The Dragon of Handale (37 page)

“Unless the lady denies him.” Dakin, for one, was still convinced Giles had been murdered by Fulke or one of his men because he had stumbled on their secret at the tower. He clenched his fists. “It’s not ended yet.”

Before everyone dispersed, a servant came up to announce the arrival of the miller. He was a tall, loose-limbed fellow, not unlike a grizzled version of Ulf, Hildegard decided. Saxon. Down-to-earth. Naturally pious. He was looking worried. He had been told about the dead animal in the woods. His favourite hound had gone missing.

He was taken to a lean-to near the animal pens in the outer garth and shown the mutilated deerhound.

He dropped to his knees in the straw and buried his face for a few moments in the gore of matted fur. When he stood up, he said, “That’s her. What mad witch would do such a barbaric thing?”

He was taken off by the conversi for a sup of ale to sustain him before getting down to the melancholy task of burying the hound.

“She was an old lady,” he kept saying as they escorted him away. “Retired from the kennels at Kilton. She wouldn’t have harmed a fly. She delighted in walking these woods with me.”

Hildegard followed with Hamo and will, who had offered help with the shovels.

The conversi were sullen. “It wasn’t one of us who did it,” somebody was heard to mutter, “so it must be as the miller claims, a mad witch. And we all know the nuns are secret witches—”

“Aye,” another agreed, interrupting, “dancing naked on the Sabbath by the light of the full moon.”

When questioned as to which nun they suspected, they fell silent.

With everyone sombre of mood, even the arrival of the earl with a small retinue and the bridal couple, could not raise anybody’s spirits. Northumberland, glaring round in his usual belligerent fashion, clearly thought it was the last place on God’s earth where anybody would wish to be, and he made it clear he was there only on sufferance, doing his duty. He was conducted to the prioress’s private parlour. A bevy of guards stood outside the door and surveyed the priory with disdain.

While the masons were busy and everyone else was hanging round the cloister in the hope of getting another glimpse of his grace, Hildegard went across to the men’s guest wing. The bailiff had joined the others waiting to see the earl pass by, but he had left his two guards outside the chamber where Fulke was incarcerated.

“He’s just having his bread and cheese,” one of them said when Hildegard appeared.

“It’s not him I’ve come to see.”

At that moment, Desiderata swept out of Fulke’s chamber with an empty bowl of pottage in her hands. She narrowed her eyes when she noticed Hildegard talking to the guards. “Have they decided to move him?” she demanded.

The guards shrugged. “Not that we know of, sister.”

With a searching glance at Hildegard as if to discern her business, she set off towards the kitchen.

Hildegard took the opportunity to slip inside the baggage room across the hall. It was a cell-like place lit only by one small window high up in the wall and piled with the masons’ equipment.

Quickly, she began to search through it. There had usually been several claw chisels of various sizes littered about the lodge. Racking her memory, she recalled how many and what size had been stored under the eaves as the masons were preparing to leave. She found the one she had used herself to pick the tower padlock. Then she pulled aside some sacking and stared. Something extremely strange was revealed.

It was not a weapon. It was a kind of mask like the ones used in mumming plays. A long leather-covered snout, a wild mane of string, a jaw that opened and closed to reveal two rows of wooden teeth painted white. Holes for eyes. The whole thing on a structure of wire mesh.

An object hideous and unnerving when sighted by moonlight in a haunted wood.

She lifted it up and was just turning it over in her hands when the door behind her slammed shut.

“Well, well, mistress, what have we here? I think this is where we came in. You. Me. An empty chamber.”

It was Dakin.

C
HAPTER
34

“This time there are no corpses present, only the dragon of Handale.” She held the mask out.

“Beautifully crafted, don’t you think? A joining of the skills of woodworker and metalworker, with the art of limning thrown in.” Dakin was eyeing her closely. He didn’t move, but kept his back against the door.

“Tell me,” she said, “how did you manage to make that hideous roar?”

He took two paces across the room then. Swift. Determined. She became very conscious of the knife slotted in his belt, his towering strength, his strange manner.

