‘Trebuchets are overrated,’ Hildegard reassured. ‘They take too long to get into place and even when the aim is good they take an age to do any damage.’
‘Let’s hope you’re right.’
On their left rose the white walls of the Tower of London. Even from this distance three or four severed heads could be seen impaled above the watergate with swirls of birds shrieking above them.
Averting her glance, Hildegard followed Thomas into the narrow lane that ran uphill towards the abbey. For some reason she happened to glance behind them. A figure in white was just crossing the end of the lane. When she looked again, he had gone.
As Thomas predicted, Abbot Hubert de Courcy had arrived early that morning. One of the monks told them when they arrived that he had disregarded advice not to ride across the moor at night without an armed escort.
‘He said he was in too much of a hurry to waste time in surrendering to imaginary dangers.’
He instructed a page to usher them into the private chamber traditionally set aside for the Abbot of Meaux. As head of one of the most powerful Cistercian houses in the north, the incumbent abbot there was a figure of importance. Hubert looked very much at home already, a pile of documents on his reading desk, a flagon of wine beside him and a modest fire in the grate.
His eyebrows rose when he saw Thomas walking in first and noticed his black eye.
‘So, Brother. Did you break any vows while you were getting that?’
Hildegard was walking in behind her priest and now came to a stop near the door. Her knees felt weak. He was here. It seemed an age since she had last seen him. He had not noticed her yet. She would have to tell him the truth at once. But he had not yet noticed her and was teasing Thomas about his fighting.
The young monk stepped to one side.
Hubert’s mouth opened. For a long moment she saw his glance linger over her and then Thomas was stepping forward and saying, ‘My Lord, I praise St Benet you’ve arrived in good spirits. I beg leave, however, to attend to my duties – if not my wounds. Should you have no further need of me other than to chide me, I trust I may be excused?’
Hubert nodded as if a small problem had been lifted from him, and Thomas, with a kind glance at Hildegard, went out leaving them alone.
Hubert took a pace forward. ‘I can’t tell you how pleased I am to see you safe, Hildegard. What a journey! I gather you had a hard time of it?’
‘Some unpleasantness. How about you?’
His face lit up in a smile. ‘Nothing we couldn’t handle. I discovered that my page is surprisingly handy with his little knife.’
‘He had to use it?’
‘Only to set a few horses loose. But I have urgent news from Bishopthorpe.’ He gestured to a bench under the window.
Sitting by his side Hildegard was conscious of the
authority of his presence. To help concentrate she stared at a spot on the floor where some pieces of mosaic tile were arranged in a complicated pattern of lozenges and squares. All the time she was thinking about what she would eventually have to tell him and how it would change things between them for ever.
‘Someone came to see me while I was making a brief halt at Bishopthorpe after you left,’ he began. ‘It was the wife of Martin, the man who was murdered in the brewhouse.’
Her attention was caught.
‘It turns out that she was a laundress at Scarborough Castle when she met him.’
‘I think somebody mentioned that,’ she told him, not daring to look at him.
‘What it means is that she’s well placed to tell us about a rumour going round the castle.’
When she risked a glance his dark eyes were full of light, his lips softly mobile and, as she had expected, there was at least a day’s dark stubble on his jaw, emphasising the curving line of his cheekbones.
‘What rumour?’ she managed to ask.
‘About Sir Ralph Standish’s death. You may have heard what they’re saying?’
‘What have you heard?’
‘The official story is that Standish died from the bloody flux. The belief among the castle folk is …’ he paused ‘ … that he was poisoned.’
She jerked up her head. ‘Is there proof now?’
‘So you have heard the story?’
‘There are always rumours,’ she agreed.
‘True. But his wife was distressed enough to convince me there may be something in it.’
She asked the question she had put to Edwin earlier. ‘Who would want him dead?’
‘Standish was given Scarborough Castle as a reward for his activities at Smithfield during the murder of Wat Tyler.’
‘You mean—?’
‘I mean this. When Tyler trotted out across Smithfield on his pony to speak directly to King Richard, it was Standish who accused him of being a liar and a thief—’
‘He called him the biggest liar in Christendom if accounts are to be believed.’
‘Yes. What’s more, Standish would know a hothead like Tyler would not react calmly to a public insult like that.’
‘So why did he do it if Tyler’s reaction was predictable?’
‘Because it was an excuse for Standish to draw his sword in a pretence at defending the King and give Tyler a wound—’
‘Even though Tyler was only armed with his small eating knife?’
‘True. It was a cowardly attack. There’s no denying it. Tyler facing the King’s men alone. One against many. Worse, Mayor Walworth drew his sword. They say he had taken the precaution of wearing a mail shirt underneath his mayoral robes. He struck a blow – for which he was later knighted on the advice of the council – and he and his alderman, Nick Brembre, couldn’t or wouldn’t prevent the men-at-arms finishing the job, for which Brembre was knighted along with Standish and one or two others. So Tyler died.’
‘But are you saying it was a deliberate plot? There could have been a bloodbath!’ Hildegard pointed out. ‘All Tyler’s men were drawn up in formation on the far side of Smithfield. Why would Standish knowingly take the risk of provoking them by killing their leader?’
Hubert frowned. ‘This is only theory but, given the context, I believe they wanted an excuse to fight. The rebels, mostly bonded men, were unarmed except with makeshift weapons. They could have been slaughtered to the last man, like animals, just as the Flemish weavers in Bruges were slaughtered by the Duke of Burgundy. But there was a hitch – whoever put Standish up to it made a miscalculation. They reckoned without King Richard saving the day. Nobody could guess that a fourteen-year-old would act with such decisive courage. By speaking calmly to the rebels and leading them out into the countryside he saved many lives. The rumour is the dukes and their allies wanted a bloodbath. They desired it. They knew, armed knights as they are, that they would win.’
