The Law of Angels

by Cassandra Clark

  Hurriedly peering over the heads of the crowd she saw one of the masked men who had been left behind in the crowd fighting to join his fellows. He wore some kind of animal mask like the ones she had seen earlier. When he reached them they began to push towards the house opposite the stand. Its upper floors hung out over the heads of the crowd on both sides of the main door.

  “Whose house is that?” she demanded, tugging at Gilbert’s shoulder to alert him.

  “The mayor’s.”

  They saw the porter disappear from his station and the men went inside. Hildegard shouted that she was going over there but whether Gilbert heard her or not she did not wait to find out.

  By the time she had forced her way through the crowd the men could be heard inside the building as they pounded up the wooden stairs. The porter was lying just in the entrance, clutching his ribs. “Stop them!” he gasped when she bent down beside him.

  “Are you badly hurt?”

  “Stop them devils! They’ll be ransacking the place. I’m just winded.”

  “Call de Quixlay’s guards at once!” Hildegard helped him to his feet then ran two at a time to the next floor. She could hear the sound of boots in the solar above.

  Without thinking she grabbed a cresset from the wall-bracket on the landing and ran up the next flight of stairs and along the passage towards an open door.

  It was the main reception chamber with several windows overlooking the street. There was a clear view of the mayor’s stand opposite, the wooden roof beams of the Common Hall behind it, and below the window the swaying pageant wagon surrounded by a sea of faces.

  Three masked men were in the process of opening the casements. They were dragging wound crossbows from under their cloaks. She could see at once that the bolts were primed with cloth and the smell of naptha was stronger here than ever.

  As soon as Hildegard appeared in the doorway they froze in astonishment. One of them strode at once towards her. He pulled his mask down. It was in the shape of a bear, the snout jutting forward. Behind it his eyes were small and darting. “What the fuck do you want?” he snarled.

  He bunched one fist but before he could raise it she said, “I wouldn’t touch me if I were you or the whole place will go up in flames!”

  She lifted the cresset so they could see her clearly. “Good disguise, isn’t it? So is yours. But do I really look like a nun?” She turned to the man she thought she knew. “You certainly fell for that one, didn’t you?”

  He stepped forward in astonishment but the leader pushed him aside. “What’s all this about, nun, or whatever the hell you are?”

  “This is the day when you’ll discover whether you have a judge in heaven or one in hell,” she said forcing a laugh from between her lips.

  The sound stopped the bear in his tracks for a moment. “What the bloody hell is this?”

  “I know her! She’s the whore who stole our martyr! Whore of Babylon! Out, whore!” The figure she had addressed earlier now pushed his way forward again. He ripped off his mask, confirming her suspicions.

  “And you, Matthias,” she said. “You escaped from custody then.”

  “No prison can hold the righteous!” he began.

  But just then music from outside announced the beginning of the play. It was the Harrowing of Hell. Any minute now the actors would begin to speak their lines. The hell-gates would open up and the unsaved would be cast into the eternal flames.

  Hildegard took a deep breath. If she didn’t play it right hell would indeed open up, but it would be the innocent to suffer.

  “It’s like this, my friends,” she began, thinking quickly, “strapped to my body … I have explosives brought to me from the East. The friend who brought them is a close ally of the pope in Rome. It’s not only Pope Clement who arms himself with poisons and other secret defences against his enemies. Urban does so as well. In fact,” she paused, the men had fallen silent, “this friend of mine has a contract with both popes to purchase explosives on their behalf. And he was good enough to give some to me.”

  She moved a step closer. They were listening intently. “I now wear this explosive underneath my gown. No doubt you’ve heard of Greek Fire?”

  There was an alert shifting and the bear poked his head forward. “What?”

