The Butcher of Avignon (21 page)

Hildegard turned her attention to the thing that was lying on the raft of flotsam, the aim of his efforts and with a jolt she realised that what looked like a pile of rags was, in fact, a body lying askew among the wreckage.

She glimpsed a hand as it rose, lifted by the waves. It looked like a sign of life. Next minute she saw that it was just the surge of water causing an involuntary movement as the waves bubbled under the raft. Eventually she managed to make out the edge of a cloak, ballooning in the swirl of the current. It was definitely someone lying there, no doubt of that.

The ferryman was still straining on the line. He glanced up at the people on the bridge then shouted for one or two men to help him. ‘More beef!’ he yelled above the roar of the river. ‘I can’t hold her!’

Several men, already sliding down the muddy bank, rushed to grab the line. The ones with the grappling hooks slithered after them. Some of those leaning over the parapet ran back along the bridge as well and began to scramble down to add their own strength to the task.

‘That line’ll break if he’s not careful,’ somebody murmured next to Hildegard.

‘Gently does it!’ his companion muttered as the added muscle slowly began to haul the boat closer.

Little by little the men managed to draw it into a position such that it was broadside on to the river with the tail end of the line looped through a metal ring on the path and thrown to somebody standing on the bridge. They managed to steady it enough to enable a couple of volunteers to climb across to the raft where the body lay. The force of the current was forcing a continual overfall of white water to lick at the twisted debris and the men were soaked to the waists by the time they managed to risk their weight on it and jump across. All eyes were fixed on them as they tried to disentangle the body from the net of branches that held it.

‘Drowned,’ a fellow standing next to Hildegard exclaimed. ‘Must’ve fell in upstream. What do you make of that?’

‘Poor sod.’ His companion crossed himself.

A palace official stood at the top of the bank, discussing the matter with the people standing nearest. The men were still struggling with the lines and one of them, balancing on the swaying raft, was already in water up to his knees as the log jam began to break up under his weight. There were shouts from the bridge to save himself but he ignored them and began to reach out towards the body. Everybody saw him grasp hold of a bundle of fabric and begin to drag it towards the boat. Somehow, with the help of willing hands, he managed to lift the body into the boat.

A cheer went up from the onlookers. Then the men inside the boat had to steady themselves as it was pulled, pitching and yawing, back towards the bank.

Another cheer went up as it reached safety and the men scrambled ashore.

The crowd began to break into groups while some ran back along the bridge to get a better view of what had been snatched from the jaws of the river.

From her vantage point on the bridge Hildegard could make out that it was someone in a blue cloak. It looked like a young woman. A tangle of wild, dark hair. White hands. A ring.

She hovered on the edge of the crowd. That movement of the hand in the water might mean there was a life to be saved. She began to make her way down the muddy slope to the water margin.

Edmund was standing with a subdued group of Fitzjohn’s household servants in the shadow underneath the bridge. He caught sight of her and came over.

With a gulp of emotion, he said, ‘Domina, we cannot find out what has happened. Can you demand an explanation?’

‘Is she alive?’

He looked blank.

‘The body. Is she dead? How long has she been in the water?’

‘Don’t you know who it is?’

‘What do you mean?’

His face was paste white. ‘We fear - our fear is,’ he gulped, ‘that it’s Taillefer.’

The memory of how he had given them such a run in the tilt yard must have been uppermost in his mind because he said, ‘Fearless in combat. He did not hesitate to draw his sword in response to Elfric’s challenge. And when he did not return last night…’ he bit his lip.

‘Peace, it may not be him.’

Hildegard looked down towards the boat that was now being manhandled half out of the water onto the bank. So many people were beginning to cluster round that it was impossible to see who or what was in it. She began to push her way through. Several onlookers moved out of the way in deference to her Cistercian robes and she gently guided others aside until she was standing on the edge of the bank, looking down into the boat.

‘A prayer, domina,’ suggested one of the men, noticing her white habit. He was still clinging onto the stern line as they tried to stop the craft from sliding back into the embrace of the waters.

‘Wait, let’s see if it’s necessary.’

