The Alchemist of Netley Abbey: Eighth in the Hildegard of Meaux medieval mystery series

by Cassandra Clark

  ‘Nobody tells me anything!’

  ‘I’m aware of that! Maybe I’ll have to show you how it’s done!’

  He took a step forward and then stopped. Something in the boy’s eyes, bright as stars and on the edge of mischief must have drawn off his anger in an instant. ‘I’ll say it again, Saxon sot-wit!’ but his voice was softer.

  ‘Magister, my deep apology, I was unwise and will do better in future. But I cannot help who my forebears were and it seems to me we Saxons have a right of conquest in this land, despite our own conquered position by the blamed Normans. We are both conquered peoples, you and I, and should honour our shared state.’

  Hywel went to him and cuffed him on the shoulder. ‘I suppose now you’re going to ask me a riddle just to drive home your superior Saxon conquering?’

  ‘I’ll do a trance for you if you wish?’

  ‘I can do my own trances, thank you all the same.’ He looked at his apprentice oddly. ‘These trances of yours, what do you do?’

  ‘I shut my eyes and call on my gods.’

  ‘Easy as that?’

  ‘Don’t you find it so when you call on your gods – or are you as godless as the Normans say?’

  ‘You’d better be calling on your godlings soon enough if I have any more cheek from you. One of these days you’ll seal your fate with that tongue of yours! Now, let’s get to work. Those lenses need polishing in the workshop but first I need to satisfy that pilgrim’s whim. You know what to do. Go on.’

  Jankin pulled a face but disappeared into the bushes on the other side of the hedge.

  Hildegard decided that now was time to make her presence known.

  Chapter Five

  The friar knew all about the knit-bone she wanted, that ‘concoction’ as Hubert called it and, smiling, suggested they go up to the drying shed where he would get some for her. She was burning to ask a question that would confirm the identity of the military fellow in the church but could think of no way of introducing the topic. Stifling her impatience she allowed him to conduct her to where he worked.

  It was a small, aromatic wooden hut filled with bundles of herbs in different states of preparation hanging from the beams. He measured some of the cure into a glass vial for her at once, saying,‘He’s an impatient fellow, your abbot. Nature will take her course.’

  ‘He knows that but imagines he can encourage her to hurry along when he demands it.’

  ‘No one can demand anything of Mother Nature. She has her own times and seasons and we poor mortals can do nought but measure, observe and acquiesce. You should remind your Abbot de Courcy that most people would relish the experience of lying at rest and being waited on.’

  ‘He longs to get back to his own abbey and see how it’s been wrecked in his absence.’

  ‘Let’s trust his prior and his cellarer were well-chosen.’ He handed her the vial after stoppering it with a piece of waxed linen.

  She bit her lip, wondering how on earth she could broach the question of Glyn Dwr. Then Friar Hywel offered her an opportunity himself.

  He said, ‘I have an elixir of cider made from our own apples here, domina, if you would care to try some? It’s just the thing on a scorching day like this.’

  Together they went to sit outside on a bench in the shade of a vine which someone had trained around several posts to allow for a kind of canopy against the glare of the sun. It was cooler under the green shade and in other circumstances would have been enchanting with the scent of rosemary and lavender saturating the air.

  ‘Is this sort of weather usual around here, brother?’ she began with a certain amount of caution.

  He shook his head.‘It only happens when the planets are in an appropriate alignment. It’s a difficult calculation to serve as prophecy. Not many astronomers risk trying to predict the weather. Tides, yes, especially here with its strange double tide because of its proximity of the island.’

  ‘It must be a great advantage to the merchants?’

  ‘It is. It allows them more time to load and unload their cargoes than at ports further along the coast. I’m surprised that the Cistercians at Netley have been rather slow to take advantage of it but then, they suspect any kind of systematic study of the natural world and probably fear that it cannot be relied on. They’re suspicious of my use of the astrolabe, some of them imagining it as an instrument only used by astrologers and not of honest seekers after facts.’ He leaned towards her. ‘Your abbot is interested in it, having traveled to the East, and he said you would be too.’

  ‘I’m interested in all things.’

  ‘He calls you Hildegard.’

