Hangman Blind (12 page)

They went in to break their fast. Considering the events of the previous night, the place was surprisingly busy. There was a buzz of conversation that lessened momentarily as Ulf proceeded between the trestles, but resumed with equal fervour when he was out of earshot.

‘They’re making a meal of all this. Looking at each other for signs of the plague. I’m surprised they’ve come down to mingle.’

The kitchen staff hurried in and out with pies and ingeniously reconstituted leftovers and Hildegard picked at something set down in front of her with a thoughtful expression. ‘I’ve had another idea,’ she said, gazing after the servant who had just placed an enormous platter of something not immediately identifiable in front of Roger’s empty space. ‘Your yeomen of the board. Have you realised they’re the only ones who could have poisoned Roger without anybody looking twice?’

‘Come on, not my lads,’ Ulf scoffed.

‘None of them bear a grudge?’

He shook his head. ‘Happy as crows.’

She shivered at his choice of words, recalling the cloud of carrion feasting on the entrails of the hanged men in the woods near Meaux. But when she glanced up Ulf was frowning too.

‘What is it?’

‘Nothing.’ He pulled at his beard.

‘Tell me.’

‘It’s just the revolt last year. It unsettled them.’

‘I would have thought what happened to Wat Tyler and John Ball would have settled them right back again.’

‘Even so.’

‘Are you trying to tell me they’re disloyal to Roger?’ Hildegard asked in an undertone.

Ulf didn’t reply.

‘The way people are feeling, what with the disappearances and the repression of any preachings the archbishops don’t like, it’s not going to take much to stir things into outright revolt again. All they want is a sign.’ She kept her voice low. How much did Ulf know? she wondered, watching him.

His eyes narrowed. ‘I’m aware of the unrest. But Lord Roger treats his bondmen fairly. We’ve never had trouble up here in the shire. It was down south, with the Essex men, Kentish freemen, Londoners.’

‘So why are you worried?’

He stabbed at the remains of the pie in front of him. ‘The village does have a kind of unofficial moot.’

‘What sort of moot?’

‘A society of like-minded folk, rather like the burgesses with their guilds. I turn a blind eye.’

‘But the burgesses are in town. They organise themselves for trade purposes, to keep up standards and, to be honest, to keep everybody else out. Your men have a monopoly. What do they talk about?’

‘The usual matters, I expect. They’re beginning to feel they should negotiate their wages rather than having a figure thrust upon them by Roger, take it or leave it. Something to be said for it. They’re in a strong position. There’s demand for labour these days.’

‘And?’

‘As I said, it’s nothing. They talk, that’s all. I agree, they’re restive, but they’d never support an insurrection.’ Despite his words, Ulf looked uncomfortable.

An image of the pewter badge she had glimpsed when she found the body of the youth – plus the relic in his hand – seemed to burn in Hildegard’s mind. She felt as if her complicity were branded on her face. But she could not betray a dead man. She wondered whether she could trust Ulf enough to tell him what she had found. He might not oppose the aims of the Company of the White Hart so long as they acted peacefully. He had always been keen for justice in the old days. But now? She glanced at him. In his velvet and miniver, with the keys of the castle on his belt, he might conceivably find it more convenient to be pragmatic. Deciding it was too risky to confess her own feelings at present, she said as lightly as she could, ‘Your villagers – they’re not like the ones who wrecked the Savoy down in London, then?’

Instead of smiling, he looked shocked. John of Gaunt’s palace on the Strand had been thoroughly destroyed during the people’s rising, the previous summer. Fortunately for Gaunt himself, he’d been on campaign in Scotland at the time. Archbishop Sudbury had been less fortunate.

Ulf muttered, ‘I’ll never believe they nailed the archbishop’s mitre to his head when they killed him.’ He looked around. ‘Come on, let’s get outside if you’ve finished here. I’ve something I want to say to you in private.’ He jerked to his feet.

