The Law of Angels

by Cassandra Clark

  Hildegard made herself invisible in the rocks on the cliff side, but she saw the lieutenant stumble from out of the fray with the sack. She called out but her voice was lost in the clash of steel on bone and the sickening howls of slaughter.

  The lieutenant lurched towards the edge of the cliff and then his glance fell on her where she crouched in horror among the rocks.

  “Forgive the theft. Take it back. Destroy it—” He fell at her feet in a pool of blood.

  She tugged the sack containing the cross from under his body and backed away with it. Her eyes dilated as she gazed on the butchery, men falling, no guessing who was fighting whom. She saw the red-bearded leader lay about him with his sword and she saw many men fall under it.

  The next minute she watched as a thrust of a blade from the thick of the battle pierced him as he raised his arm to strike again. He turned, still wielding his sword against his attacker and retreated to where the body of his lieutenant was lying.

  Hildegard called out. “Here, you’re hurt, let me help.”

  He lurched towards her, a black shape against the setting sun, his voice hoarse. “It was a mortal wound, lady. There is no help. These are my last moments.”

  He stumbled over the rocks and she dropped the sack containing the cross and stretched out her arms to take the weight of his fall. He rested there in her arms, his breath snatching at the air as if it had turned thin, while above, among the shadows in the lift and hollows of the cliff, the slaughter continued.

  Between gasps he tried to speak. She had to bend her head close to his lips to catch the words. “The cross—” he rasped. “I saw him give it … take it … destroy it … too much discord … civil war … if Gaunt has it we are finished—”

  “I’ll take it—”

  He clutched her by the arm. “Don’t betray me. Give me your promise?”

  “I will not let Gaunt have it. Never. As long as I breathe.”

  His eyes closed and a wisp of a song came from between his lips. “And on that purpose yet we stand—” his dying grip slackened, “whoever does us wrong … contrives against us … we will be free, lady … every man, every woman … one day…”

  Struggling to raise himself to his knees, his left hand clutching the front of his hauberk, he crawled towards the edge of the cliff. “Let me see the sea!” He reached out for her arm.

  “I don’t even know your name to pray for you,” Hildegard whispered, helping him as best she could.

  “No name,” he slurred. “No prayers. Nothing but this!”

  He gazed out across the rolling waves as if there was something glorious to be seen on the horizon.

  Then his hand fell away from his wounds, allowing his intestines to slither to the ground. Blood gushed from his mouth.

  He fell.

  Hildegard brushed a trembling hand across his face when he was still. His skin was hot as if he still lived. She closed his eyes. Behind her the clash of arms continued as the combatants pressed on down the cliff path towards the village. Fading.

  She sat on unnoticed.

  * * *

  Eventually it ended. Hildegard retrieved the sack from where it had fallen. Drawing the reliquary from inside, she prised the lid off and lifted the cross from its red-velvet bed. Then she went to the brink of the cliff.

  The cross felt light in her hands. It was only a piece of worm-eaten wood. And yet it caused violence and death because of the things people believed about it. It divided people. It spread darkness instead of light.

  She imagined hurling it out as far as she could over the sea. She saw the long arc of descent as it vanished forever in the thundering surf.

  * * *

  Already, a line of fisherfolk were making their way up the cliff path to claim their dead and plunder the foreigners. A handful of rebels, much cut and bloodied, attended to their own. She saw them take the corpses down to the shore. They toiled back up, collected a few horses and left soon afterwards. Hildegard remained in the hollow of rock as night pulled its cloak over sea and land.

  Later there were lights on the beach where a flotilla of rafts could be seen lit by flares. Many hands pushed the rafts one by one from off the shore in a confusion of fire and surf. They floated out beyond the line. Black shapes bearing their burden of dead on the ocean.

  The next moment flames rose up. The burning pyres drifted slowly on the receding tide. They seemed to rest on nothing. Floating in a void between earth and heaven. Hildegard watched with moving lips until the last flame was extinguished by the waves.

  Now it was over.

  Now it was.

