Murder at Meaux

by Cassandra Clark

  Now Roger was wrenching one of his gauntlets from his belt and with a large gesture threw it at Sir Bernard’s feet.

  He, not slow, did the same with one of his own gauntlets. The two men, neither in the peak of fitness, weighed their chances as men will, both gauntlets on the floor between them in clear challenge. There could be no backing out.

  Hildegard glanced round to see if there was anyone with enough stature to mediate. There was no-one.

  Roger, in a voice hoarse with rage, said, ‘Let you attend after prime tomorrow in the abbey foregate.’

  He sat down again, beckoned for a servant to pour more wine, then turned his back on Sir Bernard.

  Hildegard closed her eyes. Long gone were the days when Roger would ever have dreamed of turning his back on an enemy.

  Sir Bernard, however, as if having proved a point, strolled confidently back to his place at table where Avis, looking proud, squeezed his arm in encouragement.

  ‘So that’s that,’ murmured one of the kitcheners standing beside her. ‘Hey ho the morrow.’

  ‘I suppose someone will inform the abbot?’

  ‘I’ll make sure they do.’

  With a nod he went back into the kitchen and before resuming his work had a brief word with his master. A moment later the deputy hurriedly left the kitchen.

  4

  ‘More problems for Hubert to solve,’ she told Agnetha with a grim face when she returned from her afternoon penance. ‘Roger is far too experienced to be involving himself in an official brawl, because that’s how it’s going to turn out. Neither man looks capable of lifting a sword, let alone wielding one to any effect. It grieves me to say it but both of them are too old to behave like young hot-heads.’

  Agnetha gave a huge sigh. ‘Men,’ was all she would say.

  Word soon spread about the impending challenge. It became such a topic that the arrival of two figures on what were obviously hired horses, and not the best, went unnoticed except by the nuns watching the bridge.

  ‘Who are these two?’ Sister Emma asked. ‘I haven’t seen them before.’

  Hildegard joined her but was too late to catch more than a glimpse of their backs as they rode on under the gatehouse onto the garth.

  ‘I’m going to have to go over there before Compline.’

  ‘It’s considerate of the abbot to insist you have free access,’ Emma observed, her innocent blue eyes dancing. ‘We shall await your report with interest, domina. Now, may I wait on you to make up for your penance of waiting on others?’

  One thing was certain, the two arrivals were not the monks Gregory and Egbert. They were townsmen by the look of their garments.

  Hildegard’s worries increased. One of the monks missing beyond reach was one thing, but two of them?

  Hubert would surely have a substitute standing by and not rely solely on Gregory to put Ulf’s case? Sir Bernard had brought his own clerk with him and, unexceptional though he seemed, he might have a forensically incisive mind that could make short work of any dithering, untrained monk appointed hastily in Gregory’s stead.

  On the other hand, maybe Gregory’s absence played into the abbot’s long range plans? It would be an apparently blameless way of getting rid of Ulf once and for all should the hearing go against him through lack of adequate representation.

  I wish I could trust Hubert, she thought for the thousandth time. There was nothing she could do, however, but wait and pray.

  5

  When she returned to her penitential duties on the other side of the bridge it was to discover that the challenge still stood. A time, after prime, and a place, the foregate, had been confirmed.

  Does Hubert know about this? she wondered. And if so, what is he playing at? Does he hope Roger will be killed and so end the entire judgment? With no-one to support his defence with hard cash Ulf’s removal to York under armed guard would be the inevitable outcome.

  It was a far hope that Hubert might expect Roger to prevail with Sir Bernard forced to retreat in disarray. Even if, wonder of wonders, that did happen, the accusation of murder would still remain. Ulf would still be on his own.

  It was while she had been handing out jugs of wine and water for some time that she noticed someone at a corner table watching her from under his hood. Ignoring him for as long as she could she turned at last to see who it was.

  He was still gawping when she went up to him.

