Threads of Treason (10 page)

‘
Greetings Michael the Merchant.’ Therese recognised the voice. Her eyes snapped open. An English voice.

‘
Greetings to you, Alfred,’ said Michael speaking English.

Trying to control her surprise Therese gripped the grass.

‘
What brings you this way?’ asked Alfred.

‘
Trade, same as you,’ said Michael. ‘You are here on foot?’

‘
I’ve made my own camp a little down stream.’

Therese assumed Alfred to be lying to prevent unwelcome callers – surely he was upstream from here? He had clearly come to check on this new arrival to the vale for himself. Her strength seeped away with her purpose. She let go of the damp grass. She noticed her clothes wet and heavy about her. She shivered and considered leaving until she caught a change in the tone of their conversation. Their voices had become tentative as if they were testing each other, or sharing a secret hidden in the words.

‘
You were turned away by Prioress Ethelburga, then?’ asked Alfred.

‘
You saw?’ asked Michael.

‘
We are here for the same thing, are we not?’ asked Alfred.

‘
Aren’t we always?’ said Michael. ‘But we are not working against each other.’

‘
That is good,’ said Alfred, ‘for I would not like to be opposed to a man with your strength and youth.’

‘
Your age gives you skills I have yet to learn,’ replied Michael.

They were laughing now. Therese was confused by their apparently close friendship. What could this mean? Were they joined in some political endeavour, or was Alfred trying to find out more about Michael by assuming his friendship? Therese crawled away down the hill. Supposing this meant that she could no longer trust Alfred? She would be lost and alone. She ran back all the way to the priory, and returned to her bed the way she’d come. Slipping off the damp woollen over-clothing she hoped the straw bedding would help dry out her linen chemise.

In the middle of the night all the nuns rose for vigils. Therese had hardly slept and her clothes were still wet. They made their way down the stairs she’d used earlier and Therese, seated in the choir with the others, stole glances at the hanging over the door while bending deeply over in apparent meditation. The dust had settled, but she imagined, for she could not see in this light that her footprints would be clear to all in the dust by morning.

They returned to bed and Therese lay shivering with fear and cold when a hand touched her arm. She kept it still as she did not wish to show any emotion. And she found herself looking into the steady eyes of Sister Agnes. In an instant she recalled Ursula’s warmth and the help Sister Agnes had given the ex-prioress of St Thomas’s. Even now Agnes had the comforting smell of the kitchen about her.

The older nun beckoned to her to follow. Her mind raced. If Alfred was connected to Michael then so might Ursula be–and Agnes? Sister Agnes took her outside and across the yard to the kitchen, just across from the tower and the refectory along the western end of the cloister.

Inside Agnes stoked the fire in the central hearth and placed Therese in front of it. She passed her a dry habit and placed the wet one, once removed, in front of the blaze on a wooden stand. She did all of this in silence with kindly gestures and Therese followed her instructions as gently as she could. She was not encouraged to speak and their silence protected them both.

Agnes drew up a short bench for them to sit on and they must have stayed there for over an hour. But still the garments hung onto the wetness from the grass, so Agnes sent her back to bed with the ones she’d given her. The only words she spoke were, ‘The nun who wore this has no need of it now.’ It was said in tones meant to comfort Therese, but they unsettled her.

When Bishop Odon disembarked at Dover his ship was just one of many pulled up along the river’s shoreline. Casks of wine and other necessities from the continent were being unloaded while other boats were being loaded with the first of the season’s wool. He’d brought just two men with him as a bodyguard. But he was confident as he had many more stationed at Dover Castle. This England was like a missing piece of Normandy. He was pleased to be back and sighed, knowing the English would always consider him a foreigner here. He turned the sigh into a deep breath. This was his Earldom and he would take rest and change into dry clothes at the castle. He thanked God for a good crossing.

By the hearth in the castle’s keep he sat down and fingered the chess pieces on the board in front of him. Kings, Queens, Knights and Bishops, and so many pawns – but no Princes. He had only considered two as potential kings, William Rufus and Robert. Henry was too young to be considered, just thirteen, but growing fast by all accounts and he speaks English like a native, so they say. Perhaps it would take another generation for the Normans and the English people to adapt to each other.

His reverie was broken by the entrance of one of his personal bodyguards.

‘
My Lord Bishop, Prince William has sent word that he will be arriving shortly.’

‘
Make ready for him,’ instructed Odon. He allowed himself another sigh once he was on his own again. He was reluctant to see William Rufus, but he could not possibly turn down the King’s son.

The clatter of horses in the courtyard caused him to look through a slit of a window down at the King’s second son. He dismounted with expertise and unnecessary swagger. He rode with three others. He left the horses with the grooms Odon had sent to attend them. Rufus directed his men to follow him. Odon recognised the distinctive height of Roger and the fair head of Simon. The last of the three looked up. It was Ralph with his aquiline nose, lips like a long-bow at rest, dark eyes and hair. They made for the entrance to the keep.

They entered Odon’s room still with their chain mail and swords. This was rudeness barely tolerable to Odon, but he contained his anger. ‘Prince William.’ Odon bowed to his nephew.

‘
Uncle,’ said Rufus, his face as cool as his sword.

‘
Please, as my honoured guests, feel free to remove your encumbrances from your journey and relax with me. Take some sustenance?’

‘
You are too kind,’ snapped Rufus looking about him as if he expected to be run through by a sword at any moment.

‘
Dover castle has to be the safest in England,’ said Odon.

‘
I have no time to stay. The King is intent on securing Wales this year.’

‘
Surely Earl Montgomery has already broken the back of that task?’

‘
He has done well, as have the other Earls along the Welsh border, but it is not enough. My father wants these Welsh to declare their fealty to him as the English have done.’

