Then it was a chaos of movement in the darkness. Grunts. A howl of pain. Someone on the ground coughing up the contents of his stomach.

All at once her arms were released and Hubert was beside her. ‘Can you run? I’ll hold them off.’

‘Ridiculous!’ She drew her knife.

A second glint of steel must have made the men hesitate. Hubert lunged as a shape burst from the shadows and launched himself in a full-on attack but then, as Hubert parried and sent his opponent’s sword clattering to the ground, the attackers must have realised the fight wasn’t worth the risk. As suddenly as they had appeared they vanished into the night.

Hubert was licking one of his wrists as they entered the gatehouse a few minutes later. She had a close look at it underneath the fitful light of a cresset, saw with relief that it was no more than a graze.

‘I’m sorry.’ She pulled a face. ‘If you say, I told you so, I shall scream.’ She gave him a rueful smile.

‘No hard feelings. Luckily we had the advantage of darkness. They didn’t know whether they were stabbing each other or us.’

‘I should have listened to you. I’ve been warned often enough today about that place.’

‘I had a better view than you and could see how things were shaping up.’

Then she remembered the age he had spent with the whore, Yolande. ‘I’m sure you had a different view while you were in that back room.’

‘I did.’ He grinned. ‘Come up to the Tinel - we both need a drink after all that - and I’ll tell you what she said.’

**

They shared a jug of warm spiced wine in the echoing refectory with sleepy night staff floating among the empty tables and dreamily wiping up around them. It seemed unreal to be sitting with Hubert in such surroundings.

He reached out when the servant had moved out of earshot and took her hands in his. ‘Were you hurt just now?’

She shook her head. ‘Only my pride. What a fool I was. I owe you.’

‘It’s a debt I shall call in one day.’

‘I’m duly warned. But tell me what that girl said to you.’

‘She knew Taillefer. He was one of her regulars. Yesterday he asked her to let him know if anybody had been in trying to sell anything valuable. Something stolen from his master, le duc.’

‘Le duc de Berry’s a known collector of beautiful objects.’ She nodded.

‘She promised she would, the inn being one of those places where stolen goods change hands. Then last night a stranger came in looking for a buyer for a dagger. A rich piece, jewelled, clearly once the property of a nobleman. She got the message to Taillefer and he came back just after midnight. She said to him, apparently, “you’re eager, you were only in here a few hours ago,” and he said, “I’ve been locked out.” Note this, “My usual way must have been discovered. I’ll have to stay here till morning so I hope you’ll give me a bed.”’

‘That would cost him,’ she observed dryly.

Hubert smiled. ‘These girls are often willing to work for very little.’ Hildegard drew back. ‘Or so I’m told,’ he added, seeing her expression.

‘Go on, Hubert. Your activities are hardly my concern.’

He frowned. ‘Surely you’re not suggesting I’d ever break my vows with a whore?’

‘It’s the practise here. That’s plain to a blind man. Look at Cardinal Fondi. He’s not the only one.’

‘Fondi is - I’m not of these people, anyway. I’m - ’ he broke off. ‘Let’s not wrangle. I have something important to tell you - that is if you’re still intent on finding Taillefer’s killer?’

‘Of course I am. I’m sorry, Hubert, I’m still shaken by what happened just now. Nothing seems real. That voice - one of the attackers - I’m sure I recognised it. I just can’t place it.’ She shivered.

‘You think they were more than casual footpads?’

‘I don’t know. But do go on. Tell me what else she said.’

‘Well, Yolande told Taillefer about the stranger with a jewelled dagger for sale and she thought it was that that had brought him over last night, that - and not being able to get back into the palace. She said he was interested enough to try to buy the dagger but the man would not sell unless he had gold for it, and of course, the boy didn’t have gold.’

‘He tried to use a bill of credit, apparently.’

‘Yes. But later, as you know, he stole the dagger and made off with it. The stranger followed and then, of course, the body was found at first light.’

‘This stranger, who was he? Did she have any idea?’

‘She said he told everybody he was just passing through but she didn’t believe it. She thought he was staying in the palace, either as a kitchener, or in some similar fairly menial job, anything he could take, maybe in the retinue of one of the guests.’

‘Why did she think that?’

‘Because she had a feeling she’d seen him in the street a few days ago, wearing mail but with no sign of his affinity and also because of the big way he was talking. She felt it didn’t ring true. He mentioned his master who was no petty lordling, apparently, but close to being a king in his own right, to hear him talk, and, he seemed to hint, a guest or envoy of someone with immense power, which of course could only mean the pope and she assumed he was hinting that he was a guest at the palace.’

‘Did she name this lordling?’

He shook his head. ‘She had no ideas on that but what she did seem sure of was that the stranger was not French. His scars suggested he’d been in the wars, a mercenary, maybe, and she suspected he was a deserter from the English army. Evidently they regularly fetch up here. She said she’d heard the accent often enough.’

‘Gaunt’s men are scattered all over the region since his Castilian campaign. There are probably deserters from Aquitaine as well. And of course,’ she gripped Hubert’s arm then remembered herself and let it go.

‘What is it?’ he urged.

‘Woodstock, of course, and his Brittany campaign. It went on for long enough. When he was paid off after the duke changed sides many of his men stayed over here rather than return to England.’

‘Some had no choice but to remain abroad,’ quipped Hubert with a knowing smile. ‘There was that little question of back pay which escaped Woodstock’s attention.’

‘There’s also Woodstock’s vassal, Sir John Fitzjohn - ’

‘The stranger might even have arrived with him.’

She grimaced. ‘Let’s face it, Hubert, these are just suppositions and he could be anyone.’

Hubert wore a serious expression. ‘It fails to tell us why he would murder the lad. He could have forced him to hand over the dagger, surely? It seems unnecessarily savage to kill him. Or was there a personal element? Could it have been a vendetta against the duc, his liege lord? Or -’ he paused.

‘Or what?’ she prompted.

‘Was it simply Taillefer’s misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time?’ He gave her a searching look. ‘If Taillefer had been able to get back inside the palace after his nighttime exeat,’ he continued, ‘and if the stranger had found another buyer…?’ He paused. ‘Wrong time, wrong place.’ He pulled his cloak on. ‘I’ll have to leave it for you to mull over yourself.’

‘Thank you for your help. I’m not sure why you should bother but I’m pleased you were there this night. It leaves us with the question of how the stranger got hold of the dagger in the first place. He must have been already inside the palace or entered it unnoticed.’

Hubert got up. ‘Night office soon. I must get some sleep.’

When they left the Tinel they walked up the wide stairs towards the guest wing. At the top before they turned their separate ways into the darkness a moment of stillness drew them close.

Hubert reached out to touch Hildegard on the lips but let his hand drop without doing so. ‘The wrong time, the wrong place,’ he murmured. ‘Will it always be so?’

Turning swiftly on his heel and with a suddenly strong, ‘Vale, domina!’ he was soon swallowed up in the shadows between the intermittent lights along the passage.