The Butcher of Avignon (Hildegard of Meaux medieval crime series Book 6)

by Cassandra Clark

  ‘Be thankful we do not have judicial burnings in England.’

  ‘I am, indeed. But the fact that they have them here in France makes me shudder for the future of us all.’

  ‘This conversation has gone far enough.’ He stepped back.

  ‘If the king’s enemies get their way we shall soon be paying allegiance to King Charles and this false pope here!’

  ‘Say nothing more!’

  She raised her voice. ‘Does the truth hurt? Where do we go from here, Hubert?’

  He gave a black scowl. ‘I cannot believe you wish to go anywhere except, perhaps, to perdition.’

  With that, he stalked off towards the garden door. In a moment he had gone from sight leaving an immense solitude behind.

  The bell for vespers started to chime from the campanile, its plangent tones emphasising her feeling of desolation.

  **

  One of the things she had been unable to tell Hubert was that when she went to help lay out the body of the murdered youth just now, something was missing that should have been there. It was the small dagger he had been holding as he died.

  It had been in his hand before noon. But, four hours later when the death rigour had abated, it had gone.

  The fact that the crucifix he wore was still there on its gold chain suggested that the absence of the dagger was not a random pillaging of the body but a purposeful theft. Unless Cardinal Grizac had lost patience and gone into the mortuary to fetch it himself, there was another thief at large.

  She would have to tell Athanasius and see what he made of it.

  **

  Sitting with the monk when she entered was Cardinal Grizac himself. Among his illustrious forefathers was the Lord of Bellegarde, a man, Hildegard assumed, with a strong fighting spirit. It had not been passed down. Cardinal Grizac was a pale and shaking wreck of a man. The bed on which he sat shook with his trembling.

  Athanasius was speaking to him softly, as to a spooked hound, but even the presence of a nun failed to rouse the cardinal’s pride and give him the courage to stop shaking.

  ‘I am undone,’ he whimpered. ‘I am forever undone, cast out, destined to burn in hell’s fires. I have no hope left. This is my undoing.’

  ‘Go to confession. Confess all. That is your hope. You will be saved. You have done nothing to be ashamed of. Come now,’ the monk’s tone sharpened. ‘Pull yourself together, Anglic. You have no reason to send a servant on a thieving spree into the pope’s treasury. What have you to do with that? No-one will make that link. How could anyone of right mind believe it?’

  ‘But the proof, brother. His Holiness will regard Maurice as proof. How else will his presence there be judged? He was in my retinue. I am responsible. Clement will take it as evidence of my guilt.’

  ‘No-one but a few people in authority need know anything about him. Clement will keep it quiet.’

  ‘Why should he? And anyway, what difference will it make? I will be the scapegoat. Even now the news is spreading to every corner of the palace. Every cook and kitchener is whispering about it.’

  Hildegard, aware that she was the bearer of ill news murmured a greeting and begged the cardinal’s forgiveness for interrupting. ‘I’m afraid I have something to tell you.’

  Both men turned to listen.

  ‘When I went to help lay out the body before vespers, the dagger was nowhere to be found. Someone had already taken it.’

  ‘What?’ Grizac rose to his feet. With a sudden horrified glance at Athanasius he sat down again. The monk looked at him curiously.

  ‘You seem excessively perturbed, my friend.’

  ‘No,’ Grizac mumbled. ‘It’s the thought of someone stealing from a corpse. It -’ he hesitated. ‘It repels me.’

  ‘Worse things happen on the battlefield.’

  ‘That doesn’t make it right,’ he replied in the tone of one forcing his feelings down. Turning to Hildegard he asked, ‘Who was present in the mortuary when you were there, may I ask?’

  ‘The two Benedictines who had kept vigil in the chapel earlier.’

  ‘Anyone else?’

  She shook her head.

  Grizac frowned.

  Athanasius was eyeing first one then the other with his hard, sharp eyes. ‘Come now, my old friend, these things happen. Light-fingered servants. Who can control them?’ He gave a wolfish smile. ‘Let’s find out who this petty thief is. Doubtless he will lead us to the one who persuaded your Maurice that a major theft from the treasury would be a good idea.’ He laughed softly. ‘Don’t you agree? Set a thief to catch a thief, yes?’

