Murder at Meaux

by Cassandra Clark

  So he hadn’t had time to form much of an opinion of Sir Bernard, based as it was on one night of drama.

  17

  ‘So, Roger, we are nowhere. And Sir Bernard was nowhere near the silversmith’s house at midnight. I believe that horse-trainer. He’s a guileless countryman. He has no need to lie.’

  ‘And he was sure it was Bernard himself, putting out the fire?’

  ‘How could he make a mistake?’

  ‘Maybe he has a twin.’

  ‘Melisen –’ Roger gave her a despairing glance.

  ‘He might have,’ she insisted with a little pout.

  ‘An identical twin? I think I would know if he had a twin. Don’t you think I would know a thing like that?’

  ‘Not if he was living overseas – or something...’ Melisen trailed off.

  ‘Look,’ broke in Hildegard. ‘I’ll leave you both to find out if Bernard has a twin or not. While you’re doing that I’m going to find Ulf. I’ve had an idea. Will you lend me a horse, Roger?’

  ‘I’ll do more than that. I’ll lend you one of my lads to escort you as well.’

  ‘I really don’t think that’s –’

  ‘Don’t argue. If you find him you’ll need to let us know at once. You can send the lad back from wherever, with news.’

  Grudgingly Hildegard accepted Roger’s help. She didn’t want to be slowed down by some servant only interested in gossip. She needed to keep a clear head. She had to be sure she would not be followed. She had to keep her suspicion about Ulf’s location secret.

  Maybe she would try to give the fellow the slip? On the other hand Roger was right.

  If she did find Ulf she would need to let him know as soon as possible. And then what? They still had no more evidence of Sir Bernard’s involvement than a gut feeling – and the barking of a few dogs at the wrong time.

  18

  Before leaving York by the east gate Hildegard had a strange experience. She was leading her horse along Goodramgate with the servant, a brawny and somewhat monosyllabic fifteen-year-old, when she imagined she saw Gregory striding along. He was tall enough to stand out in a crowd. When she looked again, however, he had vanished.

  I’m seeing things, she told herself. How could Gregory be here in York?

  They continued to Monkgate Bar, got through with little difficulty, and set out on a track that would eventually lead towards the coast.

  Tenebrae

  Years ago, when Ulf had been her favourite childhood playmate at Castle Hutton, in the days when Roger’s father ruled the roost, Ulf, rebellious in the way of most boys with spirit, confessed a secret to her.

  He and some friends had recently gone missing for a couple of days. Where they had gone, he told her, was to a secret hideout on the coast where they expected to be able to look out for pirates. Whether they intended to join them or apprehend them she did not ask.

  Ulf and the rest of his gang were soundly beaten when they returned. Search parties had been sent out to look for them and, being unable to find them, had returned to Castle Hutton with the gloomy faces of bearers of bad news who expected to bear the full brunt of punishment themselves. They were saved only by the sudden reappearance of the boys led by a grinning Ulf.

  Chastisement followed. But had seemed well worth it.

  ‘We couldn’t believe they didn’t find us,’ he admitted to Hildegard. ‘We were there, watching them! Of course they didn’t know about the tide, that it didn’t fill the caves. They thought we were drowned. I’m not surprised they thought the worst. We didn’t intend to put the wind up them.’ Despite his words he looked rather pleased that they’d been able to outwit Lord de Hutton’s hounds.

  A year or so later when they were no longer children and not quite yet full-grown, he had taken her to view the caves herself. It had been high tide and she had looked aghast at the swirling white foam pounding against the bottom of the cliffs. ‘You mean there’s a cave down there?’

  ‘I’ll bring you back some time when the tide’s right,’ he vowed. ‘No-one will ever find us. We’ll be safe and secret there.’ She remembered how he had blushed as he said that and she had wanted to put her arms round him and give him a hug.