He reached out a hand. “With this.” She flinched back as he lunged forward. He reached inside the head and grasped a metal horn-shaped object with a mouthpiece. He swung it, and as she ducked out of the way, she saw him bring it to his lips. Then he blew.

The chamber was filled with the dread racket of the wild beast that had terrorised the nuns. He lowered it. The echoes dwindled to nothing. “Now you know.”

“But you were in chains when it was running wild out there.”

“Later on, yes. That’s when the others took over. We thought it a good joke to go along with the idea of a dragon after Fulke tried to scare us into keeping away. We thought, We’ll show you dragons, you losel. Nobody tells us what to do. We guessed he must have a secret reason for wanting to keep us out. We caught him roaming about one night and scared him so much, he ran off with his tail between his legs. That must have been the night he’d received his payment from Morcar. If we’d only known he had gold on him, we’d have made ourselves a profit.”

“Did you guess what he was up to?”

Dakin shook his head. “Nor did we imagine he’d do Giles in for ignoring his warning.”

“We don’t know it was Fulke. It seems unlikely now.”

Dakin looked savage for a moment. “Somebody did it.”

“I have a plan,” she told him. “But I must talk it over with the prioress before saying anything else. I came here to look for the claw chisel used by the killer. There’s one chisel missing from your set.”

Now that the thaw had done away with the snow, another trial by weather came up. It was the wind. It howled in across the sea from the east, biting, bending, and breaking everything insubstantial in its path. The trees outside the enclosure roared like the ocean and branches cracked and gnawed one another. An ancient beech fell onto the high wall and brought part of it crashing down. Nuns seemed to fly like crows across the garth, with their garments winging out around them.

The marriage party led by the earl entered the church for the blessing through Basilda’s private entrance and appeared to the congregation from behind the altar.

In the massed light from the candles, the earl’s expression was surprisingly genial, and turning to Harry Summers, he was seen to slap him on the back. “Let’s get this done, young lad, and get back to the comfort of Kilton. You’ll want to get to your bed, and I’ve a whole hogshead of Guienne waiting for me, as well as a few sides of good red meat. These nuns live on moonbeams.”

Summers, who had eyes only for Isabella, nodded vaguely, as if the words were in a foreign language. “Indeed, Your Grace.” He briefly lifted his glance from Isabella’s face and turned shining eyes to his lord. “She is most beautiful, you must agree. How should I ever need food when my love sustains me so?”

The earl’s reply was drowned out by the wind as it howled and racketed round the building. His own priest offered up a blessing and intoned the words of a nuptial benediction. It was soon over.

“Very satisfactory,” murmured the bailiff to Hildegard as they clustered under the porch and assessed the strength of the wind before leaving the shelter. “I do believe we’ll have to claim an extra night’s hospitality from our lady prioress. There’s no going back to Whitby in this. Not over those cliffs. We’d be dashed into the ocean the minute we put our heads above the summit.”

“True. But the earl is returning to Kilton.”

“Not by the cliff top he isn’t. Still, at least we’ve had the honour of seeing him and we’ve got our man. It’s all been worthwhile.” He nodded with satisfaction; then, clutching his hood to his head, he set off across the garth. His guards were just at that moment coming to meet him.

Dismay was audible as they shouted something to him against the wind. Hildegard turned at the sound and a phrase or two was blown her way.

“Gone!” she heard. “Shackles unlocked—how the blazes?”

She saw the bailiff swivel to the earl’s group, which was on the verge of departure. Saw his moment of indecision. Then she watched as he urged his men back towards the erstwhile prison. All three disappeared inside.

The prioress was in her parlour, seated as usual. The blazing fire reached halfway up the chimney, as usual. But her expression was one Hildegard had never seen before. She listened to Hildegard as she outlined her plan for winkling out the priest’s killer and she cocked her head to one side as she heard about Fulke’s apparent escape.

