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 21

by Cassandra Clark


  ‘So Delith had nothing to do with it after all.’

  A sharp glance from under his finely arched brows made her exclaim, ‘What, you think she has?’

  ‘This is my understanding so far, Hildegard. Brother Martin, for reasons probably known only to Abbot Philip, hurried out to the ship before the storm broke in order to take the book off – or maybe, even, anything else he could get his hands on?’

  ‘But more likely under instruction as you suggest...?’ She was thinking about the abbot’s trust in Martin and the dire need for funds to pay off his protectors. Books fetch a good price when they find the right buyer. Maybe Philip had such a buyer in mind and was desperate to get his hands on the book without delay. Impatient, she decided.

  ‘When Martin saw the box with the key,’ Hywel continued, ‘he opened it and pouf! Out came the poison and he died for his pains. A little later, perhaps while her clients were dealing with the fire, Delith, quite coolly, went below, saw Martin lying dead, then noticed the opened casket and the book either inside or beside it, stole the item and made her escape.’

  ‘But she did not have it with her when she reached the beach.’

  ‘That is a stumbling block, ‘ he admitted. ‘What then?’

  ‘Someone else stole it.’

  ‘One of the crew?’

  ‘A little later the cog was swarming with helpers trying to put out the fire, helping to get men off to safety. And – ’ she stopped herself in time. She could not mention Alaric. There was simply no reason to drag him into it. Hywel did not notice here hesitation because he was swearing to tear the thief limb from limb when he found him.

  ‘Shall we leave it there for now?’ she soothed. ‘I don’t see how Delith could avoid suffering the same fate as Brother Martin if what you say is true.’

  ‘There are subtle devices,’ he muttered. ‘And don’t forget it was pouring with rain. Once released any poison would have been washed away in that deluge.’

  ‘Sometimes a problem resolves itself in our minds without our effort. Let’s leave it awhile.’

  He nodded. Turning he said to Jankin still attending the distillation of herbs, ‘How’s it going, Saxon? Have you ruined my elixir with your clumsy Saxon hands?’

  ‘I wouldn’t imagine so, friar, my revered master. Look!’ he wafted both of his hands in the air, ‘As delicate and dexterous as any belonging to a maiden.’

  ‘If that’s the case I’ll get you sewing for me. You can stitch me a new habit with some opus anglicanum all over it.’

  ‘That would be my pleasure, dread magister, as it is a Saxon skill and will no doubt come easily to me. I will do so if you will guarantee to wear it afterwards?’

  ‘And be a laughing stock everywhere I went with your nonsense spells all over it? I might practice my Welsh wizard’s skill in having you whipped for insolence if you don’t get on and fetch the domina and me something to eat.’

  ‘Can’t.’

  ‘What do you mean, can’t?’

  ‘They’re still running around trying to unblock their sluice. No victuals until after vespers. Earliest.’

  ‘This is Netley Abbey. One of the foremost Cistercian houses on the south coast. Second only to its motherhouse at Beaulieu. I should have gone there,’ he added. ‘They would know how to treat their alchemists.’

  The antiphon sounded weak without the added richness of Glyn Dwr’s voice. Hildegard gave silent praise, nevertheless, that he had reached the safe staging post of Winchester and not been picked up by any of Arundel’s mercenaries on the way. The three who remained here were jostling at the back of the church looking self-conscious to be attending Vespers. They had clearly not yet managed to obtain the goods – and tribute? – they had been sent to collect and looked as if they were getting bored with having to fill in time.

  Master John was standing close to the altar in an attitude of solemn piety. The monks behind the screen sang out and the pilgrims, a more respectable number in this, the cool of the evening, responded in their way.

  Afterwards it was to be hoped she could get a chance to talk to Egbert and find out if Gregory had managed to question Delith. She glanced round again. Still no sign of her.

  She lowered her eye lids while she thought things over. One image would not leave her. Back again it came. It was of Alaric, climbing hand over hand up the anchor chain to be first on board after the lightning struck. He would well imagine that a book would be a useful thing to obtain.

