The Dragon of Handale (7 page)

“It was murder,” replied Dakin, “Obviously. But not by any murdering dragon.”

“But why?” she asked. “Who would want him dead?”

They shook their heads.

“We go out in pairs now.”

“You weren’t with anyone when you entered the mortuary,” she pointed out. addressing Dakin.

“I reckon I’m safe enough in the enclosure, and if I’m not capable of seeing off a nun or two, I’m not worth saving anyway.” He grinned for a moment, but then his expression turned bleak. “We want to get to the bottom of it, mistress, but we don’t know where to start.”

“You could begin by telling me something more about Giles himself. Where was he from? How long had he worked with you? Were there any circumstances in his life that brought him enemies?”

A few glances were covertly exchanged. So there was something, then.

Settling down round the freshly stoked charcoal brazier, the stonemasons told her what they wanted her to know about Giles.

It amounted to very little. He was second to Dakin. A journeyman mason. Employed, like Dakin, by their master for a year or more. They travelled from site to site. Never a cross word. What else to say? Dakin shrugged. “That’s it, mistress. He was my right hand. A regular and blameless life. Now snuffed out like a candle.”

Hearing the bell for the next office, Hildegard apologised for having to leave. She thanked them for their ale and promised she would do what she could to help from within the priory. Somebody must know the something that would lead to the killer. The priest, for a start. He seemed to have a good idea of what was going on within the precinct. She mentioned the warning he had issued, and they again mocked the idea of a dragon running loose.

She was about to leave, when a sound came from inside the lodge. She glanced across. A young woman was standing in the entrance, looking out. Dark-haired, with large hands and with a workman’s leather apron over a russet kirtle, she wore a thick shawl pinned at the front by a pewter brooch. She surveyed the group round the brazier with a sour smile.

“And this is our imaginator,” announced Dakin. “Mistress Carola cawer of stone devils.”

She nodded briefly in Hildegard’s direction, then turned to the men. “When you boys have finished yarning, you might decide to do some work today.” She went back inside the lodge.

Hamo chuckled. “Come on, lads. Orders is orders.”

“Back to the grindstone!” Will chuckled without rancour and began to head towards the shell of the new structure.

Dakin turned to Hildegard. “Come and visit us again. The prioress doesn’t rule you. We’ll show you the house we’re building. You’ll find she’s doing well for herself. And maybe by then we’ll have discovered something that will put Giles’s killer in chains.”

By the time Hildegard had crossed to the door of the enclosure, the men had returned to their work. One of them began to chip at a piece of stone. A chisel chimed regularly on a chisel, echoing the regular and deeper tolling of the priory bell.

Master Fulke had honoured the priory by purchasing a trental from them—that is, he was paying in gold for thirty masses to be sung to ease his soul to heaven when the time came for him to depart to what he must assume would be an even better life.

Hildegard understood now where the money for the new building was coming from, but she couldn’t help wondering what Fulke’s sins were that he believed he needed so much help from the Great Measurer. Or was it something more to do with the earl of Northumberland? The priory had been his own family’s endowment more than two hundred years ago, when one of his Percy ancestors had founded it for the greater glory of the Virgin Mary.

Was there something in it for Fulke in these days of shifting allegiances? Did it somehow help his dealings with the earl to be seen to support the Handale Benedictines?

Putting these matters aside for the moment, she made her way out of the church in the wake of the ever-silent nuns and trudged across the wet grass to her chamber.

The rain had stopped and the pale northern sun had made a fainthearted appearance. It was a blur of watery crimson behind the black skeletons of the branches hanging over the enclosure wall. Chilled, she let herself into the silent house.

A candle in a sconce was fixed just inside the doorway, and she lit it at once, using the tinder that always stood beside it in a niche in the wall. The entrance to the guest quarters was windowless, but the candlelight flared into the corners and dispersed the shadows. She was about to cross to her chamber, but then she thought she heard a sound like an aumbry door closing inside.

