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

by Cassandra Clark

  ‘Of course. We used to swim in the Derwent when I was a child. Long ago!’ she added with a laugh. ‘It’s a placid river winding through thick woodland close to where I lived as a child. We could swim to the opposite bank in moments. It’s not like this.’

  For a moment they both stared across the wide stretch of water towards the fishermen’s huts on the opposite bank. Too far off to observe in detail they lay shimmering in the heat haze as before, levels of blue dwindling into the darker mass of the distant Royal Forest.

  ‘Where those huts are is a place called Deep Dale Purlieu,’ he told her, following her glance. ‘It’s outside the King’s writ, separate from his royal forest and the law of the verderers.’

  ‘Disputed land?’

  ‘It depends on who you are. Outlaws are unlikely to be in dispute as it’s their only safe place round here – that is, if you find living rough safe enough for you.’ He turned abruptly. ‘So there it is, domina. Your own private pool. I hope you’ll enjoy it if your Rule allows.’

  He began to walk quickly away for some reason. ‘Alaric!’ she called. ‘Wait! I want to ask you something.’

  He swivelled at the top of the bank and gazed down at her.

  ‘Last night during the storm I saw you climbing onto the St Marie...’She paused to allow him time to deny it. When he merely stared at her she added, ‘I expect that anchor chain was child’s play to you.’

  He gave a strange smile and turned his head. ‘Indeed. Nothing to it.’

  ‘Can you tell me who was on board when you arrived?’

  ‘Oh I see. Is it Master John?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I expect he’s been claiming that his cargo has been broken open and certain precious items stolen?’ He began to laugh in a sarcastic way.

  ‘Why do you think that?’

  ‘Because he keeps on saying so in a most pointed manner in front of any of those he would like to accuse more openly – especially we lay-brothers. He agrees with Brother Hywel on that topic. We’re all thieves, didn’t you know?’

  ‘I think he’s merely worried that he can’t fulfil his promise to bring in certain items for the man who underwrites his ship. At least, that’s what we deduce from his current anxiety.’

  ‘And do you know who the master of this master is?’ He gave her a cold glance.‘I know and I expect you do too...I’d feel anxious in his shoes.’ He drew his fingers across his neck then began to stride off into the break of trees and in a moment she saw him reach the path and start out on it.

  Bundling her skirts in one hand so she could climb more quickly up the bank she hurried after him. ‘Alaric, tell me what you mean.’

  ‘I’m sworn to secrecy,’ he muttered when she caught up with him. ‘You had no need to warn me about speaking out. I’m well aware of the danger.’ His grey eyes glinted with a resigned humour, making him look older and too disenchanted with the world for his years.

  ‘Does your discretion prevent you from answering my question about who was on board last night?’ she persisted.

  ‘You know I don’t want to tell you that.’

  ‘No hint?’ She gazed at him, eye to eye, refusing her challenge to name names before he admitted them himself.‘I don’t want to put words into your mouth.I thought you might tell me of your own volition.’

  ‘Think the worst of me.’

  He shrugged and began to walk off at a brisk pace and she decided to let him go.

  If anyone in the abbey, apart from the abbot and those who had gone over that morning to view the body, knew that Brother Martin was dead it would be the lay-brothers. They had a knack of picking up information as they went about the abbey and were not stone-deaf as some people imagined.

  Alaric’s refusal to answer meant nothing. Soon everyone else would know what had happened whether Abbot Philip announced it or not.

  On impulse she ran after him and, when she caught up with him, he gave a start as he had evidently not heard her approach.

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.’

  ‘What now?’ He eyed her with the wariness of a fawn.

  ‘Alaric, if I mention Brother Martin, will his presence on board be a surprise to you or not? Shake your head if his name means nothing.’

  He closed his eyes.

  When he opened them he said, ‘I saw him. You know I must have. He was dead before I arrived. I hope you believe that.’

  He moved off and this time she let him go.

  Gregory and Egbert were in the open space behind Friar Hywel’s workshop when she found them. It was a kind of yard, grassed over, and closed on three sides.