Together they went out into the damp air of the courtyard, shrugging their winter cloaks round themselves and pulling up their hoods. Ulf walked beside her for a moment, kicking a stone ahead of him. Eventually he stopped.

‘That’s what the villagers call themselves, the Savoy Boys,’ he said. ‘It’s just their little joke,’ he defended, jutting out his lower lip. ‘It’s probably more to do with the fact that it rhymes. They’re not the sort to do anything wild.’

‘Hm.’ But we can’t count them out, she thought to herself, feeling a chasm of uncertainty opening up all around her.

Ulf paced ahead, nibbling the corners of his beard, but after awhile he slowed to look back at her. ‘They’re good lads, Hildegard, believe me. Sudbury was a politician first and foremost. He was chancellor as well as archbishop. He supported Gaunt’s incessant taxation. He had no heart. His treatment of the poor was a scandal. We felt the burden in every corner of the kingdom. There’s only so much folk can bear before they break. But that’s nothing to do with Roger, is it? What would the Hutton lads have against him? He’s always tried to be fair.’

‘We have to suspect everyone,’ she told him unhappily. ‘Servants, family, guests. Even Philippa, for heaven’s sake. Don’t you think it breaks my heart to say this? So far she’s the only one with a motive and the opportunity. It’s well to believe in people’s goodness. It’s your great virtue, Ulf. Heaven will open its arms to you when the time comes. Even so, there’s a line between loving your fellow man and being a gullible fool. I’m afraid we’re on the wrong side of the line. Someone made that treacherous attempt on Roger’s life and it’s only by God’s grace that he survived.’ She took the plunge and lowered her voice. ‘I’m not saying the villeins don’t have a case. It’s just that I believe in right and wrong. And violence is wrong.’

‘Do you think they’re planning another rebellion?’ He gave her a searching glance, as if to find out how much she knew, and she realised she couldn’t see into him at all. The sensation of blindness passed, leaving only an uncomfortable residue of disquiet.

‘We’ll soon find out if it’s going to go that way,’ she managed. ‘Meanwhile we can only wait and see.’

Feeling a sudden chill deep within her, she pulled her cloak more tightly round her shoulders and followed him. Ulf was her old friend, but the times in which they lived had made him a stranger to her. Rain was beginning to fall. The day had turned sour.

Before they parted she said, ‘I came here to ascertain whether Roger could help me find a suitable home for my nuns.’

‘I know that.’

‘And now I’m caught up in other people’s problems. My task is to find six good women to join me. It’s not easy, setting up a nunnery. Especially when somebody with the power of the lord abbot is praying for our failure. I can’t stay here indefinitely.’

‘Don’t leave, we’ve got to find this poisoner. He might strike again.’ He added quietly. ‘There’s no one else I can trust.’

Surprised that he should be the one to voice the issue of trust after her own doubts, Hildegard turned to look directly into his eyes. ‘You must know where my loyalties lie.’

He took her by the arm. ‘Then stay. I beg you. For Roger’s sake. For everybody’s sake.’ Releasing his grip, he turned abruptly and made his way to his office.

H
ILDEGARD WENT BACK
to her chamber and stretched out, the better to think. As the porter had mentioned when she had arrived at Hutton, the village would choose a mock mayor today to be burned in effigy. Then they would elect a Saxon port-reeve in his place, just as they did in the old days before the Conquest. The sounds of drumming that accompanied this were reaching a frenzied pitch already. Everything seemed to be turning into a riot. Often on these occasions there were random killings and mutilations. Scores were settled. New quarrels invented. Feuds continued. If Roger’s ‘death’ might be expected to put a damper on events there was no sign of it, judging from the noise outside.

The question was: who hated him so much they would want to kill him? Was it somebody inside the castle, avid for wealth and power, or someone outside, down in the villages, fighting poverty and injustice and yearning for a better life for all? And why poison, when these days a knifing in some dark corner would do? It suggested someone without physical strength or courage. A woman.

She thought of the family: Philippa. Sibilla. She pondered the question of Melisen.

