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

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The Alchemist of Netley Abbey: Eighth in the Hildegard of Meaux medieval mystery series Page 20

by Cassandra Clark


  ‘If it gets out that I’m learning to read the monks will throw me out... ’

  Jankin punched him lightly on the chest. ‘It won’t get out, you sot wit. I won’t tell and I know domina Hildegard won’t. You won’t, will you, domina?’ He turned to her.

  ‘I think I’ve done what I can to encourage you,’ she replied to Alaric, ‘so I would be equally to blame if anyone wants to challenge us. But back to my question. Why is such a book causing the friar so much distress? The expense will be borne by the abbey here as I assume it’s under their direction that he sent for it – ’

  ‘He told me it held the rest of the instructions for his great experiment.’

  ‘And what is that?’

  Jankin looked uncomfortable. ‘I can tell you, it’s nothing to do with measuring stars or predicting the tides. It’s something darker – ’

  ‘What?’ demanded Alaric. ‘You didn’t mention this before.’

  Jankin rubbed his nose.‘I don’t really know. I thought it was something to do with this little creature,’ he brought out his mouse from inside the pouch on his belt. ‘I don’t like to think what he was planning to do to him.’

  Alaric stared at the ground. ‘It’s a good thing it’s lost then.’ Gloom seemed to settle over him. ‘I haven’t got long,’ he muttered when the silence lengthened. ‘Can we get on with my lesson? I’ve got to attend Mistress Beata soon and she’s insisting I read to her to see how far I’ve got.’

  Mid-day came and went. The sun was a searing flame over the parched land. No birds flew. The lay-brothers straggled in from the granges complaining that the cows were refusing to give milk and the sheep were having to grub up weeds now the grass had turned sere.

  The fishermen were sitting under their upturned boats for shade, complaining about the absence of fish. The kitcheners sat outside on a bench in the garth with their sleeves rolled up, sweating and complaining about the heat of the ovens.

  All the doors and windows of the abbey stood open. Not a breath of air stirred the smallest leaf on any of the trees.

  Out on the burning surface of the water the St Marie, blackened by the fire, wallowed on her mooring and now and then a figure moved slowly about the deck, as the skeleton crew shifted position under the shadow of the half-raised sail. It hung in shreds, propped against the burned pole of the main mast.

  Even the boys who had previously found refuge in cold water swimming seemed too listless to do more than stand waist deep in the sluggish tide with tunics wound on their heads like capuchons to ward off the sun.

  Hildegard sat beside Hubert in the cool of the infirmary while at the far end of the hall the only movement came from Alaric as he demonstrated his skill in juggling. The faint, frail, hoarse laughter of Mistress Beata came to them now and then. ‘You are a boy,’ they heard her exclaim when he suggested she try.

  Eventually even Alaric was exhausted and flopped down on a stool beside her bed and when they both quickly glanced over towards Hubert and Hildegard as Beata reached for a book they, without speaking, pretended not to have seen.

  Hubert murmured, ‘She’s breaking the rules. He’s getting on at a fast rate though, more strength to him.’

  ‘Reading?’ Hildegard nodded. ‘I caught him having a lesson from Jankin earlier.’ She stretched and yawned. ‘I think I’ll have to go and lie down, Hubert. Catch up on some sleep. And still no sight of Delith.’

  ‘Gregory says he’s searched everywhere. She must have left.’

  ‘Left the abbey?’

  ‘And changed her mind about a pilgrimage.’

  ‘I wonder if she’s abandoned Lucie then? Oh dear. I feared this might happen. We must do something for that girl.’

  ‘Do you think Delith’s gone back to continue her trade in Hampton?’

  ‘She didn’t sound as if she wanted to do that. And why would she leave her maid behind?’

  Hubert shuffled into a more comfortable position. ‘I wish you could lie next to me, Hildi.’

  She bent to kiss him on the cheek. ‘I’m sorry Hywel wasn’t there to supply a calming elixir for you. I’ll try him again later.’

  Hubert held onto her hand and then onto her fingers as she slowly withdrew until only their fingertips were touching. Then they parted.

