The Dragon of Handale (2 page)

Hildegard lowered her head.

“And were you invited to become this merchant’s wife?”

“I believe the idea crossed his mind.”

“And you were tempted?”

Her head shot up. “Hardly so. Nor do I wish to be anybody’s wife.”

“After that no-good fellow you were involved with in London, I’m not surprised.”

Hildegard gave the prioress a stare of such coldness even she faltered and added hurriedly, “I was led to believe that Rivera was a spy for Bolingbroke and therefore an enemy of our anointed king?”

“He saw his error.”

“So, after Brother Rivera, as I said—”

“Nothing more would have been possible at that time,” Hildegard said hoarsely. “Not between us. I was always aware of that. There was too much against us and—” She broke off, scarcely able to speak for the lump in her throat. At least his name was out in the open, and with the prioress observing her so closely, she felt little need to add anything else.

“If you feel like that,” the prioress observed more softly after a considering pause, “you may as well rejoin the Order.” She gave Hildegard a good long look. It was not without kindness. “But you’re still undecided?”

She nodded, but before she could excuse her reluctance to make a decision, the prioress smiled. “I have an idea, Hildegard. If you’re doubtful about us here at Swyne, and still see yourself as a lost soul—which the Church undoubtedly does—then why not stay as a guest at another priory? See things from another side?”

“How do you mean?”

“Stay at a different monastic house belonging to another Order, without the obligation of donning a habit.”

“Somewhere like Watton?”

The prioress laughed. “With all the overprivileged ladies and their little dogs? Hardly! I can’t see that appealing to you. I’ll ask my brother about a congenial place in the north of the county.” The brother she referred to was Alexander Neville, archbishop of York. The previous year, Hildegard had been his eyes and ears during the time of the Westminster Parliament. He fell foul of the king’s enemies and his situation had become precarious.

“Is he back at his palace at York?” she asked now.

“He is.” The prioress looked disconcerted for a moment but shrugged the matter aside. “He’s likely to know somewhere that would suit you. This East Riding air is too mild for you at present.”

Hildegard was already shuddering with cold in the chill cell.

The prioress, as ever, seemed oblivious to it. “I’m thinking of somewhere near Northumberland’s territory.” She smiled. “Let me think on it.”

Suspecting her of an ulterior motive with her reference to the earl of Northumberland, whom some were calling the “king of the north,” Hildegard was unsurprised when the prioress exclaimed, “I know just the place for you! Small, remote, bracing—and Benedictine. That should help you achieve clarity. It’s called Handale Priory. Go there.”

“Very well.” Wondering what she would find to do in such a place except pray for Rivera’s soul and her own, she went out into the cloister as soon as she was dismissed. The prioress, however, called her back.

“It may be as dull as you obviously imagine, but I’ve heard an interesting report that the serpent has been seen again.”

“Serpent?”

“Oh, some faradiddle about a fire-breathing monster, a kind of dragon, they say. Feeds on virgins. Superstitious nonsense, of course, but it should be enough to take your mind off things. Oh, by the way,” she added, “I permit you to take an extra cloak. You’ll need it up there.”

It was not in the prioress’s power to permit or forbid anything at present, as Hildegard had not yet renewed her vows, but she merely nodded her head in thanks and left.

With her bag as yet unpacked after the long pilgrimage back across the sea from northern Spain, Hildegard had little to do but have her boots repaired and a horse readied for her onwards journey to Handale.

Attired in the garments of a townswoman, she felt out of place at Swyne among the familiar white-robed sisters who had been her companions in the past and she was now glad to have an excuse to leave. To their questions, she had no answers. She did not know whether she would rejoin the Order, having left it after discovering that her husband, believed dead, was alive. Much else had happened to send her on the long miles to Compostela, there to light candles for Rivera, the man for whom she would willingly have relinquished her soul into the flames of hell if it would have brought him back.

Now she knew that if the desire to achieve certainty about rejoining the Cistercians had been her aim, then it had failed. There was something to be said for living outside the Order as an ordinary woman in the thick of everyday events Much to be said, also, for renewing her vows and returning to life in a nunnery, where she might do some good.

