seemed too overcome to say much more.

“I sent a messenger to Roger at Castle Hutton,” she told him.

“He’ll have a wasted journey then. Roger’s already left. He and Lady Melisen are establishing themselves for the duration of the feast at a place called Naburn Manor a few miles downriver. I’ll let Roger know what’s been going on when I get back there later today. He’s going to be incandescent.”