The Scandal of the Skulls

by Cassandra Clark

  He cupped one hand behind her head then slid his fingers under her linen coif to caress the secret place under her hair. He pressed her head against his shoulder, fingers warm against her scalp. She felt her hair streaming through them and her body seemed to turn to honey at his touch.

  ‘As your lord abbot,’ he murmured, ‘I order you to keep your hair uncut.’

  Thrilled by his caresses and aware that it would soon end, tears of longing seeped from between her lashes to moisten the white fabric of his robe. As she rested her head against his shoulder she knew the sadness of losing what neither of them could ever truly possess.

  His body seemed to be on fire as he pressed her to him and began to kiss away her tears. ‘I know,’ he muttered hoarsely, his own eyes moist, ‘we must find a way.’

  ‘Hubert, you know we cannot.’

  He gripped her savagely by the shoulders for a moment. ‘I beg you attend me in Salisbury. Give me your promise’

  ‘Of course, where else should I be but waiting for you there?’

  ‘I shall come to you as soon as I can and then, together, we shall return to our Abbey at Meaux. Before we meet again I beg you to reflect on what might lie ahead for us.’

  ‘What else can it be but what we’ve agreed? No matter how difficult, we have no choice.’

  ‘Have we no choice?’ He gazed intently into the depths of her eyes. ‘Have we none, Hildegard? Is that so? No choice at all?’ His voice shook. ‘I shall obey your command. I shall abide by your decision without argument - not to thrust a moral burden onto you but because I pray you will find a way. Hildegard, I confess that I am still utterly weakened by you. Nothing has changed.’

  ‘Don’t say that - ’ She pressed her fingers to his lips.

  ‘My vows are as nothing to me. You know it. I was mistaken to believe I could rid myself of this madness by prayer and pilgrimage. There is no remedy. No potion or elixir can cool my desire. I have much penance to do - so very much.’ He gripped her more tightly. ‘But maybe that is not the only way? Maybe, somehow, sometime, we can find a way to be together. It would not be the first time that a love like ours has been consummated - ’

  ‘But not without terrible consequences.’

  He could not say more because Hildegard put her fingers over his lips again. ‘I would rather die unshriven than for you to suffer as Peter Abelard suffered. He was barbarously punished by the father of our Order. I could not bear that to happen to you, Hubert. I am no Eloise either. Truly, I would rather die than see you mutilated and dishonoured - ’ His tightening grip belied his next words when he urged her away. ‘Go!’ he muttered hoarsely. ‘Go now. Leave me. Go on to Salisbury. Go at once. Wait for me there.’

  ‘Farewell, then, for a little time, my dearest heart. And then...’ she made a small shrug of her shoulders. ‘Our fate will be what is written. It is not in our hands.’

  ‘Hildegard, let me not see you ride away or my heart will break.’

  She slipped shakily from his embrace. It required too much of her to bring other words into being. Her world seemed to have slipped sideways after the weeks of doubt and desire when he had been so close and yet so far away. Her yearning for this man during the recent journey when they had been unable to reveal their feelings had dissolved in the intense joy of rediscovering the simple fact: Hubert still desired her as much as she desired him.

  And yet nothing could come of it on pain of a hideous penalty in this world and any transgression would eventually be answerable in the highest court of all.

  A little later, just as she was carrying her bags down into the yard, still shaken by Hubert’s declaration, Brother Gregory, accompanied as usual by Brother Egbert, hurried from out of the cloisters. When the caught sight of her he came striding over.

  ‘Are you intending to travel alone, domina?’ he demanded fiercely.

  ‘I suppose I am,’ she replied. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘What is our lord abbot thinking? Egbert, go and find Hubert and drag him here by his heels.’

  ‘I’ve already left,’ replied Egbert, bustling back inside.

  Hildegard turned to Gregory. ‘I don’t understand what the problem is - ’

  ‘Don’t you know the country is in uproar over these executions? Just because we seem to have outwitted Woodstock do you imagine he’s given up? You’ll draw attention to yourself, a nun outside her precinct! You can’t travel alone and unprotected while we carouse over our ale exports with the monks of Beaulieu.’