  “One spark!” she declaimed. “Just one spark will set this mysterious substance alight and send a ball of flame bigger than anything you’ve ever seen exploding through this house and destroying us all in an instant. I warn you.” She glared at one of the men who, pushing up a black and white badger mask, made a disbelieving step towards her. “I will not hesitate to use it. I have nothing to lose. My sins have been confessed. I shall go straight to heaven to sit in glory at the feet of Our Lady. Now,” she gave each one of them a slow glance, “who’s going to be the one to do me the favour of sending me there?”

  The men milled about as if behind an invisible barrier and glanced from one to the other.

  “Matthias?” she asked. “Will it be you?”

  He grunted but remained where he was.

  “If any one of you tries to raise his crossbow I shall take it as a challenge. In fact,” she lowered her voice, wondering frantically why help did not come, “I shall deem it a pleasure to blow you all to hell. And let the devil deal with you as he will.”

  “Are you for King Richard?” muttered the man in the badger mask uncertainly.

  “And the true Commons!” she replied.

  “If this is revenge for that massacre near the coast, it wasn’t our doing,” the bear butted in. “It was Gaunt’s contingent from the castle at Pickering, acting on their own behalf out of a lust for gain—”

  “They got wind of a barter for gold—” added the badger.

  “Them thievin’ pirates living down in that vill looted a cargo of arms from Acclom’s ship and were due to hand it to the King of Scotland…” His words trailed off as if he had admitted too much.

  There was silence.

  “I’m not interested in your greed,” she told them. “This is revenge for all the dead after Smithfield and Mile End. It is a just execution of the king’s enemies!”

  What on earth am I saying, she thought, as the words tumbled out. I’ve become a player. None of this is real. Why does no one bring help?

  The men were looking emboldened now that a dialogue of sorts had been established. One of them made as if to reach for his crossbow. Ostentatiously she put a hand to the neck of her habit to pull something from inside and noticed that they all froze as if expecting immediate immolation. The bowman’s hand dropped to his side after only one turn on the windlass.

  “I see you understand me,” she remarked, wondering how long she could keep going. “Perhaps you want to tell me who sent you to assassinate the mayor?” And when they refused to answer she said, “You must be maintained by somebody even though you’re not brave enough to wear his badge.”

  “Everybody’s maintained these days. Nobody can exist without protection. What of it?”

  “And it was Gaunt instructed you to set fire to the Common Hall?”

  “Did he?”

  “One of our sources said as much.…”

  “We’ve got a spy,” one of them cut in. He turned away as if that was the end of the matter and they could do nothing now but return to barracks.

  “Who was it?” the leader demanded through his mask.

  She couldn’t tell him it was the slimmest of slim chances that had led her here. Trying not to look into the malign little eyes that peered out from behind his mask she ignored his question and continued. “As I understand, Gaunt instructed you to rid York of its elected council and mayor so he could put Gisburne in the mayor’s office?”

  “What is this about Gaunt?”

  “Everybody knows he instructs his son,” she added quickly.

  This seemed to make sense to them. Even so the bear said, “You can’t stop us with your lies about explosives. Why should we believe you?”

  “You
don’t have to believe me if you don’t want to. I don’t represent the Church with its demand for belief in the impossible. Believe what you want. You can even believe in the honesty of the duke and his son if you’re so minded. Believe they’re working for the good of everybody and not just for the House of Lancaster! Why not!”

  She gave a crazed laugh to add weight to what they knew was true. Gaunt ruled by fear. They were well aware of that.

  She said, “This is making me tired. I thought only to destroy the Host as it came round. Now I find I can destroy a handful of our enemies as well! Fortune smiles on me and on the justice of our cause!”

  She started to untie the neck-strings of her undershift beneath her habit, thinking that perhaps she could fool them into backing off into the adjoining chamber where she might bang the door on them and as she pulled at the ribbon she said, “Let’s see what my friend in Outremer has brought me and whether it can fulfil his claim that it burns hotter than a thousand suns!”

  To her astonishment there was a bang and a flash of light. The room filled with thick smoke. When it cleared a black-hooded figure stood in the doorway.