  ‘So, Master Osmund. We meet again!’

  He recovered and said, ‘So this is the ‘round here’ you hail from? The Abbey of Meaux no less.’

  ‘I apologise for the deception.’

  ‘I apologise on my part for anything I might have done to offend.’

  ‘You did nothing. I found you most reassuring. Have you come to speak for Ulf?’

  ‘It might be the last thing I do. I don’t like the look of the prosecution.’ His anxious glance slid to Sir Bernard and back.

  ‘Lord Roger may take care of him tomorrow.’

  ‘So I heard.’ He crinkled up his eyes. ‘He never ceases to amaze me. Can he still lift a sword?’

  ‘Let’s hope so. What about his opponent?’

  ‘On balance I’d rather be waged against him than against Roger, although that would not take into account any sharp practise by Sir Bernard. I feel I would need to watch my back.’

  ‘I’m sure it will be a fair fight. The abbot will see to that.’

  Osmund looked sceptical. ‘Then we must hope for a blue moon tonight. Fairness and Sir Bernard are not natural bed-fellows.’

  She indicated the friar who had been standing with Sir Bernard and then with Lord Roger and finally found himself hovering near the trestle bearing the wine jugs. ‘Do you know our Augustinian friend?’ she asked.

  Osmund shook his head.

  ‘Are you sure? That’s Friar John, the brother of your master.’

  ‘Is it?’ He gave him a good long look. ‘Never seen him before in my life.’

  ‘Are you certain?’

  ‘I never forget a face. I imagined him other – larger, like my master – bluff, genial – oh but I see, he is genial if drinking wine is a genial act.’ Osmund’s cynical amusement was disquieting.

  ‘You have no liking for him, a man you have never met?’

  ‘I only know he must be a great dissembler. The master was fond of his brother. They corresponded frequently. They held each other in high regard. I can’t see the master holding that fellow with any regard at all. He has the look of many friars – self-indulgent, worldly – and the master was a sore disciplinarian, a master craftsman, dedicated to his work and the glory of God. Here’s another one,’ he muttered turning his back quickly on a youth who was just coming in through the door.

  Hildegard glanced across to see a tall, handsome fellow, no more than eighteen, with a curly bonnet of fair hair framing a rather chubby face. His lips were in a pout over something and when his glance alighted on Sir Bernard he gave a sardonic little bow.

  The York Coroner came forward with outstretched arms.

  ‘At last! My dear Mark, welcome!’ With exaggerated warmth he greeted the youth in a booming voice everyone could hear. ‘You are just in time for the show-down. We will get to the bottom of that dear girl’s death as soon as the abbot is ready to loose us at the truth.’

  Running both hands down the disturbed pile of his velvet doublet, the youth shrugged off Sir Bernard’s effusions with a cold, ‘Have I missed anything important?’

  ‘Nothing, dear boy. We’ll soon have custody of that murdering brute. And then –’ he made a choking sound with one hand across his throat.

  Hildegard turned away.

  This was Mark, Eunice’s lover? The girl must have been mad.

  6

  It was alarming to be told that Abbot de Courcy, broken leg and all – though it was said to be on the mend – had been seen riding a palfrey of all things under the gatehouse and along the road to where it forked left and right, either inland to Beverley and York or
out towards the coast, towards the site of the lost sea villages and the river ports. Why would he do that?

  Hildegard gave her informant a careful look. ‘Are you sure it was the abbot, sister?’

  Sister Ann was sure. Her lips curved. ‘I could hardly mistake the abbot for anyone else, domina.’

  ‘Who did he take with him?’

  ‘He was riding alone.’

  7

  Already the autumn mists were beginning to drift around the garth and seal the lancets in the abbey church as the days drew down. Only a few weeks of autumn remained. By the time of the Equinox, Ulf’s fate would be sealed.