  ‘Needs must - ’

  ‘It’s not going to happen.’

  At that moment Hubert appeared. He had asked Hildegard to leave without allowing him to see her go and now she felt caught out as if she was deliberately defying his wishes. His glance was withering as it shifted between the two of them. He gave Gregory a glare.

  ‘Is there some difficulty?’ he demanded.

  ‘It’s this, Hubert, my lord. I shall accompany Hildegard as far as Salisbury. I have business there myself. If she can delay her departure until I’ve thrown my few things into a bag and had a horse saddled, we can still leave before tierce.’

  ‘I’m sure this is not necessary - ’ Hildegard broke in.

  ‘Domina, my lord!’ Brother Egbert stepped forward with a hand on each of them. ‘Permit me an opinion to the contrary.’ He turned to Hubert. ‘It is surely not your intention to have Hildegard travel alone through the Royal Forest at a time like this? Pray, think again.’

  ‘Why don’t you both mind your own business - ’ Hubert began but before he could continue, Gregory interrupted.

  ‘I’ll gladly escort her, as I’ve said. I know you have matters to discuss with our brothers here over the shipment of ale from Meaux into the port at Lymington. Clearly you yourself cannot escort her. We understand that. It’s no trouble to me, indeed,’ he smiled at Hildegard, ‘it will be my pleasure entirely.’

  Hubert raised a smile but it was through clenched teeth. ‘I’m sure the ale shipment will go ahead whether I interfere or not. I myself can escort her - ’

  Gregory interrupted again. ‘No, we understand how important the brewery is for the finances of Meaux Abbey and besides, I have someone I’d like to see near Salisbury. If our dear sister will permit me to escort her - ?’

  She picked up her bag. ‘Certainly, I shall be honoured and delighted to have a very perfect knight beside me.’ Out of the corners of her eyes she saw Hubert scowl.

  Gregory was already heading towards the stables followed by his abbot’s narrowed glance.

  Gregory was quick. They left before the bell had begun to toll for the next office and for the rest of that day they eased their horses through the heart of the Royal Forest, sometimes following a clear track between flowering hawthorns, sometimes circuiting bogs and thickets, sometimes riding straight and unhindered across the wide sweep of many deer lawns, but always with the sense of travelling north clear before them.

  Hildegard felt uneasy and was glad of Gregory’s company. Something uncanny about the silence and the endless trees made her keep turning her head to look back. To allay the feeling she told him about her purpose in visiting Salisbury.

  ‘My beloved child is living in the household of a dowager countess from the Welsh Marches who is at this time making her annual visit to Clarendon Palace. As Ysabella is so close to Salisbury it seemed foolish not to take the chance to see her and hold her in my arms again.’

  ‘It must be hard when a child is living away,’ he observed.

  ‘Especially as the countess lives at such a distance from Meaux. My husband’s lands were in the Welsh Marches and the countess is a dowager of a nearby family I knew and trusted. It seemed an ideal placement until my husband went missing and I had to move back to Yorkshire.’

  Gregory said nothing to this and she wondered if he was assessing how far she could trust the countess now when the country was so divided in its sympathies, a thought that continually crossed her own mind.

  And what of her daughter’
s allegiance? She was a young woman, almost fifteen, and unless she had changed dramatically, she would have a mind of her own.

  Gregory seemed to understand how she felt without having her anxiety spelled out. ‘We have to trust and when our trust is lost we have to act.’

  ‘When to act will require greater vigilance than I can muster from such a distance. Once we could trust the allegiance of the families who held guardianship over our children but now?’

  ‘How old is she?’

  ‘Fourteen.’

  ‘Perhaps her only allegiance is to dancing and pretty clothes?’

  Hildegard smiled. ‘You may be right.’ She sighed. ‘Somehow I doubt it!’

  ‘I’m confident that she will grow up into a young woman of whom you can be proud whatever the case.’

