The Red Velvet Turnshoe (28 page)

Authors: Cassandra Clark

BOOK: The Red Velvet Turnshoe

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‘Things have turned out other than I expected.’ The prioress sending Neville away with a flea in his ear? Neville himself supporting Sir William then changing his mind? She glanced at the sleeping boy. ‘At least he’s going to have a chance.’

He caught her eye. ‘He owes you something. As do I.’ There was a moment of awkwardness. Hubert covered it by saying, ‘Sir William has demonstrated his allegiance, should it have been in doubt. He must be the power behind Coppinhall, the maintainer who ordered Reynard’s death.’

‘My feeling is that William is the instrument and not the instrument maker. I believe,’ she went on cautiously, ‘we must look to the new constable at Scarborough Castle for the motivating power here.’

‘Sir Ralph Standish?’

‘Is it not more than coincidence that Escrick, lately in the service of Sir Ralph de Hutton, should have figured so prominently in this whole business? And where is Escrick’s home territory? Scarborough. And who is Gaunt’s man at Scarborough?’

‘That same Standish,’ Hubert supplied. His mouth set in a grim
line. ‘Say nothing more. I am bound to a different master. Discretion might save our necks.’ He gave her a despairing glance.

‘You say you owe me something?’

He seemed to struggle for a moment and then advised, ‘Betray me to the pope if you choose.’

She dashed the idea away with a hand. ‘Which one?’

‘The schism won’t last for ever. I should have held my tongue. What I told you has made matters worse. If you knew the truth you would despise me even more—’

‘I have never despised you—’

‘Then it’s only because I’ve concealed the truth from you.’

Fearing that he was going to admit openly to involvement with those who wished to overthrow the king, she begged him not to go on but, with a resigned smile, he insisted. ‘I must clear my conscience. I’ve lied about myself.’ Observing her look of disbelief, he corrected himself. ‘If not lied, I’ve allowed you to believe something about me that is not true.’

‘How so?’ she asked in alarm, convinced she was about to be tested further. His next question confused her, however.

‘Remember a remark you once made about Lady Sibilla and Escrick? That you thought she might be drawn to him because he was so unlike her husband?’

Mystified, she agreed that she did remember.

‘And do you also remember mentioning your own husband, a knight in arms, I believe?’

She nodded.

‘And do you remember one particular afternoon in my garden at Meaux?’

Again she agreed she did, without having it described in more detail.

‘I believe my feelings were just then beginning to become known to me, to torment me, and on that particular day you seemed to return them.’

‘Yes,’ she agreed, her heart missing a beat.

‘But it was based on a lie, don’t you see?’

‘No, I don’t see! And what does it matter where your allegiance lies in all this?’

‘Allegiance?’ He looked as if he had never heard the word before. Ignoring it, he said, ‘I am not as different from your husband as you imagine. You saw me just now, giving a reasonable account of myself against Sir William?’

‘Reasonable? You were magnificent! A monk to have such fearlessness in the face of a murderous and fully armed knight—’

‘But, Hildegard, what I have to tell you is this: I have not always been a Cistercian.’ He seemed unable to go on and instead gripped her convulsively by the sleeve. ‘This is my confession. It will damn me in your eyes for ever: for many years I was a knight in arms, fighting in the hire of one of the dukes of France.’

His expression was bleak.

‘I was paid to kill. I have killed men.’

There was a silence while Hildegard struggled to understand.

‘I can never be other than what I am,’ he continued. ‘It has just been proved beyond doubt by my immediate recourse to violence. I should have bowed my head beneath his sword and trusted in God’s divine will. But I had no faith. I was ready to kill again. It was maybe only your presence that stayed my hand. You wrongly believed that I was a true servant of God, different from your husband, worthy of your regard for that reason. But I am at fault for conniving in the misunderstanding and at fault for trying to drag you down into hell with me’.

Hildegard gave a stricken cry as he began to walk away.

‘Hubert! You could not be more wrong.’ She followed, putting a hand on his sleeve to detain him. ‘I see no virtue in submitting to death in meekness.’ She recalled the effigies in the church of Santi Apostoli, the glittering defiance of the martyrs. ‘You have gained my love by everything you do. You are without fault.’

He turned to gaze into her face. His fine eyes smouldered. His lips were within inches of her own. They were so close she could feel the heat radiating from his skin. She breathed in the scent of him. A feeling of joy swept over her and with a final unlocking of her heart she realised she could not resist him.

‘My better self,’ he breathed. ‘I have found you. There is no further purpose for me under heaven but to love you.’

As in a dream she felt him lift her fingers towards his lips. Her skin tingled but the distance between them remained.

‘If angels exist anywhere but in our minds,’ his voice roughened, ‘then at this moment they are conjoined.’

It was the darkest hour before dawn. Even as his words died away the first light began to slip in through the coloured glass of the east window, gilding bright points on the shrine and draining the shadows in the arcades. Hubert’s exhausted face was picked out in its glow, stains of blood visible on the edge of his robe.

‘Your wounds are bleeding,’ she observed. ‘May I tend them?’

He shook his head. ‘This blood is nothing to the blood of the men I have killed.’

