The Scandal of the Skulls

by Cassandra Clark

  ‘It’s a phrase that covered a host of possible betrayals and disappointments,’ she agreed.

  ‘As then, so now.’ He turned to Jonathan. ‘It looks to me, young hawk, that we are at an impasse already. I’m sorry we were unable to help you or you us.’

  ‘You mean you’re going to let these fellows get away with it?’

  ‘What else can we do? We cannot condone bribery.’

  FIFTEEN

  They made their farewells and next saw Jonathan an hour later in the cathedral along with other worshippers from the town. They also caught sight of Richard Medford standing in among a group of canons but gave him a wide birth when it came time to leave.

  He was looking more haunted than ever, Hildegard thought, as they loitered near the door afterwards. She surprised herself by wanting to reach out to him, to offer what strength she could. It was painful to imagine what he was going through. Her response surprised her because he had been no friend of hers at Westminster. He had played a crooked game and had been instrumental in bringing Rivera to his doom. Yet his loyalty to the young king could not be questioned. It over-rode everything else. In her eyes it was the one thing that redeemed him.

  His intransigence when it came to dealing with Lancaster’s spies last year seemed to have been overtaken by a remarkable softening in his nature but she reminded herself that in truth he deserved little sympathy. It was all very well being incarcerated in the Tower like Rivera and surviving the torture usually inflicted on prisoners, but at least he had been set free.

  If it had come to it, she wondered, would he have acted as Rivera did afterwards, offering his life in exchange for someone else’s in front of a howling mob of drunken Londoners, with Swynford’s men toting their weapons to make sure he didn’t escape? She doubted it.

  He would probably have been on his knees, begging for mercy.

  Reminded of Rivera she was brought low again and chided herself for allowing such weakness to enter her soul yet again. De Lincoln’s presence was a sufficient reminder of King Richard’s ubiquitous and ruthless enemies. What he called his epiphany she took with a pinch of salt.

  Gregory turned to her. ‘I can read you, Hildegard. After those weeks on the road I’m sure you can read me too.’

  ‘So what are you reading, Gregory?’

  ‘Your grief has risen up again like a black tide. It will swamp you unless you find help. I will say this only once more, but you must talk to Hubert when he arrives. I beseech you.’

  ‘Maybe you’re right. If I can find a way to do it.’

  ‘I’m sure you can.’

  ‘I’m not changing the subject but there is one thing at present that needs an answer. De Lincoln said he wanted me to do something for him. What do you imagine it could be?’

  ‘Something to which your answer will be no.’

  ‘Undoubtedly.’

  ‘Good. Now let’s go for a stroll round the Close in the belief that God is on our side.’

  With no further progress possible in their scarcely begun endeavour to find the killers of the apprentice, and with nothing further they could do to find answers to the questions aroused by de Lincoln, they had time on their hands.

  ‘Until Hubert and Egbert send word that they’ve finished their business in Lymington we may as well explore,’ suggested Gregory. Finding no opposition from Hildegard, he continued, ‘I’m interested in this wondrous steeple they’ve caused to rise to such a height. Aren’t you curious to know how they managed it? It seems like a miracle, it’s so high and fine.’

  He put his head back to gaze up at the distant spire. It seemed to float in the air, as ethereal and as flimsy as gauze, at one with the misty air.

  ‘Did angels fly down from heaven to lend their help?’ he asked in a whimsical tone, ‘Or was it a human being who had the courage to climb out there to attach the finials?’

  Hildegard had no idea and said so. ‘I would hate to find myself climbing about at the top of such an edifice. It’s a terrifying thought.’ Reminded of Avignon, when she had been forced to escape onto the roof of the Pope’s palace, she forgot all thoughts of Rivera for the moment.

  ‘It would require great trust in your work mates, wouldn’t it?’ Gregory continued in a musing tone. ‘Let’s see if we can go up and get a closer look. What do you say?’

