‘That must have been when we met him.’ Gregory smiled at the recollection. ’I hope he doesn’t expect us to join him if he feels the call to go again. I’d like to enjoy the sweet hills of home for a while yet.’
‘You’re far from home, Gregory,’ Egbert pointed out.
‘True, my kinsfolk are down in the Royal Forest, but don’t forget I had a Templar forbear here at the Faxfleet preceptory.’
Hildegard fingered the basket Gregory had placed on her lap. He had mentioned his Templar Knight kinsman before.
‘When the Order was betrayed by the French king and they were all thrown out or worse, my great uncle’s penance was to be sent to Meaux. Some penance!’ he chuckled. ‘I’m determined to ride over to Faxfleet to see what’s left of the temple.’
‘I’ve told you,’ said Egbert, ‘it’ll be nothing but a pile of stones by now.’
‘Still, I’d like to pay my respects, as it were.’
Satisfied that their patient was on the mend the two monks explained for the first time how they had seen Hildegard leave Meaux and, such was her haste, they decided to follow her, neither of them more surprised than the other when she rode straight to York.
‘I had no idea you were trailing me,’ she remarked.
‘That was the general idea’ Gregory told her.
‘So it was you near Walmgate Bar? I didn’t believe the evidence of my own eyes.’
As they left Hildegard heard Gregory saying, ‘I didn’t even have to show my sword to those fellows on the beach and I fear I’m getting rusty. What about giving me a bout or two in the yard, Egbert?’
‘I’m forgetting how to hold a sword these days...Come on, then, you old devil, best of three.’
Pierrekyn played a sprightly, military little tune as they left then turned it into something more serious with some deft fingering to impress Hildegard.
5
It had been a pleasant re-awakening after existing in a timeless half world ruled by pain.
And yet, she thought, after even Pierrekyn had left, there is still the problem of Hubert and myself, there is still the mystery of poor Brother Anselm’s death, and there is still the problem of Ulf, imprisoned, and his wife with a broken neck and no proper explanation of how it came about.
She lifted the cover off the basket and saw that it was full of late fruit, peaches that she recognised as the same variety as those grown at Swyne, some autumn apples, a few herbs, a bunch of long-stemmed lavender, and, at the bottom, a small square of parchment with a message from the prioress in her familiar, swooping court hand wishing her well.
Not from Hubert then.
She ignored the dead feeling that swept over her.
How could she ever face him?
Instead she began to think carefully and methodically about each problem in turn before her eyes closed and Egbert’s hemlock sent her into a deep, restorative sleep.
6
A day passed. And a night. What awoke her was the smallest sound, silk, it seemed like silk, whispering over stone, no more than a sigh. She held her breath to listen.
Aware of a presence, a change in the air like a faint perfume, she guessed someone must be standing in silence beside her bed. She breathed in the familiar scent of sandalwood.
After a moment the same sound, silk, stone, was followed by a wave of colder air as of a door opening into the passage.
When she opened her eyes, in the glimmer of the dawn light she was in time to glimpse a flash of silvery fabric curving round the edge of the door and vanishing as it closed.
For a little time she lay still, waiting for the figure to return and thinking about sandalwood, how it was his one indulgence, and when he did not return the thought of sandalwood led onto hemlock and other beneficial plants that could be turned into poison and her thoughts began to circle round what she knew of Anselm’s death.
Working late after Compline, Agnetha had told her, when the abbey was plunged into the Great Silence, he had died alone, unseen, unheard, the door to the scriptorium locked on the inside, she said, cutting out any suggestion of foul play.
The suspicion arose that he had killed himself against all the teachings of the Church and that was why Prior Benedict had decided to take him to the distant chapel close to where he grew up and have him hurriedly buried after only the simplest of rites. And yet Hubert was refusing to allow anyone inside the scriptorium, not even Pierrekyn, to continue his search for something, although no-one knew what.
Then there was Ulf, an innocent prisoner kept under lock and key at the abbot’s behest.
Why had he not been freed? What was going on with Hubert that he could be so arbitrary?
She had a violent urge to speak to him, not just about themselves, about what she had done, that problem was irresolvable, but about the madness of his actions since they had returned to Meaux.
From what she knew of him he would be irritated by the physical inactivity forced on him by his broken leg, no hawking, no riding out with his hounds, limping around the abbey like an old man, and perhaps also taunted by continuing pain and, given his character by a feeling of reluctance to show weakness in front of his brother monks.
In a maelstrom of conflicting emotions he would need someone neutral with whom to talk things over without shame or artifice.
With a sudden urge to have answers she swung both legs over the side of her bed and tried out what it was like to stand unaided.
Somewhat shakily she stepped towards the peg where her cloak was hanging and pulled it on. Putting one hand on the wall to steady herself, she made her way outside into the passage.
It was nearly light in the garden and when she stepped from out of the shadow of the nunnery she noticed that the branches of the espaliers along the garden wall seemed to be strung with tears. Everything growing, though clipped, glistened, each leaf bearing its own diamond.
Encouraged by this sudden vision of natural harmony she made her way to the gate and let herself out near the bridge that linked the house of nuns with the abbey.
