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

by Cassandra Clark

  She considered leaving Avignon altogether. Why not? Only the disapproving look of the prioress and her own sense of failure as she trailed home with only the barest information about Fitzjohn made her hesitate.

  She thought of Westminster again and the momentous events that were taking place there. The fate of the king and his allies was far more important than the death, nasty though it was, of one unknown young man and the theft of an unimportant little dagger.

  Transcending everything was the threat to King Richard. The security of the Plantagenet dynasty determined the fate of England. If King Richard fell, England fell.

  For the first time she began to believe that the Prioress had made a grave mistake in sending her here. She must have lost her grip on events. It was obvious that she had been unaware of the great calamity about to befall her brother, the Archbishop of York, and his fellow advisors to the king. Usually so astute, and sitting at the centre of a network of informers, she had for once, it seemed, made a huge error of judgement.

  Resigned for the moment to the futility of her sojourn here, Hildegard dutifully made her way to Athanasius’s cell to find out if his apothecary’s cure was taking effect.

  **

  The weather, fairly mild until now, changed abruptly when a strong wind brought great, bruising clouds rolling in from the north, with a deluge of rain that dropped indiscriminately onto the Great Courtyard. It cleared it in an instant the prelates, servants, and everyone in between, as they hurried to find shelter. Lightning flashed over the purple hills and thunder rolled around the valley, fading only in a series of distant reverberations.

  Hildegard had chosen that morning to venture outside the palace to see if a walk by the river would reconcile her to a few more days here. When the rain started to fall in slanting arrows, kicking up the mud around her feet, she was standing on the bank looking at the swollen river where it had burst its banks. The water meadows were flooded, leaving animals stranded on little mounds of grass. The rain must have been torrential upstream to burst the banks of the river overnight. It had changed colour. Instead of the usual dark green it had become a swift-moving, murky yellow.

  A little to her left it sluiced with an endless roar between the twenty or so arches of the bridge of St Benezet, the bridge of Avignon, hurling broken branches and other debris down river at great speed and where the water swirled past the wooden landing stage below it shook its supports, snatched at them and turned and eddied back on itself. In mid-river frothing shoals covered the sandbanks that had been visible only the day before.

  I wouldn’t give much for the chances of anyone who fell in there, she thought, keeping safely to the higher ground at the top of the bank. The first drops of rain had begun to give way to a torrent. She pulled up her hood.

  A small ferry boat was tied to a post below where she stood and the force of the current was making it buck and turn on its painter, almost tearing it free. She watched it crash again and again against the wooden pilings. The ferryman must have thought it best to risk losing his boat and keep himself dry inside his house because a stream of smoke flew above the thatch although there was no sign of him.

  It was too late to run back to the palace. She would be soaked before she reached it. Tightening her grasp of her hood and looking for somewhere to shelter along the path, she resigned herself to a thorough drenching by the time she was half way back. Then a shout came from the depths of a thicket beside the track.

  ‘Here, sister!’

  When she turned, a gloved hand beckoned from a hide of evergreens and she saw a flash of red and gold. Guessing it was someone from the palace she changed direction, skittering round the puddles that lay in the way, and lifting her hood just enough to make out several figures huddled out of the rain under a thick canopy of laurels. With a feeling of relief she hurried into this unexpected refuge.

  A group of pages were huddled inside.

  ‘My thanks, masters. I wouldn’t have noticed this if you hadn’t called out.’

  ‘We aim to please, sister.’ To her surprise a tall youth, no more than fifteen or sixteen, standing eye to eye, rose up out of the bushes. She realised he was scarcely old enough to shave, nor were the others, as a swift glance showed. They wore the colours she had recognised the other night when Fitzjohn arrived from England, the red, blue and gold worn by Woodstock’s retainers. She had already noticed them about the palace.

  ‘English, God be thanked!’ The boys gaped as she threw back her hood. She had pulled off her coif earlier and her damp hair fell in a blonde sheen to her shoulders.

