At first Hildegard thought she was going to faint. It was clear he meant what he said. His knife had cut through her habit and through her shift as well and she could feel the edge of the blade piercing her flesh causing a sharp, bitter pain. It would take one swift movement and that would be the end. On one level she thought, so be it, but on another she felt blind rage that this creature should get the better of her.
‘If you kill me now you’ll never lay your hands on the list of loyal men,’ she told him, loud enough for anyone to overhear.
His fingers dug bruisingly into her waist. ‘You shout out like that again,’ he whispered, his lips against her ear so no-one could overhear, ‘and it will be your last utterance. Now walk and keep your voice down.’
‘Where are we walking to?’ she asked, lowering her voice and striving to keep the tremor out of it.
‘Never mind that. I know a place where you’ll be persuaded to tell me everything I want to know.’
‘What if I don’t have the list?’
‘You have it. You must have. Someone took it from the bag of gold and it could only be you. Did you imagine you were part of a plan to free Burley? Those fools, those men you want to save, fell into a trap. There was no plan. You owe them nothing. They are fools. They deserve to die. Now tell me where the list is, damn you!’
He was breathing heavily, his unshaven chin scraping her skin just as the knife did more secretly underneath her garments. ‘I want their names.’ he rasped when she failed to answer. ‘And then I want them dead.’
‘You’ve nothing to show for your murder of those two apprentices and now you’ve even lost the proof of their allegiance to King Richard,’ she said in a rush. ‘I don’t know how those boys were involved but proof that you murdered them in cold blood will be found. Don’t doubt it!’
‘Proof? Murders? What are you raving about?’
‘Don’t play the innocent with me!’ she shouted, losing her fear for a moment.
A man close by overheard her and butted in. ‘That’s right, mistress. You tell him what for. Playing you false.’
De Lincoln snarled at him to mind his own business and the man, cowed by the venom in his voice, melted quickly into the crowd.
He tightened his grip round her waist so that she could not move away. ‘What is this about? Explain,’ he demanded.
‘You know full well what it’s about! You managed to work the windlass in the steeple. Then you hauled Robin’s body up inside and left him to die,’ she spat. ‘After that you stole a mason’s gouge to silence one of Frank Atkinson’s friends, making sure that Frank was blamed. Next you tried to do away with him to confirm his guilt. Why, de Lincoln? Why did you do it?’
He frowned under his charcoal blackened face making himself look even more demonic. The crowd surged in joyful indifference around them.
‘Is this to do with the death of Robin the other day?’ he ground out.
‘You know it is!’
‘I won’t say I didn’t rejoice when he was done in,’ he admitted slowly. ‘He was trying to squeeze more money out of me for the piffling information he managed to give me. But I know nothing about how he got killed nor about the other young fellow.’
His pale eyes, paler than ever in contrast to his blackened features, flickered in puzzlement over her face.
‘You did not go to where the windlass men were working that night? You did not bribe them to leave so you could carry out your diabolical plan?’ Disbelief rang in her voice.
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
He looked so genuinely confused Hildegard could only gaze at him, searching for any crack in his mask of innocence.
He spoke first. ‘Hildegard, is this why you hate me so much? Because you believe I murdered a couple of youths here in Salisbury?’
‘They told me a stranger had bribed them to leave early - ’
‘Leave where?’
‘The steeple where the windlass is.’
‘Not me. How would I find my way up there? It’s madness. And anyway, how could it be me?’ He frowned. ‘I’m no stranger. Everybody knows me. I could hardly pass unnoticed in a town like this. I drink with the masons in the Cat. You know that. You’ve seen me. They all know me.’
She remembered how Gregory had described him drinking with Idonea and her friends. It was true he was known and was striking enough to be remembered.
‘But the men who told me this don’t drink in the Cat,’ she objected.
