Now her captors were further pleased to discover that she was to be accompanied by a creature spawned by the Devil, as they saw it, and it confirmed their view that she was a witch, unnatural, a monster, and deserved to die.
The chanting increased to a frenzy.
Kelt was unbothered. The kicks and shoves now bestowed on him as well as on Hildegard were received as if to lighten her punishment. ‘Do not despair,’ he shouted above the tumult. The separate elements of the mob had meanwhile turned into a single entity, a devouring beast, a dragon with its head approaching the top of the long slope, its body bulging as more and more people flocked to join it, its tail tapering back down to the Fleet.
Then Kelt shouted, ‘Look!’
She followed his pointing finger.
Where the crowd opened out, there, striding down the hill, came a figure in white.
Without altering his pace he broke through the vanguard like a spear, scattering folk right and left, driving straight towards her through the thickest part of the crowd until he was brushing aside Swynford’s men-at-arms, shouting, ‘Back! Get back, you bloody animals. I claim this hostage!’
He grabbed the reins of Swynford’s horse and dragged him to a halt. Swynford still held his sword and was about to bring it lashing down when he realised it was Rivera who gripped the reins. ‘What the hell do you want, Brother?’
‘Listen to me!’ Those nearest fell silent. ‘I claim your hostage,’ he repeated in a strong voice that carried deep into the crowd.
The men-at-arms came to a confused halt. People began to quieten down to hear what was going on and their silence rippled all the way back to the most distant fringes of the onlookers until there was scarcely a sound. ‘What’s happening now?’ somebody asked.
Hildegard stood trembling with astonishment. Jack Kelt held her sleeve.
‘You owe me a debt, Sir Thomas,’ said Rivera in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear. ‘I’ve done you good service. Now I demand payment.’
‘Service?’ Swynford’s glance darted from side to side and he looked as if he was about to deny it but then he lowered his voice. ‘I’ve paid you—’
‘There is still one account outstanding. If you want blood in payment, take mine. I demand the release of this woman in exchange for myself. My saint commands and expects it.’
‘Rivera, no!’ Hildegard pushed forward.
He ignored her.
To Swynford he said, ‘I have your secrets. Release her or take the consequences.’
Swynford was busy working it out. His secrets? The look of fear on his face was abruptly replaced by cunning. ‘If that’s your wish. You? Instead of her?’
‘A heretic,’ one of his men helpfully suggested. ‘May as well burn one as another, Captain.’
Swynford glanced nervously at the crowd. Their mood was on a knife-edge. Outrage that their bloodlust was to find no outlet was simmering dangerously beneath the surface and Swynford was quick to read it. He made the decision to save his own skin, shouting, ‘You heard the heretic! His life for hers! What shall it be? Yea or nay?’
‘Death to the heretic!’
Swynford smiled. ‘So let it be!’
Raising his sword he spurred his horse forward, making sure his men had grasped what was happening. ‘Drag the heretic to the block!’
‘Death to heretics!’ came the response.
They held a more illustrious scapegoat now. Swynford began to lead the procession to its destination.
The crowd had started braying for a victim again and when news that the witch had been bartered for a heretic friar reached the outer fringes they howled with the desire to see his blood. No mere witch for them. Now they had a bigger prize. And the Pope had ordered heretics to be burnt and the King had taken no notice, but now they could put the matter right. Superstitious fervour drew in the doubters. Their own sins could be wiped clean by doing the Pope’s will. If he willed it, they would fulfil it and make sure of their place in paradise.
Hildegard stumbled, picked herself up, ran alongside Swynford on his horse, grasped the saddle. Her voice was harsh with fear. ‘You have no right of life and death, Swynford. You’ll hang if you do this. The law will punish you!’
‘There is no law.’
‘Then you’ll burn in hell! He’s innocent. You know he’s no heretic.’
He sneered down at her. ‘The Londoners, it seems, think otherwise.’
