Hangman Blind

by Cassandra Clark

  Before she left Hildegard asked a casual question regarding his opinion on the murders that had taken place in the woods and was unsurprised when he came up with another rumour: they were French mercenaries on their way to rouse the Scots. But then he gave a laugh. ‘The less glamorous story is that it was a pitched battle between apprentice lads from York. I reckon that’s the most likely tale. Sad, though. You’d think their masters could keep a better rein on their folly.’

  There was no hint he knew about the secret company of dissenters. Either it wasn’t yet common knowledge, or, despite his apparent warmth towards Hildegard, he was not yet ready to trust her with such knowledge.

  She came away with the mulled wine recipe together with one or two ingredients, not easily obtainable, for her own scrip of medicines, and he finished by inviting her to call by any time she was in the locality.

  Warmed both inside and out, she was still left with a puzzle. Clearly Melisen had sent the yeoman to procure remedies, but had Godric used the errand as a pretext for making an extra purchase on behalf of someone else? Or was that someone himself?

  Tugging her cloak tightly round her shoulders, and with her hood pulled up against the rain, she set off through the empty streets towards the town stables to collect the horse loaned to her by Hubert.

  Chapter Sixteen

  DESPITE THE BRUTAL weather Hildegard decided to go back to the stables by way of the minster. It was only a slight detour and would give her chance to see how Master Schockwynde’s men were getting on with the building works so that she could keep Hubert up to date. The wind cut into her as she rounded the corner of the building at the bottom of Trinity Lane. On the left was the Dominican friary and alongside it ran Walker Beck, overflowing with all the stench and foulness issuing from the tenements of the town. The wind blew this stench full in her face, and when it changed direction there was an equally strong smell from the tanneries where they were steeping the leather in urine acquired from the town privies.

  It was such a contrast to the sweetness in the apothecary’s little domain that she put her face in her sleeve and hurried on until she was almost running in order to get away from the stench. A couple of black-robed friars came out of the gatehouse just as she was passing and the three of them at once became entangled in a whirl of flying cloaks as the wind snatched at anything it could grasp. One of the friars steadied her by the sleeve, shouting above the wind, ‘Come with us, sister. We’re on our way to St John’s. We go by a more sheltered path than this.’

  So saying, with robes flying out like rooks’ wings, the two led the way down a narrow snicket between the buildings until eventually they came out on to East Gate where there was protection from the high walls of the buildings. She was grateful for their local knowledge and thanked them. ‘I’m quite lost with all this new work going on.’ It had been seven years since she had last visited the town. Extensions to the minster were continuing and St Mary’s was a building site.

  By the time the three reached the minster yard they were breathless and took shelter in the lee of the great tower, where they could shake out their cloaks. One of the friars produced a bunch of dried lavender to hold under his nose. He offered it to her. ‘Our apologies, sister,’ he said cheerfully. ‘When the wind is in the wrong direction the beck stinks like the River Styx itself.’

  ‘It certainly does. Can’t they do anything about it?’

  ‘We should welcome the odour,’ said the second friar with a reproving glance at his companion. ‘It reminds us of our vow of humility.’

  ‘When the least shall be first,’ agreed the first friar with a comfortable smile. ‘And those with delicate noses rejoice. Tell that to the burgesses. Well, what brings you from out of your priory in this foul weather, sister?’

  ‘Business,’ she replied vaguely, falling into step with them as they left their shelter and turned towards the portico of the minster of St John of Beverley.

  On every side hooded figures hurried to and fro, undeterred by the sleeting rain. Masons, surveyors and master carpenters issued instructions to separate groups of men from the shelter of the finished walls. The labourers wore sacks over their work tunics and one or two had leather aprons on, but all were getting a thorough soaking from the rain.