  Kneeling in the lady chapel with her sisters beside her Hildegard prayed for Ulf. She prayed for Brother Anselm. She prayed, also, for Roger in his foolhardy challenge to Sir Bernard on the morrow. She also prayed for Hubert but with less certainty.

  8

  On drawing level with the gatehouse she glanced upwards towards the scriptorium. This evening the windows were in darkness. Now Anselm was not working at his copying no-one else seemed to wish to take over. The Circator was in the gatehouse as she passed, about to start his rounds, and on impulse she let her nuns go on without her.

  ‘May I ask a question, brother?’

  He inclined his head to listen.

  ‘On the night Brother Anselm died you must have encountered several people attending to chores about the abbey precinct?’

  He nodded. ‘Always my restless brothers attending to last minute obligations or taking their time to settle. Who they were, of course, if that is your next question, I have no idea. Two or three, hurrying from their prayers. It was a cold night. Hoods were up.’

  ‘But when you went over to the scriptorium did you see anyone else there?’

  ‘Only Brother Anselm. It was not unusual. He preferred to work at night. He said the candlelight was kinder to his eyes.’

  ‘And you are quite sure no-one else was there that night?’

  He nodded. ‘That I clearly do recall, domina. Brother Anselm was alone at his desk.’

  He paused and then, hesitantly, guided her to one side. ‘I have a small affliction which I do not care to broadcast.’ He hesitated. ‘I trust you to keep my secret?’

  ‘Most certainly.’

  ‘Then it is this: my memory is faultless in every instance but one. It is at fault when it comes to recalling faces. We have a name for it in Latin which I will not bother you with. What I do remember are inconsequential things, fabrics, for instance, a style of footwear, the shape of a hand. Only faces elude me,’ he added in a sort of wonder. ‘I recognised you first by your upright stance and graceful demeanour. Although,’ he chuckled, ‘I happen to know your face well enough by now. It’s a face of beauty and serenity although of late somewhat overwhelmed by care I believe?’

  ‘I am grieved and humiliated by my disgrace,’ she admitted.

  ‘That is between you and our lord abbot and I trust some resolution may soon be effected.’

  ‘So tell me again,’ she asked hurriedly so as not to dwell too much on Hubert’s threat to have her excommunicated, ‘are you saying that you saw someone that night, but you don’t recall the face?’

  ‘That is correct.’

  ‘Is there anything you do recall?’

  ‘Strangely, yes. A kind of cross-over leather strap on the sandals of one of the brothers I met coming down the steps as I was going up. It was late. I must have said something about it being time he was in his cell and he accepted my reproof and mumbled something about being on the way there at once. I wouldn’t know him again but I did notice his sandals.’

  ‘Are you sure you’d know them again?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ he replied with confidence. ‘It is only in this one matter of the face that I have bother. Although, it must be said, even if I knew faces like the back of my own hands, I doubt whether I would have recognised anyone that night. It was particularly dark. No moon, y’see.’

  ‘And the light you were carrying shed its radiance onto the brother’s feet?’ She had to be sure.

  ‘And on his sandals.’

  9

  The vervain poultice was a remedy suggested by her namesake, a German nun also called Hildegard, who in more distant days, had written a herbal that had been copied and sent out into many places where such things are used.

  Hildegard applied the steaming pad to her aching shoulder before climbing onto her mattress and lying there to allow it to do its work. The hole left by the bolt was almost entirely healed and would leave a scar but it still throbbed, a sign of continued healing, she assured herself. Hubert had been careful not to touch her anywhere near the wound, as if, as he had claimed, before he had even snatched off her hood he knew who was prowling around his scriptorium.

  But this is to assume he did not wish me pain and his subsequent treatment convinces otherwise.

  She forced her thoughts onto a different tack.

  Tomorrow after Prime, the challenge.

  Then, more important, the beginning of the hearing surely?

  On behalf of the abbot the Prior would announce a time and a day. But now Hubert himself was absent.

  With such uncertainty hanging over everyone it was something at least to have an inspection of footwear to consider.

