The Dragon of Handale (27 page)

Did that mean there was more to the priest than that half-humorous remark about a cock among hens? The sacristan had been shocked to her shoes when Hildegard suggested he might be at fault. But maybe one of the nuns had taken a fancy to him? And driven by jealousy…? She couldn’t see it herself, but then, there was no accounting for taste.

If he had been unwise enough to succumb to the hothouse atmosphere and indulge in a liaison with one of the nuns, then the woman involved would have been punished horribly and, depending on who was making the judgement, the priest would have stood in danger of excommunication and any future in the church would have been jeopardised. He’d been no abbot or bishop who could pull some weight to justify himself. This is no Watton Priory, either, where anything goes, she thought.

She remembered Mariana’s fate and the penitents in the cells. The culprit, or lover, if there was one, was more likely to be one of the kitchen servants than a nun. That way, it the priest would have been the one to be judged by canon law and the girl would simply have been thrown out.

If there was a girl, if the priest had been having an illicit affair, if, if if.

Sighing, she turned into the porch of the guest house, drew her knife, and entered with the flaming cresset held in front of her. Apart from the leaping shadows the latter caused, a tomblike stillness hung over the place. She replaced the cresset, lit a taper, went to her chamber, and wedged the chair against the door.

Ulf would be at Kilton Castle. He would have accosted Fulke’s customer and got his horse back. It was his horse that would have been uppermost in his mind.

Nothing to be done now but wait for morning.

She drifted off to sleep. But something terrifying woke her. At first, she didn’t know where she was and she reached for her neck, as if fearing another attempt on her life. But then she woke up fully and realised that it was the same hideous roar they had heard in the woods a few nights ago. Now it seemed to be in the enclosure itself.

She threw back her covers and ran to the window. Others were coming out onto the garth. The moonlight picked out more than a dozen figures—nuns wrapped in cloaks, some barefoot from the
dortoir
, the conversi from the kitchen quarters, finally the cellaress, the sacristan, and the subprioress from the direction of the prioress’s chamber.

They stood in the moonlight as the roar came again and again.

It was somewhere outside the walls.

One or two nuns fell to their knees and began to pray. The cellaress ordered lights to be fetched. Hildegard found her cloak and boots, remembered her knife, and went outside.

Carola came stumbling out after her a few moments later, but the lodgings on the other side of the garth remained in darkness.

“Can’t those fellows of yours hear it?” asked Hildegard.

“They sleep like the dead,” she replied. “Where is it coming from?”

“Outside, thank Saint Benet.”

As quickly as it had started, the hideous sound ended. Everyone stood in silence to listen, and the praying nuns were shushed. No sound indicated whether the beast was still out there or not. Eventually, when it was clear it had gone away, they began to return to their beds, until the subprioress, as pale as paper, suggested they repair to the church to give thanks for their deliverance from yet another threat from the devil.

Hildegard trudged over to the frater above the stores, where the three masons, the guard, and Fulke were sleeping. The door was open when she reached it and a bleary face poked out.

“What the devil was that row?”

“The dragon, we’re to assume.”

“Not that again.”

It was Hamo and he made as if to go back inside, but Hildegard said, “Are the others with you?”

“Sleeping like the dead. Get some sleep. We’re starting first thing, remember?” With this, the door closed.

Sighing with dissatisfaction, Hildegard went across to the church. At least she could find out how those in the priory were going to deal with it.

There was no sign of Basilda, either in her chair or out of it.

Her second in command, however, stood before them in the gloomy cavern of the church, her face paste white, eyes staring with fear, and for the next half hour lambasted the nuns for their sinfulness, which had surely brought them to the attention of the devil.

“It can only be a demon of Beelzebub who torments us,” she bawled. “His mission is to destroy this holy place and all in it. Confess and repent, or suffer in the eternal fires. Root out the sinners lest they bring us all to perdition. We are led astray and lost and it is the fault of those who sin and glory in their filth like swine in a bed of swill.”

