The Alchemist of Netley Abbey: Eighth in the Hildegard of Meaux medieval mystery series

by Cassandra Clark

  ‘But if such knowledge is generally known any advantage would surely be lost?’

  ‘But then, magister, the speed and courage of the merchant would determine the victor.’

  ‘I beg your indulgence at my foolish limitations,’ Hywel said with an exaggerated lilting of his accent. ‘I am not and can never be your man. The Church frowns on dabblings into divination. Scrying into the future is rightly seen as an attempt to control His Divine Purpose and subvert it to our own ends. It would attract those whose only wish is for total domination.’ With that he continued on his way.

  Hildegard and the two monks exchanged looks. They watched Master John move off, smiling at the women, unaware that he was being tailed by Delith and her patient little maid. Delith was making a great show of petting her blackbird with many little pouting kisses although to a close observer, judged Hildegard, she was holding it to her shoulder with what might have been regarded as sheer force.

  She recalled now the slap across the face of that little angel with its halo of blonde corkscrew curls peering out from a mound of fabric in the guest chamber on the evening she had arrived. The young lad carrying the clothes chest must have been Jankin.

  ‘Have you been into his secret chamber yet?’ Gregory interrupted her reverie.

  ‘Whose?’

  ‘Our handsome Brother Hywel’s.’

  ‘I didn’t know he had one. And why should it be I to enter it?’

  ‘Of we three you seem to have had most to do with him.’

  ‘Only on errands for Hubert to the herb garden. He’s got an insatiable desire to walk again and it’s knit-bone all the time – which I doubt can fulfil all the high claims he makes for it.’

  ‘He?’

  ‘Hubert.’

  ‘He’ll have to learn patience as he’s always advising us,’ Egbert chuckled with satisfaction. ‘It’s a case of the biter bit!...I wouldn’t mind having a look inside the friar’s den though. He’s got an astrolabe in there, they say.’

  ‘Why don’t we go and ask him if he’ll show us how it works?’ Gregory made no move to shift from his comfortable perch on the half wall of the cloister.

  ‘If you want to scorch yourself by going out into the desert of the Garth then do so.’ Egbert didn’t move.

  ‘I’ve got one of Mistress Sour’s sunhats and so have we all. This is nothing to Outremer. Our Saracen brothers would laugh at us. Come on, old fellow, let’s go. It’s a while until Vespers.’

  ‘Who are you calling old fellow?’ Egbert was off the wall with alacrity and half way across the blazing garth almost before Gregory himself got down. Hildegard watched them go and then, on an impulse, decided to follow.

  They had only gone half-way across when a commotion at the gate house drew their attention and that of others about the place. What they saw was the day porter and his lad outfacing three newcomers leading horses under the archway. They wore mail but were bare-headed and suffering from the sun. Their horses were accoutred in the cloth of some lord and well-appointed. The porter had called for them to stop and they were choosing to ignore him.

  Hildegard put a hand on Gregory’s arm.

  The porter’s voice came to them clearly. ‘I have my orders. No arms within the abbey precinct. It has always been so. I have no instructions to say otherwise.’

  All three men were wearing swords.

  Ignoring that fact the porter reached out to grasp the bridle of the first horse to bring it to a halt. Its rider came round from the other side and pushed him away.

  Hildegard felt Gregory and Egbert come simultaneously to full alert. ‘Don’t!’ she warned. ‘We’re on abbey land.’

  ‘You don’t need to tell us,’ Egbert muttered.

  Without a word he and Gregory set off towards the gatehouse.

  Hildegard felt a shiver run through her. Now she had had a proper look at the colours on the horse’s caparisons she recognised them. They were those of the earl of Arundel.

  Hurrying after her two companions to warn them she came up just as the porter was repeating his request. His voice wavered a little. ‘We cannot have armed men within the abbey precinct and if you object I shall have to seek out the abbot himself to find out if there’s a new rule I know nothing about.’

  ‘He’s right,’ Egbert interrupted. ‘But there is no such ruling. We are men of peace here. Leave your weapons at the gatehouse like good fellows and then you will be most welcome.’

