‘Get in the boat,’ her captor ordered.
‘Where are you taking me?’
‘Never you mind,’ he told her.
By now the ferryman who had brought her to Westminster had sculled back downriver. There was no sign of life on the waterfront. Wondering if it was worth giving a shout to the porter in his gatehouse, she decided against. He would be too far away and it was likely this brute would think nothing of slitting her throat if she annoyed him. She allowed him to push her towards the water’s edge and down the slippery bank into the boat.
The splash of a body falling into the water would alert no one. Sudden terror gripped her. Seen from the boat the bank lay in darkness. Further out in mid-river the mist was still rolling in. By the time the boat was only a few yards from shore not even the cresset light from the ferrymaster’s lodge was visible.
The water might have been ink as she went in except that it was numbingly cold. After the first shock passed, the water closed over her head and she had to force herself back up to the surface. Gasping for air she thrashed about desperately trying to get her bearings.
Get back to the shore.
But she had no idea where it was and her boots were already filling, dragging her down, and she had to tear at the laces and kick out until they were grasped and drawn off by the current.
Somewhere out of the mist came a shout. Taking it as an indication of her abductor’s position, she began to strike out in the opposite direction but was then confused by the subtle splash of an oar from somewhere ahead. She circled, trying to make no ripples that would give her away, the freezing water beginning to numb her.
In terror of being recaptured she began to strike out again, and then the mist rolled over her and spread its wreaths on the dark waters, and the cold snatched her breath and turned it to stone in her lungs and night came down as she slid beneath the black waves.
Some creature was lying next to her. She moved closer to share its heat. That was the first thing she noticed. The second was that she was unclothed. Spreading her hands over her breasts and down to her thighs she discovered that all her garments had disappeared, no shift, no breast band, no leggings, no belt with its pouch of herbs, and on top of her, pressing down heavily, was a fur of some kind.
Her fingers explored the edge where it covered her face. It felt like a wolfskin. Despite its warmth, and the heat coming from the creature beside her, she could not stop shivering. A deep coldness gripped her. Ice ached inside every part of her body. Only half conscious she moved closer to the source of heat.
Next time she woke up memories began to return to remind her how she had got here. At first disjointed, they were of water closing over her head, her determination to reach the bank and escape the brute sent by Ravenscar, the sinister creaking of the oars, the swirling mist. She remembered staring into a void, seeing nothing, fog on all sides, the river invisible, only its cold grip as evidence of its presence. She remembered the boat, water slapping against its sides, the oars again, as it drew nearer. A terrified phrase had hammered in her skull: I can’t make it. Then the fierce will that made her keep on swimming returned.
Memory, still fragmented, brought back a sensation of being hauled from the water. A confusion of falling. Something caught at her clothes and she cried out. She was being dragged, remembered half crawling up a bank. She fell to her knees when she felt solid ground beneath her. Mud oozed between her fingers.
She must have slept again, the memory of mud and the iron grip of the river’s reluctance to release her winding her dreams into nightmare.
Something was pressed to her lips and a warm liquid dribbled into her mouth. Honey. A deep tiredness overcame her and she surrendered to it.
When she came to herself again she forced her eyes open and watched the patterns dancing across an unfamiliar ceiling above her head. It was firelight. Without moving she watched the flickering red brilliance, the yellow, the gold, repetitive in essence but never entirely the same. It soothed her. She looked at it for a long time until she thought to wonder where she was. Still shaken by spasms in the aftermath of the great chill she had suffered she moved towards the warmth radiating from the source beside her and her eyes closed and she drifted into sleep again.
Eventually the realisation came to her that it must be a person lying next to her. It must be the one who had saved her from the river, removed her wet garments, dried her naked body, covered her with the wolfskin and now – as she saw when she did eventually manage to lift her head – lay beside her.
She stared at the almost familiar mouth just inches away. The half-moon shape of eyelashes, black as jet, the sharp high cheekbones.
Her pupils dilated. Lips parted. She made an involuntary movement to escape and his eyes opened. He put out an arm to detain her. A dangerous smile swam above her as he raised himself on one elbow and studied her expression.
‘Awake?’
She dragged the fur over her breasts. She was shivering again.
The spy, Rivera, rolled off the couch and stood up. He was covered decently in a long night-shift but his arousal was obvious. He moved out of her range of vision and returned almost at once with a carafe and a sort of chalice. Figured silver glinted in the firelight. It had two handles like a loving cup.
Kneeling beside the couch he pushed one arm under her head to raise it and tilted the cup towards her lips. He must have done this before, she realised, tasting the same honeyed drink. The sweet scent of herbs floated in the steam.
She jerked away, remembering to cover herself, and put out a hand to ward him off.
‘It’s not poison!’ he laughed softly. ‘It’ll be good for you. Drink it.’ He held it so she could take hold of the two handles herself.
Cautiously she took another sip. This time she did not drift off into oblivion but she felt disembodied. It was like a dream. The heat, the cold, the confusion. This man.
She drank some more then watched as he placed the cup on the floor. He went on kneeling at the side of the couch.