In the distance floated the chanting of the monks in the unfolding of a melody set down anciently when the rite was new, the cantor adding the beauty of a single voice to the rich unison of the monks’ bass and tenor and then the pure, unbroken singing of the novices floating above them all carrying their hymn into the empyrean.
Dwelling within the beauty of the sound for as long as she could she did not notice a figure in the mist leaning against the parapet and staring into the water without moving. Only when she stumbled and was forced to steady herself did she realise that it was Hubert himself.
He caught sight of her at almost the same moment as she drew back.
In his white robes, with the mist of early morning dissolving around him, light itself seemed to glisten with an uncanny radiance from his very presence and she put out a hand to stay the vision as if expecting him to vanish.
He stood erect, watching her, making no move.
She approached, drifting almost, unsure of his reception, in awe, in fear. ’I dreamt you were standing beside my bed,’ she blurted. ‘Forgive me if it was not so and only a dream. I awoke troubled – and thinking about Brother Anselm – about what I might do...If you so wish...?’
She uttered no recriminations at what might be seen as his neglect of her, no shame, either, at what she had done. That would come later. She faltered, even so, when he made no move towards her. ‘I understand Anselm’s death troubles you, Hubert?’
He made no reply.
‘Hubert...my lord...’ Unsure how to go on she could only stare, eyes enlarging as she saw him as if for the first time with his austere features, the Norman arrogance of his mouth, his eyes...dark, and now, she observed, as cold as ice.
She bent her head, made the required obeisance to a superior of the Order, with difficulty kneeling at his feet.
When at last he spoke it brought them no closer. ‘They tell me your wound is beginning to heal.’
’They’ve
been so kind, so patient.’ She strove to reach him. ‘All of them.’
‘Gregory and Egbert,’ he observed without emotion. ‘And the exemplary sister Agnetha.’
He gestured that she might rise.
With difficult she got to her feet. She was half in a dream where Hubert would take her in his arms and something she feared lost would be restored. But he made no further move. Frost seemed to grow in the air between them.
With a helpless lifting of one hand she made as if to turn back towards the nuns’ side of the bridge but he called her back. Voice like steel. ‘Come here!’
When she turned he said, ‘What are your thoughts about Anselm?’ He crossed himself at the name.
‘Can you not forgive a good and kindly man if he broke the Rule and sought his own death? Ever since we met the cortege on the road to Meaux when you ordered Prior Benedict to turn back, it has been troubling you.’
‘Anselm was in good health. There is no reason for his death. He would never take the iniquitous path you suggest. It is an outrage to repeat such a rumour.’
‘But I’m told the scriptorium was locked. It is a logical assumption – ’
‘Logical? Not if you’d known the man.’
He turned away and stared into the water flowing under the bridge. After a long moment and almost reluctantly he told her, ‘There were also marks on his neck which no-one seems to have noticed.’
‘Marks? Of struggle?’
‘Of strangulation.’
He started to walk away, saying over his shoulder, ‘He was my oldest friend here, my mentor in the days of my novitiate. He would not so transgress as to kill himself.’ He turned back with a black look. ‘I don’t know what you imagine you can do about it.’
He began to walk away, hurriedly, angrily, without once looking back.
Hildegard watched him cross the bridge. He did not want her help then, so be it. When he went under the ornate arch of the gatehouse she waited but he did not turn his head.
7
Now she was outside the precinct of her nuns’ domain she was for the first time in a while reluctant to return to her sick room. What could Hubert imagine? Agnetha said the scriptorium was locked from inside. There could be no suggestion of foul play. Unable to fathom what he meant her thoughts turned to Ulf languishing in his prison.
He must be miserable, cooped up with no idea what was going to happen to him. Concern for him drew her across the bridge. No-one could object if she went to speak to him.
8
‘Domina! Wait! I’ve called you several times!’
She turned. It was Pierrekyn.
‘Where are you going with such purpose, domina?’
‘I – ?’ Stopped in her tracks she asked, ‘What about you? Out so early?’
‘I’m going over a few lines of the antiphon with the little lads after Prime. I can’t bear it when they gabble the Latin.’ He laughed. ‘They’re coming on. A keen bunch. I’m fortunate to have them to bless me seven times a day with their sweet and ephemeral voices. They remind me constantly of loss and eternity, especially at prime when everything seems renewed and we have a second chance to remake ourselves.’ He bit his lip. ‘I must be getting old to have such thoughts!’
‘Old? You can’t be more than – what?’
‘Twenty? I’m twenty, I think. About the same age as King Richard.’ He lowered his voice. ‘I was calling out to you because I wanted to request a boon. Will you favour me with your presence for a little while?’
‘Of course.’
‘This way then.’
He led her towards the abbey and in through the gatehouse. The porter looked out. Saw Hildegard and smiled. ‘Welcome, domina. I see you’re on the mend! God speed your complete recovery.’
Thanking him she hurried after Pierrekyn. ‘Where are you taking me, Pierrekyn?’
‘Follow me.’