  To her astonishment, Gregory was standing motionless with his sword raised and Hywel, wielding a sword of his own, made a clumsy feint, retreated, then came back with a sudden swerving lunge which Gergory, however, parried with ease. A little skirmish followed.

  Hildegard went over to Egbert who was assessing matters. ‘What’s all this about?’

  Without taking his eyes off the combatants, he said, ‘He challenged us. Claims he never gets a chance to practice.’

  ‘Is he any good?’

  ‘Good for a friar.’ He smiled.

  Just then the two swords clashed and locked. Gregory forced Hywel into a position he could not defend. After a moment he seemed to decide that the friar had had enough and relaxed in a way he would never have done if the fight had been serious.

  But Hywel had not conceded.

  With flashing speed he reached with his left hand for the stiletto in his belt. Gregory must have seen the movement out of the corner of his eye. He stepped back as the tip of the blade snagged the front of his habit, and brought his hand down in a sweeping motion that sent it flying across the yard. Hywel’s borrowed sword followed.

  After he’d picked them up, handed the sword back to Egbert and replaced the knife in his belt, Hywel gave a grim nod to Gregory. ‘My thanks for a sharp lesson.’

  Gregory gave him a cuff on the shoulder. ‘You’re very quick.’

  Hywel grimaced. ‘I’ve had to be.’

  Noticing Hildegard and walking backwards, he made an obeisance. ‘Domina,’ he greeted. And then without another word he went back inside his workshop.

  ‘So this is how you spend the time.’

  ‘We were on our way to the porch to wait for you when he came up to us. We couldn’t turn him away.’

  She pulled at the loose threads of Gregory’s habit. ‘That was sneaky. He has a very sharp knife.’

  ‘My own fault. I’m getting lazy.’ He turned to Egbert. ‘If we need an extra man we could do worse than enlist him – assuming he won’t be raising his sword for Arundel.’

  ‘While we’ve been engaged, Hildegard, have you had a useful time?’ Egbert asked.

  She told them about Alaric being one of the first to go on board the St Marie. ‘All the lay-brothers will know Brother Martin is dead. You know how things are here. It won’t be long before the whole abbey knows, no matter whether Abbot Philip makes an announcement or not.’

  ‘Why did you need to speak to this particular lay-brother?’ asked Gregory with interest.

  She explained how she had seen him go on board. ‘I needed to ask him more but he’s as unpredictable as a wild animal.’ He had reminded her of a fawn, slight and graceful but shivering with nerves at the slightest scent of danger. It frightened her to feel so protective of him when everything pointed to his involvement in the monk’s death.

  ‘We put in an appearance in church for Philip’s benefit but we’re off to have that jug of ale with the shipman now,’ Egbert told her.

  ‘I notice your investigations always seem to involve ale,’ she said as, smiling, she left them.

  Chapter Four

  After she had looked in on Hubert and found him asleep again, she returned to the garth. The members of the little group of pilgrims and other guests in the cloister had changed since she had seen them earlier

  Lissa had returned with Sim
on. The two sisters had gone over to the fountain, both wearing straw hats sporting coloured ribbons and looking self-consciously picturesque as they scooped water into their ale mugs and Delith, playing with her blackbird, sat with her back to Lionel, the Winchester merchant, who was still swinging his legs nonchalantly on the wall and looking longingly at the dicemen. They were playing again but in a listless way that showed they couldn’t care less who won.

  The little maid, Lucie, was absent, as was Master John.

  It was too hot to think.Hildegard wiped a hand over her face.

  ‘Has John gone over to the ship?’ she asked. She had not seen him if he had.

  Lissa shook her head. ‘He went to the sacristy instead. He wanted to find out when they can start on the inventory.’

  ‘But have they removed all the cargo yet?’ She wondered how they had dealt with the fact of a dead body in the hold if so.

  ‘That’s what’s making him so anxious. He thinks anybody could go over and take what they wanted with only the ship man and a couple of crew to guard it.’