Her thoughts tossed and turned and she recalled a surreptitiously clenched fist and a murmured ‘Long live Wat!’ when she was standing unnoticed within the bailey the previous day, watching the servants unload the packhorses. She had taken it as high spirits, a sort of ironic humour. But now, as she recalled one of the fellows involved trying to clamp a hand over the mouth of his companion, the incident leaped out like a warning sign of the trouble that lay just under the normality of everyday events. The two villeins had noticed her watching them and sloped off pretty quickly. This made her think of the two men Ulf had sent off with Roger in the logging cart. They had seemed jovial enough, but what was that raised fist? She shuddered at what they might do – might, indeed, have already done – once they got Roger alone in the woods. It seemed that everywhere her thoughts turned, they saw only betrayal.

It’s this constant drumming, she told herself, trying to be sensible. It’s driving me mad. She got up and went outside with the intention of seeing her hounds.

The smoke from the field fires was beginning to seep inside the castle. A thin haze lay across the bailey. It was more than just an autumn mist, it was blue woodsmoke giving off a tang of beech and hawthorn. People were beginning to cough. If it’s not the rain it’s smoke and fog, Hildegard thought. How uncomfortable life is at this time of year. More uncomfortable for Roger, however, lying, sick, on his bed of logs. She would be on hot nails until the two escorts rode back into the yard with the news that he was safely ensconced at Meaux. Better still, Roger would perhaps send a message telling Ulf to call off this ridiculous charade and they would all be able to talk openly once again. Even at a fast clip, however, an impossible feat with that load on board, they wouldn’t reach Meaux before nightfall. And if they started back at first light tomorrow it would be after noon before they appeared again at Castle Hutton. By then the cortège might have set out for Meaux. She hated the thought of processing with a stone-filled coffin all the way back through the forest to her starting point. But so far it looked as if she had little choice.

She decided to ask Ulf to let her meet the self-styled Savoy Boys before the cortège set out. It might be useful to ask them a few questions. Her prioress would be interested in how far north the rebellion had crept. The monastics, whatever their views, would be first to come under attack should the worst come to the worst. Swyne was a peaceful part of the Riding, but once the rebels’ blood was up there would be no reasoning with them.

But first things first, she decided. We must winkle out the poisoner. Only then can we turn our thoughts to protecting ourselves.

Just as Hildegard made her way back from the kennels across the muddy slats of wood lining the kitchen yard, she was distracted by the screeching of a frightened bird.

When she went up to the yard gate she saw a couple of men on the other side. They were pitching stones at one of the hens that were running loose. The creature was already down on one side and struggling valiantly to remain on its feet in a confusion of mud and brown feathers. Every time it managed to scramble up, however, one of the men would pitch another stone at it and roar with delight when it went down again.

In a flash she was into the yard and standing between the men and their victim. ‘Stop it at once! If the creature’s destined for the pot put it out of its misery and stop taunting the poor thing!’

She glared at the two men.

One of them, a scruffy individual, wore a grubby, bloodstained tunic with, faintly visible, the blue marsh dragon of Sir William on it. The other man bore no such device and, indeed, was surprisingly well attired in a jacket of rich stuff with dancing scarlet tippets running down both sleeves. She had seen that decoration before somewhere.

He scowled and muttered something to his companion, then took two long strides to where the hen was floundering in a pool of blood, picked it up and, his eyes never leaving Hildegard’s, stretched its neck until it cracked. The hen gave a squawk and flapped its wings.

When it was dead he asked, ‘Does that satisfy you, Sister?’

She gave him a bleak look and began to retrace her steps, pausing only when she heard William’s man snigger, ‘I’ll wager that’s the only satisfaction she’ll ever get, poor sow.’

And the reply she was surely intended to hear: ‘I’ll give her satisfaction any time, make it her lucky day!’ Their guffaws followed her, as, seething, she carried on towards the gate.

The words echoed those grunted in the darkness of the undercroft and the memory made her turn her head. A black look was following her. It did not swerve when it met her own.

