‘It’s Alexander Neville,’ one of the gang exclaimed in awe.
‘Indeed,’ agreed Neville pleasantly, turning towards him, ‘and who, pray, are you?’
There were subdued mutterings but no clear answer.
‘You’re not those devils from the other side of Lincoln are you?’ Noting their blank stares he demanded, ‘Where’s your master?’
‘We have no master but our own true will,’ replied the man holding Swynford.
‘And why does this “true will” instruct you to have the audacity to halt my wagon?’
‘We’ve been burnt out of our vill by this captive here.’
‘Captive, is he?’ Neville, bunching his robes in one hand, started to climb down. Nobody stopped him. ‘I
rather imagined he was my guest.’
As he strode through the grass towards the group he made no attempt to conceal the hefty sword on his belt. He came to a stop in front of the spokesman and now ostentatiously rested his right hand on the hilt. The gesture left them in no doubt he knew what a sword was for.
He eyed the spokesman for the group with genial interest. ‘Where is this vill you mention, sir?’
The man uttered a name that meant nothing to Hildegard but Neville nodded. ‘It’s in the diocese of my good and reverend friend the Bishop of Lincoln. Why not take the matter up with him? A court is the place where you can sort out your grievances, not here in the wildwood abducting my guests.’
‘Are you trying to tell us we’d get a fair hearing?’ asked the leader. He laughed in disbelief. ‘It was this fellow’s master who gave him the orders to get us out. He’s the law, not the bishop.’
‘Indeed?’
‘Indeed! He has use of arms which the bishop has not!’
‘Why would this “master” want you out?’
‘He wants our manor so he can gift it to this fella in return for some piece of dirty work.’
The man failed to bow or address the archbishop with the usual courtesies. His face was grimed with several days’ dirt and his clothes were patched things that scarcely hung together. But he seemed toughened by hard physical labour and now his outrage at what had been done gave him a dignity that won Hildegard’s respect.
She watched Neville carefully to see how he would react.
He was frowning. ‘You have Sir Thomas Swynford in your grasp. Do you know that?’
‘We do!’
‘Are you sure he was the one who burnt your vill?’
‘It was Swynford all right. You want witnesses?’ The man turned to his followers. ‘Has anybody here seen this fellow carrying a burning brand at the head of a gang of Derby’s retainers?’
‘Aye. I have.’ A man stepped forward. He was simultaneously followed by every man in the grove.
‘And what did they do with their brands?’ demanded the leader harshly.
‘They set them to the thatch of our cottages.’
‘They burnt our houses to the ground so we could not go back.’
‘They fired them with women and bairns inside,’ added another.
‘It’s a damned lie!’ Swynford burst out, flinching from the edge of the sword. ‘I’ve never seen these villains in my life! They’re off their heads on drink!’
There was a brief scuffle as he tried to duck away but he was dragged back to his former position with the sword in place. The men stood in a sober group giving him baleful stares. It was a tense moment. They clearly wanted to string him up from the nearest tree.
Hildegard held her breath. Their baggage wagons with the bodyguard were too far off to be of any use.
Thoughtfully, Neville addressed them. ‘I have a clerk with me.’ He placed his right hand over his heart. ‘I make you this promise, friends. By the grace of God and the power of King Richard, if you present your case to the
bishop I will guarantee that your grievance will be heard and justice delivered.’
‘How do we know we can trust you?’
Neville drew his sword now. It made a rasping sound and the blade glittered as if by its own light. ‘If you wish to prove me a liar, take Swynford’s sword and let God be the judge.’
The leader stepped back. ‘Your Grace,’ he muttered, lowering his head. ‘I will take the risk and accept your word if my comrades agree. What about it, men?’
Murmurs of agreement arose, albeit reluctant ones, and Swynford’s sword was lowered, although his arms were not released yet. Master Edwin, still crouching with open mouth on the running-board, suddenly came to life. He fished around in his pouch for a piece of vellum and opened his writing tray. Unstopping the horn that held his ink he looked expectantly at his lord.
‘Can you read?’ demanded Neville of the spokesman.
He shook his head.
‘No matter. I’ll tell you what it says. Take it to Bishop Buckingham. He will know my seal.’
The message was scratched out, and to show that his word was true, wax was melted and the archbishop’s own signet engraved with the crossed keys of St Peter was pressed into it.
‘Hand it to him,’ he told Edwin.
The leader of the gang took the document and looked at it with suspicion. Then he glanced at the archbishop’s sword.
By now the rest of the convoy could be heard thundering down the slope between the trees.
Stuffing the document into his tunic, the leader hesitated for a moment as if to say something, then, apparently thinking better of it, he and his men melted rapidly into the woods.
In a moment the grove was empty. A bird sang. The rain stopped. The sun made shadow patterns over the trampled grass.
As soon as he knew he was safe, Swynford burst out in a rage of self-justification.
‘You lying dogs!’ he shouted after the vanished men. ‘You have no rights. They are serfs!’ he hissed, turning to Neville. ‘They own nothing! How dare they impugn the honesty of a knight? The Earl of Derby gave me that land. It is mine! I will not barter for it with lying cut-throats.’
‘It seems,’ replied Neville, ‘that you have no choice in the matter. And it seems also that if you feel so strongly about your rights you might have put up a better show in defending them.’
‘One against a dozen?’ Swynford spat into the grass. ‘Better to go to law and get the bastards hanged!’
He went over to his horse and pulled himself into the saddle. His empty scabbard swung at his hip. Jerking his horse’s head, he beat him with the whip, raked spurs hard along its flanks then galloped off up the track. His little page scrambled astride his pony and scurried after him.