  ‘He should rest easy.’ Lionel, hitching an imagined crease out of his yellow cotte, spoke up. ‘Pirates won’t risk coming up this far nowadays. They know they’d get a bloody nose.’

  ‘I can’t see why you say that, Lionel. We have nobody to defend us here except for the presence of the French houses at Beaulieu and a few other places – and I can’t see the monks coming out with cross-bows to fight them off.’

  Lionel chuckled. ‘Maybe you’re right, mistress, although pirates don’t always come from France.’ He went back to watching the dice-men.

  ‘I do hope you’re wrong, Lionel, with respect.’Lissa showed she was going to have the last word. ‘I’d hate to think of our own people thieving from us.’ She turned to Hildegard, ‘It’s so remote here. The monks glory in their isolation. It doesn’t do for me, I can tell you.’

  Resisting the impulse to point out that that was precisely why the monks chose to build their monasteries in the wilds, far from the little hates and quarrels of the towns, Hildegard reached for the ale jug and, after offering it round, poured herself a beaker-full to quench her thirst.

  They seemed stuck in a globe of heat, an airless glass globe such as the Venetians make, with an abbey constructed out of painted wood and tiny figures with no escape, destined to be trapped in mindless immobility forever. She envied the boys their freedom to swim naked and for a moment imagined returning to the pool Alaric had shown her to have a swim in private – but the effort of walking all the way back in the stifling heat was too much to contemplate.

  Delith rose languidly to her feet and gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘I shall go in to pray for us all and to pray especially that this purgatory will soon be ended.’

  With the blackbird, now resigned to its perch on her shoulder, she trailed across the garth without a backward glance and disappeared inside the dark entrance to the church. Hildegard waited for Lionel in his itchy yellow cotte to follow. But he went on swinging his legs, saying nothing, not moving except for the soft thump-thump of his heels on the stone-work as he hummed a tune to himself.

  Sooner than expected she noticed Gregory and Egbert pacing into the cloister on the far side and she rose to her feet. They met as if by chance at the farthest corner where the novices had their lessons.

  ‘Anything new?’

  ‘He says there’s going to be another storm,’ Egbert greeted.

  ‘And?’

  ‘He’s worried about his beloved’s ability to weather it.’

  ‘Come somewhere quiet and we’ll tell you the rest of it.’

  ‘His story is,’ Egbert began as soon as they were out of hearing of others, ‘they were all lying out on deck because of the heat.’ He took a long drink from his flask. ‘Two of them were playing dice. It seems to be the passion round here. Another was perfecting a wooden whistle he’d made earlier, the bo’sun was telling some yarn about sailing down Biscay way, and a fifth was cutting into the last keg the ship man had brought up for them as fast as he could. Then,’ he gave a quick, sideways glance at Hildegard, full of meaning, ‘someone arrived by boat.’

  ‘Can I guess who that was?’

  There was a pause then Gregory nodded. ‘It was Mistress Delith.’

  ‘She was not alone,’ Egbert added.

  ‘Someone as well as the oarsman?’

  ‘There was no oarsman, according to the ship man. “I reckon it was that monk who sculled the boat over,” he said to us, “shrouded as he was and I only got a glimpse before he went below and I can’t be sure, but I let him aboard because I thought he’d been sent by the Abbot and would come up on deck and tell me the reason why he was here when he’d done what he came to do.” Not happy about that, apparently. “Taking liberties,” says the ship man, and he the master and all.’

  ‘And he never did find out what the monk came for, if what he’s telling us is true, because next time he saw him he was dead.’

  ‘Well, have you asked Mistress Delith if it was Brother Martin who was with her?’

  ‘We were on our way to do that when we bumped into you.’

  ‘She’s in church, praying for us all at present,’ Hildegard replied.

  ‘As well she needs to, for herself most of all.’ Gregory shrugged.

  ‘Did you ask what Delith did when she arrived?’

  ‘Of course we did.He told us she sang a couple of songs for his boys, did a little dance, told a joke or two, and then, of course, he clammed up.’

  ‘Gregory became impatient at that point, didn’t you, brother?’