  It was disturbing to hear Hubert call her ‘Hildi.’ It was the favourite shortening of her name that Rivera, of cherished memory, had given her. Hildi, he would murmur, Hildi...while for such a short time all vows except to each other had been set aside.

  Rivera had been one of the duke of Lancaster’s spies when they first met, the duke’s network in London and elsewhere a pervasive and dangerous presence. The duke, John of Gaunt, had even had a man who was seeking sanctuary in France assassinated and no doubt he was not the only one. It was a Welshman, Owain Lawgoch, last in the royal line of Gwynedd, and no-one would ever have known that the duke, John of Gaunt, was at the back of it if it hadn’t turned out to be a botched job. The assassin had failed to hide his involvement and his name, John Lamb, had quickly gone down in the French chronicles at the scandal of an English duke, paying for the murder of a man seeking refuge in their sovereign territory.

  Her thoughts were led on inevitably to Gaunt’s disappointment that he had not been made regent on the ten-year old King Richard’s accession to the throne. It had happened ten years ago now and was acquiring the aura of an ancient tale told round a winter fireside, except for the fact that King Richard, now a handsome twenty-year-old and humiliated by the successors to Gaunt’s ambition, still reigned under the constant threat of deposition.

  Such times, she thought as she lay on her bed and felt her eyes close. These days the beleaguered king was threatened by another of his ambitious uncles who imagined he had a divine right to the throne: Woodstock, the duke of Gloucester. He had strong allies in the Arundel brothers, one a commander of a powerful personal army and Admiral of the Southern Fleet, and the other, his brother, a highly-placed churchman with ambitions of his own to become Archbishop of Canterbury.

  It is as Egbert suggested, her thoughts drifted: greed and ambition direct all.

  She must have slept. The next thing she knew was that someone was banging loudly on her door. Sliding naked off the bed she went towards it and pressed her lips against the crack. ‘Who’s there?’

  ‘Open up, domina!’ It was the voice of a stranger.

  Chapter Six

  ‘What is it?’ she demanded, reaching for her shift.

  ‘A missive for Friar Hywel. Them at the gatehouse said you might take it.’

  ‘Leave it then. Outside the door. They have paid you?’

  ‘They have.’

  ‘Then your job is done.’

  She heard a grunt followed by the sound of heavy footsteps retreating down the length of the corridor. Evidently he had not been informed of the little back stair close by.

  When she was sure he had left she opened the door a crack. A rolled parchment lay upon the threshold. Muddled by her dreams her heart was still thumping. Reaching out she snatched it up and retreated into her chamber and locked the door again.

  It was addressed to Friar Hywel. It was sealed. She could not break a seal. Letting it drop onto the bed she decided she would take it to him at Nones, if he bothered to attend, or after that, to his workshop.

  Few guests attended the mid-afternoon Office. Simon, leaning on his stick and Lissa in a flimsy light-green gown, were present with a few new faces all now waiting for a replacement ship to take them to France. The yellowish, bookish, elderly fellow was there of course. He never missed a single service and always sat in the same place at the back near the door where there was a stone ledge for him to sit on.

  No sign of Hywel.

  No sign of Delith.

  Afterwards Hildegard sought the friar in his workshop. He was busy over some distilling when she entered. Liquid bubbled in a retort over a small flame and she made some remark about his dedication, to risk over-heating himself on such a day.
>
  He looked startled. ‘Is it hotter than usual, do you think?’

  ‘Everyone seems to think so, not only me.’ She still felt bleery-eyed after her sleep. ‘I have something for you, brother.’ She held out the roll. ‘The messenger was directed to bring it to me as he could not find you.’

  Hywel sighed. ‘I was over on board the devil ship. Exorcising.’ He took the parchment. ‘This is kind.’ He nodded his thanks and there and then broke the seal. Obviously he was not expecting anything private. Skimming the lines he glanced up. ‘This is news that may please you. Our mutual friend has reached Winchester unharmed.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it.’