Hildegard turned to the people nearest. ‘Stop him, someone!’ But their bloodlust was not to be thwarted. There were jeers, more vicious jostling. Swynford rode on.
It was then Rivera turned back and reached out through the crowd for her, pulling her to his side. He put his arms round her and for a moment they seemed to stand in a vortex of silence with themselves at its centre. Nothing could touch them.
‘Rivera, he’ll take you at your word!’
‘Yes.’
‘You are wronged,’ she whispered passionately.
‘I am doomed,’ he replied.
The crowd churned on all sides but he seemed oblivious to them. ‘Medford released me. The name you want is Harry Summers. Follow the trail. It leads to the Queen.’
Oblivious to the jeers, he held her tightly in his arms. ‘Forget me, Hildegard. Don’t grieve. Death is the purpose of our existence.’
With one hand he quickly unpinned the red and gold emblem of St Serapion from his cloak and folded her fingers round it. He rested his lips briefly on her mouth. The mob forced itself between them. He looked back over their heads as if he wanted to say more but they were pulling him away up the hill.
Their hatred was redirected to a better target, to an alien friar, a man who could read books, who spoke languages, who probably practised the black arts and wove spells to destroy his neighbours. He was everything they were not.
Rigid with dread, Hildegard tried to find a way along the darkening street to summon help.
‘Where are they taking him?’ she shouted to someone being carried along in the surge beside her.
‘To Ludgate block.’
‘Axe the bastard, whoever he is!’ a voice shrieked.
‘He’s a French spy, like as not,’ another one claimed with malevolent satisfaction.
‘No!’ Hildegard’s voice was lost in the tumult.
The sun appeared in a lurid slant of light between the narrow tenements, painting everything the colour of blood. Armed gangs with lighted torches were still forcing a path up the hill but the procession had come to a halt there, people pressing so thickly to see what would happen next they formed a wall, blocking the street and allowing no one past. Jack Kelt had vanished long ago. Hildegard fought and shoved to get as close to the front as she could. She could just make out the figure of Rivera across a sea of onlookers. His white garments blazed against the deepening shadows as the sun sank behind the rooftops.
The torch-bearers were gathering round the place where he had been dragged by the guards and she thought some of them were trying to build a fire but then she saw Swynford, still astride his horse, gesture to one of his followers. A burly man built like a blacksmith stepped out from among the rest of them and drew a war sword.
Rivera seemed not to be aware of anyone. He was staring out across the heads of the crowd towards the river. He was standing quite still.
While the onlookers chanted and jeered and told them to get on with it, Swynford was giving instructions, nervously looking up and down the street. A lawyer’s clerk was found from somewhere, a priest was pushed to the front of the crowd. Rivera seemed oblivious to everything and went on standing without moving. Then she realised he was praying.
His expression transcended the hellish scenes around him. She remembered the icon in his chamber and realised she was seeing the same look of resigned compassion.
Swynford reached down from his horse and tapped him on the shoulder but even then it took a moment before Rivera made a move.
‘God’s will be done!’ somebody shouted from the cro
wd.
Rivera turned towards the sound. The words floated clearly in the deathly quiet that descended. ‘I am absolved. May you be absolved also.’
Hildegard began to fight her way towards him, but no one would let her through and the guards held her back with their pikes and she had to watch as he turned to the swordsman. In a nightmare she heard him ask, ‘Is the blade sharp?’
‘Sharp enough, magister.’
Swynford, detecting a note of doubt in his man’s voice, snarled, ‘Get on with it.’
Rivera raised his right hand. ‘So be it.’
Hildegard watched in horror as he knelt and rested his head on the block. She saw him make a small movement with one hand to push aside his hair.
The swordsman lifted his massive blade. As one, the crowd drew in a breath of expectation. Hildegard reached out. Help must come.
Then the blade swept down in a brutal arc. The crowd groaned. There was the crack of splitting bone. The sword rose and fell again. And for a third time it made its descent.
