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

by Cassandra Clark

  ‘You always have soft feelings for the underdog,’ remarked Gregory. ‘It’s a good quality. I’m not criticising.’

  ‘I noticed Alaric standing half-hidden behind a pillar in the cloister when the novices were having their lessons this morning,’ Egbert told her. ‘You would have wept, Hildegard, he had such longing on his face as they went through their Latin. It seems a shame when a lad has a natural interest not to foster it.’ He looked thoughtful. ‘More than a shame, a cruelty.’

  ‘That’s as well,’ Gregory butted in, ‘but, to the point, what was it Hywel mentioned about the tide three month’s hence? What was he trying to tell us?’

  They walked on in silence for a few moment until Hildegard remarked, ‘Three months from now puts us at the Equinox.’ She looked at the other two. ‘Extra high tides. Helpful to anybody wanting to launch an invasion across to France?’

  Chapter Eight

  By the time they went inside, the heat still lingered in the garth even though the sun had dropped below the bank on the other side of Hampton Water. The echoing guest hall was full of newcomers, petty traders waiting for the cog to unload or waiting to go onboard themselves to whatever business awaited them on the Isle of Wight or on the other side of the Narrow Sea.

  The abbey servants hurried between the trestles with bread cakes shared between two, with heavy jugs of red wine from Aquitaine, with whole fish from the ponds, with fried eels, with eggs, with good, plain food, lavish and freely given.

  Egbert nudged Gregory and whispered to Hildegard, ‘Don’t look now but those three militia are sitting in a huddle at the far end. I see they have knives with them.’

  Gregory said, ‘So have we all, the better to slice our cheese.’

  Hildegard warned, ‘Don’t stare at them. They’ll take any opportunity to continue their fight once they recognize you. They were thoroughly humiliated by you.’

  ‘They humiliated themselves by regarding us so lightly,’ Gregory corrected. ‘They shouldn’t assume they can march in anywhere they like. A holy writ runs here.’

  ‘Why has Arundel sent them?’ Egbert asked again. ‘Is it only to fetch cargo off the ship? Or are they here to wrest tribute money from the poor old Netley brothers? Or,’ he added, ‘are they spying out the land on behalf of King Richard’s enemy? I think I’ll go and find out.’

  Hildegard put a hand on his arm. ‘Let me. I can speak to someone who‘s bound to know without having to provoke them by asking questions.’ She had noticed Mistress Lissa and her husband sitting at the next table and went over.

  After a greeting and one or two pleasantries she asked Lissa if she knew what the men were doing here.

  ‘I do happen to know,’ replied Lissa with a toss of her red hair. ‘They’re waiting for the St Marie to unload. It’s rumoured that there’s something special on board being brought in for the earl. It must be special,’ she added scornfully, ‘if it takes three armed men to convey it back to his treasure house.’

  ‘Now then, Lissa, my sweeting, it’s not for us to know. It may be the crown and all the king’s jewels. It may be a troupe of Nubian slaves. It may be...’ he waved a hand to include the entire world, ‘but we should mind our own business and not seek to pry into that of others.’

  ‘You’re too easy-going, Simon, my owl. It would certainly be the royal crown if only Arundel had managed to get his hands on it but that’s one thing he couldn’t fix at Gloucester’s parliament of hate.’

  Simon shook his head at his wife and turned to Hildegard. ‘Ignore her, domina. She doesn’t mean three-quarters of what she says. She’s as loyal to whoever as need be – ’

  ‘Don’t you tell me about myself, master. I know what I think and I say what I think – ’

  ‘Then you will get into serious trouble one of these days, my angel, and I will have to be the one to get you out.’

  ‘You are a fond old fool, Simon, no wonder I love you, but you must not seek to restrain me from what I feel is right. I do not and cannot like who-know-who and that’s an end of it.’ She shot Hildegard a bright smile. ‘I don’t know what the royal court is coming to. I’m sure the domina feels the same, don’t you?’ Her eyes shone with a questioning and complicit gleam as she tapped Hildegard on the back of the hand and leaned forward. ‘We women know what’s right and wrong. We’re not so easily fooled by these powerful lords who tell us only sweet nothings while all the while they’re stealing the very bread from between our fingers.’ She looked across the table. ‘Isn’t that so, Mistress Delith?’