  He handed it to her. ‘Read it. He thanks you as well. I wonder what he’ll say when he hears how those three superstitious fools were routed?’ He chuckled. ‘He knows as well as we do that superstition is no stop to the ability to wield a sword.’

  As he seemed to have had his good humour restored after his argument with Master John she risked a question. ‘And your loss, Hywel. Was it a mistake? Has your book been found?’

  He gave a resigned shrug.

  ‘If it was on board – in a wooden casket...’ she began.

  His glance was sharp. ‘You and your brother monks seem to have taken an interest in the matter...have they come up with any ideas?’

  ‘They have one suspect in view,’ she admitted.

  ‘Who? Master John? I don’t think so. It could ruin him if it gets out that he allows thieves to ransack his ship.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking of him...’

  ‘Who then? That woman? The one with only one reason for being on board?’ He dismissed the idea. ‘A plain wooden casket isn’t likely to have interested her...’

  ‘Unless she imagined it contained jewels?’

  Her suggestion hit home because Hywel gave a startled glance then tried to cover it up by moving things about on the work bench. Hildegard watched him, wondering what that shocked glance meant. Was he smuggling something else into the port?

  ‘Of course,’ he was saying, having quickly regained his composure, ‘she would not know it was a mere book. She might have taken it, the key in the lock perhaps, and seeing what it was decided to take it anyway...‘

  ‘She did not have anything like a book in her possession when I saw her after coming ashore. She was too frightened by the fire and everything else to think of concealing anything.’

  ‘But the boat, she could have hidden something in that?’

  ‘Then someone would quickly have found it’

  ‘Who brought her ashore?’

  ‘The bo’sun and another crewmember.’

  ‘Were they in on it, the three of them?’

  ‘But why a book? Would they know how to dispose of it to turn a profit?’

  Hywel’s face was wood. ‘Where is that woman? I’ll drag the truth from her. And the others. They’ll all have their price.’

  ‘The two crew members volunteered to go back on board to keep their master company,’ she told him.

  ‘First the woman, then a trip out to the St Marie. Come with me?’

  Unsure what she was letting herself in for Hildegard agreed. Anything was better than lying around, drugged by the heat, with her thoughts flying wildly around memories better left alone.

  It took only minutes for Hywel to set everything to the necessary levels until he returned then he called for Jankin and told him not to let anything disturb the equiment nor let the flame go out in its saucer of oil and then they left.

  ‘I should tell you, Hywel, Gregory has been looking for Delith all day and cannot find her. You saw Egbert and I come into the sacristy on the same trail.’

  ‘That’s what you were doing? You had Master John worried.’

  As they passed the row of lounging kitcheners one of them called, ‘We cannot work inside at present. Don’t blame us!’

  ‘What’s the problem?’ Hywel asked.

  ‘If you can rid us of a hobgoblin, brother, we promise you extra dole at compline.’

  Irritated Hywel said, ‘What are you talking about? Hobgoblins? What are you bleating about, man?’

  Used to his shortness of temper the kitcheners jeered and explained, ‘The ovens are too hot but worse, the sluice is blocked. We cannot shift it, whatever it is. We’re going to have to borrow a very small lad and push him down to sort it out if they can’t fix it further up-stream.’

  ‘That’s your concern, not mine. Just make sure we’ve got something to eat tonight.’ Hywel made to walk on but threw back over his shoulder, ‘Or find a hobgoblin and feed him on a toad by the light of the full moon!’ Chuckling grimly to himself, he accompanied Hildegard to the gatehouse, saying, ‘They probably will do, too. They believe everything they’re told.’

  When they reached the strand it was difficult to persuade any of the fishermen to stir themselves. Eventually one of them said, ‘you can take my boat on condition you make good any damage or loss.’

  ‘Done,’ agreed Hywel. ‘We’re quite capable of rowing across there ourselves without wrecking it.’

  He handed Hildegard inside and each took an oar. The sun was blazing down and away from the shore the water reflected it back more powerfully than ever. Half-blinded by the dazzle they were glad when they could soon drift in under the shadow of the ship. A call from Hywel brought a head peering over the side.

  ‘What? You again?’