The chaos of public spectacle was reduced to the most intimate moment of death.
The crush of onlookers at the front fell back, scattering those behind, and the crowd like a wave, without a mind, moving on instinct, drew in on itself, away from the horror. And then a roar broke out and cries of release rent the air.
Hildegard uttered one howl of grief and loss.
It was Ulf, holding her protectively in his arms, and they were somehow free of the passers-by and standing lower down the hill in the shelter of a building. He was murmuring, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t realise who he was.’
The de Hutton house on the Strand. Night.
Hildegard felt as if she would never sleep again. How could she? When, around prime, the noises from the chamber below convinced her that the household was awake, she somehow prepared herself for whatever was to come. In her hand, she found Rivera’s red and gold emblem, its shape indented into her palm. She pinned it underneath her shift and went down.
‘I have to see Medford,’ she announced when she came face-to-face with Roger de Hutton on the way into the hall. Ulf was beside him and stepped forward.
‘I’ll be ready shortly.’ He turned to Roger, ‘If I may be released for an hour, I’ll escort her.’
‘I’ve sent a message across to York Place to tell them you’ll be staying here when you get back. You’ll be safer.’ Roger led her in to break the night fast.
She sat in the hall and stared at the bread and wine put in front of her but did not touch it.
Ulf returned to tell her he was ready to leave when she was.
She lifted her head. ‘What happened afterwards?’
‘Some Dominicans came out of their priory and took him into one of the chantries along there. Swynford and his accomplices had disappeared by the time we arrived. The crowd handed over half a dozen of the ringleaders. We took them to the Fleet. They’ll hang this morning. We came as soon as that little fellow, Kelt, alerted us.’
‘Why did the rats not try to stop it?’ demanded Roger.
Ulf took her hand. ‘He was the one who saved you from drowning, wasn’t he? The one who looked after you. I’m sorry.’
When she came down carrying her cloak, Edwin Westwode had arrived. The look of concern on his face showed that they had explained everything. Together they left for Westminster with Ulf and a couple of bodyguards.
Hildegard had no fear of being waylaid by mobs or cut-throats on the way there and would have gone without an escort. It didn’t matter one way or the other now. Nothing mattered. She was seeing everything through a heavy gauze. It absorbed her grief. She felt nothing could get through it to touch her. She lived lightly behind it.
Medford. In black velvet as usual. A white linen shirt with elaborate cuffs. More than ever he looked like a tall child in its best clothes. Now, she knew, he was a child who pulled the wings off flies.
Dean Slake was by his side as usual.
Medford was expatiating, uninvited, on his reason for living.
‘To protect my liege, His Grace the King, from the machinations of his enemies. To maintain his glory and splendour, to increase profit and establish peace in his realm. Richard is our anointed king, our one hope for victory against the French. Without him we are nothing. We exist solely to do his will.’
He turned to Hildegard.
‘You have information for me?’
‘The name you want is Harry Summers.’
Edwin made an exclamation of surprise. ‘Harry? But I know him!’
Medford swivelled. ‘Go on.’
‘He was my predecessor at Bishopthorpe Palace. He was Archbishop Neville’s private secretary.’
‘Where is he now, do you know?’
‘He’s with the Duke of Northumberland. I haven’t seen him for ages.’
‘Northumberland’s staying up near Clerkenwell,’ broke in Ulf. ‘Roger de Hutton was dining there a couple of nights ago.’
‘What are we waiting for?’ Dean Slake was at the door.
Medford gestured to the others to follow, calling, ‘Horses, Slake! And armed guards!’
Northumberland had an imposing house and was famous for barring the Duke of Lancaster, Gaunt, from the gates of his castle during the time of the Great Revolt, when Lancaster had been booted out of Scotland and feared to return south until the troubles had died down. By that time news had already reached him that the mob had burnt his Savoy Palace to the ground. The north was safer.
