‘You’re welcome,’ she told him. ‘I know I can trust you to look after these two poor fellows for me.’
He said something she translated along the lines of ‘you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours,’ and leered in a way perhaps intended to be friendly.
After a moment or two he sidled out again.
‘This, what you just mentioned,’ murmured John with a glance towards the door. ‘What does it entail?’
‘Liberty. I can tell you no more. It depends on several factors. Trust me though.’
‘We need only to get out of the palace. We can find our own way after that.’
‘You’ll need to get out through the town walls as well. The quay lies only a short distance from the river gate to the North. If you make your way there you’ll be able to buy passage on a wine boat or some such. I’ll see what I can fix up.’
‘It’s how we get out of here that’s the problem. How many guards are on?’
‘Only the one now. They’re beginning to feel you’ll cause no more trouble.’
Peter growled something and John said, ‘Don’t fret, old son. Once we’re out of here we’re as good as home.’
‘How do you work that out?’
‘We’ll head up to Aquitaine, of course. Good old English soil. Then we’re home and dry.’
**
The young retainers, pages and esquires alike, were expected to bed down close to their lord to be on hand should he require anything, at any time of the night. Edmund and his guild, however, had their secret places where they could keep out of everyone’s notice, meet their fellows, or simply have some time when they were free from being at everybody’s beck and call.
One of these hidden places was in the lee of a buttress high up under the carved stone ceiling of the Great Audience Chamber.
‘Audacious. How did you find such a niche?’ she asked when Peterkin conducted her there shortly after she left the prisoners.
‘The French pages showed us. We meet here to compare our respective situations.’ Peterkin, despite his sometimes impish manner, spoke with the gravitas of a churchman. She could easily see him taking holy orders.
He showed her a gap between the stone carvings. It was like the squint in a church where the priest could spy on his congregation. She looked down. It gave a view into the Great Audience Chamber but the observers, like a priest at the squint, were out of sight. It was a strange experience to be able to see the tops of the heads far below, tonsures, coloured hoods, hair flowing loose or cropped in punishing strictness.
She sought out Hubert de Courcy and found him, broad-shouldered in his white robes, flanked by his two companions, standing near the dais. ‘His supporters’ he had called them, one thick-set and alert, the other, tall and supple with, intriguingly, the strange watchfulness of a swordsman.
‘Very good,’ she remarked, filing her impressions away.
The floor of the secret hide was covered in straw and she imagined some of the boys would bed down here when they got the chance of a decent sleep.
‘This is the only place we will not be seen or overheard, domina. It’s important for us all that we are not known to be allies. I beg you listen to us.’
‘Are we allies?’ she asked.
Peterkin nodded. ‘I fervently hope so. We’re mightily troubled by the death of Maurice. We’re vowed to find his killer.’
‘How can I help?’
‘We know you attend Lord Athanasius. He has eyes and ears throughout the palace of course.’
‘Of course?’
Peterkin looked surprised. ‘But you must know that? We hear he’s master of the foreign intelligencers which is why we’re somewhat puzzled that you show us some sympathy.’
A stillness came over the group.
‘Unless she’s a spy as well,’ interrupted a boy she had not noticed until now. He rose from his nest among the straw and stepped forward into the drizzle of light through the squint. He was a tall, handsome French boy, the one she had noticed tilting at the quintaine earlier. The one who had accepted Elfric’s challenge with such alacrity.
He gave her an adult and rather ironic shrug of the shoulders. ‘We know nothing about you, domina. These English innocents are driven by sentimentality.’
‘I doubt that. You should already know they can’t be taken in.’
‘If you mean their feints in the tilt yard I grant you, they’re shrewd enough, but this is a matter of deep cunning and we know nothing of you.’
‘And I know nothing of you. Sometimes trust is all we have.’
He nodded at this. ‘But we risk putting our lives in your hands if we admit too much. Even by inviting you here we’re in for serious punishment should our lords find out.’
‘I promise no word of this shall ever pass my lips,’ she told him, ‘nor find its way onto the written page either,’ she added when she saw him about to pick her words apart.
She glanced round. ‘Where is Edmund?’
‘He’s delayed by Sir Jack, told to redo some piddling task as usual.’
‘Shall we wait for him?’
‘He won’t be long.’
‘In return for any help I can offer you I would ask your help in return.’ She bit her lip. It was maybe going too far to put such a burden on young shoulders after all.
Just then a shadow slipped in through the opening into the secret niche and Edmund flung himself on to the straw with a groan of frustration. His hand went automatically to his cheek as he looked round at the others and Hildegard saw a bruise already beginning to appear.
He noticed her and at once got to his feet and made a courtly flourish. His smile was grave. ‘Welcome, domina. Forgive my abrupt entrance. That man continues to enrage me.’
‘I’m honoured to be invited. I hope we may assuage your anger somehow.’
‘Your lady nun has offered her services in return for our help in some matter of her own,’ said the French boy.
‘Taillefer, may I remind you that the Cistercian Order is French and that we English find their presence in our country problematical?’ Peterkin went over and stretched up to push him on the shoulder in reproof. ‘If anyone should have doubts about a Cistercian nun, it should be us. But I pray you remember, not all monastics are painted in the same colours.’
‘Bien sur.’ Taillefer grinned, not at all contrite, and gave another of his expressive shrugs.
‘Boys, listen to me. Let’s not pick fights. What I can tell you is that Athanasius is determined to find the dagger that was in Maurice’s hand when he died. He believes it was stolen by the murderer and its whereabouts will lead us to him.’ She paused for a moment before adding, ‘I believe it’s the dagger that really concerns him.’
‘Valuable is it?’
‘So he suggests.’
‘Whether it is or not, he will not want the murderer’s identity broadcast around the palace,’ exclaimed Taillefer. ‘He’ll want to deal with the man himself in private.’
The English boys looked at him in alarm.
‘That’s the way things are done here,’ he warned them. ‘The old fellow will search him out and have him assassinated. All that will show he ever existed will be an empty space at table. And someone else will soon fill that.’
‘We’ll set out to find this dagger, then,’ said Edmnd.
‘And we’ll get to it first.’ Taillefer spoke with great firmness. ‘If it leads us to the murderer of our beloved friend Maurice we’ll emulate our lords and show the killer no mercy.’
Hildegard murmured something about the rule of law but Edmund was already affirming what Taillefer had said. ‘Why the magister wants it so desperately is nothing to us. We should definitely be the ones to find it and bring Maurice’s killer to justice.’