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

by Cassandra Clark

  ‘No thanks to you if they did. Was that the best you could do?’

  ‘Mea culpa,’ he muttered, head bent, one hand, however, caressing the peeking little head protruding from his pouch.

  ‘Where did they go? Did you at least notice that?’

  ‘They disappeared into the night.’

  ‘And you didn’t follow because not only are you afraid of water you’re also afraid of the dark?’

  ‘I couldn’t see which way to go. They went quiet. Like stalking an animal. The moon gave no light. She’s hiding now behind the clouds.’

  At least the prince Owain had managed to get away. But what if the mercenaries went out after him? He would not be difficult to follow through the woods.

  Hywel must have had the same idea.

  ‘Your chores are not over yet. Go into the stables, find Alaric and see what he’s up to. Watch without being seen. I don’t like this silence. There’s something wrong.’

  ‘Watch what?’

  ‘Watch and learn, or watch and tremble. It depends on what happens.’

  After he left Hildegard repeated, ‘But these are Arundel’s men, so why pursue Glyn Dwr?’

  Hywel didn’t bother to answer.

  Confused about Hywel’s role in all this as, she assumed, one of Arundel’s men himself, she went to the door and pushed it ajar to see if she could tell what was happening over in the stable block but, as Hywel had remarked, silence hung over the building.

  Outside it seemed hotter than ever. The air was like a warm cloth covering the face, a blind-fold rather, as it was a night now without light. The stars she had admired earlier were veiled by clouds.

  A bronze aura where the moon floated invisible and full of menace – no longer the light, silvery disc as before but a malevolent and baleful red – emerged from behind the clouds for a moment. Even then it was soon extinguished by bruise-coloured storm vapour sweeping up from the West and darkening even the one frail bronze light that had briefly shown itself. The wind blew in a sudden hot gust from the direction of the river bringing a swirl of debris, followed by a crack of thunder.

  Hywel was beside her. She could feel his hot breath on her cheek. Instead of looking at the changing sky he was staring towards the stable yard. ‘What the devil is going on over there?’ he muttered. ‘Why is it so quiet? Stay here. I’m going over.’

  ‘So am I.’

  Seeing that it was useless to argue he plunged off into the darkness with Hildegard following the muffled brush of his foot-steps through the clammy dark. Rain began to fall in large, single drops. By the time they reached the pale, looming, stone pillars at the stable-yard entrance they were drenched.

  Instead of going on Hywel stopped so abruptly that Hildegard bumped into him. His face was a pale blur when he turned to her.

  In a voice tinged with horror, he whispered, ‘What the hell is that? Do you see it?’

  Peering over his shoulder into the darkness Hildegard became aware that something was hanging in the air above their heads. As she watched, it floated and turned and hovered. Then it rose up, blurry and indistinct, and floated evanescently, before moving on.

  It was uncanny.

  She could not understand what it was and could not help but grip Hywel by the arm. ‘What is it?’ she whispered.

  ‘It’s like a spirit, or an angel, or – I don’t know what...’ his voice tailed off when he noticed the mercenaries huddled in the yard a pace or two in front of them. They were staring upwards without moving.

  Jankin, too, was a pace away, similarly transfixed.

  Unnerved by the weird apparition as it hovered in the air everyone continued to stand in an awed silence.

  The spirit hesitated. Then it began to float across the yard with a faint, slow, unearthly sound, and they could see that it was headless, and apart from the strange whistle of breath that accompanied it, it moved in an uncanny silence that was more unnerving than if it had spoken aloud.It was so far beyond human movement that they could make no sense of what they were seeing.

  As they watched it rise up and begin to float towards them a crack of thunder rent the heavens.

  One of the mercenaries lost his nerve and let out a howl, a sound submerged in the dying, rumbling echo, and gabbling and snatching at his companions he tried to drag them between the ghostly thing and himself.

  ‘It’s a haunting!’ he shouted. ‘The dead have risen! Run for your lives!’

  Hildegard felt a blast of air as the three panicked men hurtled past within a hair’s breadth without even noticing her. She caught at Jankin as he followed them. ‘Wait! Let’s see what it is.’