  ‘I’m for it’

  ‘Come on then. Let’s make use of our special status as wealthy Cistercians and beg whoever is in charge to conduct us to the top.’

  They went over to the mason’s lodge and by chance came across the master himself. He had apparently just finished giving some instructions to the foreman they had met earlier and now turned to greet them as soon as they stepped foot through the gate into the private ground of the lodge.

  Gregory was at his most urbane and soon the men were chatting amiably while Hildegard looked on.

  Master Gervase was a dapper fellow in the prime of life. His beard was short and neat and streaked with only a little grey. He wore a dark green capuchon of good quality velvet with a matching cote-hardie trimmed at neck and cuffs with miniver. Knee boots of a soft creamy colour completed his ensemble. His manner showed that he was used to wielding authority but it was clear from his attire that today he was not working alongside his men as usual.

  Gregory was being particularly deferential and when he eventually broached the question of being permitted to ascend the steeple the master gave a glance at Hildegard which the monk neatly intercepted.

  ‘The domina will be quite at home. She was in Florence recently where there are many new buildings. She’s keen to see inside your miraculous steeple in order to advise her prioress on some intended building works in Yorkshire.’

  ‘Ah,’ replied Gervase, thoughtfully. ‘York is impressive. A lot of building going on in the county. I served my apprenticeship there.’

  She turned to him. ‘Then you may know Master Sueno de Schockwynde?’

  A great bellow of delight escaped the master. ‘Do I know him! Old Sueno? Well, well...I surely do. What’s he up to these days?’

  A few moments of reminiscence passed in this discovery of a mutual acquaintance until Gervase said, ‘We masons get around but I have to admit I’ve been fairly well grounded here in Salisbury these last six years or more. Family,’ he murmured as if that one word explained everything.

  Hildegard remembered the rumoured children and his widowhood but Gervase was already leading the way towards the entrance to the cathedral. They skirted blocks of stone with men working assiduously as soon as they saw the master coming.

  Idonea’s brother was bent over the same block with the same surly expression as before. Master Gervase stopped for a moment and reminded him about later and Frank briefly lifted his head and for a moment a hint of pleasure softened his hard features.

  ‘My thanks, master. I will,’ he nodded. He bent over his work again without acknowledging either Brother Gregory or Hildegard.

  ‘Are you frightened of heights?’ asked the master of them both as they made their way to the entrance. ‘It’s four hundred feet in all but we can only go up to two fifty or thereabouts. It’s still a climb, enough to keep me fit!’ he exclaimed with evident pleasure.

  They started in one of the slender towers on the south side and after a steep climb up a spiral stair carried on at the mason’s heels across a wooden landing. They were already quite high and Hildegard felt a qualm as she looked down into the nave. It was a long drop from the narrow plank that crossed from one side to the other.

  It would be easy to fall to one’s death from here, or be pushed, A lot easier if you wanted to get rid of someone than trussing them up in a rope and having them winched up high and left there. Had the murderer not thought of that?

  They had only just started the climb, high though they already were, and it was not until some time later, after ascending by a variety of wooden ladders, stone steps, and another plank bridge, that they finally stepped through a door into a round chamber that s
oared into darkness above their heads.

  A single, narrow ladder led upwards into what Idonea had described without exaggeration as a cat’s cradle of timbers.

  ‘This is our limit today,’ Gervase told them, trying to catch his breath. ‘But just come and look at this view.’

  He beckoned them to a window-slit where they could peer out across the Close towards the jumble of buildings beside the river and on over water meadows and eventually to open countryside. Keen to impress them he led across the chamber to another window-slit on the opposite side.

  ‘Sarum,’ he pointed, ‘the original site for our wonderful church. But this new one is the true and magnificent one now. Look, there’s the old castle and over there, the Forest of Clarendon. This is the best view in all of new Salisbury.’

