Hangman Blind

by Cassandra Clark

  He gave her an eloquent look then growled something like, ‘Big enough for Avice,’ before turning away at a tug on his sleeve from his wife.

  Hildegard glanced along the table to where Lady Avice was sitting. As Roger’s sister, she was as unlike him in a physical sense as it was possible to be. Her dead white features were perfectly composed but her eyes held a dazed look as if her mind existed on another, more rarefied level of reality. She and Hildegard had shared a tutor in the distant past but now she didn’t even acknowledge the nun’s existence. Her gaze, in fact, was fixed exclusively on her husband. Such adoration was astonishing, considering the years they had been married. She looks besotted by the man, thought Hildegard, and she couldn’t help wondering what William’s secret was. It must surely come down to more than the size of his fisheries. She hastily crossed herself.

  Her speculations were interrupted by Melisen, who had descended from the dais, helped most solicitously by her young squire, and now rejoined the diners in a great flurry and glitter of jewels. Roger reached out for her and pulled her on to his lap. ‘You were bullying poor Ralph just now,’ he murmured, nuzzling her ear. ‘You’re a wicked child.’

  ‘Well, he deserves it. He isn’t quick enough to catch anybody. Still, let’s forget about him. I want to know what we’re going to do next!’ She glanced round. ‘Has anybody got any ideas?’

  When there was an inconclusive murmuring from those nearest she said, as if she had just thought of it, ‘I know! Let’s all talk Norman French like they do at court!’ But this idea was knocked on the head by Roger straight away.

  Roaring with laughter, he said, ‘You’ll have us all sitting like mutes then, and that wouldn’t do!’ He looked round at everybody and announced proudly, ‘She even has the Yeoman of the Pantry and his assistants coming to blows over who’s to place the salt!’

  ‘Such things have to be done properly, and you’re such a rough, tough, Northern prince,’ said Melisen, bringing a smile to her face, and she pressed her little bosom against his shoulder to take the edge off her tone. ‘But if they squabble over the placing of the salt, my darling lord, it simply means one thing – we need another yeoman to do the separate work.’

  William gave a smirk. ‘She’s snared you there, Roger.’

  But Roger was undaunted. ‘I’ll tell you something else. She has them leave our presence with three little bows as if I’m King Richard and she’s Anne of Bohemia! Just watch this, everybody!’

  He hollered for the third yeoman and, when he appeared, bowing gracefully, Roger looked past him and said vaguely, ‘Oh, you here again? No, I don’t think I need you.’ And he waved him away. As predicted, the yeoman backed out, bowing with elegant little flourishes of his hands, to roars of noble laughter.

  ‘That’s very unkind of you,’ said Melisen, in a tiny, affected voice amid the general merriment, but clearly a little nastiness made Roger rise in her estimation and she snuggled closer. ‘My father’s fief in Kent is less far from the court in Bohemia than this remote domain of yours, my cruel cuckoo, and he would never dream of playing such tricks on his servants.’ She suddenly lifted his mazer in both hands and held it to his lips. ‘Drink to me,’ she commanded. ‘And I will drink to thee.’

  When she replaced the mazer on the board he lifted her girlish hands to his lips and planted a lingering kiss on them, like a promise of greater intimacy to follow.

  Hildegard sighed. She saw no chance of getting him on one side and broaching the question of a grange for her nuns. All I want is a few moments, she thought. A vision of her little nunnery and its orchards went floating rapidly away on a tide of food, drink and mindless festivity.

  If that weren’t enough her muscles were beginning to ache from the attack and she felt a swelling on the back of her head where he had banged her head against the pillar. When she touched it, it felt puffy and sore. I need some cure, she thought, maybe arnica, some knitbone. They were all in her leather scrip in her chamber.

  The thought of walking back alone through the empty corridors filled her with alarm. What if she came face to face with him again, would he recognise her? She was sure she would know him. And yet it had been almost dark. His face had been in shadow. It was his eyes, small and full of malice, which she remembered most. That and the smell of him. It seemed to cling to her and she had an overwhelming desire to wash.

