‘Oh, bugger,’ said Brother Witleof miserably. ‘It didn’t work. He’s dead.’
‘Typical,’ muttered Sylvestris. ‘Just like a bloody Saxon! After all we’ve done for him.’ He swung round in alarm as the hanging over the doorway was jerked aside and someone entered. Sylvestris relaxed when he saw the newcomer was only a lay brother.
Brother Arnold, whose face and grubby torn habit were bloodstained and from whose nose blood ran freely, shrugged apologetically, dabbing at the flow with a sodden handful of tow. ‘What happened to you?’ Witleof asked.
‘A bit of a disagreebet,’ mumbled Arnold. ‘It wote stop bleedig.’
‘Lie down,’ snapped Sylvestris. ‘There’s a pallet over in the corner.’
‘No,’ said Witleof. ‘You should put a cold key down his back.’
‘Or a horseshoe,’ offered Arnold helpfully. ‘By old bub used to use a horseshoe.’
‘Wait a minute,’ said Sylvestris. ‘I’ll get the medicine cupboard key. Brother,’ he whispered urgently to Witleof, ‘take the—that the thing. Take it back, now, at once!’
‘Righto.’ Witleof took the girdle from the still breast of the infirmarian, and at that moment Brother Arnold fainted clean away, falling against Witleof who dropped the girdle and tried to support him, but the larger man was too heavy and slid relentlessly to the flagstones.
‘Help me get him on the bed,’ Witleof gasped.
Sylvestris took the shoulders, Witleof the ankles, and between them they heaved their unconscious brother on to the straw mattress.
‘Will you get back to the chapel before they come for the girdle?’ Sylvestris straightened his habit and brushed at its skirts.
‘Take it, and hurry’!’
‘I am hurrying,’ Witleof scowled. He groped on the floor where the candlelight cast deep shadows until his hand closed on the relic. Thrusting it into the bosom of his borrowed habit he disappeared behind the door curtain. Sylvestris listened to his sandalled feet clapping along the stone passage until the opening and closing of a distant door cut off the sound.
Brother Arnold groaned and tried to sit up. Sylvestris pushed him down. ‘Keep still, do,’ he said. ‘I’ll get the key.’ Blood from Arnold’s nose splashed on to the junior Infirmarian’s sleeve and he pulled his arm away, annoyed.
‘I cart lie dowd like this,’ Arnold objected, struggling up. ‘I’ll drowd id by ode blood!’
‘Well, sit up, then, tilt your head back and breathe through your mouth. I’ll get some ice, that’ll stop the bleeding. And some water to clean you up. You look like a battlefield.’
Outside in the stable yard he broke the ice in the horse trough and put some pieces in a small sack. On his way back he filled a jug with water from the butt in the passage outside the infirmary door, where the water was doing its best to freeze and would succeed before long, the surface pleating and wrinkling inwards from the edge.
Sylvestris pushed through the curtain again and surveyed his domain. There was Brother Alfred’s corpse, staring straight at him. With an exclamation Sylvestris set the jug down and with icy aching fingers closed the dead man’s eyes. They popped open again as soon as he took his hand away, ‘Merde,’ he muttered and closed the lids again, holding them shut for some moments before letting go. This time they stayed shut. Sylvestris turned from the bloody dead to the bleeding living, only to find the pallet empty. Brother Arnold had gone. Turning back to the corpse, Sylvestris saw that one eye had opened again, and Brother Alfred appeared to be winking at him.
Bells chimed. Sandalled feet slapped on stone floors. A quiet rap at the door was followed by a billowing gust of chill and the sacristan, Brother Euphemius, wiping his red and swollen nose on his sleeve. ‘Midnight, Abbot,’ he croaked.
‘So it is,’ said the abbot with a reproving scowl. ‘Fetch the girdle.’
King Philip’s man stood up and stretched and yawned. ‘I did not look to spend another night here. This damned storm!’ Then will be out at first light,’ said the abbot, ‘to cut and haul away the fallen trees and start clearing the snow. The gale is dropping. As soon as the road is clear you will be able to leave. You will be able to sail tomorrow, if the wind’s fair.’
A tap at the door and the sacristan entered, holding a silver casket. Through the opened door the perishing cold leaped into their well of warmth, and the two old men shivered.
