‘There’s no escaping the fact that Taillefer had to have fallen from the bridge?’
‘That’s the only way to account for his garments being wet on the outside and relatively dry on the inside, something that’d have been impossible if he’d been immersed in water for the time it would have taken to swim across to what he imagined would be safety.’
‘The river was treacherous anyway,’ Gregory pointed out. ‘Surely it’s doubtful whether anyone could have swum across, even when driven by the terror of being pursued.’
‘He couldn’t have jumped?’
‘Fifteen feet from a slippery, shelving bank?’
‘Round and round.’ Gregory tapped impatiently with his finger nails on the table top until he saw Egbert’s glance. ‘Sorry. Bad habit.’ He pushed his hands inside his sleeves.
Back to Grizac. He was on the bridge. Fact. If the bell was rung early he could have hurried back in time for lauds. Hildegard almost blurted out his name but decided at the last minute to hold her tongue.
Even Grizac did not solve all questions. What grudge could he have against the esquire to kill him? Why the quarrel? It made no sense.
Was it because Grizac suspected that Taillefer knew about Maurice’s intended theft? Did he fear what else the esquire had been told? Did Taillefer need to be silenced? That would assume Grizac was the brains behind the whole thing. And a man who could kill without a qualm. Grizac? He seemed so devout, a man with a kindly manner. Like Peterkin she felt guilty even to entertain such heinous suspicions. Rather than the extreme response of murdering Taillefer, Grizac would surely have tried to bribe him or frighten him into handing over the dagger if he was so desperate to get his hands on it? And, anyway, how could he know Taillefer had the dagger that night unless somebody had told him?
Was it possible that Grizac overheard the commotion from the inn himself as he arrived at the bridge?
The inn keeper admitted he had gone bellowing out after the stranger who was also by all accounts yelling stop thief at the top of his voice.
It might have been that Grizac, miraculously reaching the bridge at the same moment as all this happened, again miraculously guessing what dagger the stranger was shouting about, enticed Taillefer onto the bridge, drew his knife, and…wrong place, wrong time.
Or, Taillefer, running away from his pursuer meets Grizac, begs him to save him, is taken onto the bridge, to safety, as he imagines…and then.
Supposition. Nor did Hildegard believe in miracles. It was all too coincidental. Nor did Hubert’s earlier theory of an assassin murdering all three persuade her either. Where was this assassin? Who was he? What possible link could there be between the two youths and an elderly Scottish nun?
The flagon seemed to have been emptied as they talked and Egbert got up to have it refilled.
While he was doing that Hildegard turned to Hubert. ‘You can confirm that Cardinal Grizac was in lauds at the palace with you?’
‘I can vouch for it.’
‘Me too,’ added Gregory. ‘And Fondi, Bellefort and Montjoie. I can promise you, domina, they all left together, groaning about the weather and how lucky Brother Egbert and I were to be staying behind in the palace guest quarters. Montjoie was livid.’
Egbert returning and catching the end of the conversation, tilted the contents of the flagon into their cups. ‘There’s one of Montjoie’s pages over there.’
They all looked across the refectory to where he pointed.
Hubert rose to his feet and went over.
After a few minutes he returned. ‘What you said about Montjoie reminded me of something. According to his page they accidentally tipped him out when they were on the bridge and got the full brunt of one of his tirades.’
‘His rages are quite unbridled,’ murmured Gregory.
‘Was that the argument on the bridge?’
‘Could be.’
‘Believe me,’ observed Egbert. ‘Once he gets going you can hear him berate those poor servants of his from one end of Avignon to the other.’
‘But the argument happened just before the lauds bell,’ Hildegard pointed out.
‘How reliable is that old priest?’
‘Sleeping fitfully, waking in the night? Who can ever tell what the time is?’ Egbert asked.
**
After leaving the Tinel and the men with their fresh flagon, Hildegard went down to the main courtyard. The guards were used to seeing her come and go by now and scarcely raised their heads.
Down by the river the flood was receding, leaving a rim of brown sludge above the waterline. Lower down the slope on his small hillock the ferryman had got his boat back. It lay upside down in the mud.
As she approached she saw other things lying around. A broken pitcher. A few rags of some sort. A stool with one leg missing.
She hurried up to the door and peered inside.
The shutters were half open, swinging on their hinges with a desolate, repetitive sound. In the drizzle of light she noticed more broken pots scattered on the earth floor. No fire brightened the hearth, instead there was a pile of ashes where the logs had been allowed to burn away.
She heard a groan and stepped through the door without knocking. The ferryman was lying stretched out in his chair with his hands to his head.
‘What’s happened?’ She went right up to him and he flinched when he realised he was not alone.
‘It’s only me,’ she reassured. ‘Are you ill?’
‘That black devil,’ he ground out. When he removed his hands from his head she saw that he had been beaten about the face. Both eyes were half-closed. His lips were puffed. His nose bleeding.
‘Who did this?’
‘If I knew I wouldn’t be lying here I’d be using a paddle on him.’ He gave another groan. ‘He was lying in wait for me behind the door. What have I done? I don’t get it. Was he thieving? If so he got precious little and what he got he smashed.’
‘Have you run up against somebody recently?’ she asked, caution in her voice as she wondered if it had anything to do with the help he had given the miners.
‘Telling me to keep my mouth shut,’ he groaned. ‘It’s a warning, he said. Me, I said, what have I got to blab about?’
‘Let me bathe your wounds. At least we have plenty of fresh water.’
She went over to the rain barrel outside the door, dipped a piece of clean cloth in it and returned, opening her scrip as she did so. ‘We’ll soon have you fixed up,’ she said.
There was dread in her heart. It was surely not the guild of pages who had behaved so barbarically, was it? Who else would want him to keep his mouth shut?
**
‘At least your nose isn’t broken as far as I can tell. How does it feel?’
‘Like a bloody great throbbing horn.’
‘Yes, it looks a bit like one at present but if you keep on using the arnica the swelling will go down. Soon you’ll soon be as handsome as ever - and breaking women’s hearts all over again, the angels save us.’
‘The angels must have brought you here, domina.’ His eyelids flickered at the smarting of his wounds as she dabbed at them and he growled, ‘It was the devil brought him.’
‘There now.’ She wrung out the cloth and put it back into her scrip to wash and dry later. ‘And you saw no-one?’
‘I’d been out to my boat. I was only outside there. No, I tell a lie - ’
Not the first, she thought.
‘I’d been down to the bridge to have a look among the wreckage.’
‘You mean where the duc’s esquire was found?’
‘No, closer in. A tree came down in the night and blocked the nearest arch. I found a few bits and pieces nobody wants and piled them on the bank. Then I thought I’d better have a look at my boat where they dragged her up this morning after finishing with her.’