Hildegard edged further into the trees with the intention of coming out behind the crossbowman with his bolt aimed at the chamberlain. After that she had no idea what the plan was, maybe to give the impression that the men were surrounded in the hope it would scare them off.
She found a vantage point with a good view of the chamberlain’s wagon. The crossbowman was half concealed by the trunk of an oak, clearly expecting to be safe from retaliation. His broad back was an easy target. I must not draw blood, she reminded herself.
She tightened the string, fixed the nock of an arrow into place, drew back and sighted the target. A long time had elapsed since she had handled a bow.
Pull, aim, release.
That had been Ulf’s teaching in the old days at Castle Hutton during the long hours when he had made her practise at the butts.
She saw the others get into position then waited for the signal.
It came.
Pull. Aim. Release.
She did so.
There was a grunt from the man behind the tree. He jerked his head round to find himself pinned by the sleeve of his chain mail to the trunk of the oak.
There was a chuckle behind her. ‘Neat work for a nun.’
She turned. It was the man she had spoken to earlier.
‘There’s no way he can get out of that without dragging his hauberk off,’ he chuckled again.
Then he drew his great hunting bow and aimed.
The power of the longbow meant it could cut through mail and even through plate armour. It was the instrument of war that had led to England’s victories at Crécy and Poitiers against far greater odds of mounted militia. Hildegard was well aware of all that.
The bowman, so neatly pinned by her small bow without bloodshed, finished up clutching an arrow that pierced his steel shirt and reappeared through the front in the middle of his chest. He staggered, looking down
in astonishment at the arrow tip between his fingers. Then blood gushed from his mouth and he toppled forward.
The other bowmen were dispatched with no more than the loss of an arrow apiece. As the last one fell, the men-at-arms penned in their cart by the looters erupted with a roar, snatched up their weapons from the armoury wagon and turned to attack the horsemen.
In the melee that followed Hildegard searched for a sight of Thomas and Edwin. The last she had seen of them was when they jumped down from the char to walk back along the line towards the tail end to see what was happening. Now she glimpsed a flash of white and saw Thomas, unarmed except for a hazel switch, staring up at a horseman whose sword was arching towards him.
Hildegard had automatically slipped an arrow into its notch and now, without thought but with a whispered, ‘Forgive me’, lifted her bow and loosed an arrow into the nearside shoulder of the swordsman’s horse. It reared with a scream of agony as the arrow hit. When it fell it toppled onto its rider, who scrambled to escape. A nearby man-at-arms finished the job. The body was kicked into the ditch.
Hildegard closed her eyes. When she opened them Thomas was rushing to the aid of one of the kitcheners, lashing out with his hazel stick at the face of his assailant and managing to hook his fingers into the servant’s belt to haul him out of harm’s way.
In a hand-to-hand skirmish with the now armed bodyguard the attackers were beaten back. Their leader had
already ridden off and one by one the survivors streaked after him across the wasteland and into the woods.
The York captain roared at his men to fall back.
‘Too late now, you losels! Save your arrows! From now on you keep a proper lookout.’
There were some cuts and bloody noses but nothing serious. The attackers had abandoned their dead and wounded and the captain ordered his men to find the one least likely to die and have him bound in ropes and brought along as a hostage. The man was barely conscious but he was dragged off, groaning in pain, to the back of the convoy and thrown roughly onto a cart among the spare wheels.
It was all over by the time the two huntsmen who had gone off earlier emerged from the woods carrying a dozen or so rabbits on poles across their shoulders. They looked askance at the partially unloaded carts.
‘I thought we weren’t stopping?’ one of them asked.
When they were told what had happened they said they were sorry they’d missed the fun. One of them added that they had heard horsemen crashing about in the woods and thought it was a local hunting party and best to give it a wide berth.
‘Who the hell were they?’ asked Edwin while everything was being packed in again. Nobody knew.
‘There’s that manor over at Kettlethorpe,’ somebody suggested. ‘On the rampage from there, you reckon?’