‘
With respect to your great father and my beloved brother, the King, I think he may be asking a great deal of those wild people. They share a past with our Bretons and we have had many a fierce battle against them.’

‘
Normandy is all-powerful,’ said Rufus. ‘We follow the Roman Empire in our magnificence.’

Odon turned away. Fighting and war was in all of their blood. It was honourable to fight. It was more honourable to fight for convictions than to win. This was as strong in his blood as in any of his family, yet he was a Bishop.

‘
I know,’ said Rufus, ‘that you would rather see Robert on the throne of England. But it will never be.’

‘
I desire only what is right.’

‘
The King holds sway on all things, Your Grace. And you have put down uprisings all over this England, Bishop Odon, by the sword. Your hands are as bloodied as any of ours.’

‘
And I pay my penance daily,’ snapped Odon. ‘Surely all that business is now settled?’

‘
I have heard, Uncle…’ said Rufus as if dangling a baited line. He seemed calmer now Odon’s temper had been roused.

‘
Heard what?’ Odon rose again to the enticement.

‘
I hear that there are Welsh spies infiltrating into England causing unrest.’

‘
I have heard no such rumours myself.’

‘
I am surprised. For I believe Alfred of St Edmundsbury, a brother of a former Kentish Prioress of your acquaintance, Prioress Ursula, is a man who moves between these worlds.’

Odon felt as if he’d been struck a blow in the back. How easy it was to make a little information look treasonous by adding a slight twist to a few selected details. ‘I believe,’ he said evenly, ‘that Alfred of St Edmundsbury is a wool trader. Our monasteries need to sell their wool to survive.'

‘
Your monasteries gather riches to themselves like squirrels gather acorns. What need has God of gold and ivory?’

Odon hid his anger by poking at the fire embers. The clean smell of wood smoke filled his lungs. He let the words hang, hoping Rufus would become embarrassed at his own coarseness. But when he looked at his pale eyes the young man’s gaze was steady.

‘
Earl Montgomery tells me he does not trust a trader from his own area, a man called Michael,’ added Rufus. ‘I believe you know him also.’

Odon felt the blood drain from his face despite his proximity to the fire. This was a man who held a great trust – not in words but in the goods he traded. He must have truly worked out the political value of his trade with the embroidery workshop at the Priory of St Thomas the Apostle and even know the importance of the work going on there. For this man to even have the slightest smell of deceit lingering in his behaviour or motives was unacceptable. And Alfred would have to be drawn into his cleansing net in case he was involved too. He could not risk anything happening at this stage to the embroidery. Perhaps all he’d heard about the poor dead Prioress Ursula had been true. Perhaps she had been the traitor. Odon turned to his visitor and said,

‘
Thank you, nephew, for your information. I will have these men arrested directly. This will be carried out under my personal supervision.’

Chapter 8

Therese bowed her head. She stood in the lowliest position in the chapter house and waited her turn to make her confession. She’d been dreading this ordeal. It was, of course, inevitable as she could not take the sacrament of communion without purging her soul. But her soul would not be purged for she held in her heart so many secrets that had given rise to falsehoods. She had, therefore, composed a version of events that she thought would cover matters for now. She would rely on a total confession to Abbess Eleanor at a later date when she would be free to tell all. She would have to feign illness to avoid Mass the following day. Her list of sins seemed to be growing at an alarming rate. No doubt, Sister Miriam, back in Normandy, would have had no trouble over her conscience with such matters. So Therese just told them about the breaking of the broom.

‘
Three rosaries to be said this morning in church after Terce, Sister. And after our midday prayers you will go down to the woods to collect willow for new brooms. Sister Gertrude will go with you and supervise. Her knowledge on such matters is without equal.’

Therese had been so worried about what she was going to say she’d hardly heard the others make their confessions. One, Sister Sybil, spoke so quietly she couldn’t hear what she said at all and another, Maude, gabbled. But she became alert when Sister Agnes spoke. Sister Agnes’s confession was also incomplete, she noticed. There was no mention of her giving clothing to a wet novice in the night. That was not really a sin though, surely? But then Sister Agnes must already have difficulties over the replacement of Ursula’s body with that of a dead colleague. She shivered, thinking of the dead nun’s clothing about her body.

Finally, Prioress Ethelburga announced the benefit of a united effort to clean the cloister now the builders had cleared it. As they left the chapter house Prioress Ethelburga placed her hand on Agnes’s arm. Agnes stopped and they both looked at the arresting hand. Some battle of wills seemed to be taking place until Ethelburga saw Gertrude and Therese waiting to leave. She released Agnes. Gertrude walked off but Therese paused behind the timber banister of the sewing room stairs to listen.

‘
I have been wondering about how Sister Ann is faring,’ Prioress Ethelburga asked Agnes.

‘
She’s gone to her family, Prioress. They came for her the morning of Prioress Ursula’s funeral. I have heard since that she passed away peacefully among her own folk.’

Therese scurried off. She did not hear the end of the conversation but she did not want to be caught listening. Her clothing seemed to wrap itself about her legs as if it were trying to trip her up. It, no doubt, was worn by Sister Ann, who was now laid in Ursula’s grave. She felt chilled until she reached the cloister where the nuns were already hard at work. She shook off the burden of Sister Ann’s wronged soul and took on the merriment of the others.

First the women brushed down the walls and arches with goose wings and then they sprinkled the tiles with water and swept. The work was soon finished and Therese was left to tidy the brooms and dusters before prayers.

While stooped over her work she heard the deep, Welsh tones that had become carved into her like the patterns made by the masons on the beautiful stones around her. His laugh came from the western end of the cloister. She tried to conceal that she knew him. She pretended to ignore his conversation with Prioress Ethelburga.