Hildegard alighted at the wharf near the horse ferry and made her way along the busy path to the bridge. There she had to produce her pass. The strap of her bag was hanging off and she had forgotten to search for her cross when it had been wrenched from round her neck in the crypt. Her knife had gone as well.
The porter recognised her from earlier that day when she had set out with Brother Thomas to meet her son. Then she had spoken to him in a mood of joyful anticipation. He waved her through now with a puzzled smile.
When she offered no explanation for her appearance he exclaimed, ‘Still no sign of him, Domina. Not long to go now, though.’
His excitement at the prospect of seeing King Richard arrive to open Parliament exceeded his curiosity about her appearance. ‘The royal barge is going to be berthed just down there at the wharf.’ He gestured across the palace green towards the river. ‘We’re all agog. They say there’s going to be an announcement as soon as he arrives.’ He lowered his voice. ‘A royal birth! There’ll be dancing in the streets then all right!’
She could scarcely understand what he was saying. Her head ached where Ravenscar had banged it against the wall and her thoughts were in turmoil.
She muttered something along the lines of, ‘The birth of a baby is usually a cause for rejoicing,’ and started to move on.
But his eyes lit up and he said, ‘It’ll be more than that! The succession will be assured. No more crown-hungry uncles trying to oust poor Dickon! He’ll be able to sleep in safety at last, St Margaret be praised!’
‘Ah, the succession. Yes, but what if Queen Anne gives birth to a girl?’
The porter frowned. ‘I, for one, would not object to a queen if she was for the good of all – as I’m sure any daughter of Queen Anne would prove. Others might object.’ He gave a sniff. ‘It’s not a Norman custom to respect women. They prefer their monarchs to be warlords. We’re more reasonable.’
With a vague acknowledgement that what he said was true, she made her escape, crossing the west front of the abbey, where the scaffolding was rattling eerily in the wind. It looked as if the enlargement to the nave had come to a stop. Labour was being redirected to the
defences against the invasion. Signs of abandoned works were everywhere and wind whistled through the half-built vaults with a constant wailing sound.
A watchman sat on one of the measured-up blocks of stone paring his nails with a knife. He did not look up when she passed. Hildegard was sharply conscious of her dishevelment. The friar who had rescued her had offered a cup of wine but she had declined. Driven by a desire to get away she had allowed him to guide her to the nearest landing stage so she could get a ferry straight back to Westminster. Now arrived, she could not bear the thought of going back to her chamber.
Instead she made her way through the building site and out into the cloisters on the other side. Here was an air of peace and she sat for some time in a quiet corner where no one would bother her.
Ravenscar’s reappearance made no sense.
She could not bring herself to call him Hugh.
What did he hope to gain by coming back? He could not claim control over her children’s small inheritance. If he tried and by some mischance succeeded, he could ruin them. Even he could not want that. And could he really claim restitution of her dowry as he threatened? Surely he could only do that if they were still legally married. And what about this French woman he had been living with? Were they married? It was all confusion.
Whatever happened, her own life would be different from now on.
With a start, she remembered Thomas.
The last she had seen of him had been in the thick of the fighting, with the constables pressing in more
menacingly and lashing out with their clubs.
I should go along to York Place and see if there’s news, she thought guiltily. Pray the saints he’s safe.
Better still, she could take the ferry back to the Tower and go up to St Mary Graces to find out for herself if he had been brought in. If anyone knew what had happened to him, his fellow Cistercians would.
Her thoughts flew back to her son and the disappointment of not seeing him. Her hands clenched.
There were many people who needed to know that Hugh de Ravenscar still lived. Her son was only one of them. Her daughter, almost too young to remember much about her father, would also have to be told, a message sent to the house in Shropshire where she attended the wife of one of the marcher lords.
And then there was Roger de Hutton, recently arrived with his retinue from his Yorkshire castle to stay in his London town house so he could attend the forthcoming session of Parliament. There was Archbishop Neville, too, and many others who would have something to say about the unexpected reappearance of the Lord of Ravenscar.
But she did not move. She could not. The thought of returning to the city alone and unprotected filled her with an uncharacteristic fear. She could instead send a message to St Mary Graces and ask for news of Thomas that way.
But still she could not make herself get up.
The sun was hidden behind a vaporous cloud and the easterly wind was strengthening. It blustered at the hem of her robe and fallen leaves eddied into the corners of
the garth. A swaying file of black-robed Benedictines eventually came singing from out of their cells and padded towards the chapel.
Her thoughts flew to Abbot Hubert de Courcy. He, too, would surely have arrived from Yorkshire by now.
She imagined how he would look riding into the forecourt of St Mary Graces – hot and travel-stained, a few days’ growth of dark stubble on his jaw, eyes flashing with intelligence, his strong fingers playing lightly with the reins of the spirited mare he rode. She imagined how his face would light up when their eyes met.
Then came a picture of his reaction when she told him the news that she was still a married woman and no widow after all – that her monastic vows were a lie and a sham.
Everything that had passed between them was a sham.
Forcing herself to her feet, aching somewhat, bruises where she did not expect them, she made her way out of the cloisters and back to the guest wing where she would take off every stitch of clothing and sponge herself all over to get rid of the memory of Ravenscar’s malign touch. Then she would put on fresh garments and venture out to do what had to be done.
The Strand. The house of Earl Roger de Hutton.
‘
What?
’ Earl Roger de Hutton could scarcely get the word out. He stared at her for some moments, then, mouth still open, dropped heavily onto a cushioned bench in front of his blazing fire and gazed violently into the flames. His colour was always high, somewhere between
scarlet and vermilion, now it clashed with the fiery red of his beard.