  Four men were heaving stones off a cart. Hildegard and the two friars watched as they hauled them on to one of the creaking hoists. Another couple of men worked the windlass and slowly, with a lot of shouting, the blocks were lifted up the side of the tower on to a wooden platform above their heads. High on the scaffolding more men hefted the great, worked stones into place. Their shouts echoed off the half-built walls. Oaths, issued heedless of the fines accruing, and the piercing whistle of the foreman as he nursed the blocks into place from his vantage point above, added to the hubbub.

  Everybody looked frozen to death, even the master mason in his fur-lined hood and the surveyor with hands stuffed inside his sleeves. The workers’ faces were chapped and raw, their hands roughened by their labours and some dripping blood on to the stones.

  Hildegard watched as two of the team swung down from the swaying ropes to land in the mud and squelch across the puddled waste to one of the stone carts. Their cheap leather boots are no protection against the wet, she noticed. She couldn’t help but pity the hardness of their labours and the dangerous work they had to do as they began to heft another block up the ramp to the hoist.

  The first friar, with the lavender under his nose, was a talkative type and began to tell Hildegard about their own building works which were now under way. ‘Our friary lads have a bit of a wager with the minster lads as to who’ll get most done in each seven-day. Then they come and confess their iniquity for betting on the Lord’s work,’ he added with an indulgent smile.

  Hildegard could imagine the winners losing everything they had gained to the Dominicans before they even opened their mouths. As they chatted for a moment in the shelter of the west door she happened to mention the two guests up at Hutton. Her description of the corrodians brought blanks looks from both men.

  ‘We have only three corrodians, an aged retainer from the royal house, foisted on us to our great expense, and a couple of elderly churchmen too decrepit to get out of their fireside chairs,’ said the first.

  ‘Nobody you’d describe as in the first flush,’ added his companion. At her look of puzzlement he asked, ‘Are you sure they weren’t staying with the Franciscans?’

  ‘Maybe,’ she replied. She took her leave.

  On the way back to the stables she decided to make a further detour.

  The Franciscans had a friary situated just outside the town walls near Westwood Green. Despite the weather it was too good an opportunity to miss. She left the town through Keldgate Bar and within minutes found herself at the gatehouse of the white friars. A brief description of the two corrodians, as they had called themselves, provoked only a shake of the head from the porter.

  ‘None of that type here, sister.’ He pondered for a moment then asked, ‘Have you tried the Dominicans?’

  She thanked him for the kindness that had prompted this suggestion, then braced herself for the walk back to the stables. As she made her way in through the town gate she was frowning. This is most peculiar, she thought. How is it nobody appears to know those two? The answer seemed obvious. They had been lying.

  Qui bono? she asked herself. That was the key to the whole mystery.

  Even though the day was an hour short of curfew the traders in the corn market had given up and gone home or escaped to the nearest ale-house. No one could blame them. The market square was scoured by the wind and sleet flew in rapid dagger-like squalls across the cobbles so that everything that wasn’t weighted down flew before it. The stables were near North Bar and not as busy as they would have been in better weather.

  ‘This is no day to be out on the road,’ grunted the ostler sympathetically as he saddled up the borrowed mare.

  ‘I have little choice, master,’ she replied.
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  He waved away her offer of a stabling fee with the words, ‘You look after us. We look after you.’

  The light was fading as she left the town. The gates were being hauled shut behind her and she was the last one to ride out as curfew fell. Her detour to the two friaries had taken up longer than she had anticipated. Now it threw up all kinds of dire suspicions. If the two alleged corrodians had broken through the security surrounding Castle Hutton and spent some nights there, making use of Roger’s hospitality, they must have had a purpose.

  She feared there could be only one answer. They were involved in the attempt on Roger’s life. It occurred to her that they might have been foreign spies. She shuddered. Confusion filled her mind.

  Compline had been and gone by the time Hildegard got back to Meaux. On the way she had passed a convoy of coal carts down from Durham. They had emerged, noisy and massive, from out of the rain-slashed darkness, destined, she guessed, for the Dominicans. But after that there had been no one on the road. She regretted the absence of her hounds after the scare of the masterless gang the day before. There was also the strange sensation of a shadow following her, a phantom, no more, one she knew sprang from her imagination, the result of the malice directed towards her by her assailant on the previous night. She was back soon, however, safe and sound, reluctantly rousing the ostler’s lad from his slumbers.

