The Law of Angels (50 page)

The situation was explained in more detail to the mayor.

Gilbert had managed to climb up onto the mayor’s stand and tell him as coherently as he could what was suspected. Entering now, minus his wings, he was pushed to the front of the group and the whole thing explained again with additions from the mage.

Matthias, it transpired, had been put in a cell at the convent after Ulf and his men had apprehended him in the stews. But he had at once been let go by the mother superior to continue his work as an assassin.

De Quixlay looked grim. “The monastics have their own ways, curse them. They obey their pope, not our secular laws.”

Hildegard’s contribution was to confirm that the men had an affinity with Bolingbroke if, indeed, they were not directly instructed by him.

“You would not know it,” de Quixlay told her, “but one of those men was Gisburne’s son. We shall soon have his confirmation that his father is in the pay of Bolingbroke.”

There were murmurs of satisfaction from the aldermen and one of them muttered, “This nails the bastard good and proper.”

While they were talking the storm that had threatened all afternoon burst directly over their heads with a rumble like falling ale barrels. Lightning flashed along the walls of the chamber casting a weird blue glow that lingered for some moments after the first clap. Then there was a deathly hush followed by further detonations merging with the lightning flashes, one after another, and after this preliminary the rain started in earnest.

It fell as if it would never cease, straight, hard rods ramming viciously onto the spectators still thronging the streets. The crowds were trapped by sheer force of numbers under the deluge. Nobody could move but no one seemed to mind.

News got out about the near assassination of the mayor and his entire council, and aware that de Quixlay and his men were inside the house, they stood underneath the window, linked arms and started to sway in time to their own singing of the rebel anthem. Then they sang a hymn or two, then more songs.

Marooned in the mayor’s chamber as if in a storm-bound ship, de Quixlay and his supporters could only remain where they were and a sense of celebration set in. The mayor and his men were alive. “All praise if there’s somebody up there!” an alderman was heard to say.

Somehow food and wine were brought up.

Hildegard went to look out. There were cheers when she appeared at the window. Probably nobody had any idea who she was or what she was doing up there and they were all soaked to the skin and in truth had nothing to sing about, but no one cared. Word had got out about the plot to kill the mayor and that was enough. Whenever anyone else appeared at the window there were further roars of applause.

“Poor fools,” said de Quixlay looking down and acknowledging the cheers. “They’re drenched. Pity we can’t fit them all in up here. Have we got spare sacks they can put over themselves maybe?” Somebody went to find out.

The pageant wagon was swimming with water.

The wings that Gilbert had wriggled out of as he fell to earth were lying in a bedraggled heap. Dye the colour of blood ran from them. Jesus and the rest of the characters sat under an awning they had rigged up. Rain fell off it like water through a sluice. Their game of dice continued.

The minster procession had hurriedly carried the Host back into the shelter of St. Leonard’s where it would stay overnight, and a small section of the crowd had gone with it.

Hildegard let the men talk and went back to the window.

The storm was a sight. The whole sky was split by lightning with scarcely a pause between the flashes. In a gap near the Common Hall and the buildings next to it she could see the river darkly running, and every time the sky was riven by light the water glowed like phosphorous.

She glanced along the street. A figure at the far end was hurrying along through the crowds with hood pulled up, thick cloak over the shoulders but underneath, the hem of a white habit.

A Cistercian brother.

She wondered if it was Thomas, but after watching for a moment decided it wasn’t. Whoever it was had to keep stopping to ask directions. Thomas knew his way round the town. After a moment or two the figure halted outside the mayor’s house and looked up.

She saw his face clearly in the light of the cressets.

There must have been somebody on the door because it was a moment before the newcomer appeared in the upper chamber. Already pushing back the hood of his sodden cloak he gazed in at the assembled crowd.

Hubert de Courcy.

He lingered in the doorway for a moment. It gave Hildegard time to observe him from where she stood to one side. His hair, still quite long from his travels, stuck darkly to his forehead. His cloak clung in wet folds from his broad shoulders. He said nothing but merely searched the chamber, noticed that Hildegard was standing over by the window and then abruptly turned, as if to leave.