‘There you are,’ said the abbot, taking the casket and placing it in the Frenchman’s hands. ‘The Blessed Virgin’s Girdle is yours, My Lord de Mortai. Or rather, King Philip’s.’
The Frenchman turned the key and opened the casket, taking out what looked like a piece of old rope. ‘It doesn’t look like much,’ he said. ‘What’s it made of, horsehair?’
‘Camel hair, we believe, My Lord,’ said the abbot. ‘Ah, may I see it, just once more, before you close the casket? You understand, we would not sell so great a treasure except that our need was great.’
De Mortal nodded. He knew of the ruinous lawsuit Winchester had lost to a neighbouring nunnery after a long and vicious fight, and the massive damages the abbey must now pay, forfeiting lands and treasure to do so. He held the casket out and the abbot lifted the girdle from its silken bed. As he did so, an odd expression crossed his face and was swiftly gone. He touched the relic to his lips, put it quickly down again, closed the lid and handed the box back to the Frenchman.
‘If you wish, you can leave it locked in my strongbox here, overnight,’ he offered.
De Mortai grinned. Not likely, he thought, but coughed politely, saying, ‘Thank you, My Lord, but no. I shall sleep with it under my pillow tonight and every night until I place it in King Philip’s hands. I must ask you to tell no one about the sale until I am safely back in Paris. Were it known that I carried such a treasure, robbers would try to take it.’
‘Of course,’ said the abbot. ‘Then I will summon your servants and bid you goodnight.’
When the count had gone to his bedchamber, Abbot William rounded on the sacristan. ‘What have you done with it? You can’t think we can get away with it! Whatever possessed you to do such a thing?’
‘What, My Lord?’ The sacristan looked astonished and, the Abbot realised, perfectly innocent.
‘Oh, never mind. I am weary and,’ he sneezed, ‘I think I’ve caught a cold.’
The sacristan was all concern, the odd little outburst quite forgotten as he ran for hot stones for the abbot’s bed and hot wine with a sleeping potion to get him through the night. It would never do if he wasn’t well enough to see the Count of Mortai off tomorrow. It would look like sulking.
Sweating in his bed, rising fever making him light-headed, the abbot remembered the feel of the girdle in his hands, rougher than it should be, almost prickly, heavier than before and not quite the right colour—a brighter younger-looking brown. Someone had stolen the real one and the King of France was getting a forgery. Still, thought the abbot as the first thick soft veils of sleep began to cover him, he’s never handled the real girdle, so it’s very unlikely he will suspect. Blessed Mother of God, don’t let anyone find out! ‘It was a clumsy job,’ Straccan said. ‘I had no time at all at the end, such a rush, the damned thing sold out from under me. It was the only thing I could think of on the spur of the moment, when I heard Sylvestris and Witleof planning to borrow the relic before it was handed over to the Frenchman. Oh, God!’ He knelt by a stream, bare to the waist, splashing icy water over his bloody face and chest. He had discarded the bloodstained habit and donned breeches and boots.
‘Is all this blood yours?’ Bane rolled up the soiled robe, weighing it down with stones in the stream.
‘Some of it. The rest is pig’s blood. They killed a pig yesterday.’ Straccan was shivering hard. ‘I had little bladders of blood to use in case my nose stopped bleeding.’
‘How’d you make it bleed?’
‘I had to pick a quarrel with poor silly Brother Odo. He swung at me and got my nose and I kicked him in the balls. I think he wa
s still crawling towards the infirmary when I left. I fell over something soft.’
‘Here. Put this on.’ Bane produced a crumpled rolled-up shirt and a thick knitted jerkin. Straccan pulled the clothes on, carefully tucking the relic in a leather pouch between the woolly and the hide jacket he put on over all.
‘We’ll go along in the stream as far as we can,’ he said. ‘Then out and back south past the abbey. If they’re looking for us, they won’t be looking that way, and if they use dogs, the stream’ll throw them off. They might not even realise I’ve switched the girdles; not for a while anyway, if we’re lucky. It would be a help if it snowed some more. Cover our tracks.’ His teeth were chattering.
Bane silently offered an unstoppered bottle.
Straccan drank, gasped, shuddered and drank again. ‘Have you got any food?’
