Hildegard watched him closely. Now he was turning away with face averted to move to the window. He peered out through the slit as if searching for the butterfly he had released.
Athanasius wore an expression of smug satisfaction. ‘I fear his Holiness will not take a lenient view of the matter. It will not be ended yet. To enter the treasury, the seat of power, is worse than heresy.’
‘Worse?’ Grizac rallied. ‘I fear you overstate the case. And besides, the lad is dead.’
‘Quite so.’ Athanasius folded his hands on his chest and smiled with contentment. ‘A just reward, my friend. A just reward.’
**
‘Your eminence?’ Hildegard hurried to catch up with Grizac after they left at the bell for nones and he had reached a corner of the passage before he swung round to face her.
‘Don’t try to catch me saying something when he could not,’ he grated.
They stared each other, poised at the top of the steps. Hildegard was stunned by the transformation in Grizac’s manner. His antagonism made her falter for an instant.
He pushed his face forward into hers. ‘Tell your mentor I know who the guilty man is and I know who his master is! Tell him that if you wish!’ He turned in a crackle of stiff brocade and made off down the stairs.
They were the same Stairs of Honour where she had first encountered Hubert and his two supporters and now she went to the arch in the brickwork and watched Grizac descend all the way to the bottom, robes billowing, without slackening speed.
**
He knew who had killed Maurice? As much at a loss as before Hildegard went up to her chamber to rest. She had some planning of her own to do. But Grizac knew who the killer was and would not name him? Did he also know why Maurice had gone to the treasury? He must do. He had strenuously denied knowing anything about it. But he must be lying. Do not trust him.
She wondered if it was a bluff. Athanasius blamed him for sending Maurice into the treasury. That must wrankle. Yet, as he had pointed out, he had no need of riches. Nor did he have a reason to interfere in the pope’s barter with Woodstock. He was a Clementist. What Clement wanted he must want.
If pushed, would he have named the man behind it all? He could not know it. If so, someone would be in custody by now.
Thoughtfully she checked the contents of her scrip. Earlier she had seen Carlotta and Fondi with their little daughter sitting on his shoulders going into an apartment further along. She had been appalled. Her suspicions ran amok. So close to her own chamber. Too close for comfort. How had Carlotta managed that? What did it mean?
Feeling trapped she decided she would have to be on her guard every minute of every night and every day if she didn’t want to finish up like the Scottish nun.
**
Later, sometime before vespers, she heard a noise outside and went to the window to look down into the garden. She saw Carlotta and Flora with a few servants entering through the wooden door in the wall. Carlotta went to drape herself languorously on the low wall that encircled the spring while Flora played with a ball.
Deciding to go down, attack being a better sort of defence than cringing here in her chamber, she soon found the stairs that led to the garden.
Carlotta greeted her suspiciously and at once demanded to know if she expected to find Hubert here.
‘I hadn’t given him a thought,’ Hildegard replied. That was true anyway, her mind was full of other things at present. Uppermost at present was how she was going to find out whether Fondi and Carlotta had visited her chamber.
She offered Flora some sugared almonds she happened to have with her. Bel Pierre, half asleep in a basket, managed to eat his fill, and the time passed until the bell tolled and it was time to go up for the evening office.
Everyone began to move off in Carlotta’s wake, one of the maids carrying the squirrel in his basket while Flora skipped ahead.
Suddenly the maid let out a cry. Bel Pierre had woken up, jumped out of the basket and vanished up the stairs. Everyone ran after him except for Carlotta who yawned and carried on towards her apartment.
‘Leave the filthy animal,’ she called down when she saw everyone scurrying around in vain. ‘He’ll soon appear when he wants feeding.’
Flora was in tears.
‘He must have hidden himself behind one of the tapestries,’ Hildegard suggested. ‘We’ll soon find the little fellow.’
The servants searched with care but he was nowhere to be found. A man with a broom was summoned and banged it into corners they could not reach but with no more success.
‘Go up, Flora, and we’ll continue the search,’ Hildegard told the weeping child. ‘We’ll soon find him. He can’t have gone far. Leave the basket with me and I’ll bring the naughty little fellow to you as soon as we find him.’
‘It’s my bedtime,’ sobbed Flora. ‘I want him. I want Bel Pierre. I can’t sleep without him.’
‘You might have to, just this once. I promise by the time you wake up in the morning he’ll be safe and sound beside you.’
The howling child was taken upstairs by her maid and after a fruitless search the servants followed one by one. Hildegard stood in puzzlement. The squirrel must have gone up into the guest apartments. She was just about to go up there herself when she noticed a small shadow on the stair where they had already looked ten times over. But there he was, as large as life. With the enticement of one of the remaining sugared almonds she managed to get him into the basket and drop the lid.
It was then an idea came to her. She almost laughed aloud. But no, it was surely impossible. Nevertheless, she returned to her chamber thinking, Bel Pierre, you may have saved the King of England.
**
Vespers came and went. The lamps were lit. Then compline, night prayers, and the swell of constant crowds subsided, leaving the passages and public chambers empty, giving way to a gradual shutting down of the household until only the slippered night servants sat around in quiet groups waiting to be summoned by insomniacs waiting for the midnight office to begin.
The stair well leading down to the lower floor was as black as pitch. She had to feel her way along the passage with one hand scraping along the wall while holding onto the squirrel’s basket with the other. Her scrip was buckled to her belt and weighed heavily against her as she moved.
The floor levelled out. Now it was only a few paces down a short corridor to the apothecary’s workshop. Guided by the strong scent of his elixirs she paused when she reached the door then, ears pricked, she cautiously turned the ring. The door slid open and she stepped through.
A heavy, aromatic silence greeted her. Pausing for a moment to get her bearings she was eventually able to make out hundreds of bunches of dried herbs hanging from the beams above her head. Like bats, she thought with a shiver. Nothing stirred.
Over by the bench where the cures were dispensed were a few jars and wooden utensils, a pestle and mortar, a set of scales, and a rack of knives. Not wasting time here she stepped carefully over to the far door. If it was locked she would have trouble prising it open with her knife but to her joy it opened at her touch and she stepped inside.
It would be too much to hope that the poison that had already by its mere existence caused three deaths would be openly displayed and yet, with the apothecary’s oblique character in mind she could see him doing such a thing, amused by his own secret knowledge, flaunting it in the face of his unsuspecting customers.
With the open shelves as her first search, then, before she tried the aumbry where he had kept the silver talisman, she stepped close up, lit the taper she had brought, and began to read the labels.
Two rows of clay pots with wax stoppers were arranged precisely on the shelves along with glass demijohns and a shelf of small glass phials with wax lids. Everything was labelled with the names of ingredients she recognised. Sometimes the lettering was difficult to make out but all of it made eventual sense.