  Hywel stretched out a hand as if to touch the weird apparition but found nothing in his grasp.

  ‘It’s too far away,’ Hildegard breathed. ‘The darkness gives the illusion that it’s closer than it is. It’s floating somehow...Treading the air...’

  As they watched, the spirit simply vanished.

  ‘Gone,’ Jankin whispered in awe.

  It had dissolved like mist.

  ‘The horses are quiet. Where are they?’ Hywel asked, speaking in hallowed tones.

  A feeling of dread settled over Hildegard. The horses?

  ‘The stable doors are closedt.’

  Inexplicably she felt more fear for the horses then at the sight of the ghost. She began to grope her way forward into the darkness towards the stables.

  Everyone had forgotten about the rain. It was falling like a thousand knives now, vindictive, relentless, kicking up the mud in the yard, blinding them, turning everything to blur and shadow, and setting up a constant hiss. Thunder rolled from one side of the abbey precinct to the other. Lightning flashed across the sky.

  In the distance she heard shouts.

  Forcing herself forward one step at a time she reached the first of the stable doors. The others started to follow. Jankin caught up and slipped his hand into hers.

  When she found the bolt, she hesitated before drawing it back. Then, dreading what she might find, she kicked open the door.

  A choking, foetid heat emanated from within. A single light burned at the far end but it was enough to show that the horses were at peace. They were caught in that first brief moment, munching hay, shuffling in sleep, heads lifting as soon as the draught from the door alerted them to human presence. She stepped forward into the half-dark. The animals seemed unperturbed by the apparition outside and, reassured by her presence, returned to their leisurely activities.

  Hywel and Jankin followed her inside.

  She heard Hywel’s boots scrape on the threshold. He began groping along a ledge for something and the eventual rasp of a flint was loud in the silence. His disembodied fingers were lit by the small, bright flame pressed to the wick floating in the dish and a gold light slid rapidly through the stables to glint off the eye-balls of the horses and gloss their coats and make shadows leap more strangely up the walls.

  Nothing seemed out of place. A rake stood by the wall. A bucket was on its hook. The horses, having sensed nothing to frighten them, carried on eating.

  A footstep in the hay-loft above made Hywel utter a warning. Then a shape emerged. It paused at the top of the ladder before climbing down towards them. It was not headless. When it came closer, emerging from the shadows, a fair, fine, and very human face shone in the flame-light. Blue eyes glinted. Lips moved. And it spoke.

  ‘I see they’ve gone without their horses? Is that what you wanted?’

  It was Alaric.

  Moving with the precision of a dancer – or, decided Hildegard, with sudden dawning, of an acrobat – he walked up to them and stood in a pool of light.

  He addressed Hywel directly. ‘I trust that was ingenious enough for you, magister?’

  Back in Hywel’s workshop, shaking the rain off their clothes, hair plastered to their skulls, puddles of water forming at their feet, no-one ventured to ask anything until warm flasks of wine were in their hands. Hywel was sitting on a high stool, and they were ranged r
ound on whatever they could find to lean against.

  Hildegard waited for Hywel to begin.

  He didn’t hesitate.

  With a level glance he demanded, ‘So tell us how.’

  ‘Simple.’ Alaric glanced round. ‘Didn’t you see it? The rope? I tied one end to the tree that overhangs the wall and the other to a hook inside the hay-loft. A shortish distance but I judged it might be enough.’

  ‘And?’ Hywel’s dark face probed for more.

  ‘I was lucky the moon went behind the clouds before I started. It added to it, don’t you think?’

  ‘You know you had everybody scared shitless?’

  ‘I hoped it would be so. Having heard those fools with their lucky rabbits’ feet and all the nonsense they perform when dicing, I thought they might be disposed to believe in ghosts as well.’

  ‘A pale, headless thing walking in mid-air. Oh, I see it all now. It certainly looked like the very devil.’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘You’ve learned to walk on air?’

