Murder at Meaux

by Cassandra Clark

  Abbot de Courcy glared round. In utter silence his freezing gaze inched over every one present without missing a single face.

  When it seemed as if the moment would last forever he lifted the leg swathed in bandages and white clay over the withers of his mount and clumped to the ground.

  He stood for a further moment with an arm slung over the animal’s neck – which might have been to thank the beast for carrying him here – or else, as Hildegard surmised, to hold himself ready until he could get his balance. With the horse’s reins trailing between his fingers he swung the wooden crutch attached to the saddle into place under his armpit and limped forward.

  A novice scurried from the kneeling figures but the abbot waved him away.

  Still he hadn’t spoken. Nor had anyone dared move.

  Lord Roger was twirling his sword in what at any moment might turn into a defensive feint while Sir Bernard had stuck the point of his own sword confidently into the ground and was leaning on it in an overly knightly pose.

  Neither of them broke the silence either.

  Taking his time the abbot limped towards the gatehouse.

  Every step was watched by a hundred apprehensive eyes.

  When he reached the archway he turned and again his gaze swept the circle of kneeling onlookers and the would-be combatants.

  ‘To the church, now, everyone, if you will.’

  His voice cut like a whip.

  And then he was gone.

  11

  ‘Does he mean us as well?’ For some reason Sister Emma was whispering.

  Agnetha whispered back. ‘What do you think, domina? Are we exempt?’

  ‘That might depend on whether the abbot believes you would have expected to gain pleasure from the sight of spilled blood,’ replied Hildegard.

  The nuns looked at each other and shrugged.

  ‘I have some bread on the go,’ murmured Sister Ann.

  Without saying more they drifted back towards the house.

  12

  ‘I don’t even know what they were fighting about,’ complained one of the lay-sisters later as she mopped the floor. ‘Was it anything important?’

  ‘Probably not,’ Agnetha said, taking up the bucket of dirty water, going to the door, and throwing it out into the yard at the back. She walked down the path to the canal and holding one end of the rope attached to the handle of the bucket, threw it into the water, heaved it back onto the bank and took it indoors so the job could be finished. It had take only a moment. ‘I doubt it was of any importance except to the two fellows concerned.’

  Hildegard looked at the bucket with its slop of water. ‘I’ll be able to help you soon.’

  ‘You’re doing enough at present. Are you off over there now? They’ll probably be filing out of church with white-faces and a new respect for hell-fire,’ Agnetha predicted.

  13

  She was right. The guesthouse kitchens were buzzing with talk. The abbot had given his congregation a detailed account of the punishment for gambling, greed, covetousness, sloth, blood-lust, and, for good measure, usury, although as far as anyone knew nobody had had to borrow actual money to place their bets. Nobody had any money. Their only currency existed as make-shift tokens such as stones or the wooden counters used for secret games of thralls.

  ‘We were in the wrong,’ the chief kitchener lamented. ‘We knew we were wrong and we still went ahead.’

  ‘Such is the nature of sin,’ one of his basting servants agreed.

  All were in accord.

  Hildegard was astonished that Hubert’s eloquence should have such an effect. If she allowed herself to weaken, though, she could easily imagine the look of disdain on his face as he castigated them without mercy, the arrogant curl of his lips as he looked down on them, the tilt of his head as he turned in disgust from his brothers and servants and all their ways.

  But she refused to let such images invade her mind.

  ‘Am I to take out these platters of wastel?’ she asked the kitchener.

  ‘Do, domina, yes, please do, if you will be so kind.’

  When she entered the refectory most were staring at their portions in pensive silence but there was subdued conversation continuing between Sir Bernard and his wife. Hildegard placed one of the wooden platters of bread on the trestle in front of them and caught the end of a muttered sentence. It was Sir Bernard. ’...And I shall fix him. He can be bought like anybody else.’

  He glanced up. ‘More of that baked fish, sister? I shall have to get my wife to plead for the recipe, eh, Avis, dear heart.’