The mayor, however, caught sight of him. “The Abbot of Meaux, I believe?” He made a small flourish. “Welcome, my lord abbot. Please honour us by stepping within.”

Hubert looked wary as if suspecting a trap but de Quixlay showed why he was so popular by the easy manner with which he made a potential enemy welcome. His affable mood was explained when she heard him say, “I have one of your Cistercians to thank for my life.”

Hildegard put a hand over her face. The mage noticed and came over. “Are you feeling all right?”

She nodded. “A momentary faintness, that’s all.”

“I’m not surprised after what you’ve just gone through.” He bent his head close to her ear to make himself heard more easily in the hubbub. “I’ve got a cure in my scrip.”

She touched him on the arm. “Thank you. I doubt whether there’s a cure better than prayer for what ails me.”

She chanced to glance across the room and saw that Hubert was watching her over de Quixlay’s shoulder. She remembered his inexplicable hostility the previous day. Clearly it had not abated.

The mage followed her glance. “Ah,” he murmured. “I told you so.”

*   *   *

Later Gilbert and Theophilus, as they could not help but call him, accompanied Hildegard back to Danby’s yard.

The pageant wagons were still going the rounds despite the rain. Angels’ wings drooped, paint was washed away, explosions failed to detonate in the wet and the fires of hell were little more than a candle flash. Minstrels were bemoaning the damage done to their instruments and taking off their own cloaks to protect them. Yet despite all this, the town was still en fete. Instead of dousing their spirits, the opposition of weather, God, Saints Edmund, Benet and the entire hosts of heaven and probably hell too, only urged everyone to a greater determination to enjoy themselves.

“I’m not sure I understand how those crossbow-men set fire to Stapylton’s workshop and the booths,” Hildegard said as they splashed through the puddles in Stonegate.

“I’ve had my ear to the ground,” replied Theophilus. “It was the work of a free-lance. They simply capitalised on it. They themselves had something bigger in mind as we nearly witnessed.”

Gilbert frowned. “Who set those smaller fires then?”

“It was the work of that fellow working for the sisters of the Holy Wounds, a fanatic, over from a house in Flanders—”

“Matthias?” Hildegard exclaimed. “He blames his mother superior. He says he was only obeying orders.”

“But why Stapylton?” Gilbert asked.

“The Corpus Christi candles,” Hildegard suggested.

“And he hoped the White Hart fellows would be blamed because that’s what happened in London during the Rising.” Gilbert wrinkled his nose.

“I doubt whether he could work out a bluff like that for himself,” said Hildegard. “He needed someone to suggest the idea to him.”

She recalled the virulence of the mother superior when she tried to prevent Maud, her little martyr, escaping her control. It was easy to see how she could have instructed Matthias to act on her behalf, or at least put the idea into his befuddled head.

“And then the bowmen joined forces for what was to be their final killing attack. There would have been no bluffing then.” It had come to be known that a river man had been commissioned to provide a boat so that the bowmen could escape by water when the town went up in flames.

Theophilus came to a halt in the shelter of the archway leading into the yard. Rain was still gurgling in the gutter down the middle of the street. “I’ve already had a message from Wakefield, you know. Dorelia’s betrothed is fetching a char in order to take her home. He’s going to be a lad of some means himself now he’s finished his apprenticeship as a goldsmith. He wants to take Dorelia back as I knew he would.”

“Will she regain her inheritance?”

Theophilus shook his head. “I doubt it. But some of us are determined to do our best for her. The law may yet be used for good. But you know what it’s like—it could drag on for years. And no doubt Baldwin’s wife will deny all knowledge of receiving any gain from the transaction.”

“She may have to explain where her husband got such a large and costly jewel from,” murmured Hildegard, suspecting now that it was genuine after all.

“He made a good living from his trade in girls,” said Gilbert.

“Poor Danby,” she said. “He’ll be heartbroken over that and heartbroken when Dorelia leaves him.”

“It might bring him to his senses,” said Gilbert. “He’s got a little daughter who’s been having visions of the Virgin Mary and creating a great furore down by the camps.” He turned to Hildegard. “You saw her on the river bank that evening when I first pointed Baldwin out to you on his way to the mill.”

“In the little boy-bishop’s procession?”