‘I don’t see what they were after. They didn’t take so much as a crust.’
‘We’ll get the truth from that hostage,’ the captain
snarled. ‘Meanwhile,’ he turned to his men, ‘sharpen up unless you want your ears off. We’re not on a bloody pilgrimage.’
It had all happened too suddenly for the kitcheners, who were unused to anything more violent than a pan whizzing past their heads in the palace kitchens at Bishopthorpe. There were white faces. An air of faintness. No one said much.
The chamberlain returned to his char and sat within, fanning himself with his sleeve. When he asked for news of the archbishop, a servant came back looking puzzled. ‘Gone on ahead, My Lord.’
The chamberlain closed his eyes and it was Master Fulford who rose to the occasion.
‘Break out the ale, Gufrid. We’ll catch up with him. Meanwhile let’s stiffen our sinews, then back on the road to Lincoln.’
The archbishop was waiting for them on the far side of some woodland astride his horse Pegasus, with the leather bag strapped across his chest. He offered no explanation for his escape as he handed the reins to his groom.
Edwin, climbing back into the char after him, spoke with a tinge of disapproval in his voice. ‘I trust Your Grace is unharmed?’
Neville growled a response and they travelled on in an uneasy silence.
Edwin had shown himself to be useful with his sword and when Hildegard made a remark to that effect he nodded. ‘Why do you think I was thrown out of Oxford?’ He looked quietly pleased with himself.
Licking his cuts, Thomas cuffed Hildegard on the shoulder. ‘I didn’t know you’d been keeping up the old skill. I’m in your debt.’
‘Nonsense, Thomas. I’m truly distressed that men were killed. Even if they did invite a tough response. And the poor horse …’ she shuddered.
‘I saw it gallop off after the survivors,’ he told her. ‘Those boys’ bows don’t penetrate deep tissue.’
This mollified her somewhat but the fate of their attackers preyed on her mind. As did the reason for their ambush and Alexander Neville’s uncharacteristic flight.
They thundered on towards their destination and it was shortly before curfew when they poured at last through Lincoln’s northern gate on Ermine Street into the narrow cobbled lane leading to the bishop’s enclave. With the archbishop, true to his original intention, riding at their head on Pegasus, they filled the town with the noise and excitement of their arrival.
Judging by the number of armed guards patrolling the city walls and visible at the top of the great keep on its hill above the town, the whole place was on high alert.
‘News of the invasion?’ asked their own constable, taking in the presence of the militia as soon as he arrived. He stood alongside the city guards and counted everybody in.
‘Nothing fresh. It seems King Charles is having to wait for the Spanish to bring all their ships up.’
Then the attack on the York contingent came out and men were roused from the guardhouse to get out after
them, more as a show of goodwill to the visitors than in the hope of stumbling across the band, for they would be long gone by now. The hostage was thrown into the castle jail for the night until he recovered enough to denounce his comrades.
Unable to talk confidentially to Thomas in the turmoil of carrying in their baggage, Hildegard looked for a chance as soon as they were being conducted towards their separate quarters. They were lodged in the guest house across the garth from the bishop’s palatial abode, with the large Saxon hall between.
She tugged urgently at his sleeve. ‘Has anybody said anything to you about why we’ve been asked along?’
‘By “anybody” I suppose you mean Hubert?’ Thomas gave a wry smile. ‘Whatever the abbot might know he would surely have told you above anybody.’
‘I need to know, Thomas.’
He became serious. ‘Rest assured, Hildegard, I would tell you if there was anything to tell.’
‘Even if you were sworn to secrecy?’
He took her arm and turned her aside from the toing and froing of servants bringing in the baggage. ‘Do you suspect some secret motive?’
His grey eyes were as guileless as a child’s.
‘I wondered if you’d heard anything?’
‘Only that you have knowledge of herbal lore. Hubert mentioned something along those lines. Not that I asked. It’s not my business.’ He smiled down kindly. ‘No one’s sworn me to secrecy. There are no secrets. Even the archbishop’s arthritis is known to every soul in the shire. I’m here to be your shadow wherever you go. You can
trust me.’ He smiled reassuringly. ‘I expect that ambush has made you uneasy? I believe it was merely a chance attack.’ He watched her closely. ‘Do you think there’s more to it?’
