The Dragon of Handale A Mystery

by Cassandra Clark

  “This is an ideal coastline for smuggling goods in from the Baltic and Norway, as well as from the south of England.”

  “Goose feathers from the port at Lynn? Yes, I can see that. It’s rocky, with a hundred inlets and sea caves round here. Perfect for smugglers.”

  “I believe they knew exactly what they were looking for,” she told him. “They were fully prepared when they turned up, with several barges ready to convey the cargo out to the coast. They’ll be on their way to Alnwick Castle by now.” The earl of Northumberland’s stronghold at Alnwick lay several hours up the coast, near Bamburgh.

  “So it looks as if somebody informed on this merchant Fulke?”

  She nodded. “I believe it was Prioress Basilda.”

  “What? I thought he was her benefactor?”

  “I believe she fell out with him for some reason and decided to ditch him.”

  “Maybe things were getting too hot for her?”

  “She’s certainly bitten the hand that feeds her. Something changed. But maybe you’re right that things became too much for her, with an absconding novice and the death of the priest. Have you learned anything from Alys, by the way?”

  Ulf shook his head. “She seems to know nothing, neither the name of her abductor who brought her to Fulke nor the destiny planned for her. She is merely grateful to have escaped his clutches Her chatter mainly concerned the dragon stalking the woods, how it howls through the night and terrorises the nuns.”

  “Well, that’s all over now.” Hildegard gave him a warm smile.

  He said, “Hildegard, talking about the ease by which smugglers can bring in their goods along this coast reminds me of something.” “He smiled fondly. Do you remember that time everybody at Hutton Castle came out to the coast on some holy day or other when my father was head huntsman? How we found a sea cave among the rocks that was only visible at low tide?”

  “And how you and some other boys hid inside it and we all believed you were drowned?” She chuckled. “How could I forget! The entire household stood on the cliff top, wailing and praying for a miracle.”

  “My father gave us hell when we reappeared at low tide.”

  “I was so he leaved to see you safe and sound.”

  “What bad boys we were!” By now, they were approaching the clearing where the tower stood. A chill wind had sprung up and was sweeping round the grove.

  “According to the weather prophets, a blizzard is on its way,” he murmured as they came to a stop to survey the scene.

  “That won’t please the masons. They’re desperate to get away. They want to leave as soon as Sueno de Schockwynde arrives from Durham. If there’s a blizzard, do you think there’s a chance he might not get through?”

  Ulf shrugged. “If it snows hard, he won’t have a chance up there on the moors. But come on. We have things to do.” He unsheathed his sword. “And this is the tower? It’s almost dark now. Let’s break open its secret once and for all.”

  CHAPTER 19

  The door gaped just as it had when Hildegard last saw it. The padlock hung loose, rattling now and then as it swung in the wind.

  While they had been making their way through the woods, the tops of the trees had started to thrash in a rising wind. The air became suddenly warmer and the clouds were distended and looked ready to burst. A silvery light stole over everything.

  “How strange it is,” whispered Hildegard as they reached the grey stone edifice. Ulf’s men seemed subdued by the weird atmosphere and the moaning wind.

  “I can understand country folk believing the woods are bewitched,” Ulf murmured. “They trees seem to sense something’s afoot. Come on, there’s nobody here,” he continued in a louder tone. “Let’s go in and wait.” He gave instructions to his men, then led the way inside.

  One or two feathers lay on the threshold, and Hildegard picked one up. Ulf took it. “Feathers for war arrows. That’s what this is. Northumberland must be rearming. He’ll be delighted with his haul.”

  “Except for the fact that it was probably his own consignment that was waylaid.”

  “And you believe it was being held here until it could be resold to a higher bidder?”

  “Don’t you?”

  Ulf chuckled. “He must be pleased he’ll be able to keep his fletchers in work.”

  He took the lead up the stairs to the top of the tower. Nothing had changed since Hildegard had been here. The padlock remained on the door of the second chamber, untouched, and the other chamber was empty. Ulf resheathed his sword.