  Grizac became strangely silent. His face was white as paste.

  Athanasius reached for his cup of herbs again. The fumes were noxious. If they did not kill any ailment within a mile of the palace Hildegard would be astonished.

  Grizac said slowly, ‘I may as well have stolen the dagger from the treasury myself. Clement will believe I am behind it. His inquisitors will show no mercy.’

  ‘If he believed such gallimaufry you’d already be in irons.’ Athanasius gave a mirthless chuckle. ‘Believe me, they would lose no time in arresting you for setting foot in that place without a warrant. But it was your acolyte and you can safely argue that what he does he does of his own will and you are not responsible. Imagine if every monarch was responsible for the actions of every serf? We would have no monarchs left,’ he chuckled, ‘and no serfs either.’

  ‘Leaving only churchmen?’ asked Hildegard.

  ‘Entirely theoretical, domina. I’m merely trying to point out that our dear friend will not be held responsible for the actions of one of his retainers. If you harbour feelings of guilt, dear friend,’ he turned back to Grizac, ‘then you must surely be aware of what a charmed life you lead - you are yet free, for do we hear the clank of mailed boots in the passage?’

  Grizac jerked upright, ears straining.

  ‘No, we do not.’ Athanasius seemed to be enjoying himself. ‘So let us try to imagine who would want to steal this infernal dagger, shall we?’

  Hildegard was irritated by Grizac’s reaction in the silence that followed. If he was responsible for sending Maurice into the treasury, for whatever reason, then he must have realised the danger of such an order. And it was the acolyte who had paid the price. She saw the scene as the sisters washed him and anointed him. A youth in all the glitter of young manhood, his path through life with its joys and sorrows cut short by a single, venal act.

  And yet the cardinal seemed more anxious about his own skin and his ability to stay in Clement’s good favour than in finding out the truth. It was despicable. He showed no remorse. But maybe he was telling the truth when he claimed he knew nothing about Maurice’s fatal decision.

  To bring their conversation back to the point, she asked, ‘Why would Maurice steal the dagger in the first place? What on earth got into the boy? With all the wealth which surrounded him, isn’t it strange the dagger was all he wanted?’

  Athanasius gave her an ingratiating smile. ‘That is the question, indeed, how clear-sighted you are, domina. Come, Grizac, use your brains to suggest an answer, my dear old friend. You must have known the boy as well as anyone. What was going on in his mind? Tell us that and then we’ll be led to his killer.’ He put an arm round the cardinal but there was something chilling about the action and Hildegard had a fleeting thought of Judas. Where was the betrayal though? It made no sense.

  ‘Think,’ Athanasius insisted. ‘For what reason would Maurice want such a thing when he could have stolen anything ten times its value?’

  Grizac looked defeated and said, ‘It has me beaten. What can I say?’

  Like a cat with a mouse, Athanasius asked playfully, ‘Are we looking for two thieves or three?’

  ‘Three?’ Grizac eyed him warily.

  ‘The one who sent Maurice into the treasury, a thief in essence, Maurice we know, a thief in practice, and thirdly the one who has just stolen this paltry dagger, a thief after the fact. Three,’ he repeated in a co
mplacent tone. ‘Or, if you prefer, only two, Maurice’s theft and the theft from Maurice’s body in the chapel. No third party involved, no brains behind the scene. Just two random acts of greed. Yes?’

  He suddenly sat bolt upright and gave a smile of brilliant coldness at Grizac. ‘I would prefer another theory. It is this. The man who corrupted Maurice enough to persuade him to commit the first heinous offence then returned for a second more successful attempt.’

  He looked delighted with himself and eyed Grizac as if to challenge him. ‘Again, only two thieves to be counted. Or maybe only one, if we discount Maurice as not being a free agent in the matter?’

  He’s like one of the old Schoolmen who endlessly discuss how many angels can dance on a pinhead, decided Hildegard. Where was his compassion?

  Now he tapped Grizac on the arm. ‘Can you come up with a better theory, my friend? Who was Maurice’s master in all this? Come on, let’s hear it!’

