‘You’re still shaken, I see that. It’s understandable. It must be distressing to see - to see a human body with its wounds - ’

‘Don’t patronise me, Hubert.’

He drew back. ‘It seems I can’t say anything that doesn’t displease you.’

They looked at each other with open antagonism. Hildegard felt her secret self dissolve in tears. She wanted to reach out across the chasm that had suddenly opened between them but Hubert’s expression was cold. And anyway, she could not trust him. The realisation was unbearable.

‘You’re here as part of Fitzjohn’s contingent, then?’ Her words seemed to creak forth. It was a shot in the dark and Hubert did not deny any involvement with Fitzjohn, vassal of King Richard’s most vociferous and dangerous enemy.

Instead, he offered what Hildegard saw as an excuse, when he said, ‘I am here because I was recently called to our headquarters in London, as you know. While there I was instructed to attend his Holiness. Like you, I have no choice but to obey my superior. I’m obliged to carry out the commands of our Order.’ He paused before adding heavily, ‘Which so happens to owe allegiance to Pope Clement.’

‘The Butcher of Cesena?’ she blurted, unable to stop herself.

Hubert’s lips tightened. ‘If you were heard to utter a phrase like that by anyone else you’d be excommunicated.’

‘There are worse punishments meted out to those who stand against Clement. I suppose you didn’t have time to notice the place in the town square where they burn heretics?’

‘Be thankful we do not have judicial burnings in England.’

‘I am, indeed. But the fact that they have them here in France makes me shudder for the future of us all.’

‘This conversation has gone far enough.’ He stepped back.

‘If the king’s enemies get their way we shall soon be paying allegiance to King Charles and this false pope here!’

‘Say nothing more!’

She raised her voice. ‘Does the truth hurt? Where do we go from here, Hubert?’

He gave a black scowl. ‘I cannot believe you wish to go anywhere except, perhaps, to perdition.’

With that, he stalked off towards the garden door. In a moment he had gone from sight leaving an immense solitude behind.

The bell for vespers started to chime from the campanile, its plangent tones emphasising her feeling of desolation.

**

One of the things she had been unable to tell Hubert was that when she went to help lay out the body of the murdered youth just now, something was missing that should have been there. It was the small dagger he had been holding as he died.

It had been in his hand before noon. But, four hours later when the death rigour had abated, it had gone.

The fact that the crucifix he wore was still there on its gold chain suggested that the absence of the dagger was not a random pillaging of the body but a purposeful theft. Unless Cardinal Grizac had lost patience and gone into the mortuary to fetch it himself, there was another thief at large.

She would have to tell Athanasius and see what he made of it.

**

Sitting with the monk when she entered was Cardinal Grizac himself. Among his illustrious forefathers was the Lord of Bellegarde, a man, Hildegard assumed, with a strong fighting spirit. It had not been passed down. Cardinal Grizac was a pale and shaking wreck of a man. The bed on which he sat shook with his trembling.

Athanasius was speaking to him softly, as to a spooked hound, but even the presence of a nun failed to rouse the cardinal’s pride and give him the courage to stop shaking.

‘I am undone,’ he whimpered. ‘I am forever undone, cast out, destined to burn in hell’s fires. I have no hope left. This is my undoing.’

‘Go to confession. Confess all. That is your hope. You will be saved. You have done nothing to be ashamed of. Come now,’ the monk’s tone sharpened. ‘Pull yourself together, Anglic. You have no reason to send a servant on a thieving spree into the pope’s treasury. What have you to do with that? No-one will make that link. How could anyone of right mind believe it?’

‘But the proof, brother. His Holiness will regard Maurice as proof. How else will his presence there be judged? He was in my retinue. I am responsible. Clement will take it as evidence of my guilt.’

‘No-one but a few people in authority need know anything about him. Clement will keep it quiet.’

‘Why should he? And anyway, what difference will it make? I will be the scapegoat. Even now the news is spreading to every corner of the palace. Every cook and kitchener is whispering about it.’

Hildegard, aware that she was the bearer of ill news murmured a greeting and begged the cardinal’s forgiveness for interrupting. ‘I’m afraid I have something to tell you.’

Both men turned to listen.

‘When I went to help lay out the body before vespers, the dagger was nowhere to be found. Someone had already taken it.’

‘What?’ Grizac rose to his feet. With a sudden horrified glance at Athanasius he sat down again. The monk looked at him curiously.

‘You seem excessively perturbed, my friend.’

‘No,’ Grizac mumbled. ‘It’s the thought of someone stealing from a corpse. It -’ he hesitated. ‘It repels me.’

‘Worse things happen on the battlefield.’

‘That doesn’t make it right,’ he replied in the tone of one forcing his feelings down. Turning to Hildegard he asked, ‘Who was present in the mortuary when you were there, may I ask?’

‘The two Benedictines who had kept vigil in the chapel earlier.’

‘Anyone else?’

She shook her head.

Grizac frowned.

Athanasius was eyeing first one then the other with his hard, sharp eyes. ‘Come now, my old friend, these things happen. Light-fingered servants. Who can control them?’ He gave a wolfish smile. ‘Let’s find out who this petty thief is. Doubtless he will lead us to the one who persuaded your Maurice that a major theft from the treasury would be a good idea.’ He laughed softly. ‘Don’t you agree? Set a thief to catch a thief, yes?’

Grizac became strangely silent. His face was white as paste.

Athanasius reached for his cup of herbs again. The fumes were noxious. If they did not kill any ailment within a mile of the palace Hildegard would be astonished.

Grizac said slowly, ‘I may as well have stolen the dagger from the treasury myself. Clement will believe I am behind it. His inquisitors will show no mercy.’

‘If he believed such gallimaufry you’d already be in irons.’ Athanasius gave a mirthless chuckle. ‘Believe me, they would lose no time in arresting you for setting foot in that place without a warrant. But it was your acolyte and you can safely argue that what he does he does of his own will and you are not responsible. Imagine if every monarch was responsible for the actions of every serf? We would have no monarchs left,’ he chuckled, ‘and no serfs either.’

‘Leaving only churchmen?’ asked Hildegard.

‘Entirely theoretical, domina. I’m merely trying to point out that our dear friend will not be held responsible for the actions of one of his retainers. If you harbour feelings of guilt, dear friend,’ he turned back to Grizac, ‘then you must surely be aware of what a charmed life you lead - you are yet free, for do we hear the clank of mailed boots in the passage?’

Grizac jerked upright, ears straining.

‘No, we do not.’ Athanasius seemed to be enjoying himself. ‘So let us try to imagine who would want to steal this infernal dagger, shall we?’

Hildegard was irritated by Grizac’s reaction in the silence that followed. If he was responsible for sending Maurice into the treasury, for whatever reason, then he must have realised the danger of such an order. And it was the acolyte who had paid the price. She saw the scene as the sisters washed him and anointed him. A youth in all the glitter of young manhood, his path through life with its joys and sorrows cut short by a single, venal act.