And yet the cardinal seemed more anxious about his own skin and his ability to stay in Clement’s good favour than in finding out the truth. It was despicable. He showed no remorse. But maybe he was telling the truth when he claimed he knew nothing about Maurice’s fatal decision.

To bring their conversation back to the point, she asked, ‘Why would Maurice steal the dagger in the first place? What on earth got into the boy? With all the wealth which surrounded him, isn’t it strange the dagger was all he wanted?’

Athanasius gave her an ingratiating smile. ‘That is the question, indeed, how clear-sighted you are, domina. Come, Grizac, use your brains to suggest an answer, my dear old friend. You must have known the boy as well as anyone. What was going on in his mind? Tell us that and then we’ll be led to his killer.’ He put an arm round the cardinal but there was something chilling about the action and Hildegard had a fleeting thought of Judas. Where was the betrayal though? It made no sense.

‘Think,’ Athanasius insisted. ‘For what reason would Maurice want such a thing when he could have stolen anything ten times its value?’

Grizac looked defeated and said, ‘It has me beaten. What can I say?’

Like a cat with a mouse, Athanasius asked playfully, ‘Are we looking for two thieves or three?’

‘Three?’ Grizac eyed him warily.

‘The one who sent Maurice into the treasury, a thief in essence, Maurice we know, a thief in practice, and thirdly the one who has just stolen this paltry dagger, a thief after the fact. Three,’ he repeated in a complacent tone. ‘Or, if you prefer, only two, Maurice’s theft and the theft from Maurice’s body in the chapel. No third party involved, no brains behind the scene. Just two random acts of greed. Yes?’

He suddenly sat bolt upright and gave a smile of brilliant coldness at Grizac. ‘I would prefer another theory. It is this. The man who corrupted Maurice enough to persuade him to commit the first heinous offence then returned for a second more successful attempt.’

He looked delighted with himself and eyed Grizac as if to challenge him. ‘Again, only two thieves to be counted. Or maybe only one, if we discount Maurice as not being a free agent in the matter?’

He’s like one of the old Schoolmen who endlessly discuss how many angels can dance on a pinhead, decided Hildegard. Where was his compassion?

Now he tapped Grizac on the arm. ‘Can you come up with a better theory, my friend? Who was Maurice’s master in all this? Come on, let’s hear it!’

Grizac pulled at his lower lip, the large blue stone on his ring flashing as it caught the light. His face had gone a paler shade of grey. ‘It was valuable enough - the dagger, I mean. Encrusted with rubies and pearls and many other precious stones. Anyone would desire it if they knew about it.’

‘Maurice, then, driven by greed and working alone, would you say?’

‘Never greed!’ Grizac exclaimed in a broken voice. ‘He was an unworldly youth, pure in spirit.’

‘Leaving that aside, what do you think to my theory that the master plotter behind Maurice’s ill-judged actions killed him then, for some reason failing to take the dagger at the time of the murder, returned later to make good his theft? Come, tell me what you think.’

‘I wouldn’t know.’ Grizac wiped a hand across his eyes and turned away.

‘Don't distress yourself. This is a mere playful theory to try to shed light on these rather obscure events. I ask again, what could Maurice have been doing in there?’

‘Nobody knows. Why torment me? It could not have been Maurice’s intention to steal. No - this is to vilify the dead.’ He put up a hand as if to ward off the accusation then let it drop.

Athanasius started to laugh. ‘You’re right, my friend. Nobody knows. And Maurice gave the appearance of being a devout youth. Maybe he broke into the treasury merely to look around? Why not? Maybe he followed someone up there, someone he suspected of being a possible thief, but being foolhardy, instead of calling the guard, he tackled the thief himself? But what about the second theft? Maybe it was committed by as unlikely a thief as your Maurice? The sisters, perhaps, who supervised the laying out of the body? Maybe in their poverty they are not as content as we imagine?’

Grizac waved the latter suggestion aside. ‘I am undone and my life is as nought should an accusation against me be brought before our holy Clement.’ Then he added with the desperation of a drowning man clutching at straws, ‘It cannot have been the guards, can it? Both times?’

‘The two of them in collusion? It would be hard to make that stick for long,’ Athanasius objected at once. ‘They will be vibrantly aware that all we would have to do would be to tell either of them that their companion had confessed and the truth would come tumbling out before we could even lay our hands on the thumbscrews.’

Hildegard saw he was used to the methods of the Inquisition.

He went on, ‘They were the first ones to come under suspicion but theft would have been an act of stupidity beyond their capabilities.’ He smiled like a cat with the cream. ‘Now the nuns, I believe, are not unintelligent.’

‘The value of the dagger, as you’ve just described, could lure the guards to risk torture,’ interrupted Hildegard, ‘or are they as content as the nuns in their poverty?’ How dare Athanasius blithely try to lay the blame on a couple of undefended nuns? In her opinion the guards were more than likely to have a motive for stealing the dagger, thumbscrews or not, as they had never made any vow of poverty. There was nothing to stop them except fear or their own sense of decency.

Athanasius dismissed any accusation against the guards with a wave of his hand. ‘Why would they do something that so obviously incriminates themselves? Even now they’re walking barefoot on hot stones.’

‘Who then?’ Grizac challenged. ‘Do you have anyone other than the nuns in mind?’

**

The discussion meandered to an end with the wish that Hildegard would put a few questions to the nuns, something that the men felt they could not do themselves.

‘In the circumstances,’ she replied, ‘I’m sure my prioress would expect me to offer what help I can. I’ll search them out to see if they can shed any light on the matter.’ She turned to the cardinal, ‘That is if I have your authority to do so, your eminence?’

‘You have, you have, dear lady. You have it ten times over. Anything you can do to discover the identity of this corrupted soul who was willing to steal from the sanctified body of my acolyte will earn you my everlasting gratitude.’

‘Magister?’ Hildegard turned to Athanasius. ‘Is it your will that I should become involved in this matter?’

‘I believe your prioress, whom I knew well in earlier years, would expect no less of you, domina. You have my authority to seek out whomsoever you wish in order to retrieve the missing dagger. Go forth with our blessing.’

Wondering how much a blessing by these two was worth, Hildegard left them to their alternate wailings and reassurances, and went in search of the Benedictine sisters.

**

They were found easily enough, two black robed women, one young and one old, in the warming room in the kitchen tower. Hildegard sat down beside them. She stretched her legs, gave a yawn and followed it by a heavy sigh. ‘So sad,’ she murmured. ‘That poor murdered boy.’ Real tears pricked her eyes.

‘So young,’ agreed one of the nuns, putting out a hand to console her. ‘We thank you for your help in our task, domina.’

‘Are you called upon to do this service often?’ Hildegard asked.

‘We do whatever our superiors bid us do. In times of war - ’ her hand circled to include the idea of many dead, ‘who else but us can lay out the bodies with any decency and pray for them?’