Hildegard had expected a roaring hour. Knowing of old what he was like, she was surprised now by his single strangled exclamation and even more surprised when, after a long silence, he lumbered to his feet, clanked over the tiles in his metal boots and dropped on one knee in front of her.
‘My dearest Hildegard,’ he began gruffly. ‘I’ve foolishly put your soul in everlasting danger. First by permitting you to be betrothed to the smooth-talking blaggard when you were scarcely old enough to know your own name and second by not making sure the reports of his death were properly verified. I can do nothing to assuage my guilt but to track him down and kill him.’ He placed one hand across his chest. ‘And this I vow to do, so help me God.’
‘Roger,’ she put out a hand. ‘You cannot blame yourself. I was headstrong in those days. I thought I loved him. If you had tried to prevent me, I would have absconded with him.’
‘You would?’
‘He would have insisted and I would have eagerly complied.’
Roger was still on one knee. ‘But now he’s lied about being killed in France, breaking his vow of fealty to me, and he’s put your soul in jeopardy. Your vows – for heaven’s sake, Hildegard! – what about those?’
‘I shall take advice from Abbot de Courcy when he arrives,’ she told him, feeling faint at the very thought. ‘He’ll know the Church’s view on the matter. I acted in
all innocence. That will have some bearing on my Order’s judgement.’
Roger laid his right hand across his chest again. ‘I promise my protection if they decide on punishment. I make this vow.’ He peered at her with a quickened glance from under his brows. ‘What can they do to you? Excommunicate you? My dear Hildegard!’ He rose massively to his feet. ‘That on top of all the rest!’
He stood four-square with his back to the fire and rammed his thumbs into his sword belt. ‘We have a king likely to lose his crown. We have a city about to be overrun by armed Frenchmen. We have a mayor and aldermen intent on tearing each other to pieces and dancing on the remains. We have plot and counterplot by the nobility such that you can’t even trust your own mother. And now, to crown it all, Hugh de Ravenscar, the Devil take his black soul, rises from the dead!’
After a heavy pause he asked, ‘What state’s he in these days?’
‘Not much changed. He’s been living quite well, I gather. Older, of course, as are we all.’
‘Did he have any excuse?’
Ulf, Roger’s steward, who had been silent throughout all this, now erupted with a snarl. ‘If I may say so, My Lord, that’s a damnable question. His deceit is inexcusable.’
‘Of course it is!’ Roger exclaimed vehemently. ‘God’s bollocks, I know that! But to himself – he must have had a reason that would square with his own conscience.’
‘If he’s got one.’ Ulf gave a strangled oath and went to
fling himself in the window embrasure, where he stared savagely out into the yard.
‘I believe,’ explained Hildegard, ‘he was wounded during a
chevauchée
. You remember, he was with Arundel’s failed expedition to Normandy, and during a raid on a minor town there he found himself in the house of a woman whose husband had just been killed. She tended his wounds. By the time he felt able to rejoin the army they had moved on. He stayed.’
‘With the woman?’
‘So he tells me.’
‘Faithless bastard. A deserter and an adulterer. What do you think to a man like that, steward?’
‘What do you imagine I think, My Lord? Do you want me to put it into words while Hildegard is still present in your chamber?’
Roger turned back to her. ‘So he decides to stay? Just like that.’
‘I gather the woman had been married to a comfortably-off fish merchant, so it must have been an irresistible opportunity to step into the dead man’s shoes.’
‘Irresistible? To an outright bastard, maybe.’ Ulf had taken out his dagger and was staring at the blade.
Roger started to prowl about and now he came to a stop in front of her. ‘You sound remarkably calm about it.’
‘I’m not sure whether I’m a nun or not.’
‘And if you’re not?’
‘Then I’ll be able to rage and curse to my heart’s content and do whatever else I please.’ She paused. ‘But I won’t. I feel benumbed.’
Ulf slapped the flat of his dagger down on the stone sill. It made a crack that echoed round the chamber like bone breaking.
Before she left, Roger had already started to marshal his forces and had decided to send Ulf, his steward, to All Hallows by the Tower to hunt Ravenscar down.
‘The double-dealing devil must have had a reason for choosing to meet you at such a place,’ Roger claimed. ‘He’ll have gone to earth nearby. We’ll dig him out,’ he vowed. ‘Or I’ll know the reason why!’ There were fellows whose job it was to keep an eye on other people, he told her; all the barons employed men like that, as he did himself. They would pool their intelligence. No baron would support a knight who broke his oath to his lord. Ravenscar would be dragged out by his heels and punished.
‘What’s His Grace saying about it?’ he asked Hildegard before she left.
‘I came to tell you first.’
She dreaded having to inform the archbishop almost as much as she feared to tell Hubert. She had been included in his retinue precisely because she was a Cistercian nun, with the privileges of her calling, a woman to be trusted. Now what would he do if her vows were invalid?
There was also her prioress at Swyne to answer to.
Ulf followed her out when she left. He was already on his way to the church of All Hallows by the Tower with a small band of armed men. He detached himself from
them and caught up with her in the courtyard before she reached the gatehouse.
‘Where are you going?’
She turned and pushed the back of one hand over her face. ‘I’m not quite sure.’
‘You look dazed. Did anything else happen when you met him?’
She avoided his glance. ‘Not much.’
‘What does he want?’
‘He wants his lands back. This woman he’s with insists.’
‘You didn’t tell Roger that.’
‘I didn’t get a chance.’