He led her up a flight of stone steps just inside the gatehouse and with an adopted jauntiness in his gait that when they reached the top made her ask, ‘What is this about?’
He whispered, ‘He might have questioned me if you hadn’t been by my side to lend me an air of respectability.’
‘What?’
‘I told you, we’ve been forbidden to go inside but I’m convinced Anselm would have left me a message of some sort, whether he took his own life or something else happened. I want to have a proper look.’
He led her towards a wide, light, raftered chamber. She could see it was so without entering because its great wooden door was off its hinges and was propped against the wall of the passage. Pierrekyn lifted it against one shoulder and pushed it aside to make room for her to enter.
‘Be careful as you step inside. They’ve been asked to leave everything just as it was when they found him. Fortunately they’d got no further with putting things to rights by the time our lord abbot sent them back again.’
‘They must have left little time between finding Anselm’s body and setting off with the cortege,’ she remarked.
He gave her a steady look. ‘That struck me too. Why the hurry?’
‘And yet the prior said he had carried out all the necessary rites.’
‘He did, but he was rushed into it, I feel. I had to organise the singing for the Requiem straightaway. Luckily my boys were up to it.’
He glanced swiftly over the chamber with it’s half-a-dozen writing desks, the inks and pens and piles of cut vellum scattered as it must have been left.
‘Which was Anselm’s place, do you know?’ Hildegard went further on into the chamber and paced between the tilted desks. They were orderly, bearing only the tools needed by the scribes to do their work, with quills sharpened and everything in its place. An air of tranquility prevailed. There was little to show that a man had died here.
‘It’s this desk by the window,’ Pierrekyn was standing looking at it with a thoughtful frown. ‘Surely he must have left some sign?’
‘Has Abbot de Courcy inspected the place?’
‘He was up here as soon as he got in. After Prime, that is, on that first day back.’
‘Would that give someone time to remove anything they did not want him to see?’
Slowly, he shook his head. ‘But what?’
‘I don’t know. I’m at a loss...Is it grief that makes Hubert imagine Anselm came to harm?’
‘No-one could have got inside to harm him anyway. The door, as you see, was locked. The conversi suggested breaking it down with an axe until someone realised that it was locked not by the key but by the beam inside being pulled down. They could never have hacked through that.’
‘And it must be only possible to pull it down from inside,’she observed.
She made her way to the windows. Three of them gave onto the garth. She could see the church if she looked to the right and straight opposite was the house of the lay-brothers with the refectory underneath. The frater was the next building adjoining the scriptorium. It was impossible to see it from this angle.
‘There’s nothing on his desk but the tools of his trade,’ Pierrekyn observed, picking up a quill and putting it down.
Turning from the windows she asked, ’Do you know what he was working on at the time?’
‘He was copying down the musical notation for the chants we sing at the Daily Offices.’ He peered more closely at a piece of vellum on the desk next to a pile already partially covered by the four lines of the stave and dots to indicate the melodic line. Next to these was a pile of recently cut vellum, scraped and ready for use.
He lifted the piece Anselm had presumably intended to write the music for next and sang the words he had written. ‘E lucis ante terminum – before the ending of the light –’ he broke off. ‘Do the words suggest that the abbot may be wrong?...’ Looking slightly shocked he put the vellum back where he had taken it from.
’I have to ask you this, Perrekyn. Do you know if Brother Anselm was copying anything else?’
Pierrekyn looked her warily in the eye.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know what I mean.’ She came over to stand beside him. ‘I suppose you know that John Purvey and Swinderby and the other clerks working at Lutterworth have finished rendering Wyclif’s Bible from Latin into English? The whole thing is now complete. We heard about it when we were in Salisbury.’
‘It’s against the law. The pope himself is railing against them, demanding their excommunication at the very least.’
‘Of course he is. He wants no-one to encroach on his authority or that of his priests. What would Brother Anselm have thought to that?’
‘Dangerous question, domina, but I will answer it this way. I know I can trust you.’
He went swiftly to the aumbry where the horn ink wells, the chalk, the straight edges and the knives and spare vellum were kept. Moving a few things out of the way he pressed open a small hatch at the back of the shelf and drew forth what could only be a copy of some other work. ‘These pages,’ he told her, ‘are our copy of part of the New Testament which we will eventually pass on to some other abbey where it will be bound into one volume with the rest of the pages being copied elsewhere.’
‘Does the abbot know it’s here?’
‘I doubt whether anyone but we two know that, now Anselm’s dead.’
‘Do you intend to tell the abbot?’
‘Of course. Unless he turns mad and refuses to acknowledge the need for an English translation.’
He put it back inside the secret compartment and piled the writing paraphernalia back in place.
‘Why haven’t I told him already, you might ask?’ He turned to her. ‘Partly because I believe he may know and is waiting for someone to reveal their involvement, hence the delay in allowing anyone back in here, and partly because – well, to be honest, I’m not sure where he stands. Are you?’
She did not answer that. ‘You realise how dangerous it is to possess a copy, Pierrekyn, now that the duke of Gloucester and his ally the earl of Arundel and his brother the new archbishop are in the ascendant?’
Murder at Meaux Page 8