Bane produced bread and cold meat, shouldered his pack, and they set off, splashing along in the stream while Straccan chewed and swallowed. His throat felt sore. ‘This will give me belly ache,’ he said. Ice at the stream’s edge crackled and clattered. He clenched his chattering teeth. ‘How far to the horses?’
‘More than a mile. Can you make it?’
‘I’d better. I doubt you could carry me.’ He sneezed violently several times. ‘Bugger! I’ve got their sodding cold!’
It began to snow.
Chapter 3
The wicket shot aside with a sharp crack and through the aperture two pairs of eyes fixed upon each other. The man outside the gate saw a round pink velvety face with big brown eyes and a small pursed mouth framed in a starched white wimple and black veil. Dame Laurencia saw a lean face, still tinged a faded bronze from long-ago foreign suns, with flint-coloured eyes round which fans of pale creases showed sharp against the tan. The man had a wide thin mouth, square chin, straight nose and cropped sunbleached hair beneath a russet cap which he now tugged off. They stared at each other until Straccan held up a lead disc, no bigger than a penny, on which was stamped Prioress Hermengarde’s seal. The nun smiled and nodded. ‘Wait,’ she said.
The wicket snapped shut and Straccan heard her footsteps receding. He stuffed his bonnet down the front of his dusty jacket, rubbed a hand over the stubble on top of his head then turned and stroked the nose and neck of his horse. Presently he heard feet again. Bolts were pulled back and the gate creaked open. ‘Come in.’ Two nuns now: the rabbity gatekeeper and another, tall thin and pale like a scraped bone. Also a servingman, a groom by the look and smell of him.
The pale nun said, ‘Martin will take your horse. You have Mother’s token?’ He held it up again. She looked at it suspiciously. ‘Mother Hermengarde died last autumn,’ she said. ‘Mother Rohese is prioress now. She will see you.’
Inside the gate they scattered in different directions; the gatekeeper to her tiny room over the gate, the horse led one way, the man another, across the cobbled yard where three lay sisters laboured at washtubs, bony red elbows going up and down as they laughed and chattered, openly staring at the man, splashes flying and their sacking aprons soaked.
Through a door, along a dark flagged passage. Straccan sniffed at the unpleasantly familiar smells of damp, incense, candlewax and cooking fish. The nunnery, he noticed, was much cleaner than any house of monks—everything washed and scoured, including the ladies, to within an inch of their lives. Monks cleaned what showed, dusted what could be seen, leaving festering corners full of grease and dirt, cobwebs behind curtains, dead rats under furniture, scummy residue between flagstones. And they smelled of stale sweat. Nuns smelled of nothing, a sterile sanctity. There was a distant thin musical thread of women’s voices chanting, piercingly pure. Black-clad nuns flitted purposefully along the passages like enthusiastic bats.
Another door. The nun knocked, a voice responded within and they entered the small bright room, early afternoon sun spilling golden through two lancet windows behind the Prioress’s chair. Prioress Rohese was short and sturdy with ginger eyebrows and instantly recognisable Angevin features. Straccan sighed. Another of the old king’s bastards. Old Henry had done his best for them, those he knew about, and now they popped up everywhere, always secure in positions of authority and influence. Straccan supposed they had to start somewhere further down their various ladders, but whenever he encountered any of them, there they were at the top.
‘I am Mother Rohese.’
He bent one knee and kissed the ring on the small square practical hand held out to him, feeling the battery of eyes on his bared head and the stubble filling the still-obvious tonsure.
‘I am Straccan,’ he said. ‘May I see my daughter?
‘Certainly, Sir Richard. Dame Januaria will fetch her. Please, sit down.’
The tall nun left the room and another slipped in to take her place.
‘Wine,’ said the prioress. The nun opened a small wall-cupboard and brought out a pewter jug and two clay beakers.
‘Is she well?’ Straccan asked.
‘She is, praise God.’
The door opened and Dame Januaria ushered in a child, small for her ten years, a little bundle of plain bunchy wadmal gown with bright hair escaping from a grey hood. Very dark blue eyes under gull-wing eyebrows. She slid a quick sideways look at Straccan as she bowed to the prioress.