  “Drop your weapons and get back against the wall!” he rapped.

  Striding into the chamber with another burst of flame from between his hands he herded the startled men against the wall and kicked their weapons to one side. Matthias fell to his knees and began to pray, breaking off to curse the mother superior at his convent.

  “She put a spell on me,” he jabbered. “She said only I could save us from the Antichrist! Help me, Mary, mother of God. All I did was obey orders. I am innocent! No fires, I beg your mercy. No hell fire for Matthias!”

  From the stairs came the pounding of boots. At last a storm of armed men in the mayor’s livery burst into the chamber.

  “Over there!” The man in black gestured towards the outnumbered bowmen then pushed back his hood.

  Hildegard’s mouth opened. It was the mage Theophilus, otherwise John of Berwick.

  He came over to her. “I caught sight of you in the crowd with Gilbert. You looked panic-stricken, it was clear something was up. Then I saw you rush in here but couldn’t get through the crowd in time to find out what was going on. I stumbled over the porter, poor fellow, and got up here just as you were threatening some evil from Outremer. I only just managed to come in on time for my cue.” He beamed. “What a performance, sister. I’m inclined to offer you a job as my partner. Together we could make our fortunes.”

  Hildegard let out a long, slow breath. “I have to thank you for leading me to that ploy. I had no idea what I was going to do when I burst in here with nothing but a cresset as defence. And I’d just reached the end of my script.”

  He offered her his hand. “From one player to another.” He bowed.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  While the men were being disarmed and unmasked, Simon de Quixlay and a group of aldermen made their way over from the pageant stand. The mayor gave the bowmen a disappointed glance.

  “I know a couple of you fellows. I thought I could trust you to obey the will of the people without further trouble. Now I see I was wrong.” He turned to the captain of militia. “Take them away. This time they shall have no mercy!”

  Shackled hand and foot they were dragged roughly out and could be heard clattering all the way down the stairs accompanied by a dozen or so snarling guards.

  The situation was explained in more detail to the mayor.

  Gilbert had managed to climb up onto the mayor’s stand and tell him as coherently as he could what was suspected. Entering now, minus his wings, he was pushed to the front of the group and the whole thing explained again with additions from the mage.

  Matthias, it transpired, had been put in a cell at the convent after Ulf and his men had apprehended him in the stews. But he had at once been let go by the mother superior to continue his work as an assassin.

  De Quixlay looked grim. “The monastics have their own ways, curse them. They obey their pope, not our secular laws.”

  Hildegard’s contribution was to confirm that the men had an affinity with Bolingbroke if, indeed, they were not directly instructed by him.

  “You would not know it,” de Quixlay told her, “but one of those men was Gisburne’s son. We shall soon have his confirmation that his father is in the pay of Bolingbroke.”

  There were murmurs of satisfaction from the aldermen and one of them muttered, “This nails the bastard good and proper.”

  While they were talking the storm that had threatened all afternoon burst directly over their heads with a rumble like falling ale barrels. Lightning flashed along the walls of the chamber casting a weird blue glow that lingered for some moments after the first clap. Then there was a deathly hush followed by further detonations merging with the lightning flashes, one after another, and after this preliminary the rain started in earnest.

  It fell as if it would never cease, straight, hard rods ramming viciously onto the spectators still thronging the streets. The crowds were trapped by sheer force of numbers under the deluge. Nobody could move but no one seemed to mind.

  News got out about the near assassination of the mayor and his entire council, and aware that de Quixlay and his men were inside the house, they stood underneath the window, linked arms and started to sway in time to their own singing of the rebel anthem. Then they sang a hymn or two, then more songs.

  Marooned in the mayor’s chamber as if in a storm-bound ship, de Quixlay and his supporters could only remain where they were and a sense of celebration set in. The mayor and his men were alive. “All praise if there’s somebody up there!” an alderman was heard to say.