He stepped backwards, his glance locked on hers as if to retain her image to the very last moment. Then, one hand lifting in farewell, he turned and – she understood too late – began to walk rapidly away towards his master.

She could only watch. Everything was lost.

Chapter Twenty-eight

A
TALL MAN, straight-backed, his face as white as powder, walked towards her across the corrodians’ hall at St Mary’s abbey in York. Although elderly, with silver hair trimmed to his scalp, Master Gyles moved with the supple stride of an acrobat.

Although pensioned off for the past year, his inactivity had not added girth to his spare frame. Heavy-lidded eyes alighted on her face, speculatively, as he approached. His features reminded her of her lymer, Duchess, a hound trained for the kill. When he was near enough he made his wide mouth turn up at the corners in a smile. Behind the white mask, his eyes were watchful.

‘Follow, if you will,’ he invited with a flourish. He led her out of the hall where other less agile corrodians dozed in front of the fire and grew fat and slow. Knowing something of his fame, she wondered how he survived this backwater.

They went out into the garth. Rain was falling, little more than a fine mist. A bell began to toll bringing the monks into the cloister but he led away from them towards a comfortable-looking house on the other side.

‘This is where harmless old fellows like me spend the last of our life’s profit,’ he said with no sign of self-pity in his voice.

They were soon seated in his chamber with drinks brought by a servant. She saw now with surprise that he had been carrying a sparrow in his sleeve all the while. He produced it seemingly from nowhere. With the skilful fingers of a drawlatch he played with the creature while they talked, the bird, entranced, turning round and round in a kind of daze, following the movements of its master’s fingers.

‘I’m training him to do a jig,’ he explained. ‘It amuses the other corrodians, poor fellows, and keeps the bird from the hawks.’

The chamber they were in was like a cavern crammed with musical instruments. Made of walnut, lime and beech, they shone with use. Noticing her interest he carried the bird on one finger to a cage hanging from the beam above the window and snapped the door on it. Then he picked up one of the lutes. Even before he played a note his affinity with the instrument was obvious from the fluid way it seemed to become part of his body the moment he touched it.

His long fingers began to trail in a seemingly random manner over the strings, plucking out an effortless little tune while he observed her reaction.

She told him, ‘Last time I heard that was in Tuscany.’

He raised his eyebrows in a comical mime of surprise, neither asking who had played it nor admitting what it was. Nor did he deny any favour towards its sentiments. Instead he waited, as if to invite her to say more.

A dangerous man, she decided, refusing to identify the anthem of the White Hart. Clearly he was adept at luring the innocent or the careless to confess more than was good for them.

She cut out any further preamble. ‘I’m here to inform you that a musician you know has sought sanctuary at the shrine of St John of Beverley. He has, in addition, obtained the temporary protection of the Archbishop of York.’

The eyebrows could not rise any higher so he blew out his powdered cheeks instead. He did not ask who the sanctuary man was, she noticed, but she supplied the name without hesitation.

‘It’s John Haverel. You know him. He knows you.’

‘Young Jack. Been up to no good, has he?’ His eyes gave nothing away and there was no change in his blank, mime’s face.

‘His friend, Reynard, was murdered shortly after Epiphany. As of course you’ll know. For a time, John was blamed and might have lost his life if the indictment had stuck. But it didn’t.’

‘So why is he in sanctuary?’

‘Because he was accused of a further crime, that of passing on a seditious text known as
anomenalle
.’

‘The silly lad.’

‘Someone found out Reynard was making copies and distributing them. Whoever this was allowed it to become known in the wrong quarters. A spy,’ she said, ‘no doubt working for gain. The spy’s master decided Reynard should be stopped. John as well, when it was feared he knew what was going on.’

‘Careless talk. Dangerous talk. Whom can any of us trust?’ He gazed out from behind his mask. ‘So the lad’s well and in Beverley?’

‘He is. Sir William made an attempt to prise him forth but was resisted.’

‘My gratitude for this gossip, Sister, but I hardly think it worth your ride over to York to tell me.’

‘I think it well worth it.’

His eyes came alive now. They flickered over her face while waiting for her to explain but she rose to her feet.

‘The identity of Reynard’s murderer was proven beyond doubt. The identity of the man who maintained the murderer is also known. I believe the identity of the informant could become known too – if the circumstances are right.’

She was at the door and put her hand on the latch.

‘Wait.’ Master Gyles’s face had disintegrated before abruptly rearranging itself with a look that could have been seen as kind. ‘Does the boy need anything?’

‘Patronage. Entry into the guild of musicians. Maybe, in time, a royal appointment. He certainly has enough talent. You yourself were minstrel for many years at the royal court.’

He nodded. ‘A word in the right place can work wonders—’

‘Or bring scandal and the death of innocent men?’ She laughed as if merely finishing the thought.

Before she went out she had one more thing to say. ‘I wonder, master, whether you know that Reynard renamed the boy? He called him Pierrekyn in homage to you – because he held you in such high esteem.’

The powdered face crumbled into a mixture of shock and remorse – unless it was an actor’s trick or the slant of light.