  Caught listening, the widow jerked up her head and bestowed a nervous glance round the table before saying hurriedly, ‘Of course, mistress, we women know full well what rogues men are,’ she gave a tittering laugh to show she meant nothing more serious than the usual claims against them. Out of the corners of her eyes she glanced down the hall towards the three militia. ‘I suppose they’re hired to do the bidding of a vassal of the lord Arundel,’ she remarked. ‘They look so young, scarcely torn from their nurse’s leading strings. I wonder they choose such a life. So unpleasant and horribly, horribly dangerous.’

  ‘May hap they have no other skills to trade,’ remarked Simon, scarcely giving them a glance. ‘It’s not given to every man to become an apprentice. I can’t see any one of them being taken into a guild. They are fixed, mistress,’ he smiled contentedly at Delith, ‘as are we all in the destiny the lord God has allotted us.’

  Lissa gave a snort. ‘I can’t see God alotting to anyone the instruction to break fully armed into an abbey precinct,’ Her fiery hair sparked as if to emphasise her scorn.

  She gave her husband a withering glance and he tried to pacify her by saying, ‘To accuse them of breaking in is surely too strong, my pigeon?’

  After Hildegard excused herself she returned to the two monks and told them the gist of Lissa’s comments.

  ‘At least it can’t be arms, not with all this attention, Surely even he wouldn’t dare bring in arms openly as if to display his willingness to rebel.’ Egbert rejoined.

  ‘We’ll see what they bring in when they come ashore with it. At present everybody’s waiting for the tide,’ Gregory said. ‘Did our magician tell us when it might be?’

  Egbert shook his head. ‘Let them wait. The tide means nothing to us at present,’ he sighed with impatience. ‘We’re only waiting for our lord abbot to be fit enough to get back on his horse.’

  Despite their own indifference to the growing moon and its effect on the tides and the resulting release of business activities when goods could be brought ashore, a hubbub of growing excitement filled the refectory after Compline. It was crowded, it was over-heated, it was a confusion of newly arrived travelers and traders, wearied and expectant, and the sound rose to the rafters with no sign that it would abate until well into the night when everyone had exhausted themselves.

  Hildegard made her excuses to the men by telling them she would look in on Hubert on her way to her sleeping chamber. It was still hot and the star-filled sky seemed to hang close above the towers and walls of Netley when she stepped outside.

  She stood in the dappled shadows of the garth to breathe in the scented air for a moment. A shrouded figure was leaning against the wall of the building further along and did not look up until the three mercenaries came tumbling out behind her with drinking vessels in their hands. They were praising the wine which their lord, they claimed, had brought in to sell on to the Cistercians and they, as deserved, were enjoying the benefit of his foresight.

  The figure against the wall shifted at the sound then melted out of sight before Hildegard could see who it was but, without noticing anything, the militiamen continued to talk in the loud voices of people who have had too much to drink.

  She crossed the garth to the infirmary as they rolled on their way into the cloisters, voices echoing and distorted by the stone vault. Wondering how long it would be before the guest master begged them to consider the sleeping monks in the nearby dortor she reached the infirmar
y and entered its sweet-smelling gloom.

  Closing the doors behind her as quietly as she could she was surprised to see no sign of the usual half-dozen lay-brothers on duty. Except for the slight mound of Mistress Beata lying in her bed at the far end in the shadows and Hubert in his usual place near the doors, the rest of the cubicles were empty. It was no hotter here than anywhere else but she suspected the conversi of trying to find respite from the lingering heat elsewhere.

  It was a fact that it seemed almost hotter now than during the day-time. The air was ominous with the threat of thunder and stifling enough to bring on headaches. Hildegard pressed her fingers to her temples and ran a finger inside her belt to release the stickiness of her linen shift against her skin.

  Hubert was propped up in his bed with a book in his hands and a candle by his side. He looked as cool as ice and as handsome as ever and when he heard the door he put the book down.

  ‘I’ve missed you. Where have you been?’

