The Dragon of Handale (4 page)

Hildegard took pity on him. “I should tell you, sir priest, I am very used to taking care of my own safety.”

He drew back, a look of alarm on his face. “Not against the beast,
ma donna,
” he gasped in a shocked tone. “No- one is safe. A man has been killed. None of us now walk there. The masons have to work outside the precinct walls because of the prioress’s new works, but even they go armed at all times.”

“Beast?” she frowned. “What sort of beast?” She vaguely recalled the remark concerning a dragon before she left Swyne. “Is it a wild animal of some sort?”

He shook his head. “Human, we believe, or at least partly human.”

“Walk with me.” Hildegard put her arm in his, a freedom she would never have taken had she still been wearing her nun’s habit.

Unresisting, he allowed her to lead him back into the empty cloister, at a distance from the busy domestic offices, close to the warming house, where they were sheltered from the rain by the ribbed vault that ran the length of it. “Now,” she encouraged, “what do you mean by part human?”

“I may be trusted to speak the truth. Let me assure you of that. I’m a priest from the Abbey of Whitby. My ancestors owned Kilton Castle. I am here to wait on the lawyers to give judgement on our claim to ownership just as my father and his father waited on the law. Until then, I suffer and pray in this hellish place. I tell you this because you will understand that I know the woods of Handale as well as anyone living. It has long been a story told by the ignorant that a dragon has roamed here since the time of the Northmen.” He hesitated.

“Please continue.”

“They say the dragon was killed by a hero named Scaur. Until now, I regarded it with all the scepticism of an educated man”—he gave a deprecating smile—“but even I begin to fear there might be truth in the stories. Not the story of a dragon, of course, nor even a wild dog or wolf, but of something evil out there at least. Some monstrous thing with no name.”

He gave a fearful glance towards the trees spearing above the precinct walls. They were black with rain. Tight-packed, they grew up to the walls themselves, except for the clearing near the main gate, and seemed to draw on the stones for sustenance. For a moment, he seemed in thrall to their menace, but eventually he dragged his glance away. “
Ma donna,
you should know that a man has been killed out there.”

“Long ago?”

He shook his head. He seemed terrified. Hildegard asked, “So why does this suggest a dragon of some sort? Why not a more familiar danger?”

He gave her a steady stare. “Because of the nature of the dead man’s wounds.” His hands, she noticed, were trembling, although whether it was with cold or some emotion, she could not tell.

“The dragon makes its presence known at night with a terrible howling, like nothing you will ever hear again. It turns the blood to ice.” His face twitched. “They say it’s a nun and her devil helpmate from long ago, one who was turned out of the precinct for her sins and was left to die. It was only by means of a pact with the devil she saved herself and was turned into a dragon, and now she roams the woods, looking for human blood on which to gorge.”

“Why does someone not find her and bring her in?” Hildegard suggested sensibly. “That would be the kindest deed.”

“Because she is not of human form. They are in terror of meeting her. They say she has lived on human blood for over a hundred years.”

He lowered his voice. “I am not a free man. I have no choice but to stay here until my family’s inheritance is restored. But you,
ma donna,
have a choice. Find an escort to take you back to the outside world; then run for your life. Do not stay here when you have no reason to.”

“I never run,” replied Hildegard. She gave him a smile that for a split second was reciprocated.

Then his face twisted into a grimace and he pressed his raw red knuckles into his mouth. “This is a place of penitence,
ma donna.
It’s where those nuns who have broken their vows are sent. They come from many different places, sent here as a last resort. Many come from Rosedale, and when that bleak moorland prison fails to tame them, they finish up here. They are the hardest souls, the most fierce in sin.” He pointed across the rain-swept garth. “See that cell with the bars?”

Hildegard followed his shaking finger to a set of iron bars at ground level. Beyond them lay darkness. It was a prison cell belowground, she surmised with a shiver of revulsion.

The priest explained. “The worst are kept in there until they mend their ways.”