  He was bedded down on a bale of hay in one of the stalls but, grunting and dazed, he struggled to his feet as soon as he heard the clip-clop of hooves in the yard. She slid down from the saddle and handed over the reins.

  A brief glance showed that the stalls were still empty and she realised with a qualm that the war party had not yet returned from their adventure into the wapentake where William had his stronghold. Full of misgivings, she went to rouse the porter from his lodge. He came out, smiling as usual, when he saw who it was. ‘You’re out late, sister.’ He jangled his keys as he locked the door of his room behind him before escorting her across the great court to the south wing.

  ‘No news of Lord Roger?’ she asked.

  He shook his head.

  The entire abbey lay under a shroud of silence, with the monks asleep in the dorter until the next office at midnight. The only other person out and about was the circulator, gliding noiselessly round the cloisters in fur-lined night shoes. They could see his flickering candle as he passed between the slender columns of the arcade and ascended by the outer stairs. The frail light appeared and disappeared as he went in and out of the cells where the senior monks slept. It blazed briefly as he passed each narrow window in the scriptorium before gliding on like a will o’ the wisp to the frater as he made sure all was safe.

  Guided by the porter’s rush lamp Hildegard was led up a winding stair to a room next to the one Roger had been using in the abbot’s lodging. There the porter fixed the light in a wall bracket and asked her whether there was anything further he could do for her. She glanced round the sparsely furnished chamber, little more than a stone cubicle, with a pallet against the wall, shook her head, thanked him and bade him goodnight. The sobriety and careful ordering of events according to the custom of the abbey were reassuring after the alarms and confusions of the last few days and she heaved a sigh of relief as she shook out her cloak and hung it on a peg to dry.

  For a long time she sat on the edge of the pallet, her thoughts too busy for sleep. Roger and his men would be lying in some hellish ditch at this very moment, she thought. They could be planning their attack on William’s stronghold, or, it was to be hoped, they were recovering from the battle already, with William taken prisoner and Melisen safe under Roger’s protection once more. Hildegard wondered what their reunion would be like. Melisen would be astonished, to say the least, at seeing her lord, back from the dead.

  Aware that there might be more to her kidnap than met the eye, Hildegard considered the possibility that Melisen had ordered the yeoman to drug Roger to give her time to make her escape with William. Maybe something had gone wrong. If so, it might explain William’s attack on Godric: it was to get rid of the only witness to their plot. Yet there had been no obvious sign that William and Melisen were attracted to each other. Indeed, they had ignored each other as far as Hildegard could remember. During the feast on the eve of St Martin William had eyes only for Ada. Everyone had murmured at that. But what if Melisen and William had merely feigned indifference? Could they have used others to cloak their desire for each other, the squire a mask for Melisen, Ada for William? If they really were conspirators they would have had to take steps to remain unnoticed.

  She recalled the way Melisen had flirted with Roger throughout the entire celebrations. It might have been to tease William, to make him jealous. A game of fine amour would appeal to her.

  William and Melisen. Melisen and William. She couldn’t rule them out. They might be the key to everything.

  And yet it still didn’t make sense. If William believed Roger dead he would not need to kidnap Melisen. He could wait awhile and then approach her openly. He would have to cast off his wife first. No doubt Avice could be bought off. Despite her constant praying it was open to question how devout she really was. But what if the price she demanded was too high?

  For William, the rich lands that Melisen as heiress and widow could bring to him would be an irresistible lure. With Roger apparently dead, only one person stood in his way.

  Hildegard got up and paced about the room. She must be wrong.

  Outside in the corridor she could hear the shuffle of the circulator’s night-shoes as he went by. The light of his candle flamed and vanished beneath the door.

  Wondering whether Avice had left for Watton or whether the heavy rain had delayed her, Hildegard continued to pace. At the back of her mind was the separate mystery of the so-called corrodians, as irritating as a stone in the shoe.

