The Dragon of Handale (26 page)

The guest house was crowded. Desiderata was not the only nun to have come in to take advantage of shelter from the bad weather and the relaxation of the rules. The masons were there, too, including Dakin and his guard, and Carola, of course. They were standing nearby and turned to stare at her as she made a clumsy exit into the open air.

It was a relief to escape such venomous prattle. With her promise to Mariana in mind, she made her way across to the scriptorium. There might be a reference in one of the rolls to the nun’s baby and its whereabouts.

The task she had set herself was not as easy as she had supposed. The rolls referring to the running of the priory—the decretals, the copies of replies to a large number of official missives, and the copies of judgments taken on visitations by the bishop—were in no sort of order.

Unsure where to begin, she decided to order them by date. That way, she could narrow it down to the year when Mariana had been brought here.

The problem then was that many of the rolls were undated, so she had to open them, skim through the contents, deciphering the handwriting as well as the Latin and French as best she could while looking for clues to the date. Many different scribes had contributed to the records. Some had written in what the prioress would call a fair court hand; other documents were crabbed and blotted and almost illegible.

It took time.

The day drew on. She was forced to light the candle again, but it scarcely made an impression on the northern gloom.

At nones, she heard the nuns go down, the choir strengthened by Dakin and his guard. Heard returning footsteps, a door bang shut, silence again. Patiently, she continued the task. It was astonishing what was recorded here. With a sigh, she opened another undated roll and began to read.

With her back to the door to get the most of the light from the window, she was unaware of anyone having come in until she felt a cold draught tucker at the edges of her sleeve. It snuffed out the candle at once.

She made an exclamation and half-rose.

Before she could turn, something caught round her neck and tightened. She began to struggle for breath. It was a ligature of some kind. Grappling at it as she fought for breath, she tried to get her fingers underneath it, but it was too tight. She kicked out at her assailant. It made little difference.

She was beginning to choke. It had happened quickly, the ligature thrown round her neck with such deftness, she had been taken completely by surprise. She fell against something. Tried to kick out again. Missed. Stumbled. Felt the noose tighten.

The blood was pounding in her eardrums. She felt as if her lungs would burst. She could not pull a single breath in.

She fell to her knees. Everything became black and swam away.

Matt was bending over her. His face was very close and illuminated by a taper.

Hildegard clawed at her neck and found something cutting deep into the flesh. She pulled at it and was able to take a deep, nurturing breath.

“What happened?” Her voice was hoarse.

“Take it easy, mistress. No hurry. Your attacker is gone.”

“Who was it?”

“I’ve no idea. The culprit wore a hood.”

“What are you doing here?” she asked, suspicion tinging her voice.

“Carola said you wanted to get away. I thought I’d come and ask you if you were game to try tomorrow morning—if there’s no snow in the night and we go prepared, we should be able to dig our way through. Steady,” he added when she tried to get up. “I thought you’d had it.”

“My neck hurts.” She rubbed it, winced, then massaged it where the ligature had bitten into the flesh. It was like a cord of fire round her neck.

After a moment or two, Matt was able to help her to her feet. “Come down when you feel you can walk. I’ll get you a drink from the buttery. It’s lucky I arrived when I did.”

“Luckier still if you’d arrived before the person managed to get this thing round my neck,’ she croaked, trying to make a joke of it. The effort to laugh was too painful and she nearly choked as bile rose up. She unwound the noose completely, rolled it into a ball, and put it inside her sleeve. She would look at it later in a good light.

Matt held a taper and lifted it to show the way down the stairs. As he did so, her last memory before being attacked flooded back.

She recalled what she had just discovered among the priory rolls. It was so sensational at first, she imagined it must be a delusion brought on by being nearly choked to death. But she knew it wasn’t. It had been there, written in an elegant hand. It was nothing to do with Mariana and was not what she had been looking for. It came from an earlier time and had been kept separately. The whole place would be rocked to its foundations when, or if, the truth came out.

C
HAPTER
23

“And I noticed the door was open, so I went straight in, and whoever was in there heard me and nearly knocked me flat while rushing out, leaving Mistress York lying on the floor inside. My first thought was, Oh no, she’s dead.” Matt gave Hildegard a quick glance. “Then she gave a sort of choking sound. I was that glad.”

Hildegard was shivering, despite a beaker of warm wine held between both hands. “I owe my life to you, Matt.”

“I hope it’s a debt I’ll never have to call in.” He grinned, and she realised he was still young enough to believe he was immortal.

“I hope you’re right,” she said. “But if, one day…”

“Morbid,” clipped Carola. “I suppose it means you won’t consider making an attempt on the outside now?”

Now, more than ever, Hildegard wanted to say. Instead, she nodded. “It won’t stop me.”

“Straight after prime, then?”

“At prime, Matt, as far as I’m concerned,” she replied. “Less chance of anyone seeing us, as they’ll all be in church.” She gave him a level glance. “I assume you feel discretion will be a good thing?”

He gave Carola a quick look, as if to find out how much he should tell her, then nodded.

Carola said, “We believe our messages to the master and the coroner did not get out.”

“But the prioress said—”

“We know,” said Matt, interrupting her. “But we’re all of the same opinion.”

Hildegard glanced round the warming room, where Matt had taken her after obtaining wine from the buttery. The nuns had returned to their cells and only she and the masons were present, apart from one of the conversi, who was stoking the fire and intent on his job.

She asked in a low voice, “Do you have a reason for coming to such a conclusion?”

Hamo, silently stroking his red beard until now, spoke up. “Two deaths? She won’t want coroners asking questions.”

“Two very different deaths,” Hildegard pointed out.

“And the rest,” he added. “The comings and goings in the woods.” He held her glance. She remembered what a good view he’d had from the top of the scaffolding and wondered now how much he knew.

