[Hildegard of Meaux 06] - The Butcher of Avignon

by Cassandra Clark

  The flaming torch one of them carried swung from side to side and in its sweeping glare she caught a glimpse of Hubert as the barrel he was lying on was dislodged and he was falling down between the toppling barrels to land with a thunderous crash on the cellar floor.

  A dark shape loomed over him.

  ‘And who have we here?’ It was Escrick. His tone was gloating. ‘Is it a spy I see before me?’

  **

  Down below in the circle of light Hildegard saw Hubert rise to his feet but before he could do anything Escrick smashed one mailed fist into his face. Hubert staggered but came back with bunched fists but before he could return the blow the other man-at-arms grabbed him from behind. Once, twice, Escrick hit him in the face again until blood poured down his face. Hubert said not a word.

  She watched as the guard jerked Hubert so hard back he nearly lost his footing. ‘A Cistercian?’ He spat. ‘You’re supposed to be one of us, brother. What are you skulking down here for?’

  Escrick grabbed the front of Hubert’s robes and pulled him upright. ‘I know all about the Abbot of Meaux, don’t you worry, mate,’ he growled to his companion. ‘And where he is that bitch nun will be. Come on, abbot, you’d better tell us and save yourself from really getting hurt.’

  Still Hubert remained mute.

  Hildegard could not tell what happened next because they moved out of her line of vision. She could hear it though. The thwack of a fist into muscle. The hiss of metal as a sword was drawn. Punches, many of them. The heavy breathing of Hubert’s assailants. No other sound.

  Then the guard spoke. ‘Any last words, my lord abbot?’

  ‘Wait!’ It was Escrick. ‘Let’s take our time and see whether his saints will swoop down to rescue him.’

  The guard began to laugh. ‘I like that, captain! You’re full of good ideas!’

  ‘We’ll see it as a scholarly discussion on the power of angels. Does that suit you, de Courcy?’

  ‘I’m a papal legate,’ she heard Hubert say in a muffled voice. ‘Think twice before you go too far.’

  ‘I know you. You’re a spy. I’ve had my eye on you since you got here. You and your bitch, your doxy, that so-called nun, Hildegard. You’re both spies and you know what happens to spies when they’re caught.’

  The truth came to Hildegard regrettably late. Of course Hubert was a spy. But not on behalf of Clement! It was obvious now. Why had she doubted him? Hubert, she whispered. Why could I not guess why you were here?

  There was another muffled thump and a gasp of pain quickly repressed.

  Escrick rasped, ‘Before you get down on your knees to pray, abbot, you’ll tell us what you know about this disappearing nun.’

  Silence.

  The thump of a fist.

  ‘I tell you, she tasted good when I almost had her earlier. That’s a feast I’m looking forward to.’

  No response.

  ‘Talk, damn you. Where is she?’

  ‘You’d better do as he says,’ added the guard.

  ‘Or what?’ Hubert’s voice.

  Another thump.

  ‘Where is she?’

  Again nothing from Hubert.

  ‘That’s it. I’ll make him talk. Grab him by the - ’

  Hildegard could stand it no longer. Levering herself onto her side so that she could get some purchase on the barrel next to her own she pushed with both feet until, with a roar, the barrel rolled off the one beneath and, crashing down, brought others with it so that the entire cellar was suddenly rumbling with crashing barrels, each weighing several tons as the carefully balanced stack gave way. Some splintered open as they hit the ground. Wine gushed out.

  She prayed Hubert would be quick enough to get out of the way.

  Wood continued to crack as the barrels fell, wine spraying over the floor. She heard the howl of a wounded man and a screamed oath reverberated throughout the cellar.

  She slid rapidly to the ground. Hubert was flattened against the wall of barrels on the other side, trying to drag more of them down, while Escrick and the other guard, encumbered by their mailed boots, slithered in a tide of spurting wine and rolling, roiling barrels bursting in all directions.

  ‘Hubert!’ she screamed above the commotion.

