Authors: Cassandra Clark
Some way farther down, a cart was being unloaded by a brawny, bareheaded fellow in a woollen tunic. Hildegard heard him give a derisory laugh when one of the group asked if a man in a spangled cloak had been seen running his way. The driver of the cart, a grey-bearded old man with an old sack over his shoulders jiggled the reins of the stock pony between the shafts as if impatient to be on his way.
Baldwin went up to him. Hildegard could hear him demanding to know whether anyone had come out of one of the booths. The old fellow, like his companion, shook his head.
She saw him give a bored glance over Baldwin’s shoulder. The latter took this as a hint, told his companions and they set off in pursuit.
Hildegard did not understand what their quarrel with the mage was about, but she feared for his safety should they find him. The carter clicked his horse into action and it began to amble towards her. As it passed she caught a glimpse of the toe of the carter’s boot from under his cloak. Content, she headed off down the street.
* * *
Agnetha had found temporary lodging with her cousin and his wife. They lived in a two-storey cottage on the other side of town. When Hildegard crossed the bridge and turned onto the street where the convent was located, she saw the lay sister step out ahead of her from where she had evidently been waiting.
They greeted each other warmly but then Agnetha gave a grimace. “These sisters here wouldn’t unlock the door for me. No visitors, they said.”
“Did they tell you I’d gone into the town?”
Agnetha shook her head. “Merely snapped their grille shut as if I carried the plague.”
“Yes, they are rather brusque. But what’s wrong? You look worried.”
“I am.” She had gone back to wearing the clothes she had worn when Hildegard had first set eyes on her, laying down the law over heriot tax to the abbot and his officials at Meaux. On her head was a white kerchief knotted at the back of her neck and she had adopted a plain kirtle of rough unbleached cotton, with a housewife’s apron tied over it.
Hildegard looked her up and down.
“I know.” Agnetha ran an apologetic hand over her skirts. “Listen. It’s not how it looks. I’ve not given up on my intention to take the veil. You know me better than that, Hildegard. I’m not so light of purpose.”
“So what’s happening? Can you talk here?” They were standing in the shade of the porch. Hildegard glanced round. They were alone. The street had a few passersby at the far end. But to be certain they were not overheard she gestured to Agnetha to follow her and they both moved away from the door and began to stroll towards the quayside.
“I’ve been talking to my cousin and his wife,” the lay sister began. “It’s on their advice I’ve adopted my dairy woman’s garb. Listen, Hildegard,” she clutched her by the arm. “The way things are, the monastics are going to get caught in the crossfire.”
“What crossfire?”
Agnetha looked uncomfortable. “You know how the rebels targeted the abbeys? It’s not just lawyers they hate.”
“Rebels? You mean during the Great Revolt?”
Agnetha nodded.
“But that was three years ago—”
“Yes—” She broke off.
“And here in York they didn’t attack St. Mary’s Abbey nor the nunnery of St. Clement’s,” Hildegard said. “And the Holy Wounds convent is built like a fortress, as you’ve seen for yourself, and anyway,” she bit her lip, “surely all that’s over?”
“Those first two places are run by Benedictines. Everybody knows St. Mary’s came to a compromise with the town over their financial disputes by the time the rebellion broke out. And anyway,” Agnetha went on, “they have Gaunt’s protection. They’ll be safe if it starts up again.”
“So? Why are you looking so worried?”
“I’m just listening to what my cousin says. It’s dangerous, Hildegard. You have no protection here.”
“So on that basis I should change my white habit for a black one and go in disguise?”
“I’m only saying be careful. He says there’s something dangerous brewing.”
“What sort of thing?”
Agnetha shook her head. “He couldn’t say. There are rumours. I thought you should be warned.”
“And that’s why you’ve come over here, to warn me against being a Cistercian?” Hildegard drew herself up. She was shocked. Agnetha was one of the most level-headed people she knew. That cousin must have turned her head with his fears.
Now Agnetha gripped Hildegard by the arm. “I’m not saying this lightly. My cousin’s a guild member and hears everything.”