“I came across a nun with a bloody mouth just before tierce, as if—I’m not sure—as if she had been hit across the face or—”

He gave a furtive glance round. “They say the monster in the woods may have infected one of the nuns within the precinct. To draw her down to the devil’s wiles. This is only a story”—he gave a nervous laugh—“but how would we know it wasn’t true until it was proved otherwise?”

Hildegard gazed at him in disbelief. “This nun—within—who is she?”

He pulled his hood closely over his head, face hidden. “I think you may find out to your cost,
ma donna
 … if you stay.”

Hildegard stifled a response. She bowed her head. “I thank you most cordially for your advice, sir priest, and shall take as much heed of your warning as common sense dictates.” She stepped from out of the cloister into the rain-swept garth.

C
HAPTER
4

The midday meal was being served when she entered the timbered refectory, where she found six or seven nuns seated at one long table and one or two novices attending them. Prioress Basilda was not in evidence. A nun she took to be the cellarer beckoned.

“Sit there, mistress.” She indicated a place at the end of the table, then continued to eat with downcast eyes. The rest of the nuns scarcely looked up. They went on eating, the silence broken only by a nun reading from the works of Saint Benedict. A wooden bowl containing gruel was placed in front of Hildegard by a soft-footed novice. Soft-footed, she noticed, because barefoot. Her feet were blue with cold as she padded back and forth over the flagstone.

The entire meal continued in a heavy silence, broken only by the droning voice of the nun chosen to read that day. At last, one of the nuns rose, mumbled a short prayer of thanks, and then the rest rose in a group and filed out, leaving only the cellarer and her servant.

“I am instructed to have you conducted to the scriptorium,” she told Hildegard, not looking at her “Follow me.”

The cheerless repast, the silence of the black-robed nuns, the chill in the atmosphere are burdens to be born, Hildegard told herself as she followed the cellarer up a flight of stone stairs to the first-floor level. This was maybe how outsiders first saw the Cistercian priory at Swyne, little knowing of the rich inner lives of the assembly or the general kindliness and compassion that prevailed. It was no doubt the same here and invisible to the eye of a casual guest such as herself.

Why she had been sent from Swyne to a house of correction was another question. One which would bear scrutiny later. Was it a covert message from her prioress that she needed, like the nuns here, to absolve herself from her own guilt? Impatiently, she dismissed the idea. It was too oblique. Her prioress was nothing if not forthright. She would tell her in plainYorkshire fashion what she thought of her activities in Westminster the previous year if she thought Hildegard had done wrong. Of her own secret thoughts about Hubert de Courcy, the prioress could know nothing.

The priest’s story, however, was simply outrageous. A man dead. Killed by a dragon or a ghostly nun? The penitent with the bloody mouth worried her. As did the half-underground cell. It was a species of refined cruelty, surely, to keep imprisoned in those cold, cramped quarters someone who could see others walking about freely in the open air. What sins were these nuns accused of to merit such punishment?

If anything was designed to keep her here, there was enough for now. She would not rest until she understood what was going on.

Feeling helpless, torn by the knowledge that none of this was her direct concern, she pulled out her beads from the embroidered pouch on her belt.

The cellarer turned at that moment. “Devout, I see.” She eyed Hildegard suspiciously. “Always a virtue, of course.”

“I have concerns about a nun with a bloody mouth,” Hildegard offered. “Is it some kind of punishment, or has she been injured?”

“I know who you mean. She has had trouble with her teeth for some time. She begged the barber to extract one and now suffers daily and with less stoicism than one would wish for.” The cellaress avoided Hildegard’s glance and, briskly, as if having no time for such trivialities, conducted her into the scriptorium.

It was a small chamber above the prioress’s own chamber at the end of the building, abutting the church. It had a dusty, unused look, but when Hildegard glanced round, she saw that it was equipped well enough. She would have to make ink afresh, but there were unsharpened quills in a jug and a ream or so of vellum on a shelf.

The cellaress explained that they would be pleased if she would help order the correspondence with the master mason at work on the current extension. “Absent at present with other works across the county. Always on the move, these masons with their little armies of labourers. He’s a great catch for us. His current work in Durham is with the cathedral there. Under the control of Walter Skirlaw. We’re fortunate to have snared him.”