  A second man called, ‘and who might you be?’

  ‘I might ask you the same question,’ replied Egbert easily.

  ‘I’m the captain. Answer my question.’

  ‘My captain, if you want to put it that way, is the abbot of this precinct, and this man here is his deputy and it is he who decides who comes in and whether they are allowed to bear arms. Do as he says and all will be over. I can see you’ve had a hard ride and would prefer to be sitting in the cool of the refectory drinking cold ale.’

  ‘Aye, we would,’ the captain agreed with a sneer, ‘but with our own swords by our sides. Now move back and let us in.’

  He was a raw-boned, dark-haired fellow, not old but old enough to be conscious of the sharpness of his sword, the protection afforded by his mail shirt and the power and ruthlessness of the lord who maintained him.

  By contrast Egbert was approaching forty, he was unarmed, and his only protection was a Being whose general design for mankind was unknown.

  Undeterred, the monk folded his arms. ‘You can’t come in unless you leave your swords in the gatehouse. They’ll be safe there. It’s a clear enough request.’

  ‘I’m not accustomed to monks telling me what to do. Move aside.’

  ‘I don’t think I will,’ replied Egbert in a disarmingly good-natured tone.

  ‘We’ll see about that, you bloody tonsured...’ Words seemed to fail him. ‘Now I’m telling you. Get out of my way before I cut you down!’ He pushed his way in front of his companions. In the silence that followed, his sword, partly withdrawn from its sheath as a warning, made a surprisingly loud sound.

  Egbert stood without moving.

  By now a crowd had gathered. The porter was sweating. His boy was wide-eyed with fright.

  Master John had come over and one or two others including Simon, hobbling on his stick, and Delith, clutching the blackbird, and accompanied as always by her little maid. Out of the corner of her eyes Hildegard noticed Hywel and young Jankin and one or two lay-brothers coming to see what was up. The rest formed a loose circle round the intruders but none of them could do much, unarmed, untrained and in one or two cases, too old, against three young, fit, armed men spoiling for a fight.

  The first man started to lead his horse forward, deliberately brushing past the porter so that he had to step hurriedly back to avoid being trampled. Everybody froze as they came on.

  Then Gregory made a move. It was a small movement of his right hand, scarcely noticed by anyone until they saw a sword glittering full-length out of its sheath with the monk pointing it without a tremor at its owner’s throat.

  There was a belated gasp.

  Gregory’s voice was pleasant and unhurried. ‘Do as the porter says. You heard my brother ask you courteously to hand over your swords. Now I am asking you. With perhaps less courtesy.’

  ‘Go on, Jack. Push past him. He won’t touch you!’ roared the captain of the trio.

  Gregory drew a delicate line across the man’s throat. ‘You do keep a sharp sword, Jack,’ he complimented as a thread of blood appeared and, drop by drop, trickled down inside the mail shirt. Jack himself was gazing fixedly at Gregory as if in a dream.

  Simon had hobbled to the front of the group and was leaning on his wife’s shoulder because Egbert had grasped his stick in both hands.

  A long silence ensued when nobody moved.

  Gregory was the first to lose patience. ‘Let’s take them,’ he said out of the corner of his mouth to Egbert.

  Afterwards nobody could say exactly in what order event
s took place. The end of it was clear, however.Jack was lying on the ground underneath his horse’s hoofs, groaning, two swords were somehow transferred from their owners to the porter and his lad who then hurried inside the gatehouse and slammed the door, and the three surprised intruders were staring at two monks, one armed with a hazel stick and one with a purloined sword, both smiling in a most unwarlike manner.

  ‘Now you may enter the holy precinct of Netley,’ announced Gregory with a sweep of an arm towards the abbey.

  A burst of applause arose from the onlookers and the blackbird gave its first melodious trill.

  Chapter Seven

  When the three new-comers had been conducted to the guest-master’s office by a large and sturdy-looking bunch of abbey servants the crowd was reluctant to break up. It was shortly before Vespers anyway and there was no point in leaving the garth with so much to talk about.