L
incoln. The bishop’s enclave. Early morning. Rain.
They were scarcely out of prime when a messenger arrived. His horse came splashing into the foregate, and by the time everyone had turned to stare, a man in Neville’s livery was tumbling from the saddle. A group of excited servants hurried him towards the guest quarters.
Hildegard was called into the archbishop’s audience chamber after the messenger was sent down to the kitchens for a reward of cheese and ale. She was joined by Edwin and Thomas.
Neville began without preamble. ‘It seems that my unfortunate kitchener did not drown as we believed, or, at least, not before receiving a blow to the back of the head.’ He glowered at the three of them. ‘What d’you make of that?’
Edwin bit his lip.
‘An accident?’ offered Thomas tentatively. ‘He hit his head on the side of the vat, maybe?’
Neville raised his eyebrows.
Hildegard spoke up. ‘It sounds to me like foul play.’
Neville was grim-faced. ‘And so it sounds to me as well. My bailiff has questioned the few servants who remain behind. He has decided not to mention that he found a stout stick lying in the herb beds not far from the door of the brewhouse until he has learnt more. So you’re right, Domina. Indubitably foul play.’
Edwin spoke up. He sounded shocked. ‘Somebody hit the fellow on the head with the stick, then tried to dispose of his body in the vat?’
They glanced at each other. But Neville continued. ‘What you’re going to do, Edwin, is look at this list here and tell me what you think.’
He handed the clerk a piece of vellum with the seal of the Bishopthorpe bailiff dangling from it. Edwin scanned it and looked up. ‘These are the old servants who stayed behind at the palace, Your Grace.’
‘They are indeed. And when you call them old you’re right again. Can you imagine any of them picking up a club and bludgeoning a man to death with it?’
Edwin threw his head back and gave a musical laugh. It relieved the tension. ‘Only with the greatest difficulty, Your Grace.’
‘You think it a ridiculous idea?’
‘I do.’
‘So do I. And it suggests one thing: the man’s assailant must be one of these blackguards here and now in Lincoln skulking in my retinue. Now …’ He took the piece of vellum, screwed it up into the shape of a dagger and stabbed it angrily at the air to emphasise his words. ‘ … the second thing you’re going to do,’ his voice rose, ‘is question every man we have with us!’
‘Every single man?’ gasped Edwin.
‘Yes,’ he snarled. ‘I want to know who was where and when and why. You’ll be helped by the domina and her priest.’ He glared at Hildegard and Brother Thomas, who flinched. ‘The three of you can comb through their lies and find the fellow without a plausible story. We do not leave Lincoln until the matter is resolved!’
He turned with a furious rustle of embroidered brocade. ‘He’s here. He’s got to be. It’s one of these lying devils. I want him nailed forthwith. And, I do not need to remind any of you’ – he paused ominously – ‘the words “blow to the head” or “murder” will not pass your lips. Let them put two and two together. The one who makes four is our man.’
Shrugging his cope into place he raged out.
‘Well, well,’ said Edwin glancing at the two monastics. ‘This is a turn-up. I can still hardly believe it. In the palace of all places!’
‘We’d better start now if we want to get to Westminster,’ Hildegard suggested.
‘Who are we going to call first?’
‘We could start with your head cook, Master Fulford. He should know exactly where everybody was.’
‘After him I suggest the cook’s clerk, to check that their versions tally, then the brewmaster and the baker.’ He added, ‘We’ll give them all a good going-over. The bailiff must have done the same at Bishopthorpe with what’s left of the staff up there.’
‘They’re going to guess something’s up,’ muttered Thomas as they took their places.
Rain was blowing in through the eye slits. It was a miserable day and not a good one for travel. The bishop’s yeoman of the chamber ordered his underlings to light a fire for them. ‘Useful things these fireplaces,’ he murmured as he went about his task. ‘I don’t know what we did without them.’ Thomas went over to warm his hands when he left.
