**

The jewelled dagger was still missing. Lost, presumed stolen. And it was not just one knife, she reminded herself, but two, because the murder weapon had not been found either. No doubt it hand been wiped clean and was hanging safely on somebody’s belt by now.

**

She waited until the guard outside the prison tower went off duty and a different one settled in then she went over. In her hands she carried a bowl of broth and a lump of wastel the kitcheners had been generous enough to provide.

The guard insisted on poking the point of his knife into the broth and swirling it about. He did the same thing with the bread, cutting it roughly into four pieces and looking disappointed when both exercises proved futile. He nodded her inside with a grunt.

When she reached the top of the stairs she opened the cell door and was about to call out to Peter when the name died on her lips. ‘Where is he?’

John, alone, was slumped in the straw and barely managed to raise his head.

She was across the floor in a moment. Crouching down beside him she asked, ‘What have they done to you?’

In reply he raised both hands.

Every nail had been ripped out. His face contorted in an attempt at bravado. ‘They got my nails but they got nowt else.’ He slumped back on the straw. ‘Not from me. Never. Do what they will.’

‘Let me attend to your fingers before they become infected.’

Placing the bread and broth on the floor she opened her scrip. She needed water first to clean up the bloody mess that had once been his finger tips. The flagon beside him was still nearly full so she tipped some onto a clean piece of linen. ‘This will hurt but I beg you, John, do not attempt to restrain your language. It will help to utter any imprecation you can think of. I don’t know why, but it does.’

She set to work. The ends of his fingers were a bloody pulp. The inquisitors had done a thorough job. Delicately she wiped away any loose skin, staunched the flow of blood that was started up again then applied a mixture of honey and a few other things taught secretly to her many years ago. Then she had to cut strips of cloth and bandage each of his fingers separately.

Afterwards he apologised for his oaths.

She smiled. ‘I’ve heard far worse. And from nuns too.’

A little life came back into his eyes. Unable to hold anything, he looked helplessly at the bread and broth. She told him to shut up and do as he was told, then to open his mouth to eat the broth she was about to feed him like the babe in arms he was and then, when he had polished off the last of the bread which she was also going to feed to him, gobbet by gobbet, she wanted to know everything that had happened.

He did as he was told, taking the bread soaked in broth from between her fingers with closed eyes. The strength began to seep back inside him.

‘You’d never do this if I had the use of my hands,’ he murmured.

‘I wouldn’t need to.’

‘True.’

His brown eyes flickered with a show of spirit as she urged him to eat it all.

‘Worse than my mam,’ he told her when she finished by brushing the crumbs off his tunic, ‘but twice as beautiful.’ He levered himself into a different position. ‘Tell me, domina, when will I be able to use my hands to lift my sword against those bastards?’

‘Soon enough.’

‘They wanted to know about our methods. Fancy that.’

‘What methods?’

‘How we took the mine down so deep. How we drained the water out at those kind of depths. That sort of thing. One daft fellow asked if we’d ever got down far enough to see the flames of hell. That’s one question I did answer. “Raging hot they are and as big as mountains.” He was excited about that. Wants to go down and see them for himself. They didn’t translate when I told him I hoped it’d be sooner than he thinks. Then they wanted to know what sort of deal the Emperor had made with Chancellor de la Pole.’

‘What did you tell them?’

‘I told them nothing. Anyway, how the hell would I know what Wenceslas offered de la Pole? We got Good Queen Anne in exchange for a go at their silver mines. Mother of the next king of England. I reckon that’s prize enough for us.’

He held up his bloodied bandages. ‘For every nail there was a question. For every question there was no answer.’ He shuddered in the aftermath of his ordeal and pretended it was the cold.

Hildegard wanted to hold him against her as if by doing so she could protect him from further violence. Instead she urged him to keep talking, as the best cure for shock she knew. ‘Tell me what’s happened to Peter.’

‘When they brought me back they made sure he had a good long look at my hands. He went as white as a sheet. I said, “Fear not, I told ‘em nothing. Stand firm for the brotherhood. “I will,” he said. He gave me the clenched fist. For King Richard and the true Commons, domina, as I know you understand.’

‘I do. You’re brave lads. England’s best.’

‘I gave them nothing. My only fear is, will he stand firm?’

‘He will. Trust him. He’s rock solid.’

‘I wouldn't blame him if they found a way to destroy him and make him talk.’ Tears came into his eyes but he could not brush them away because of the pain in his useless hands when they knocked against anything so he had to allow them to trickle down his cheeks into the bristles on his chin. Hildegard turned away so he would not know she had seen them and be shamed.

She left soon after that, saying she would return shortly with something else to sustain him and she hoped it would be more than food and wine.

‘What wine?’ he called after her. A cackling laugh followed.

**

When she reached the guest quarters where Sir John Fitzjohn was staying it was Bertram who greeted her. He conducted her to where Fitzjohn’s steward was sitting in a cramped ante chamber no bigger than a kennel for the hounds. He was a thin, dark, morose fellow and glowered when Bertram appeared. ‘What do you want?’

‘My lady of Meaux begs audience with her countryman Sir John,’ he announced.

‘She does, does she?’ The steward looked her up and down as if he was about to give a sniff of dismissal when he chanced to catch her eye. He shambled to his feet. ‘Domina, Sir John has nothing to do with nuns. He has his own chaplain.’

‘This is not a church matter. I beg only a little of his time on private business.’

Grudgingly he ordered Bertram to go inside and inquire if Sir John had any thoughts on the matter.

In a trice the boy was back. With a covert smile of triumph he announced, ‘Sir John will grant the holy sister a brief audience. Please follow me, domina.’

Hildegard turned to the steward. ‘Thank you, my lord steward, I am obliged to you.’

In the passageway Bertram turned a grinning face to her. ‘We got the better of that old goat, domina. He makes our lives hell. But be warned, Sir Jack is no better and he’s in a foul mood today.’

He opened the door into a fairly impressive chamber with a high ceiling covered in plaster mouldings displaying the papal insignia with windows down one side giving a distant view over the battlements towards the red roofs of Avignon.

At one end, turned towards the door, stood the imposing figure of Sir John. He was wearing body armour, a leather hauberk showing underneath a tunic of some heavy fabric, cambric or worsted, with the blazon of the earl of Woodstock embroidered finely upon it. His sword belt was lying on a bench next to him within reach but he wore a tooled leather belt low and wound twice round his hips in the latest style.

His blond hair was shoulder length and brushed straight back from his face to reveal strong bones and a confident expression. At some time his nose had been broken but it did not detract from his good looks, merely enhancing them and giving a ruggedness to features that might otherwise be thought too regular.