  Next to the windlass was an opening in the floor. It was large enough to haul in the materials the masons would need to carry out their work, wide enough, Hildegard noted, for a body to be lifted inside. Had that been the intention of the murderer of poor Robin? If so, why had he not continued but left the body dangling inside the cathedral?

  While Gregory plied the master with technical questions about the construction of the squinch arches that held up the octagonal timber spire Hildegard took the opportunity to have a close look round.

  The body had been hauled up by means of the great wooden windlass. That much was known. Fact. It took up most of the chamber. She heard Master Gervase telling Gregory how a false floor had to be fitted for it to rest on and how it usually took four men to set it in motion. ‘Depends on the strength in the legs of your men!’ he joked. ‘We’ve had one or two Goliaths who could get it moving by themselves.’

  It was a massive contraption and she imagined the effort it would need to keep it treadling materials up to where they were now standing on the edge of the gaping hole in the floor. A fifth man had to control the brake so that supplies, once pulled to the top, did not go hurtling to the ground again. Gervase showed them the lever that held the wheel stationary.

  ‘Wonderful invention,’ he told them. ‘Without windlasses like these, the great cathedrals going up these days would take ten times as long to build and we’d have masons hanging around twiddling their thumbs half the day, waiting for materials or having to manhandle them to the top themselves. Makes you think, eh?’

  What it made Hildegard think was about the dead man, hanging for hours by his feet with his cries for help going unheard. It prompted her to ask, ‘Master, about the apprentice who so unluckily met his death - ?’

  Master Gervase cut her off with an abrupt gesture. His expression darkened. ‘Horse-play, domina. Don’t believe all you hear. Nothing criminal about it. We’ll get to the bottom of it if we’re left in peace to ferret out the truth. It’s obvious some lads thought they’d tie him up for a joke. It’s the sort of thing they do. They weren’t guild masons because otherwise they’d have known my men were still working up here.’

  ‘At night?’

  The master looked confused at this. ‘We do work nights. Sometimes have to. Never finish otherwise and our contract would be broken. Big fine to follow.’

  ‘I take it that the chapters of the guilds sometimes have their own rules?’

  ‘We have our council and abide by their decisions. Everything correct and on the square. You can be sure of that, domina.’

  ‘The masons who found a body hauled part way up instead of building materials must have been shocked,’ observed Gregory mildly. ‘They must have wondered what on earth they had on their pulley until they saw it more clearly when dawn broke. Or was it someone from the cathedral who noticed him first?’

  ‘A very sad business,’ said the master mason with finality as if he had answered Gregory’s question. ‘I recommend you leave all speculation to the coroner and his men.’ He began to urge them towards the descent. ‘I shall ask you to tread most carefully on the way down. We don’t want any more fatalities, do we?’

  His eyes fixed in turn first on Gregory and then, for longer, on Hildegard.

  Gregory, however, was not to be fobbed off by covert threats. ‘I wonder,’ he remarked in his familiar mild tones, ‘at the fact that they did not raise the alarm at once?’

  They descended in silence.

  ‘He did not answer your question.’

  ‘He did not,’ Gregory replied. ‘Nor did he say when his men finished their work up there.’

  ‘I’m not familiar with the masons’ ordinances but I do wonder why they had to work at night. I know it’s forbidden between sunset and sunrise. An exception was made for Eltham on the order of King Richard but not here, surely?’

  ‘The fracas caused by lads breaking the curfew was round about midnight, according to Mistress Marjery, but the body wasn’t found until Lauds.’

  ‘Just as it started to get light.’

  Gregory strolled along beside Hildegard until they came to the door of the Benedictine guest house where she was staying. Before she went in he turned to her. ‘So?’ He gave her a long look.

  She interpreted it at once. ‘He knows who did it?’

  ‘I would say so, wouldn’t you? But they’re his flock, he’s not going to turn any of them over to another authority. These guilds have their own punishments for those who flout their laws.’

  ‘A fine would scarcely be adequate for such a crime.’