  She showed him where she had hidden from Fulke, and his teeth gleamed from out of the shadows in a brief smile. “We might as well do that again. It’s likely to be fully dark by the time Fulke arrives. After one surprise raid, he’ll not expect another.”

  “We can’t be sure he’ll come back.”

  “It’ll depend on the value he attaches to the goods. If he doesn’t show up, we’ll break the door open and see for ourselves what’s in there.”

  They clambered in among the crossbeams, where the shadows were darkest, and settled down to wait.

  In the silence that fell once they were comfortable, Ulf reached out across the gap for Hildegard’s hand and gave it a squeeze.

  As Ulf had predicted, it was fully dark before they heard stealthy footsteps coming up the stairs. They approached the door of the chamber opposite and came to a stop. Hildegard’s hair prickled. It was as if a ghost had silently climbed the stairs.

  There was the chink of metal as somebody fumbled with the lock.

  Suddenly, a light flared.

  Two shapes loomed in the doorway, then disappeared as the light went out.

  The door to the second chamber had been left wide open to invite Fulke to believe that there was no one inside. Now they heard footsteps shuffle. Fulke was not alone.

  The light flared again.

  From her vantage point high up, Hildegard saw the velvet coxcomb capuchon she had seen before. A brief glint from the hilt of a sword. Again the clink of the padlock. A short pause. Then the creaking of the door as it was pushed open.

  Ulf, indistinguishable from the upright beam where he stood, was leaning forward to get a better look. The light disappeared inside the chamber. The voices of two men came, low and intimate.

  Fulke said more sharply, “Shut up!”

  Hildegard gripped tightly onto the beam where she was hiding. “What have they got in there?”

  “So there’s your gold,” came a voice she recognised as the coxcomb’s. Then Fulke again, smug: “And your goods, my dear fellow. Much joy to you. Now let’s get out. This place is giving me the creeps.”

  “Afeared of the dragon, are you?” The coxcomb sniggered.

  The wind was moaning around the tower with greater force. Anything could be imagined.

  A shadow within the chamber doorway lengthened briefly across the floor below their hiding place, followed by another more confused shape; then the light went out as the figures began their descent.

  Evidently, something heavy was being carried, as there was a scraping sound and one or two grunted instructions from Fulke. After the sound faded, Ulf reached out and tapped her on the arm. “Let’s go.”

  He swung to the floor and lifted up his arms for Hildegard.

  “We’ll let them lead us back through the woods, then stop them before they reach the ford.”

  “What if they have a barge, like the others?”

  “We’ll have to take a chance.”

  “Who is that overdressed fellow with Fulke?” Ulf whispered as he and Hildegard stayed inside the tower until their quarry moved off. The grove was lit by three or four blazing torches. The customer, they observed, had brought two men with him as well as a horse. The goods he had purchased were being loaded onto the back of the horse with some difficulty.

  “I’ve no idea who he is,” she replied. “I’ve only ever seen him here. He arrives and departs by stealth and never shows his face at the priory.”

  “H
e looks better suited to bowing and scraping at court than in the wilds of the north.”

  The buyer, swathed from head to foot in a thick cloak and pulling up his hood as he went, led the horse with its load deeper into the undergrowth after Fulke. His two men followed.

  When the clearing had slipped back into darkness, Ulf went to where his men were stationed. Hildegard heard a muttered exchange. When he came back, she could tell he was grinning by the tone of his voice.

  “My lad crept round to have a closer look at the horse. He took one of these off its bridle as a possible means of identifying the owner.”

  He held something out on his palm. She tested it between her fingers. It felt like one of the small studs used to decorate belts and bridles. “It might be an emblem or it might be decorative,” she suggested.

  “We’ll see when we get it into the light.” He slipped it into the pouch on his belt. “Now it’s time to follow the trail before they get too far ahead.”

  Giving a whistle, he summoned his men and the resourceful little servant lad, and without needing to remind them to be quiet, Ulf led the way through the woods in the steps of Fulke and his companion.