  ‘I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your kindness as well as for escorting me, brother. Despite the ways to defend myself from attack that you and Egbert taught me on the way through France I’d have felt uneasy travelling by myself. I was going to brazen it out before you offered.’

  ‘You learned the art of self-defence with great celerity. I believe someone must have given you instruction before our poor attempt.’

  ‘There was a steward in Yorkshire, a fighting man when necessary as well as a bowman of great skill.’ She was thinking of Ulf, the steward at Castle Hutton. ‘He insisted I learn a few basic defences. He also taught me to shoot a straight arrow and I passed on what little skill I had to my nuns when we established a grange in Yorkshire.’

  An image of Deepdale swam before her, its once tranquil beauty arousing a deep and enduring sense of loss.

  ‘Sadly, despite our simple skills,’ she continued, ‘we were no match for the armed men who destroyed our little haven. Abbot de Courcy insisted we give it up and return to the safety of our mother house in the East Riding.’

  ‘And is this how you came to be abbess en titre at Meaux?’ He chuckled. ‘I’ve heard the stories of local folk addressing you as abbess within Hubert’s hearing. He is quite amused by it.’

  ‘One day perhaps I shall be asked to return as prioress at Swyne. It’s not far from Meaux, an hour’s walk, no more. The Cistercians have no role for abbesses but to be a prioress would be honour enough. And you?’ she asked, wishing to turn the conversation away from herself, ‘You were in Outremer for many years, Gregory. When we landed at Lepe you showed how much you had missed England.’

  ‘I’ve been away for over seven years. I learned my swordsmanship while protecting Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem against the Saracen. I must admit I didn’t expect to return home to find England in such calamitous disarray.’ He gave a heavy sigh. ‘Yes, I missed the old place. The colour green became a source of nostalgia for me.’

  The trees glinted and shimmered on all sides and Gregory gazed on them with satisfaction. ‘I got used to sand and dust and heat but there’ll never be anywhere like this. I imagined in the years of my absence a haven of peace and prosperity in England. It grieves me to find it isn’t so. We have so many blessings yet men seem determined to trample them into the ground and show them no honour.’

  They rode in a somewhat sombre silence through a grove of oaks. Gregory turned to her as soon as they were in open country again. ‘It’s been a pleasure to travel with my old friend de Courcy and with you, dear Hildegard. Between you both an air of harmony exists, enough to salve the wounded heart of any man and give him hope for the reinstatement of peace and love in the realm.’

  ‘Hubert can be brusque but his straight talking is one of his many admirable qualities.’

  Gregory chuckled at this cautious agreement. ‘I understand. Let no-one ever put you asunder.’

  Sadness tinged his voice. It led her to suspect some heartbreak on the road to Jerusalem. It would be tactless to probe the private feelings of such a gentle monk but when he caught her glance his feelings were revealed for a moment in the shadowed depths of his eyes.

  In a gruff voice he admitted, ‘We are told to believe that God chooses our destiny for us. I know not why or how. Happy as I am to be home at last, my heart remains in that far and dangerous country. So be it.’

  ‘Forever in someone’s thoughts?’

  ‘Indeed. And I have no choice but to trust in God to protect her now I cannot do so.’ He left the matter with a switch of mood. ‘My mal de mer must have been alarming! I’m sound enough when it comes to trudging through desert sands under a blazing sun but show me the sea and I’m finished!’

  ‘You’re sound enough at finding your way through the Royal Forest as well! I’d have been lost a hundred times without your guidance.’

  As if to prove what she said he now reined in his mount before a wide inviting stretch of bright green lawn and when Hildegard urged her horse forward, hoping for a gallop, he put out a restraining hand.

  ‘Stay! Look more closely,’ he advised. ‘It’s something to do with the brightness of the colour. It’s too green. Dangerously so. I suspect another of these infernal quagmires.’

  He got down off his horse and searched for a stone among the roots of an oak. When he found one of a suitable weight he threw it far out onto what Hildegard had at first imagined was another deer lawn. It disappeared without a sound.

  ‘As I thought,’ he said.

  She shivered. ‘I’ve never encountered anything like this. My part of the country is dry chalk and heath. It’s a harsh land but it can be trusted. Not like this treacherous, secretive terrain.’