  ‘Nowhere special. We had a look at Hywel’s astrolabe. Did they bring you something to eat?’

  Unexpectedly he pulled her down beside him. ‘Kiss me, Hildegard. For once there’s no-one to see us.’

  ‘Oh Hubert, no,’ she tried to pull away from his embrace but his heated skin, seductive with the scent of pine oil, his feverish mouth, the touch of his lips on hers overcame her resistance and with a half-hearted attempt at escape she melted into his arms. ‘You told me you would wait for my answer when we reached Meaux,’ she whispered when she could tear her lips from his for a moment.

  ‘What if I can’t wait?’ he demanded in a voice hoarse with desire. ‘What difference does it make now or later? Are you going to reject me? I want you. I can only speak the truth. It’s no sin to speak the truth, Hildegard, my dear heart. Where’s the sin in this?’

  ‘You are cozening and you know it.’

  ‘Are we so sure that what we’re told about sin is right? What about praising God for the gift of human love? Surely it must mean that it’s right to do as our deepest feelings urge?’

  ‘Hubert, you can’t expect me to throw everything away with no thought of the consequences. You’re asking me to make a decision that will change everything... ’

  ‘Come into my bed, come here now. We’re as private as we can ever be.’

  ‘But look, Mistress Beata is only down the hall,’ she faltered.

  ‘Hywel gave her a strong dose of his sleeping draft. He would have given a draft to me if I hadn’t resisted. Come to me, here, now, Hildegard.I‘m longing for you. You’re my heart’s desire and my body yearns to be one with yours.’ He covered her mouth with firm kisses again and again until she was beginning to lose all resistance.

  ‘Let me touch you, Hildegard, let me feel your skin next to mine. This is no sin. I’ve seen no sentence that tells us it’s so. No-one has ever read such a sentence. No such words exist. We make prisons for ourselves with imaginary laws which have no binding in reality. It’s against nature to deny ourselves the love and desire we feel for each other. This is no passing desire and you know it. We cannot live a life of denial. That would be the sin, the sin against our true natures, against life itself.’

  ‘It will put our immortal souls in jeopardy. You know that.’ Her fingers seemed to move of their own volition through his thick, dark hair as, even now, she was incapable of tearing herself away. ‘It’ll mean we’ll have to leave the Order. We cannot live double-lives. We know the Rule.’

  ‘Will you do that for me?’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Leave the Order?’

  ‘Leave the Order! Hubert, do you know what you’re saying?’ She was trembling not only with desire but with the enormity of what he was asking her to do. ‘You cannot ask me that.’

  ‘Why not? What choice do we have?’

  ‘You promised to wait for my answer at least until we returned to Meaux.’ His glance held hers and she tried to explain. ‘I’ve found solace in my widowhood within the priory at Swyne...I’ve found fulfillment of some kind in my duties... now you’re asking me to give it up...’She put her fingers to his lips to stave off another kiss. ‘I don’t know whether I have the courage or the strength to – ’

  ‘Not even for me?’

  ‘It would only ever be for you.’

  ‘Then let’s do it! Let’s leave! Let courage be our guide!’

  ‘And live together like...’ she cast around in her mind for names. ‘It could not be like Abelard and Heloise... they were separated in the flesh by what his abbot did to him. Castration? Hubert, no! It’s unthinkable.’

  ‘They made an example of him to deter others...but it failed, Hildegard. You saw the cardinals in Avignon with their mistresses, their concubines – ’

  ‘Exactly!’

  ‘But I don’t want that for us. I want us to live freely and openly in the world, not in the midst of lies and the corruption of the flesh...’

  ‘Then how do you mean? Like...’ A smile twitched her lips. ‘Like Simon and Lissa? Like a merchant and his wife?’

  He laughed out loud. ‘We can live however we choose once we’re free.’

  ‘Once we are free...’

  He took her face between his palms and raised her mouth to his. ‘Let’s seek the Blessed Isles, to love, to pray, to live, and never lie.’

  ‘If only, Hubert, my dear lord, if only...’