  Grizac pulled at his lower lip, the large blue stone on his ring flashing as it caught the light. His face had gone a paler shade of grey. ‘It was valuable enough - the dagger, I mean. Encrusted with rubies and pearls and many other precious stones. Anyone would desire it if they knew about it.’

  ‘Maurice, then, driven by greed and working alone, would you say?’

  ‘Never greed!’ Grizac exclaimed in a broken voice. ‘He was an unworldly youth, pure in spirit.’

  ‘Leaving that aside, what do you think to my theory that the master plotter behind Maurice’s ill-judged actions killed him then, for some reason failing to take the dagger at the time of the murder, returned later to make good his theft? Come, tell me what you think.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know.’ Grizac wiped a hand across his eyes and turned away.

  ‘Don't distress yourself. This is a mere playful theory to try to shed light on these rather obscure events. I ask again, what could Maurice have been doing in there?’

  ‘Nobody knows. Why torment me? It could not have been Maurice’s intention to steal. No - this is to vilify the dead.’ He put up a hand as if to ward off the accusation then let it drop.

  Athanasius started to laugh. ‘You’re right, my friend. Nobody knows. And Maurice gave the appearance of being a devout youth. Maybe he broke into the treasury merely to look around? Why not? Maybe he followed someone up there, someone he suspected of being a possible thief, but being foolhardy, instead of calling the guard, he tackled the thief himself? But what about the second theft? Maybe it was committed by as unlikely a thief as your Maurice? The sisters, perhaps, who supervised the laying out of the body? Maybe in their poverty they are not as content as we imagine?’

  Grizac waved the latter suggestion aside. ‘I am undone and my life is as nought should an accusation against me be brought before our holy Clement.’ Then he added with the desperation of a drowning man clutching at straws, ‘It cannot have been the guards, can it? Both times?’

  ‘The two of them in collusion? It would be hard to make that stick for long,’ Athanasius objected at once. ‘They will be vibrantly aware that all we would have to do would be to tell either of them that their companion had confessed and the truth would come tumbling out before we could even lay our hands on the thumbscrews.’

  Hildegard saw he was used to the methods of the Inquisition.

  He went on, ‘They were the first ones to come under suspicion but theft would have been an act of stupidity beyond their capabilities.’ He smiled like a cat with the cream. ‘Now the nuns, I believe, are not unintelligent.’

  ‘The value of the dagger, as you’ve just described, could lure the guards to risk torture,’ interrupted Hildegard, ‘or are they as content as the nuns in their poverty?’ How dare Athanasius blithely try to lay the blame on a couple of undefended nuns? In her opinion the guards were more than likely to have a motive for stealing the dagger, thumbscrews or not, as they had never made any vow of poverty. There was nothing to stop them except fear or their own sense of decency.

  Athanasius dismissed any accusation against the guards with a wave of his hand. ‘Why would they do something that so obviously incriminates themselves? Even now they’re walking barefoot on hot stones.’

  ‘Who then?’ Grizac challenged. ‘Do you have anyone other than the nuns in mind?’

  **

  The discussion meandered to an end with the wish that Hildegard would put a few questions to the nuns, something that the men felt they could not do themselves.

  ‘In the circumstances,’ she replied, ‘I’m sure my prioress would expect me to offer what help I can. I’ll search them out to see if they can shed any light on the matter.’ She turned to the cardinal, ‘That is if I have your authority to do so, your eminence?’

  ‘You have, you have, dear lady. You have it ten times over. Anything you can do to discover the identity of this corrupted soul who was willing to steal from the sanctified body of my acolyte will earn you my everlasting gratitude.’

  ‘Magister?’ Hildegard turned to Athanasius. ‘Is it your will that I should become involved in this matter?’

  ‘I believe your prioress, whom I knew well in earlier years, would expect no less of you, domina. You have my authority to seek out whomsoever you wish in order to retrieve the missing dagger. Go forth with our blessing.’

  Wondering how much a blessing by these two was worth, Hildegard left them to their alternate wailings and reassurances, and went in search of the Benedictine sisters.

