Authors: Cassandra Clark
Two men took Hildegard by the arms. “Shall we rope her, master?”
Briefly glancing over his shoulder, Red-beard gave a laugh. “I don’t think we need show such discourtesy, do you?” He moved off in a group of his closest confederates and Hildegard saw Thomas and Danby hustled away.
As they went Danby shouted to her. “I didn’t plan this, sister. He promised you’d come to no harm.”
“Nor shall I,” she reassured him. “I trust him.”
With swords coercing them there was little either Danby or Thomas could do but leave as they were ordered.
Soon the sound of hooves could be heard drumming away up the track out of the camp.
* * *
Dawn. A sense of the sea. Not the smell of salt in the nostrils, impossible when salt has no odour, but that crystalline sense of windswept ocean, the sound of surf, the mew of seabirds in an expanse of sky.
For what had remained of the previous night Hildegard and the rebels had ridden with forced speed and only now the cavalcade began to slow with an awareness of a new sense of place.
They had crossed moorland, desolate in all directions, the rise and fall of heather-covered hills lacking any sign of habitation.
The last summit brought this shock of the sea and a vision of pink-edged clouds with the sun rising from the deep. Its light was reflected in a bloody path across the waves. Everything became drenched in colour as the sun rose higher. It was evanescent. Apocalyptic. Rays of light struck rainbows through the damp manes of the horses.
Moving towards and against the transplendent light, the riders milled about on the cliff top. They looked now crimson, now black in silhouette.
The master of the rebels, still nameless, turned in the glowing shine like a red flame, his face like fire, his wild hair blazing from beneath his leather casque.
A few quiet orders caused a camp to be organised. The horses were hobbled. The men settled to pottage and hunks of bread, cross-legged on the promontory, unexhausted, destination attained.
Hildegard sat away from them and watched.
A lieutenant had carried a sack across his saddle all the way through the night. She saw him lift it down and carry it under his arm when he went to join the others at the fire.
The leader came to her where she was sitting apart. “I trust that was not too arduous for you, sister?”
“I’m used to riding,” she replied shortly.
“No doubt you’re wondering about your purpose here?”
She looked up at him.
“I can tell you now.” He sat beside her on the ground. “We have an assignation with a representative of the Earl of Douglas who in turn, of course, represents King Robert of Scotland. In exchange for this lump of wood which he, like you, values so highly, he is willing to give us gold. You know what that means? We can go on publishing our notices, maintaining a life outside the law, disseminating the truth, furthering the cause of freedom. We’ll wait here until we see the Scottish ship coming into the port below.”
Rising to his feet he beckoned and she followed him to a ledge of iron stone lower down the cliff.
Several hundred feet below was a hamlet on a curve between the headlands. A swift-flowing beck carved a channel from off the moors and drained into a natural harbour. On both sides of the bay houses clung to the strata of red rock. They seemed hewn from rock themselves. The sea licked at the foreshore and broke in fangs of surf against the cliffs at the entrance to this haven.
“How long do we wait?” she asked.
“For as long as necessary.”
“And then I can go?”
“After you’ve witnessed the exchange. Your presence legitimises our transaction.”
“You trust me not to object?”
“Objection would be foolish. As you already know there’s a faction here who would slit your throat from sheer pleasure and a hatred of religion.”
She gazed down at the small fishing village in its hollow. No help could be expected from that quarter.
She nodded and climbed back to the top of the cliff.
* * *
The day passed uneasily. The two sides of the same cause eyed each other with suspicion and kept to themselves. One group listened to readings from a well-thumbed missal, the other played dice and drank.
The tide had been at its height when they arrived, the surface of the water covered with small sailing boats, but it began to recede soon afterwards, sending the boats and their full nets to shore. A cog appeared and stood off in the bay for a while and then sailed on. The ebb revealed a shelf of level rock, like the floor of a palace, but lethal enough to rip the bottom out of the strongest ship.