  ‘Who would imagine two unarmed monks could best a trio of armed men?’

  ‘Three against two,’ someone else emphasized, ‘against the odds.’

  ‘That they should even contemplate entering abbey grounds fully armed like that,’ said someone else. ‘It’s beyond belief.’

  The yellowish man with the book came up belatedly and they turned to explain everything to him but he seemed to know what had happened. ‘I was over in the cloister,’ he explained. ‘I saw it all. Most impressive. Like Ajax and Achilles.’

  Hywel fell into step beside the two monks as they began to head towards the church. ‘That was neat,’ he remarked. ‘Did you acquire such skills before making your vows, or afterwards?’

  ‘Whatever we learned was acquired in boyhood and how we honed our skills has come from long years on the road to Jerusalem.’ Egbert looked back at the sunlit garth. ‘This hot weather brings it all back. We might be outside the sacred walls at this very moment.’ He wore a look of regret, then, somewhat bemused, turned abruptly to enter the dark portal of the church.

  ‘That porter and his lad were quick to take advantage of events,’ Hildegard observed as she and the two Cistercians from Meaux stood together in the shade of the porch afterwards. The sun was still burning down. Few guests had attended the mid-day Office. They were not obliged to do more than show up at Prime and attend the short mass that followed, although the more devout pilgrims went to the other canonical offices as they felt the need.

  ‘I see they’ve got reinforcements over there,’ Gregory observed with a glance towards the gatehouse. ‘Let’s stroll over and see what they make of it. Then I must go inside out of this molten heat and do some reading.’

  So saying they went over to be greeted with great good-heart by the day porter. ‘And here they are, the heroes of the hour,’ he exclaimed to the night porter and his boy who had joined him in the shade under the arch.

  ‘We were saying how quick off the mark you were,’ Egbert grinned. ‘Where are their weapons now?’

  ‘Under lock and key.’ He added with a lugubrious expression, ‘I expect the abbot will be having something to say about it tomorrow morning at Chapter.’

  ‘Nothing much he can say but to condemn such presumption,’ Gregory suggested.

  He shrugged and frowned in reply and his colleague gave a mocking laugh. ‘We shall see, brother, we shall see.’

  ‘I’m not counting on anything,’ the day porter admitted. ‘The abbot sometimes sees things different to what you might expect. I only hope somebody will speak on my behalf.’ He looked worried.

  ‘Is there any doubt?’ exclaimed Egbert. ‘We all saw what happened with our own eyes.’

  ‘You might escape censure, brother, being from foreign parts, and with your abbot here to defend you, but it might well be different for me. That’s all I dare say.’ His eyes darted from side to side.

  ‘Count on us,’ replied Gregory, looking puzzled. ‘We’re not to be trifled with. You did what you could.’

  ‘Speaking of that,’ Egbert interrupted. ‘Are they the only mercenaries in the abbey at present?’

  ‘You asked me that before...’

  The night porter stepped forward. ‘Leave this to me, Osric. Brother,’ he lowered his voice and took Egbert by the arm. ‘We owe it to you to let the identity of the man who arrived in the night be known to you. We owe it to you especially after what happened just now. He’s one of the Welsh militia leaders who rode with Arundel in the north a while back and he’s been part of the earl’s personal body-guard ever since.’

  ‘I feared as much,’ Egbert replied. He shot a glance at Gregory who was listening to this with no expression.

  Hildegard moved closer as the night porter whispered a name into Egbert’s ear. It was loud enough for her worst fears to be confirmed. ‘It’s Glyn Dwr. Prince Owain as his men call him.’

  ‘Riding with no men of his own?’ Egbert looked puzzled.

  ‘Aye, we’ve discussed that among ourselves already but we’ve come up with no good answer. He obviously doesn’t want to draw attention to himself. Is it to have a secret look at the lie of the land, do you reckon?’

  ‘Or the sea and its safe havens?’ suggested the day-porter.

  ‘Or, indeed, both?’ Egbert concluded. He turned to Gregory. ‘We were right to be concerned.’