She froze. No other sound followed except for the
drip-drip
of a leak in a room above.

Her knife was still inside her bag on the floor by her bed. She looked round for something to defend herself with. Nothing was at hand. The words of the mason came back: “If I’m not capable of seeing off a nun or two…”

Emboldened, she doused the candle and stepping silently towards the door, gripped the metal ring, and, so it did not squeak on its hinge, turned it gently round until she felt the latch rise. Whoever was inside was in darkness, too, the shutters being closed, and with luck would not notice the movement.

Her shoulder against it, she inched the door ajar.

Silence within.

She pushed the door wider and stepped inside.

C
HAPTER
7

Without warning, something came flying out of the darkness and hit her in the face. A brutal commotion of blows and flailing limbs followed and then the sense of a black cloak muffling her face, fingers clawing; then she grasped flesh, soft pouches of her assailants’s face as she groped for the eyes in a reflex to defend herself.

As suddenly as it had occurred, the attack ended. All that remained was a black shape flying out of the door and, between Hildegard’s fingers, a piece of torn fabric.

Her attacker hurled itself across the garth, with Hildegard speeding after, but the shape was immediately swallowed up among the shadows in the cloister. Sprinting over, she was in time to glimpse the hem of a cloak disappearing behind a pillar.

By the time she reached it, a line of nuns were processing towards the refectory. Two by two they came, cowls pulled half over their faces, crosses and beads swinging. Innocent as lambs.

But one of them was her attacker.

Enraged by her own stupidity, Hildegard poked her head inside the church. It was the nearest place for anyone to seek refuge. She was forced to peer through a fog of smoke and incense to make anything out. One or two nuns were pacing down the nave in front of her, one of them swinging a censer as if to block her progress.

She fingered the piece of fabric between her fingers. Someone at Handale must have a torn gown, she thought.

She moved closer to the two she had followed inside. They had gone to stand against the wall to her left, heads bowed, hoods casting deep wedges of shadow over their faces. In the flickering candlelight, it was impossible to tell one from another. Those in the inner circle were grouped round the prioress near the altar, discussing something in low voices. They were too far along the nave to have just come inside. She turned her attention back to the two by the wall. Was her assailant one of these?

She listened to try to detect anything in their breathing to show they had been running, but they were both as composed as stone. She cursed to herself, free of nunlike vows, and peered along the wall, but they were the only two here. A closer look showed how optimistic it was to expect to find a tear in their garments. Most were threadbare. And she didn’t know whether it was a fragment of a sleeve or a hood or the edge of a cloak she held.

Prioress Basilda, as massive as usual in her wooden chair, was being helped out of it by the cellaress and the sacristan. The pimply priest was present. The nuns in attendance were speaking in wispy voices.

After this, supper.

She turned to go.

If the intruder was a nun and not one of the servants or lay sisters, which seemed most likely from her black garments, then she must have missed vespers in order to have had time to enter Hildegard’s chamber while she was absent. Nothing told her who had failed to put in an appearance, and there was no way of finding out.

Only one course suggested itself. She would have to match the piece of fabric she held with a tear in one of the nun’s habits. It was no use expecting to find a match here She would have to find an opportunity in the refectory. One of these furtive, hooded figures knew she had been attacked, and had, in turn, been toughly resisted. Her face must be blotched with small wounds, thought. Hildegard, smiling to herself. The culprit would have to do something out of the ordinary to get out of the trap she had set herself.

And so would Hildegard herself, to spring it.

The barefoot novice who brought the bread round to everyone was there again.

Thinly clad as usual, she held out a basket of wastel to each of the nuns in turn with her head bowed. She looked too cowed to do otherwise. Chewing on the fine white bread, Hildegard watched her scurry from one to the next, giving a little curtsy to each nun in turn It was plain she lived in fear. This must be the one the masons had referred to as Alys, the one who had found the body of Giles in the woods. No wonder she looked frightened.