‘You were so cold when I dragged you from the water, I thought you were dead. I believe you were very close to it.’
He noticed that she was shivering again and slid in beside her under the wolfskin and put his arms round her. His body heat was like fire. She was drawn to it but, shocked, tried to hold herself away. He moved back and patted the wolfskin more closely round her until she was inside a hot cocoon.
‘The only way to bring you back from the dead was by sharing my body heat with you. This chamber’s like a furnace,’ he pointed out, ‘it’s a wonder the thatch isn’t alight and yet you’re still shivering. Here.’ He reached onto the floor beside him and poured some more of the herbal liquid into the cup. ‘Trust me. It’ll help.’
Her lips felt stiff but she managed to croak, ‘Did you pull me from the water?’
‘I heard the splash as you fell.’
‘Was I close to the bank?’
‘No.’
She still felt dazed and did not ask whether he was in a boat himself and if so how he had been able to see her in the layers of fog and the unlit nothingness of the water or, indeed, how he had come to be there in the first place, as if by some necromancy. Instead she murmured, ‘This is the second time you’ve saved my life. You seem to appear like a guardian angel when I most need you.’
The fiery heat from the drink surged through her body and her head sank back onto the pillows. ‘How long have I been here?’
‘All night. You fell in before compline and it’s now nearly tierce.’
‘As late as that? But I must go back to—’ She struggled from under the heavy coverings over them both, trying to remember why it was so urgent to leave, then remembering she was naked, then trying to pull the blanket round herself and then, after that, attempting to rise to her feet. The effort was too great. Her knees buckled. As she made a grab to save herself Rivera was beside her at once, catching her in his arms, the fur slipping down, and, struggling against him, she felt
his fingers on her skin like flame.
‘Let me go, Rivera.’ She uttered his name without thinking. It changed something.
He laughed. ‘Rivera? Been checking on me?’
He stepped back, made no move to prevent her breaking free, but noticing that she was trembling again, pulled the wolfskin over her shoulders. He forced her back onto the couch.
‘You’re not well enough. Don’t be in such a hurry. Your clothes are still wet. Your boots are at the bottom of the Thames. And besides all that, you nearly drowned. You’ve endured a profound physical shock. Rest a while. You can stay here as long as you need to.’
He went over to a shelf and took down a phial, unstoppered it and returned to the couch. ‘Lie still.’ He began to rub a fiery sweet-scented oil into her shoulders. She assumed he would stop there but he continued, methodically working the oil into her icy skin underneath the sheet with all the thoroughness of somebody who did it for a living until every inch of her body was glowing. When he finished he went to get an extra blanket from a chest and tucked her into it.
Knowing what she had been told, his tenderness disturbed her. He was a spy for Bolingbroke, an interrogator at the Tower, a man she had been warned against. He was an enemy of the King. She had been warned about him. And yet …
‘Does anyone know I’m here?’ she murmured from the depths of her cocoon when he had rewrapped her.
He shook his head. She noticed how his hair shone in the firelight. Long and untidy, black as night. When he looked at her his eyes seemed to drink her in as if he shared everything she had ever known. He came to sit on the edge of the couch.
‘Do you feel like talking about it?’
When she made no reply he asked, ‘Who was it in the boat?’
‘Somebody sent by the man I was once married to.’
‘The husband in the crypt. How did that happen?’
The directness of the question was an invitation. She told him how they met. How they parted. About the years of believing herself a widow. Of finding peace and eventually a purpose at the priory in Swyne. There was nothing to hide. When she finished he took one of her hands in his. ‘But now he’s back you’re free of your vows to your Order.’
There was a little silence while she came to understand what freedom might mean.
He stood up. ‘How did you get into the Thames? Did he push you or did you jump?’
‘Ravenscar’s man tied my arms behind my back then dragged me to the boat. When we got out into midstream he unloosed me. I thought it meant he knew I’d go without any fuss to meet my …’ she hesitated ‘ … but I was wrong. He untied me so that when he pushed me overboard and my body was found it would look as if I’d slipped on the river path by accident. That’s what he told me. So I jumped—’
‘Jumped?’ he mocked. His dark eyes travelled over her face.
‘I thought I’d have a better chance of swimming to shore than waiting for a crack on the head and being thrown in.’
‘Why would your husband want you dead?’
‘Because I’m in his way. He probably fears I’ll refuse to sign anything he’s got his lawyer to draw up. The Ravenscar lands passed to his brother but my dowry and any profit accruing from it went to our children and my Order. Now he wants it all back.’
‘Your children?’
‘A boy and a girl.’
‘You’re fortunate.’
She tilted her head. ‘Does your Order forbid family life?’
‘That. But the sort of life I have leaves no room for the responsibility of children either.’
‘You seem surprised I have any.’
‘My research into your background did not lead me into such detail.’
Their eyes met and his expression invited her to laugh but she felt a shiver run through her. ‘You’ve been following me, haven’t you?’ When he didn’t reply she said, ‘It’s too extraordinary that you should have been so close to where I was nearly drowned.’
