Murder at Meaux

by Cassandra Clark

  ‘I imagine we are both well aware of the danger.’

  ‘Do you think it has anything to do with Anselm’s death?’

  ‘You mean he might have taken fright and decided the only way out was to commit suicide?’

  ‘I didn’t mean that but then I didn’t know him. Is it likely?’

  Pierrekyn shook his head. ‘First, he would never take fright at standing up for what he believed to be right. He would speak out and take the consequences. And second he would never commit the sin of self-inflicted death. Abbot de Courcy is right on that score. Some things he believed in with his whole heart. To give in, as he would see it, and go against God’s law would be against his deepest belief. He saw heaven and hell as real, life as a sacred gift in God’s keeping.’

  Hildegard gave him a quick glance. ‘And you do not see heaven or hell with the same conviction?’

  ‘Why do you ask that?’

  ‘There’s a strong argument running at present among those outside the Church based on the idea that as we know so little we can with no certainty assert anything.’

  She remembered Friar Hywel down at Netley Abbey and his conviction that whatever we said about the universe should be backed up with evidence, just as Aristotle and the other pagan thinkers believed. She mentioned Hywel in passing. ‘Dogmatism and the barbaric measures taken against those with whom the authorities disagree are therefore seen as a stain on our intelligence. But now is not the time for a discussion of matters such as this.’

  ‘Poor Anselm. Why could he not discuss these ideas in freedom? I can’t help suspecting that it was because he agreed with Wyclif that he died.’ Pierrekyn looked helplessly round the chamber before going over to the door.

  Hildegard followed him. As he shouldered it aside she felt puzzled but could not put her finger on the reason. After staring at the door she went back to the window. The scriptorium was on the first floor. Below the steep, unadorned stone wall, was the garth. No-one could have climbed in or out by that route.

  ‘It must be the door,’ she said. ‘Where is the key?’

  Pierrekyn looked surprised. ‘That’s strange. I hadn’t thought of that. It’s not in the lock.’ He peered out into the passage. ‘It must have fallen out of the lock when they were taking the door off its hinges.’

  ‘So where is it now?’

  Rubble from where the workmen had hacked into the stone still lay on the floor. Apart from a pile of mortar and some wood-shavings there was no sign of anything resembling a key. The big beam that kept the door shut from inside was upright, held in position by a metal clasp.

  ‘To lower it you’d have to be inside and let it fall into this metal stopper.’ Hildegard ran her fingers over it. ‘Why lock yourself in? Presumably to stop anyone from disturbing you.’

  Pierrekyn kicked the wall as he would have done when she first met him as a sulky fourteen year old. ‘Poor Anselm,’ he said again. ‘It’s not right!’

  The sun had moved while they talked and now, coming out from behind a cloud like the single, strong beam from a lantern, it shone on Anselm’s desk and made the dust motes dance.

  Hildegard went over to have another look. ‘Are these lines important?’

  Scratched into the wood were some vertical lines that the sun’s strong beams brought into relief.

  Pierrekyn bent to have a closer look. ‘What are they? Roman numerals?’

  ‘Why not make a note of them? Heaven knows, we’ve found nothing else of significance. Are they recent, do you think?’

  ‘They look fresh to me.’ He bent down so that his eyes were on a level with the surface of the desk. ‘There’s no dust in them. They seem to have been scratched by something like a pen knife. I’ve no idea what they mean.’

  The sun faded and with it the lines became indistinct. Pierrekyn took up a piece of vellum, swirled the ink in the ink horn with the nib of the quill lying on the desk, then copied the lines.

  ‘Who found him, by the way?’

  ‘The Circator, doing his rounds,’ he replied.

  ‘I wonder if I can have a chance to talk to him?’

  ‘I’ll let him know.’

  Remembering Ulf and her intention to visit him she said she must go. ‘Are you coming out now?’

  ‘I will, indeed. I don’t wish to come face to face with the abbot and have to explain why I’m deliberately defying him. I’m only allowed in the abbey on sufference because he has a care for music and wants the best.’ He grinned, a vestige of his usual spirit, and muttered something about not having false modesty. ‘I’ll still go first, domina, just to make sure the coast is clear. Rather me than you!’