Word had been put out that Master Fulford was required to attend His Grace’s clerk in the privy chamber next to the guest hall. They took their places on a bench close to the hearth with another bench placed opposite to give them a good view of those they called. They were just waiting for Fulford to show up when Edwin eyed Hildegard and Thomas in a somewhat cynical manner. ‘I hope you two are ready for a pack of lies?’
‘It’s everyday life for us,’ replied Thomas, unperturbed. ‘You’ve no idea the lies they tell us in the hope of gaining pardon by the back door. As if their sins are not already known!’ He sighed and looked as if he was about to enlarge on the subject.
Hildegard was used to this. She turned quickly to Edwin. ‘While we wait for the archbishop’s cook, why don’t you tell us something about him?’ She recalled the red-faced, angry-looking fellow who had almost swamped his fellow travellers in the wagon reserved for himself and other members of his kitchens.
Edwin looked pleased to tell what he knew. ‘Of the lot of them I’d take his word first. He’s been with His Grace for about twenty years. Stuck with him through thick and thin. I expect they get on because they both have vile tempers. It allows them to understand each
other. I’m surprised neither of you two have been bawled out by His Grace yet.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Maybe it’s the power of your Order that makes him rein in the worst of it.’
‘I’d like to see him shouting at Hildegard,’ said Thomas.
Edwin gave her a sidelong glance. ‘Anyway,’ he continued, ‘Fulford, despite his rages, has acquired a measure of respect. Maybe it’s the nature of his calling. There’s no quicker way to men’s hearts than through their bellies, as they say, and he knows what he’s doing in that department. He’s a real craftsman. A taskmaster, true, but fair-minded after he’s let fly.’
‘“Let fly”?’ asked Thomas with interest.
Edwin nodded. ‘Anything that comes to hand.’
‘We had a cook at Meaux like that but he seems to have calmed down since the abbot took him aside.’
Hildegard looked impatiently towards the door.
Edwin continued. ‘Fulford prides himself on it – “I tell them what for” and “I speak as I find”. They call it talking plain. He’s just an old Saxon, of course.’ He made a dismissive gesture with one hand. ‘Be that as it may, he runs a tight ship. No complaints from His Grace. And when people come to work for him they tend to stay. Nothing much else to say about him. Unmarried, of course. His work is his life. His kitcheners are his family.’
‘Can you see him hitting anybody over the back of the head?’
‘Never. No matter how riled he was.’
‘Where’s he from originally?’
‘Some village near York. He worked for the Bishop of Durham as an apprentice after a stint as a scullion with a
York merchant when he was a lad back in the Dark Ages. He boasts he’s never been further south than Doncaster.’
‘Not even when His Grace was called to attend previous Parliaments?’ Hildegard asked.
Edwin shook his head. ‘Left to hold the reins at Bishopthorpe. This time His Grace insisted. Something to do with putting up a good table for guests in Westminster.’
‘With his commitment to His Grace, then, his testimony should be reliable.’
‘I’m prepared to trust it.’
A page boy poked his head round the door. ‘The master of the kitchens approaches.’ He bobbed back out of sight.
A few moments later Fulford hove into view. He addressed the two men as if Hildegard were invisible.
She didn’t mind, of course. It was a lesson in humility and gave her chance to observe the cook more closely than she would otherwise have been able.
She noticed how he groped around behind him to find the bench before settling his vast bottom on it, and once firmly seated, began folding and unfolding his hands until eventually they found a resting place on his paunch. He was breathing hard as if having run up a flight of stairs. She couldn’t imagine him being able to hit a man. No wonder he threw things instead.
Edwin opened the questions with an invitation to tell them when he had last seen Martin. ‘We’re just trying to establish how he came to fall into the vat,’ he explained.