‘Well I’ll be damned!’ exclaimed Neville’s own page, staring at the empty track.
‘You will, varlet, if you talk like that,’ growled Neville. He turned to the others. ‘All aboard. To St Albans. It’s now or never!’
As they were climbing back into their places the rest of the cavalcade appeared round the corner. The lead waggoner looked surprised to find the archbishop not much further on.
‘Another wheel, Your Grace?’ he inquired. Archbishop Neville gave a gesture that explained nothing. ‘A little local encounter. Nothing to worry about.’
Despite his words, he was plainly seething with rage. He climbed back inside the char and sat down among his furs. The focus of his ire became apparent when he called Master Edwin to sit beside him. The clerk, with his archbishop fully redeemed, hurried to comply.
‘Write a letter to Buckingham,’ he instructed. ‘I want it sent back as quickly as possible. Use one of those homing pigeons of his. If he imagines I’m content to take Derby’s hired man all the way to London he’s vastly mistaken. The blundering thoughtless upstart! Swynford! He’s more trouble than he’s worth. Greed and duplicity rule him just as they rule his mother. I will not be party to his iniquity!’
Hildegard cradled her leather bag. She was still shaking.
The Abbey of St Alban. Shortly after nones. Rain again.
It was sheeting down over the roofs and sending the monks running to the cloisters with their hoods over their heads. Hildegard glanced out of the window. Part of the convoy had already straggled out onto the road to London.
Thomas stretched out his feet. ‘Done for.’ He indicated his sandals. They were hanging together by nothing more than threads.
‘You should have asked Abbot de Courcy to allow you
to wear boots,’ she remarked. ‘I don’t know of anywhere in the Rule that says you shouldn’t go properly shod.’ Then more kindly she added, ‘There’s bound to be a saddle-maker here who wouldn’t mind stitching them for you. Would you like me to find out?’
‘I’ll find him myself. I should have thought of it sooner. I expect that’s exactly what you’re thinking now.’
‘You read me so well, Thomas.’
He smiled as he went in search.
The Abbey of St Alban was like a fortified town, host to all the craftsmen common to such places, and there were masons, blacksmiths, armourers, carpenters, leatherworkers and similar skilled craftsmen employed here. He would easily find someone to fix his sandals before they had to leave.
The abbey church itself, with the monks’ quarters attached, was built on a high hill overlooking a narrow dale with a river meandering along the bottom. There was a watermill down there and a winding path back up to the abbey enclave. Even under rain it was a scene of beauty and tranquillity, a place you would long to remember in your dreams.
Yet its beauty was superficial. Underneath was a pulsing heart of black corruption, death, maimings, rape and betrayals still vibrantly within recent memory.
Only five years ago, near the time of the Great Rebellion, a gang of townsfolk had clashed with the abbot.
They were angered for good reason. He had ordered his men to smash their grinding stones in order to force them to use the abbey flour mill at whatever price the miller
chose to extort. It was not an impulsive revolt. They had tried putting their case in the abbey court but it had been thrown out.
Eventually they marched out of the town and climbed the hill wielding billhooks and staves, the only arms they possessed. Their demand was modest – restoration of their ancient right to grind their own corn.
The abbot and his miller had other ideas and it was stalemate until the abbot ordered his men to go round every cottage, drag out every hand mill, cart them back up to the abbey and concrete them into the floor. Anyone found with a mill after that would hang.
The townsfolk resisted but were quickly subdued by the armed force of the abbey militia. Later, when the Great Rebellion in London was crushed and Tresillian, the Chief Justiciar of England, arrived in St Albans to inflict retribution on those who had supported it, there were many summary hangings.
Now, today, here was the York contingent, with their own memories of resistance against bonded labour, uneasy in their accommodation, doubtful about putting tainted bread in their bellies.
On top of that, thought Hildegard, aware of the labourers’ smouldering discontent, the mystery of Martin’s death was still unsolved. The failure of the archbishop’s men to find the culprit must seem like yet another instance of the injustice meted out by Church and State to the powerless.
Unsurprised that they were keen to leave as soon as they could, and wondering how it would end, she began to check through her luggage until Thomas returned. It was
impossible to believe that the puzzle of Martin’s death was no nearer a solution than when they had started. Edwin was probably right when he offered the opinion that Martin must have been in a quarrel the morning they left – victim of someone’s sudden rage that got out of hand. The perpetrator was probably far away by now, unheeded and unpunished on some remote manor in the Riding.
If they couldn’t find the culprit soon, blame would descend on the archbishop for failing to protect his retainers.
Their last hope, that one of the Bishopthorpe gardeners had seen something suspicious, had come to nothing. Only two days ago a message had reached them to say that nobody was in the gardens at that time in the morning on the day they left. The master gardener’s exact words were, ‘We don’t work by moonlight. We’re not bloody necromancers.’
As for the rest of the outdoor servants, it was the same story. They had no need to be in the main courtyard while the convoy was getting under way. It was an opportunity to take it easy in their own quarters. And they had grabbed it.
Even Martin’s young wife had had nothing to add.
So that was that.
Now, with Thomas wandering off into the rain, trailing his broken sandals, Hildegard slipped the last of the leather ties through the loops on her bag to hold everything in place, pulled the whole pack tight then sat back on her heels.
She would not be sorry to leave St Albans. Beautiful
though it was, there had been too much blood shed under its soaring arches.
Before she left Meaux, Hubert de Courcy had said something about the archbishop intending to make several strategic stops on the way. She assumed this was one of them: Neville, drumming up support for the King among his brother prelates.