  She lay down on her pallet, her thoughts and fears running on as sleep claimed her. Soon they began to merge with a dream in which everyone was playing a game of Hangman in the garth. It was night, the figures were cloaked, their faces in shadow but, while she was pursued by the hangman, she found herself trapped in a small windowless cell. She saw, with great clarity, a glittering ruby ring on the finger of the hand that reached out for her. Another shape, in the mask of a cat, with fluttering tippets down one sleeve, lifted a great cloak over her head. A noose slipped round her neck and as it tightened she began to fight for breath.

  She woke up with a small cry, fright jerking her bolt upright. Her ears pricked. A sound, no more than a breath, could be heard outside the door. The rush light had been doused but by the moonlight that filtered in through the narrow slit of the window she could make out the dark shape of the door against the whitewashed wall opposite. As she peered into the darkness, she saw the door-ring begin to turn. Her breath stopped. The memory of a rough beard and small, malevolent eyes looking coldly into her own flooded over her. She raised a hand to her throat.

  It must have started as a gentle knocking but then a voice, one she recognised, whispered words that mingled incongruously with the remnants of her nightmare. Shaking, she peered across the chamber at a hooded figure standing there. It was her dream again. But she knew this was real.

  Lantern light illuminated his features. They were clean shaven. It was the sacristan. His distressed expression sent thoughts of herself flying.

  ‘Quickly, sister, a most terrible calamity has occurred!’ As soon as he saw her pull her cloak from its hook he turned and, raising the lantern to light the way, hurried off down the corridor.

  Her immediate thought was that something had happened to Avice.

  Chapter Seventeen

  AWARE OF THE dagger in her belt, Hildegard followed the sacristan down the spiral stairs and out into the garth. On the other side lay the frater, its shape hardly discernible against the black sky, only a splinter of light visible from one of the rooms above indicating its position. Even so the light was too frail to penetrate the gulf of darkness that lay in f
ront of them and they stepped forward like people plunging into a well. To her surprise he did not lead her towards the guest house beyond the court but across towards the building on the other side.

  The moon must be behind a bank of cloud, she was thinking as she followed closely on his heels. When she caught up with him, she asked, ‘Has Lady Avice set out for Watton yet?’ As one of Hubert’s obedientiaries he would be fully aware of abbey business.

  He shook his head. ‘The weather kept her here at Meaux. But, sister,’ he lowered his voice in awe, ‘this is something unconnected to the Hutton household. I beg you to prepare yourself.’

  Without further explanation he led her into the pitch dark, only his flickering lantern, now blown by the wind and shielded by the edge of his sleeve, to serve as guide. He went unerringly to the door of the frater. When he pushed it open they were met by two monks, novices by the look of them. Faces as white as their habits, they gestured for her to follow them to the next floor. She had never been in this part of the abbey before and knew the chamber at the top to be the muniments room where all the abbey charters were kept under lock and seal.

  The alarm on the faces of the monks made her hold her tongue until they reached a heavy oak door at the top where the sacristan’s shout to open up brought the sub-prior swiftly out. He too was white faced. His hands, she noticed, as they lifted a candle above their heads in order to confirm their identity, were shaking so much they were sending shadows trembling like the flicker of bats’ wings across the walls. Such was the fear everyone showed that an alarm ran through her body at what she would find. Hildegard pushed into the room.

  The sight that met her gaze brought a cry to her lips. Countless parchments were strewn across the floor. The six iron-bound chests that were the repository for all the deeds, accounts and chronicles, as well as the abbey treasures, had been ransacked. Their lids gaped. Inside, the silver candlesticks, the jewelled chalices, the inlaid crosses of gold, all the gifts from benefactors than were too flamboyant or costly to display in the austere domain of a Cistercian abbey, had been taken out and yet, inexplicably, lay where they were dropped. The only conclusion to be drawn was that the thieves had been disturbed in their task.