Two cardinals were summoned by a raised finger. As everyone else struggled to their feet again they followed and the double doors at the far end leading into Clement’s private chambers slid shut behind them.
Hubert leaned towards Hildegard across the table and whispered, ‘As well as Grizac that was Cardinal Montjoie who was invited to a private audience with Clement, if you’re still interested.’
**
Hildegard’s sumptuous guest chamber at the Fondi villa had a view across the Rhone towards the towers and crenellations of the palace of Avignon.
She could see people coming and going along the water front, or driving their horses under the gatehouse in the town wall. The bridge was busy with traffic now dawn had chased away the night but the weather was still blustery, squalls shuddering over the surface of the water, stirring up white caps in the random eddies. It still looked difficult to navigate. She guessed that trade from the Middle Sea would be held up until the floods subsided. Yawningly she fumbled in her scrip for the strange findings from under the bed of the murdered nun.
She shook out the contents onto the window embrasure where it was brightest.
Mouse droppings were small and grain like. She was familiar enough with them from around the grain stores at Meaux.
In the blue light of early morning she saw that the ones here on the sill were larger and darker than expected. It was no mouse that had left them. Could a cat have got in? A cat was a clean creature and would have tried to cover its excrement. She poked at the crumbs with a finger nail. They turned to dust. They must have lain under the bed for a day at least.
She decided to check her suspicion, unlikely as it was, by finding an excuse to play with the squirrel and observe its habits.
**
Montjoie did not like women in his exclusive man’s world. Everything about him demonstrated disdain. It was probably true that Bellefort did not much care for them either, but this was more likely due to a difference of preference than from outright antagonism.
Montjoie was a short, spare man with a thin face and fastidious features. He would have been undistinguished, with his height and build, but for the richness of his apparel. Gold brocade sleeves trailed to the ground, a magnificent surplice embroidered with infinite skill and a deep red velvet skull cap made him impressive.
He played irritably with the rings on his fingers after he was introduced to Hildegard as if her sight of them might have reduced them in value.
Hubert was impassive.
He must have guessed that conversation would be almost impossible between the cardinal and Hildegard because he did not allow the silence that followed their greeting to last more than a moment before he broke in smoothly with some arcane scriptural remark that only a scholar would have understood. It established a bond that could exclude a mere woman and Montjoie, so misnamed, must have taken it at face value because he even attempted a narrowed smile of triumph at Hildegard’s apparent exclusion.
Supercilious. A bigot, she registered. Too vain to stoop to murder?
In her experience murderers committed their acts out of impotence, if they were not outright mad. They could find no other way to survive on their own terms without destroying someone. How they chose the victim who stood in their way was personal and often unexpected to the casual observer.
Who stood in Montjoie’s way? Whom might Montjoie consider worthy of the vulgarity of murder?
On first meeting he seemed rather the type to choose the law to destroy someone. Law was neater, cleaner. And cleverer than the knife.
He clearly valued cleverness.
Whether he would take the trouble to get someone saved from punishment by recourse to law was another matter. She could not see the light of compassion in his egotistical features. The priest of the bridge had been saved by a compassionate intervention.
Murder then? What had he to gain? In the matter of Maurice’s murder there could be any number of motives, as a demonstration of loyalty to Clement being the most obvious.
Imagine, he had stumbled across the would-be thief when returning with the pope after mass, maybe to discuss some church matter, some interesting legalistic question that only so-called great men would understand, he had discovered the thief, and killed him to protect his holiness. That was one way of explaining it. The pope in setting his men onto discovering the murderer might then have used them as a ploy to direct suspicion away from his own man.
Unfounded, she reproved herself, switching her attention more carefully to what Hubert and Montjoie were discussing.
Dull nonsense, she decided after a moment. Hubert was simply marking time so she could have a good look at the cardinal and make up her mind about him. Then, if he was complicit in her game, he would work round to that night on the bridge.
‘And praise God that in His wisdom He is sending us more clement weather,’ Hubert eventually remarked.
‘Clement? He has surely a hand in the matter too,’ murmured Montjoie with coy humour.
‘Without doubt. I remember in horror the walk across the bridge a night or two ago - you remember, when we had been privileged to dine with his Holiness, en prive.’
Flatterer, thought Hildegard. Why not say ‘in private’ instead of all this en prive stuff.
But Montjoie was at home with it. ‘That was a most satisfactory evening,’ he purred. ‘To be honoured with an invitation to confer with His Holiness in the privacy of his inner chamber - ’
‘Only spoilt by the walk back to Villeneuve,’ Hubert interrupted, smoothly bringing him back to the point. ‘We were in such straits we were almost driven to stop at the chapel half way to seek shelter and offer up a prayer to St Nicolas but, undaunted, we decided to press on. Did you go straight across too?’
‘Most certainly.’ Montjoie gave a shudder. ‘I’m not at my best when soaked to the pelt. I hurried back as fast as my lazy servants could carry me. Even so I had to have hot water brought to me so that I could lie in a tub for a while to recover. I’m happy to say my villa, although not as vividly decorated as Cardinal Fondi’s,’ he paused, ‘has enough comfort for my humble needs.’
‘Fortunate, God be praised,’ murmured Hubert with the air of a man fascinated by such revelations.
**
‘So what do you think to him? Not much, I can tell by your face.’
‘I thought I covered my feelings rather well.’
‘In front of him, maybe, but not now. Just look at you!’
‘If there was any justice he would be manacled and made to kneel in a puddle to plead in seven languages for his humble life.’ She shrugged. ‘Justice is blind. Nothing links him. To my regret.’
‘I’ll check with his servants to see if he really did cross straight over.’
‘I’d bet on it. I’m afraid it only leaves Grizac.’
‘Poor old Grizac.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘He strives so. He’s a man who had everything, by birth and family connections, and what has he done with it?’
‘He is a cardinal, Hubert.’
He gave a disdainful shrug.
The gesture did not fit with his own apparent ambition but she let it pass.
‘Apparently he wrote some good music when he was in York but somehow he’s one of those people who always seem to be hurrying to keep up with themselves. Since being made bishop of Avignon when Clement took over he’s done nothing very much. He doesn’t even write music any more as far as I know.’
‘Is he not charitable?’