  Hildegard was reminded of the mixed reports about Owain Glyn Dwr. True, he marched with Arundel but then the earl held land in Wales close to Glyn Dwr’s manor at Sycharth and it was common-sense to maintain good relations with so powerful a neighbour. On the other hand they could not forget that Arundel was a known enemy of King Richard – he had amply demonstrated his allegiance at the recent Merciless Parliament – and that fact was surely enough to tell them all they needed to know about Glyn Dwr’s allegiance. And that of Friar Hywel.

  ‘Do you think it means that Arundel is planning a move against the French again?’ Hildegard asked. ‘If Glyn Dwr is here to look over the river ports it could mean the earl is planning to assemble his invasion fleet here.’

  ‘It could very well be, domina, and if that’s the case Netley Abbey will be on the front line.’

  An air of gloom hung over the three of them as they departed. ‘No more than two hours ago we were wondering what to do with ourselves and planning a visit to view the astrolabe,’ Egbert broke the silence. ‘Now we have to think of our lord abbot’s safety. If there is going to be a bit of a fight he’s in no position to defend himself. We shall have to have him moved.’

  ‘That’ll be an uphill struggle unless it’s straight back to Yorkshire.’

  ‘He can’t even walk on crutches yet,’ Hildegard pointed out.

  ‘We’d better leave off thoughts about astronomy at present and go and inform him of this latest turn.’ Gregory led the way when the others nodded.

  ‘Keep him calm, Hildegard. You know what he’s like,’ murmured Egbert as they crossed the garth.

  When they reached the infirmary it was a pool of welcome shade but with no time to waste they made straight for Hubert’s cubicle only to find their host, Philip, the abbot of Netley himself, already ensconced in a wooden chair that had been dragged from elsewhere.

  He treated the monks to a lordly smile, greeted Hildegard, a nun, in a flustered manner, then bade them all be seated. Hubert, eyes like two black pits, face as wan as ever, was lying back with what Hildegard could only describe to herself as a skeptical attitude.

  Thinking it was something to do with their sudden appearance in a group she was surprised when he said, ‘Honoured though I am for your attention, Abbot Philip and I were discussing a serious matter to do with the security of the abbey.’

  ‘You mean that fracas at the gate earlier on?’ asked Egbert, straight to the point. But he was wrong.

  ‘My porter over-stepped the mark there. I’m at pains to comply with every wish and command of earl Arundel’s vassal as the porter well knows. He should have let them in.’

  ‘But with respect, my lord, they were fully armed and had no intention of handing over their weapons.’

>   ‘Tell us your version of events at Chapter.’ Abbot Philip inclined his head. ‘I’ll welcome your account, brother.’

  ‘And so shall I,’ Hubert interrupted, regaining control over the conversation. ‘But this is something deeper of which that is but a symptom. With your permission, abbot?’

  ‘Oh, please do, yes, please go ahead, Hubert. By all means. I fear there will be no other solution than the one we’ve discussed.’

  Intrigued, Hildegard sat down next to Hubert, being careful not to allow her sleeve to touch his and Egbert and Gregory arrayed themselves about the cubicle as best they could.

  ‘It is this,’ Hubert began. He lay back for a moment with his head on the pillow and Hildegard thought how handsome he looked even with his pupils dilated by Hywel’s poppy tincture and his face as white as parchment. Hair too long, she noted, as he began to speak, but how black it is, how softly rumpled it looks and she longed to reach out.

  ‘Abbot Philip has brought a dilemma to my notice which, sadly in these unfortunate times, is not unique,’ he was saying when she brought her attention back. ‘He has told me in confidence, of course,’ Hubert opened both eyes and pierced each of them in turn with a look that would allow no loose talk, ‘that he is being forced to pay a tribute of considerable and regular sums for a detachment of militia to defend him from attack. The abbey is vulnerable. It is not a castle. It was not built to be so. Its founders believed that the sanctity of its inhabitants was protection enough.’

  Gregory made a small impatient movement but said nothing.