  Rising suddenly to her feet, Hildegard sat down again just as suddenly. Her knees were like jelly. Give it a minute or two, she told herself. You’ll have to get over your fear if you’re ever going to be of any use again. She recalled the long nights alone in her hermitage when she had never felt any fear at all. I’m being ridiculous, she thought. I’ll go up in a moment.

  She allowed a servant to pour her another goblet of wine. The chances were she would never come across her attacker again. The castle was teeming with people. He wouldn’t even be looking for a nun. He might not be looking for anybody. In the sort of life he led, women must come and go all the time. What was one that happened to get away?

  Hildegard decided to go up as soon as she had collected her thoughts. It was important to settle the matter of a grange here with Roger, but he was talking in a most intimate manner with Melisen and was clearly not in the mood for discussing leases. She would catch him tomorrow, though she knew he would rise late and she would be lucky if she managed to speak to him before noon.

  She was gnawing her lip.

  The musicians, at an order from the steward, began to swarm down from their gallery and, augmented by a couple of singers who had arrived from Beverley in Master Schockwynde’s contingent, struck up at once. It was the signal for most of the assembled to rise to their feet. Hildegard watched the floor fill up. William stayed behind, brooding darkly beside his wife.

  Hildegard decided to ask Ulf to find a servant to conduct her to her chamber. Such a request would not give rise to questions. She would wait until the dance ended, and then she would—

  She stifled a scream.

  From behind the fire-screen someone had pounced. But it was not her they grabbed but William. ‘Got you!’ cried Ralph, sweeping off the hood and blinking down in triumph at his captive.

  ‘Don’t be a buffoon,’ growled William, refusing to budge. ‘I’m eating. I can’t believe you’re still persisting in that ridiculous game. Go and catch a Lombard. They’re sitting ducks.’

  The Lombardy men, in fact, were in a group watching the dancing while lounging randomly round one of the serving tables. Now and then one of them would hold up a dish, they would examine its contents with professional curiosity and then a lengthy discussion would follow. Philippa, dancing close by, observed all this just as carefully as their leader was observing her.

  Still shaken by Ralph’s sudden eruption from nowhere, Hildegard reached for the aquifer and poured a little well-water on to the edge of her sleeve then surreptitiously wiped her face. Then she crumpled the damp fabric between her palms and scrubbed them vigorously under the table, as if by doing so she could erase all vestige of the stranger’s touch. Ralph wandered off, trailing the hangman’s blind and muttering about fair play.

  Philippa, she noticed, was accepting an invitation from the Lombardy merchant and, with much meshing of glances, they took to the floor. Clad from head to foot in black velvet, with a thrusting nose and foreign eyes, he would be a romantic figure to a young girl, she thought. No wonder the poor child seemed to be in a daze. She heard Ludovico begin a conversation in Latin that closed the door on anyone else and, scarcely moving from the spot, they danced with locked glances, in their own private world.

  Beside her William jerked to his feet. Without saying anything he swept a nearby serving woman on to the floor. His wife looked on.

  If only Philippa knew it, Hildegard thought, striving to keep her mind off what had taken place in the undercroft, she’s the spitting image of her mother. Alfreda had been the daughter of a Cumbrian earl who supplied arms at different times, and sometimes at the same ti
me, to both the Scots and the English, with an impressive augmentation of his wealth and a commensurate diminution of trust from his allies.

  Roger made full use of his father-in-law’s connections but when Alfreda died during a resurgence of the plague – Philippa was only two at the time–Roger had been beside himself with grief. He had flung himself headlong into marriage with the younger sister of one of his knights but it failed and the unfortunate bride had been packed off with a satisfactory sum to a distant manor and disappeared from the tongue of rumour.

  He married again, this time to a Norman of high blood, and their issue, Edwin, became heir to the de Hutton line. This wife died too and Roger returned for some years to a state of scandalous bachelorhood.

  In some sense, she thought, watching him dance with the wife little older than his daughter, it still continued.