‘So they intended to provoke not only Tyler, so they could kill him, but also the men from the vills and manors waiting to hear what the King had to say about freeing them?’
‘But according to rumour that wasn’t the main purpose,’ he continued. ‘It’s worse. What they really wanted, in the tumult and confusion that would have followed, was the opportunity to kill King Richard himself.’
‘What?’
‘The blame could have easily been put on the rebels. Standish, so they’re saying in Scarborough, was assigned this task.’
She could find no words to express her horror.
Hubert added, ‘He was well rewarded for what he did do. He was made constable of the castle a week after the rebellion.’
‘Thank heaven he did not succeed in the rest of his commission.’
‘
He
did not. But no doubt others are, even at this moment, being conscripted to do so.’
‘You believe these rumours of a plot to assassinate the King, Hubert?’
‘They are only rumours, true. Even so …’ he paused ‘ … on balance, yes, I believe them.’
‘Do they say who’s behind it all?’
‘The Duke of Lancaster, maybe.’
‘He’s moved his attention to the crown of Castile.’
‘Yes. Maybe Smithfield was his last failed attempt at regicide?’
‘And now?’
‘Richard has another uncle, equally ambitious, equally unscrupulous.’
‘Woodstock?’
‘With his elder brother out of the country, yes, Woodstock, the Duke of Gloucester. He now has a clear field.’
‘Poor Richard. Nineteen years old. To be surrounded by such treachery from his own kin. It’s enough to send anyone mad with fear. If this is all true he must live in constant terror of his life.’
‘It’s one of the perils of kingship,’ Hubert said bluntly.
‘My heart bleeds for him.’ She must have given him a rather reproving look because he leant closer.
‘We in my house are loyal, Hildegard. You may at some time have felt like questioning that?’
He gave her a full dark stare and her glance dropped in confusion.
‘It’s understandable,’ he assured her softly. ‘A foreign house – worse, a French one – with all our wealth and Continental connections, thriving in the very heart of England during such terrible times. Of course we are under suspicion. But I hope we are also above it.’
Relief flooded through her. She would trust him. She had longed for reassurance and now here it was. ‘But Hubert, what else are you saying – that one of the King’s supporters followed Standish to a remote Yorkshire castle and poisoned him to avenge the murder of Wat Tyler?’
‘That’s the way it looks.’ He tightened his lips. ‘There is another thing. This adept in the art of poison has been identified by the rumour-mongers. I’m told he turned up seeking work at Archbishop Neville’s palace some time after Standish’s death.’
‘And he had been employed at Scarborough Castle?’ Hubert nodded. ‘Yes. He worked in the kitchens. He drew attention to himself by his skill in ridding the castle of a plague of rats. It’s a fellow called Jarrold—’
‘Of Kyme?’
‘You’ve come across him? Is he still a member of His Grace’s household?’
She wore a horrified frown. ‘He is here.’
‘At York Place?’
‘Yes.’ She felt puzzled. ‘But the rumours must be wrong. He’s an unlikely avenger for Wat Tyler.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘He has a connection with Thomas Swynford.’
Hubert looked startled. ‘You mean he’s maintained by him?’
She told him about the events that had taken place on their journey down to London and about the argument in the chapel at Lincoln. ‘I believe it was almost certainly Swynford there, although I can’t be sure as he kept his hood up.’
‘Certainly Swynford wouldn’t want an ally like Standish dead,’ observed Hubert.
‘It makes no sense.’
‘Of course, it doesn’t follow that Jarrold necessarily dances to Swynford’s tune.’
‘He could have an affinity elsewhere. I’m told men often serve more than one master these days.’
They fell silent.
Hildegard recalled the uneven relationship between the two in the chapel. Then she had not even known that the one calling the shots was Swynford. But it had been obvious that Jarrold was the hired man. She described this impression to Hubert and then told him about the testimony of little Turnbull and the messages he had been forced to carry at St Albans.
‘But Swynford had already left when the falconer was attacked?’
She nodded.
‘And Jarrold?’
‘He’d also gone on ahead with the rest of the kitcheners. They can all vouch for him. I was late in leaving because of something Thomas had to do at the last minute.’
‘Then it can only mean one thing: there must be a third man.’
‘It couldn’t have been Jarrold,’ she repeated. ‘He was in the yard helping out with the sumpter wagons until everyone set off together.’
‘What were they arguing about at Lincoln before that?’
‘It was difficult to tell. I wasn’t really listening. It was only when I couldn’t help realising that something was going on that I listened and then I only heard snatches of what they were saying. Jarrold gave the impression that Swynford had an obligation to help him. It was over something to do with a woman, he said. He seemed to feel Swynford had a duty to help him out. They’re both from the same part of the country.’
‘Does Jarrold have a tenancy in Kyme?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘It might be one of the manors Swynford controls.’
‘His mother owns quite extensive property in that area.’
Returning to the earlier topic, Hubert told her, ‘The rumours at Scarborough do not mention Swynford.’
‘In my opinion he would definitely not have seen Ralph Standish as an enemy.’
‘We must look more deeply into the matter.’
She tore her glance from the pattern on the floor and turned to Hubert. ‘How did you hear about Jarrold?’