The Law of Angels (44 page)

“Clearly a devil out there thought it worth making a rough draft of his intentions before pinning his copy to the minster doors,” Stapylton said. “We’re treating it as a serious threat. It’s the same as that proclamation that got everybody talking yesterday, the one nailed to the doors where everybody could read it.”

Hildegard remembered the throng clustered at the entrance to the minster when she had gone in pursuit of Maud. So that was what they had been doing, reading a death threat.

She asked the obvious question. “Who do you think put it in your waste, master?”

Danby’s expression was bleak. “Who else is at liberty in that back workshop?” He didn’t need to utter Gilbert’s name.

“Have you spoken to him?” she asked.

Danby shook his head. “I’m in a flat spin.”

“Keep a hold on yourself, Edric.” Stapylton put a consoling hand on his arm. “I know I’ve got my suspicions, but he’s not the only one around. No point in accusing the devil to his face until you’ve got more proof. You’ve had folk in and out of your workshop with this business over Dorelia ever since you got back with her.”

“I know, I know,” Danby was shaking his head, “but nobody goes through into that little back workshop without me or Gilbert with ’em. It’s his own domain. I went in there to cool down after—” He was shaking his head again as if to free it from a restraint.

“The thing is,” he gave Hildegard a suffering look, “Dorelia’s been in such a bad way, sobbing her heart out, and I’ve been at my wit’s end to know how to console her, and she was crying out for somebody in the night, the name of some fella, and when your friend Theophilus happened to hear tell of his name he knew at once who he was. I never knew,” Danby went on in a parched voice, “but she was betrothed before Baldwin offered her to me. I just didn’t know! How could I have known a thing like that? She should never have married me, being hand-fast to another! Now it seems he’s all that might bring her back to her senses. Yon Theophilus has sent to fetch him.”

He finished and abruptly walked away.

Stapylton said, “His heart’s in tatters. He doesn’t know which way to turn.”

Danby gathered himself and came back, saying, “I was so enraged by it all I went into Gilbert’s workshop and gave a good kick at that creel where nobody could see how it blasted me. Then I bent to pick up everything I’d spilled and there it was! From one catastrophe to another. I almost wish I’d kept a leash on my temper and stayed in ignorance.”

“Come on now, Edric, it’s best to know the truth than to live like a child knowing nowt.” Stapylton put a hand on Danby’s shoulder. “Any man would have done the same as you and likely worse even. You’ve had more to put up with than anybody should have to bear. It’s a good thing we’ve found out what they’re planning. At least there’s a hope we can put a stop to it.”

“So you really think there are going to be more explosions?” Hildegard looked from one to the other.

Stapylton grimaced. “Today. Of course. When better? If it’s their evil intention to kill and maim this is the time to do it.”

“But as you said you can’t be sure…” Hildegard frowned. Of course they couldn’t be sure. Nobody could … until it happened. Carefully she said, “Gilbert must be confronted if you suspect him.”

Stapylton turned to her. “For the rest of the day he’s in the pageant. He’s had to step into Jankin’s place. With that hair of his he’ll look the part. We’ve even rigged up a throne for him so he doesn’t have to walk with his limp in front of everybody. He’s where we can keep an eye on him at all times. He’ll not be doing anything today.”

“But if he is involved,” she pointed out, “it doesn’t mean that he would be the one to plant the explosives. He’ll have accomplices.”

“We’ve put word out. The guildmasters have been informed. We’re keeping a close watch on our lads. If there’s trouble, that’s where it’ll come from—from them. The mayor and aldermen have got their men to police the crowds. The bailiffs are on full alert, the constables out in force. Nobody can possibly get away with another explosion. We’ll catch them with the touch-paper in their hands if there’s a next time.”

Danby took the fragment of vellum from Hildegard and stared at it as if hoping the words had been misread. Then he folded it into four pieces and put it in his pouch. “Can you believe he’d plot such a wicked thing?”