‘Then they probably go to the Hawthorn. That’s where the hard core rebels drink. They know me there too. Where do you imagine Robin used to get his paltry information from? Why do you imagine I drink in such low dives as that? Do you imagine it’s out of choice? It’s where I get my information. Robin wasn’t the only one. Anyone with anything to tell me and a passion for silver could find me there. They knew it. They know me.’
‘You used to meet Robin often?’
‘I’d meet him now and then. Find out what they were up to. Pretend to lose to him at dominoes.’
‘You speak as if you’ve been in this place for some time.’
‘And so I have. One of my father’s manors is near Clarendon as you well know.’
‘I thought you arrived here when we did.’
‘It’s true I picked you and your friends up at Lepe. My lord sent me there. All the ports are being watched. It’s not just for you and your abbot but for any traitors who think to escape justice. I was watching who came in and who went out.’
‘You really did see us there? I had begun to doubt it.’
‘It was chance I saw you dock during the storm. Nobody expected a ship to sail in such foul weather. Obviously I could do nothing else but follow. Whoever was onboard had taken a risk to come into harbour in all that. I wanted to know why.’
‘You were there in the ale house.’
He nodded. ‘I struck lucky. You and your abbot were on our list. Word was out that you’d vanished somewhere in France.’ He chuckled. ‘Your abbot’s besting of Gloucester’s vassal in Avignon spread like wild-fire. The Duke was furious. He had some intrigue going on with Pope Clement but you managed to spoil it. He gave orders to have the four of you picked up as soon as you reached England. All the ports are watched all the time now. Everybody knows that. It’s how we caught de la Pole sneaking into Calais. He only got away again through Hull because he has friends there. Down here it’s different. Don’t forget Arundel is Admiral of the southern fleet. You were allowed your freedom because I thought you might prove more useful that way.’ He gave her an almost admiring glance. ‘It was clever to choose Lepe. But,’ he added, ‘not clever enough.’
The crowd was pressing so tightly round them as some new spectacle hove into view that Hildegard felt faint again. They had got de Lincoln wrong. Their premises, as Gregory would put it, were ill-founded.
At the pressure of the knife to remind her she was in his power she felt her knees buckle. Resting on his arm despite herself she gasped, ‘I am cut and bleeding. De Lincoln, I shall faint - ’
He removed the knife in order to hold her in both arms. Rousing herself she contemplated the chance of escape but he must have seen the change in her expression because he pressed his lips against hers and as she tried to push him away he lifted his mouth enough to murmur, ‘Don’t try it. We have much to say.’
At that moment a litter borne aloft by half-a-dozen young men hove into view. Visible above the tops of people’s heads was one occupant, reclining under a heap of hawthorn blossom, his legs, still strapped, stretched out in front of him. It was Frank.
De Lincoln’s glance bored into her face but she turned in astonishment to watch the litter go by. Cheers rose on all sides. Then a crowd singing some anthem began to follow in its wake.
‘Why so interested in these peasant riots?’ he jeered.
‘That’s the man they accused of murdering Robin,’ she told him. ‘Surely you know that?’
‘Why do you imagine I’d wa
ste my time with ignorant superstitious folk like this other than to extract the truth about their treasonable activities? He’s just another of the ones who’ll rue the day they were born.’
She struggled, still grasped too tightly to escape. ‘I don’t understand. Who was the stranger in the steeple if not you?’
‘Maybe they did it themselves and invented him to save themselves from the gallows?’ He considered what he had just said and added, ‘If they found out Robin was an informer they would not stop until he was dead. That’s the punishment for traitors. When the serjeant took an interest they had to absolve themselves.’
What he said had the ring of truth. ‘But why murder Jack?’ she demanded.
‘Maybe he was going to blurt out the truth to the serjeant?’ He chuckled. ‘This will be the full story. I know these rough fellows. They burden themselves with words like truth and honour. They can never live up to their ideals. I’m aware of how they think. I know how they act. They’re simple folk, concerned only with the littleness of life.’
‘Death is not little to those who suffer it.’
‘We all have that ahead. It’s not only little, it’s commonplace.’