  A horse was running loose. She called it. And began the long melancholy ride back across the moors to York.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  The sun was beating down out of a molten sky. Nothing new there. It seemed the hot weather would never end. It might easily be the beginning of the Apocalypse as many believed.

  Master Edric Danby was sitting outside his workshop on his usual bench against the wall. At first sight it was a scene of normal domesticity. His shirt was undone, however, and his bald head shone unprotected in the glare of the sun. He was mumbling something to himself and paid no heed when Hildegard, hot, dishevelled, weeping within herself, arrived back after her ride across the moors.

  A spilled flagon lay on the ground beside the glazier, the liquor evaporating in the heat.

  At that moment the Widow Tabitha Roberts came out of her house carrying a cup. She didn’t notice Hildegard at the entrance to the yard. “Drink this posset, Edric, do, for the love of God.”

  “What ails the master?” Hildegard asked, stepping forward.

  Tabitha turned in surprise. “Thank the Lord you’ve returned. Maybe you can talk sense into him?” She tried to force the cup to his lips.

  With a roar Danby dashed it to one side. “Posset, woman? Do you think that’s going to mend me?” He thrust his head into both hands and began to sob. His whole body heaved.

  The widow turned away. “I’m at my wit’s end with him. I’ve had enough.”

  Gilbert appeared in the doorway. His face was as pale as usual, his bright hair pulled back in its ponytail, his grey eyes wary.

  The widow wiped her hands on her apron and with a last glare went inside her own house.

  “Gilbert?” Hildegard went over.

  “He’s been like this since he got back. Drinking and howling—”

  “But why?” She felt frightened. “Is Brother Thomas harmed?”

  Gilbert shook his head. “He’ll be back here straight after prime. It’s Dorelia. She’s vanished.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Gilbert went back inside the workshop and, astonished, she saw him bend his head over his work as if nothing else mattered.

  Danby looked up, then recognition dawned and when she went over he reached out to grip her by the sleeve. “Not a ghost then, but safe. Thank St. Benet and all the heavenly host. We couldn’t believe our eyes when we saw you brought into camp t’other night. Then having to leave you … I can’t tell you how it wrenched us to the soul and then … like a judgement … to come back to this—” His chest heaved again.

  “What’s happened to Dorelia?” she asked.

  “Absconded. With that apprentice of mine! I’d no idea—” He lapsed into incoherence again, repeating, “I’d no idea … right under my nose … how could I not notice? How could she? Didn’t she mean anything she said? Lies, all lies. Her look when she said those soft words … looking me in the eyes and brazenly lying to me … oh God, help me!”

  Hildegard sat down next to him and let him rant.

  She was in this position when Ulf strode into the yard with a jangle of spurs.

  He checked in astonishment when he saw her then hurried forward. “Struth, Hildegard! Am I glad to see you. I couldn’t believe they’d left you behind. Call themselves men! I only found out yesterday morning when I came down to look at the glass. When Roger heard he came down himself to give them a bollockin
g. He sent a search party to look for you and found the camp but everybody had left by then. He’s got men scouring the forest for you. I’d better go and tell him you’re back. Brother Thomas is doing nothing but pray.” He shot a swift glance at Danby. “And I see the master’s in the same state.”

  “Can you tell me what’s happened? I’m not getting much sense from him apart from the fact that his wife has run off with his apprentice. Is it true?”

  Ulf nodded. “He says they’d gone when he arrived back next day, after that night ride to meet the rebels. He’s been sitting like that ever since by the look of him.”

  “But where have they gone to? Did they leave a message with anyone?”

  Ulf shook his head. “Took their chance while they could. They’ll be lying low somewhere, pretending to be man and wife.”

  He jerked his head and Hildegard paced beside him to the end of the yard out of Danby’s earshot. When she looked back he was sagging against the wall, his eyes shut, tears trickling down his cheeks into his beard.

  “Poor devil,” Hildegard remarked, “he’s in a state of shock at present. I expect he’ll be raging shortly. He’s already thrown Tabitha’s cup of posset to the ground. She’s gone off in a huff.”

