Cynric gaped at him. ‘We cannot go inside! What if the defences are breached while we are in there? We would be torn to shreds.’
‘It is a risk we must take,’ said Bartholomew. ‘How else will we explain the plan?’
‘But they are French, boy,’ objected Cynric. ‘The villains we fought at Poitiers.’
‘We did not fight women, priests and children,’ argued Bartholomew. ‘Or the Tangmer clan, whose only crime was to offer sanctuary to people in need.’
‘You may have fought the Jacques, though,’ muttered Michael acidly. ‘Unless they were too busy rebelling against their aristocratic overlords to defend their country at Poitiers.’
‘Jacques?’ pounced Cynric, his eyes alight with interest. ‘Some are Jacques? Why did you not say so? I have no problem helping brothers who stand against oppression.’
‘Good,’ said Bartholomew, too desperate for Cynric’s help to confess that the Jacques were no longer in there. ‘Now, show us this tunnel before it is too late.’
As Cynric led the way cautiously through the shrieking besiegers, Bartholomew saw the Welshman was right to predict that it was only a matter of time before the Spital’s defences were breached. At the front, a determined but inept gang of townsmen was trying to set the gates alight, while all along the sides were folk wielding axes, picks and hammers. At the same time, a number of resourceful scholars were busily constructing makeshift ladders, ready to scale the walls.
Then they reached the back, and Bartholomew felt hope stir within him. No one was there, because the whole area was choked with brambles, so that reaching a wall to batter at was impractical. But even as he drew breath to point this out, a mass of bobbing torches signalled the arrival of more rioters, all eager to find a hitherto unoccupied spot where they could stand and howl abuse.
‘Stupid Tangmer!’ spat Cynric, as the newcomers began to bellow at the strangers inside. ‘He could have made it out earlier, but it will be ten times harder now that Isnard and his friends have arrived.’
Bartholomew peered into the gloom and saw it was indeed the bargeman and his cronies who had laid claim to the back wall. All had drunk themselves into a frenzy of hatred, and the vile words and threats that spilled from their mouths shocked him to the core. He wondered if he would ever see them in the same light again.
He glanced behind him, and saw that the last of the Horde had vanished, leaving just him, Cynric, Prior John, Michael and the six canons. His stomach churned. The plan’s success depended on no one noticing what he was about to do, which would be all but impossible with so few helpmeets. If just one man looked across at the wrong time . . .
‘Right,’ whispered Cynric, stopping near a particularly dense thicket of brambles. ‘Tell us the plan. I hope it is a good one, or your Frenchies will die and the Tangmers with them.’
Everyone looked expectantly at Bartholomew, who scrabbled around for inspiration.
‘The canons must holler that they have spotted a spy, then make a show of running after him,’ he said, thinking fast. ‘The mob will scent blood and join the chase, leaving the rest of us to slip into the tunnel unseen.’
There was silence as the others regarded him in consternation. He did not blame them. There was a lot that could go wrong, and he was not happy with it himself, but it was all he could devise on the spur of the moment.
‘But no one will believe us!’ gulped John. ‘We are men of God – the rioters will know we are not in the habit of flying off after some hapless soul like a pack of savages.’
‘You are not,’ agreed Cynric, eyes narrowed in thought. ‘But Isnard is. Make sure he hears when you raise the alarm, and he will do the rest.’
‘Yell as loudly as you can,’ Michael instructed the Gilbertines, his voice unsteady with agitation. ‘It would have been better with more men to help, but . . .’
‘Do not worry, Brother,’ said John, grimly determined. ‘We know what is at stake. You can rely on us to do what is necessary.’
‘Then let us begin,’ said Cynric.
Bartholomew had no real hope that the diversion would work, because John was right: who would believe that the gentle, kindly Gilbertines would bay for the blood of strangers? But Cynric had the right of it, and bigotry saved the day. Isnard was livid at the notion that the enemy might be escaping right under his nose, and his bellows of rage drowned out all else. Within moments, the canons were leading a demented, screaming mass of drunken zealots over the fields at the back of the Spital, Isnard swinging after them on his crutches.