  She would need an ally but here again uncertainty arose because Gregory and Egbert had still not returned.

  10

  There were no horns and no banners nor any strings of fluttering pennants. Nor was there a box in which finely attired ladies might have displayed themselves. Instead there was a rough open space where usually the wagons turned and the ground became muddy after rain.

  On one side stood Lord Roger de Hutton, veteran of the battle of Najera, a one-time knight in the service of the Black Prince with many famous victories to his credit, and now a genial lord of many wooded North Riding acres, and on the other side, Sir Bernard Vavasour, merchant adventurer, coroner, and vassal of Duke John of Gaunt who by marriage was lord of the castles of Skipsea, Scarborough, Knaresborough, Pickering, Pontefract, and many more throughout the English realm. Success in battle for Bernard and Gaunt? None.

  Bets were being surreptitiously laid by the conversi, who had flocked from their work in abbey and nearby grange to watch two venerable knights slug it out over some dispute nobody really understood.

  Monks too, as if disclaiming their presence, mingled at the back in a self-effacing group.

  A marshal had been appointed and he now commanded the middle of the battle-ground where he took the opportunity to deliver a homily on fair play and to announce the regulations under which the rivals were to engage. No-one listened. They were too eager for swords to be drawn.

  Lord Roger, a good five years older than his opponent, made up for it in belligerence. He was famed as a swordsman who would stand his ground. Sir Bernard, on the other hand, though having the advantage of years, was not expected to make much of a showing as a swordsman.

  Neither men had wielded a sword, someone let it be known, for decades.

  Hildegard, accompanied by all her nuns and lay-sisters, watched from behind the wall of the nunnery garden. It was low enough to allow them a view of the entire field of battle.

  Sister Ann had brought bandages.

  ‘I can’t believe they intend to draw blood,’ Agnetha muttered. ‘It’s outrageous. On the foregate too.’

  ‘We might ask why the abbot is allowing them to go ahead,’ Sister Emma remarked. ‘Is this what the abbey is coming to these days? It’s quite shocking.’

  ‘Men,’ observed Agnetha with her usual comment that never failed to speak volumes.

  The marshal finished his oration. A burst of applause rippled round the onlookers. At that point a horn should have sounded but Pierrekyn, who might have been expected to have one, merely waited as impatiently as everyone else.

  The marshal held out a kerchief and waited for silence. When he was satisfied he let the kerchief flutter to the ground.

  Lord R
oger was first to stride forward. Accoutred in a mail shirt and a hastily borrowed basinet, the sword he held before him had the look of an old war-horse. Dependable but past its best.

  Sir Bernard was slower off the mark. Having some difficulty in withdrawing his sword from its scabbard he put up one hand to call for a momentary halt. Then, to ironic applause, the sword suddenly released itself and he had to rescind his plea immediately, following it up by a quick dash with weapon raised towards Lord Roger who was still arguing against a halt with the marshal.

  By chance he happened to swing round as Sir Bernard came at him and the two swords engaged, sliding off each other with a strong enough clash to emit sparks.

  The crowd sighed with excitement. Now they would see something all right.

  Engrossed in their dream of chivalry, hardly anyone heard the clop of horse’s hooves as a rider came up the track from the cross-roads. Without hesitation the animal was driven straight into the middle of the battle ground almost nose to nose with the swordsmen and its rider let out a roar that cowed everyone to silence.

  If the horse had been fit enough to wheel and prance the rider might have made more of an impact but after one distracted glance, everyone turned back to the swordsmen.

  Circling and circling but not quite engaging, the two swords flashed and an interruption at this point was no more than an irritant – but then, one by one, the rapt onlookers began to realise who it was who was refusing to cede his dominance over the swordsmen.

  There was a gradual and humiliating sound of many caps been removed, the scuffle as people dropped to their knees. Monks knelt too and had to push back their hoods in shame to reveal their identities.