Her attention moved to the other diners. Four sat on each side of the long table, including herself on one side. As usual, no one spoke. In order not to interrupt the reading from the lectern, they merely waved a hand for what they wanted, beckoning, dismissing, never looking the novice in the face. How old would she be? Younger than Hildegard had first assumed. Thirteen? Fourteen? Approaching marriageable age. Assigned to the monastic life by some guardian or a parent reluctant or unable to feed her? And by the look of her, profoundly unhappy.

Hildegard gestured for more bread. When the girl was near enough, she asked, “How long have you been at Handale, my child?”

The girl gave a darting glance at the nearby nuns and whispered, “Since Martinmas, mistress.” She saw that nobody was bothering much, so she added in a whisper, “I was sent from Rosedale. I do not wish to be a nun.”

Hildegard glanced at the dirty feet, the thin shift, the broken fingernails and tangled hair. “Come to my guest chamber before compline,” she murmured. “I would like to know more about this.”

The novice gave a slight nod and moved away.

No sign of a torn sleeve. It was difficult to inspect the hems of the cloaks tumbled onto the benches beside the sisters. Three or four still wore theirs, hoods up, faces concealed. One of those four, guessed Hildegard after looking at the smooth faces of those with their hoods thrown back. She rose to her feet.

There was rustle of speculation. No one got up from her place before the prioress.

Hildegard moved behind the line of nuns sitting on the bench she had just vacated. She could not see their faces, but she could do something to make them turn. With a sudden loud scream, she pointed into the corner of the refectory. At once, heads swivelled. Three hooded nuns briefly turned to stare at her. Two of them had faces as smooth as alabaster. The third was covered in scratches and had a red mark under her left eye.

“Mistress York! What is the meaning of this?” The prioress was in a fury and started to heave herself out of her chair.

“There, my lady! In the corner! I think I see something moving!” she exclaimed. She lowered her hand. She had found out what she wanted. “Forgive me, my lady. I now see I was mistaken.”

There was a rustling, not quite a murmur, from the nuns. The word
dragon
was heard.

“One of you go and have a look. Set our minds at rest,” replied the prioress, giving Hildegard a hard glance as she sank back among her cushions.

The subprioress got up and peered cautiously into the corner, here she poked around for a moment. “Nothing here, my lady.”

Hildegard dropped a curtsy. “My dear and reverend prioress, pray forgive me. It must have been a trick of the light Or a mouse.”

“Sit. Finish eating.”

Hildegard returned to her place. Her assailant was only two places away. Out of the corners of her eye, she watched the nun pick up a piece of bread and begin to eat.

“A moment, sister!” The black shape was hurrying to be first out of the refectory as soon as the final amen was uttered, and when she didn’t stop, Hildegard ran behind her and grasped her by the sleeve. “Sister, I believe I have something of yours!”

The nun was jerked to a stop. Slowly, she turned round. Her hood was over her face, but Hildegard pushed it back to reveal a long scratch down one side of her face and a series of small contusions under one eye.

Hildegard bobbed her head. “Forgive me.”

“For what?”

“For causing injury, although I’m sure you’ll realise it was in self-defence.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I think you do.”

“What do you want?”

“I want you to look at this.” Hildegard opened the palm of her hand, where the piece of torn fabric lay.

The nun’s eyes darted from side to side when she saw it. “It’s nothing to do with me!”

Hildegard still held her sleeve. “But how strange! It seems to match this tear exactly.” She chanced on the exact place where the fabric had been ripped at the cuff.

The two women regarded each other for a moment. They were of the same height and build, evenly matched.

“So what do you have to say?” prompted Hildegard.

“There is an explanation.”

“I’m sure there is.”

A sudden voice boomed: “Who is that conversing in the cloister?” It was the cellarer. She strode swiftly over to the two women.

Hildegard turned with a smile. “I am at fault again, sister. I asked a question. Does the rule of silence prevail in the cloisters, too?”