Hildegard saw the possibility that his guess about what had happened could be true and that she had got him utterly wrong.
‘You see,’ he moved his lips close to her mouth but did not touch it, ‘I am penitent, Hildegard.’ His voice roughened. ‘You will forgive me for what happened on Ludgate Hill. I had no idea they would do a thing like that to Rivera. Not there in the street without a trial. He had done good work for the Duke of Lancaster. It made all our lives precarious. I didn’t feel like staying under his vassalage if that was what might happen to me.’
She could only stare at him.
The crowd was carrying them along in the wake of the litter and before they knew it they were being pushed to a stop in a seething throng in front of St Thomas’s church.
Hildegard exerted the last of her failing strength to struggle out of his grasp but de Lincoln, in an absurd show of jollity, shouted, ‘All hail the wedding party! Look, mistress! How happy the man and wife!’
Then he lifted her up into his arms and spun her round. When he set her down he growled, ‘Don’t try that again. Look when I tell you to.’
He forced her head round in the direction he wanted and she saw two people wearing coronets of may blossom standing in the church porch.
One of them was Master Gervase. He had on a bright blue velvet houpelande and a proud smile. This was the wedding he had mentioned.
The figure beside him, the bride, flowing hair bedecked with blossom, caused Hildegard to open her mouth in astonishment.
THIRTY FIVE
As they watched, Frank’s litter was set down under the porch beside his sister. He had a flagon of ale in one hand and was laughing up at the couple in a toast. His voice floated clearly to where Hildegard and de Lincoln were standing.
‘Long life and future happiness! Gervase – and Idonea!’’
There were cheers from the onlookers. Girls pelted the couple with flowers and the wedding party, including a tribe of Gervase’s excited children and their nanny, with a few other adults, smiled with pleasure.
‘You’re looking at three men whose names were on that list,’ de Lincoln told her.
She recognised only the master and Frank.
Her glance turned to the bride. Idonea was radiantly beautiful. She broke off one of the blossoms from the hawthorn wreath she carried and gave it to her brother. All forgiven, thought Hildegard, until she noticed that the bride’s smile did not quite reach her eyes.
‘I can see you’re surprised,’ murmured de Lincoln in her ear. ‘And you would be even more surprised if you had heard from her own lips a story you will not believe.’
‘She looks happy,’ Hildegard countered.
‘Looks deceive,’ he gave her a derisory smile. ‘And I can tell you all you need to know about that little jade. One, she knows where her master’s gold is hidden. And two, she also knows where henbane grows.’ He chuckled. ‘A life for a life.’
Hildegard gazed in horror at the obvious happiness of Master Gervase and then at the girl clinging to his arm. Idonea’s vow of vengeance came back from, as it seemed, a different world. Did Idonea believe that Gervase was responsible for Robin’s death? She had no time to speculate.
‘We’re getting out of here for somewhere quieter.’ De Lincoln began to push her ahead of him through the crowd, shouting, ‘Make way for the holy sister. Make way!’ The hidden knife once again pressed into her ribs.
When they reached the fringe of the crowd he led her to a small grove of trees beside one of the waterways that took the town refuse into the river Avon. Secluded, it was a favourite trysting place for lovers but today, with everyone celebrating in a different manner, it was deserted.
De Lincoln pulled her to the ground and lay down beside her with the tip of his sword visible under the yellow fabric and the knife poking between her ribs. ‘Tell me something. You noticed the old knight standing beside Master Gervase?’
‘Only vaguely.’ She pictured the wedding group in the porch. Now she remembered where she had seen the fellow before. It was in the woods on the way to Clarendon when she and Gregory had been following de Lincoln.
When she said nothing else, he smiled. ‘I’ll tell you who he is, apart from Gervase’s brother-in-law. He’s the ring-leader of the plot to free Simon Burley. He also has aspirations to summon an armed uprising of like souls in the South West, with himself at the head of the Salisbury array, of course.’
‘On behalf of King Richard?’ she stuttered.