  Slithering over wet flagstones, he took hold of Escrick and hurled him to one side. There was a crack as he hit his head on one of the barrels and slid awkwardly down into the lake of wine. Kicking the other man out of the way Hubert headed for the door. He urged Hildegard to go ahead of him then paused on the other side. She grabbed his sleeve but he was only dragging down the wooden beam that kept the door shut.

  Then they were racing for the steps to the lodge and out into the courtyard, leaving the porter gawping after them as if witnessing a nightmare come to life.

  **

  Hubert grasped her by the arm. ‘To the stables. Quick!’

  She pulled away as soon as they were out of sight of the main yard and jerked to a halt. ‘Hubert, I have to go back.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I must. I have to dash up to my chamber for a moment. I need something from it.’

  ‘No time. I’ll buy you anything you’ve left behind.’

  ‘No, this is something you cannot buy. It’s the poison. I have to take it to Medford as proof of Woodstock’s treachery.’

  He frowned when he saw that she would not give way. ‘I’m coming with you.’

  ‘No, go and make sure we have horses. I’ll join you. Please, Hubert, there’s no time to lose.’

  Reluctantly he turned towards the stable yard, growling, ‘If you’re not down in five minutes I’m coming in to get you.’

  With wet garments impeding her movements she ran back through the side door in the cloister that led directly up to the first floor of the guest wing. In the quiet time between lauds and prime most guests were trying to get some sleep and seeing no-one she fled along the passage to her chamber.

  As soon as she opened the door she knew something was wrong.

  **

  It was the smell that assailed her first. Sweet and sickly, with an undertone of some worn and acidic matter, worse than rotting fruit, it swept over her making her gag.

  The chamber was in velvet darkness except for a trail of moonlight across the floor. Peering into the deepest blackness, she eventually made out a lighter shape the size of a human face beside her bed.

  ‘Is there someone here?’

  There was only a heavy, dragging silence in response.

  ‘Who is it?’ Her voice rose. ‘Who are you?’

  There was no movement from across the chamber.

  Groping along the wall with trembling fingers, she found the taper on the shelf beside the door. Found the tinder. Struck once. Failed to ignite it.

  The shape by her bed did not move.

  She tried again. A spark. Trembling between her fingers, the taper took the flame and flared up. Light everywhere. Wavering. Strengthening. Illuminating the shape beside her bed.

  It was Athanasius. He was sitting on the prayer stool with his back propped against the wall. He did not move or greet her as the light washed over him.

  Grasping the taper as both illumination and defence, she edged towards him.

  ‘Magister, what are you doing here?’ She stood over him then struggled to make sense of what she saw.

  He would not answer. Could not.

  In the yellow light his face was contorted in the rictus of death. His lips were fixed in a snarl. His eyes had rolled up horribly in their sockets and gazed unseeingly on a corner of the room. His body was set in a grotesque parody of ease. He was bare foot and his feet clawed rigidly as if frozen in the act of rising.

  On his lap was her own travel bag, contents scattered. And in his hand was the clay pot with a broken seal.

  Backing away, trying not to breathe in the toxic fumes that emanated from it, she fumbled behind her for the door with her thoughts running on.

  Medford would not get his proof of Woodstock
’s treachery after all.

  She had no evidence against him.

  It would be her word only and a story that sounded fanciful.

  A momentary vision of King Richard, his serene and handsome face at the precise moment before he breathed in the poison, floated before her and she thanked his patron saint and all the angels for their timely intercession.

  **

  Aware that the witch hunt still continued, she fled down through the shadows until she reached the court yard and then, heart in her mouth, still shocked by what she had seen, on across the yard to the stables.

  A shadowy group of figures met her, Hubert striding forward to pull her briefly and hard into his arms. ‘Thank Benet you’re safe.’ His lips brushed her cheek. He stepped back. ‘The boys were already waiting. They’ve trussed the stable lad lightly with twine so he won’t be blamed. He’d helped Simon saddle the horses by the time we turned up. Gregory has clean robes to slip into so neither of us smell like vintners.’

  ‘Blessed be. But your face?’ She reached out but did not touch.

  ‘It’ll heal. Let’s go.’

  ‘I’ll tell you about Athanasius as we ride.’