Her shrill voice continued its accusations, listing a variety of sins, all the seven deadly ones and many more that other folk outside the tight rule of the Order would regard as nothing. Groaning and self-beatings were aroused by this. Hildegard watched in horrified amazement. Only Mariana, cowed and miserable, sank down onto the tiles and kept silent.

Carola touched Hildegard on the sleeve. “Mistress, this is not for us. We’d best leave.”

Outside in the cloister, she said, “Maybe they are better people than we are, but I fear they see the devil everywhere. If they looked for angels, maybe they would find a more natural joy in life.”

“Why don’t you come away with us in the morning?” Hildegard asked.

“I need to stay as witness for Dakin and because we’ve received no pay for our work. I daren’t leave before we’ve come to some agreement with the prioress. I want to give her no excuse for withholding our commission fee. She’ll cite the fact that the work isn’t finished if we all leave.” She looked as if she was about to say something else but stopped herself.

“What is it?”

She shook her head. “Only something to do with the nature of the work. It’s something that goes beyond our usual remit.” She turned away. “I fear we’re in a web and I can’t see a way out of it. If I fail, the guild will claim it’s because I’m a woman and should not have been entrusted with such responsibility.” She glanced back at Hildegard as she took her leave and added mysteriously, “A man might not have my moral qualms about what is being asked of us.”

C
HAPTER
24

The two men put their shoulders to the door in the enclosure wall and pushed with all their might. It didn’t budge.

“Something’s keeping it shut on the other side.”

“It must be a buildup of snow,” suggested Hamo, puffing and taking a rest for a moment. “Mebbe one of us should climb over and clear it?”

Matt looked doubtfully up at the wall. “I reckon you mean me,” he replied after a pause. He turned back to judge its height. “Likely I’ll fall and break my neck,” he said after a moment

“Come on, lad, don’t be soft. You’ve plenty of snow to land in once you’re over.”

“I suppose—” Matt punched Hamo on the shoulder. “C’mon then, you bastard, give us a step up.”

Hamo bent down with cupped hands, as if hoisting a master onto a horse, and Matt stepped up and began to claw at the wall. Somehow Hamo managed to hoist him onto his shoulders, and by reaching up, Matt was just able to lift himself onto the top of the wall. He heaved himself up and balanced there for a moment. He stared down without saying anything.

They saw his face go white.

The next moment, he was teetering on the brink; then with a sudden plunge he disappeared from sight.

‘What the devil…’ Hamo rammed with his shoulder against the door again but, of course, was unable to move it. “Matt?” he yelled.

There was no answer.

“Matt?” Hamo’s voice had a note of alarm in it. He began to pound on the door with both fists. “Answer me, you dolt. What’s up?”

There was a long silence. Hildegard was unable to make any sense of what had happened to make Matt fall like that. “Did he see something near the door? Is something keeping the door shut?”

It was dawn. The clouds were grey with unshed snow, but there was nothing sinister in the clarity of light; even so, an irrational fear gripped her. They had laughed at the idea of a dragon, but what if there really was something out there, some creature that defied reason, something with its own unexplained horror? They had heard it last night. And now maybe Matt had set eyes on it. And fallen to his doom.

“What has he seen?” shouted Hamo, helplessly turning to her, as if he had read her mind. “What is it?” He renewed his assault on the door, but it was immovable.

“Can you climb up there yourself if I help?” she asked, “Or should we go back and try to find a ladder?”

“You think you can give me a leg up?” He looked her up and down and made up his mind. “No, let’s get the ladder. The lay brothers at the farm must have one.”

The conversi, the lay brothers who worked the farm for the nuns, were found already at work around the animal pens. One of them was only too keen to drag a ladder from a store shed when he heard what had happened. With the help of another man, he carried it across the garth to the wall.

A nun who had been on vigil in the mortuary came out to see what the commotion was about. It was Desiderata. She looked washed-out, as if she had been awake all night, and Hildegard asked if she had been here when the dragon made its nighttime howl.

She nodded. “I stayed here and prayed. I thought it had got inside the precinct.” She gave Hildegard a challenging look.

