The Alchemist of Netley Abbey: Eighth in the Hildegard of Meaux medieval mystery series Read online

  The impact shook the breath out of her and she lost the sword in the grass and they struggled while she tried to get her knife from her sleeve. She managed to grip him by the neck of his mail shirt and bring the blade within inches of his throat. Cursing, he rolled away and she followed but he had had enough. His fellows were already leaving him behind and with another oath he threw himself onto the back of one of the horses and roared off into the trees.

  One man remained. He gave a shocked glance at the unexpected apparition of a nun and two fighting men in monk’s habits, dropped the saddle-bag he was about to purloin, and ran for the last of the horses.

  In a moment, as quickly as if it had been no more than a dream, the glade emptied, bird-song resumed, and Gregory slid down from his horse and sheathed his blade with a satisfied grin.

  ‘Where did they spring from?’ he demanded of nobody in particular. ‘I would follow them but feel they’re unlikely to return now they’ve tested us. At least we’re a couple of swords to the good.’ He went over to where Hubert was still lying in the grass holding his leg. ‘What ails, my lord abbot? No taste for a fight?’

  Through white lips Hubert uncharacteristically grunted a reply. ‘Give me a minute. I fell from my horse when they leaped out without warning. He reared and threw me down. My own fault. My thoughts were elsewhere.’

  ‘What’s wrong with your leg?’

  ‘I fell awkwardly. It’s nothing. Let me groan a while to relieve my feelings.’

  Egbert came over. ‘Let’s have a look at you.’

  ‘It’s nothing.’ Hubert flinched from his touch. His face was rigid with pain.

  Hildegard shook out her sleeves and replaced her knife in its sheath. ‘Let Brother Egbert have a look, my lord. Just to make sure nothing’s broken.’

  Hubert was already trying to stand but wincing and cursing under his breath.Gregory held him still. ‘Has he broken it, Egbert? Have a look will you while I hold him.’

  Together they forced Hubert, protesting violently, back onto the ground long enough to roll up one of his leggings and as soon as they did so they could see the bone of his right shin jutting through the skin.

  ‘It cannot be, it cannot be,’ Hubert was muttering. ‘We have miles to ride yet. I will not have it. Put me back on my horse.’ He pressed one hand over the bone and attempted to push it back into place. His face was contorted in a grimace of pain.

  ‘You won’t be riding anywhere with that for a while. Not unless you want to finish your life on sticks.’ Egbert was adamant. ‘Keep still and let me splint it for you then we’ll decide what we’re going to do next.’

  It was by common consent that Gregory, who claimed to sense water down the deer track by which their assailants had fled, was chosen to ride on ahead to find out how the land lay and if they were anywhere near where they were supposed to be.

  ‘They had mud on their boots, did you notice?’ Gregory glanced round at them. ‘Maybe it was from a wallow or a pond or maybe they’ve recently made a river crossing. I favour that view because their horses were mud-stained to their bellies. If there’s a river, it’s all to the good. I’ll find it.’

  Marvelling that he had been able to notice anything in the suddenness of the attack they could not help but agree.

  ‘Bring my sword over so I have it to hand,’ growled Hubert, gesturing to where it lay in the grass.

  ‘I can see them off, don’t worry, my lord.’ Egbert gazed speculatively up into the tree underneath which Hubert was now propped and reached up to swing himself onto a branch. He began to climb.

  ‘I’m not useless either.’ Hildegard handed Hubert his sword and uneasily felt for the knife inside her sleeve.

  ‘I’ll be back as soon as I’ve had a look from the top of that next hill,’ Gregory assured them.

  He remounted and plunged off down the track and they heard him crashing about in the undergrowth for some time before the sound faded.

  ‘He’s keen on the idea of a river,’ Hubert stated with the air of somebody trying to keep their thoughts off other matters. ‘Does he imagine I’m going to swim to Meaux?’

  ‘With respect, Hubert, it’ll be easier to float you down on a log to sanctuary than haul you on a make-shift sled through this close-packed woodland.’