  9

  ‘You saved my life, Hildegard.’ Ulf put his lips close to the bars of his prison.

  ‘It was chance. Lucky I came out onto the beach just then.’

  ‘Lucky for me. Not so lucky for you. How are you feeling?’

  ‘I’m all right.’ In fact she felt faint and held the bars between both hands while she stared in at him. His quarters were plain, nothing more than a stone cell with an earthen floor, a wooden bench on which to sleep and sit, a stone jug of water beside it. The barred aperture was open to the weather and gave onto the stores yard.

  ‘Are they feeding you?’

  ‘The kitchener makes sure of that.’ His eyes shone blue but then darkened. ’If the lord abbot had a mind to make a decision I could be out of here by now.’

  ‘Why is he keeping you?’

  ‘He claims he has to, in accordance with the law. The Sheriff will be over from York soon and they’re going to thrash out my fate between them. Both want the opportunity to punish me.’

  He fingered his neck as if aware of what might happen should he be handed over to the secular law.

  ‘Let’s pray some new evidence will turn up,’ she said as reassuringly as she could. ‘I’m told he’s insisting on obtaining statements from anyone and everyone involved. It’s to the good. It’ll be what’s taking the time.’

  ‘It’s not to the good if nobody but Osmund saw anything, as it seems, and he didn’t really see anything much, did he?’ He frowned. ‘If Sir Bernard drums up opposition to me by blackening my name I’m done for.’

  ‘So it’s a waiting game. Waiting and hoping.’

  ‘It looks like it.’

  He tried to make light of it but he was unkempt and half-starved and underneath his attempt to appear unmoved she could see he was losing hope. She wondered how long he could hold out.

  For herself, she was devastated by the prospect of what lay ahead if no-one could find sufficient reason to throw doubt on the accusation.

  She put her fingers through the bars. ‘Dear Ulf. Don’t give up hope.’

  ‘While there’s life, eh?’

  He reached out to twine his fingers in hers. His blue eyes gleamed with the far-seeing look she had always cherished and he murmured, ’I wish we were back in the cavern and could stay there forever.’

  ‘Don’t.’

  ‘About that – I would never have...I would never have lain with you if I hadn’t thought that was the last time we would ever see each other...I would never have dared, never have risked...It was a dying man’s last wish, as it seemed. Do you understand? Hildegard, I fear I’ve ruined you in the eyes of your Order.’

  ‘I know, I know. It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘What does it mean for your vows? Have I consigned you to the eternal flames of hell?’

  ‘I doubt it. Not if I’m properly penitent.’

  ‘And are you?’

  She shook her head.

  His eyes gleamed for a moment before the shadow returned. ‘Then you must be penitent. You must do everything they tell you. Renounce me, forswear me. Let them think I – let them think I raped you. Save yourself.’

  ‘Don’t talk nonsense.’

  ‘You must.’

  ‘How can I be penitent when in all honesty I have no regrets?’

  A voice came suddenly from behind her and Ulf, g
lancing over her shoulder, hardened his manner and when she turned there was Hubert.

  At once he had taken in the entwined fingers, the guilty start as Hildegard stepped away from the bars of the prison, and Ulf’s defiant stance.

  His face drained to white. Even his lips seemed frozen and scarcely moved as he said in a flat, even tone, ’Come to my chamber, now, if you will, domina.’

  He swivelled in the obvious expectation that she would obey without hesitation. She watched him struggle to walk with authority on his wooden crutch.

  ‘Forgive me,’ she whispered turning a stricken glance on Ulf. ‘I must go if I am ordered to go. I didn’t intend to make things worse for you.’

  He took in Hubert’s stern and retreating back. ‘There is nothing to forgive. Save yourself. Don’t suffer for my sake.’