Maybe Handale Priory and its nuns would provide an answer to her dilemma.

She wondered if Abbot Hubert de Courcy shared the Church’s view that she was a soul lost to God’s grace.

Aware of the immense stretch of country from the river Humber to the south of Swyne and to the Tees in the north, and between the long and varied coastline to the east and the mysterious Pennines to the west, she contemplated the long journey to Handale with misgivings. It was a bleak and largely unpeopled stretch of country once the city of York was left behind.

She set out.

Holderness, where the priory at Swyne lay, soon merged with the undulating hills and secret dales of the Wolds before the land turned savage as the moors were reached.

At their northerly point, near no great market town, and served only by the castle of Kilton—itself nothing more than a fort to hold the coast road between north and south—came the ridged-backed ironstone hills of Handale Forest, with the priory of the Benedictines at its heart.

Handale.

She arrived at Earl Roger de Hutton’s castle north of York, halfway to her goal.

“Handale?” he shouted. “God’s bollocks, Hildegard, why do you want to go there?”

Hildegard, feasted and somewhat feted, for Roger was fond of her, had told him straightaway the purpose of her journey and looked at him with renewed misgivings.

“What do you mean, Roger? It can’t be as bad as that. My prioress suggested it. My onetime prioress, that is, at Swyne.”

“I don’t need to be told who you mean, and I’d like to know her motive,” said,

“I could think of nothing better to do now I’m back from pilgrimage. I feel unsettled. I don’t know what to do. Whether to rejoin the Order if they’ll have me back or to stay out. But if I stay out, then what? She seems to think time at Handale will persuade me to renew my vows.”

“Or put you off for good,” he grunted with satisfaction. “It’s in the middle of nowhere. You’ll hate it.”

“Have you been?”

“No, of course not. Nobody has. Why would they? But strange stories are circulating. The previous prioress left in a hurry not long since. It’s supposed to be a secret, dark, brutish place with nothing good to be said for it.”

“I’m told she was offered a comfortable corrodiary in York and the new one came in to sort things out—whatever that means.”

Roger indicated to his page to pour more wine. “You’ll be there as Mistress York, will you?”

“I have no choice until I discuss my return to the Order with Abbot de Courcy.”

“Hubert will want you back in the fold. He’ll stop at nothing to get you back.”

“It won’t be his personal decision.”

Roger dismissed this. “Stay with us,” he coaxed. “I’ll find a handsome knight for you.” He regarded her with some sympathy. He knew what had happened last year down in Westminster when King Richard had called Parliament to plead for a war fund to defend the country against the French invasion. But the place had been full of spies. A vicious bloodletting had followed. Enmities at court and in the City of London had come to a head in a brutal clash of rival factions. The dukes had made their first open move against the young king, Richard II, and Hildegard had been caught up in it. The king’s position was even more precarious. The struggle for power was not over.

“King Dickon was in York while you were overseas,” Roger told her. “His uncle Thomas Woodstock has been running the royal council to his own advantage while young Dickon kept away from London, trying to drum up support from the rest of the country.”

“Was he successful?”

“Not very. People are sick of war. And he hasn’t fully come round to the idea that he needs an army of his own. He’ll soon learn words and promises come cheap. He seems to think verbal support is enough, without the backing of strong steel. The dukes rarely travel without their armed escorts and enough bowmen to frighten anybody. Dickon needs to do the same if he’s to stand up for himself and protect the Crown.” He gave a snort. “I’ll definitely be turning out if he gives the summons.”

“Is it likely?”

He looked grim. “You’ve been out of the country. You have no idea what’s been going on. Those three traitors have raised armies, and the latest news is that the duke of Warwick is standing by at Waltham Cross, just outside London. Is that a threat or what? Thomas Woodstock and that snake Arundel are heading that way with their own musters. Meanwhile, we sit and wait for Dickon to call us to arms.”

“I heard something like that was intended by Arundel when I arrived at Southampton. He was engaging men down there. He’s done it now, has he? He’s always been an ally of Thomas Woodstock. And they say the king is at Windsor?”

“Yes.”

“What’s their excuse for threatening him?”