‘Now, follow me,’ Cynric hissed to Bartholomew and Michael when they had gone.
He ducked into the brambles and was immediately lost from sight. Bartholomew did likewise, Michael at his heels. It was almost pitch black without the rioters’ torches, but they could just make out a rough, winding path through the foliage.
‘Someone has used this today,’ whispered the book-bearer, although how he could tell in the dark was beyond Bartholomew. ‘Sir Leger on his horse probably, which means he is inside, waiting for the best chance to lead his charges out. Good! Let us hope he has them assembled, so they will be ready to go at once.’
‘I think we might have made a tactical blunder by sending the rioters across the fields,’ blurted Michael suddenly. ‘Because they will be coming back – empty-handed and furious – in exactly the direction that we will be taking the peregrini.’
‘There is a concealed track,’ whispered Cynric. ‘Leger must have used it safely today, or someone would have noticed him riding back here and disappearing – and the Spital would be in flames already.’
They reached the wall, where a short, steep slope led down to an arch that was almost invisible in the gloom. Cynric slithered towards it and began to wrestle with a gate. Bartholomew followed, helping the less-agile Michael and marvelling that Leger had convinced a horse to make the journey.
‘How did you find it?’ he whispered, thinking that it would never have occurred to him to explore briar thickets in search of hidden entrances.
‘By being thorough,’ replied Cynric, ‘which was important when I thought Satan was going to live here. But we can discuss this later. Now, get inside. Hurry!’
‘You first,’ said Bartholomew, regarding the gate and the passage beyond uneasily. He could see nothing but blackness. ‘You have done it before.’
But Cynric shook his head. ‘I had best stay here, ready to create the second diversion, which must be done properly, or you will all be killed as you come out. Prior John cannot do it, because even Isnard will be suspicious if he tried the same thing twice.’
It was a good point, although Bartholomew was dismayed to learn that Cynric would not be there when he ventured inside the Spital. The book-bearer was much better at anything that required sneaking around in the dark than him or Michael.
Heart pounding, and expecting at any moment to hear a screech to say they had been discovered, he stepped into the tunnel, one hand on the wall as he made his way along it. It was damp and stank of mould. The ground descended sharply, then began to rise again as they passed under the wall’s foundations. Then his groping hands encountered another door. He grasped the handle and pushed. It opened, and fresh air wafted around him.
He emerged behind a compost heap, near the blackened rubble of the shed. Cautiously, he peered around, hoping desperately that the peregrini would be waiting there, but nothing moved.
‘It should have been me left behind to handle the second diversion,’ grumbled Michael, brushing dirt from his habit. ‘I am not built for creeping about in underground passages. I am not a ferret.’
Bartholomew motioned him to silence, then crept forward cautiously. Two lamps burned near the gate, while more were lit in the chapel, but other than those, the Spital was in darkness. Moreover, there were no sentries on the wall or patrolling the grounds to raise the alarm in the event of a breach.
‘The Tangmers were standing guard when we arrived,’ he whispered. ‘Cynric saw one of
them. Now they are not. Does it mean they escaped while we were walking about outside?’
‘I think we would have seen them,’ said Michael worriedly. ‘But look how many lamps blaze in the chapel. I have a bad feeling that they aim to claim sanctuary.’
‘But they will not get it!’ gulped Bartholomew in alarm. ‘In Winchelsea, the parish church was set alight with dozens of people locked inside – the peregrini and the Tangmers will suffer the same fate if they are caught in there. We have to get them out!’
He began to stumble across the uneven ground towards it, Michael at his heels. They reached the hall and aimed for the chapel’s main door, but it was locked. No one answered their frantic knocking, so they hurried to the side entrance in the hope of making themselves heard there. It was open. Bartholomew stepped inside and immediately smelled burning. He grabbed a lantern and ran into the chancel, coughing as smoke swirled around him.
‘Where are they?’ demanded Michael, peering around through smarting eyes. ‘And what is on fire?’
‘Amphelisa’s workshop,’ rasped Bartholomew as he started down the nave. ‘I told her the chapel was not a good place for it. It is too close to those great piles of firewood.’