  His honest, fair features swam before her. Honest? Was he? It was easy to be taken in by someone’s looks. She was always in danger of doing that. The merchant, for instance, John of Nottingham, if that was who he really was, made her hackles rise, simply because he was inclined to bluster and was red-faced, over-confident, never visited his ailing wife, and had thoughts, it seemed, almost entirely focused on profit.But what was he really like? Maybe in his heart he was generous to a fault.

  She thought the way she did about Alaric, simply because he was a youth full of fun and vitality with a beguiling and innocent hope for the future, and looked fair and fine, and seemed innocent of all wrong – appearance versus reality, and yet another matter that might be discussed through the endless days and nights of eternity.

  She noticed that everyone had risen from their knees and she hurriedly followed suit, and after the prior’s blessing, drifted outside, still deep in thought.

  A group had gathered in the porch at the west door and were talking of nothing but the lateness of their supper. ‘It’s most unusual,’ one of the newcomers was saying. ‘I often stay here when I’m traveling in the region. Can’t fault the hospitality at Netley. But now?’

  Murmurs followed from those who had experienced similar occasions and were non-plussed by this sudden departure from custom.A move was made to enter the refectory and wait there until someone should bring them something to eat.

  They were not the only ones to be confused by a change of routine.

  ‘Now my best skillet’s gone!’ one of the kitcheners was ranting in the kitchen doorway as the guests drifted past. ‘What’s going on round here? Are we plagued by Hob and his goblins? Who’s at the bottom of it?Out with them! Let’s get back to normal!’

  He stopped when he noticed the guests looking in with astonished faces and eyed them back with suspicion writ large over his features. ‘And a wadge of pig fat’s gone but that’s nothing to the skillet,’ he added. Scratching his head after failing to pick out the thief from among the suspiciously innocent-looking guests, he went back into his kitchen and a few shouts and a crash followed. A defiant-looking little lad of no more than ten appeared.

  ‘It’s not fair,’ he was shouting to someone inside. ‘Why me? It’s not my fault!’

  ’Nothing’s every your fault, Edwin, and this time you’re right. But, you see, it’s not a punishment to make you our saviour, is it?’

  The boy scowled and allowed an older youth to take him by the scruff of the neck and drag him back inside.

  Hildegard poked her head round the kitchen door. ‘Is it anything we can help you with? We’re not helpless out here, you know.’

  ‘Would you do me a favour, domina?’ The head kitchener came bustling forward. ‘Can you take these platters out to put in front of that lot before they tear the place apart? My lads are having a go at this blockage so I’m a bit short- handed. We’re sending little Edwin down as he’s the only one small enough to be able to wriggle his way through.’ Then he paused. ‘But I can’t ask you to do a menial task like this. What am I thinking? I beg forgiveness, domina. We’re at sixes and sevens here.’ He began to bow and scrape.

  ‘Don’t be foolish, master. It’s no problem.’ She took some of the bowls from his bench before he could whisk them away, piled them up one on top of the other and took them out to the waiting guests when they were soon being passed swiftly down the length of the trestles. Deciding to go back to fetch the jugs of wine and water she returned to the kitchens.

  ‘They�
�re happier now but will be happier still with some of your good ale and wine in front of them,’ she told him.

  She glanced over towards the sluice that ran down one side of the kitchens. Usually water flowed in a stream that passed underneath the abbey walls and on into the kitchen and from there out again towards the privies where it washed out lower down the slope on which the abbey was built, finishing in the waters of the estuary. It was an ingenious arrangement and made good use of the natural lie of the land. Now, though, the sluice into the kitchen was dry because of a blockage.

  ‘Is that poor little lad being forced down into the pipe to clear it?’ she asked.

  ‘We others’ve tried. Alaric was down there not long ago but skinny though he is, he’s too wide in the shoulder to get into the pipe.’

  Alaric, indeed, was standing nearby looking exceedingly white-faced.

  ‘I said you were starting in the wrong place,’ an older kitchener complained.

  Hildegard went over to him. ‘Alaric, are you all right?’