  ‘I see I’ve shocked you. Lying here with nothing on my mind but you I’ve had time to consider it most deeply and have come to the conclusion that it’s a terrible thing to be separated from love at the behest of a few old churchmen whose blood has lost its fervour. Life is finite. We serve God by taking hold of it and living to the full.’ He held her in a close embrace for a long, delicious, heated moment, his desire unassuaged, his will unmoving, yet his spirit undespairing. ‘It shall be so, my heart. I vow it.’

  A sudden sound at the great doors brought her trembling in alarm from his embrace. ‘Who’s that?’ she whispered, swivelling to look over her shoulder.

  The doors swung wide to reveal a figure in the entrance.

  A man’s gruff voice made a muffled apology from under his hood and the figure withdrew.

  ‘Who was it?’ she whispered still held in the circle of Hubert’s arms. ‘Were we seen? Hubert! We must have been seen! What will happen? Was it Abbot Philip? One of his men?’

  ‘I care not.’ He held her in a grip of steel. ‘He’s gone now, whoever it was, skulking about, forget him.’

  She glanced fearfully towards the door.‘If we were seen...’

  ‘Excommunication. Only the pit of hell to receive us.’ He paused to look tenderly into her face as if he had never seen it before, gently touching and exploring it with the tips of his fingers, all the while murmuring, ‘I dare risk the pit of hell for one night with you.’

  ‘Let me go and find out who came in,’ she whispered. ‘I fear for you, not for myself. They would destroy you and wreak their revenge on someone they have honoured as abbot and advisor at Citeaux, someone they have trusted, someone who holds the authority of the Order in his hands and can destroy it for a reason they will not understand. Let me go, beloved. I’ll come straight back.’

  Wresting herself from his embrace and still shaking she went to the door, turned her head once to look at him to find his dark eyes, deep with desire, fixed on her, and then she opened the door and slipped outside.

  The moon was nearly full. It seemed to sail on a bed of cloud through its sea of stars. Her heart sang with love for Hubert, her abbot, her lord, her desire.

  Before she could step further into the garth a hand came out of the darkness, gripping her by the arm with savage strength, jolting her into the moment. A voice, growling with menace asked, ‘So this is where you nuns ply your trade, woman? I thought it would be down on the quay, such is the tradition of sea-farers’ whores.’

  ‘What did you say?’ She struggled against him and in the darkness of the porch she could not make out who it was who spo
ke with such threatening insult. His anonymity made her fight against him. ‘Take your hands off me!’

  He used his strength to force her deeper into the shadowed recess of the porch.

  ‘Was that Abbot de Courcy buying his nightly pleasure?’ came the voice against her ear. ‘I believe it must have been. There’s only the old woman left in there, such is the wild good health of these pale monks. Do you service others?’

  She managed to free one hand and bring it up to where she thought the voice came from and a bestow a stinging smack across the stranger’s face. His hood fell back under the force. By the glimmering of the moon she recognised him at once.

  ‘You?’ Her mouth hung open.

  ‘Have we met? Never in like circumstances, I’ll wager. I have a wife at home whom I love.’

  He released her and she raised one hand again.

  ‘No,’ he growled, ‘Not again or I shall have to be avenged.’

  ‘Prince Owain.’

  He gave a start and glanced hurriedly across the garth. ‘You really know me?’

  ‘I opened the door into your chamber by mistake today. I know of you, who doesn’t? I understand you’re in the personal body-guard of the earl of Arundel.’

  ‘You understand, do you?’ He surveyed her in the half-light with a sardonic expression.

  There seemed no answer so she did not waste her breath.

  He lowered his voice. ‘Tell me what four Cistercians from a distant northern abbey are doing here at Netley?’

  ‘If you know that much you probably know the answer already,’ she retorted.

  She would never admit what had happened to them in the woods. He must already know if the men who attacked them on the way here owed fealty to the same lord as himself, and she would not give him the satisfaction of telling him about Hubert’s injury at their hands.

  By the light of the moon she could read the confusion on his face. ‘I’m not in the habit of asking questions to which I know the answer. Who sent you?’ When she failed to reply he muttered something under his breath in Welsh and glowered at her. It prompted her to pose a question to him.