  ‘As you wish, my lord husband,’ Avis replied with a face as innocent of irony as could be imagined. She was stuffing food into her mouth as fast as she could go and it no longer surprised Hildegard that she was as broad as she was long.

  So he was going to have another try at ‘fixing’ Roger was he? But why imagine he could be bought? Did he seriously believe he could pay Roger to betray his own steward?

  It sounded like it. She went over to Roger and Melisen with the second platter. ‘What did Hubert say to make everybody go quiet?’ she asked.

  ‘You don’t want to know. You’d never sleep again.’

  She lowered her voice. ‘Watch out for your friend.’ She flicked her glance sideways towards Sir Bernard. ‘He’s going to try to bribe you to hand Ulf to the Sheriff.’

  ‘Let him try it!’ Roger sat back with a contented smile. ‘I’d have had him, y’know. I’m not finished using a sword to good effect, am I, martlet?’

  ‘I should think not. But I’d much rather you never tried to prove it again. My heart was in my mouth. Thank heavens for Hubert, turning up like that. Where had he been, Hildegard?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. I’m told he went out last night at dusk.’

  ‘That’s why the Prior was in charge, is it? He’s a nervous sort of fellow. Still, it doesn’t surprise me with de Courcy breathing down his neck.’ Roger chuckled, then presumably remembered hell-fire and looked serious again. He said, ‘Thanks for the warning, Hildegard. Bribery is a sin. In fact, anything to do with money seems to be a sin. But if Vavasour tries it again – it’ll make my day!’

  ‘No, no, no...’ Melisen scolded as Hildegard continued her rounds.

  The last trestle in the refectory was occupied by Osmund at one end and at the other Eunice’s swain, Mark. Given that Osmund was the senior of the two Mark was displaying an insulting disregard for him. It made her wonder how deep the quarrel ran between them and why they allowed it to be so. If it was over Eunice as it surely must be there was little point in it now.

  With further consideration she thought it surprising that Osmund had been smitten by his master’s daughter. He seemed shrewd, not an obvious victim of seductive wiles. He was also surely too dedicated to his work to have time for flirtations. But then, she supposed, to look at it another way, he could have expected a swift rise up the ranks of his Guild if he had married the daughter of one of its masters. Until Mark stepped in.

  Supposition is probably a sin too, in Hubert’s eyes. Glad he could not read her thoughts she endured her penance, scarcely aware of her cold feet until it ended and she stepped onto the chilly cobbles outside.

  Returning to pick up her boots she glanced round the refectory and noticed one lone figure remaining. It was Friar John. He was one out of all those at Meaux who had not attended the morning’s events.

  14

  Imagining that Hubert would be engaged elsewhere Hildegard decided to visit Ulf while everyone was at Nones. Pulling up her hood she made her way over to his little cell.

  He was whittling a piece of wood with a very small knife like the ones used in the scriptorium to sharpen goose feathers when she arrived.

  ‘Who brought you that?’ she asked after greeting him.

  ‘The friar. John is it? He took pity on me, sitting here with only my thoughts for company.’

  ‘You know who he is, don’t you?’

  ‘He told me he was Eunice’s uncle.’ />
  ‘And did he visit you out of the kindness of his heart?’

  ‘That as well.’

  ‘As well as what?’

  ‘As well as telling me he didn’t believe I did it.’

  ‘What made him tell you that?’

  Ulf’s blue eyes glittered and he gave a sceptical tilt of his head. ‘Wouldn’t we like to know?’

  ‘He’s an odd cove,’ she remarked after a pause. ‘What proof is there that he’s genuine? I mean, couldn’t he have heard some talk about her murder and, aware that her real uncle was way over near Leeds, decided to step in and claim the inheritance himself?’

  ‘They’ll check on him, surely?’

  ‘I guess so...Unless money changes hands...It’s just an idea.’

  ‘His presence certainly pushes Bernard’s claim out of court.’

  ‘As for him,’ she said, ‘I’m sure you’ve heard enough about the challenge Roger threw down so I won’t mention that again, but you need to know Bernard’s trying to bribe Roger – Roger! – to give up his suit.’