  He was wet through and his tunic was bunched up making him look mis-shapen. ‘Nobody knows what’s down there,’ he said abruptly. He swiveled on his heel and walked off into the garth as soon as the kitchener’s back was turned.

  Deeming it none of her concern, she picked up a couple of full jugs and took them through. The guests looked happier now, scooping up a mash of beans from slabs of freshly-baked flat bread, sharing two by two, just as in any lord’s hall. Conversation was beginning to start up again and Hildegard went to sit near Egbert and Gregory who had just come in and found places among the usual guests.

  ‘Did you find Delith?’ she asked Gregory as she climbed onto the bench beside him.

  He shook his head. ‘Not sight nor sign. She must have left.’

  Lissa leaned across. ‘I took the opportunity to have a look for her things where she keeps them under her bed. They were still there. If she has left she hasn’t taken a stitch with her. Poor Lucie,’ she added, ‘she doesn’t know what to do.’ She turned to Master John who was sitting at her side, either by chance or design. ‘What do you make of it, John? Simon thinks she’s found someone she knows and has gone off walking, forgetting the time.’

  ‘I know you women once you get to talking,’ her husband, on her other side, broke in. ‘You’re fretting for nothing, wife.’

  ‘You don’t think it’s for nothing, do you, John?’

  ‘I’m sure I haven’t given it any thought until now, mistress Alicia.’ He bowed his head in a meaningful manner that made Lissa flutter. ‘To tell you the truth, I’m rather relieved she’s taken herself off,’ he continued more intimately. ‘I found her attention somewhat unwelcome.’ He floated his fingers over the back of her hand and a look passed between them. Simon, meanwhile, was chewing on his bread and moving lumps of food around his mouth with a complaint about his teeth.

  Gregory poured more wine then passed the jug along. Lowering his head he murmured quietly enough for only Hildegard and Egbert to hear, ‘We have three people searching for a book for which a man has died.’ His voice was pitched so low that Hildegard had to lean in closer. ‘First,’ he continued, ‘is the abbot. May we assume his purchase of the book was made in the expectation that at some time he might exchange it at sufficient profit to pay off his protectors? He will not want to lose it.’

  ‘Assuming he has a keen purchaser in mind.’ Egbert echoed what Hildegard had been thinking. She recalled Mistress Sweet’s opinion that every object has a buyer.

  ‘Quite so,’ agreed Gregory. ‘Second, the merchant, our friend John, is likely to lose whatever reputation he has if a thief is known to have been making free on one of his ships. He will also have to make good the loss from his own coffers. So he will not want to lose it either. And third, we have our brother the friar at whose request, presumably, the book was brought in. He will want it for who knows what magical and forbidden purposes of his own.’

  ‘And someone must have known its value to them all and decided to get in first.’ Egbert folded his arms. ‘He’s our man.’

  ‘And that would include?’

  Gregory answered Hildegard’s question with one of his own. ‘The prior, the friar’s apprentice, and whoever Master John takes into his confidence?’

  ‘Certainly few other people would be interested in a book,’ Egbert observed with a shrug, ‘should they even be able to read one if they happened to find one in their hands. But why do you include the prior?’

  ‘No real reason beyond the fact that he’s jealous about being passed over as abbot and Philip has been put in over his head. I admit it’s no evidence whatever.’

  ‘Hywel’s apprentice wasn’t near the cog that night,’ Hildegard reminded. ‘We can forget him. He’s frightened of water. He stayed firmly on the beach. I know because I kept bumping into him.’

  ‘Thus leaving the prior, unlikely, and the merchant’s intimate, if he has one.’

  ‘And what if Brother Martin wasn’t working alone? He may himself have had an ally,’ Egbert suggested, frowning at the untold complexities that suddenly appeared.

  ‘But why would an ally take it?’ Hildegard objected.

  ‘Maybe he wished to keep all the profit when it was sold on? Or,’ he added, ‘maybe he had no wish to share the knowledge it contained, if that was the purpose for which he stole it?’