“They say it’s because they don’t trust him. He’s supposed to have been plotting to murder them in their beds—”

“Woodstock’s been trying to ruin the king’s name ever since he was made to look a fool at Smithfield.”

“It’s not Woodstock any longer. It’s the duke of Gloucester.” Roger snickered. “He’s still a prick master, whatever his name. But let me tell you this: They’re spreading a story that the king went on a pilgrimage to Canterbury, his real purpose being to barter Calais and Guînes for French help against his own countrymen!”

“That can’t be true!”

“It’s true that they say it, but I agree, it can’t be true. He would never do any such thing. He knows the value of both places and would never give them away, let alone do a deal with the French. But folk are so dumb-skulled, they’ll believe anything they’re told. Where’s their evidence for such lies, I ask!”

“So what are they going to do with their armies? They won’t march against the king himself?” Hildegard looked shocked.

Roger scowled. “They will if they get an excuse they can pass off as a good one.”

“Let’s hope they don’t manage it. But tell me, where does Bolingbroke stand in all this? Is he in with them?”

“He hasn’t shown his hand yet. He’ll wait until he sees which way the wind’s blowing. He’s got three men between himself and the Crown.” Roger ticked them off on his hand. “He’s got his father, the duke. His uncle Gloucester so-called. The fourth earl of March, the king’s chosen heir. Bolingbroke can wait for his father to succumb to natural forces. But how can he get rid of Gloucester? He’s in his prime. And the earl of March is a child, with years ahead of him, God willing. Bolingbroke’s going to have a long wait before the Crown falls to him in any natural way. Make of it what you will. To me, it’s as plain as a pike up the backside. He’ll wait, and when his chance comes, he’ll grab it with both hands.”

“His father’s still in Castile, crowned in St. James at Compostela, and doing deals left and right, so I heard.”

“While everybody here is bowing and scraping to favourite son Bolingbroke. He’s all but duke of Lancaster by now. Gaunt should get himself home, or he’ll find he hasn’t got a duchy to come home to. Do you realise, Hildegard”—Roger looked grim—“I’m one of the few magnates here to give the king outright support?”

“I hope you’ll keep it that way.”

“I will. And so will Ulf.”

Hildegard’s expression lightened. “How is dear Ulf?”

“Married and miserable.”

“Surely—”

“Nothing more to be said, Hildegard. You’ll go that way out when you leave here?”

“I need to get to Handale soon. I’ve been travelling for months. But I will see him. I want to. He’s always in my thoughts. I’ll settle at Handale first.”

Earl Roger de Hutton, with his uncharacteristic gloom, worried Hildegard. It was over a year since she had been embroiled in affairs of the realm, albeit in a minor role, but now it seemed there was work to be done again. Handale would afford no opportunity to participate.

On a different level, it was saddening to hear that Ulf was unhappy with his new wife. No doubt things will shake down after the first few troubled months, she told herself. Ulf was probably too used to doing things his own way. She could scarcely imagine the sort of woman who would be able to tame Roger’s wild northern henchman.

Turning her horse’s head towards the north, she set out on the final leg of her journey.

C
HAPTER
3

Kilton Castle. Midnight. So exhausted, she could only throw the reins of her horse to a stable lad, untie her bag, and follow the steward’s servant blindly to a guest chamber. Barely able to kick off her boots, she sank down on a palliasse in her clothes and was asleep at once.

She awoke at dawn to the sound of rushing water. Dragging herself to the window loop, she peered out and saw that the castle was perched on a soaring crag that fell dramatically to a boulder-strewn beck below. Opposite, thick woods clothed the hillside.

When she arrived in the night, she had been too tired to notice much more than the towers jutting above the trees into the moonlit sky. Clattering under the arch of the gatehouse into the bailey, she had been aware only of shuttered buildings on all sides and a further arch leading into an inner yard. Now, coming out at the bottom of the tower steps, she saw a rough-hewn garrison, crowded with militia, the smoke from a blacksmith’s brazier billowing across the yard. Birds of prey circled the summits of the towers. The clash of steel on stone filled the air as a detachment of men was drilled. Archers were firing at the butts. No one gave her a second glance from under their steel helmets.