‘Nothing alleged about him. He lived in the house. They were together morning, noon and night. It’s no wonder she felt some attachment. And then there was the added game of trying to make me jealous to add to her fun.’ He looked shamed for a moment then gave a dismissing laugh. ‘He’s just a boy. I can’t be jealous of him. He’s the apprentice at her father’s workshop, a soft-cheeked, curly-haired, beardless boy! Someone she could order about. That’s the truth of it. She doted on him as a foolish old woman might dote on a lap dog. I was too rough for her, she said.’ He put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Am I rough?’
‘Rough?’ She smiled and kissed his stubbled cheek. ‘Yes...very rough, as a man should be, a rough, tough knight who happens to be kind and funny and...’ She felt her eyes fill and put one caressing hand against his broad chest where she could feel the beating of his heart underneath his linen shirt. It was a gentle, fluttering, fragile, too mortal sound, so easily stopped. The flow of life beneath her fingers made her want to weep with compassion.
She bent to kiss his skin in the opening of his shirt between her spread fingers.
His voice became husky. ‘Don’t do that, Hildegard, beloved, don’t, I love it too much...’ He drew her closer. ‘I love you too much. Even though it cannot be. I bring you nothing.’ He bent his head to rest his cheek against hers and with a sigh murmured, ’I am vanquished. Touch me.’
He took her hand, crushing it gently, resting his lips against it and replacing it on his chest where he held it and she could feel the heat of his blood pulsing and his palm, warm, over the back of her hand keeping it safe. Her fingers extended but not enough to take in all of him in the way she was driven to by compassion. Time held them and brought all worlds to this one small moment.
When she managed to speak her voice shook a little but she forced herself to ask him in a normal enough manner what happened when he reached the house because their first challenge was to find a way to clear his name.
If Eunice had been murdered as it appeared then someone must have done it.
‘It was already getting dark when I arrived.’ His lips scarcely moved, as if he was speaking in a dream. ‘One cresset was blazing in the sconce on the stable wall when I rode in through the gates. By its light I saw the yard was deserted. A candle shone from inside the house from the upper window where she liked to sit. I called up and saw a shape move in front of it. I didn’t know whether it was him or not. There was a movement when the light was blotted out and then she appeared at the window herself. Her hair was down. It spread over her shoulders like a cape, hiding her face. She was proud of her hair. The housekeeper appeared at the kitchen door when she heard me call. She shouted up to the casement, “He’s here at last!” I dismounted and called again and she leaned out, hair tumbling unbraided over the sill like a taunt. When she saw it was me she slammed the shutters. I felt – in fact I felt an immense weariness – that we were to go through the old dance again – what more did she want from me? She had summoned me and here I was. I was weary, bored, sick of her games – I felt no kindness, no interest in her. I wanted her out of my life. I longed for her to be gone –’ he paused, ‘and to my horror the devil answered my prayer.’ He put his head in his hands. ‘It is my fault she is dead. I wished it. I had no love for her. I wished her gone.’
Her arms went round his shoulders. ’God would not answer your prayers in such a way. Ulf, you must speak to a priest. It is not your fault. Have you had chance to speak to a priest?’
‘Only to some stinking, flea-ridden fellow kept on by the bailiff to listen to the prisoners’ last words and earn enough to keep himself in ale. I didn’t tell him I’d prayed for her to be gone. If I had I might as well have put my head in the noose myself...I didn’t see her again, Hildegard, not until I saw her body next morning.’
‘Tell me about that. But first, what happened when you went inside the house?’
‘I couldn’t get in. The housekeeper had locked the door against me. I couldn’t believe it. I was hungry after a hard ride from Langbar and now I was locked out! I sat in the yard and ate sone cheese from my saddle bag, had a drink from the well. Her light was on. I could see it through the slats in the shutter.’
‘And did you have a drink with the journeyman?’
‘With Osmund, yes –’
‘Only one drink?’
‘Certainly. And then I bedded down in the hay loft and went straight to sleep until the shrieks of the housekeeper woke me next morning. The house door was wide open. I ran inside and found Eunice – I found her...I found her lying at the foot of the stairs. Her neck broken.’
‘But surely that suggests an accident, not murder?’
‘Not according to the coroner, Sir Bernard. He arrived at once and examined her where she lay on the tiles in the hall. She was already stiff in the grotesque position in which she’d fallen. He said he could smell something strong and bitter on her lips. He lifted her eye-lids and her pupils were black. He said she must have taken a sleeping draught and fallen down stairs in the night. Then he suggested I had poisoned her and tried to make it look like an accident. To be rid of her once and for all. It was as if he could see into my soul.’
‘What did you reply?’ Hildegard leaned forward, not to miss a word, but all he said was that he had denied it.
‘I may have said other things. I’m not sure. To be honest it was a blur. It was as if my wish had come true against all reason. I was shocked to find her dead. It didn’t seem real. Her venom towards me always seemed to give her an excess of life. Now it had vanished. Life was as insubstantial as smoke after all. There was nothing left.’
5
They talked longer but Ulf had nothing to add about the night that had sent his life into a death-fall.