  ‘I may live on air, magister but I don’t yet have the ability to walk on it. It was the rope.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know it was the rope. I’m not some village sot wit. But how did you manage to walk on it?’

  ‘A skill I learned when I was a child.’

  ‘You’re a child now,’ he snapped.

  ‘I’m seventeen. Or thereabouts.’

  ‘How’d you make yourself headless?’ asked Jankin with a quick, frightened glance at Hywel as if he feared being snapped at himself for venturing a question.

  ‘I thought you might like that. I pulled my tunic over my head and covered myself with a horse blanket. Look!’ Dragging his tunic by the shoulders so it covered his head he stuck out his arms like a grotesque, headless man.

  Hywel drummed his fingers on the bench. ‘What else can you do?’

  ‘All kinds of things.’

  ‘Go on, then, tell us how.’

  ‘I was made an orphan by the Death about the time some mummers came to the vill where I lived and I decided to run away with them. Better than ploughing fields. They were pleased enough to take me with them. A child always brings attention when it can perform tricks. ‘

  ‘And you performed tricks?’

  ‘After I’d been drilled, yes. It’s not easy. These are no light accomplishments. I had many a tumble, bruises without score, a cracked head, raw fingers from juggling, whipping when I failed, as I did, often, at first. Aches and pains you wouldn’t believe. Look!’ He suddenly sprang forward onto his hands and walked a few steps round the cramped chamber then righted himself with a flourish.

  ‘Very good.’ After three slow hand claps Hywel gave the ironic smile that hid a multiplicity of thoughts. ‘Should I ever need an acrobat, heaven forfend, I know to whom I shall turn. Why did you leave that life?’ he suddenly rapped. ‘Are you on the run from the law?’

  ‘No, I am not!’ Alaric looked offended. ‘If you want the truth, and why shouldn’t you, they were too ribald, too drunk, too feckless, too thieving, too whoring, too violent, too – too homeless,’ he added his mouth tightening. ‘Sleeping in ditches one night and in palaces the next. Then back, like as not, to the ditch. The life of a monk seems to be as close to heaven as anyone deserves in this life...and I wanted...I thought...’

  ‘So you thought you’d become a monk? Just like putting on a mummer’s garb?’ Hywel threw his head back with a vigorous laugh.‘What a dreamer! They take only the sons of the wealthy, my lad. You don’t have a chance. Anyway, you can’t read.’

  All the life suddenly went out of Alaric and he stared rigidly at the floor.

  ‘I am sure,’ Hildegard stepped forward, ‘that if Alaric was given the chance he could learn to read and then become a novice. After that he could decide it it’s the life for him. Other boys from similar backgrounds have done as much.’

  ‘Are you going to teach him, domina? You might drum a few letters into his thick skull but you’ll be moving on before your job’s done. Then we’ll have a half-lettered man who believes honest labour is beneath him and you won’t be giving him a second’s thought.’

  He stood up. ‘Enough of this. I’m to my bed for an hour or so. Your ingenuity is as surprising as it was useful, Alaric, but you’d better get back to the dortoir and put all thoughts of joining the brotherhood out of your head.’

  He began to douse the candles along the beam then without a word or backward glance went to the door.

  Jankin looked as if he had been about to say something but then, apparently thinking better of it, instead climbed into his pile of blankets and pulled them over his head. Alaric slipped outside and vanished into the rain.

  Wondering where Hywel slept, as she crossed Cloister Garth she heard him utter a clipped goodnight before he trudged off towards the men’s guest house.

  He’s well placed to hear the gossip of the pilgrims and the other passing guests in that dormitory, she thought, and also to find out what’s going on among the monks by virtue of his grey habit, too. She could well see that. With the times being so uncertain, many people felt that their only security lay in not being caught unawares. Information could mean the difference between life and death. And allegiances could change. A man might even serve two masters and receive pay from both. It was known to occur. Often.

  As she climbed the back stair that led straight up to the door of her chamber her thoughts sifted through what she knew and what she could only surmise.

  For instance, what would have happened if Alaric had been unable to stop the mercenaries from riding out after Glyn Dwr? One unarmed youth against three? The odds were not in his favour.