  Time passed. The coast was a good half-day’s ride away and the occasion for a visit never seemed appropriate, and then Hildegard, still only fifteen, had been given in marriage to a man she had never met who whisked her away to a far region on the Welsh borders – caves, if they existed, were forgotten. Until now, that is.

  She and her silent escort followed the track through the thick woodland on the edge of Galtres Forest and eventually, after some hard-riding, came within sight of the sea. It was a long shot – she knew that – of course she did. But at present she could think of nowhere else more suitable for a man on the run from a judicial beheading than a secret cave.

  Her escort rode stolidly along beside her and contrary to what she had feared did not gossip, nor did he do much in the way of talking at all. She began to suspect he was dumb or deaf but when she put a straight question to him about the horse he was riding he nodded his head in agreement.

  When they came out on the cliff top he didn’t say a word then, either. He simply stared, as if he had never seen the sea before. Just as well, she thought.

  ‘There’s a farmstead back there,’ she told him, pointing up the lane they had just ridden down. ‘Will you go and get some milk and possibly some bread and cheese for us? I’ll rest here awhile.’ She handed him some coins.

  2

  As soon as he was out of sight she hobbled her horse among some bushes then cast about for the narrow path that led down to the beach.

  When she had been here with Ulf those years ago the tide had been running straight up the sands in a sheet of dazzling surf. Today it was withdrawn, leaving a stretch of sand shining like a mirror as it shelved to the distant unfolding of small waves at the water’s edge.

  The path was difficult to find in the long grass at the top of the cliff but once found she followed it easily enough, landing on the beach in a slither of mud.

  Further along, the red mudstone cliffs gave way to chalk jutting out, dazzling and craggy and pinnacled, and it was there she knew she would find the entrance to the caves if they existed.

  Her boots crunched over the ribbon of shingle above the tide line then sank into the yielding sand lower down as she followed the curve of the bay. The solitude contained under an empty sky had a harsh purity that made her think of Hubert.

  It had been an age since she had given a thought to him.

  Today was momentous. It was the day when everything should have been settled between them once and for all. She had promised to meet him when they arrived at Meaux to give him her answer to the question he had posed: would she consider forsaking her vows in order to marry – it was not an unprecedented move, he had pointed out – or did she prefer to continue as they were – although as she herself pointed out, it could never be ‘as they were.’

  Both of them were too embroiled in the deceiving tentacles of desire to live happily with the loss of it. How could they forget what it was like to be transported into another realm where nothing mattered but the presence of the beloved? How could they live without its consummation? It was too late to back out. Hubert demanded an answer.

  Now, in the clarity of light here, in the solitude, the purity, where sea, land and sky were joined, it was possible to believe that they were deceiving themselves after all. The world was too immense, too mysterious, to be pushed aside as of no consequence.

  And their vows meant something. Their Order and the Rule of St Benedict meant something. And the safety of the realm in its present turmoil could not be ignored. It meant something as well. The private desires of two people amounted to no more than a grain of sand against all that. Only from within the Order with the immensity of its power behind them was it likely that either of them could ever change anything for the better.

  Still no nearer an answer he would accept,
she walked on until the water was lapping at the toes of her boots. With a prayer that an answer would come to her by the time she returned to the abbey she rounded the promontory of crumbling chalk until she reached a rift in the cliff face. Guessing that it might be the entrance to Ulf’s cave she squeezed through the narrow gap and pressed on into the gloom.

  After a few paces the atmosphere changed and a chill in the air brought her to a standstill. Bright green weed festooned the walls high above her head, suggesting that in a few hours where she was standing would be deep under water. Ahead the walls crowded in on both sides.

  Full of misgivings she told herself that she was on a fool’s errand after all. Hope and desperation had led her on a pointless excursion. In all likelihood Ulf had exaggerated the existence of any caves. She had believed him then. Every word. As always. Now she began to doubt everything except the blind necessity of searching out every chance of being able to save his life.