  Meanwhile, Philippa, it seemed, had been found a suitor. Hildegard tried to get another glimpse of the betrothal ring she had noticed earlier but it was hidden in the girl’s gown. She frowned. I do hope everything’s all right, she thought. No word had filtered through concerning a wedding. Speculation would have been rife among the sisters if a whisper had reached them, but it hadn’t, which suggested it was probably recent. And judging by the way she keeps the ring hidden, Hildegard deduced, not welcome. The Lombardy prince, of course, had noticed the ring and she saw him make some comment, holding the girl’s fingers against his lips before covering the ring with his hand and concealing it in Philippa’s skirt as if he couldn’t bear the sight of it. Clearly it was no gift from him.

  Hildegard felt her heart contract in sympathy at the problems that might lie ahead but, before she could speculate on Roger’s reasons for thrusting an unwelcome suitor on his daughter, her attention was distracted when Ulf pushed his way into the crowd and held up his steward’s staff until he had everyone’s attention. ‘I beg you, friends and kinsfolk, recharge your goblets!’ he called out. A horn player blew an intricate flourish.

  Flagons were poured and the guests of honour thronged back to the dais while the rowdies down in the hall were shushed. Assuming it was going to be an invitation to view the baby, she watched Roger stride up to the dais with his mazer in his hand. When he turned to look at them his cheeks were flushed, his eyes glazed and she saw his chest heave as he raised his voice so that it carried to every corner of the hall.

  ‘A toast!’ he bellowed to her surprise. ‘A toast to my dear friends gathered here!’ Everyone cheered as he took a gulp of wine. ‘And to my new born nephew, my beloved heir!’ Another deep draught to rather more speculative applause. ‘And also,’ he announced, ‘I wish to propose a toast to—’

  Before he could finish he gave a gasp, clutched his left side, and then the high lord of the northern realm, master of the castle and warden of the King’s Forest, Roger de Hutton, gave a roar that pitched him forward over the board, where he lay, felled, among the upturned dishes, his right hand still clutching his mazer, though the wine in it had spilled out and dripped, drop by drop, on to the freshly laundered linen cloth, where it spread like a pool of blood.

  William leaned forward. ‘You old fraudster! Get up!’ He poked Roger with the point of his dagger. Roger didn’t move.

  ‘Drunk again,’ said Ralph, smugly.

  ‘That’s it, everybody! Another toast!’ William got to his feet. ‘To me! William of Holderness! Lord of the Ale!’

  There were a few scattered cheers from around the hall from men wearing the sign of the marsh dragon but mainly there was an anxious murmuring. Roger’s face, it was plain to everybody, had turned an unhealthy shade of green. Beads of sweat stood out on his brow.

  With a jangling of bracelets Melisen shook him by the shoulder. ‘Roger? Are you drunk? Wake up! Stop frightening us!’ As soon as she touched him his eyes rolled up. Her hands flew to her lips and she let out a horrified shriek, then fell back, right into the arms of her squire.

  Hildegard reached over to place her hand on Roger’s forehead. It felt like ice.

  Ulf was beside her at once. ‘What’s the matter with him?’

  ‘Too soon to tell. But it’s not drink. Get him taken to a private chamber with all speed. Hurry!’

  Chapter Four

  ULF THREW EVERYBODY out except Hildegard then barred the door.

  ‘So?’ he said.

  She had already opened her scrip and taken a potion from it and was now applying a liquid with a bitter scent to Roger’s lips. Ulf watched as next she ripped aside his shirt of English linen and began to palpate his chest in the region of the heart.

  ‘Is there anything I can do?’ He crouched down beside her. ‘I feel so helpless.’

  Hildegard was flushed by her exertions but did not pause. ‘Keep everyone out. This is a terrible thing. Who would want him dead?’

  ‘Dead? You believe someone tried to poison him?’

  ‘I do. Who could it be?’

  ‘You want a list? The long one or the short one?’

  ‘Later then. Let’s try to make sure we don’t finish up with a corpse on our hands. He’s balanced between heaven and hell.’

  Somehow, patience and skill were rewarded. First Roger’s colour returned. Then his eyelids flickered open. And then he spoke.

  ‘Where the hell am I?’

  Clearly relieved, Ulf gave a delighted chuckle. ‘Why do they always say that?’

  ‘Just checking, no doubt,’ she replied, beginning to smile.

  ‘Do we look like devils?’ Ulf asked, spinning round like a jongleur, clearly delighted at his lord’s recovery.