Hildegard explained when Desiderata asked what was happening, and they watched the conversi erect the ladder against the wall and hold it steady while Hamo climbed up. When he reached the top of the wall, they watched intently to see what he would do when he looked over.

He was certainly having a good look at something. Then he turned back to shout down to them. “Matt’s knocked himself out. There’s a body blocking the door. Plenty of blood. Looks like a large dog. Its throat’s been ripped out and its belly’s been cloven open. I’m going down to have a proper look.”

He inched himself over the coping and, but for his fingertips grasping the top of the wall, vanished from sight. Then they vanished as well, to be followed by a cushioned thud as he dropped down into the snow.

After a moment, they heard two voices.

“That’s Matt,” exclaimed Hildegard with relief.

Slowly, the door was jerked open from the other side as the snow was cleared. The two labourers from the priory jostled forward with Hildegard to see what it was that had given Matt such a shock. Desiderata hung back.

It was as Hamo had told them. A large dog, a deerhound by the look of it, was lying on its side, its blood standing out against the snow, black and somehow shocking. Some thing had ripped the hound’s throat out. Entrails oozed out beside it. It would not have suffered long. What had held the door shut was its deadweight, that and the drifts of snow blown against it as before, when Hildegard had had to dig her way inside.

A high-pitched wailing made them all turn. Desiderata was standing behind them, one quivering finger pointing into the woods. “The dragon!” she screamed when she saw they were all staring at her. “The dragon did this! I heard it in the night. It was coming for us! Pray to God, ye sinners. Pray and never stop!”

Hildegard went over to her. “It was more likely a wolf, sister. Please, control your fears.”

Desiderata gave her a hostile glance and fell to her knees, muttering prayers.

The conversi offered to deal with the animal.

Hamo was brushing Matt down. He seemed concussed. He kept saying, “I’m all right. I’m really all right.”

“Do you still want to leave?” Hamo asked him.

“Of course I want to leave. Come on. I’m off now. Come on.” Matt swayed. Then, with an effort, he pulled himself together. “Let’s go. I’m over it now. It was the shock. It looked like a woman lying there. It looked like one of the nuns.”

While they were talking, Hildegard went outside and skirted the dead animal, keeping her eyes on the ground. A lot of footprints were scuffed into the snow where it lay, but a light step led away from the hound along the perimeter of the enclosure. Snow had fallen in the night and the indentations were almost obliterated. They reminded her of the footprints she had seen cutting across the garth the night she had entered the purlieu of the priory. Then, as now, they were too ordinary to connect to anybody in particular. What interested her was the way they continued along the wall until they disappeared into the undergrowth next to it. She would bet they could be picked up entering the priory through the main gate farther along.

She glanced back at the nun kneeling in the snow. Not Desiderata, then, not if she had been at vigil all night in the mortuary chapel.

They began to walk away. When Hildegard looked back, Desiderata was standing in the doorway watching them. She had an odd expression on her face. It sent shivers down Hildegard’s spine. She knew it was because of what she had read in the priory roll about why the nun had been sent here. She had paid her penance, however; the slate was clean. She had been absolved.

They set off into the deep woods.

After the skirmish of snow around the door, the snow elsewhere was smooth in the open but pitted underneath the branches.

On the track down to the beck, it lay backed up against the rocks in deceptive drifts. It made for heavy going. They were slipping and sliding with every step as they descended the cliff and they kept falling knee-deep into random pockets of snow until, at length, breathless and stinging with cold, they reached the bank. It was sheltered enough in the lee of the crag for the going to be easier from then on.

Soon they reached the road. The ford was in spate and they had to wade through, emerging on the other side soaked to the thighs, their boots heavy with river water. They trudged on up the snow-covered hill towards the castle.

Hildegard had not been able to see what it was like when she had arrived there at midnight in what seemed, now, to be another world. It was built on a triangular promontory, towers marking the corners, its main gate approached across a ridge of moorland. It looked impregnable, sheer cliffs on two sides impossible to scale without being observed. Birds of prey circled and screamed around the three towers.