  Ulf looked startled. Then he laughed. ‘Roger.’ He smiled fondly but his eyes were clouded. ‘I am beset, Hildegard. I wait on the charity of others. I trust. And I fear betrayal. I think and cannot act.’

  She saw how imprisonment irked him. He was a man of action. ’Please don’t even think of absconding from here, Ulf. Not yet.’

  With a little more hasty conversation, because they could hear the service for Nones coming to an end, they said their goodbyes with a touch of finger tips.

  This time there was no abbot standing behind them with the face of an avenging angel.

  15

  As she was crossing the garth she decided to take a short cut and slipped between the wall of the warming house and the sacristy. It was one of those links between different pars of the abbey, relatively sheltered from bad weather, called a laup.

  When she emerged at the other end she was in time to see two figures in the shelter of the wall opposite. One was Sir Bernard with his unmistakable capuchon wound on his head. The other was wearing a hood and it took a moment to recognise him as Osmund. She saw Sir Bernard hand him something.

  The journeyman turned away at once and made off in the direction of the guest house without looking back. Sir Bernard retied the loop on a pouch and went off in the opposite direction.

  Hildegard closed her mouth which she realised had dropped open of its own accord.

  Osmund.

  She had trusted him.

  Now she looked at the matter she could find no special reason for trust, but trust him she did, or rather, had done. And now? Now she did not.

  Did everybody have their price? she wondered. What was Osmund’s? And what he was offering in exchange for what he had received? It was so obvious the thought made ice trickle down her spine. He was going to go back on what little he had told her about the night Eunice died. About the shouting in the house before Bernard left. About Ulf arriving and being denied entrance. About the shutter being slammed. About him sleeping in the hay loft. About how the dogs loved and trusted him. And about their barking in the night.

  Osmund had been Ulf’s only useful witness.

  May he remember this moment when he reaches the jaws of hell!

  She corrected herself.

  May he repent before he goes too far.

  She followed Sir Bernard at a discreet distance until she saw him enter the church then she turned back.

  16

  Two days crawled by. The Holy Offices came round day and night with unstoppable regularity. The abbot seemed to be in no hurry to call the hearing. Why would he? His decision to keep Ulf incarcerated was his to make. He could keep his prisoner for as long as he wanted.

  ‘Why is he taking such a time?’ Agnetha pondered. ‘Do you know, domina?’

  ‘Our lord abbot’s reasoning is often beyond me,’ she replied. ‘Is everyone called here whom he sent for?’

  ‘I can’t think who else has an interest in the matter. The Sheriff and a couple of bailiffs have arrived from York. Sir Bernard’s steward has come trailing in from visiting kin near Malton. It’s now mid-morning, nearly time for the next Office and still no word. We may as well get on with our spinning, I suppose, this late in the day...Are you eating here or do you have to go back over the other side?’

  ‘Go back, although I hardly think he’s giving a thought to me by now and has probably forgotten I exist.’

  ‘I doubt that, but I can see how you must feel. At least he’s having a chance to cool down. Excommunication!’ She folded her arms. ‘Pah!’

  ‘I wouldn’t trust him to change his mind,’ Hildegard replied in a wary voice. ‘He never forgets anything. We’ll just have to wait. If I find anything out while I’m over there, I’ll let you know at once.’

  Most guests rarely bothered to attend the little Offices through the day. Lady Mass mid-morning sometimes called them out but not with these guests. Instead they congregated in two opposing camps in the refectory with Osmund and Friar John floating somewhere in a no man’s land between.

  Roger and Melisen with their small entourage kept to themselves. An additional servant, Hildegard noticed, was young Donal. He gave no sign that he might have been beaten as he feared but smiled and was turning into quite the courtly little page, sprinting about the abbey on errands for the de Huttons.

  Sir Bernard took up an entire trestle constantly loaded with viands and jugs of wine and was heard telling his wife. ‘I am content, wife. We’re enjoying the abbot’s wine and vittels at no expense to ourselves. What about you, friar?’