He had no idea, he said, why she had called him out from his manor at Langbar. A boy had come over with a message but knew no more than a parroting bird of the air. ‘I have to ask you, sire, if you’ll be so kind as to come urgently to attend my mistress.’ He had repeated it several times with the sense that the words meant no more to him than the notes of a tune he had learned by rote.
Reluctantly Ulf had given his servants instructions and left at once. Normally it was a two hour ride but he had been slowed down by the boy whose little pony, already blown from the ride to Langbar, had been unable to keep up. Finally Ulf lifted the boy onto his own horse and led the pony by the reins and it quickened its pace after the weight of the rider had been removed. Even so it was late by the time he reached York.
Conversation began to slow as, distantly the tide could be heard surging back into the narrow entrance lower down the network of caves. It pounded with increasing force into the echoing caverns. The pale light from the cliff top that had revealed Ulf on the ledge as she arrived became paler still and then vanished altogether into the darkness. Only the flames from the fire cast a frail but steady glow over their features.
Hildegard ran her fingers through the tangle of Ulf’s hair and unloosed the leather thong that held it. She stayed her hand and he turned his head to press his lips against her fingers.
‘After this night, when the tide turns, we may never meet again.’ His blue eyes lazed over her face. ‘Will you grant me one wish before we part forever?’
‘What is it?’ she murmured.
‘I have never kissed you on the mouth.’
Slowly he reached down and held her face between the palms of his hands. ’You smell like flowers,’ he murmured.
Then he loosened the linen cloth that covered her neck and let it fall to the ground. With his lips resting on the nape of her neck he whispered, ‘Scent of lavender...’
He lifted her hair and kissed her warm skin under it. ‘And scent of roses.’
Disregarding the danger she raised her lips to his until a dancing inch separated them.
All reserve and the habitual awareness of their status in the outside world dissolved as their lips met. Decorum fled. They were now what they were, only two raw
, palpitating human beings in the full consciousness of being. They were apart from the world, outside convention and judgement. They were outside time, aware of death, of the ending of life while they yet lived in the fullness of life.
He reached for her and she for him and they came together in the bliss of home-coming after a long and arduous pilgrimage.
Meanwhile the tide was bringing the roar of the sea deeper into the caverns where it thundered and gushed and forced itself inside the deep earth with an elemental power before withdrawing and again returning with greater urgency, surging deep into the caves with a natural force nothing could stop and it was life at its most potent and powerful.
In joy Hildegard called his name because now, at this one, singular moment in time, they were alive and nothing mattered but that.
6
Darkness lay like a velvet scarf over her eyes. The scrape of flint on tinder brought a spark of light. It was piercingly bright as night pressed into the cave.
Hildegard put out a hand. ’What is it? What are you doing? Ulf?’ She came abruptly alert. ‘Have you heard someone?’ She sat up.
‘The tide has turned, that’s all. It’s on the ebb now, listen!’
The long, withdrawing roar sounded more distant than earlier when the tide was at its height. It was still a presence, however, both a danger and a promise of hope.
‘How long did we sleep?’ she asked.
‘Longer than intended. I have to leave.’
‘Roger’s stable lad must have given up looking for me. I hope he’s safe.’
‘He’ll have gone back to the farm if he’s any sense, or bedded down in a ditch with his horse for warmth.’
Ulf was on his feet and moving about the cave. ‘I’m going down to have a look, to see how long we’ve got before I can expect the boat. It must be close to dawn. I have to go on board from the beach. He won’t be able to row it in between the rocks. I want you to stay here until I’m safely away. I’ll come back to say goodbye.’
His footsteps crunched down into the next cave and faded out of hearing. Hildegard sat on the cloak where they had lain. Eventually she heard him returning.
He was dripping wet and carried his shirt in one hand, rubbing his chest with it and shaking water drops out of his long hair. He pulled the shirt over his head and tied back his hair. ’It’s nearly light,’ he told her, swooping her up into his arms when he was ready. ‘I’d better go down to the waterline and wait for him where I can see him turn into the bay. I’m going to go onto the beach at the last moment in case anyone’s keeping a look-out from the cliffs.’
He kissed her. ‘I can’t bear to leave you.’
She leaned against him. He smelled of sea water, fresh and clean. ’I could come with you.’
He smiled through the gauzy air. ‘You could. And I could thoroughly ruin your life forever.’ He held her in a sudden compulsive embrace. ‘I need you to pray for me, Hildegard. I need one good person to talk to the angels for me and beg for my redemption.’
‘You don’t need redemption. You’ve done nothing wrong.’
‘Not until last night.’ He placed his lips tenderly over her own and she could feel him smile and her senses swam in the anguish of knowing this was their last kiss.
He took her with him as far as the place where the cave narrowed and then, fingertips touching until the final moment, they gradually tore themselves asunder. His last words were, ‘If I live I shall come back for you.’
After he left she stood for a long time listening to the sound of footsteps fading down the tunnel that led to the sea – and would take him away to the undeserved punishment of exile in a foreign land.