He glowered at being reminded that Richard was still king. ‘That weakling,’ he growled. ‘When Gloucester has purged the court of Richard’s affinity he will have the upper hand and then it will be his faction who rule England. We’ll have no more talk of peace with the French.’
‘And Bolingbroke? Is he agreed to his uncle Gloucester’s ambition?’
‘He will reveal his hand when the time is ripe.’
‘So tell me, de Lincoln, if you will, do you serve Gloucester, Arundel, or the House of Lancaster?’
‘I serve who pays.’
‘Not very noble.’
‘I’m a practical man.’
He was still stretched out by her side, half leaning over her in order to maintain the threat of the knife.
‘You clearly don’t trust me to stay with you without the fear of your blade in my entrails,’ she remarked, looking down to where it was hidden.
‘I trust no one. Nor would you if you understood with what ease men and women betray their friends.’
‘How do you know about the master’s brother-in-law?’ she asked.
‘Robin was ever talkative.’
‘What’s the man’s name?’
‘I thought you’d know. It’s Sir Maurice de Quincy.’
It was a name on the list of loyalists. ‘And does Sir Maurice suspect that Robin has been talking to you?’
‘Not he. Too sure of himself. A veteran of the French wars. Made his money and acquired his lands and now thinks to betray his liege lord Arundel under the mistaken impression he’s invincible.’
‘A delusion many men share,’ she mocked.
‘And the truth is, some are.’ He smiled, a brief flash of light.
‘You clearly imagine yourself in that category.’
‘So far, so good.’ His smile fled and the lightless eyes flickered over her with ironic meaning while she asked herself whether Sir Maurice suspected that the plan to free Sir Simon Burley had been betrayed by Robin.
If he did, then how ruthless was he? Did he deem it advisable to rid the group of a traitor? A just punishment for a crime against King Richard’s most powerful remaining ally?
She shifted position but de Lincoln leaned more heavily over her. She looked up into his face. ‘Why are we waiting here?’
‘You know why. I’m a patient man. I want
that list. It’s my written proof of a widespread plot to free Burley in order to have him lead an army from the south west. Nothing could be more damning. Now you have a choice, my lady. You can tell me where it is without pain, or you can tell me where it is with pain. I can guarantee the latter will not be pleasant. Which is it to be?’
‘I choose not to tell you at all.’
He took one of her hands in his and before she could move he had bent her thumb so far back she thought he would dislocate it but when he saw the darkening in her eyes even though she refused to cry out, he stopped.
‘That’s for starters. And don’t try to wriggle free because my knife is exceedingly sharp.’
Hildegard gazed at him without expression. She would never give in.
He sighed. ‘You accept that we have reached stale-mate?’ When she made no answer he urged. ‘It’s your move, my lady.’
A dazzle of something white seen out of the corner of her eye alerted her to the presence of a figure walking towards them from between the trees.
A voice demanded, ‘Let the domina go free - !’
While de Lincoln glanced up in surprise, thinking they were alone, Hildegard rolled swiftly from under him and out of the reach of his knife and as she stumbled to her feet and he tried to drag her back Brother Gregory’s sword flashed towards de Lincoln’s exposed throat.
He was on his feet in an instant, sword unsheathed and emerging from beneath the gown, while one hand reached out to drag Hildegard in front of him as a hostage. With an oath he lunged towards Brother Gregory. Hildegard was alert enough to take the opportunity to squirm out of reach again.
Gregory parried de Lincoln’s attack. With a dazzle of white teeth, the monk gave a smile of joy. ‘At last! The owner of the damascene sword!’
He saluted from habit and then lunged at de Lincoln who, again distracted both by Hildegard’s escape and by Gregory’s speed, fell back a pace or two, recovered, then parried Gregory’s next thrust and came after him with a show of skill that was dazzling to witness.
In fact, a few people, attracted by the clash of steel, were already emerging from between the trees to watch.
The Scandal of the Skulls Page 31