“The girl was Danby’s daughter. Remember when Dorelia said she tried to escape and a child saw her in the woods? That was Lucy. It must have been too much for her to understand so she convinced herself she’d had a vision.”

“Poor child.” Hildegard’s voice was full of pity.

The mage said that seemed to tie things up and that he now intended to transfer as much silver as possible from other people’s money-pouches into his own before they wasted what little they had left on ale. With a bow he turned to go.

“Wait a minute!” Gilbert had heard about the miraculous flame the mage had made appear. “How did you do it?” he asked.

The mage tapped the side of his nose. “I have a friend in Outremer.”

*   *   *

Hildegard and Gilbert went back to the yard. The guards outside Baldwin’s cottage were in some turmoil as they approached. For a moment she thought Baldwin must have escaped.

“Sister!” one of them shouted when he saw her. He hurried over. Rain was trickling down his face. “It’s the prisoner. He’s been taken bad. Can you come?”

With Gilbert at her heels they squelched across the puddled yard, bending their heads under the lintel of Baldwin’s front door.

He was lying on the floor in the kitchen, still wearing his manacles, and writhing about as if in pain. One of the guards was looking doubtful and his companion was holding him back saying, “It might be a trick. You can’t unlock him. He’s a cunning bastard. This is probably all a show so he can escape!”

Mistress Julitta was sitting calmly on a bench against the wall. When Hildegard asked her what was going on she shrugged and made no comment.

Hildegard bent down to put a hand on Baldwin’s forehead and found it burning to the touch, but there was nothing she could do without knowing what had caused his collapse. It was certainly no fakery. She opened his jerkin and at once closed it again.

She stood up. On the table was a half eaten bowl of pottage. She went over to it, sniffed it, scooped some onto a spoon and inspected it by the light of the window. She gave Julitta a glance. The woman stared brazenly back.

“Did Baldwin eat this?” she asked the guards.

“Took half a dozen mouthfuls,” one of them replied. “Is it poisoned?”

“Not exactly.”

Just then Baldwin gave another great roar of pain and thrashed wildly from side to side clutching his stomach. There was blood coming from his mouth and a terrible stench filled the chamber. Before anybody could think what to do for him he arched his back and, with a piercing scream collapsed as if felled.

Julitta got up from her place by the wall and went to stand over him. She did not speak. After a moment she bent down and unclasped the silver chain carrying the jewel from around his neck. Without a word she pushed it inside her bodice and went out.

Hildegard picked up the mortar from the sill. A few shards of glass still glinted at the bottom.

*   *   *

“As one might say, all’s well,” commented Gilbert harshly when they eventually took their leave.

Hildegard had explained to him what she thought had happened. The coroner had been called as a matter of urgency but had not yet arrived. The guards remained.

He turned to Hildegard. “If you don’t need me I’m going to sit with Dorelia for a while.”

“What about the play you’re in?” she asked.

“Four lines? They can surely get somebody else to mouth them for the last couple of stations. They’ve got my wings, those glued together paper feathers. Let somebody else put them on and play the fool!”

She noticed that when he went upstairs he left his pattern book and charcoal in the workshop. It was not to be a working visit then but social.

As for Baldwin, when she had bent down to see what ailed him a small piece of vellum on a cord lay next to his heart. On it was a drawing of Dorelia.

Julitta had seen it. That’s when their eyes had met.

As Petronilla might have said, the angels punished him according to their law.

And none shall escape.

*   *   *

Around midnight Hildegard dragged herself out of her chamber at the Widow Roberts’s house in Danby’s yard to see what was happening in the town. Gilbert saw her leaving and came out to join her.

After the storm the night was clear and cool. A moon rode high shedding a silvery light over the roofs. In the narrow streets the crowds were as thick as ever but they had mellowed now, exhausted after a day of indulgence.

A massive audience was gathering round the final pageant on Pavement. Master Stapylton and his guild had done well by the onlookers. The stage was ablaze with candles and on all sides hundreds of little flames glimmered like stars as if the heavens themselves had fallen to earth. Their soft glow lit up the faces of the people nearest the stage, gilding signs of poverty and ill health, of grief, pain, lack of hope and all the ills of being human, and for this short time everyone was bathed in their benediction.