  The place echoed with strange sounds like ghostly voices calling to each other as the wind continued to howl and whine through the treetops. The branches seemed to lash the clouds, and the moon had disappeared.

  After some time, Ulf whispered, “Where the devil does this path lead? I feel lost already.”

  “It goes back towards the priory,” she told him. “The way down to the beck where we came up isn’t far from here.”

  The sound of breaking branches and the occasional snort of the horse with its burden came from ahead.

  The ground began to slope. There were sudden lulls in the wind, when every sound became audible. Fulke was crashing about with no attempt at stealth. They could hear him cursing at the inconvenience of the branches that impeded his way.

  Eventually, he reached the clearing where the body of the mason had been found, because they heard him call back, “This is where I leave you, my lord.”

  There was a grunted response, then a querulous voice said, “I’m going to break my horse’s legs going back down there. Isn’t there another way to the road?”

  “You’ll be all right if you keep to the trail I marked out for you.”

  “It’s that steep bank that bothers me. How am I expected to lead the brute through an avalanche of rocks?”

  “By necromancy, my dear fellow, that’s how.” Fulke was sounding extremely pleased with himself.

  When the wind dropped again, Hildegard was convinced she could hear the clink of gold. “I wonder how much this coxcomb paid for his illegal goods?” she whispered. “Fulke seems to be staggering a bit.”

  “We’ll find out soon. We’ll wait until his buyer negotiates the boulders and reaches the ford; then we’ll do our bit. May as well let him do the brunt of the work himself.”

  Hildegard was trying to catch a glimpse of the men through the constantly moving branches of the trees, which were thrashed by the wind, but it was difficult to make anything out. A few flurries of snow began a descent.

  A moment later, she clutched Ulf by the arm. “See that? Is there someone ahead? Can you—” She broke off.

  Fulke was saying, “Fare thee well, my lord. You know where to find me if you need anything else.”

  A reply from farther down the bank floated up to them. “I know where to find you, Fulke. Don’t you worry about that.”

  And at that moment, something came rushing through the undergrowth like a wild boar, followed by a sudden hideous scream that went on and on and on.

  Fulke was shouting, “What the fuck—?” And then his words were cut off in a howl of pain. Something trumpeted a call, loud enough to make the woods ring with the sound. It battered the eardrums, savage and unearthly. Hildegard put both hands over her ears for a moment. Fulke himself was bellowing like a wild bull.

  From the cliff path, his purchaser made not a sound.

  As unexpectedly as it had started, the parched, rasping scream stopped. The rapidly fading sound of whatever it was as it fought its way through the bushes left the grove in an unearthly silence.

  Hildegard was about to step forward, the better to see what had happened to Fulke, when Ulf laid a hand on her arm. “Leave him. We’re off after that other fellow with his goods. We’ll catch him red-handed.”

  “Is Fulke hurt?” she asked, shaking off his hand.

  “I don’t care if he is. Wait, Hildegard,” he added as she began to push through the undergrowth. “He’s not our concern.”

  She ignored him and parted the last of the branches just in time to hear a groan that must have been Fulke, followed by the crashing of someone making off towards the priory.

  She turned back.

  “Well?” asked Ulf.

  “He’s not wounded enough to stop him from getting away. What do you think that thing was?”

  She glanced nervously into the darkness. The trees seemed to be thicker here, likely to conceal anything among their twisted roots and hanging vines.

  “It certainly gave Fulke a shock,” he replied, his hand still gripping the hilt of his sword.

  “But what was it?” she insisted, staring into the darkness. It had not been Fulke himself then, scaring the nuns into keeping out of the woods. She was shaking.

  Ulf’s voice came reassuringly out of the darkness. “It was probably a wounded boar or a stag. It stopped too soon to get a fix on it.” Turning, he called in a low voice, “Come on, men! Let’s get after this thieving, whoreson of a coxcomb, whoever he is. We’ll deal with the dragon of Handale Woods later.”