  Hubert gave a half-smile at the look-out in the tree. ‘You imagine sanctuary somewhere close by, brother? If we’re well off the intended route the only sanctuary we’re likely to find is in the earl of Arundel’s dungeons.’

  Hildegard shivered. ‘Do you think those men were Arundel’s?’ The thought had not occurred to her before now. ‘They wore no blazon that I could see.’

  Egbert called down from his perch halfway up the beech tree. ‘Did you notice anything about them?’

  ‘Not I.’ Hubert shook his head.

  ‘Nor I.’ Hildegard frowned. ‘But I wonder, is Forest Law so slighted hereabouts that men can attack and plunder at will?’

  Egbert called down. ‘I believe we’ve strayed out of the Royal Forest and have somehow reached disputed land. This is wildwood and unenclosed. Some small-time vassal of Arundel’s will have the run of it.’

  ‘I agree. I can’t imagine Arundel allowing his own men to roam unchecked, not with game here for the taking.’

  ‘Whether they were our enemy’s men or not, let’s hope they can keep their mouths shut about four Cistercians roaming the woods.’ Hubert closed his dark eyes, more dark than ever now as pain dilated his pupils.

  Concerned to see him in this unaccustomed state Hildegard went to her saddle bag. ‘I’ve got a cure here.’ She took it over to him. ‘You’ll need bone-knit later but for now a pain killer will help.’ While she opened a flask of water for him, Egbert climbed higher into the tree.

  ‘Nothing but heat haze,’ he called down. ‘It’s like the sea in every direction. No sign of those devils. And no sign of Gregory either. All I can make out is a fold in the hills where the mist thickens. Let’s hope it conceals this river he believes in.’

  Hubert swallowed without demur an elixir Hildegard handed him saying, ‘If we’re really riding south as you believe, Hildegard, we may have looped close to one of the rivers that flow into Southampton Water. If we follow it down stream we must come to a settlement of some sort.’

  Gregory burst back into the clearing not much later and confirmed his guess. ‘It’s a river, all right. I assume it’s the Itchen and, best of all, further down-stream is a Cistercian house called Netley Abbey. If I’m right we’ll soon be back among our brothers. You might remember I was there not long ago?’

  ‘I assume you didn’t come this way?’ Egbert swung down from his look-out in the tree.

  ‘No, I took a boat from Hythe. I don’t know this side of the river at all, at least, no more than you do and I fancy you wish you didn’t know it even as well as this. So,’ he turned to Hubert, ‘all is not lost!’ He glanced at the neat splint Egbert had fashioned from a straight branch of beechwood. ‘We can help you a little way through the woods to the river bank. It’s not far. Then we can either gather withies and make a raft or set our prayers to summon up a waterman with an eagerness to help.’

  It turned out that their prayers, if they offered any, were answered in full. They came across an old fisherman with wild hair and untamed beard sheltering from the heat of the sun in the shade of a tree on the river bank. He had a line in the water. Glumly confirming that he was in contention with the River Itchen for its fish when asked if Netley lay downstream he jerked his thumb in that direction and claimed it was no more than a short way with the tide as it was.

  ‘I’m floating back in the direction of Hound,’ he explained. ‘Netley is no distance from there.’

  A small but serviceable coracle was pulled up next to him on the bank. Gregory’s persuasive manner, some coin and the fisherman’s eagerness to keep in with a Cistercian abbot, though from a far region as they explained, soon had Hubert lying in the vessel with Hildegard beside him.

  ‘T
his is way off our intended route,’ Hubert remarked.

  ‘Do you have a better suggestion, my lord?’Egbert turned to Gregory. ‘They have facilities there to treat a broken leg, we assume?’

  The boatman chipped in to reassure them. ‘That apothecary of theirs will work his magic, do not doubt it. A clever fellow you can trust. He’s mended enough broken heads in the wars than to be bested by a mere shin bone.’He gave Hubert a sharp glance. ‘Beggin’ your indulgence, my lord abbot. I don’t doubt that it’s painful enough, your leg, at present.’

  ‘I’ve been pained worse many times,’ Hubert answered through gritted teeth, ‘but never so inconveniently.’

