Some time ago a chapel dedicated to the patron saint of rivermen had been built half way along. St Nicolas. His light was kept burning day and night.
It was a small place. Reeked of incense. Little more than a single chamber with a second one above reached by a short stone stairway. Nobody there except for a priest descending, step by painful step to the nave. He gave her a hard look, caught sight of her Cistercian robe under the winter cloak and softened a little.
‘No ordinary sightseer, domina. How may I help?’
‘You must be tired of answering questions?’
‘Only from those who have no right to be asking them.’
‘I’m not sure I can assume that right.’
‘Looking at you I would imagine you have more right than most. I take it you’re not interested in salacious titbits to pass onto your gossips?’
‘The murder of a young man with his life before him is not a suitable topic for gossip, salacious or otherwise.’
He nodded. ‘So why are you here?’
‘A similar murder of a young man took place in the palace a few days ago. You may have heard about it?’
He stared at her until she continued.
‘The details are so similar to the terrible events of this morning that I wonder if there’s a link? The first young man was a countryman of mine,’ she hastened to add.
He took this as adequate reason for her interest. ‘Come up to the sacristy where we can talk undisturbed.’
Achingly he handed himself step by step up the stair he had just descended.
The upper chamber was similar in size to the one below, a small square space with two windows on each side to give a view both up and down river. Here, instead of an altar, was a narrow bed in one corner, an aumbry in the wall, and a comfortable looking chair placed next to a horn lantern on the sill.
She went over to the downstream window and found she could see all the way to the end of the peninsula and beyond to where the Rhone widened. It was a foaming sea of white water at present. Spray blown up by the wind into a mist shrouded both banks and made it look wider and more dangerous than a river should be.
The priest was breathless after his short climb. ‘Unpleasant weather,’ he wheezed. ‘Too much rain. In summer, not enough. It makes one wonder about God’s intentions. So now, domina, you’d like to know what I saw and heard last night?’
‘If you will.’
‘I was in bed when a commotion in the direction of the Avignon side woke me. It sounded like an older man in altercation with a younger.’
‘Did you recognise the voices?’
‘Not I.’ His face was like a stone wall.
‘Would you tell me if you did?’
‘Would it bring him back?’
‘No, but it might bring a measure of justice to his victims if this possibly double killer could be arrested and punished. It might also prevent him from murdering another innocent person.’
‘Innocent?’
‘Whatever the esquire’s sins, he did not deserve his throat to be cut and to be thrown into the river like a dog.’
‘I am making no judgement. But you might ask what he was doing out here after curfew.’
‘Was he, maybe, walking back from the Villeneuve bank, on an official errand of some kind?’
The priest was already shaking his head.
‘You nuns see no ill in these retainers. They are wild boys given to all the sins of the flesh with no godliness in them. The devil himself conducts activities under the arch over there.’ He gestured towards the Avignon bank.
Unwilling to hear some aged misanthrope’s harangue against the young she took a step forward, intending to leave, but the priest held up one hand. ‘I am, perhaps, harsh. Certain it is, he was not on an innocent mission. I saw him earlier accompanied by two disreputable mendicants.’ He gave her a long look. ‘They were ferried over to the other side. He returned. They did not. I know this for a fact.’
She held her breath.
He had seen.
He knew.
And it could not have escaped him that Fitzjohn, accompanied by the pope’s militia, had been out on the hunt for two men.
Fearing that he might have already given his account to others she forced herself to ask, ‘It was a black night, how can you be sure what you saw?’
‘Because I saw the boat go across in the light from the lamp. Four people in it. I saw the boat return with but two. I know the ferryman and recognised him as the man at the oars.’
‘Even so, it was dark and - ’
‘And the current brought them right under the central span of the bridge where the St Nicolas light shines down as guide. I watched because I feared for their safety. A storm was blowing and the river is at its most dangerous just now. They were clearly visible in the boat as it passed under the beam of light.’ He smiled faintly. ‘I did not see the faces of the two mendicants, hooded as they were. All mendicants look the same, do they not? And how they do swarm round Avignon these days! But the one who was ferried across and later returned wore a blue cloak.’
The priest’s eyes looked watery in the reflected light from outside. ‘I tell you this, domina, because you seem to have a genuine interest in these events. What I say is simple. Three passengers crossed the river by boat and the ferryman brought only one back.’
‘No doubt he ferries many people back and forth, some to stay on the other side, some to return.’
The priest smiled. ‘Use this information as you will. It’s all I have.’
‘What time did these three travellers happen to cross?’
He spread his arms. ‘I’m an old man. I sleep fitfully. I got up for the night office and to attend to the light - it guides people over the bridge. In navigable weather it acts as a beacon for the barges plying their trade up and down river. It’s my duty to keep it alight,’ he explained. ‘Around midnight I ring the bell for matins and later I ring it again for lauds.’
‘And at what time did you see the boat cross?’
A look of uncertainty flickered across his face but he answered firmly, ‘Just after I rang the first bell I saw a dark shape launch itself onto the foaming white flood water. It moved steadily across to the other side, cleverly navigating to use the current to reach the bank of Villeneuve. Then I saw it cutting across on the way back, not much later, using the known shoals and eddies to keep the oarsman’s course. The current brought the boat again close up under the bridge as I was relighting the lamp.’
‘It had gone out?’
‘Blown out by the storm.’
‘The boat must have been rowed by someone who knows the waters.’
‘Indeed. The fellow has worked here for several seasons despite having a betrothed somewhere down river or so I hear.’
The ferryman had certainly been parsimonious with the truth. Crossing and recrossing in the night. At least it confirmed the escape route of the two miners.
‘And on the return journey you’re sure - ’
‘The boatman with only one passenger, as I said.’
‘And your description suggests that it was the murdered youth.’
‘It is not for me to speculate on what I witness. I leave that to God in his wisdom. It was a passenger wearing a blue cloak.’
‘Why would someone who has just crossed and recrossed a river by boat then try later to cross again by the bridge?’
The old priest spread his arms. ‘I know nothing about that.’
‘And you say you heard an argument after seeing the boat return?’
‘I slept a little. Voices woke me. I realised it was already time to ring the bell for lauds.’
‘But what about the sentries?’ Hildegard was still thinking about Taillefer. ‘How would the murder victim get onto the bridge? Wouldn’t the sentries have stopped him?’
He gave a thin chuckle. ‘Would they stop him if he was accompanied by someone in authority?’