His expression was bleak. Head bowed, he left them. As he went his shoulders seemed to heave with a spasm of repressed grief, but by the time he got to the door he had forced them back. Head erect he bellowed to the actors outside. “All right, lads! Get to it! Are we glaziers or sot-wit tanners? Let’s get this show on the road!”

Chapter Thirty-two

The apparelling house was a cavity built between the wheels of the wagon under the acting area. Its contents were concealed by a curtain. Inside were the props, and if there were any devices being used, that’s where they were stored.

The glaziers’ play was fortieth in the sequence. The actors were not required until later in the morning, and now they hung around the wagon on pageant green, suffering various degrees of anxiety over their lines.

It was a large cast of fifteen actors for the Harrowing of Hell. Satan, Jesus and a small part of four lines that had belonged to Jankin, now to be spoken by Gilbert as the Archangel Michael.

He was at present sitting a little apart from everyone else. As a militant angel wielding a firey sword he was unconvincing. Hildegard wondered if he guessed he was under suspicion. Danby was putting up a good show in the role of genial guildmaster, swapping jokes with the leads, ribbing John the Baptist about the smell from his animal skins, handing round a flagon of what turned out to be good Rhenish from his own cellar. She handed the flagon on to Gilbert after she had had her turn.

“Word perfect?” she asked.

“I was word perfect weeks ago,” he said, “having to listen to that sot wit trying to get his few lines into his thick skull.” His face was pale, devoid of any expression. Outlined in black charcoal his eyes appeared even more translucent than usual. Despite the harshness of his tone she found it difficult to gauge his mood and suspected that it concealed more emotion than he was willing to admit openly.

“How’s the window for Lord de Hutton?” she asked.

“Nearly finished. As soon as this bollocks is over I’ll paint in the faces, get them fired and fit them in. Job done.” His eyes briefly sparked. “I should be working on it now instead of indulging in all this,” he added.

“Don’t you believe Corpus Christi should be celebrated?” she asked.

“What do you think?”

“I take that as a ‘no’ then.” It was a common view that the church put on these holy days to keep everybody in their place. Bread and circuses, just like the Romans.

“At least it gives folks a chance to have a day off from the daily grind.” He nodded towards the cheerful crowd behind the barrier. “I would never begrudge the poor fools that.”

“What time are you setting off?”

“Ages yet. Time for stage fright to settle in and get a hold.” He handed the flagon back and she drank and passed it on to one of the nearby devils.

To answer Danby’s question: No, she couldn’t believe Gilbert would do such a wicked thing.

And yet … there was that handwritten warning of the wrath to come.

*   *   *

Ulf’s absence had been explained. That was one bright spot in the current situation. He wasn’t trying to avoid her because she had broken his heart. According to Danby he was working on security, not lounging around with his lord and guests at the first station enjoying himself. Now it had been drawn to her notice she perceived that the street was full of men wearing the city’s blazon of leopards. Once you suspected weapons you could see them barely concealed beneath their cloaks.

The de Huttons were still in the stand and had been joined by several gaudily attired visitors. They looked like local merchants, small landowners, wealthy burgesses. Food was being handed up on platters from a portable kitchen at the back. The Tuscan chef was shouting orders in the sort of English that sent the yeomen of the board into stitches, but it was all good humoured and everyone was pulling together.

The cooking was being done on a makeshift brazier and a spit of roast pheasant and other fowl was turning above the flames giving off an enticing aroma. A boar’s head, as yet uncooked, stood on a trestle close by.

There was a lot of fire around, not only here with the brazier, but on the pageant wagons themselves. Hildegard considered what it had taken to set alight the market booth with its terrible outcome. She recalled Stapylton’s outraged description of the attempted firing of his workshop and his mention of the brass bowl presumably containing the wax common to both outbreaks.

When she considered the matter she realised that almost every play she could think of had its possibly lethal ration of flame: Lucifer, obviously, as she had just witnessed; Abraham with the sacrificial fire for his son; the thunder and lightning denoting the wrath of God as the flood swept all but Noah and his family from the world; the Annunciation; the Holy Light seen by the shepherds; the flames of hell in the Harrowing; not to mention the Last Judgement with its firey glory hole into which the damned were hurled.