  ‘Forgive me,’ she murmured at their astonishment. ‘I expected to be alone when I set off just now and I get so sick of wearing this on my head.’ She pulled out the damp linen coif from her sleeve, put it on and stuffed her hair out of sight.

  The tall youth said, ‘And so are you, sister. English, I mean. We guessed you were. Well met.’ He gave a cramped bow in the crowded den. ‘I am Edmund, squire to Sir Jack Fitzjohn. This is Peterkin,’ he indicated a sandy-haired Saxon youth with a thin, intelligent face covered in freckles. ‘And this miscreant is Bertram of Stowe.’ A thickset, dependable looking boy ducked his head in a bow. He was dark haired, confident, and might be a merchant’s son.

  ‘And I’m Simon Lorimer,’ piped up the youngest of the boys, no more than ten or so, and already growing out of his tunic.

  ‘Greetings. I’m Hildegard of Meaux.’

  ‘Of the Abbey there?’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘Should we know where it is?’ asked Edmund.

  ‘Only if you’re Yorkshire born,’ she replied. ‘It’s close to Beverley and only a day’s ride from York.’

  They asked what she was doing so far from home. She explained her presence at Avignon as ‘being on church business.’ It was as far as she could go. They told her about themselves with, she suspected, equivalent reticence.

  ‘The only one of us who’s missing is Elfric. He’s from your part of the world, a place called Pocklington. It’s near York, he tells us. At present he’s running errands in the dry.’

  ‘I saw you arrive,’ she told them. ‘I guessed you were English by the blazons on your tunics. I’m pleased to find I’m not alone here.’ Except for Hubert de Courcy and his brother monks, she added to herself. ‘Do you know why you’ve been sent so far south?’

  ‘We simply follow our lord as he commands. We get to see foreign parts.’ It was the first youth again, the one called Edmund. He gave an ironic shrug. ‘We broaden our minds, domina, at his expense.’

  ‘I noticed a companion of yours in the chapel,’ she ventured. ‘He seemed upset.’

  Silence followed her words while everyone watched the rain pelting down. It was falling with such venom it turned to mist as it smacked the ground then threw up clods of mud and ran in separate streams down the bank to join at the bottom in one expanding puddle that was quickly turning into a quagmire as they looked on.

  The silence of the boys lengthened until eventually Bertram gave a sigh. ‘The companion you mentioned would be poor little Elfric. His brother died and he won’t believe it. He’s mad with grief.’

  ‘We told him he’d get over it but he said never, as long as he lives,’ added Peterkin.

  ‘I’m truly sorry to hear that. Only time can soften the sharp grief of losing someone we love.’ Rivera sprang to mind.

  To her relief the boys began to argue in the courtly fashion they had been taught on the topic of whether the death of a brother or a father was hardest to bear.

  ‘My old pa is the devil incarnate,’ Peterkin announced, ‘that’s what everybody says, so it’s not just my opinion. I was glad to get away from him.’ He frowned. ‘It might be unnatural but it’s true to say he might as well be dead. It makes no difference to me, either way. He’s ruined my life.’

  ‘Ruined it?’

  ‘You’ll never believe it, domina, but when I wanted to take holy orders he told me I had to serve as page to one of Jack Fitzjoh
n’s knights until I was old enough to know my own mind. Then he beat me because I objected. I couldn’t walk for a week.’

  ‘You’ll never know your own mind, Peterkin.’ A casual scuffle ensued but was soon broken up.

  ‘So was Elfric’s brother back home in England?’ she asked when things quietened down.

  ‘Not at all. He was here in Avignon.’

  ‘What, retained by your lord Fitzjohn too?’

  ‘No,’ Simon piped up. ‘He was whisked from York years ago to attend a foreign cardinal who’d taken a fancy to him on account of his voice and poor Elfric hadn't seen him since he was a babe in arms.’

  ‘Not quite that,’ corrected Peterkin, the erstwhile priest. ‘He would never remember him if he’d been a baby. He must have been at least five or six. He remembers being carried on his shoulders and playing in the mead with him.’