He got up briskly, saying, ‘If you want to show your gratitude, light a candle to save my soul.’
‘I could light a cathedral full, but even that would not be enough.’ As she uttered the words she realised she meant it. She owed her life to him twice over.
He began to move briskly around the small chamber, looking for something, and then he picked up a roll of twine from a shelf next to a prie-dieu where a book lay open. He came back to the couch. ‘Stick your foot out.’
‘What?’
‘You need new boots. I know just the fellow to make them in a hurry. He owes me a favour. You’ll be trapped here for ever with nothing to wear on your feet. You don’t intend to walk barefoot, do you?’
When she did as he instructed he stretched the twine from heel to toe and tied a knot in it to mark the length. Chancing to glance up from where he knelt, he held her glance for a moment then took her foot between both palms. After a short meditative pause he lowered his lips to it and pressed them against it. Soft as breath. He moved them sensuously over the arch to her ankle.
When his eyes met hers again she could see mirrored in them the battle she had faced in the past – between desire and the demands of their vows.
The twine with her foot measurement had fallen to the floor. He stood up hurriedly. She watched him go to a peg by the door, take down a thick cloak, put it on, go out, come back, pick up the twine, slant a smile then go out again.
She heard him call to his housekeeper. ‘Matilda! Do not enter my chamber.’
A voice, distant, called up, ‘Very well, magister.’
The door at the bottom of the stairs slammed.
She heard the housekeeper going about her chores, singing.
A promise was a promise. A vow was a vow. Of course, she knew some nuns took their vows lightly. They had long-term carnal relations with men, even bore children who became acolytes in their monastic houses. Such women and men, if also in orders, had no belief in the reality of hellfire. Hildegard had never been able to make up her mind about the existence of other worlds, heaven, hell, because where was the evidence?
On the other hand, she was brought back to the importance of keeping her word – and she had given it to her Cistercian superiors when they accepted her into their Order.
The canonical law upheld by Abbot de Courcy, the abbot and proctor at St Mary Graces, the Chapter at Clairvaux, even Pope Clement in Avignon, would not judge otherwise now Ravenscar lived. She was no longer a member of the Order. Her vows were invalid.
It changed everything.
As Rivera said, she was free.
When he did not come back, and with her clothes at present unwearable, she had no choice but to stay where she was. Now and then chill waves would shake through her and when she got up to use the bucket in the corner she felt dizzy and had to steady herself against the wall.
Pulling on a mulberry gown with trailing sleeves she found lying on a chest she opened the door and listened. There was no sound below. She took the bucket downstairs and went out into a yard at the back, where she emptied it into the barrel for the dyers to collect.
When she looked up someone was watching from across the yard. It was a very small man. No bigger than a child. He noticed she had seen him and made an ironic bow.
‘Ave, dulcissima. Are you an angel sent from heaven to bring peace on earth?’
‘I’m flesh and blood like you, sir.’
He acknowledged her remark. ‘Then we are kin, Sister.’
‘Indeed, Brother, God be praised.’
He walked back into a house opposite with an amused smile.
She might have slept. She had no recollection of doing so but when she opened her eyes Rivera was standing over her with a wooden bowl full of delicious-smelling broth. As she took it she noticed that he had rearranged her clothes in front of the fire. Her heavy worsted cloak was still steaming and there were puddles underneath it. Her linen shift drooped where he had spread it over the back of a chair.
He took his outer clothes o
ff, pulled up a stool and watched her eat.
‘Rivera,’ she said as she put the emptied bowl to one side. ‘Tell me truly, how did you come to be on the river at the time I went in? It could not have been coincidence.’
When he failed to answer she stared hard at him and asked outright, ‘Why follow me? I believe I’ve seen you, here and there about the town, but I was never sure. It doesn’t make any sense.’ She wondered if he knew about her visit to the Tower. She shivered. The pause lengthened. Eventually he ran a hand through his hair. ‘I’m clearly losing my skill. I don’t deny it. How could I? I saw this beautiful woman in the crowd and had to pursue her. Of course I’ve been following you. I’ve been trailing you all over London like a lovesick swain.’
‘You’re being ridiculous.’ He did not look at her. ‘The truth,’ she insisted.
He paused long enough for her to hear herself breathing.
Then he said, ‘I learnt that you were the eyes and ears of Archbishop Neville.’
A chill spread through her that was nothing to do with her near-drowning. He was dangerous. She had been warned. He was an interrogator at the Tower. It was easy to forget when he looked at her with eyes filled with kindness and ministered so thoughtfully to her needs.
The truth was, she now realised, ever since being saved from drowning, she had been his prisoner. Whatever she told him, about the Cross, about the archbishop’s guests and their business, could be used to further the conspiracy against the King. That was why he was keeping her here, taking advantage of her temporary helplessness to find out what he could about Bolingbroke’s opponents. She would be more guarded in what she told him.
She watched, horrified at the way her thoughts were tending, as he took her bowl from her and placed it on the table.
A Parliament of Spies Page 20
