The Butcher of Avignon (26 page)

‘Of course I am. I’m sorry, Hubert, I’m still shaken by what happened just now. Nothing seems real. That voice - one of the attackers - I’m sure I recognised it. I just can’t place it.’ She shivered.

‘You think they were more than casual footpads?’

‘I don’t know. But do go on. Tell me what else she said.’

‘Well, Yolande told Taillefer about the stranger with a jewelled dagger for sale and she thought it was that that had brought him over last night, that - and not being able to get back into the palace. She said he was interested enough to try to buy the dagger but the man would not sell unless he had gold for it, and of course, the boy didn’t have gold.’

‘He tried to use a bill of credit, apparently.’

‘Yes. But later, as you know, he stole the dagger and made off with it. The stranger followed and then, of course, the body was found at first light.’

‘This stranger, who was he? Did she have any idea?’

‘She said he told everybody he was just passing through but she didn’t believe it. She thought he was staying in the palace, either as a kitchener, or in some similar fairly menial job, anything he could take, maybe in the retinue of one of the guests.’

‘Why did she think that?’

‘Because she had a feeling she’d seen him in the street a few days ago, wearing mail but with no sign of his affinity and also because of the big way he was talking. She felt it didn’t ring true. He mentioned his master who was no petty lordling, apparently, but close to being a king in his own right, to hear him talk, and, he seemed to hint, a guest or envoy of someone with immense power, which of course could only mean the pope and she assumed he was hinting that he was a guest at the palace.’

‘Did she name this lordling?’

He shook his head. ‘She had no ideas on that but what she did seem sure of was that the stranger was not French. His scars suggested he’d been in the wars, a mercenary, maybe, and she suspected he was a deserter from the English army. Evidently they regularly fetch up here. She said she’d heard the accent often enough.’

‘Gaunt’s men are scattered all over the region since his Castilian campaign. There are probably deserters from Aquitaine as well. And of course,’ she gripped Hubert’s arm then remembered herself and let it go.

‘What is it?’ he urged.

‘Woodstock, of course, and his Brittany campaign. It went on for long enough. When he was paid off after the duke changed sides many of his men stayed over here rather than return to England.’

‘Some had no choice but to remain abroad,’ quipped Hubert with a knowing smile. ‘There was that little question of back pay which escaped Woodstock’s attention.’

‘There’s also Woodstock’s vassal, Sir John Fitzjohn - ’

‘The stranger might even have arrived with him.’

She grimaced. ‘Let’s face it, Hubert, these are just suppositions and he could be anyone.’

Hubert wore a serious expression. ‘It fails to tell us why he would murder the lad. He could have forced him to hand over the dagger, surely? It seems unnecessarily savage to kill him. Or was there a personal element? Could it have been a vendetta against the duc, his liege lord? Or -’ he paused.

‘Or what?’ she prompted.

‘Was it simply Taillefer’s misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time?’ He gave her a searching look. ‘If Taillefer had been able to get back inside the palace after his nighttime exeat,’ he continued, ‘and if the stranger had found another buyer…?’ He paused. ‘Wrong time, wrong place.’ He pulled his cloak on. ‘I’ll have to leave it for you to mull over yourself.’

‘Thank you for your help. I’m not sure why you should bother but I’m pleased you were there this night. It leaves us with the question of how the stranger got hold of the dagger in the first place. He must have been already inside the palace or entered it unnoticed.’

Hubert got up. ‘Night office soon. I must get some sleep.’

When they left the Tinel they walked up the wide stairs towards the guest wing. At the top before they turned their separate ways into the darkness a moment of stillness drew them close.

Hubert reached out to touch Hildegard on the lips but let his hand drop without doing so. ‘The wrong time, the wrong place,’ he murmured. ‘Will it always be so?’

Turning swiftly on his heel and with a suddenly strong, ‘Vale, domina!’ he was soon swallowed up in the shadows between the intermittent lights along the passage.

His complex character was what she loved about him, it was what intrigued her, it was what drew her to him despite all the warnings that he was not as he seemed.