  She followed Gregory as he led his horse by the bridle as it assessed a safe track round the perimeter of yet another stretch of marsh.

  The danger was demonstrated by a horrifying sight a little further on.

  They had negotiated a tangled thicket and arrived in an open glade. Sunlight splintered through the branches of the trees. Ahead lay the now familiar acid green of another bog. Instead of a wide, placid surface it was turned into a muddy battle ground. A large animal was struggling for its life in the midst of this brilliance. It turned out to be a young stag, antlers still in velvet.

  Brother Gregory turned to Hildegard. ‘The poor creature must have been chased in terror by something until it slipped into the quagmire.’

  By now its struggles had sent it in its panic far from the bank and deeper into the marsh. It was clear to both of them that it was near the end of its strength,

  ‘We cannot hope to get near enough to pull the creature out,’ Gregory observed in a voice tinged with compassion.

  As they considered what, if anything, they might do to ease its anguish it slid without warning underneath the green lid of weed. Out of sight, it was still putting up a fight. A widening circle of muddy water betrayed its continuing struggle until little by little the turbulence ceased and weed began to float back over the surface like the closing of an eye lid.

  They rode on with more solemn caution after that.

  By the time night fell they had found a wood-built refuge where the only guest was one of the verderers who oversaw the stewardry of the Royal Forest. They were welcomed in by the warden who tended the refuge and after the offer of a bowl of pottage they joined in the conversation about forest matters, about how plentiful game was at present, how poachers were fewer, probably because of the violent punishment meted out in Westminster to those who were deemed guilty whether they were or not, and how this summary attitude to justice was spreading to the shires.

  The verderer chuckled. ‘It makes my life easier. Fear is a great instructor on the path to virtue.’

  Hildegard pondered his words as she said her goodnights to them all later. It was fear, certainly, that kept her from Hubert. Fear for his physical safety. Peter Abelard, despite being one of the greatest teachers of his age, had been castrated for his sin of fornication with Heloise, although how such love as they shared for the rest of the many decades of their lives that remained could be called a sin she could not accept, despite the Church’s teaching. Did her own and Hubert’s abstinence mak
e their chosen path true virtue - or was it something based, less nobly, on fear?

  Everyone had gone to their sleeping quarters soon after sundown, Gregory to his shared chamber with the verderer and the warden, Hildegard to a small loft at the top of a wooden ladder where she tossed and turned, unable to resolve the dilemma. Despite being curled up on a sack stuffed with sweet-smelling hay, sleep eluded her so that she was still awake far into the night when she heard the creak of the outside door, followed by the sound of voices in whispered discussion. Another traveller, she thought hazily as she tried to drift off to sleep.

  Next morning she and Gregory were out on the road before it was properly light while everyone else slept on. By the time the elegant spire of Salisbury Cathedral was visible as a spear of gleaming white above the tree tops, it was near on vespers.

  At first sight of their destination Gregory reined in his horse to savour the view. Then, standing in his stirrups, he gave a yawp of triumph like a Compostela pilgrim.

  ‘Thank God and St James! Hey, Hildegard! Look! Salisbury awaits!’ He shook the reins and led his horse at a gallop towards the town gate.

  THREE

  The Cat Tavern, less than a bow shot from Salisbury Cathedral, was host to several customers on this wet day. This was despite the weather that drew people to seek shelter and more to do with the tavern-keeper and his ale. She had discovered at once that it was remarkable for its quality.

  He was a genial fellow, she observed, the sort who keeps his own counsel and sides with no-one. Torrential rain somewhat heavier than a mere April shower had continued ever since she and Brother Gregory had arrived in Salisbury. The monk had just left for one of the little offices of the day and Hildegard was thinking about returning to her lodgings. With her ale mug empty only the thought of the soaking when she stepped outside was giving her pause for thoughtt.

  Retying a kerchief over her face to protect it from the wet, she glanced up suddenly when the tavern door flew open and a tall, athletic-looking fellow of middling years burst in.