‘So they say. Some intelligence just come in. You should go across there if you want the latest.’ He was envious of her freedom, it seemed, and added, ‘I can’t get away from here until compline.’
‘I’ll see what I can find out then send someone to keep you informed, if you wish.’
‘Grand. Let’s hope it’s not a false dawn. Let ’em come!’
The crowds, those who could not get inside the building, now milled around the porch.
‘Is it true?’ she asked a couple of pilgrims leaning on their staves close by.
‘Invasion? It sounds like it.’
‘And where are the French supposed to be?’
‘Halfway up the Thames,’ one of the pilgrims said, smoothing his beard nervously with one hand.
‘They’ve been saying that since midsummer,’ Hildegard pointed out.
‘Yes, but our spies have been watching Sluys,’ the shorter of the two men replied. ‘They say it’s a forest of masts. You can walk half a mile out to sea by stepping from one deck to another. And now it’s moving this way.’
It was known by now that the French had paid the mercenaries in the Low Countries to bring their ships to Sluys to join the armada they were gathering. It was said that there were one thousand three hundred and eighty-seven, and that if you looked out to sea the masts were like a vast stretch of woodland floating on the water.
There were other stories as well, that the Constable of France was having an enormous warship fitted out in Brittany, bigger than anything ever built, and that every ship from the port of Seville, right round to Prussia, had been bought by the French for their invasion fleet. No expense had been spared.
‘Every port has had its ships requisitioned,’ one of them told her now. ‘You name it, Bruges, Blankenberghe, Middleburg, right round to St Omer – and what do we have in all this?’
‘Calais,’ his companion chipped in.
‘And allies?’ The man gripped his stave more tightly. ‘Not one. We’re on our own.’
‘Backs against the wall.’
‘As usual.’
‘What’s going on inside the chapter house?’ Hildegard asked. She could not dispute their claims. England did stand alone except for the support of a handful of Welsh bowmen. Ranged against them was all the might of France, Spain, Scotland and Flanders under the Duke of Burgundy. The Queen’s brother, Wenceslas of Bohemia, the Holy Roman Emperor, offered no practical support either.
One of the pilgrims said, ‘They’re making an announcement soon but they won’t let us in for fear of people being crushed to death.’ He glanced at his companion and they both shrugged their shoulders.
The execution block on Tower Hill had a handful of well-armed guards posted beside it. They were bristling with weapons and eyed Hildegard and Thomas narrowly as they approached.
Aware of the bloody events that regularly took place in the vicinity, the two of them were in a subdued frame of mind as they walked past on the way to All Hallows to meet Bertrand. It had taken an age to find a ferry willing to take her downriver to the Tower landing stage and then she had had to find Thomas in the rambling Cistercian headquarters, but she had not wanted to walk about alone with the city in such turmoil.
They were just discussing the invasion and the likelihood of London being under siege when they were alerted by the sound of running footsteps. A gang of youths appeared, soon filling the narrow street opposite the Tower and swarming towards the block. They were running in some kind of formation, military style, banging cudgels against their bucklers in an ominous rhythm. A little drum started up behind them with a rapid warlike beat, urging the gang to quicken its pace. A few dogs, growling and slavering, galloped at their heels. They avoided the armed men near the block and ran on with a look of grim purpose.
Hildegard and Thomas were about to cross the green when a second group appeared from one of the lanes on the other side. They too had a drum which was being beaten to a martial rhythm.
The first gang, in red and white livery, and the second, dressed in lovat green with black slashes on their sleeves, continued to sprint towards each other.
‘Apprentice boys,’ murmured Hildegard in alarm. ‘What are they up to?’
It was soon apparent. With wild shouts the two groups met head-on, wielding their cudgels and beginning to crack each others’ heads open. The first victim fell, blood pouring from a wound above his eye, and Hildegard automatically made as if to help when Thomas gripped her by the arm.
‘Let’s get out of it! Look!’