  ‘Indeed yes, I am always content. I shall walk to Beverley tomorrow if we’re not called and there preach on the subject of –’ he broke off. ‘There are so many edifying topics. The psalms. Difficult to choose.’

  ‘I should be at my work bench,’ Osmund pointed out. ‘I have commissions to fulfil.’ He glanced pointedly at Mark. ‘And you’ve work to be doing. You’re not owed a holiday yet.’

  ‘I can’t be expected to work when I’m here, can I?...Besides,’ the apprentice added, ‘I’m too full of grief. I want to see her murderer hang.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ murmured Friar John as Mark flounced out. ‘This is fraying the edges of all our tempers. Pray we find a solution satisfactory to everyone. Although how that can be achieved...’ tailing off, he got up, and still clucking, he too went out.

  Hildegard’s duties were light and the shame of serving people who would be more likely to wait on her in the outside world was an experience she bore with humility. It was hardly the tough penance Hubert’s furious outburst had seemed to portend. Even so she was not unfearful. He had warned there was more to come.

  With obligations fulfilled, she once again set off to her own side of the bridge but had got no further than the path leading from the guest house when someone came out from the church and began to walk towards her.

  As soon as she saw him she dropped to her knees and prostrated herself.

  ‘Hildegard,’ came Hubert’s voice. He did not ask her to rise but spoke over her head. ‘I am about to invite everyone to the Chapter House to state their objections to the release of the prisoner to the secular authorities. In view of the fact that he is your lover perhaps you would like to attend?’

  She raised herself to kneeling – he could surely not object to that – and looked straight up into his eyes. ‘He is not my lover.’

  With cruel mildness he disagreed. ’But I have your own testimony to that effect.’

  ‘It was in terror of what lay ahead, an event at the end of the world – when he was fleeing for his life and I believed he was close to death –’

  ‘As are we all,’ he interrupted. He paused long enough to let his words sink in. ‘Every day of our lives brings us closer to death. Are we then to fornicate at every opportunity like beasts in the field?’

  The hopelessness of reasoning with him, of pleading with him, of trying to explain, swept over her in a tide of despai
r. Unable to answer she could only stare up at him in silence. Dispassionately, she registered that he looked thinner, paler, as if suffering from an illness, and yet his eyes still smouldered with that intense dark fire she used to look on in perfect joy. Now it was ashes to her.

  He looked down from his height as if he would trample over her and she heard him say, ‘So you don’t wish to hear the arguments for handing him over to the sheriff to face the death penalty?’

  Hesitating, she managed, ‘Are there any?’

  ‘We shall see, shall we not?’

  ‘And the arguments against doing so...?’ she muttered.

  ‘Only one: his innocence. Well?’ he insisted. ‘Are you going to attend?’

  ’If I attend you will believe it is because we are lovers and I will be damned further in your estimation – should that be possible.’

  ‘Very well. Attend or not, as you wish.’

  He walked on.

  Of course she would attend. He knew she would. Why had he bothered to ask her if not to taunt her with his accusation and punish her further with his contempt? She rose wearily to her feet.

  ‘The hearing is set for tomorrow afternoon,’ she told her nuns later that day.

  ‘Are we allowed to come along?’ Agnetha asked.

  ‘I don’t see why not.’ Hildegard gazed out of the window as her eyes filled with tears. She brushed them away.

  ‘Truth will out. It must.’ Agnetha put a hand on her sleeve. ‘Trust in the Lord. I shall pray for Ulf. We all shall.’

  Hildegard went outside to hide her grief. The garden was full of dead leaves. The herbs were grown long and straggled across the path, giving up their scent in the late sun.

  Where the canal waters ran smoothly between the steep banks dead leaves were carried swiftly downstream on its glassy surface. They would eventually reach the abbot’s garden where she used to sit with him on summer evenings. It was now over a year since they had done that. So much had happened in between, a turn for the better, it seemed, an end to old suspicions, Avignon, Salisbury, Netley, each place bringing its own understanding to the feelings they had then shared. Now, worse than she could ever have imagined was the gulf between them. It was like a killing blackness and ran as endlessly and as deeply as the cold waters of the canal.