‘Such as?’
‘Who knows?’
‘You’re sure you heard voices shortly before the bell?’
He nodded. ‘They woke me.’
She prepared to leave. ‘Do you get many worshippers here for the night offices?’
‘Not many. I do it to maintain our link with St Nicolas. Most attend services in the Grande Chapelle.’
Hildegard left the scent of incense and beeswax and drew in deep gulps of fresh air as soon as she got outside.
Now to have a word with the men on night watch guarding the bridge. Let them check their records of all who had crossed the bridge last night for the night offices and returned to Villeneuve before lauds.
**
The sentry was sitting in his stone niche out of the wind at the top of the steps leading onto the bridge. He was plainly enjoying this out of the ordinary event but understood that he was not even a bit player in the drama, not having been on duty at the crucial time. Sadly he admitted he could tell her nothing.
‘When does the night sentry come back on duty?’ she asked, expecting a trek back to the guard house and a long wait until he emerged from his bed.
‘Any time now, domina. Four hours on. Four hours off.’
‘Is that him?’ she asked pointing to a man-at-arms just coming into view on the path underneath the palace walls. The sentry got up and poked his head out. ‘That’s the fellow!’
The two greeted each other affably a few moments later and although the first sentry, Jean or Jeanot, had been friendly enough, the newcomer, Emil, looked at Hildegard with suspicion. ‘What do you want to know about all that for?’
She explained as she had done so already to the ferryman and the priest.
He nodded. ‘Nobody out here last night. The weather kept everybody in their own beds for once.’
‘Didn’t anybody cross over the bridge?’
‘Of course. They have to, don’t they? It was the usual cardinals going back to their estates on Villeneuve. The bishop to his palace.’
‘Cardinal Grizac, you mean?’
‘Bien sur.’
‘At what time was this?’
‘They go over to attend the night offices.’
‘You mean they make the journey twice?’
He shook his head. ‘Most stay for matins after they’ve dined and then they stay on for lauds, crossing back home before dawn.’
‘And last night?’
‘You do persist,’ he muttered.
Hildegard was quick enough to catch the words, even though it was a different kind of French to the one she had learned in England and her brain was already taxed by the different dialects.
‘I need to know not out of curiosity but because two young men are dead,’ she pointed out.
The man tightened his lips. She could not bring a smile to her face. She was sick of lies and half-truths. Everything about him was unyielding and she wondered if he had been warned not to talk.
‘You must have been on duty earlier today when the body was fished out of the river.’
‘I was and I heard - ’ he stopped as if afraid of saying too much.
‘Heard what?’
‘I heard somebody had fallen onto some rubbish that had been carried downstream. If he’d gone into the river they’d never have found him.’
‘Didn’t you hear anything while you were on duty?’
He glanced hurriedly at his companion but he was eager to get off home now his shift was done and missed the plea for help.
‘It’s all the talk at the palace,’ he added lamely, ‘but I heard nothing of it until they showed up at first light with their grappling hooks. By then the bridge was open to merchants and there was quite a crowd up there. They’d been keeping me busy. I didn’t bother looking out until somebody said there was something wrong.’ He glanced over at the high, grim walls with the flag of Pope Clement fluttering from the highest pinnacle as if to find help there. ‘I heard it was a retainer in the pay of the Duc de Berry. That’s who it was. Wandering outside the walls at night. What did he expect?’
He gazed over towards the lane he had just walked along to where an inn stood on the corner surrounded by the usual characters who frequent such places.
A furtive expression came over his face. ‘See that place, domina? What do you think goes on there at night? Prayers?’ He sniggered. ‘The poraille do their drinking there and then they go under the arches. You nuns would blush to hear what goes on there. Me, I keep out of it.’
If I have to go and talk to the inn keeper I shall have to change my clothes, she registered. Monastics were plainly anathema to this surly fellow and the same would probably go for anyone down there too. ‘I take it you don’t remember anybody who crossed over the bridge early this morning?’
He was silent.
‘You must have been asleep at your post.’
Affronted, he started to contradict her.
‘In that case you must surely be able to name them?’
The first sentry chuckled. ‘She’s got you there, Emil. She’ll be getting you into hot water with the captain if he thinks you’re were sleeping on duty!’
‘All right, all right,’ the sentry replied irritably. ‘As I said, there weren’t many about because of the storm. So let’s see.’ He counted them off on his fingers. ‘Cardinals Bellefort, Fondi, Grizac and Montjoie. That’s about the lot.’
‘Anybody accompanying them?’
‘A page or two. That one with his little daughter.’
‘Name?’
‘Fondi.’
‘Did he have the child with him?’
‘That’s what I just said. And his woman.’
‘Did they all cross together?’
He shook his head. ‘Montjoie came first, then Fondi. Followed by Bellefort and after that Grizac with his page. Oh, and there was that English abbot.’
‘What English abbot?’
‘Meooks. Something like that.’
‘Are you sure about this?’
‘It’s what I’m telling you. Who crossed. That’s all I can remember.’
Hildegard could scarcely speak. Hubert had crossed the bridge? He was the only English abbot around that she knew of. ‘And you saw them all cross to the other side?’
‘Nah, I was in my shelter. I told you, it was pelting down. Windy. A nasty night. I let ’em go. They were bona fide.’
‘Did you hear an argument? I’m told there was one,’ she added when he seemed about to shake his head at whatever she asked next.
‘First I heard of it. The wind was howling off the river. You don’t hear nothing inside that niche. Isn’t that so, Jeanot?’
The other sentry, stalled by curiosity from going off duty, agreed. ‘That’s right. Can’t hear a thing. See nothing. Hear nothing. Know nothing. Once they’re on the bridge it’s their own look out till they get to the other side. There’s the chapel half way along if they need it. We just take the tolls and check the baggage for duty, and beat off beggars.’
Does this mean I have to go across to the Villeneuve sentries and cross question them as well? Hildegard’s spirits sank. She was getting nowhere.
If the men he named crossing the bridge were over in the palace for matins then stayed for lauds they all had cast iron alibis. The priest said he heard the argument just before he rang the bell in the chapel. If anyone had arrived late for lauds it would have been very late as it would take a fair time to walk from the bridge down the lane, past the guard house and into the labyrinth of the palace itself before finally reaching la Grande Chapelle. The short service at that time of night would have been almost over. Then the return with everyone else?
She was wasting her time even considering it. Anyway, they were prelates.. There was no-one more unlikely to be involved in cutting a boy’s throat than any of the men named by the sentry.