  ‘So do most people who like to talk outside the usual run.’

  ‘Then we are Hywel and Hildegard?’

  Aware of a sudden devouring ambiguity in his manner, she said hurriedly, ‘Of course...but the ship-owner, Master John, seems keen to improve his trade overseas, or so I gather from what he told us. Surely he would never sneer at the use of an astrolabe to predict the tides?’

  ‘Quite so. He sees himself as another Ser Datini.’ He raised his eyebrows to gauge whether she was following him or not.

  ‘The merchant?’ When he nodded she said, ‘He commands most trading activities along the coast from Rome to Avignon. I heard about him when I was in Florence a few years ago.’

  ‘Just so. Whether our south coast will ever be as profitable as Datini’s along the Middle Sea is another matter as we are further from Venice and the east than those ports where he makes his fortune. And whether Master John will take full advantage of his position depends on more than a mere wish for material gain.’

  ‘What does it depend on?’

  He raised his head to look into her eyes. ‘On imponderables, as do most things in this life.’

  Now, she thought, now I’ll ask him about the stranger from last night. But he jerked up as if suddenly remembering something. ‘Where’s that riddling Saxon lad of mine? Jankin?’

  A scuffle in the rosemary hedge made him call again. ‘Is that you, Jankin? I know you’re there. Come out!’

  Grinning, with blue eyes dancing, the apprentice appeared. He was carrying a struggling blackbird with limed feet. ‘I caught her just as you shouted. You nearly scared her away with your racket.’

  ‘Well, give it here then tell our guest the riddle you tried on me and see if she gets it.’

  ‘I’ll keep the bird for a little while as she’s trembling with fright.’ He crooked his arm so the bird could rest there while he stroked its head with impressive gentleness. ‘My riddle, domina, is this: I have a bed but never sleep, I have a mouth but never eat, and I run but never walk, what am I?’

  He gave her a brilliant smile that disarmed her and almost made her forget the danger of Glyn Dwr’s possible proximity.

  He added, ‘You may have a little time to solve it, domina, as did the magister.

  ‘Don’t give away my secrets, boy. Entertain us. How old are you?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Eighty-seven?’

  ‘Mebbe thereabouts. How would I know?’

  ‘It’s the morning dew you wash in that makes you look about fifteen, is it?’

  ‘Could be.’

  ‘What’s the first thing you remember?’

  The boy’s face, recently mobile with humour, became still. Sensitive to the silence Hywel gave him a nudge with the toe of his boot. ‘Cat got your tongue?’

  He shook his head. Hywel turned to Hildegard. ‘He won’t swim with the others lads but sits on the bank like an old dame and watches them. I’m trying to winkle out the truth from him. See what he’s made of.’

  Turning back to the boy he asked, ‘Well, how do you explain it? Are you a witch in disguise, afraid of water?’

  ‘I wish I’d never told you.’ He had turned sulky and jutted his lower lip.

  ‘What? And have us wondering why you were frightened washing yourself last full moon?’

  ‘A big wave sweeping all away frightens me. It cam
e to me in a trance.’

  ‘And you with no ark at your command?’

  He shook his head and stared at the ground.

  ‘I think some things are private, brother Hywel. This may be one of them.’ Hildegard gave the boy a soft glance. He stuck one fist inside his tunic and gazed down at the blackbird.

  ‘How long has he been with you? I see you have probably not lost anything in the feeding of him.’

  ‘Skin and bone, true. Yet he eats more than the abbot’s stallion and the entire stable of brood mares together. I don’t know where it goes. Into the soles of his feet and down into the pit of hell, maybe.’

  ‘Magister, I am here and hearing. Am I not loyal for all your skimping of victuels?’

  ‘Not in the matter of a mouse you’re not.’

  A brief and sudden air of antagonism tainted their mood again and Hildegard broke in, ‘Back to your riddle, Jankin, might I hazard an answer now I’ve had time to think it over?’

  ‘What, then?’

  ‘Is it a river?’

  He gave a short, sharp smile. ‘Join the magister. He got it as well. I can see I’ll have to improve my skill if I’m to uphold my Saxon honour.’