Now, against all expectations, he had brought her information that she could not have obtained herself. She did not know his motive. She knew now, however, that Taillefer’s killer might very well be within the palace itself.

Somewhere here. Maybe close. Maybe far. She gazed down the long shadowy passage that led to her cell. Somewhere here. A man with a scar.

**

In the events concerning the theft of the dagger she had nearly lost sight of the mystery of who had murdered Maurice. That was a puzzle no nearer being solved. She went through a list of those she considered to be suspect.

First was the glum little page of the bedchamber with his secret complicity in Maurice’s game and his undisguised penchant for gold. She dismissed him as he was such a puny little thing and she doubted whether his greed was so great it would drive him to slit a companion’s throat when his back was turned.

Everyone suspected the guards. But she could find no reason for it. They would have had a reward if they had been able to produce a prisoner. As it was, a miasma of doubt now followed them wherever they went, a response that even the most obtuse murderer might have expected.

The only other men known to have been in the vicinity were the pope himself and the attendants at the midnight office, none of whom would have been able to leave without drawing attention to themselves. Was there such a one? How on earth could she find out? When she tried to speak to the pope’s serjeants-at-arms they had been less than helpful and plainly saw her as an interfering foreigner.

Despite Athanasius’s apparent protection it was strange, if he was supposed to be influential, that he had been unable to smooth her path in that respect. But that was by the way. Whoever was present that night in the chapel must have remained in the company of the others and presumably everyone had left the small private chapel together once the two consecutive night offices were over. Stairs led from the chapel directly to the pope’s private chamber where he slept, screened from the presence of his chamberlains, his
cubiculaires,
above his treasure vault.

By the time he went back to bed the deed had been done. Maurice was dead and his body had been discovered.

The rest of them would have returned to their chambers in different parts of the palace. Would anyone have had time to get to the treasury before the pope entered his bed chamber? It would have been a dangerous rush and then they would have had to escape before the guards came on duty. This assumed a prior knowledge of Maurice’s break-in, to be there at the right time. The idea that churchmen would involve themselves in such a matter was also a preposterous idea, wasn’t it? She scowled. A residual respect for them - even now, after all she had witnessed - almost persuaded her to make allowances for them. Surrounded by the casual, daily corruption that prevailed throughout the ecclesiastical world it was irrational. There was no escaping the conclusion: as outside the cloister, so within.

It most likely came down to nothing more than petty theft. When the truth was discovered she would find it had not warranted so many hours spent trying to untangle a very simple knot. It would be a crime a humble retainer might commit and regard himself as rich beyond his dreams. That was one view.

On the other hand was the fact that it might not be so petty after all that made her refuse to give up. What if it wasn’t the worth of the dagger itself, great though it was, but the contents in the secret compartment that made it an object of desire?

If it had been poison, something, say, with no antidote, it could have a cataclysmic effect in the wrong hands. Had Maurice known this? Is that what made it worth risking his life for?

The idea of a master mind seemed more compelling from this point of view. He might have been instructed to obtain the dagger, the poison, for just this reason.

In all the fabulous wealth stored in the vault this was the one thing Maurice had been hanging onto.

And yet his killer had left it behind.

Could it mean he did not understand its significance? Or had he been disturbed by a sound from above - guards walking in the chamber above the vault and audible to anyone hiding underneath? Might it have been necessary to make a quick escape, leaving behind the one thing he had been seeking? And again, did it presuppose prior knowledge of Maurice’s quest?

There was nothing for it. She would have to return to the first guard she had spoken to and go over old ground. He had seemed keen to help and would no doubt be pleased to tell her anything if it kept the finger of suspicion from pointing in his direction. Repetition might show the discrepancies in an invented story.

**

The guard-room. Rain.

‘Me again.’

The guard glanced from left to right, saw his colleagues were busy, then stepped outside into the yard. He pulled up his hood. ‘I don’t like you coming here, domina. No offence. It looks as if - well, it looks bad.’

‘What if I’m asking about the time the gates are shut for the night?’