  “She’s done as much as a neighbour can, but he won’t be helped. Dorelia and Jankin though?” He shook his head. “Coupla dark horses. Danby says he had no inkling.”

  “Surely somebody must have known what they were planning?”

  “Baldwin says he’s been asking questions of everybody they know. So far he’s drawn a blank. It’s obvious they’ve been working out how to do it for some time, to cover their tracks so well.”

  She glanced down the yard to where Danby was now rocking backwards and forwards with his head in his hands. “Poor man. But it could be worse.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The rebels,” she blurted. “They were ambushed. Both the leader and his lieutenant are dead. As well as most of their men.”

  Ulf gazed at her in horror. “Ambushed?”

  She nodded.

  He took her by the arm. “What’s all this about? Is it to do with the stolen cross?”

  She nodded. “That badge you found suggested that the men of the White Hart Company were the ones who had stolen it, so I hinted to Gilbert that I’d like to meet them. He and Danby fixed up a meeting—”

  “So they said. And then they left you to your fate,” he intoned, his expression grim.

  “They had no choice,” she quickly pointed out. “There were twenty or thirty armed men and just the two of them, with only Thomas’s small eating knife between them. Don’t be angry with them. They did the sensible thing by coming back as quickly as possible and raising the alarm.”

  “I suppose so,” he admitted, clearly finding such behaviour beyond his understanding.

  She told him quickly what had happened after Danby and Thomas had been escorted back onto the road to York.

  She could see he was horrified. With forced humour he said, “The world must have gone mad. All this for a relic. Next you’ll be saying these rumours about Sacred Fire are true. These are the end days all right! Step forth the Antichrist!” He looked searchingly into her face. “So where’s the cross now?”

  She touched the strap of her leather bag and his eyes widened.

  “Can I see it?”

  “Later. It’s caused so much bloodshed I feel I never want to set eyes on it again. The leader of the rebels wanted me to throw it into the sea so that no one would use it against King Richard. I couldn’t do that. It was loaned to me on the understanding that it would eventually be returned to its guardians in Florence.”

  “Even so—”

  “It was an earlier promise,” she explained, “stronger and made in clarity of mind.”

  Ulf seemed to accept this. “So it was the Company of the White Hart who stole it, as you suspected.”

  “They were wrong to do it and it was wrong that men in their own brotherhood betrayed them. Both sides were slaughtered without discrimination.”

  “But those locals, the fishermen … whose side were they on?”

  “Nobody’s but their own by the look of it. They must have thought they’d get the cross in return for handing over the arms they’d looted from Acclom’s wrecked ship. But something odd happened. A light appeared from a ship in the bay. That’s when the fighting started. It looked like a signal. If it was, it was a trap that caught everyone in it.” She gripped the steward by the arm. “So many died, Ulf. There were no winners. But I promised the rebel friend of Magister Thorpe that I would not allow the cross to fall into the hands of Gaunt.”

  “So they stuck to their resolve even in death: We want no king called John.” His lips tightened with emotion. “You have to hand it to them for tenacity.”

  Hildegard was beginning to tremble as the scenes of slaughter danced before her eyes. Ulf saw how shaken she looked and put a hand on her shoulder. For a moment they stood without moving. She was aware of the warmth of his fingers through the fabric of her thin summer habit. He was reassuringly alive. She placed her hand over his and cupped in its vitality, drawing strength from it.

  After a moment their hands slipped apart and they began to walk slowly back to where Danby was sitting while she explained in greater detail what had happened after the glazier and Thomas had left the encampment. Danby, she noticed, lifted his head to listen when he heard her mention the White Hart Brotherhood.

  “The issue seems to boil down to a split between them,” she explained. “The original faction were trying to live according to their ideals, no one person set above another, respect for learning, freedom, truth—”

  “Friends of the White Hart boys offered safe houses to the clerks from Oxford,” Danby contributed. “Those who refused to recant over this Corpus Christi business. They were all outlawed for it.”