  10

  Hubert was standing beside his lectern when she entered his chamber. The air was sweet with oil of sandalwood. Everything shone with use and care. Even the tiles she crossed in order to stand before him as he indicated shone with rich, honey tones brought to a polish by the abbey servants. The whole place and the man in it suggested power.

  Feeling a little dizzy after her injury and unused to doing more than lying down until her health returned, she tried to fix her attention on some one thing in all the radiance of his chamber to prevent herself from showing weakness. She would not betray Ulf nor beg forgiveness for whatever sin she had committed.

  The sun rose behind him and her face lifted in opposition against him.

  Without preamble he said, ’You have lain together.’

  It was a statement so she felt no obligation to reply.

  He raised his voice. ’You have lain together?’ His head lifted as if to invite an answer to a purely academic question that had only factual interest for him.

  She gave the faintest of nods.

  A harsh rustle of garments, reflecting his anger as he turned from her and went to stand by the window was all that hinted at his response. So he had had doubts? Ulf had said nothing?

  Now he stood in silence, looking out onto his garden, where in happier times they used to sit together in peaceful and shared meditation.

  She could glean nothing of his intentions from his silhouette against the brightening day. It was a black shape against the light.

  When he eventually turned to face her he said in a cold voice,‘There have been events in your past...you can’t know what it has cost me to...What you did I excused...I thought you had a sense of the greater good...the sacrifice it entailed...and you atoned...You cannot know the cost to me...But now? Now!...It cannot go on...We...I cannot go on, knowing you have betrayed your vows, betrayed the high values of our Order, of St Benedict’s Rule. This time there can be no excuse, no special pleading, no reasoning...’

  As there was nothing she could say to defend herself she waited.

  Quietly, with some venom that ran like a shock through her, he announced,’I can have you excommunicated...an end to it for good...’

  He gripped the side of the lectern and his knuckles showed white.

  There was nothing she could say. Nothing to be said. He waited, but there was nothing. No words would come.

  Eventually he said, ’You were to meet me on the bridge and tell me your answer – Do you remember your promise to me? Was it so long ago you forgot what you had promised me – ? Was it done so lightly? It must be so.’

  She tried to open her lips in the hope some words could be summoned but he silenced her.

  ‘You were to come to me – It was a profound and holy proposition and you were to give me your answer but the alacrity with which you ran to your lover as soon as you learned of his predicament is answer enough – there was no equivocation in your flight – how plain its purpose! I learned then what was truly in your heart, such as it is. That stone within your...It revealed as nothing else could, your faithlessness. Seeking only sensual pleasure you...’ In a voice like ice he repeated, ‘I can have you excommunicated.’

  When she said nothing he leaned forward. ‘I can have you thrown out of the Order. In France I could have you burned as a witch. I could name you heretic and watch you burn!’

  Whether he expected her to plead then or to fall to her knees in supplication she did not know. All she felt was that she would not yield.

  ‘Speak to me, damn you!’

  In a scarcely audible voice she replied, ’He was not my lover. Not then. Not when you asked me to consider leaving the Order. What I did later was faithful to my own belief.’

  ‘Your what?’

  ‘I was faithful to my belief.’

  ‘Your belief? What has your own belief to do with anything?’

  ‘It is a belief in honesty, in compassion – in love -’

  ‘Love?’ He looked as if she had stabbed him.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You say love?’

  ‘I mean in the truest, deepest sense, the sort of love we are enjoined to feel by our Lord for all living creatures. He did not seek to punish those who loved but instructed us to go among thieves and sinners –’

  ‘You try to instruct me?... Me?’

  ‘Only in this one thing – my lord,’ she added, remembering his position and his pride.

  ‘If this is your interpretation of Holy Scripture you may as well seek employment at the city jail and give your love to wretches ready for the rope! You’ll have no shortage of penitents there! No shortage of love, as you call it! Is that what you understand by Christ’s teaching? Are you a whore, a Magdalen, a viper within the holy precinct of Meaux? Is your plan to bring down my abbey with your blasphemy?’

  ‘You shall not talk to me like this!’