“‘Snared’?”

“Such a catch for us. So much in demand, the good ones.”

“And costly, no doubt?”

The cellarer was not to be drawn out on how such a small foundation such as hers could afford a man so much in demand. “For now, you can file those papers, if you will. Put the accounts in some sort of order.”

“Do you expect me to do those, as well?”

“The subprioress will see to that.”

I am to be a mere dogsbody of a filing clerk, then, thought Hildegard. Well, so be it. I’m here to help and to forget my own self.

The cellarer was staring at her. “Have you experience of greater responsibility, mistress?”

“I’m here for prayer and contemplation, sister, and to resolve certain doubts in my mind.”

With a sideways glance, the cellarer left.

Hildegard moved over to the table. A horn blind covered an unglazed window looking out onto the outer garth, where a cow was stalled under a thatched lean-to. There was a swinecote next to it.

She sat down to read through the heap of receipts and demands.

And so the afternoon between sext and nones passed in her first day at Handale Priory.

When eventually the next bell began to toll, Hildegard got up with an exclamation of relief. Now, maybe, something would happen to give a more favourable impression of this grim place.

The scriptorium was in a chamber above that of the prioress. A stone stair led down past the door. As Hildegard descended, she was met by a waft of warm air and noticed that the door stood open. It briefly raised the temperature in the freezing stairwell. As she descended, she could not help casting a glance inside.

Prioress Basilda was heaving herself out of her chair. A man wearing a blue townsman’s cloak over a brown houpelande was offering his arm to her. Intent on each other, they did not notice Hildegard. The prioress’s expression as she looked up at her visitor made Hildegard miss a step. She recovered and opened the door into the cloister garth.

A file of black-clad nuns had been drawn from their cells by the tolling bell. They were processing two by two towards the open door of the church. Hildegard tagged onto the end of the line and was last to reach the door.

The same barefoot novice, wearing nothing but a thin shift, was standing just inside the door. She had her head bowed and the palms of both hands extended as if to receive alms.

But it was not a gift of coin or bread the nuns bestowed. It was a sharp lash with small whips of willow each of them carried. With every lash, tears seeped from between the girl’s eyelids. Hildegard saw her flinch in anticipation of pain as she heard the whisper of Hildegard’s approaching step.

“What is this?” Hildegard murmured. “Open your eyes. I’m a guest here and am not going to punish you.”

Cautiously, as if fearing a trick, the girl lifted her lids. Hildegard stared into eyes full of such misery, she exclaimed at once, “My dear, what is this for?”

The novice drew back. “Show me no pity, mistress, or they’ll punish me more than ever.”

“This cannot be.” Hildegard, lowered her head to conceal her response.

Aware of the small congregation clustering near the altar, their heads turned in speculation, she walked down the nave to join them. She could not believe it. What sort of place was this? Her heart began to thump with rage.

Nones: the service conducted by the prioress’s priest. As well as a fear of dragons, he demonstrated an imperfect rendering of the Latin texts. Hildegard ticked him off in her mind, then covertly observed the rest of the community.

Prioress Basilda herself sat on a sort of carved wooden throne, her flesh bulging through the frets of of oak leaves and gargoyle faces. Her feet rested on a box containing enough burning charcoal to keep them warm. Hildegard thought of the novice, barefoot on the flagstone by the door and serving food in the refectory.

Next in precedence was the subprioress. Her face colourless, eyes of a washed-out grey, not a scrap of hair showing to betray its colour, as was correct, and pale fingers clasped over her stomach, with a dripping string of colourless beads between them.

Next to her was the cellarer, who had shown Hildegard into the scriptorium. Gaunt and yellow-faced, she allowed her hooded eyes continually to sweep the faces of her companions. Hildegard thought she saw obsequiousness in her posture, something that suggested support for her superior’s harsh rule.

She recalled the priest’s observation that the hardest souls were sent here for punishment.