‘It’s a body, domina. There’s no doubt. It was lying among the driftwood the flood fetched down for a good while before we were able to get at it.’

The bundle of what looked like old clothing lay without moving in the bottom of the boat.

‘She may be merely stunned,’ she suggested, sliding down the shelving bank side until she was ankle-deep in mud at the bottom. The river roared as through a mill race underneath the arch making it difficult to hear what anybody was saying.

‘Careful! Deep water ahead!’ a voice shouted as a hand came out to restrain her.

‘My gratitude. I don’t intend to go further. Can you drag the boat further up the bank clear of the water?’

With a few shouts to coordinate their efforts several men lent their muscle to the task and with a roar of grating wood on loose stones the boat was prised from the grip of the river and at last fetched up, leaking tears, as it seemed, onto the grass higher up.

What Hildegard had seen as the tumbled garments of a woman turned out to be the court dress of a young man. Wet lace sleeves, velvet jerkin discoloured by river water, boots with embroidered ribbons attached to their ties, mud stained, all cast in a heap.

‘God save us, I was right. It is Taillefer,’ said Edmund’s voice at her elbow. He was staring in horror at the body.

‘He must have fallen in the river and been trapped in the debris,’ someone nearby speculated.

Then one of the burly men reached down and pushed back a hank of wet hair to reveal his neck and the wound was obvious. A gasp of horror went up. Like Maurice, the boy had had his throat cut.

Hildegard put a hand over her face for a moment. So young. Such a waste. That blessed light, extinguished forever.

For a moment no-one seemed to know what to do.

‘I think someone had better return to the palace with the news of what you have found,’ she suggested in a breaking voice. ‘The duke’s steward will need to be informed.’

She turned to Edmund and noticed that the other boys, his allies, the guild of pages, had straggled down to the water’s edge to stand beside him. ‘Perhaps it’s better,’ she turned to the men who had dragged the boat from the water, ‘to leave him as he is so that someone who knows about these things may inspect the body for any clues to his…’ she could not say the word just yet. ‘For any indication of what took place.’ she finished.

‘Probably got what was coming to him,’ muttered one of the men.

Hildegard gave him a fixed stare. ‘Perhaps we might reserve our condemnation until we’ve learned the facts?’

The man scowled, muttered something about the whoring that went on under the arch by night and moved away.

Edmund heard this and Hildegard felt him reach for his knife. She put a restraining hand on his arm.

Then a voice with a note of authority spoke up. ‘Louis, go and inform the Chamberlain. Everyone else stay here and do as the English nun says. Hear me?’ There was a general murmur of agreement and some sort of hierarchy of command was established. The curious onlookers were pushed back to an acceptable distance.

It was the palace official Hildegard had noticed earlier who had spoken. He was a thin, clerical looking fellow in secular attire and came to stand beside her after making sure his instructions were being carried out.

‘Would you like to take a closer look, domina, before our own men arrive? I know you went to view your countryman who was dispatched in a similar manner. Maybe it’s coincidental or perhaps there’s a connection?’ He bowed then. ‘Forgive me, I’m William of Beauvais, a clerk to his holiness.’

While the boat was being dragged right up to the top of the bank, they waited in silence. The guild of pages were standing round. Dumb with shock.

**

Taillefer. He could not have been in the water long because he was not bloated by it. Instead his face looked bloodless, the skin white, drawn across his delicate bones as if he had been sculpted in marble.

She stepped closer, bent down, picked up a wrist. No stiffness. He must have gone into the water only recently. She could see no other sign of struggle beyond the knife wound. His knuckles bore the signs of old scabs from earlier fights, the skin flaking away where it had been loosened by immersion in the cold waters of the Rhone. Finger nails bitten short. Outer garments soaked by river water. Outwardly everything was sluiced from him taking away any clues to his attacker.

She inspected his clothes more closely. They were the usual attire of someone retained by a wealthy noble, a cloak of heavy velvet protecting the garments underneath. Which were, a fine linen shirt, lace in the French style at neck and cuffs, a protective jupon made of soft kid over some thick padding, scarcely damp. No tears or rips. To be assumed, then, not much of a struggle had taken place. Did that mean his assailant was someone known to him? Someone he trusted? Or had he been taken by surprise, walking on the river bank in the early hours?