He was pointing to a line of constables marching out of one of the side streets and as they watched others appeared from the alleys and lanes leading onto the green. Properly armed with swords and shields, most wore chain mail under their tunics, heads protected by steel bassinets. They were a disciplined force and quickly surrounded the green and everyone on it. The din of swords banging in unison against their shields drowned out the sound of the apprentices’ little drum. An armed man on horseback followed behind the biggest cohort as it came up the lane from beside the Tower.
Soon the lines of armed men began to close in. The apprentice boys, lashing out randomly to protect themselves, were being brought down with howls of pain. Blood began to slick the cobblestones. The apprentices slipped and fell under a hail of blows and the constables attacked the fallen with batons flying, pinning them to the ground. Hildegard cried out as mailed boots thudded into the boys’ ribs. The constables methodically set to work dealing out the same fate to everyone until, as at some prearranged plan, they began to close in on the two groups, meting out punishment indiscriminately as they went.
Thomas dragged Hildegard into the safety of an alley.
With the odds turned against them, the apprentices in green and black began to scatter. Some made a run for the same refuge where Thomas and Hildegard were sheltering but the constables pursued them, cudgels, swords and batons flailing in every direction.
‘Stop! We are not of these people!’ shouted Thomas, trying to shield Hildegard from their blows as they charged into the alley.
‘Then get the fuck out of it!’ snarled one of the constables as he ran past.
‘Come on!’ Thomas gripped Hildegard by the sleeve and dragged her out onto the green again. ‘Run for it!’
Together they headed as fast as they could towards a street on the other side of the green, away from the main fight, but a line of constables appeared from one of the lanes. Behind them stood a reserve of a dozen more armed men.
‘Permit us to come through?’ Hildegard asked, throwing a glance over her shoulder at the battle as it spilt out of the alley and spread onto the green again. The apprentices seemed to be gaining the upper hand.
When she tried to push her way through the line she noticed that the constables had linked arms, barring the way like a Saxon shield wall, and when she asked again to be allowed through they stared past her without responding.
She called out to the man on horseback patrolling behind the lines but he ignored her and moved on, checking that the wall of men was firm.
‘This is ridiculous!’ Thomas argued with the constable standing nearest. ‘You can see by our garments we’re not apprentices. We’re monastics from the Abbey of Meaux.’
‘We don’t care if you’re monastics from bloody Jerusalem, you can’t come through, so piss off!’
‘By what right can you keep us kettled up here?’ Thomas demanded with unaccustomed force. ‘We are free citizens. We have a right to walk where we please.’
No one answered.
He glared. ‘Come on, Hildegard, let’s try further along.’
They began to pass down the line in the hope of finding a constable who looked more open to reason but they hadn’t gone far when Hildegard found herself whisked through an opening that suddenly appeared. It happened without warning so that she was out on the other side before she realised Thomas had not followed. The shield wall re-formed. ‘Thomas!’ she shouted, turning and trying to
push her way back.
‘You’re wasting your time, lady,’ muttered one of the men.
She shook his arm. ‘He’s my priest! Let him through!’
By now the constables were beginning to tread forward, a pace at a time, moving inwards just as the first wave of constables had done earlier, converging on the two gangs and pushing Thomas and several other men who had been caught inside closer to the fighting.
‘Please!’ she shouted as they moved in.
‘You can find him later,’ she was told. ‘Nobody crosses the line.’
Thomas had been pushed into the thick of the conflict as everyone was forced into one brawling mass.
The same constable advised her to get along to the next street. ‘He’ll be sent along there.’
She didn’t believe him. It was chaos. There was no way Thomas would know to do that. And why would they let him out there instead of here? She saw the bloodstained apprentices being kicked to the ground, the battle lines surging now this way, now that, heard the crack of clubs on the backs of unprotected heads, saw green and red liveries mixed together. The constables were protected by steel helmets, by chain mail, well armed. It was not an equal fight.