  ‘Just making sure the devil has taken himself off for good.’ Hywel banged on the side. ‘Let us up, there’s a good fellow. We have to talk to you and your master.’

  Without replying, the man sent a rope ladder snaking down and they climbed aboard.

  In the shadow cast by the burned and blackened sail the men had rigged up a sort of shelter and were sitting underneath, drinking, of course, and playing a game involving cards decorated with arcane symbols. A smell of burning hung in the air.

  ‘Get those in the Middle Sea?’ asked Hywel.

  ‘We did. You yourself play?’ one of them asked not taking his eyes from the cards in his big paws.

  ‘I do but today my thoughts are on other matters.’

  ‘This book you’ve lost?’

  ‘Lost is not the word I would use. It was stolen. It was stolen from this very ship and I want to know who stole it and why.’

  ‘The latter might be the easiest part of your quest, friar. If it was a costly item, it was no doubt worth selling on.’

  ‘Not all that costly,’ Hywel told him. ‘That’s what’s so puzzling. True, it was in its own special box and, true, it was locked, but I’m told the key was in the lock which surely demonstrates that the contents were not worth much.’

  The ship man came up. ‘But worth you worrying about, eh? Well, I’ve got a clearer idea of who was where on the night, brother, and I can tell you nobody else went below deck after the monk came on board. We were all up here, me amidships, the rest in the bows – ’

  ‘Except for the woman and her marks, two of ‘em you told us.’

  ‘I was one,’ a card-player announced. ‘We never went below. It was stifling. Why should we?’

  ‘And the other?’

  ‘That’s me. I can vouch for what he says,’ his partner announced. ‘I can tell you, we hadn’t got the cargo on our minds at that point.’

  ‘And afterwards?’

  They glanced at each other. ‘Then the lightning struck?’

  ‘That’s about it. And it was all hands to the ship.’

  ‘I can vouch for that as well,’ the ship man interrupted. ‘Screaming and shouting like a lot of girls they were. Scared sh – ’ he glanced at Hildegard, corrected himself and said, ‘scared witless and not happy with the situation, not happy at all.’

  ‘Meanwhile,’ Hildegard said, as she had been obliquely invited into the conversation, ‘the monk was down below, by himself and... ’

  ‘Going through our cargo,’ finished the ship man.

  It seemed to Hildegard that they were all being ve
ry slow.

  Thrusting aside any suspicions about Alaric’s involvement, if no-one had gone down with the monk- and they all seemed certain of that, then it must have been something in the cargo that had poisoned Brother Martin. Nobody was guilty. It was a result of his own activity in opening the casket.

  Hywel must have come to the same conclusion. ‘You’ve been helpful. This is the first time I’ve heard the three of you together with a story that makes sense. We must grope our way further into the labyrinth in order to find the thief, it seems.’ He got up to go, turning to Hildegard, ‘Shall we?’

  On the way back, pulling equally on an oar apiece as before, they were mostly silent. Voices carry over water. She was sure Hywel was aware of that too because as the boat scraped back onto the shingle he said, ‘Come to my workshop?’

  He pushed a stool towards her before stretching out in his own wooden chair.‘They looked to me like men telling the truth.’

  ‘Given that they might well be under suspicion of murder, I too thought they looked as if they had nothing to hide.’

  Something so heinous came to mind that she was reluctant to put it into words but Hywel suggested it first, with a narrowing of his mouth.

  ‘Poison in the casket containing the book? We should have thought of that straightaway. The coroner accidentally hinted as much.’ He looked puzzled. ‘Was I the intended victim, or was it a mere safeguard in case anyone tried to break into it without authority?’

  ‘Only you know the nature of the person who sent it to you.’

  ‘Not that then. A safeguard.’

  ‘How would you have opened the casket if you had received it in the normal way?’

  ‘I would have brought it ashore and taken it to the scriptorium where one of the monks would have...yes, he would have probably used his page turners on it...even so he would have had to open the lid first.’

  ‘Were there no instructions with it? No warning?’

  ‘There may have been. The fire sent everything into chaos. Maybe there is such a document but if so it hasn’t turned up.’

 

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