  ‘First change into this domina.’ It was Brother Gregory. ‘I trust it’s not too big for you. I should gather it up and tie it with this belt.’ He produced one from his pack. ‘We were about to leave here ourselves before this fracas delayed us.’

  By the one dim light in the bracket on the stable wall she saw him hold out a folded robe. It smelt fresh and clean. Hurriedly she slipped out of her own wine-sodden garments and pulled on the clean one in the darkness while the others urged the horses to file one by one through the unlocked postern. Wide enough to take a horse with its sides scraping both post beams, it let them out into the lane that wound round the outside of the palace. There was an east gate from out of the town and they took that.

  The sentries were uninterested in an abbot, two monks, a nun with their small retinue of five acolytes. It was a witch they were hoping to capture and burn. They let them go.

  **

  In the hour before dawn the sky was already pale above the horizon. They brought their galloping horses to a halt at last under some trees. There was no sound of pursuit from Avignon.

  The countryside was spread before them in lustrous detail. Silent fields of winter crops. Ramshackle cottages set amid trees. Open, uncultivated land where nothing moved. A new day began to disperse the passing night. After a brief halt to check their direction Hubert led them on at the same punishing speed as before. They had almost reached the frontier into the Kingdom of France when the drumming of hooves, travelling fast, brought them to a milling halt.

  ‘Sounds as if that might be somebody gaining on us.’ It was Brother Egbert.

  ‘We could have a race and hope these old saddle-horses can outpace those of the papal militia.’ Hubert looked round with interest for their reaction. ‘Or,’ he suggested, ‘we can stand and fight.’

  ‘You need to ask?’ Brother Gregory was already throwing one long leg over his horse and droppng lightly to the ground. Egbert followed suit.

  ‘You boys and Hildegard keep out of it,’ Hubert ordered, unsheathing his sword.

  Hildegard noticed a glance flash between Edmund and Bertram.

  ‘Do as he says, boys. He knows what he’s doing.’

  Edmund rode a little way away into some bushes beside the track and Bertram, with a backward glance at Hildegard, slouched after him. The three smaller boys had already dismounted and were scrambling around, as if looking for something to throw.

  Suddenly a group of five horsemen burst through the trees and bore down towards them. They were not papal militia after all, as their blazons showed, but Fitzjohn’s men-at-arms.

  Hubert had dismounted and placed himself in the middle of the track and, as the lead horse drove straight at him, he side-stepped at the last moment and unseated its rider with one blow, using his sword as a stave. The rider fell heavily to the ground with the wind knocked out of him. Hubert snatched his sword. ‘You won’t be needing this.’

  The man gave a curse and began to crawl away, throwing down a knife as well while his horse galloped off into the trees.

  The two monks were equally swift in defence.

  One man-at-arms, seeing what had happened to his captain, dismounted, drawing his sword and advancing with a snarl on Brother Gregory. He must have thought the monk was unarmed and easy game because, with his travel cloak round his shoulders and his threadbare habit Gregory looked harmless enough. But it was a bad choice.

  When the man was near enough Gregory simply drew a sword with blurred speed as if from nowhere. As Hildegard had suspected when she first saw him, he was a dazzling swordsman, with a supple and swift grace. If their lives had not been at stake he would have been a joy to behold. As it was, after a few leisurely feints he sent the other man’s sword spinning to the ground then forced him to his knees until he was begging for mercy.

  Gregory picked up the man’s fallen sword. ‘Get back to Avignon! That’s the best thing for you, sad miscreant. Go on. Back!’ He advanced again and the man, all bravado gone, took to his heels without another glance.

  Meanwhile Egbert, uttering a great roar of joy, had thrown himself bodily onto the back of one of the other riders and after being carried so far, wrestled him off his horse. Locked together, they fell to the ground with a crash. A swift fight ensued but one of Egbert’s fists soon knocked the man out and he fell back as if dead. The monk unfastened the man’s sword belt and took it to Hubert.

  There were shouts from the other side of the grove as the fourth rider, still mounted, was being driven into a corner by Edmund and Bertram.