On the ride over to Northumberland’s, Slake mentioned this insult to Gaunt and his continuing opposition to Gloucester, but Ulf was of the opinion that he was a slippery customer and said he wouldn’t trust him as far as he could throw him – and given his girth that wouldn’t be far.
Hildegard listened but felt no inclination to add anything. The streets seemed abnormally quiet now. The new mayor, Exton, although he had not yet received his chain of office, had sworn in dozens of new constables and given them broad powers to clear the streets. Curfew was enforced once more. The void that had been filled by men like Swynford with their own militia was now filled by the official forces of law and order. Even Gloucester, seen parading around with his army, the fox’s brush swinging from his lance, was now asked to stay outside the walls.
When they arrived at Northumberland’s stronghold Medford pushed in straight past the guards on duty with a peremptory ‘King’s business!’ Slake followed. It was up to Ulf to explain that it was nothing to look affronted about but rather a matter for pride to be visited by the King’s secretary, abrupt of manner though he was.
Hildegard followed the men up to the solar.
The Duke was truculent and as irascible as Roger de Hutton but ten times more powerful, owning vast tracts of land as one of the marcher lords in the border country between Scotland and England. He was known to have got rich on running arms between the two old enemies.
Slake, smiling despite the frosty reception, introduced them. ‘Mr Medford, the King’s secretary. And I’m Will Slake, Dean of the Signet Office.’
‘What about it?’ asked Northumberland in his strong northern accent.
‘We understand you retain a clerk called Harry Summers?’
‘What if I do?’
Smiling peacefully Slake said, ‘Mr Medford and I would like to speak to him.’
Without taking his glance off Slake, Northumberland cuffed a page on the head. ‘Fetch him.’
While they waited Northumberland looked his visitors over and seemed to find nothing to like. He grudgingly acknowledged Ulf but had nothing to say to Hildegard.
It was surprising that he was so vastly popular with the Londoners but it was entirely because of his insult to Gaunt and he rode his popularity as if by innate right.
A young man came in, hair somewhat tousled, and, still tying the laces of his shirt, bowed elaborately to his lord.
Northumberland merely growled, ‘Playing skittles again, you bloody wastrel?’
&nbs
p; When Summers looked round at the visitors his glance alighted on Edwin and his face lit up. ‘Westwode, you old devil. What are you doing here? How are you, fella?’ He strode forward and clapped Edwin on the back.
Edwin shot a glance at Medford but was clearly pleased to see Summers. ‘Going well, Harry?’
‘Still keeping the old quill sharpened.’
Medford looked irritated. ‘We have some questions for you, Summers.’ He turned to the Duke. ‘Is there a privy chamber where we might conduct this business?’
Northumberland nodded towards an inner door and they all trooped inside leaving the Duke glaring after them.
‘Well,’ asked Summers with a bright smile, ‘what brings you here? I don’t understand. How can I help?’
Slake was at his most affable. He got into conversation about skittles and when Summers was off his guard he slipped in a question about allegiance, but Harry Summers, his face lacking any trace of guile, affirmed outright his support for the King.
‘We’re all King’s men in the north, everywhere but Pontefract, Pickering, Knaresborough and Scarborough.’ He listed them on his fingers. ‘Lancaster’s got them in his iron fist. You should hear the Duke fuming. “He’s placed his bloody castles so he’s got me cut off from the south of my own country. Is he trying to throw me into the arms of the Scots?”’ A look of alarm crossed his face. ‘I don’t mean to imply … not that he would—’
‘You mention these Lancastrian strongholds,’ Slake cut in with a disarming smile. ‘Did you and the archbishop visit many of them?’
With a puzzled look at Edwin, whose master the archbishop now was, he shook his head. ‘Why would we? We’d enough to do with church business. Oh, except of course for Pickering Castle. His Grace loves to hunt, and of course we sometimes ended up at Scarborough after a day out.’
‘Tell us about it.’ Medford spoke for the first time.
A Parliament of Spies Page 26