  ‘He said his brother used to send him messages by courier from Avignon to York.’ Simon, keen to put himself in the right, told Hildegard, ‘He lived to hear from him. When Fitzjohn told him he was coming down here he was in heaven, thinking he’d meet his brother in the flesh again. Then this.’

  ‘What ‘this’ exactly?’ asked Hildegard.

  ‘Done in,’ Peterkin crossed himself. ‘His brother, that is.’

  ‘Nobody knows yet who did it but we’ve all vowed to bring the murderer to justice,’ Edmund explained darkly. The others nodded in agreement.

  ‘I was the first to find out about it.’ Peterkin spoke again. ‘It was when I went down to the kitchens to fetch Sir Jack his bread and wine. You were there, domina.’

  ‘I knew I’d seen you somewhere before.’ Hildegard looked him up and down. So Elfric’s brother was the acolyte of Cardinal Grizac.

  Peterkin gave her the same disarming smile he had bestowed on the kitcheners. ‘You were the nun sitting quietly by while they all pitched in with their crackpot opinions.’

  Alarmed by their vow to find the murderer, Hildegard was moved to warn them. ‘You’re brave and loyal lads, without a doubt, but you must tread carefully. This place is full of danger, especially to us English. Under Clement’s rule we’re seen as the enemy here.’

  ‘I support Pope Urban,’ Bertram announced in an emphatic tone.

  Instantly there was a small cheer.

  ‘I think that’s a view you must certainly keep to yourselves.’

  ‘What about you, domina? Where do your sympathies lie?’ probed Peterkin.

  ‘My Order, to my sadness, has come out in favour of the antipope Clement,’ she told them.

  ‘But what about your own secret view?’ Peterkin asked, with childlike persistence.

  ‘That is for me to know,’ she replied lightly. ‘Just remember to step carefully, I beg you.’

  ‘That means she’s on our side but can’t say so,’ Bertram announced with an air of solemnity.

  The rain still howled over them, tugging at the bushes as if to uproot them. Despite that it felt strangely safe under their shelter. They were away from prying eyes for once. Hildegard realised how oppressive she found the atmosphere in the palace. It was not only the acolyte’s murder but the sense of being watched whatever she did, wherever she went. It was more than the natural claustrophobia of living in an enclosed community. It was enemy territory and there was no way of forgetting it. Perhaps the boys felt like this too, forming a little brotherhood in a nest of enemies.

  The leaves rattled in the gusts of wind that now and then threw rain in their faces but they were sheltered well enough. Hildegard felt sorry for these lads, so close in age to her own son, an esquire in the Bishop of Norwich’s army and, like him, far from home, in a place among knights whose dangerous machinations they were too inexperienced to understand.

  ‘I shall remember Elfric,’ she told them, ‘and especially his brother.’ Remembering something Athanasius had told her she asked, ‘What was his real name?’

  ‘It was Hamo but they frenchified it to Maurice when he came over here.’

  ‘And he came here with Cardinal Grizac?’

  ‘You know the cardinal?’

  ‘I’ve met him.’

  ‘What’s he like? They say he was going to be made pope and then something happened and Clement was elected instead.’

  ‘Yes, so I believe.’

  ‘Something?’ mocked Edmund. ‘A massacre, that’s what happened. Fear made them follow Clement like sheep.’

  She peered out from between the leaves. ‘The rain seems to be slowing down. We might take our chance and run for the gatehouse. Will Sir Jack be looking for you?’

  ‘He can’t blame us for having the sense to preserve our garments from the depredations of the weather.’ It was Peterkin. The others laughed.

  ‘You’ll always talk us out of trouble, won’t you, Peterkin?’

  ‘I’ll certainly have a good try or die in the attempt.’

  ‘Talk yourself out of that, then.’ Laughing, they bundled him out into the rain.

  In a burst of energy they rest of them exploded from the shelter in a turmoil of movement and shouts and wet leaves.