  ‘Fakery always annoys me. If you transgress at least own up to it.’

  ‘Greg said, “Come on man, we’ve not been monks all our lives. Celibacy only applies after our vows. What happened next? Who went below with her? Give us names.”’

  ‘And what did he say?’

  ‘That it was too hot to go below so they went behind an awning on the after deck.’

  ‘How many of them?’

  ‘Just one, bored with his whistling, and the bo’sun.’

  ‘That’s not just one, it’s two. Can’t he add up?’ said Hildegard. ‘What about the others?’

  ‘They went on playing dice, apparently, and the one with the opened keg went on drinking.’

  ‘Where was the monk all this time?’

  ‘Still below deck.’

  ‘And Mistress Delith?’

  ‘Tom had had his fill so she joined the rest of them. Then, of course, the mast was struck by lightning.’

  ‘God striking them down for their sins.’

  ‘Shame-faced, sceptical, ready to risk it all again when they’ve got over the shock, more likely,’ Gregory added.

  ‘Give him his due, the ship man treated her well, “like a lady,” he told us. “I got a couple of the crew to take her safely ashore. ”We asked him who was still on the ship and he tallied them off on his fingers. He reckoned they could swim for it or wait for a boat to row back to fetch ‘em off. He said, “Them lay-brothers had things organized, right quick they were.” It was his duty as ship man to stay to the end. That’s when he found the body.’

  ‘We asked him who he’d noticed coming on boardHe said, “Lots of them. Do you think I was keeping a tally by that time? You were there yourselves, in a boat, shouting up, in among them.”I said, “That’s true, master, but we didn’t go on board and murder a poor old monk.”’

  ‘He went a bit quiet after that.’

  Gregory stretched his legs. ‘There you have it, Hildegard. What do you make of it?’

  ‘But was Delith ever alone after she went onboard? It doesn’t sound like it.’ So how had she obtained the secret she had taunted Lionel with? Or was that simply a lie to make a fool of him – holding out a false promise of gain? ‘We need to talk to Delith.’

  ‘How do we get her to tell the truth to us, of all people? Everybody lies through their teeth when they speak to us. I’ll never understand why. We’re the only ones w
ho can absolve them of their sins. We’re not here to judge. That’ll come later.’

  ‘Remind her of that,’ Hildegard suggested. ‘Why don’t one of you go to her alone and get into conversation with her? Now would be a good time while she’s on her knees in there.’

  Gregory uncoiled his long length and stretched. ‘I’ll go. This little sinner intrigues me. I don’t understand how anybody falls into such straits as to sell their body when they clearly hold it at greater worth than their soul.’ Smiling, he loped off in the direction of the church.

  A large comfortable-looking boat was pulled up on the beach. Jankin brought the news to everyone, calling down the cloister in an echoing voice that everyone could hear. ‘And it’s brought the coroner from Southampton!’ Plainly excited he ran down to where Hildegard and Egbert were sitting. ‘Did you hear that, domina?’

  ‘About the coroner? I should think even the abbot over in his lodgings heard you.’ She smiled. ‘Have you told your master?’

  ‘It was he who sent me to announce his arrival.’

  Turning to Egbert she said, ‘This will settle any doubt we have about Brother Martin’s death.’

  Jankin was accompanied by Delith’s little maid, Lucie. Her clipped blonde hair was as usual sticking out in tiny spikes like a halo and she flattened it with her hand and asked,‘What’s he here for, domina? Is there trouble?’

  ‘No doubt he’ll make an announcement all in good time,’ she replied. To Jankin she asked, ‘Where’s your master now?’

  ‘He’s on his way up with him.’ Jankin turned, ‘Look, here they come.’

  Friar Hywel, grim-faced, was stalking alongside a brisk, well set-up man of forty or thereabouts wearing a light summer houpeland, latch shoes and a straw hat.

  ‘No sales there for the sisters,’ murmured Egbert tilting his own newly purchased sun hat to shield his eyes from the glare. ‘Let’s go on over to make ourselves known.’ Gregory was just coming out of the church by himself and Egbert waved him over.