Despite the lateness of the hour, Melisen was lying down in her solar when Hildegard went in. In contrast to the mud and brutality of the kitchen yard here there were fresh rushes laced with dried flowers on the floor, giving off the heady scent of summer meadows. It seemed exotic at this time of year, making it a place apart. Thick tapestries on the walls kept out the cold, and there was a gauzy canopy over the bed through which Melisen’s recumbent form was visible. A fluttering of maids was in attendance about the chamber. As Hildegard was being ushered in one of them was bending over the bed, urging, ‘—for your own good, madam, please, I beg of you.’ The scent of roses mingled with the bitter aroma of a herbal tisane.

When Hildegard made her presence known by a little clearing of the throat the girls stopped what they were doing and turned like startled sheep. The one holding the tisane dropped it.

One of the other maids had already poked her head inside the veils and whispered something, and now Melisen flung one arm out across the pillows while the other, glittering with bangles, lay limply on her brow in the very image of despair. When Hildegard accepted the stool one of the maids offered and drew up her robes to sit, Melisen murmured in a reedy voice, ‘So good of you to come, Sister. So, so good.’

Eventually the arm was withdrawn to reveal two tear-stained eyes. ‘What am I to do?’ she whispered. ‘What am I to do without my darling Roger?’

‘Are you going to be up to the journey to Meaux for the funeral?’ asked Hildegard in a soft voice.

‘I must. Whatever happens I must attend. How could I not?’ She gave a grief-stricken sigh and closed her eyes.

Aware that she and Ulf could only bow to Roger’s wishes until they heard from him, Hildegard looked on the girl with compassion. Roger had ordered that nobody should be told the truth, but it seemed heartless to let Melisen suffer like this. Her grief seemed genuine: this child could not be guilty. Hildegard recalled the joy on her face the previous night as she held the mazer to her husband’s lips.

There was a sound at the door and Melisen’s young squire came bowling in. He came to an abrupt stop when he saw the visitor. Melisen, hearing his exclamation of surprise, quickly opened her eyes and sat up, running a hand over her face and pushing back her hair. Although she gave him only the briefest glance, it was enough to suggest something covert. Hildegard’s skin prickled and she turned her head to get a better look.

He was young and handsome and wearing a richly figured black velvet tunic that set off his poetic features. He could not be much older than Melisen herself. Hildegard remembered how Melisen had fallen back into his arms in a swoon as soon as she appeared to realise Roger was sick. Wouldn’t it be natural for them both to see her elderly husband as someone to be duped, an encumbrance to be got out of the way in the only manner the impetuous immorality of youth might suggest? Hildegard shivered and touched her cross.

But Melisen was lying back in a swanlike pose among her pillows again, and her voice when it came was wispy with something that sounded convincingly like grief. ‘When, dear sister, do they expect the cortège to set out?’

‘Tomorrow perhaps, or as soon as you’re ready to travel with it, my lady.’

‘Then I must rouse myself and not allow my weakness to betray the memory of my beloved lord,’ she whispered. ‘Tell the steward to prepare the household for departure. We will leave as soon as everything is ready.’ She glanced across at the young squire, who was standing by the door as if waiting for his orders. ‘Isn’t that the best thing, Charles?’ She pronounced his name in the Norman way. It sounded unexpectedly sensual. ‘We should leave for Meaux at once, don’t you think?’

He came swiftly across the chamber in response. ‘If my lady so commands.’ He bowed his head, pale, solemn and, thought Hildegard, quite unbelievable in his perfection, an immaculate youth, as fresh as the month of May. Now he was begging to be allowed to do something for his lady, anything, he was murmuring, anything at all.

She took her leave.

Often what the troubadours called jouissance was what the Church called lust. It didn’t bother Hildegard that Melisen delighted in twisting men round her little finger. What she got up to was not her concern. But what Hildegard did care about was the happiness and health of her old friend Roger. She began to long for the ordered calm of the cloister.