  More slowly Edmund courteously lifted aside the low-hanging branches for her. ‘Forgive them, sister. Bertram is a sound man in a fight as is Peterkin. He’s older than he looks and soon to be an esquire against his wishes, as you heard. The two pages are still learning how to conduct themselves in an adult world.’ He gave her a conspiring smile.

  ‘And Elfric used to receive letters from his brother?’

  ‘He reads well.’

  A patch of blue sky had appeared although rain still fell in long, single streaks.

  ‘We would be honoured if you’d come and watch us tilting at the quintaine. We’ll demonstrate how we can trounce these Avignon weevils and make you proud to remember the glories of Crecy and Poitiers.’

  ‘I shall be honoured to accept. There’s much pleasure to be found in the joust.’

  ‘For now, sister, we shall accompany you back to the palace gatehouse.’

  **

  The guard looked through the grille and saw the soaking wet figures approaching up the muddy lane towards the palace. When he recognised Hildegard among them he grudgingly let them back in.

  ‘Sir John has been searching for them pages. Nothing but trouble, they are.’

  ‘We had to shelter from the squall,’ she told him.

  He grunted. ‘You keep them under control, domina.’ He glowered at the boys as he unlocked the gate. His face disappeared for a moment as he stepped back to let them in and he was still scowling when he reappeared.

  Ignoring him the boys accompanied her across the Great Courtyard. It was full of puddles and devoid of the usual bustle of folk attending to their duties and they arrived almost unnoticed. Before parting at the steps leading up into the first antechamber, Hildegard asked Edmund if he was the leader of the group.

  ‘I’m not the leader, only the tallest. We don’t believe in leaders. Peterkin is the strategist in our guild.’

  ‘Guild?’

  ‘We’ve seen how our elders organise themselves for protection and how the apprentice boys at the Great Rising were outwitted by their lack of efficient planning. We want to copy the best of what our elders do while keeping to the ideals of the apprentices. We’ve formed a guild of retainers the better to serve our interests - and to be prepared for any sudden changes.’ he added grimly.

  ‘I wonder what Sir Jack thinks?’

  ‘He won’t know until he steps over the line.’

  ‘The line - ?’

  ‘He often goes too far, cuffing me on the head, using a peremptory tone to me, continually carping over nothing. It puts me into such a boiling rage I could - ’ he bunched his fists.

  ‘And how will forming yourselves into a guild help you?’

  He gave her a sudden innocent smile. ‘Forgive me, my lady. We are but wild boys who talk no sense.’ He bowed with such grace and formality he looked twice his age and she judged that he had been well-trained
by Fitzjohn whether he liked it or not.

  ‘I must go. Don’t forget our invitation to watch us at the quintaine,’ he called over his shoulder as he sped after the others up the steps to where Fitzjohn was no doubt waiting with a hard question or two about where his attendants had been hiding.

  The quintaine was the wooden target on a swivel that the boys practised riding at with short, wooden lances as a training in the skills required for the joust and later, of course, for the battle field. She imagined she might very well find her way down to the tilt yard to watch them one day.

  Meanwhile, her excursion out of the purlieus of the palace had cleared her mind and raised her spirits, as well as providing a useful insight into the situation that most concerned the cardinal.

  She wondered if he had known that Maurice corresponded with Elfric, the younger brother who lived in what had become enemy territory.

  **

  Athanasius was looking worse than ever. He waved her back when she appeared.

  ‘Approach not, domina, for fear of contagion.’

  Hildegard regarded him dubiously. ‘I can’t recall a cure more effective than the one you’re already using.’

  ‘Not your concern. Anything to report?’

  ‘How is Cardinal Grizac this morning? Still at liberty, I trust?’

  ‘He has been appointed official searcher on the grounds that the victim was his own retainer. His spirits are consequently much lighter.’ Athanasius gave an ironic shrug. ‘He believes it shows he is trusted.’ He gave her one of his long, considering stares. ‘What do you think, domina? Would you feel trusted in similar circumstances?’

  ‘I can hardly have an opinion, magister. Are you hinting that they’re mistaken?’