  ‘Not devils,’ said Roger, his voice a mere wisp of what it usually was, ‘angels!’ He reached for Hildegard’s hand. ‘Don’t think I don’t know what happened. I remember every damned thing.’

  ‘Tell me.’ She leaned closer.

  ‘I remember Ralph and that bloody ridiculous hood. And Melisen with her loose bodice. And the Italian signing our agree—’ He stopped abruptly and his eyes darted up to see who else was present.

  ‘It’s only Ulf,’ she said. ‘You can say what you like in front of him.’

  Roger reached for his hand. ‘Good old Ulf,’ he mumbled, tears in his eyes. ‘Best steward I’ve ever had, you bloody Saxon.’ He gripped his steward’s hand and tried to kiss it.

  ‘He’s keeping everyone out for the present,’ said Hildegard briskly. ‘But tell me what you remember.’

  ‘I remember lifting my mazer, then being poleaxed. Next, I turn up here—’ A strange thought shot into Roger’s mind, causing him to jerk upright. He grabbed hold of Hildegard by the arm and dragged her close, then, breath rank from the herbs, searched her face. ‘What in the name of Satan happened? I blacked out, didn’t I?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why would I take a tumble? I’m not drunk. I can hold my liquor as well as any man!’ He was turning scarlet. ‘What happened? Your opinion, Hildegard. Was it a seizure?’

  ‘I suspect not.’

  ‘Of course not! I’m as fit as a flivver. So why did I fall?’

  ‘I really can’t be sure at this point.’ She didn’t want to anger him needlessly. He looked as if he was already being swept by one of his famous rages.

  ‘Come on,’ he gripped her arm harder still, ‘it can only mean one thing!’

  She knew it was useless to try to put him off the scent but she wanted his unbiased view. ‘What do you think it means?’

  ‘I think it means there’s somebody I can’t trust.’ He eyed her narrowly.

  ‘From your symptoms—’

  ‘Say it straight out, Sister.’

  ‘It could have been, yes, something put into your food or drink to make you fall like that.’

  ‘But we all ate from the same dish. Has anybody else passed out?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then it must have been something in the wine.’

  ‘You think so?’

  He ground his teeth. ‘Who in God’s name would do a thing like that?’

  �
�Your enemies are best known to yourself.’

  Roger reached for Ulf and raised himself into a more commanding position. ‘Steward, you know as well as me I’m beset by enemies! Saxons! Danes! Celts! Lombards maybe? Scots for sure! And Frenchmen, popes and anti-popes, clerics and laymen. Even a few Normans, maybe, ones gone to the bad. And now, beyond all reason, one of these has dared to attack my person in this underhand way! Poison!’ As soon as the word was out he looked puzzled. ‘Poisoned? Me? Who would dare?’

  Hildegard shook her head.

  Roger fell back, his face ashen. Instead of being enraged he seemed saddened. Sweat trickled into his russet beard. After a moment’s reflection he spoke in an ominously calm voice. ‘Ulf,’ he began, ‘if you owe me anything, repay me now.’

  ‘Anything, my lord.’

  Roger took hold of his steward by the hand. His voice was hoarse. ‘Root out this poisoner. Show no mercy. I want to see his entrails in a pot! I want his head on a pike! I want his beating heart in my hand! Meanwhile,’ he added, still softly, ‘I shall be taken in a catafalque to the abbey at Meaux. Full mourning shall be observed, the catafalque to be pulled by six black horses.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Lulled into false triumph, rotting in his midden of deceit, the poisoner will reveal himself. Let it be done!’

  He fell back, exhausted.

  Ulf was thrown into a turmoil of planning and he counted the points off on his fingers. His astonishment was audible in his voice. ‘You want me to tell them you’re dead? Then you want to be carried all the way to Meaux on a catafalque with six black horses?’

  ‘Plumed,’ said Roger.

  ‘You’ll suffocate and do the poisoner’s job for him, plumed horses or not,’ objected Ulf. ‘In a box? l’ve never heard anything like it.’

  ‘Dolt. I shan’t be in the box. I shall be safely borne away to the abbey by other means, there to remain until the plotter can be discovered.’

  ‘I see,’ said Ulf, not moving.