  Squeezing between the narrowing rock walls as she explored further she took a moment to pause and listen. At her back, far off, came the hissing roar of the sea. Close at hand, nothing but silence.

  Tentatively she called out, ‘Ulf! Are you here?’

  Her voice echoed weirdly back to her. A few loose pebbles trickled from the chalk face.

  Unconvinced that she would find him here but unwilling to give up she pushed further on into the crevice until, to her surprise, she found herself in a widening gap between the rocks.

  In the uncanny watery twilight she could see that she was in a cave no wider than a cell but it seemed to end here and she was about to turn back when she noticed sand piled up by the tide beneath a fissure with a suggestion of light on the other side. With a last despairing hope she scrambled up the slope and pushed her head and shoulders through the gap. She gasped, suddenly finding herself knee-deep in dry, white sand and the walls opening on both sides, pristine chalk, unmarked by weed, disappearing above her head in a pale and filtered light from a gap that must come out as an opening on the grassy cliff side.

  She called once more. ‘Ulf?...It’s Hildegard! Answer me!...In God’s name, speak to me if you’re here!’

  Even the sound of the sea had faded.

  She peered at the sand. There were no footprints although it seemed kicked about, a fact she put it down to the activity of rabbits or foxes. Sheer foolishness had led her here. He would be in York somewhere safe. Or maybe even in custody again. Or worse.

  With a sudden desperate lift of her head she shouted his name one final time with all the longing in her heart to hear him answer. The sound spiralled to the heights to echo and re-echo with only a trickle of falling pebbles to make her hold her breath.

  And then, as she was about to turn away, as if on a sigh, came a voice. It was little more than a whisper, asking, ’Are you alone?’

  It seemed to emanate from the chalk itself. She strained her eyes. Was it somewhere above? Did the shadows move?

  She whispered. ’Ulf? Is it you? I’m alone. Of course I am!’

  ‘No-one followed you?’ came the disembodied voice.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Did anyone follow you?’

  ‘Of course not. I came alone with one of Roger’s stable lads. Where are you? I can’t see you.’

  ‘Here I am.’

  A shape moved on a ledge high up, slowly materialising as the tall, broad-shouldered, ragged knight she knew so well. He was wearing a rough tunic, with no hauberk, no chain mail, his sun-streaked hair tied back in a pony-tail, his face – his beloved face – bristling with the blonde hairs of an unkempt beard and only the eyes, his piercing blue eyes, all that was recognisable of the man she knew.

  Without thinking she waded forward through the fine sand and by the time she reached the bottom of the ledge where he was standing he had jumped down and was beside her and in a moment they were falling into each other’s arms and she was sobbing with relief and joy because he had never felt more alive as he did at that moment as he held her close.

  3

  He pulled her head-covering aside and rested his face against her hair. He kissed her neck. He kissed her forehead. All the while he murmured her name. At last he raised his head with the dazed expression of someone in a dream murmuring, ’I can’t believe you’re real. Tell me you’re not a spirit of the air? Are you real? Hildegard? My Hildegard.’

  He repeated her name over and over rocked her back and forth in his arms as he asked in wonder, ’How did you guess where I was? How could you know? How could you ever know such a thing?’

  ‘I was beginning to think I’d made a mistake.’

  ‘Only you could have known I was here. Only you.’

  ‘It was a wild guess. I didn’t know whether these caves even existed in the way you described.’

  ‘Did you tell anyone where you were going?’

  ‘I told no-one. Not even the boy who rode with me. It was just a guess, a wild hope.’

  In the hazy light he too seemed unreal, pared to an essence, but at this moment he was alive and nothing else mattered.

  As he pulled her deeper into the cave on the ledge high above the water mark she spared a brief thought for the silent lad, her escort, and how he would think she had gone for a stroll along the beach and then vanished. She remembered her footprints in the sand but pushed the image away in her joy at finding Ulf.