Hildegard remembered the fire at Master Stapylton’s. She asked Agnetha if she had heard about it.
She nodded. “They’re saying it was arson. That confirms what I’m saying, doesn’t it?” Her grip tightened for a moment before she let go. “Look, I must get back. I’ve promised to watch the children in return for my bed and board. Trust me, Hildegard. I am not reneging on my promise. I just know I’m safer this way. Please. I beg you. Watch your step.”
With a last urgent glance, she turned and hurried off, merging with the other goodwives and burgesses crossing by at the end of the street. As soon as she left a man stepped out from the porch of the convent and gazed after her. Then he turned and, giving Hildegard a glance, went back inside the building. It was the servant Matthias.
* * *
Agnetha’s warning was troubling. Hildegard went up to the convent entrance, was stopped by the locked door as before and waited impatiently until the portress pushed open her peephole to see who was there. After a pause, locks were scraped back and Hildegard stepped out of the heat into the icy gloom of the convent. Matthias was nowhere to be seen.
The portress poked her head out of her cubbyhole. “Missive in my office,” she announced without preamble.
Emerging long enough to heave the bolts back across the doors again, she scurried into her cell and returned with something in her hand. She made no attempt to hide her interest in its contents as she handed it over, and she continued to hover as Hildegard inspected the seal.
With an abrupt thank-you she pushed the letter into her sleeve. The last thing she was going to do was open it in front of prying eyes. The contents would be round the convent in no time. Leaving the porteress with her curiosity unsatisfied, she hurried into the cloister to find a corner where she could open it unobserved.
The seal was that of the prioress. It was the letter from Swyne she had been waiting for. Cecilia and Marianne must have arrived safely and told her what had befallen the grange at Deepdale. The prioress could move fast when she had to.
Desperately hoping that she was being recalled to the priory and that there would be welcome instructions regarding the two runaways, she prised the seal away and opened out a single piece of vellum. It was much scraped, having clearly been used many times over, but it now bore a clear message in the prioress’s familiar style.
She had written:
Sister, greetings. Unfortunate news regarding Deepdale. You will find a lesson can be learned from such events. Meanwhile, remain in York with our guests until enquiries yield results. Soon something shall be brought to you. Take it to our mutual friend. Do not under any circumstance leave it with him. Allow only sight of it, as requested. Understand me.
The angular swoop of a signature and the familiar seal pressed into the green wax confirmed the missive’s authenticity.
It took no more than a moment to understand what was being given into her care.
Last year she had been sent on an errand to Tuscany to bring back the famous Cross of Constantine at the wish of his grace the Archbishop of York, Alexander Neville. Hildegard had given it as instructed to the prioress. She, however, for some reason of her own, had been reluctant to hand it over to the archbishop. Hildegard surmised that because it was thought to be so powerful, possession of it was seen to confer on the owner more authority than that of the Holy Roman Emperor and the pope combined.
Hildegard had experienced at firsthand to what lengths the unscrupulous would go to obtain the cross.
In Italy the Gran Contessa’s ambition to rule over the wealthy city-state of Florence had led her to risk her immortal soul in pursuit of it. She had seen it as a means of gaining the earthly powers she craved. Hildegard had been abducted and almost lost her life in a plot to steal it. Escaping, however, and surviving many other dangers, she had eventually brought it back home to England where it had since remained in secret custody at Swyne.
Now it was to be brought here to York. She would be its custodian yet again.
She shuddered at the thought of it. If there had been a way of circumventing the prioress’s orders she would have welcomed it. But she had to obey.
Puzzling over the matter, she couldn’t imagine why it had to be taken to the archbishop himself. He could easily have gone to Swyne to have a look at it while on one of his visitations at nearby Meaux. Clearly there was more to the story than she was being told.
Suddenly remembering Brother Thomas’s promise to escort her if ever she should need him again, she made her way to the upper floor of the convent where there was a small chamber that served as a scriptorium. After writing a short note, she signed it, pressed her own seal to the hot wax then went down to the domestic quarters to find a messenger from among the many servants working there.