‘I can’t rightly remember when I saw him,’ Fulford admitted. ‘We were run off our feet that morning. I know I saw him near the wagons at one point. Mebbe putting his stuff on board.’ He shrugged apologetically. ‘There was
more on my mind than the whereabouts of one servant.’
‘Don’t know, then,’ Edwin made a note. When he stopped scratching his quill over the vellum, he asked Fulford to explain where everyone was meant to be from matins to prime on the day they left the purlieus of Bishopthorpe. The dead man had been found just after prime when they all came out of the service and assembled in the main courtyard ready to leave.
‘And so they were,’ replied Fulford. ‘Remember, we had all that tomfoolery with the Pope’s man and his vultures, counting heads?’
‘Run us through everybody’s movements, then.’
‘At matins they’d still be in their beds. No necessity to go and pray at that time of night. We’re not monks.’ He bowed his head courteously towards Brother Thomas.
‘I can verify that none of the kitchen staff was in church at matins,’ agreed Thomas. ‘In fact there was just myself, His Grace and his acolyte, the sacristan, a priest from—’
‘We’ll get your testimony later, Brother, if you don’t mind,’ Edwin cut in. He turned back to the cook. ‘The period of time we’re more interested in is after that, closer to prime itself. Your staff must have been up and about by then. What time do they rise?’
‘The bakers are on with their bread before first light. My clerk personally assigns the tasks as I’ve instructed the day before. On a normal day he makes sure all the produce is checked in and everybody’s allotted their duties—’
‘That’s on a normal day. Was this day what you’d call normal?’
‘No, it wasn’t. Anything but normal. There was no call
for our usual fare that day. It was all vittles to be carried and eaten on the road, most of it prepared and packed previous, like. Cheese, dried fish. All except for the bread, of course.’
‘Tell us more.’
‘The only place functioning was the bakehouse. It was going full blast. You can’t have any idea how much bread folk eat, and it takes a lot of organisation to get enough for forty on a journey of near on three hundred miles not knowing when we’ll be able to get fresh bread again. We buy it in when we can, of course, but it all takes planning.’
He sat back with his hands clasped over his stomach and a look of challenge on his face.
Edwin nodded. ‘I’m sure your skills are up to it, master. So,’ he continued, ‘the bakehouse going full blast. Everybody else still in their beds. What I’d like to know is who was in the bakehouse at this point? Who was first in?’
Fulford ticked them off. ‘Kitchen lad to stoke the fire, couple of spit boys, under-baker and his two assistants, pot boy.’
‘The bakehouse adjoins the brewhouse where the body was found,’ Edwin explained in an aside to Hildegard and Thomas.
‘So who was in the brewhouse?’ she asked.
‘Nobody had any need to be in the brewhouse.’ The master cook was emphatic but he addressed Edwin. ‘We’d already loaded the casks of ale the night before. There was nothing in there for anybody. The mash could be left to do its job by itself.’
‘I do apologise for asking this but I’m a stranger to Bishopthorpe. Can you tell me where exactly the brewhouse is in relation to the bakehouse?’ Hildegard asked.
Fulford addressed his answer to Brother Thomas. ‘The bakehouse and the brewhouse are one linked building. There’s a wall inside to separate one from the other. You go in over the small footbridge across the stream. It takes you in through the main door into the bakehouse. From there you go under an arch on your left and on into where they do the brewing.’
‘And how do you approach the bridge over the stream?’
Again the same avoidance of her glance, his eyes fixed on the monk. ‘You come at it down a path behind the infirmary. It takes you past the herb gardens across the side of the bakehouse and round the front. As I say, there’s a little wooden bridge over the stream – it’s no more than a sluice. The bridge leads you right in through the main door and you turn left if you want the clerk’s office, otherwise you’re right there.’
‘Is that the only way in?’
He fixed Thomas with a firm glance. ‘There are another couple of doors,’ he admitted with a sidelong glance at Hildegard as if afraid she had almost caught him out. ‘One is the brewmaster’s chamber and the other leads into the brewhouse from the herb enclosure. But it’s private. It’s for the use of the brewmaster and nobody else.’