There was a pouch concealed under his jupon. It was buckled with two thin straps to a leather belt. She turned to the clerk. ‘May I?’

‘Go ahead, domina.’

She unknotted the leather ties and opened the pouch.

**

The clerk crouched down beside her and there was a note of astonishment in his voice. ‘Is he a thief?’

‘I think not.’

‘But this, it’s a valuable article. Beautiful workmanship. How could a mere esquire get hold of such a weapon? Was it a gift?’ He fingered the blade and drew blood. ‘Decorative, very, but lethal enough.’

‘I believe it’s the one that was held in the hand of the cardinal’s acolyte when he was murdered,’ she told him.

‘But this is a mystery. How could this young fellow come by such a thing?’

‘We can’t know yet. But,’ she turned to him with a grim smile, ‘we shall surely endeavour to find out.’

She held the jewelled dagger in the palm of one hand. What did it signify to warrant two murders?

A closer inspection than had previously been possible showed that the hilt of the dagger would unscrew. She hesitated.

Making a sudden decision she handed it to the clerk. ‘I believe this might be best kept somewhere safe?’

He saw that she had been about to unscrew the hilt and frowned. ‘I see. Safest not to touch it, domina.’ With pursed lips he took out a cloth and gingerly wrapped it round the dagger and held it in one hand. ‘We must handle it with care.’

He put it inside his cloak then helped her back to where the guild of pages were waiting.

‘It is Taillefer. And somebody has killed him.’ Elfric spoke like someone in a trance.

Edmund gave Hildegard a searching look. ‘That was the dagger we’ve been looking for, wasn’t it? He found it.’

She nodded.

‘He said he would.’

Elfric gripped the edge of her sleeve. ‘Is that why he was killed, domina? Because he discovered my brother’s murderer?’

‘We will have to think most carefully about this. I feel we’re close to finding the murderer, Elfric. Never fear. Step by step we will track him down.’

**

Taillefer’s body had been handed over to the authorities and now resided in the mortuary on the slab recently vacated by Maurice. Hildegard was sitting in the small chamber under the hall where the notaries carried out their work. A spiral staircase connected the two chambers and they would not be disturbed by any sudden visitor.

‘So, M’sieur,’ she began, ‘are you able to explain the provenance of the curious little dagger to me?’

‘The dagger was a gift to Clement in the days when he was a legate in Italy. It was a gift from the Duke of Milan.’

‘Notorious poisoners, the Milanese, I’m told.’

‘So it is rumoured.’

To suggest that it was more than rumour she mentioned Duke Lionel, second in line to the English throne some twenty years ago when his elder brother Edward, the heir to England’s crown, was still alive.

‘Lionel was betrothed to Violante of Milan, the duke’s daughter, but on his wedding night, before Violante could conceive, he was poisoned. That ended the English alliance with the Milanese. The rumour is - oh, forgive me, this is irrelevant to the problem at hand. Has anyone dared to open the hilt of the dagger yet?’

‘Our apothecary has done so. Of course, he found nothing in it. Whatever was in it had been removed.’

Hildegard gave him a straight look. He was lying. He knew she was aware of the fact.

‘This is not to say that there has never been poison in it,’ he hastened to add, to salve his sense of his own integrity. ‘What can we know? The river cleanses all things.’

She knew this was as far as he would go.

**

‘Please, domina, we have no-one else to speak for us. We’re in fear now. Taillefer’s death was foretold.’

‘Foretold?’

Edmund frowned at her look of disbelief. ‘That’s no astrologer’s prediction. It was a man in the yard yesterday who said it. He wore his vizor down.’

‘What blazon?’

‘None. We have no idea of his allegiance. But he said to Taillefer as clearly as I’m speaking to you now, “you will die,” and then strode off.’

‘Did Taillefer tell you this?’

‘No, we were all present. We heard him ourselves. We were just walking back from the tilt yard after making our plans for the game with the pig’s bladder.’

‘We took Sir Jack’s rage to heart and had been practising at the quintaine in a most exemplary manner,’ Peterkin interrupted.