  ‘Saxon honour? You mean your paltry victory at – ?’

  ‘It was enough to rout your useless Welsh Llewellyn and his cowards!’

  ‘You’ll pay for that remark if there’s any justice in the world.’

  ‘Which there is not as you keep telling me.’

  ‘We’ll have to pray harder then, won’t we?’ He ruffled Jankin’s flaxen hair. ‘I’m going to take the shears to this crop of wheat one of these days. See if you’re so pert when you look like a Welsh lad.’

  ‘You’ll have to catch me first!’

  ‘Here, before you go running off, rouse that blackbird snug in your arms and let’s fulfil the lady’s desire.’

  Jankin handed over the bird. It began to struggle at the change but Hywel stroked its head to keep it calm. ‘You may go, Saxon, where ere thou wilt. Return before Tierce. You can come into church and help make all right with the world by the power of your prayers.’

  ‘Is he an orphan?’ asked Hildegard after he left, charmed by the unlikely sense of equality existing between master and apprentice but at the same time impatient at being unable to find a suitable opportunity to broach the question of Glyn Dwr.

  Hywel, unaware of this, began to explain. ‘I found him on the streets of Southampton with a gang of child pick-pockets,’ he told her. ‘They had the audacity to imagine they could pick mine! I soon showed them otherwise. He was the only one to stand his ground and argue with me.’

  He turned to her, his penetrating eyes meeting hers with a physical shock. For a moment he was silent as if having forgotten what he was about to say. She felt a shiver pass through her. It was as if he was trying to read her mind, a handsome man with an aura of power despite his threadbare mendicant’s robe – but confident of his attraction, or uncertain of it? She could not tell.

  Abruptly, he picked up the thread of what he was telling her. ‘Imagine, Hildegard! In his view it was I who was the miscreant for carrying my pouch padlocked to my belt and displayed on my person! “Putting temptation in the way of hungry boys!” he claimed.’

  He turned to her again with his guileless smile, apparently devoid of any hidden motive. ‘What are we coming to when thieves reckon themselves to inhabit heaven’s realm above we poor, innocent, benighted victims? I decided he might as well have a chance to save his soul and work for me. He’s a quick learner and not to be bested in anything except in the matter of water and then he’s a babe-in-arms.’

  Friar Hywel’s smile showed that whatever thought had flashed through his mind when their eyes met a moment ago it was gone now. Instead an air of easeful amity had arisen between them. It encouraged her to venture her question at last. She took a breath.

  ‘Hywel,’ she began, cautiously using his name as they seemed to have moved quickly onto somewhat intimate terms, ‘a most wonderful tenor joined in our prayers just now. I haven’t seen him before. It made me wonder if he’s the rider who came in late last night?’

  He gave her a sharp glance. ‘What rider?’

  ‘A Welsh-speaking one.’

  His face became wooden and he made some play of wedging the blackbird more comfortably in the crook of one arm then holding up his cider and inspecting it with more assiduity than it appeared to warrant. He observed in an even tone, ‘There are many visitors to Netley Abbey...well-placed on Southampton Water as it is. Who can keep track of them all?’

  Determined not to be fobbed off, she replied, ‘I imagine one who could keep track would be the man who greeted him in Welsh Hywel.’

  The friar replaced the mug beside them on the bench and turned to her. ‘I have a task to accomplish for one of the pilgrim ladies. Would you excuse me?’

  His shout brought Jankin springing out of the bushes again. He stopped when he saw the blackbird held between Hywel’s hands. ‘Are you going to do it?’ When Hywel made no reply, he added, ‘I beg you, magister. In all your kindness, will you change your mind if I crawl on my hands and knees for a week?’

  Gripping the trembling body of the blackbird between his knees Hywel only grunted, ‘Do something useful and pass my knife.’

  Jankin reluctantly went inside the hut and returned with a long narrow-bladed knife. For a moment he held it blade outwards as if to ram it into something until he seemed to remember to turn it so that Hywel could grasp the hilt without harm. A look passed between them.

  The blackbird squirmed between the friar’s knees.

  Hildegard stared.

