For some reason he looked affronted. ‘They’re not cures. Who said they were cures?’
‘Most herbs can be considered as such.’ She withstood his belligerent stare without flinching.
Observing that she was not going to be put off, he lied. ‘Brought them from Lincoln myself.’
‘They look fresh.’
‘If you want fresh, try Henry Daniels.’ He walked off.
When she woke up her entire body was weeping. She lay puzzling over the dream until it was time to leave.
Abbot de Courcy came flying up the road from London on his black destrier, galloped under the stone arch into the courtyard at Meaux and dismounted in a billow of dust. He threw his cloak to a nearby servant. A few moments later Thomas followed. When he dismounted, his leg still encased in bandages, he was less agile than the abbot and gave a bemused smile at the monks who
had gathered in the yard to welcome the travellers home.
‘Well ridden, lad.’ Hubert clapped Thomas on the shoulder making him wince. ‘I hope you’ll ride like that when you come to France with me next year.’
‘You mean I’m coming to Clairvaux?’
‘I do.’ Hubert swept on into his private lodge leaving his servants to follow with his things.
Despite his obvious delight to be back in his own domain, over the next couple of weeks the abbot began to walk more frequently to the bridge across the canal dividing his abbey from the adjacent grange, where it had been his practice to meet Hildegard after vespers to discuss matters of mutual concern to both establishments.
Now he stood alone, staring down into the darkly flowing water until the winter sun slipped behind the bare-branched oaks and he had to find his way back to the abbey by starlight.
After a few evenings of this he made his way to the bridge as usual, but then, instead of staring at the water as it rushed underneath, he strode across to the building on the other side and rapped peremptorily on the door.
A face appeared at the grille.
‘Is Hildegard back from London?’
There was a moment of confusion in the darkness inside. ‘She has left England, My Lord.’
‘What?’
‘She has gone on pilgrimage.’
‘I gave no such permission.’
‘I understand she obtained permission from the Abbot of St Mary Graces, My Lord.’
Hubert made his way back to the bridge. He halted
halfway across and put both hands on the parapet and stared into the water without moving.
There were running footsteps and a servant from the grange appeared. ‘My Lord Abbot?’
He turned almost savagely. The servant ran up, placed a small vellum roll into his hands and fled back to the other side.
Only when he was alone in the privacy of his chambers did he rip the seal off and read the message:
When you receive this I shall have set out on the road to Compostela. Forgive me. It is not, as you believe, an easy matter to reaffirm my vows. Hildegard.
Eventually he went to the window where he used to watch the light from her chamber window until it went out after vigils.
Compostela. The field of stars.
Outside, a lantern. The high walls. The drifting sound of nuns singing the night office.
In his mind’s eye he saw a figure clad in white receding down a long straight road under a high sun until it became one with the horizon.
H
ildegard made a sudden stop so that the group of pilgrims walking along beside her were momentarily thrown into disarray.
Hart’s tongue.
So pure it will never breed.
Now she saw it.
Swynford. Jarrold his carrier and go-between. And the King’s council issuing their edict that all King Richard’s retinue down to the meanest kitchener should be appointed by them.
The royal food taster was an old man in his eighties, never likely to feel the effects of a concoction of hart’s tongue. Nor would the King. A goblet of jasper would not detect it either.
Only the Queen would suffer.
Mortimer was heir.
But Mortimer would die.
When the Duke of Lancaster’s requiem was played, his son Bolingbroke, the Earl of Derby, would have only one obstacle between himself and the crown.
His childless cousin, Richard.
The pilgrims had moved on up the road, not breaking step now the confusion was over. One of them called back to her. ‘Keep up, mistress. St James is waiting!’
It was too far-fetched. It would require cunning and immense patience. Was he capable of it?
She considered turning back. The long miles over the mountains to England, the difficulty of getting close to the King, of informing someone who could be trusted.
She remembered her intention to light a cathedral full of candles.
She fingered the emblem under her cloak.
The pilgrims called again. ‘Widow! Do come on!’ And then she knew. The decision was made.
One step after another.
Like all the days unfolding towards the end.
Also by Cassandra Clark
The Law of Angels
The Red Velvet Turnshoe
Hangman Blind
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A PARLIAMENT OF SPIES.
Copyright © 2012 by Cassandra Clark.
All rights reserved.
For information, address
St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
First published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby Limited
eISBN 9781429942386
First eBook Edition : December 2011
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Clark, Cassandra.
A parliament of spies : a mystery / Cassandra Clark.—1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-312-59574-6 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4299-4238-6 (e-book)
1. Hildegard, Abbess (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Nuns—Fiction.
3. Great Britain—History—Richard II, 1377 – 1399—Fiction.
4. Yorkshire (England)—Fiction. I. Title.
PR6103.L3724P37 2012
823’.92—dc23
2011040871
First U.S. Edition: January 2012