  Gregory and Egbert led Hildegard’s palfrey as well as Hubert’s horse which, shame-faced, had eventually returned to seek his master. They agreed to keep to the river bank and ride on ahead. According to the boatman this was possible without, he added, getting their feet wet for no good reason.

  ‘First we’ll make sure your worthy boat is stout enough to carry its burden without sinking and once reassured we’ll ride on to warn the brothers to receive an injured man. All’s well,’ Gregory added, for Hubert’s benefit. ‘This is nothing. We’ll soon be on our way home again.’

  Hubert gave him a black look. ‘It might be all well with you, Gregory, but I’m going to have to stay trapped in some out of the way cell as an invalid until I can sit a horse.’

  As Egbert had predicted, the sun quickly burned off the mist. The river slid like oil between banks of willow. It had been hot work leading Hubert, painfully astride his horse, through the woods but now, with the boat to take him the rest of the way, Gregory and Egbert would lead the other two horses along the top of the bank towards the abbey.

  From the coracle Hildegard watched the men shadowing the boat and as soon as it left the shallows and was rocking safely on the ebb Gregory raised one hand to signal that he and Egbert were riding on.

  The sun blazed down from a cloudless sky. Even the boatman commented. ‘Been like this for three days, it has, ruining my fishing.’

  ‘It’ll end soon, no doubt. You know the weather,’ Hildegard consoled him.

  ‘Aye, and I know those weather prophets. They say we’ll have another week of it till St Swithin’s, then forty days more like it. If they’re right we’ll be done for good and proper. No crops. No dairy. Sheep dying for want of fodder. And if no sheep, no wool...then where will we be?’

  He fell silent as if to let the menace of famine hover in the air until, turning his attention to the task of guiding the coracle into the fast-flowing tide, he drove them into its deep and dangerous embrace, and they were off down river to Netley.

  But for her anxiety about him, Hildegard was happy to be alone at last with Hubert. She wanted, in any little way she could, to ease his pain and raise his spirits but there was something else, too, because of what had previously passed between them, some vestige of joy in being alone with him with nobody but an indifferent boatman to mar their intimacy.

  With no interest further than tides and currents and the safety of his craft, the boatman paddled them all too swiftly towards their destination.

  After a few moments Hubert reached for Hildegard’s hand, his thumb circling her palm, and when he pulled her closer the old fire smouldered between them.

  ‘I would expect you to take advantage of your predicament,’ she reproved, eyes sparkling and making no attempt to draw away.

  ‘Pitiless woman,’ he replied in like mood. ‘Surely I deserve one small kiss to ease my agony?’

  She gave him a kiss then as she had been longing to do since they left Salisbury and was conscious again of the dear, familiar scent of his skin and how easily he could ignite her resistless desires – only the vows that bound them both in an iron promise of fidelity to their Order stood between them.

  Hubert’s lips brushed her cheek, her fingers twined in his hair, and he murmured, ‘Mea culpa, Hildegard. To bring this on you! I know how much you were looking forward to going home. Are you angry with me?’

  She rested her cheek against his. ‘I can imagine no feeling less appropriate than anger. All I wish is that we can find a safe place where you can rest and have good folk heal you.’

  This mingling of joy and mutual desire was curtailed soon enough. As evening began to spread its lavender veils over the land, with light draining into Southampton Water like mercury into a cup, the boatman dug his oar deep into the flood to turn the coracle towards the shore.

  ‘Here we are,’ he called over his shoulder.

  A wooden jetty reared darkly from a shingle beach and beyond that one hulked shape, the wooden sides of a few fishing boats lay upended above the tide line.

  Off shore, riding at anchor in the deep middle channel was a trading cog, its main sail furled, pennants drooping.

  Two familiar figures were already striding down the bank to the shore and half-a-dozen hooded abbey servants followed carrying a stretcher between them. As the boatman ran his craft onto the beach, a crowd of onlookers jostled at the water’s edge. With a few murmured instructions from the lay-servants Hubert was brought ashore even though he tried to fling off any help, at first determined to step onto dry land unaided and only reluctantly persuaded to recline on the stretcher so that he could more easily be conveyed up to the abbey.