“I don’t mind telling you, I shall be glad to get away, especially after what has just happened.” She fingered the welt on her neck “But before I leave, I would like to know who did this. I feel there should be some kind of reckoning.”

“Best leave well enough alone,” suggested Hamo unexpectedly. “You’ll never win against the Church. They’ll stick together, even when they know one of them’s a bad apple. They’ll want to deal with it in their own way. Best out of it altogether, say I.”

“One question.” Hildegard looked from one to the other and her glance lingered on Dakin. “Where was Master Fulke just now?”

“He’s still moaning and groaning in his bed,” volunteered Will. “I only hope what he’s got isn’t catching.”

“That’s settled, then. We leave at dawn.” Matt was decisive. “Carola will stay with will to keep an eye on Dakin. It’ll take three of us for safety’s sake in the snow. We’ll get to the nearest town and put the fate of Giles in the hands of the coroner. Then we’ll let his people know what’s happened.”

A discussion of the condition of the roads followed, the difficulties of a courier’s reaching Durham in such weather to inform Master Schockwynde of his journeyman’s fate, and the possibility of hiring horses and so on, back and forth, until they arrived at the conclusion that they would know the answers for sure only when they got out and saw the state of the roads for themselves.

Only one thing was certain: Matt and Hamo would leave at prime and Hildegard was welcome to travel with them.

Eventually, she left them and returned to her chamber in the guest house. Every shadow alarmed her. She took out her knife before opening the door and held it ready under her cloak. When she got inside, she put a chair against the door. The sound of it scraping on the floorboards if somebody tried to get in would give her time to defend herself.

She sat down on the truckle bed and took out the noose from where she had put it inside her sleeve. When she held it up in the candlelight, she gave a gasp of recognition. The emblems at each end of the piece of leather, a hand and a heart, were unmistakable.

She was right to have felt she was being watched when she left the priest’s house. Somebody had seen her go in. They had feared what she might have found. They had tried to stop her from taking the information elsewhere.

But she had found nothing of note. There was no one here she could offer information to even if she had found anything out. What was there to find out?

More puzzled than ever, she put the belt for inside her scrip safekeeping, packed the rest of her things, and lay down on the bed with the intention of getting a few hours’ sleep before the bells summoned everyone to compline. She must have missed vespers. That was when her attacker had seen fit to enter the scriptorium. Despite what the masons had said, it suggested someone other than a nun had entered the scriptorium. The nuns would be loath to miss one of the holy offices and would no doubt fear having to explain themselves to the prioress.

But a guest other than herself was still within the enclosure: Fulke.

Unable to sleep when there were so many questions waiting to be answered, she eventually got up and went out, taking the cresset from its holder beside the door to light the way.

A breeze caught at the flame, making it dance through the metal bars, sending sparks spiralling into the already-darkening sky. Uncaring whether there was a watcher in the cloisters this time, she cut across the grass towards the priest’s house in the farm garth.

She did not approach the front door. Instead, she held the lighted torch so that she could inspect the footprints in the snow leading to it.

Her own had been the first to mark the snow, but now there were others: one set going in and coming out, and one more on top of the others. Snow was sprinkled in two of the three sets of prints, in her own and in those of the person who had gone into the house after that. The third set were more recent and had been made after the last snowfall. That would put them at sometime after nones, when there had been a further brief flurry.

One of these two had taken down the belt from behind the door and later, during vespers, tried to throttle her with it.

It still made no sense. What could they believe she had seen in the priest’s house that was so dangerous?

It was true that she had stumbled on a secret of life-and-death importance that afternoon, but it was a matter now for one person only.

The prints yielded very little in themselves. There was nothing to distinguish one from the other except size and length of stride, all quite average. If she saw them again, she doubted whether she would recognise them.

Still holding the cresset aloft, she made her way back into the garth with her eyes fixed on the ground. It would have been easier to find a pin in all the trampling to-ing and fro-ing that had gone on that day. Now the bite of frost was crisping them into uneven ridges.

She followed one promising-looking set but lost them near the warming room. She tried a different approach and made her way to the far side of the garth to the door that led from the frater of the conversi. Here again the snow was trampled into illegibility. Hamo was just coming out as she approached.

“You’re brave being out and about in the dark,” he said, greeting her.

She indicated the building. “Is this where you’re being lodged?”

“It is, for my sins. Few creature comforts. We were better off in our cosy little den in the woods.”

“Despite the dragon?”

He roared with laughter.

“Is Master Fulke still in residence, Hamo?”

“If he is, I haven’t laid eyes on him. They say he’s still suffering from an ague.”

“He really hasn’t set foot outside today?” She had already asked the masons as as group and wondered if Hamo would bear them out.

He puckered his face. “They’re saying he daren’t! Not since he came roaring in the other night shouting something about the dragon, or so I’m told. They all thought he’d been drinking.”

“Who told you this?”

He grinned. “That buxom dairy woman you probably haven’t noticed.”

She smiled. “No, I hadn’t.”

“She’s sent over to bring him milk and pottage every now and then. Should be here again soon.”

Hamo went off round the corner, presumably for a piss against the wall, and Hildegard strolled back across the garth, still staring at the ground.

There was no reason for anybody to have attacked her. It made her wonder if she had been mistaken for someone else.

Imagine they had been after someone who used the scriptorium? Mariana was the only one Hildegard had seen in there. Why anyone should want to attack so pathetic a creature, she could not fathom. Whoever it was had known about the belt in the priest’s house. That person had gone there, found it, and taken it. It was a pretty thing. It was clearly a love token. Maybe whoever had given it to the priest was frightened it would get into the wrong hands and lead back to the giver. Then, later, decided it was a useful instrument of murder, stupidly—or with a macabre sense of humour.