Fire was a favourite device, thrilling the audience, with every burst of flame set to outdo the preceding one, and safe enough when confined to the wagons. The apprentices were well advised to stand by with buckets of water and the players themselves would be alert for their own safety, exposed upon the open stage.

But what about the crowds? she wondered now. What if fire broke out in the thick of it? There would be panic. Children would be trampled, the old and infirm would be injured, people might finish up like the poor woman who had died with that long-drawn-out scream of agony, devoured by a ball of flame in the fabric booth, or delirious with blackened skin and talking of crocodiles like her husband in the hospital of St. Leonard.

Drunkenness would make the situation worse. With minds bleared by alcohol, nobody would notice a figure in the crowd putting a light to some device. They would take it as part of the entertainment. But then the fire-setter’s own life would be at risk as well. It would have to be a timed explosion. It would need to be set up as at the chandler’s workshop and in the puppet booth—in such a way that by the time of its death-dealing the madman who had devised such a stunt would be away to safety.

A device like that would not be difficult to set. As Stapylton had said, any fool could do it. Even though it would have to be done in secret, where it was likely to go unobserved until too late, it could be done.

She remembered how Stapylton had told them about the cloths hanging above the bowl of wax so that the flames set light to them and it was the cloths that were then supposed to set light to the beams above. An apparelling house would be the ideal setting except for the fact that there were always people on hand.

There were many other ways of making an explosion.

It need not be bees wax.

Saltpetre was easy to get hold of, as was brimstone.

There were other substances, imported from the east. There was the mysterious stuff called Greek Fire, although nobody really seemed to know if it existed or not. There was even an experiment done with mirrors that was said to have set alight the sails of a warship off Constantinople. The sun was certainly bright enough today to experiment with such a device.

Stapylton, in his mood of black suspicion, had also claimed that there were some young rebels so enraged by their political impotence that they would even risk their own lives for the cause. She imagined how an explosive device could be strapped to the body of one with such desperation in his soul.

In fear she went back under the stand to where the spit was turning. Roger kept a full complement of servants. There were people around all the time and none without his blazon on their tunics to declaim their allegiance. Unobtrusively she stood by for a while, observing what went on and ultimately deciding that if anyone tried to set up a firebomb here it would be noticed at once.

Even so, she climbed the steps between the strings of fluttering pennants to where everyone was still watching the plays and asked if she might sit next to Roger for a moment. The Chamberlain moved up, scarcely taking his eyes off the stage.

She leaned forward. “My lord, a word?” When she explained her fears he nodded, then called for his kitchen clerk and whispered in his ear. Grim-faced, the man went down underneath the stand. Roger put his hand over hers. “Be reassured, Hildegard. If anybody can get away with it they’ll have to make themselves invisible.”

*   *   *

Invisible. The only person she had met recently who could make himself invisible had been the mage, Theophilus, otherwise known as John of Berwick, with perhaps other names besides.

According to Danby, he had sent word to Dorelia’s betrothed to inform him of recent events. Today he had been invisible all right. She had seen no sign of him. It looked as if he had given up on a sure profit in the streets of York to take the message into the West Riding himself.

Still haunted by uneasy premonitions she again went down into the street. It was heaving with activity.

Aware that it was useless to try to second-guess the actions of the one who had written the threat on the minster doors, and conscious that poor Brother Thomas must still be lying in St. Leonard’s on the other side of town, she decided it was high time to pay him a visit. She had scarcely given him a thought in her fear of the fire-raisers.

At the same time she would keep an eye open for the mage. His view on things was often confirmed by the confidences he picked up.

*   *   *

The procession following the pageant wagons already stretched down the hill towards the bridge. It was another hot morning promising more of the same. It seemed as if the fine weather would never end. There was a new heaviness in the air, however, pressing down like the lid over a furnace. It was becoming uncomfortable, the sort of weather to bring headaches and ill-temper.