‘Gilla,’ said her father taking a deep breath, longing to pick her up and hug her, ‘have you forgotten me?’
They sat together in the guest parlour, sharing a sticky handful of marchpane from Straccan’s pocket. Gilla’s legs swung; one hand held the sweet, the other, small and warm and dry, held her father’s hand tightly.
‘Where have you been?’ she asked.
‘Oh, to Winchester and Hallowdene and home again.’
‘I thought you were coming weeks ago.’
‘I know, sweetheart, I thought so too. But I was ill, stuck in bed in a wretched little village.’
‘Are you well now?’ The blue eyes examined him anxiously.
‘Oh yes. It was just a bad cold.’
‘Will you stay at home now?’
‘For a while. Would you like to come home to Stirrup with me for a few weeks?’
‘Yes please!’ The small face was transfigured by a brilliant smile, for a moment so like her dead mother that Straccan felt an unbearable stab of pain and remembered loss.
‘I will arrange it with Mother Rohese,’ he said.
‘Father?’
‘What, sweetheart?’
‘You didn’t really think I’d forgotten you, did you?’
‘No, not really.’
‘I prayed for you all the time. I told Our Lady all about you. I bent a penny to her for you. Well, Dame Mahaut bent it for me but it was my own penny.’
‘It worked.’
‘Not properly,’ the child said severely, ‘or you wouldn’t have caught a cold. Father …’
‘What, love?’
‘Do you think it might have been a bad penny?’
In the Prioress’s parlour once more, after Gilla had gone to supper too full of marchpane and excitement to eat it, Straccan and Mother Rohese met each other’s steady assessing gaze. The prioress made up her mind quickly. No fool, she thought. A careful man—intelligent, discreet—he’ll do.
‘First, as to Devorgilla,’ Mother Rohese said, ‘she is well, as you have seen. She is happy here. She is not alone; we have three other little girls. They play and laugh and get up to the usual sorts of mischief. Have you decided whether she is to stay here, become a novice and take her vows in this house?’
‘No,’ said Straccan. ‘She is only ten years old. I won’t commit her to religion yet. Later on, she can choose whether to stay or leave.’
The prioress’s arched eyebrows might have indicated disapproval, or might not. ‘At what age do you consider she will have the good sense and experience to make this judgement for herself, Sir Richard?’
‘My contract with Prioress Hermengarde stipulates that Gilla stays here until she is twelve. Paid for,’ he added pointedly, ‘i
n full with the jawbone of Saint Luke on your altar, an authenticated relic of great price.’
‘Of course, I am not disputing that, Sir Richard; you misunderstand. I only wish you to consider Devorgilla’s future, the future she would have in our community. Security and the prospect of high office are not to be discounted. Her companions, you see, have their futures settled. Two will join the community here. The third is betrothed and will leave us next year to be married. Devorgilla is neither one thing nor the other. I believe she is aware of this … limbo.’
He had misjudged her, thought she wanted Gilla for her house a well-endowed novice who mustn’t be let slip through those capable fingers. But she cared about the child. Had observed. Had considered. It merited his respect.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I will think about it. I’m coming again next month. I want to take her home for Easter. I hardly know her.’
‘She is growing up,’ the prioress said. ‘She would be welcome among us, she is loved here. But now, Sir, there is another matter on which I should value your advice.’
It was a strange story. One night at the end of January a group of woodcutters had brought a dying man to the priory, dragging the great long body on a woodsled, beating and shouting at the wicket after dark, frightening the whole community. Badly injured by robbers, no identification, not even a saint’s medal round his neck. Just a dying man, ambushed, stabbed, bleeding, grey and past speech. The woodcutters had come upon him on their way home: two skinny starveling thieves had thought better of facing four well-fed peasants with axes, and fled with their victim’s purse which they cut from his belt with the knife they’d stuck in his liver.
The prioress ordered him put in the infirmary—there was no one ill there at the time—and though some of the nuns protested, she overruled them.
‘You would turn away the wounded Christ Himself for being a man,’ she snapped. He died. There was time for the last rites, thank God, but he was unable to confess, barely breathing, too far gone. When he was washed and prepared for burial the infirmarian found … This,’ said the prioress.
[Sir Richard Straccan 01] - The Bone-Pedlar Page 2