  ‘They would need the first book as well, Hywel says. He can’t get any further on with his so-called Magnum Opus, whatever that is, until he has both books. That would go for anybody else.’

  ‘Unless, instead of using the knowledge they contained, they wished to destroy it?’

  ‘A fanatic. Plenty of those about these days’

  ‘Is the first book still within Hywel’s keeping?’

  Hildegard widened her eyes. ‘Do you know, I don’t think he’s mentioned it.’ She got up and then sat down again. ‘I can’t ask him now. He’s sitting at the trestle over there with half-a-dozen pilgrims. Let’s wait until he’s finished.’

  ‘No fish pie, tonight! Sluice is bust.’ A burly lay-brother staggered in with a board piled high with pastries. ‘The kitchener sends his deepest apologies and begs you receive these for your delight instead.’

  ‘I told you they always see you well at Netley,’ one of the newer guests affirmed. Several hands reached out and, evidently finding the pastries as delightful as the head kitchener hoped, recommended them to their more cautious neighbours. A discussion of the fish sluice opened up. It was a device, someone explained, that shut off the stream that ran along the kitchen to trap the fish so that all the cooks had to do was reach down and pull them out, place on a griddle and serve. ‘Fresh fish is always one of the delights at Netley,’ the same guest announced.

  Hildegard got up. ‘If I may take one for later?’ She stuffed a pastry into her sleeve and whispered to her two companions that she would be back, and quickly left the refectory.

  The reason for her sudden exit was Hywel.Before the lay-brother came in with his largesse the friar was already on his way out. She followed him across the garth. It was still unfeasibly hot and clammy and now, late in the evening, long shadows filled the crevices between the buildings. She caught up with him just before he disappeared into his workshop.

  ‘Hywel,’ she called, making him stop. ‘I saw you leave just now and need to ask you something.’

  His face was a pale wedge in the twilight but just then the moon came sailing out from behind a cloud and revealed it with great clarity leaving only his eyes in shadow. He bowed his head, plunging his face briefly into darkness.

  ‘Domina...Hildegard...what is it?’ He lifted his head and the moon shone full on his face again.

  ‘Do you still have the first book for which the lost one is the second volume?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Will the second one make sense to anyone who does not have the first?’

  ‘I see...’ he smiled, narrow-faced, shrewd. ‘I can assure you no-one in England w
ill be able to make use of it.’

  ‘So why do you think it was stolen?’

  ‘An opportunistic theft? Someone in a hurry, in all the panic of the burning ship, snatched the book as the first thing they saw that could be sold for profit. Such are men and women, driven by greed for no other reason than its own sake. Why? Do you have news likely to refute my theory?’

  She shook her head and he made as if to take his leave and she did not stop him.

  Not for one minute did she believe him. His attitude of calm did not convince. Moonlight revealed every nuance in his expression.

  He was a man in a rage. It must be about more than a book. He felt outwitted by someone he despised. He was bent on revenge. But he would stay his hand only after he had retrieved the object of his desire. And for that reason he was treading with great care and a show of indifference.

  Chapter Seven

  When she returned to the refectory she simply told the monks that Hywel still had the first volume in his possession.

  ‘He said the second one would make no sense -’ she corrected herself, ‘He said it would be no use to anyone in England.’

  ‘Does that lead us to the prior then? He would scarcely be expected to want the book for its alleged magical uses but Abbot Philip would certainly confide in him on the value of it in raising funds to pay off their protectors Out of malice the prior might have thought to use it against the usurper of his coveted honour?’

  ‘Are you suggesting that he sent Brother Martin to get it before it could go through the process of being unloaded and marked off on the inventory?’ Egbert asked.

  They looked at each other but nobody had anything useful to add.

  ‘And Master John?’ Hildegard glanced across to where he was now sitting slightly aslant on the bench to be face to face with Lissa. Simon, on her other side, was slumped, apparently asleep after his repast.

  A few phrases in John’s penetrating voice floated over to them through the hubbub of satisfied diners. ‘...not long now...I can promise you...’ and other remarks, lost under the noise.

 

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