‘Audacious. How did you find such a niche?’ she asked when Peterkin conducted her there shortly after she left the prisoners.

‘The French pages showed us. We meet here to compare our respective situations.’ Peterkin, despite his sometimes impish manner, spoke with the gravitas of a churchman. She could easily see him taking holy orders.

He showed her a gap between the stone carvings. It was like the squint in a church where the priest could spy on his congregation. She looked down. It gave a view into the Great Audience Chamber but the observers, like a priest at the squint, were out of sight. It was a strange experience to be able to see the tops of the heads far below, tonsures, coloured hoods, hair flowing loose or cropped in punishing strictness.

She sought out Hubert de Courcy and found him, broad-shouldered in his white robes, flanked by his two companions, standing near the dais. ‘His supporters’ he had called them, one thick-set and alert, the other, tall and supple with, intriguingly, the strange watchfulness of a swordsman.

‘Very good,’ she remarked, filing her impressions away.

The floor of the secret hide was covered in straw and she imagined some of the boys would bed down here when they got the chance of a decent sleep.

‘This is the only place we will not be seen or overheard, domina. It’s important for us all that we are not known to be allies. I beg you listen to us.’

‘Are we allies?’ she asked.

Peterkin nodded. ‘I fervently hope so. We’re mightily troubled by the death of Maurice. We’re vowed to find his killer.’

‘How can I help?’

‘We know you attend Lord Athanasius. He has eyes and ears throughout the palace of course.’

‘Of course?’

Peterkin looked surprised. ‘But you must know that? We hear he’s master of the foreign intelligencers which is why we’re somewhat puzzled that you show us some sympathy.’

A stillness came over the group.

‘Unless she’s a spy as well,’ interrupted a boy she had not noticed until now. He rose from his nest among the straw and stepped forward into the drizzle of light through the squint. He was a tall, handsome French boy, the one she had noticed tilting at the quintaine earlier. The one who had accepted Elfric’s challenge with such alacrity.

He gave her an adult and rather ironic shrug of the shoulders. ‘We know nothing about you, domina. These English innocents are driven by sentimentality.’

‘I doubt that. You should already know they can’t be taken in.’

‘If you mean their feints in the tilt yard I grant you, they’re shrewd enough, but this is a matter of deep cunning and we know nothing of you.’

‘And I know nothing of you. Sometimes trust is all we have.’

He nodded at this. ‘But we risk putting our lives in your hands if we admit too much. Even by inviting you here we’re in for serious punishment should our lords find out.’

‘I promise no word of this shall ever pass my lips,’ she told him, ‘nor find its way onto the written page either,’ she added when she saw him about to pick her words apart.

She glanced round. ‘Where is Edmund?’

‘He’s delayed by Sir Jack, told to redo some piddling task as usual.’

‘Shall we wait for him?’

‘He won’t be long.’

‘In return for any help I can offer you I would ask your help in return.’ She bit her lip. It was maybe going too far to put such a burden on young shoulders after all.

Just then a shadow slipped in through the opening into the secret niche and Edmund flung himself on to the straw with a groan of frustration. His hand went automatically to his cheek as he looked round at the others and Hildegard saw a bruise already beginning to appear.

He noticed her and at once got to his feet and made a courtly flourish. His smile was grave. ‘Welcome, domina. Forgive my abrupt entrance. That man continues to enrage me.’

‘I’m honoured to be invited. I hope we may assuage your anger somehow.’

‘Your lady nun has offered her services in return for our help in some matter of her own,’ said the French boy.

‘Taillefer, may I remind you that the Cistercian Order is French and that we English find their presence in our country problematical?’ Peterkin went over and stretched up to push him on the shoulder in reproof. ‘If anyone should have doubts about a Cistercian nun, it should be us. But I pray you remember, not all monastics are painted in the same colours.’

‘Bien sur.’ Taillefer grinned, not at all contrite, and gave another of his expressive shrugs.

‘Boys, listen to me. Let’s not pick fights. What I can tell you is that Athanasius is determined to find the dagger that was in Maurice’s hand when he died. He believes it was stolen by the murderer and its whereabouts will lead us to him.’ She paused for a moment before adding, ‘I believe it’s the dagger that really concerns him.’

‘Valuable is it?’

‘So he suggests.’

‘Whether it is or not, he will not want the murderer’s identity broadcast around the palace,’ exclaimed Taillefer. ‘He’ll want to deal with the man himself in private.’

The English boys looked at him in alarm.

‘That’s the way things are done here,’ he warned them. ‘The old fellow will search him out and have him assassinated. All that will show he ever existed will be an empty space at table. And someone else will soon fill that.’

‘We’ll set out to find this dagger, then,’ said Edmnd.

‘And we’ll get to it first.’ Taillefer spoke with great firmness. ‘If it leads us to the murderer of our beloved friend Maurice we’ll emulate our lords and show the killer no mercy.’

Hildegard murmured something about the rule of law but Edmund was already affirming what Taillefer had said. ‘Why the magister wants it so desperately is nothing to us. We should definitely be the ones to find it and bring Maurice’s killer to justice.’

‘Consider it done, domina.’ This was Taillefer again. ‘We’ll assume the dagger has been stolen by the murderer. We’ll track it down and thus identify him. Then we’ll make him pay for his crime against us. So I make my vow.’

The boys gripped each other’s wrists, murmuring, I vow it.

‘Now,’ statesmanlike Taillefer turned to Hildegard. ‘What is the boon you ask of us?’

‘Again, it’s a matter of life and death.’

They gathered closer. Peterkin, Edmund, Taillefer, and Bertram with young Simon and Elfric beside him, all listened intently while she told them about the miners and unfolded her plan to set them free. Afterwards she warned them that they were at liberty to reject what she was asking of them and she would not lodge any blame with them. But even before the words were out they were offering their support.

‘For King Richard and the true commons!’ exclaimed Bertram. The others, including Taillefer, echoed him.

**

Before she left she stood at the squint with Edmund and looked down into the Great Audience Chamber, at Clement, in his malign magnificence. It was easy to see from this height how the dull-witted, the penitential and the superstitious could wish to hand over their moral destiny to such a figure.

Robed in scarlet velvet, gold encrusted, his triple crown on his head, and with powerful features, he looked convincingly omniscient. He seemed more than human, as if he could easily take all the crimes and petty sins his adherents had committed and absolve them of any need to make reparation.

They would be forgiven with the lift of one of his beringed fingers. He would smile on them, his faithful servants, and with that haughty disdain it would be like god himself taking them into his embrace.

Hildegard could not forget Cesena and the thousands slaughtered.

**

Edmund walked alongside her down the passage towards the guest quarters. ‘You have doubts about our ability to carry out the plan,’ he observed.