She left with the pearl-embroidered turnshoe still in her possession. It belonged, not to Master Pierrekyn Gyles, spy and one-time minstrel at the English court, but to someone who knew its true significance: Pierrekyn Haverel, minstrel at Beverley.

Epilogue

The archers were practising in the orchard when she arrived. She had ridden directly back to the priory after a short delay while she attended to the abbey’s horse and obtained another. She had spent some time praying in the little church of St Olave by the river.

The skills of her sisters had improved while she had been absent. She made her way towards them through the grass. A burst of cheering broke out as the latest scores were totted up.

Then someone noticed her and everyone swarmed round in welcome, bombarding her with questions about her travels – she had no sooner arrived from Tuscany than she had ridden off again on another errand – and now they wanted to know what it was like to travel so far and whether she was as exhausted as she looked. For sure, one of them said, she would be going off to her grange as soon as possible, the work on it having gone so well.

Hildegard heard it all as if from a distance.

The prioress materialised at her side. ‘Our archers have improved while you’ve been away, haven’t they?’ She made shooing motions with her hands. ‘Back to the butts, sisters!’

The nuns took up their bows and moved off under the avenue of trees back to where the butts were propped.

‘You have something to say to me in private, Mother?’

‘And you to me, no doubt,’ the prioress replied. ‘Come, let’s walk a while in my garden.’

Hildegard followed her.

‘So, Sister,’ said the prioress when they were out of earshot of the others, ‘I hear that Standish’s men were routed in Beverley by a couple of Cistercians and two hounds?’

‘With some help from the townsfolk too.’ Hildegard smiled. ‘But Standish, you say? So they were his colours?’

‘We’ll be seeing them around for some time to come.’ The prioress frowned briefly. ‘Unless something happens to him.’ She brightened. ‘I also hear Meaux still has its Talking Crucifix. But what has York got, may we ask?’

‘Nothing, judging by his grace’s temper after he left here.’

The prioress chuckled. ‘Men. They hate it when they’re thwarted. Neville especially so – after putting up the money for your escort to Tuscany. His grace, however, plays a close hand. Never trust a man who uses rage to force his way.’ She gave Hildegard a sharp glance. ‘You’re probably thinking, never trust a man at all?’

Hildegard gazed off into the distance. ‘What did the archbishop get – if anything?’

‘The return of his bill of exchange, less a percentage for our trouble. He was lucky to get that, in my view. You weren’t extravagant overseas.’

‘But is Constantine’s cross still here then?’

‘You’re wondering why I’ve kept it. The views of that sacristan, its guardian, appeal to me. I would have liked to have met him. I think we can acquit ourselves with a similar purity of purpose. Such a sacred relic should not be used to further worldly ambition.’

Hildegard felt her heart lift a little. There had been something askew about the archbishop’s ambition to own it. Now that his allegiance was in doubt she wondered whether he would even have honoured the promise to return it when the period of its loan was up.

‘You did well on behalf of that young musician,’ the prioress told her.

‘At first I didn’t know whether to trust him or not. In fact I suspected everyone of double-dealing at some point until events brought all the pieces together – Roger because of his business with Ser Vitelli, and even the abbot—’

‘Because of Avignon, yes.’ In a casual tone the prioress remarked, ‘It’s well to remember we can always choose with whom to do
business.’ And as if on the same topic she added, ‘I also hear that Abbot de Courcy’s off on pilgrimage.’

‘He is?’ Hildegard had the sensation of falling from a high tower but pressed her fingernails into her palms to deaden the feeling.

The prioress looked at her with compassion. ‘You’ll have enough to occupy you when you move into the new grange. I believe it’s almost ready.’

‘I have only the promise of one lay sister so far.’

‘I believe I can recommend a half-dozen nuns to get things started. You can choose your own women when you’ve established means of feeding and watering them all. I think some of your sisters could do with a holiday from this forsaken marsh country. Let them enjoy summer on the edge of the moors where they can keep their feet dry. I guarantee they’ll be back here at harvest time to the harder life I offer them.’

‘Harder yet more sociable?’

‘I doubt whether you’ll want for company up there. His lordship will keep an eye on you. He’s full of gratitude for what you did.’

‘He is?’

‘Something you arranged with this Florentine moneylender, I understand.’

‘I did hardly anything.’

‘Even so, Roger was in my parlour discussing sopracorpo contracts the other day and rubbing his hands at the fat profit he’s making. I gather we might benefit as well. His lady’s
enceinte
by the way. A baby should test his mettle.’

The prioress pulled off a few leaves of
love-lies-bleeding.
The bright flowers of
heart’s ease
grew beside it.

‘Interesting planting,’ she observed. ‘We have my predecessor to thank for that.’ She turned to Hildegard with a kind smile. ‘Remember, Sister, heartsease outlasts everything else.’

As ever at peace with herself, the prioress gestured towards the archers in the orchard. ‘Tell them they certainly scare me.’ She left.

The sound of distant laughter floated through the trees.

He was off on pilgrimage then. And no word.

Hildegard took out the faded kerchief and fingered the embroidery of small blue flowers.

Courage.

It was all she had left.