Unseen by day, the moon pulled the tide to extremes, making it run foaming up the side of the red cliffs, high above the green mark of weed, and then forcing it back far out over the scaur to lay bare its deceptive fissures and lethal outcrops of iron-stone.
Hildegard sat in a hollow on a shelf of rock lower down the cliff, out of sight of the men. Most of them seemed to have forgotten she was present and she was unmolested. This was where Red-beard found her again. He sat down. They looked out over the sea in silence.
Eventually she asked, “So you consider it better to work outside the law to further your aims?”
“When the laws are bad there’s no choice. Besides, the law itself sets me outside its limits now it’s used me.”
“Used?”
“I was in France,” he said shortly, as if that was explanation enough.
“My husband was in the French wars as well,” she said. “He didn’t return.”
“Many didn’t. Our militia were luckier, though, than the poor devils slaughtered at Roosebeke by the Duke of Burgundy.”
“I was in Flanders shortly after that battle. Bruges was filled with beggars, war-wounded, men who would never work again, those on the brink of death.”
“It was that made me decide to do my best with what was left of my days.”
“And this is it?”
He looked her full in the face. “The best I can do.”
Eventually he got up to go. “Tide’s on the turn.”
* * *
Shortly after midday a delegation from the village climbed by a cliff path to the camp. Evidently they knew what was afoot.
“Go-betweens,” the lieutenant said, nodding. “They control the water front.”
Red-beard welcomed them, accepted their offerings of fish with goodwill. Commenting in an aside on their ragged clothing and bare feet, he offered what bread and ale they had to spare.
The two groups sat down together.
Three groups, thought Hildegard, with a glance at the men in the obscure livery who, she had been told, would slit her throat for pleasure.
A disagreement became apparent, although not pursued very far. It was a variation on what the magister had told her: whether to cut out the Earl of Douglas and offer the cross to the fishermen in return for armaments they claimed to possess. No mention was made of offering it to Douglas for arms instead of gold.
There was some scepticism about the reality of the fishermen’s arms until a shipwreck was mentioned. Several weeks ago, a cargo destined for Scotland owned by the pirate Robert Acclom had come aground on the scaur below. The fishermen let it be known they wanted to make the most of their good fortune.
They were willing to hand over the arms to their countrymen instead of risking slaughter by selling them on to their original customers, the Scots. In return, they would be happy to accept something of similar value they had heard about which they could use for barter at a future date. With whom they envisaged this barter taking place they did not specify.
“I see no wreck,” someone commented after a brief examination of the coast from the height of the cliff top.
“That’s because we need firewood as much as you do,” came the reply. A few knowing glances followed. “Do you want to come down and see what we’ve got? It’s mostly this sort of stuff.”
With a flourish that made everybody step back, the spokesman produced a sword from under his rags. It was the best Rhineland steel. Any professional man-at-arms could see that. Hildegard observed the fishermen from a position on the fringe of the group. They had a shrewd, hard look and, despite their ragged appearance, bore themselves with arrogance towards the landsmen. She would not want to cross any of them.
Red-beard took the sword and weighted it in his hands like a man who knew what he was doing. “We travel in peace, brothers, otherwise we might be tempted. It’s gold we need so we can publish our beliefs, not steel. The Earl of Douglas has promised gold.” He handed the sword back. “You’ll easily find a purchaser in these times. Be sure of it.”
“The Duke of Northumberland will offer for arms at any time,” somebody suggested.
“God knows, he needs them,” somebody else added.
“Let’s hope he has enough gold for your needs,” said the lieutenant. He still had the sack close beside him.
* * *
The day passed. Again the tide rose. Red-beard came to sit beside Hildegard in her niche out of sight of the others beneath the rim of the cliff.
“After seeing what happened after Tyler was murdered and the king reneged on his promise to set the bonds men free, I realised we would always be defeated by the trickery of our rulers,” he began. “They’ll never give anything up. Sharing power is something they don’t understand. Our only chance is to make ourselves strong. I asked myself: What’s stronger than the sword? There’s only one answer: the word.”
Hildegard nodded. It’s what the magister had said.