  Hildegard scrambled ashore last, pausing only to thank the boatman for his trouble and pay him double the coin he asked, then, in the wake of the group carrying the abbot she climbed the short slope up to a path that cut between a few trees towards a grey and imposing building on the summit.

  ‘There it is,’ announced Gregory. ‘Netley Abbey at last!’

  Chapter Two

  The conversi, those lay-brothers, the servants of the abbey who had not taken any vows but were still promised to celibacy, hefted the stretcher with its burden through the imposing gatehouse and at a brisk though careful pace crossed a corner of a great courtyard towards an open door.

  Hildegard had an impression of cloisters running round three sides of a garth and opposite the gate house the massive edifice of a church with elegant, soaring columns, slender windows of glittering glass, and a porched entrance where several monks in their white Cistercian habits were coming and going. The voices of choristers floated in ethereal and solemn cadences across the roof tops.

  Turning to follow the stretcher through the open door of what must be the infirmary, she was halted by a hand on her sleeve and a woman saying, ‘Greetings, domina. Follow me, if you will.’

  It was a wide-beamed bustling lay-sister in a grey habit with a white coif askew on her head. ‘I’m instructed by the guest master to conduct you to your quarters, domina.’

  A blur of movement and colour from nearby resolved itself into several towns- people in gaudy clothes standing at the near end of the cloister. On seeing a nun being shown inside there were speculative murmurs about her connection to the patient being carried in, one rumoured to be not only a distinguished guest but interestingly close to death’s door.

  Hoisting her saddle bag onto one hip Hildegard called after Gregory as he headed towards the stables. ‘I may join you in the infirmary if that’s where they’re taking him?’

  ‘We shall expect you. Find your bed first then come to us.’

  The lay-sister was briskly opening a path between the on-lookers and when Hildegard caught up with her she waved a hand towards the women standing by. ‘These good ladies will attest to my service, I hope, domina.’

  The women nodded in agreement. One in particular, with a mass of red hair tied up in a scarf which could not control such abundance offered Hildegard a warm smile. ‘We are pilgrims, domina. You need have no fear that your meditations will be disturbed by us. We are the quietest women alive.’

  An elderly old fellow at her side whom Hildegard took to be her husband, growled a good-natured contradiction that earned him a slap on the wrist. ‘Don’t frighten the sister right off, Simon, or she’ll be sending herself out to loo
k for more congenial lodgings.’

  ‘I can assure you I shall be happy with anywhere warm and dry at present.’She glanced across towards the infirmary again.

  Noticing this, the lay sister took her by the arm. ‘Your abbot will be well cared for here. But come, you must be tired after your long ride and a cramping sail down river. Follow me.’

  Again Hildegard had only a blurred impression as they hurried inside, stone steps, a wide doorway, the coolness of a shadowed hall, more steps, a communal sleeping chamber, and a swathe of satin, draped and gleaming, a bale of thick, dark wool, and something shining in the midst of it, and a hand, suddenly and incongruously, emerging to box the ear of a haloed angel, first one side, slap, then the other, and a stark, mute, pale face, shocked and blushing, and before Hildegard could take this in she saw the round blue eyes of a Saxon boy in a fustian tunic standing in another doorway with a clothes chest hefted in his arms, but she was already being hurried away underneath an arch and down a corridor of doors with the murmur of voices behind them and then, at last, breathless, was brought to a stop at a door transverse to the others, which her guide flung open.

  Revealed was a small, plain chamber, one narrow truckle bed pushed against the wall, one prie-dieu of a very plain and simple construction, and one deep window loop, its shutters half open facing out towards the river with the extended wall of the gatehouse abutting it on the right.

  ‘And this, domina, is the best I can offer but apart from the wall of the gatehouse obstructing the view to one side it is, in my estimation, the best chamber in the house.’ She turned, confiding, ‘We always leave it vacant to the last because some of my ladies do not like the noise of men arriving and departing below their window and they often prefer to sleep in the same long chamber as everyone else. More sociable, I suppose. But you, as a Cistercian, will not heed that.’