‘Very well.’

‘Simple question, who was in the pope’s private chapel the night Maurice was murdered?’

‘Apart from his Holiness, you mean?’

She nodded. ‘We’ll take his presence for granted.’

‘There was his priest, an old fellow of eighty. His personal servant, a child of seven. The sacristan and his assistant. And a handful of cardinals.’

‘Names?’

He frowned. ‘Let’s think. There was Grizac, Montjoie, Fondi and Bellefort.’

**

It was known everywhere that some new cardinals were to be elected. Hubert had avoided any mention of it. He was aware of her loyalty to King Richard. His supporters would have been invited to put in a word for him. He would leave them to it. That’s how it was done.

The couriers’ office was nearby and she called in, as she did every day, hoping for news from the prioress.

Again there was nothing. It was to be expected that mail would take longer to travel from Yorkshire than from London. The fate of Alexander Neville was constantly in her thoughts. She curbed her anxiety and prayed that he had been reprieved or at least escaped to safety until the king’s council had been brought to its senses.

She was worried about the king too, recalling the beautiful ten year old dressed in pure white silk and wearing the crown of state on his golden curls as he left Westminster Abbey after his coronation. He had ridden through cheering crowds on a little white pony caparisoned in red and gold and the citizens of London had sighed with love for him. Now he was a tall, fair, nineteen year old and fighting for his throne.

**

The attack by the unseen assailants outside the inn on the previous night had left Hildegard with one or two bruises that she only found as she sponged herself down in the communal wash house later that morning. Purple finger marks showed clearly on her hips and breasts. She hoped the man she hit had a black eye. Then the sound of that voice outside the inn came back to her. She was sure she had heard it before. But where? Whoever he was he had spoken in French, but badly, like somebody who had learned from an ill-educated tutor.

The guild of pages were sombre when she met them in the yard. They were trailing in to the mid-morning service, Fitzjohn striding ahead, expecting them to run to keep up. She supposed he was still in a rage over the escape of the two miners and what it meant for his own future prospects. The return of the dagger to the pope would hardly be of interest to him. Edmund caught her eye and stopped for a brief instant.

‘Have you heard any more?’

‘Only a little about Taillefer’s night time activities.’

Edmund blushed. He knew what she meant.

‘May we meet?’ she asked.

‘Same place?’

When she nodded he hurried off in Fitzjohn’s wake.

**

The boys were half hidden among the straw under the buttress when she ducked her head under the stone arch later on. Simon, posted on guard duty, followed her inside as the others began to emerge from the straw. They reminded her of wild cats, concealing themselves until it was safe to come out.

Edmund was first. ‘Any nearer the truth, domina?’

She told them briefly what she had found out as they brushed straw from off their court clothes.

When she finished, Bertram was tight with fury. ‘It must have been one of the cardinals. He’s going to get away with it!’

There was a murmur of protest but it was half-hearted and Peterkin asked, ‘Do you think Maurice’s murderer is the same man who stole the dagger?’

‘He must be,’ Bertram gritted.

‘He might escape us but he’ll never escape the wrath of God,’ Peterkin asserted.

‘Listen,’ said Hildegard. ‘This is how it seems to have been. Maurice was ordered to fetch the dagger secretly from the treasury by someone but was stopped before he could hand it over. It quite likely contained poison despite what the pope’s clerk tried to insinuate. It was similar to ones I saw in Florence when I was there a couple of years ago. Whoever instructed Maurice must have wanted it for that reason.’

Peterkin asked tentatively, ‘Could it have been Cardinal Grizac?’

‘If so it was a monstrous thing for a lord to ask of a retainer,’ said Bertram. ‘But why would the cardinal want to obtain poison in such a roundabout way?’

‘Does the cardinal have an enemy in the palace?’ Peterkin was looking thoughtful. ‘He’s the most pleasant of men. Devout and one of the few not given to lewdness. I can’t see him wanting to poison anyone. And how could it turn out that Maurice was killed on such a mission? Someone must have known he was going to break in.’