The maze of kitchens and storerooms was confusing. Eventually, spying a reliable-looking boy loitering near the buttery, she offered him a penny with the promise of further reward if he took the letter to the courier and returned promptly with a receipt. He sped off with alacrity.
Then she joined everyone in the chapel for the last office of the day.
Unfortunate news indeed, she thought with some bitterness as she closed her eyes and pondered the prioress’s instructions.
* * *
It wasn’t the disappointment of finding they were not being recalled to Swyne that kept Hildegard awake that night. Nor was it the fleas nor the discomfort of the straw pallet on which they were forced to lie. It wasn’t the singing of the nuns at the nightly office either. She could have joined them.
It was something else. Something more personal for which she could find no resolution.
She tossed and turned, afraid lest her rustling should disturb the girls. Next morning she rose without waking them and set off for the minster.
Already thronged with visitors from outside the town, it was a sanctuary of beauty and tranquillity after the punishing austerity of the nunnery. It embodied what she longed for most: peace—peace in the realm, of course, but peace in her own heart as well.
The catastrophe at Deepdale, as she well knew, was not the source of her unrest. It was something that had started long before that event. She knelt in front of the altar in a side chapel, away from the sound of passing visitors, and bowed her head.
Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember thee.
Forgive me, oh Lord, she prayed. Forgive this sinful misdirecting of your words.
It had been in a place like this, the minster at Beverley, where a truth had been revealed to her, and it offered a choice between two paths. According to orthodox belief one led heavenwards, the other to eternal damnation in the fires of hell.
Recently his absence had afflicted her with a deeper melancholy. Time had changed nothing. The path they both believed would lead to hell opened as invitingly as before.
Not that she had a choice whether to take that path. He was on pilgrimage. Might never return. Or if returning, might be changed beyond knowing, cleansed of his lustful folly as she should be cleansed of hers.
A year at Deepdale, however, had done nothing to make her forget him. Some days the battle was easier, some days she was overwhelmed with longing. Today for some reason she could not understand the sanctuary of his presence was all she desired.
Once he had felt the same.
“My soul be damned,”
he had said.
Impatiently she rose to her feet. If it was not Hubert de Courcy she desired would it be some other man?
Finding her prayers to be useless, she walked savagely down the long nave towards the west doors but hesitated, reluctant to go out into the streets of the town. She ran her fingers over the leather bag hanging from her belt. It contained a gift he had sent her. A gift that meant that she possessed something of him no matter how far away he was.
Agnetha knew she had risked her life to enter the burning grange to retrieve it.
Six months ago, in the dead of winter, a messenger had arrived at Deepdale with it.
Hoar frost on the bare branches. Ice in the water butt. A sky so low with unshed snow it seemed to touch the tops of the hills enclosing the grange in its hidden valley. Sheep bleated in the fold. Thin cries of newborn lambs. Chilblains and sleepless nights. Winter, hard as it is in the north. Then the messenger appeared.
He stood at the kitchen door and refused to come in, merely giving her a muttered “From the abbot,” to inform her of the provenance of the parcel he thrust towards her. After he left she had unwrapped it and gazed at it in wonder, caught first by the fact of the gift and second by the beauty of the little book. It was a missal. She had turned the pages and read the words.
Later she wrapped it in the strip of embroidered silk that had belonged to Hubert’s Knight Templar great-uncle. She remembered how it had been given to her anonymously last year and how she had held it out, intending to return it as soon as she knew who owned it, but he had refused to take it back. His hand had enfolded her own, the silk held close within her palm.
“Keep it,”
he urged.
“Take it as a pledge of everything in my heart.”
When she eventually forced herself out through the great west doors into the minster yard it was already teeming with the worldly comings and goings of a throng of visitors. She took a deep breath and set out.
Another hot day looked likely. The sun was again beating down out of a cloudless sky. The wells would be further depleted. More ruined crops, she thought. More deaths.