  And one man, no matter how illustrious his lineage, what chance against three armed ruffians? A body could lie in the woods for months – or forever – without being discovered. Delivered up to the huntsmen. An enemy done for.

  Then again, her thoughts revolved, sometimes it’s as foolish to underestimate a person’s capabilities as it is to over-estimate them. And she wondered if Hywel had learned anything useful along those lines tonight.

  Apart from Hywel and herself, Cloister Garth had been empty. No sign of the mercenaries. Scared witless by a fair-ground trick?

  The rain still fell.

  Soon Matins would come round again.

  It was little wonder that she tossed and turned on her bed with so many questions clamouring to be answered. She had locked her door and thrown off all her clothes as soon as she came in.

  Lying naked on the coverlet she had been staring up at the ceiling for hours. Sleep would not come. The rain was still pounding down with a malign insistence and the distant thunder that had earlier helped to put the men into a panic now rolled around the heavens from one side to the other as flashes of lightning skittered over the ceiling.

  It was hotter than ever. She wondered if hell would be hotter.

  Maybe she would find out if she didn’t watch her step.

  Hubert surely could not be serious about leaving the Order? It was his whole life just as it had become hers. Outside, what would they do? How would they live? The thought of where they would set up home could have no answer. She did not see herself as chatelaine of a large household once again with all the droningly familiar duties that entailed.

  Maybe they would travel? But to what purpose? As scholars? Wandering the world? She could not envisage a life without the people and places she knew or to live unprotected in a barbarous world of strife and danger.

  Suddenly a searing white light filled the chamber, brighter than all the others. It flickered three or four times and was followed by a massive crash like a tower falling to the ground. In a moment she was out of bed and at the window.

  Through its narrow slit she could see nothing but the dark silhouettes of the trees above the shore until suddenly a sheet of flame leaped into the air from the direction of the river illuminating everything around it. The light became more intense and seemed to set the waters themselves aflame.

/>   Moments later the thump of running feet along the corridor, slammed doors, voices, a high-pitched scream and below her window the hoarse shouts of the night porter as he tried to restore order above a clamour of counter instructions filled the night.

  Chapter Ten

  Without thinking she snatched up her shift, pulled it over her head, scrambled into her wet boots again, searched for her saddlebag and pulled from it her waterproof riding cloak and was already pulling it on as she unlocked her door and flew down the narrow stairs.

  Stuffing her unloosed hair inside her hood she ran towards the gatehouse where a rabble from all parts of the abbey in similar disarray were converging. Head and shoulders above them all Master John waded through them as if they were of no consequence.

  ‘My ship!’ he was shouting. ‘My ship!’

  The St Marie was on fire.

  ‘Wool out, wine in!’ an incautious voice observed. ‘At least the wine’ll be mulled!’

  ‘No wine on this one, fellow,’ snarled the ship-owner, pushing the man out of the way. ‘There’s cargo onboard worth more than gold itself.’

  A crowd of lay-brothers, belting their tunics as they ran barefoot down the muddy lane to the shingle beach, were already turning over the boats pulled above the tide.

  Hildegard saw Hywel hurl himself down the bank after Master John with a stream of helpers in their wake.

  Flares appeared but were hardly needed. Their guttering light paled in front of the massive light emitted by the burning ship. At some point it had been moved to an anchorage in the inner channel. It made it easier to reach and figures swarmed among the boats and began to drag them into the water.

  Master John ran straight in until it was up to his thighs as if he would walk out to his ship but someone shouted and another held him back, bellowing, ‘No master, get in the boat! We’ll row you out!’

  ‘We have to get the crew off!’ shouted one of the lay-brothers as he followed.

  Out on the lurid flood one lone boat left the burning vessel. It had two huddled passengers and someone at the oars. Behind it, glaring like the opened gates of hell itself the cog’s wooden planks buckled in the blaze with a hissing, snapping sound, her mast turned to a pole of fire while on deck a few shapes moved about as if blown by the flames to no purpose.