  ‘But he clearly does not see it as a crime. Merely as horse-play that got out of hand.’

  ‘How do you see it, Gregory?’

  He pursed his lips. ‘It’s obvious we need to find out who was in the spire that night and above all we need to discover the intentions of the lads who strung him up. Intention is everything.’

  ‘So the moral philosophers tell us. And of course, sometimes it is more charitable to believe so. We can all claim good intentions for ourselves after any iniquity whatsoever in that case.’

  The Benedictine sister who had offered such understanding towards Hildegard after her shock on discovering de Lincoln’s part in Rivera’s execution, greeted her warmly when she went in. Her manner encouraged Hildegard to ask about Master Gervase.

  ‘Living so close, you must know him well?’ she suggested. ‘How on earth does he manage?’

  ‘He has that housekeeper though she’s getting on now. He can pay for house help, of course, not short of a penny, our Gervase. He manages. Of course, a widower is never short of female helpers whether they have designs on him or not.’

  Hildegard nodded. ‘And do they have designs?’

  ‘Women like to cluck over menfolk, don’t they?’ Sister Elwis sighed. ‘But take the poor mother of the boy that was killed. That’s a different story.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Who is there to help her now her bread-winner has gone? You don’t see men rushing to help a woman over eighteen these days.’

  ‘Is she finding it hard?’

  ‘She’s a widow and he was her only one.’

  ‘I see.’

  Her sharp eyes scrutinised Hildegard’s expression. ‘Maybe, domina, you’d like to come a-visiting when I’ve finished my duties here?’

  ‘I would indeed if she wouldn’t find it an intrusion.’

  ‘You can persuade her that it wouldn’t be the end of the world,’ the sister crossed herself, ‘if she decided to take the veil?’

  ‘I could certainly do that. I’ve had few regrets.’

  Not many, she thought. Mainly one. But then he was also vowed to chastity so even if she had been free.....and amid such confusing speculations she went up to the solitude of her small guest chamber where she sat down on the bed with a sigh.

  He would arrive soon enough and Gregory expected her to talk to him about what, exactly? Rivera? Her feelings for him? The lengths she had been forced to go to help foil a plot against King Richard?

  But then, the lengths, such as they were, had been the deepest pleasure and the purest joy.

  Should she also tell Hubert that?

  Gregor
y reached over and refilled Hildegard’s beaker with small ale.

  ‘My thanks, Gregory. It’s strange, isn’t it? To find ourselves here, doing not very much at all when usually we’re so busy?’

  ‘Is time hanging heavily on your hands?’

  ‘I merely wonder that you seem to have given up so easily on the task of questioning your hawk’s fellows.’

  ‘Have I given up?’ He fixed her with a quizzical smile.

  ‘You said to your little hawk that there was nothing any of us could do more.’

  ‘I merely said I did not condone bribery. That would be a slippery slope. The next stop would be torture, would it not?’

  ‘By you?’ she smiled indulgently.

  ‘Even so, I have uttered no word to imply that I have given up. I merely failed to rise to the bait of offering a bribe to loosen tongues.’

  Hildegard looked at him over the rim of her beaker and when she had drunk enough she replaced it and said, ‘I believe someone told me you became known as a formidable chess player on the Jerusalem road?’

  ‘It sometimes helped pay for my bed and board.’ He chuckled. ‘I’ve already told you I’m interested in motives.’

  ‘While you’re planning your next gambit then, this morning I shall pay a visit to the mother of the murdered youth.’

  His pupils narrowed with amusement. ‘To play chess?’

  ‘Not with your skill. My husband taught me and he loved to win, whether by cheating or skill was all the same to him. I prefer the honest approach so I’ll tell you how I arrived at this move.’ She replaced her beaker and Gregory, with his usual alacrity, refilled it as she explained.

  She began by remarking, ‘Your question to Master Gervase about his men’s failure to call for help when they found a body hanging from their rope was a good one.’