  They followed at a good safe distance along the bank of Kilton Beck without being observed. The waters roared over the rocks so loudly as to make conversation impossible. When they neared the ford, however, there was a surprise waiting.

  Unexpectedly, the woods were swarming with armed men. Ulf’s little servant had gone scouting on ahead and came dashing back with a warning, breathless and agog with the sense of danger.

  “Who the hell are they?” demanded Ulf under his breath as he drew his small force to a halt under cover of the trees that edged the road. “How many are there?”

  “It’s too dark to tell,” one of the men murmured.

  “Make a guess.”

  “No more than seven or eight, not including the old coxcomb with the packhorse.”

  “Does that suit you?”

  “It does. Eight of them to three of us—”

  “Four,” protested the boy.

  “Keep out of this, Pippin. It’s man’s work. You go and get our horses back. From what I see, they’ve unhobbled them. That makes them horse thieves. And you know what we do to them.” He drew his sword. “Hildegard,” he muttered, “Can you go back and find out what happened to Fulke?”

  Aware that he wanted her out of the way if there was going to be a fight, she nodded. She had no intention of leaving yet, however, not while Ulf’s life was in danger. She shivered as she watched him pull up the hood of his mail shirt. His two men and the boy followed suit. And then, on a sudden command, they swooped.

  She saw the boy, quick as lightning, slip through the bushes to the horses and begin to hack through the leather rein that held them together, and then her attention flew back to Ulf, one arm raised, the sword glittering in the light of the flares his opponents carried. Then it began.

  Ulf and his men had the element of surprise and put it to good use. There was a moment of stunned immobility from their opponents before they grasped what was happening, then they recovered, swords were drawn, oaths roared out, blades slashed, and the horses, caught between the two groups, reared and whinnied.

  Observing the plunging melee, Hildegard saw Ulf knock two fellows to the ground. One stumbled after his fleeing horse; the other rose up with his sword pointing, but Ulf swiped it from his hand, and he, too, grabbed at a passing horse and made off into the dark
ness of the night.

  Ulf’s men fought off the rest of the detachment, which was putting up little resistance, and apart from one fellow left groping around in the bushes for his sword, the skirmish was over almost before it began.

  By now, the snow had become a blizzard.

  Ulf stamped out the flames from a fallen torch, took off his gauntlets, and wiped blood on the back of his hand. “Everybody still standing?”

  The snow was beating down in a fury, a driving storm that blinded them all. In almost no time, they were wrapped in a white world without directions. Only one thing was clear. During the skirmish the man and his goods had disappeared. That wasn’t all.

  Ulf”s little servant ran up, covered in snow. He was sobbing.

  “What are you blubbing for?” demanded Ulf. “It’s we should be blubbing. We made a real hash of that. We’ve lost our quarry.”

  “I couldn’t help it, my lord. It’s my fault.” He fell to his knees in the snow. “Pray forgive me, for I never shall forgive myself. I shall grieve forevermore.”

  “Get up, you young sot wit. It’s not your fault. It’s mine.”

  “I mean your horse, my lord. Dear Petronel. He’s been stolen before my very eyes. That man, that foul lord in the velvet cloak, he took your horse. I fear we’ll never see Petronel more.”

  Ulf uttered a curse. He looked as if he was about to strike the boy, but instead he turned on his heel and walked away into the blizzard After a moment, he reemerged.

  Noticing Hildegard standing by, huddled inside her cloak, he snapped, “I thought I told you to get off after Fulke?”

  “So you did, my dearest lord,” she replied with a touch of sarcasm, “but have you ever known me to take orders other than from my prioress in the days of my obedience at Swyne?”

  She could not see his expression in the driving snow, but she was well aware of his scowl.

  He admitted he was at fault for having the temerity to suggest she do anything to help.

  Aware that it was the loss of his horse that was making him ill-tempered, she suggested that he and his men set off in pursuit at once and she would now do as he’d suggested and try to follow Fulke wherever he had gone. Ulf had the grace to suggest that one of his men should go with her, but she pointed out that when he finally caught up with his quarry, he would probably need both men by his side.