‘Clear thinking, that’s the thing,’ she said to Ulf, throwing off her cloak and shaking her head free of its snood when they met up again in his private chamber off the Great Hall. It was late morning by now. The smell of baking bread from the nearby kitchens filled the air.

‘We’ve looked at motives,’ Hildegard went on. ‘I trust your superior knowledge on that score. Now let’s look at opportunity and consider in detail what happened after Roger came down to drink the baby’s health.’

‘Is that what he was doing? It seemed like business as usual to me,’ said Ulf.

‘Let’s clarify the picture,’ urged Hildegard. ‘First, do you remember who was sitting next to him when he fell?’

‘No, first,’ said Ulf, ‘where was he sitting?’

‘He was sitting in his usual place on the dais in front of the fire-screen.’

‘Some of the time, yes. But when the minstrels piped in the boar, then what?’

‘Then what?’

‘He got up.’

‘Where did he go?’

‘He gave a turn or two in the dance with Melisen.’

‘So?’ She couldn’t fathom where this was leading.

‘Who was attending the food on his platter and the drink in his goblet when he was dancing?’

Knowing his opinion, she replied cautiously, ‘Your yeomen of the board?’

He let that go. ‘No, the problem is that nobody and everybody was attending him. He himself was up and down all evening. Dancing. Getting up to try his strength with the merchants. Flirting with the maids. He even had a quick game of thrayles. Anybody could have put something in his drink at any of those times.’

‘And Melisen certainly made sure he kept on drinking.’

‘I noticed that.’

‘Why was he so thirsty? He seemed insatiable.’

‘Always complaining of thirst these days is Lord Roger.’ Ulf laughed in an indulgent way at the capacity of his lord for drink.

‘But Melisen shared his cup. That’s what I can’t understand. They drank from the same cup. It has to have been poisoned after she took a drink from it.’

‘How long does that stuff take to work?’

‘A few minutes. She was sharing his cup all the time.’

‘Between the bringing in of the lombard leche and the scoffing of it,’ Ulf mused to himself, as if trying to summon up a picture of the whole scene.

‘Was that the last course your people brought in before he fell?’

‘It was.’ Lombard leche was adored by everyone. A cream of almonds and honey, only the foreign cooks knew how to bring it to perfection.

‘And what was going on while it was being carried in? Didn’t everybody get up to do the branle? It must have been then that somebody physicked his wine. But how?’

Ulf was frowning. ‘Was it the branle, though, everybody dancing together, or was it an estampie? If the former we’ve no way of knowing who wasn’t up, but if—’

‘Actually, when the leche came out it was the estampie,’ said Hildegard.

‘Are you sure? So everybody had a partner.’

Hildegard closed her eyes the better to summon the image forth. ‘Roger and Melisen together. Yes, I remember that. And then there was—’

‘Philippa and Ludovico,’ Ulf broke in, a look of relief on his face. ‘Yes, I remember now how they danced – you know…’ He blushed. ‘Sorry, a wild fancy—’

‘What?’

He mumbled, ‘As if, they were tied together with invisible love knots. The look on her little face. She’s growing up into such a beauty.’ The somewhat dreamy look left his face. ‘Let’s hope that bastard treats her well. Anyway, to go on, there must’ve been William and Avice. William loves to show off his fancy steps—’

‘Wait, that’s not right,’ Hildegard interrupted. ‘I definitely remember William was dancing with the red-haired maid, the one who I saw assisting the midwife.’

‘That’s strange. Sir William and a maid. Not like him to be so open about it. So where was Lady Avice?’

‘I believe,’ said Hildegard slowly, ‘she was talking to Master Sueno.’ They were certainly sitting at the table together. But for how long? Can’t you remember, Ulf? I wasn’t watching all that carefully.’ Indeed, she remembered, her thoughts had been dwelling somewhat on her recent experience in the undercroft. She shuddered. Forcing herself to continue she asked, ‘Are we sure it was during the estampie? Everything hinges on that.’