7
The minutes dragged. She had no idea whether he had climbed aboard the boat or was still waiting for it to appear. Unable to wait a moment longer she decided to go down and see for herself. When the tide ebbed sufficiently she would be able to make her way across the beach and climb back up the cliff where her horse was waiting. Maybe she would get a last glimpse of him as the boy rowed him safely out to sea.
Cautiously, she followed the linked caves down towards the entrance. Waves were still clambering lazily over the rocks there but the water was already shallow enough when the waves withdrew to allow her to splash through onto higher ground without much of a wetting. She had just reached the top of the rocks on the edge of the beach when she thought she heard voices on the other side. She held still.
By the sound of it there were several men on the cliff side.
Holding her breath so as not to make a sound she slid down the last of the rocks until her feet sank into deep sand and in a few more paces she rounded the headland onto the beach. She stared in horror.
Ulf had not yet been taken to safety. He was standing knee deep in the surf. The boy with the boat was sculling crazily to keep it steady as the waves repeatedly lifted it to pound it onto the shore. But that wasn’t the worst of it.
A few yards away at the top of the red mud slide at the far side of the inlet stood several horsemen. They were wearing body armour. Swords were already unsheathed.
Worse still, one of them was holding a cross-bow, trying to find his length as he aimed straight at Ulf.
Without a thought she let out a great cry of grief and rage and flew towards Ulf with her arms outstretched as at that moment the bowman loosed the bolt.
A searing heat sent her reeling back into the water. She fell, spread-eagled in the surf, and darkness fell.
Dies Irae
1
‘We’ve got him. Pass us that rope, Jack, just to make sure.’ It was a stranger’s voice, one she did not recognise, a local fellow, however, and then, to her surprise came a voice she did know.
‘There’s no need for incivility. Stay your hold! I claim this prisoner.’ It was Brother Gregory. But it could not be him because he was at Meaux. And she was not at Meaux she was near a cave in some other world where nothing made sense. There had been water. A splash. And now she was lying on sand.
Someone close above her head murmured, ‘Careful now, don’t move. We’ll soon have you comfortable. When we lift you though you may want to curse out loud. Do so. It will relieve the pain.’
‘Is that you, Egbert?’ Her voice was her own and not her own.
It seemed to be inside her head only but Brother Egbert must have heard her words because he said, ‘It is I. And Brother Gregory’s here too. We’ll soon have everything back the way it should be. Lie still and worry not.’
‘Where’s Ulf?’ she managed, remembering everything in one flood of terror.
‘Safe at present,’ he reassured. ‘Just let me leave you for a moment to join Gregory in forcing our case.’
She heard him crunch off over the sand. His voice came clearly, over-riding the argument that seemed to be going on.
’Now then, you fellows,’ she heard, ‘you’ve done a good job in finding him but I must insist along with my brother here that you let the law dictate his fate.’
Rough objections were made but Egbert ignored them. ‘We are fortunate to live under the rule of law as Brother Gregory here has so patiently explained and it clearly states that no man may be hanged without due process.’
‘We ain’t aiming to hang him. He’s an outlaw. We aim to behead him. As the law says we should.’
‘Ah, here I must offer you my guidance before you find yourself on a hanging charge yourselves,’ broke in Gregory with his usual disarming smoothness.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ another voice demanded.
‘It means that I would be failing in my duty,’ he replied in his precise lawman’s voice, ‘if I did not draw your attention to the most salient point in this case, which is that you are, de facto, on abbey land. First and foremost the apprehending of felons and other miscreants falls within the jurisdiction of canon law.’
‘What abbey’s this, then?’
‘The Abbey of Meaux.’
There was a mumbling of discontent.
‘We’ll take him with us, whatever you say.’
‘I think not,’ replied Gregory in that dangerously reasonable tone Hildegard had heard him use before when faced by physical threats. Despite the pain in her left shoulder she waited to hear the sound of his sword being produced from under his habit but there was silence.
Footsteps crunched a few paces and she heard Ulf mutter something. More footsteps approached the place where she was lying on the sand. Egbert, with raised voice so everyone could hear him, warned, ’We need to get this woman to sanctuary before the situation worsens and we have to take you in for wilful murder.’
‘It wasn’t wilful! I didn’t mean to shoot her! And anyway, she ain’t dead.’
‘Well, you did shoot her and there’s your bolt to prove it, and if we don’t move her at once she’ll loose blood and will be dead, so we’ll see what the justiciar thinks to your plea then.’
‘Here, I was only following orders.’
Another voice, the first one, thought Hildegard as her eyes began to close, interrupted his lieutenant with some impatience. ‘Let them take the lot of ‘em. We’ll get shut. I’ll lob a report in to t’Sheriff when we get back to York. We know where these monks hale from. They’ve already told us that. If they want recourse to t’law they’ll get it. But I wouldn’t find myself gob-smacked to discover they’re right. Meaux owns everything round here, including us if we stand still long enough. I’m not taking them monks on without authority from t’Sheriff. Let’s get back to York and sort it from there.’
‘What about this lad we’ve picked up?’
Murder at Meaux Page 6