  **

  They were found easily enough, two black robed women, one young and one old, in the warming room in the kitchen tower. Hildegard sat down beside them. She stretched her legs, gave a yawn and followed it by a heavy sigh. ‘So sad,’ she murmured. ‘That poor murdered boy.’ Real tears pricked her eyes.

  ‘So young,’ agreed one of the nuns, putting out a hand to console her. ‘We thank you for your help in our task, domina.’

  ‘Are you called upon to do this service often?’ Hildegard asked.

  ‘We do whatever our superiors bid us do. In times of war - ’ her hand circled to include the idea of many dead, ‘who else but us can lay out the bodies with any decency and pray for them?’

  A silence followed while the three of them sat in as companionable a fashion as the subject would allow.

  One of them eventually got up and went to the flagon on a nearby serving table, poured out a mug of wine for Hildegard, refilled her own mug and that of her companion then returned to her seat. It was a sign that conversation would be welcome.

  Hildegard explained she was from the Abbey of Meaux in the north of England. Speaking French, she told them that she had only been in Avignon for a few days and yet already it seemed like months. So much had happened. It was very confusing. She did not know what to make of it all.

  The nuns were sympathetic. Even the younger one with the cruelly tight wimple seemed kinder now as if by sharing their gruesome task Hildegard had passed a test and could be accepted as one of them.

  They were both from a priory in Burgundy, they explained, where there was much fighting, not only with the English chevauchees, incessantly raiding the countryside and reducing the peasants to starvation, but by the Flemish who believed they had a right to defend their Ghent weavers from coercion by the Duke of Burgundy.

  ‘We’re caught in the middle, there to clean up after them. There to bury the bodies.’

  Slowly Hildegard got round to the question of the dagger.

  Both women looked blank. ‘It was certainly in his hand when he was lying in the mortuary,’ one of them agreed, ‘but when we came to lay out the body, after the rigor had passed, it had gone. We assumed someone in authority had taken it away.’

  ‘It looked quite valuable,’ the other nun said. ‘Why do you ask about it? Are you saying it was stolen?’

  ‘It has disappeared, I can say no more than that.’

  ‘When you first came in to look at him,’ the younger nun said, ‘your eyes were on the dagger and for a moment, forgive me, domina,
I thought it was something you desired for yourself.’

  Hildegard gave a rueful grimace. ‘I was sent to fetch it and I admit I did stare at it but my look didn’t spring from personal desire for such a thing but from a wish to carry out the errand given me. I saw it’d be impossible to remove it from his grasp at that point and so decided to return later.’

  ‘And when you returned to fetch it, it had gone, and now you have to account to someone for its disappearance. I see.’ The nun frowned. ‘This is a mystery then.’

  ‘I understand that the poor young fellow was an acolyte of one of the cardinals?’ the second nun observed, her attention on Hildegard.

  ‘That is so.’ It seemed that the truth was becoming generally known by now.

  The nun asked bluntly ‘Was it the cardinal’s own dagger?’

  Hildegard felt a look of uncertainty pass over her face. ‘I don’t know,’ she admitted, ‘but I suspect not. He only said it was very like one he might have.’

  ‘Did he think his acolyte might have stolen it from him and decided he wanted a closer look at it?’

  ‘I don’t think that was in his mind.’

  ‘So why did he send you to fetch it?’ she persisted, adding, ‘if, indeed, it was the cardinal who sent you.’

  Hildegard was silent for a moment. It was a good question but she could hardly admit to these two strangers that the cardinal feared it might lead him to be accused of sending his acolyte on a thieving jaunt. It will lead to me. Besides, it didn’t make sense. As far as she could see there was no reason for anybody to link him with the dagger. Why should they? Wasn’t it part of the papal treasures?

  The nun was quick to interpret her silence and stared, horrified. Lowering her voice, she asked, ‘You mean to say it might have been stolen from the treasury and belonged to his holiness?’

  ‘I’m given to believe so. The task of fetching it came from Brother Athanasius and Cardinal Grizac. They seem to have an interest in the matter.’

  ‘One would think so. The magister is a power, we’re told.’

  Both nuns exchanged wary glances. One of them leaned forward. ‘We understand that you are one of his - ’