‘Unseasoned firewood,’ rasped Michael, ‘which is why there is so much smoke. We—’
He faltered when a figure appeared through the swirling whiteness. It was a large Benedictine nun with a wet scarf over her nose and mouth. She had exchanged her black cloak for Amphelisa’s old burgundy one, which was so impregnated with spilled oils that Bartholomew could smell them even over the stench of burning.
Behind her were three men, all armed with crossbows. Their faces were also masked, although Bartholomew recognised Leger’s fair hair, and thought the other two were knights from the castle.
‘Why could you two not have minded your own business?’ growled Joan crossly. ‘I suppose you used that wretched tunnel to sneak in.’
‘How did you know about—’ began Michael.
‘I had a good look around when I was billeted here,’ replied Joan briskly, and shook her head in exasperation. ‘I had no wish to kill you, but now I have no choice.’
‘I will do it,’ offered Leger helpfully.
CHAPTER 17
There was silence in the chapel, then Bartholomew leapt at Leger, in the hope that a swift assault would give him a vital advantage. It was a mistake. With indolent ease, Leger twisted away, and Bartholomew went flying from a casual blow with the crossbow. It did him no harm, but he landed in a place where the smoke was much thicker, simultaneously blinding him and rendering him helpless from lack of air.
‘Put them with the others,’ he heard Joan order. ‘Quickly now.’
‘Why?’ demanded Leger. ‘I can shoot them down here.’
‘It is a chapel,’ snapped Joan. ‘A holy place. Now do as I say. Hurry!’
Bartholomew tried to scramble away when the knights came, but they knew how to handle awkward prisoners. He and Michael were bundled through Amphelisa’s smouldering workshop and up the steps to the balcony. As the door was opened, an almighty racket broke out. Children sobbed, women screamed for mercy, and old men wailed in terror. Bartholomew and Michael were shoved inside so roughly that both fell. The clamour intensified.
‘Silence!’ roared Joan. ‘Or you will be sorry.’
‘This is a holy place, too,’ Michael reminded her as the din petered out. ‘Part of the chapel. If you spill blood up here, you will be damned for all eternity.’
‘Who said anything about spilling blood?’ asked Joan shortly.
Bartholomew sat up, acutely aware of the snap and crackle of the fire below. Smoke oozed through the floorboards. He blinked tears from his stinging eyes, and saw the peregrini and staff huddled at the far end. So were the Jacques.
‘You think burning people alive is acceptable, but shooting them is not?’ breathed Michael. ‘Please, Joan! Think of your immortal soul!’
‘I am thinking of it,’ snarled Joan. ‘Which is why I must avenge Winchelsea. It would be a far greater sin to pretend it never happened.’
‘It is not for you to dispense justice!’ cried Michael. ‘It—’
‘Who will, then?’ she demanded tightly. ‘The survivors of Winchelsea? All the fighting men are dead. The King? He is too busy with his war. Mother Church? She brays her horror, but her priests lack the courage to act.’
‘Not them – God,’ said Michael. ‘He will punish the guilty.’
‘Quite,’ said Joan. ‘And I am His instrument, doing His will.’
‘He does not want this!’ Michael was shocked. ‘And your actions will only compound the atrocity. Murdering more people will not make it better.’
‘On the contrary, those whose loved ones were butchered by French raiders will take comfort from it. They said so as I helped them bury their innocent dead.’
Michael indicated the peregrini. ‘They also lost loved ones that day. Delacroix’s brothers were killed defending Winchelsea.’
‘They are spies,’ stated Joan uncompromisingly. ‘They wrote to the French, advising them when best to attack Winchelsea. The Mayor told me personally. It is their fault the slaughter was so terrible and they will pay for their treachery today.’
Her eyes blazed, and Bartholomew knew Michael was wasting his time trying to reason with her. Meanwhile, the smoke grew denser with every passing moment, and her prisoners were already struggling to breathe.
‘You cannot be party to this, Leger,’ shouted Michael, snatching at straws in his desperation. ‘You are a knight – your duty is to protect the weak.’