“He won’t get far, but I’d better watch my step, I suppose.” She was unperturbed and changed the subject. “In my opinion, Mistress York, your plan is not unlike a wild clutching at straws. There must be a better one. But as we have so dismally failed to think of an alternative, then yes, let’s do it.”

She rang the small ceramic handbell Hildegard had noticed when she first arrived. It summoned a different novice, one in pattens.

“My lady?”

“Bring the cellaress to me. Then fetch my two strongest conversi.”

Josiana, suspicious at first, then more eagerly, agreed to do as Basilda suggested.

“It’s Mistress York we have to thank for this ruse, is it?” She eyed Hildegard with an expression bordering on approval.

“This is what we’ll do.” Basilda could not stop her jowls from trembling. “You, Josiana, will keep ’em at vespers for a little longer than usual to give us time to lay the bait. Then make your announcement: A decisive clue to the murderer’s identity has been uncovered in the priest’s house. No one is to venture there this night, under pain of severe penance.” Basilda beamed for the first time. “Make sure they understand that. We’ll lure this rat into the trap if it’s the last thing we do.”

It was desolate in the cloister garth after the earl’s retinue had left. His men had cut a swath of woodland from the road to the main gate in order to make a path to the priory wide enough for the earl’s horses, and now, with the wind raging, they had left the same way.

The sacristan scurried across to the bell tower with her head bent, robes flapping, to ring the bell for vespers.

The bailiff, morose at the disgrace of losing his prisoner, conducted a desultory search around the garth for the missing Fulke. Everything about him showed that neither he nor his men expected Fulke to be lingering about the place. He would have had the nous to make good use of the earl’s new way through the woods and be long gone.

The moon began to rise. It was a baleful lamp behind the thrashing branches of the trees. The bell for vespers clanged. Its final sonorities were borne away more rapidly than usual on the wind. Everyone filed into church. Except, that is, for the prioress, detained in her room by an indisposition after the excitement of the earl’s visit, and Hildegard, whom no one regarded anyway.

The cellaress’s voice could be heard at once, and soon, no doubt, she would issue the appropriate warning. Meanwhile, the two strong conversi carried the prioress in her chair across the blustery garth to the house of the priest. Hildegard walked alongside and opened the door when they arrived. Battered by the gale, the old place creaked and groaned like a ship at sea. The conversi were dismissed but told to stand by after they had placed the chair in the shadow under the stairs with Basilda still in it.

After they left, Hildegard pulled the blind halfway down and remained beside the door, with a view onto the path. Out of the darkness, Basilda whispered across to her. “I‘m going to try to stand. Do not be alarmed if you see me on my feet.”

In moon shadow as night descended to a deeper hue and enveloped the house, Hildegard saw a towering figure rise up. It was an alarming sight. Tremors of fear sent her hand to the hilt of her knife in the sudden thought that she had made a dreadful misjudgement.

She was here alone. Possibly the prioress was mad. Her faithful servants were the only people within shouting distance.

Basilda began to chuckle darkly. There was a loud wheezing as she proceeded across the floor. Her hoarse whisper came again. “I do believe I can make it up those stairs if I take my time. Can you hear whether they’ve finished vespers yet?”

Relieved at such a normal request, spoken in such normal tones, Hildegard lifted a corner of the blind. “There’s no light in the garth. The doors are still closed.”

“Then I’ll do it. I’d like to see where he spent his time, see his few belongings, my poor boy.”

A turmoil of shadows separated into one bulky shape rising little by little up the wall. The stairs creaked. After a long and painful progress, a scuffle at the top showed that the prioress had reached the summit. A voice whispered from above, “Now we wait, mistress. And trust that your ruse brings the killer into our trap.”

Figures flitting across the garth some time later showed that the service was over. A cloud of dark winged shapes flew and scattered and eventually disappeared.

It was a shock to hear within the continuing roar of the wind a small scraping sound very close at hand. A mouse, perhaps?

A shift in the level of darkness showed that the door was being pushed open. A hooded figure stood on the threshold, then quickly melted into the darkness only a few feet away.