  He was putting up quite a fight, his sword glinting as, slashing first on one side and then on the other, he tried to hack his way between them while the boys continued to dance and duck in an attempt to drag him off his horse. Hildegard saw the edge of his sword whirl within inches of Edmund’s head but, when she turned to Hubert to beg him to intervene, he was watching with unmoving attention. When the rider eventually forced an escape Hubert went over to the two esquires with a smile of satisfaction, saying, ‘Well done, lads.’

  They watched as the militia man fled back towards Avignon.

  ‘We didn’t get his sword,’ Edmund glared after him.

  Peterkin was also standing with a scowl on his face. ‘I never even got a chance with you three monks pushing in.'

  ‘Better luck next time,’ Gregory grinned and ruffled the boy’s hair.

  Peterkin turned to him with the light of adulation in his eyes. ‘I’d no idea you were such a great swordsman, brother. Where did you learn swordplay like that? Not in your cloister, surely?’

  ‘I spent many years on the route to Jerusalem protecting our pilgrims. Believe me, it gives me no pleasure to know I possess the art to kill one of my fellow humans.’ He grimaced and slapped his sword into its sheath. Bundling the one he had earned inside his cloak he went to help Egbert collect what other arms he could find then helped him tie them onto the horses.

  ‘We’d better move on.’ Hubert climbed back into the saddle. ‘Fitzjohn may send reinforcements.’

  ‘Certainly, if he wants to stay alive he’ll be getting out of Clement’s jurisdiction as fast as he can,’ observed Egbert. ‘Mission failed. I don’t want to be in the way when he does so.’

  ‘And that fellow won’t be going anywhere much.’ Bertram indicated the man still lying on the ground. The others had vanished into the woods but the one Egbert had fought was still out cold.

  The monk bent down to give him a closer look. ‘He’ll live.’

  **

  Pont Saint Esprit was half a day’s ride, they surmised, but soon they were in the Kingdom of France where Cistercians, if not the English, were welcome. They trusted that the first would cancel out the second and their passage would be easy.

  It was a cheerful cavalcade, then, that continued through the thick woods of the
campagne. The two esquires who hoped to win their spurs within the year rode ahead followed by the two pages who vowed to serve them. Then came the abbot, his handsome face somewhat bloodied and bruised, accompanied by a nun with what had been described as the face of an avenging angel. They were followed by two placid monks on either side of an eager boy who wanted to give up the rough life of a military man planned for him and take the cloth without dishonouring his prowess with the sword.

  Hildegard looked sidelong at the abbot. ‘Hubert, will you hear my confession?’

  ‘If it pleases you.’

  ‘In my heart I have maligned you.’

  ‘Oh? In what way?’

  ‘I believed you to be a traitor to England.’

  ‘It was to be expected. How could I tell you the truth? While I was at headquarters at St Mary Graces this whole plot to impeach King Richard’s closest advisors blew up. The prior decided to send me on a mission to find out if Clement had allies in England. Your prioress was quicker off the mark and sent you.’

  ‘To be honest she only instructed me to observe what was going on. She wrote to me after I arrived, warning me against someone I’d mentioned in my report. Unfortunately, her message had been compromised and all I could make out was the phrase do not trust him. But who should I not trust? It was unclear. Even you were on my list for a brief moment until I decided she must mean Grizac.’

  ‘It was Athanasius?’

  She nodded.

  Hubert continued. ‘We were informed that he was Clement’s spymaster but I couldn’t tell you because, to be honest, I was beginning to have doubts about your contact with him. It turned out that he heard about a poison that left no trace so he sent to Fondi in order to obtain it. Fondi is our agent in Urbino but Athanasius didn’t know he was a double agent.’

  ‘Ah, so that’s it.’ Somehow she felt relieved that the handsome and likable cardinal was loyal to the Roman pope.

  ‘Poor Grizac was also our man,’ Hubert explained, ‘but he lost patience and decided to act alone. When he heard that Woodstock was sending Sir Jack to get his hands on the poison he realised that he would have to act quickly. Even if we’d arrived earlier I doubt whether we would have been in time to save Maurice. Give him his due, Escrick is an efficient and dedicated body-guard.’