“One day,” he continued, “I’ll have a little cottage and a plot of land where I can grow cabbages and beans. One day maybe there’ll be a wife, a son, a little daughter.” He gave a bitter smile. “Yes, all that—on the day the world grows honest and justice prevails.”
* * *
The sea was changing from dark blue to the colour of wine. The land itself was gradually being drained of light. A shape, too big and constant to be a wave, was spotted near the headland. Flares from the village suddenly appeared. They streamed along the dark edge of the shore, lighting the way across the scaur. An answering blink of light came from the vessel.
It was at that moment that hell broke loose.
Everyone on the cliff top was engulfed in a chaos of glinting steel. The men in the obscure livery set about slicing the throats of as many men as they could lay hands on. The true brothers of the White Hart retaliated. From out of the hillside swarmed a further band of cut-throats, ragged, many barefoot, narrow gutting knives working as lethally as the broadswords carried by the rebels.
Hildegard made herself invisible in the rocks on the cliff side, but she saw the lieutenant stumble from out of the fray with the sack. She called out but her voice was lost in the clash of steel on bone and the sickening howls of slaughter.
The lieutenant lurched towards the edge of the cliff and then his glance fell on her where she crouched in horror among the rocks.
“Forgive the theft. Take it back. Destroy it—” He fell at her feet in a pool of blood.
She tugged the sack containing the cross from under his body and backed away with it. Her eyes dilated as she gazed on the butchery, men falling, no guessing who was fighting whom. She saw the red-bearded leader lay about him with his sword and she saw many men fall under it.
The next minute she watched as a thrust of a blade from the thick of the battle pierced him as he raised his arm to strike again. He turned, still wielding his sword against his attacker and retreated to where the body of his lieutenant was lying.
Hildegard called out. “Here, you’re hurt, let me help.”
He lurched towards her, a black shape against the setting sun, his voice hoarse. “It was a mortal wound, lady. There is no help. These are my last moments.”
He stumbled over the rocks and she dropped the sack containing the cross and stretched out her arms to take the weight of his fall. He rested there in her arms, his breath snatching at the air as if it had turned thin, while above, among the shadows in the lift and hollows of the cliff, the slaughter continued.
Between gasps he tried to speak. She had to bend her head close to his lips to catch the words. “The cross—” he rasped. “I saw him give it … take it … destroy it … too much discord … civil war … if Gaunt has it we are finished—”
“I’ll take it—”
He clutched her by the arm. “Don’t betray me. Give me your promise?”
“I will not let Gaunt have it. Never. As long as I breathe.”
His eyes closed and a wisp of a song came from between his lips.
“And on that purpose yet we stand—”
his dying grip slackened, “
whoever does us wrong … contrives against us …
we will be free, lady … every man, every woman … one day…”
Struggling to raise himself to his knees, his left hand clutching the front of his hauberk, he crawled towards the edge of the cliff. “Let me see the sea!” He reached out for her arm.
“I don’t even know your name to pray for you,” Hildegard whispered, helping him as best she could.
“No name,” he slurred. “No prayers. Nothing but this!”
He gazed out across the rolling waves as if there was something glorious to be seen on the horizon.
Then his hand fell away from his wounds, allowing his intestines to slither to the ground. Blood gushed from his mouth.
He fell.
Hildegard brushed a trembling hand across his face when he was still. His skin was hot as if he still lived. She closed his eyes. Behind her the clash of arms continued as the combatants pressed on down the cliff path towards the village. Fading.
She sat on unnoticed.
* * *
Eventually it ended. Hildegard retrieved the sack from where it had fallen. Drawing the reliquary from inside, she prised the lid off and lifted the cross from its red-velvet bed. Then she went to the brink of the cliff.
The cross felt light in her hands. It was only a piece of worm-eaten wood. And yet it caused violence and death because of the things people believed about it. It divided people. It spread darkness instead of light.
She imagined hurling it out as far as she could over the sea. She saw the long arc of descent as it vanished forever in the thundering surf.