  “Men like Will Thorpe?” she asked, remembering her escort on the way through the woods.

  “A good, brave fellow,” muttered Danby, wiping his eyes.

  “Him and others,” Ulf agreed.

  “There’s Aston, Swinderby, Herford, Purefoy, the list goes on,” Danby told them. “Outlawed, the lot of ’em, by that bastard at Canterbury, Archbishop Courtenay. Herford’s even gone to Rome to argue the issue with the pope, daft devil. He’ll get no joy there.” Danby closed his eyes again, lifted the flagon to his lips and emptied it.

  “The splinter group were more interested in arming themselves with weapons the fishermen had scavenged from a ship destined for the Scottish king,” she told them.

  “Bastards,” Danby muttered. “That’s not what the Rising was about.”

  “I expect Acclom’s involved.” Ulf frowned.

  “You mean that shipman running vessels out of Scarborough?” Danby opened his eyes.

  “Piracy’s his usual trade.” Ulf gave a scowl. “But he carries anything for anyone.”

  “They said he lost a ship a few weeks ago on the scaur.”

  “It’d be carrying arms then,” said Ulf.

  She nodded. “So they said.”

  “Those fisher folk live by looting. Acclom wouldn’t be pleased if they’d laid hands on his cargo. He probably set up the ambush to get it back … or to teach the looters a lesson they won’t forget.” He looked thoughtful. “We can only speculate but it seems to me he must have had an ally in the brotherhood to start the fighting off.”

  “And you believe the signal came from one of Acclom’s ships?” Hildegard asked.

  “Don’t you?”

  “Maybe,” she said slowly. “The light was failing and it was too far off to see its ensign. The true rebels were hoping to sell the cross for gold. They had no belief in its power. For them the only value it had was its agreed equivalent in coin. The bunch of outlaws they took into their midst preferred to sell it to the fishermen for the arms they’d scavenged from the shipwreck. That was the nub of the dispute. And the fishermen were after the cross because the
y could use it for barter.”

  “Cross?” Danby lifted his head.

  “That’s what this is all about,” she explained. “It was stolen from me a few nights ago by the White Hart rebels. That’s why I wanted to meet them. They thought it could be used to raise money so they could go on publishing their tracts.”

  “It must have been worth a fair penny or two,” he grunted. “Made of gold, was it?”

  “It was only worth what it was believed to be worth. To most people it was just a piece of old wood. Ancient though, if the stories are true, and deserving of reverence for that reason at least.”

  Someone came into the yard just then. It was Agnetha.

  The dairy woman carried a basket over her arm containing fresh cobs of wastel baked by her sister-in-law, a baxter of the guild as she explained now. Her expression was worried. Addressing Hildegard she said, “I called at the nunnery of the Holy Wounds as I hadn’t heard anything from you for a few days, but they were enraged when I mentioned your name and spoke of you as a she-devil. I left as soon as I could get away. The girls are safe, I take it?”

  Hildegard noticed the tone of reproach in her voice. “They are safe and well now.”

  “I was worried. How long have you been here?” Her tone was cool.

  “Just a few days. I should have let you know. But I had to leave York suddenly. I’ve just got back.”

  “I can see that.” Agnetha gave her travel-stained appearance an up-and-down look.

  Hildegard outlined relevant events as briefly as possible with regard to the girls. She told the dairy-woman about Maud’s confession, that although Thomas had been unable to say much, whatever the girl had admitted had shaken the young monk to the core.

  Agnetha’s mood softened. “The main thing is you’re safe, sister. And the girls are safe too.”

  Ulf said he had to bring Roger up to date. His page and two men-at-arms who had been lounging in the entrance to the yard followed briskly after him as he strode off.

  * * *

  Agnetha produced an earthenware pot from the bottom of the basket. Tabitha, her good humour restored, welcomed her into her kitchen. The pottage was doled out. Danby, offered some through the window, merely waved his hand and gave a heavy sigh as if food was poison to him.