They must have had prior knowledge of the apprentices’ plans, she surmised, bewildered by the violence.
Reluctant to leave Thomas to his fate, she made her way into the next street as she had been advised, but it was the same: lines of constables, everyone inside one fixed battle zone.
Unsure what to do for the best, she turned down the hill towards All Hallows. Her fear now was that Bertrand might have become embroiled in the riot as well.
With the raucous shouts of the combatants in her ears she hurried down to find him.
It was an impressive church. Not for its size, nor even for its slender spire and wide porch, but for its sinister reputation.
It was where the victims of the axe were taken after judicial beheading on Tower Green. It was where prayers for their tormented souls could be offered up and their mutilated bodies laid to rest.
Finding no one waiting outside she hurried in. It was empty.
Candles burnt at the far end illuminating an effigy of the Holy Mother with the twisted corpse of her son in her arms. Every contorted muscle was revealed. It looked horrifyingly lifelike.
No sign of Bertrand.
She went further in. Massive rafters loomed over the nave. Stone pillars cast shadows across the uneven floor. It was an eerie place. Knowing what she did about it, she shuddered.
Worried, now, that Bertrand was in trouble of some sort to want to meet in a place like this, she forced herself to go in search of the sacristan. She was already halfway down the nave when the big iron-bound door slammed behind her. The noise of fighting up the street faded to distant howls and the barking of the dogs.
In the silence she could hear the sound of her own footsteps.
A flight of steps seemed to lead into the crypt. Noticing candlelight at the bottom, she went over, confident there would be somebody down there who would be able to tell her if one of Norwich’s squires had been asking for her.
It was well after nones by now. She and Thomas had been caught behind the lines far longer than she had realised. Hoping that Bertrand had not simply given up and left, she began to descend.
She called his name when she was halfway down.
The light at the bottom went out.
She came to a halt.
‘Bertrand?’
Her voice echoed round the stone vault. When there was no answer after she called again, she took a step forward into the muffling darkness. Drops of water fell onto the flagstones. She steadied herself against the wall, feeling flakes of lime fall away beneath her finger tips.
There was no glimmer of light from below now the candle had gone out. Cautiously she stretched out the toes of one boot and found a step. She lowered her foot onto it, then the next one, and down, carefully descending.
Turning too quickly at the bottom, she bumped into a wall then realised it was the slender column of an arch. She stretched out a hand in front of her but encountered nothing but cool, subterranean air in the blackness of the void.
She edged forward. There had been a light, a candle or taper of some sort. It had lured her down here, giving a glimpse of tombstones at the bottom of the steps before it had suddenly gone out. She should have stayed where she was but, now she was here, she had no choice but to find the tinderbox and get some light.
She began to edge forward again but then stopped. A small current of air came out of nowhere. Ghostly fingers seemed to brush her face.
‘Is that you, Bertrand? … Are you playing games?’
Before she could say more she was pitched backwards, cold steel crushing over her face, dragging her against something that felt like chain mail as she clawed at it to free herself.
The thing that had caught her was everywhere and she was unable to lay hold of it.
A sudden irrational thought came that it must be a ghost. The risen dead! There was the smell of death everywhere.
Her hair stood on end.
She could not breathe.
Struggle as she did, she was held in a grip like a vice.
Her bag fell to the floor. Her cross was ripped away in the struggle.
She managed to find her knife in the folds of her cloak, but then the thing slammed her hard against the wall and she heard a chuckle from out of the darkness.
It was no ghost.
Hot breath slid down the side of her face and a voice grunted, ‘Some welcome this is, my lady!’
‘Who are you?’ she managed to croak. Her knife was unsheathed now but she had no idea where to thrust as her assailant began to rip her garments aside, now here, now there, never still.
When he felt the strength with which she resisted, he growled, ‘I’ll get light.’ He moved away.