  Spreading one of its wings, he quickly snipped the pinion feathers then turned the bird around and snipped the corresponding one on its other wing. It took only seconds. The bird lay still. Even its black eyes, held in a suspension of terror, did not wink.

  The moment seemed fraught with deeper meaning, as if Hywel was telling her something without the need for words, something about Glyn Dwr? Was he illustrating the danger of asking questions?

  He thrust the bird towards Jankin.‘Now take it to her.’

  As he reached out the friar changed his mind. ‘No, on second thoughts bid the dame fetch it herself. If she gets possession of it she may forget that it needs paying for, both the bird itself and the remedy she requested.’

  The boy went out and Hywel gave Hildegard a long look. Nothing was said.

  She picked up the vial of knit-bone and was about to leave when he muttered, ‘It felt no pain. There are no means of feeling pain in a bird’s pinions.’

  ‘But it cannot fly. How do we know it does not feel another kind of pain at being turned into a creature of earth instead of air?’

  He did not answer directly. Instead he got to his feet with the blackbird lying quietly in the crook of his arm and handed it to her. ‘Stay a while. I may need your protection. It will be a kindness you may believe I do not deserve.’

  She did not have long to find out what he meant. There was a commotion on the path, a trilling call, ‘Magister? Magister? Your boy has found me!’

  Hildegard was inside the hut pouring a drop of water into a dish to give to the bird, and Delith did not see her from outside. She had her little maid, Lucie, at her heels. Both of them followed Jankin under the canopy of vines. He stood to one side, his eyes wide-open, staring at the maid. Delith pushed her way between them.

  ‘My dear magister, how kind of you, I am grateful beyond words.’Her high voice became more intimate. ‘Perhaps there’s a way I may show my gratitude?’ She paused then added, ‘without the gross exchange of coin between us?’

  ‘Payment in coin for the procuring of the bird and its cure will suffice, widow.’

  ‘Come now.’ Her tone became a purr. ‘We all know how friars prefer to be paid.’

  ‘Do we, indeed?’

  At that point, if she had any sense, she would have stopped there, but she had none and therefore continued in her
folly. Hildegard, in astonished immobility, glanced out of the hut in time to see her nudge him familiarly with one elbow. ‘You are but a man. And, when it comes to it, men are all the same.’

  ‘When it comes to it, widow, I shall endeavour to demonstrate another point of view.’With his handsome face turned to wood, he moved towards the hut.

  Catching sight of Hildegard standing inside with the blackbird in her arms, Delith let out a little scream of surprise.

  ‘Here’s your blackbird.’ Hildegard held out the bird to forestall any further comment.

  Frowning for a moment, Delith snatched the bird and then made a great show of pressing it to her cheek despite its struggles to escape, murmuring nonsense about its singing for her alone and how she would love it forever.

  ‘That will be two pence, widow,’ said Hywel firmly, ‘and then our business is concluded.’

  The air seemed to be burning up when she stepped out from under the vines. Hywel walked with her between the banks of herbs towards the precinct. She felt dizzy with the heat and the powerful scent of the blossoms but not too much so to fail to notice the poison plants down the secret paths and in the dark nooks and enclosed areas so carefully tended. Hywel was silent and as enigmatic as she had begun to observe. He left her with a brief nod of his head when they came to the stone archway into the garth.

  The sun was continuing in its state of serene brilliance. It beat down out of a molten sky. Cloister Garth itself was now beginning to serve the function of a village green. People were talking of rain with a fervour never heard before, dragging themselves from one patch of shade to another as the sun moved. The monks pulled up their hoods against the battering of its rays and then had to push them down again because of the heat engendered by the woolen fabric. The novices droned somniferously at their lessons without reproof. The little group of pilgrims who had found shade of the cloisters were half-asleep and when the bell sounded for Tierce no-one moved.

  Lissa and Simon were propped back to back as if finding it cooler that way. Delith fanned herself with the edge of her head-scarf while trying to train the bird to sit on her shoulder and Master John, someone remarked, was wisely out on the river. The two sisters were no-one knew where and the silent yellowish fellow was still staring at the pages of his book but with a stillness that suggested that he had not the strength to trail his eyes across the page.