  Somehow food and wine were brought up.

  Hildegard went to look out. There were cheers when she appeared at the window. Probably nobody had any idea who she was or what she was doing up there and they were all soaked to the skin and in truth had nothing to sing about, but no one cared. Word had got out about the plot to kill the mayor and that was enough. Whenever anyone else appeared at the window there were further roars of applause.

  “Poor fools,” said de Quixlay looking down and acknowledging the cheers. “They’re drenched. Pity we can’t fit them all in up here. Have we got spare sacks they can put over themselves maybe?” Somebody went to find out.

  The pageant wagon was swimming with water.

  The wings that Gilbert had wriggled out of as he fell to earth were lying in a bedraggled heap. Dye the colour of blood ran from them. Jesus and the rest of the characters sat under an awning they had rigged up. Rain fell off it like water through a sluice. Their game of dice continued.

  The minster procession had hurriedly carried the Host back into the shelter of St. Leonard’s where it would stay overnight, and a small section of the crowd had gone with it.

  Hildegard let the men talk and went back to the window.

  The storm was a sight. The whole sky was split by lightning with scarcely a pause between the flashes. In a gap near the Common Hall and the buildings next to it she could see the river darkly running, and every time the sky was riven by light the water glowed like phosphorous.

  She glanced along the street. A figure at the far end was hurrying along through the crowds with hood pulled up, thick cloak over the shoulders but underneath, the hem of a white habit.

  A Cistercian brother.

  She wondered if it was Thomas, but after watching for a moment decided it wasn’t. Whoever it was had to keep stopping to ask directions. Thomas knew his way round the town. After a moment or two the figure halted outside the mayor’s house and looked up.

  She saw his face clearly in the light of the cressets.

  There must have been somebody on the door because it was a moment before the newcomer appeared in the upper chamber. Already pushing back the hood of his sodden cloak he gazed in at the assembled crowd.

  Hubert de Courcy.

  He lingered in the doorway for a moment. It gave Hildegard time to observe him from where sh
e stood to one side. His hair, still quite long from his travels, stuck darkly to his forehead. His cloak clung in wet folds from his broad shoulders. He said nothing but merely searched the chamber, noticed that Hildegard was standing over by the window and then abruptly turned, as if to leave.

  The mayor, however, caught sight of him. “The Abbot of Meaux, I believe?” He made a small flourish. “Welcome, my lord abbot. Please honour us by stepping within.”

  Hubert looked wary as if suspecting a trap but de Quixlay showed why he was so popular by the easy manner with which he made a potential enemy welcome. His affable mood was explained when she heard him say, “I have one of your Cistercians to thank for my life.”

  Hildegard put a hand over her face. The mage noticed and came over. “Are you feeling all right?”

  She nodded. “A momentary faintness, that’s all.”

  “I’m not surprised after what you’ve just gone through.” He bent his head close to her ear to make himself heard more easily in the hubbub. “I’ve got a cure in my scrip.”

  She touched him on the arm. “Thank you. I doubt whether there’s a cure better than prayer for what ails me.”

  She chanced to glance across the room and saw that Hubert was watching her over de Quixlay’s shoulder. She remembered his inexplicable hostility the previous day. Clearly it had not abated.

  The mage followed her glance. “Ah,” he murmured. “I told you so.”

  * * *

  Later Gilbert and Theophilus, as they could not help but call him, accompanied Hildegard back to Danby’s yard.

  The pageant wagons were still going the rounds despite the rain. Angels’ wings drooped, paint was washed away, explosions failed to detonate in the wet and the fires of hell were little more than a candle flash. Minstrels were bemoaning the damage done to their instruments and taking off their own cloaks to protect them. Yet despite all this, the town was still en fete. Instead of dousing their spirits, the opposition of weather, God, Saints Edmund, Benet and the entire hosts of heaven and probably hell too, only urged everyone to a greater determination to enjoy themselves.