On the other side of the crypt a spark suddenly glinted then light flooded the whole crypt. In its brilliance she saw a monstrous image. It was an armed knight, his visor raised. His grotesque shadow leapt across the wall behind him as he turned back to her.
With the light held high above him his face was still in shadow.
‘Don’t you recognise me, Hildegard?’
She froze. He knew her name.
Terror made her open her mouth but she could force no sound from between her lips. It must be Escrick Fitzjohn, she surmised feverishly. He had tracked her down as he had vowed he would. Now he was here to wreak vengeance on her.
She blinked into the glare. Wedges of shadow obscured the knight’s features. Then the light moved. It picked out, first an unkempt beard, then small darting eyes, then the familiar broken nose. She stared. It was not Escrick after all.
It was worse.
Far worse.
‘No … it can’t be … !’ She put out a hand to ward him off. Then she was falling into darkness.
Only seconds elapsed, because when she came round she was still being held in a grip of steel and the apparition was staring into her face, the flare held high, its light flooding over them.
‘It’s me!’ The thing gave a harsh laugh. She felt its mailed body crush her against the wall, mauling her, rough and determined, growling, ‘I thought you’d guess!’
‘How could I?’ she replied weakly.
‘It doesn’t matter. Now you can greet me as you should. It’s been long enough, my dear wife.’
Hugh de Ravenscar. It was impossible.
He disappeared, believed killed in the French wars, more than ten years ago. As his wife, Hildegard had been given papers to prove it. She had believed herself a widow for over ten years.
He became violent when he realised she was going to resist, and with the advantage of his coat of mail her struggles were having little effect. In the tussle that followed she tried to feel around with one foot for her knife where it had fallen but it was too dark and instead she tried to find a weak point to counter his attack.
Rememb
ering Hubert in all this turmoil, she recalled how he had defeated Sir William atte Wood at the shrine of John of Beverley when the knight, fully armoured, had broken into the minster to abduct the minstrel Pierrekyn Haverel. Hubert had defended the boy’s right to sanctuary and, unarmed, had defeated atte Wood by wounding him in the throat just above the top of his breastplate, where armour gives the least protection.
Now her fingers grappled at Ravenscar’s chain mail but it was pulled up tightly under his chin and she could find no opening.
‘Leave hold!’ she cried hoarsely, ‘I can’t believe it’s you. Why did you let me believe you were dead?’
He gave a wild laugh, but when she put her hand on his forehead in something like a caress, but in reality to hold his lips away from her own, he lifted his lust-bleared eyes and in the flickering light she saw a wish to boast about his deceit.
‘Tell me, husband, why did you leave us to mourn?’ she whispered.
‘I sent two men,’ he rasped, drawing back a little. ‘I paid them for the journey. Did the bastards take the money and run?’
‘Two Genoese arrived at Castle Hutton with a ring and some documents to show they were from you. They spoke no English. We guessed they were trying to let us know you were dead.’
‘That’s so. I sent them.’
‘But why?’
He laughed harshly, as if only a fool would ask such a question. ‘I didn’t want anybody to come looking for me. I was safer where I was.’
‘Safer? But where? How? The last I saw of you, you were going to join Woodstock in Normandy. Tell me what happened.’
‘We were on chevauchée. Hungry. Looking for loot. We’d been holed up in some godforsaken town for weeks, neither able to take the castle at Caen, nor anything else worth a pig’s whistle. We came across a small town which we ransacked. Good pickings. I broke into a fish-merchant’s house, biggest in the village, with plenty of gold and silver in it and a woman—’ he broke off. ‘I was wounded. I caught a fever. I decided the woman was useful and if I played it right I could have both the loot and the woman and – what was best – a safe bed to lie in. Luckily she thought it worth her while to keep me alive so she could claim the ransom. After the English army moved on I recovered and put my plan to her and she agreed. It suited us both. Her man had been killed when we took the town. So, off with the old, on with the new! Good business!’
A Parliament of Spies Page 11