‘My duty is to protect England from the French,’ countered Leger. ‘Which is what I am doing. Besides, you may have forgotten Norbert, but I never shall.’
‘Norbert?’ blurted Michael. ‘What does he have to do with it?’
‘He was murdered in that skirmish by foreign scholars. And since Tulyet refuses to take a stand against them, I have joined ranks with someone who will.’
He nodded to his fellows and they prepared to leave. Bartholomew was in an agony of tension. He had to stop them! Once the door was locked – and he was sure Joan would have the only key – their victims’ fate was sealed. There would be no escape from the flames.
‘Joan used Norbert,’ he yelled, hoping Leger would turn against her if he knew the truth. ‘Deceived him. It was not Alice who told him that the Spital harboured French spies – it was Joan. She deliberately misled him by aping Alice’s scratching.’
‘But French spies are hiding here,’ shrugged Leger. ‘And Norbert would not have cared which nun the information came from – just that she was right.’
‘You will not live long once you leave,’ warned Bartholomew, opting for another strategy. ‘Like Goda, you will be stabbed to tie up loose ends. And if you want proof, look at Joan’s shoes – stained with the oil that spilled as she chased Goda around this—’
Eudo tore at Joan, bellowing his rage and grief. Leger shot him. The big man thudded to the floor and lay still.
‘I did chase her,’ admitted Joan, regarding the dead man with a chilling lack of emotion. ‘But I did not kill her – she had grabbed a knife from the kitchen and she fell on it as we raced around. Her blood is not on my hands.’
‘Paris,’ said Michael, declining to argue semantics with her. ‘You killed him for—’
‘For being French,’ spat Joan. ‘And his death is your fault – I would not have known he even existed if you lot had not made such a fuss about him stealing someone else’s work. And as for that spicer – well, he had to die after he had the audacity to inform me that the Dauphin only did in Winchelsea what English soldiers do in France.’
Most of the prisoners were on their knees or lying down, gasping for air. Only Delacroix remained stubbornly upright, glaring defiance through streaming eyes.
‘And the Girard family?’ asked Michael. ‘I assume you could not bring yourself to knife the little girl, so you put a soporific in her milk.’
Joan winced. ‘It was cowardly of me.’
‘Yet you helped to rescue Hélène. Were you not afraid she would identify you?’
‘One nun looks much like another to children. And as for pulling her from the shed . . . well, suffice to say that I was caught up in the moment.’
‘How did you stab four adults with such ease?’ asked Michael, casting an agonised glance at Bartholomew, begging him to act while he kept her talking. ‘Two were Jacques – experienced fighters.’
‘Experienced fighters who turned their backs on a nun,’ said Joan shortly. She opened the bag she carried over her shoulder and began to rummage about inside it. ‘Now, enough talking. I am—’
‘Bruges and Sauvage were next, even though neither was French,’ persisted Michael.
‘I pray that God will forgive my mistake.’ Joan pulled two daggers from the bag and dropped them on the floor, where they joined a number of others already lying there. ‘I collected these after Winchelsea, when I vowed that a French life would pay for every English one. Today will see that oath more than fulfilled.’
‘You only found one of the batch she left when she dispatched the Girards,’ put in Leger gloatingly. ‘You might have had answers a lot sooner if you had been more thorough.’
Michael ignored him and continued to address Joan. ‘And when these weapons are found, I suppose you will have a flash of memory, which will “prove” that the peregrini killed Paris and the others.’ His expression was one of deep disgust.
Joan inclined her head. ‘Although your Junior Proctor will have to act on my testimony now, given that you will not be in a position to do it.’
‘Wait!’ shouted Michael desperately, as she turned to leave. ‘You cannot do this!’
Joan paused and regarded him thoughtfully. ‘Before I go, answer one question: how did you guess it was me? Not from that stupid comb I dropped when I dispatched Paris? I had a feeling that Abbess Isabel recognised it before I managed to reclaim the thing. Is that why Alice took it from my bag? To give to her, so she could be certain?’
The Sanctuary Murders: The Twenty Fourth Chronicle of Matthew Bartholomew (Chronicles of Matthew Bartholomew Book 24) Page 35