  ‘I’ll talk to you how I please, how you deserve! Don’t tell me what I may or may not do!’

  They faced each other, neither yielding, both with clenched fists for what good it might serve, and Hubert, breathing heavily, at once losing his restraint and with a face contorted by rage shouted, ‘I can’t bear to look on you! Get out! Out! Get away from me! Take your filth!Cast yourself with the ungodly where you belong! I can have you destroyed! I shall have you thrown out of the Order! You shall be anathematised!’

  She faced him with suddenly blazing eyes, all at once unafraid of him. ’But you have already suggested that we leave – to forsake the Order, as if our vows mean nothing – It was you who suggested we cast off our vows -’

  Provoked at last she tore off her head covering and threw it to the floor, her hair tumbling down as she faced him with matching rage. ‘You said that, Hubert, lord abbot! Your words! You said, discard the garments of our Order, you said. Let’s leave, you said. How is it any different for me now? How were you showing fidelity to your vows? Answer me, Hubert! Your intentions were to flout the Rule! Don’t deny it! How are you any different?’

  ‘You dare compare yourself to me?’

  ‘I do! Where the heart is involved we are all sinners under the Rule as it is but the greater sin is to crush the promptings of our better selves under laws and false reasoning and pride and self-love – to forsake compassion and – ’

  ‘Get out! Go back to your cell! Talk to no-one! Stay there until I send for you!’

  He stepped towards her as if to throw her out bodily but she retreated, her blazing eyes never leaving his, until she reached the door.

  He came towards her, step for step. He towered over her. She had never seen such steel, such violence. He was a force that for the first time aroused an unholy dread in her. It showed, sharper than words, that there was nothing he would not do to destroy her.

  Unaware how she found herself outside the door of his lodge she stumbled down the path towards the church on the narrow, winding way through the grass he himself had worn, walking so many times in his holiness to lead the daily offices, to raise the Eucharist, to offer the sacrament to his brothers. It struck her as hollow and contemptible. He seemed tainted by the worst hypocrisy of his kind. No wonder people were rebelling ag
ainst the church’s stranglehold on their thinking despite it being stamped out with both fire and sword.

  It was clear as never before that those in opposition to what they saw as a corrupt church, spoke the clearest truth. The avarice of the Avignon popes and their hypocritical cardinals with their concubines, and the popes in Rome too, mirrored even here, in this tranquil and well-ordered corner of the great world, the corruption that existed at its heart.

  Tears would not come.

  She walked in a blind paralysis of will.

  At the gate the porter spoke to her but she could not reply and only stared at him as if from a million miles away.

  ‘Here, you should not be out of your sick bed, domina. You look terrible. Let me get someone to help you.’

  ‘You must not speak to me. He will tell you so tomorrow in Chapter. If this were not England the abbot would have me burned at the stake.’

  The porter looked shocked. Then, calling to someone in the garth he said, ‘Take hold of her arm, brother. She is not well.’ She felt someone take hold of her as she swayed on her feet.

  ‘Just let him try,’ she heard the porter mutter as he accompanied her as far as the gate. ‘Stake indeed.’

  She found Brother Gregory beside her. ‘Come, Hildegard. Let us sit somewhere –’

  ‘No, I cannot. I –’ she rubbed one hand over her face and was surprised to find it wet. ‘I am ordered to return to my cell – I am –’

  ‘Come then, I’m taking you back there at once. You should be resting after your ordeal.’

  ‘I fear I’m facing far worse than a mere physical ordeal.’

  11

  Brother Gregory called for Agnetha as soon as they reached the nuns’ house over the bridge. ‘She is unwell. Why did you allow her to walk abroad?’

  ‘You try keeping an eye on her if you think you can do any better. Besides, she seemed much improved when I last saw her. Has something happened?’

  Agnetha took Hildegard’s cloak and mumbling something about where was her head-covering, tried to help her back into bed but she refused saying she had to walk in the garden for a few moments to clear her head, to find a way through the thicket and turmoil of her thoughts. Hovering beside her the Sister and Brother Gregory allowed her to have her way.