  They crouched in a hollow in the chalk wall where he had made himself a sort of camp, his cloak spread on the sand, a small fire in a cleft, the smoke too frail to be noticed, wisping into the natural chimneys of the rock, and there they talked as they had never talked before. The years that had separated them disappeared. First he mentioned his astonishment and horror at being accused of Eunice’s murder, about his only recourse being to flee to safety until his innocence could be established.

  Then they went on to talk of other things, of his heartbreak when she left him to marry her Marcher lord in the melancholy Welsh hills, about her own feelings as the ring was put on her finger and her belief that she would never see him again. They talked about the long years when they met briefly, in public, never alone, so that their childhood friendship and the falterings of first love seemed no more substantial than a dream, except, she told him, for her terror yesterday when it became real again and she thought he would hang.

  He held her close and she breathed in the male scent of his skin, and his wild hair brushed her cheeks like a blessing.

  ‘Why did you break out of prison?’ she murmured as they circled back in their thoughts to his present danger. ‘Roger is tearing his hair and vows never to leave York until you’re found and acquitted. He thinks you’ve been set-up.’

  ‘He may be right. I had to get out quickly. The jailer was a good fellow and warned me that he had orders to forget the trial and take me out before dawn to the hangman. He was presumably paid enough to leave the key to my cell on the bench beside me, with this cloak,’ he touched the one they were sitting on, ‘and something to eat and drink. I expect it was Roger’s doing.’

  Hildegard grasped his arm in fear at what lay ahead. ’What will you do now?’

  ‘Don’t fret. One of my lads has gone up the coast to hire a boat. He’s going to pick me up from the beach after the next full tide.’

  ‘But then what?’

  ‘I’ll head for a port outside the county where I can pick up a ship for Flanders. I’ll stay there until I can clear my name and earn the king’s pardon.’

  They began to talk about that night when the devil had changed Ulf’s life forever.

  4

  As night began to darken the small aperture above their heads Hildegard encouraged him to tell her everything he could remember about that terrible night of Eunice’s death. ’Leave nothing out. Armed with facts we will clear your name. I promise.’

  ‘It’s like something that has happened to somebody else,’ he told her. ‘I can scarcely believe I’m on the run. An outlaw? How could it happen?’

  �
��Why did your wife ask you to go to York?’

  ‘She had some scheme involving her lover –’

  ‘Her what?’

  ‘Haven’t you heard about him? I thought everybody knew.’

  ‘Are you serious? How could she...?’

  ‘She never wanted marriage to me. That was always made clear. Her father insisted. He wanted to see her settled in some comfort. But she liked her own way. She wanted nothing to do with me.’ His blue eyes were puzzled. ‘I thought in time I could win her over but she gave me no chance. This young fellow was there from the start.’ His eyes were troubled. ‘Tell me the truth. Am I such a monster? Do I repel women? Do I repel you, Hildegard? Do I disgust you? I know I spend a lot of time outdoors with my falconer and the kennel men. I’m not a merchant or a clerk. I suppose I’m a bit of a ruffian, but I thought given time she would –’ he broke off, in a misery of confusion.

  She said quickly, ‘Ulf, you have never repelled me. How could you even imagine such a thing? You must know in your heart women are attracted to you? You are so beloved. You could charm any woman you set your heart on, any woman –’

  ‘Except her. But maybe she knew, maybe she guessed that I would never truly give her my heart?’

  A moment lengthened between them. She knew what he meant.

  Hurriedly she said, ’I expect she drew away from you because she was rebelling against her father’s wishes. It could not have been personal.’

  ‘It’s true she was indulged by her father. Ever since he’d been widowed he had made her the centre of his life. He called her the apple of his eye. She was his only child. He called her his princess and never refused her anything except in this one thing and that was because he wanted her to be safe with me. She never learned anything better than getting what she wanted, when she wanted it.’

  ‘Who is this alleged lover?’ Hildegard was scathing. ‘He must be a prince himself.’