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Authors: Cassandra Clark

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BOOK: The Red Velvet Turnshoe
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Hildegard gazed after him in astonishment. Ludovico? Sleeves? And so soon? She shrugged helplessly. ‘I’ll need new boots!’ she told the nearest person standing by.
A
S IT HAPPENED she had no need to return to Swyne for final orders or, indeed, for anything else. The prioress dispatched her personal servant as soon as she was informed of Hildegard’s imminent departure.
In addition, a new pair of buskins suitable for all terrain were cut and stitched in short order. The pattern-cutter, who had come to Meaux to measure Lord Roger for a suit of armour, thought nothing of dashing off a pattern for some boots. It was handed to a shoemaker in Beverley as the armourer rode through on his return to York and the finished boots appeared late the next day. Hildegard pulled them on, then stamped about in them to soften the leather and tried to imagine the many miles they would have to last before she eventually returned to Yorkshire.
Up in her cell she ticked things off. Boots: made. She wriggled her toes. Knife: sharpened. She slipped it into the sheath on her belt. Scrip: packed. It was stuffed with foot balm, stomach powders, linen bandages, and had taken most of the day to find and prepare. With these necessities she rolled up in a small bundle a spare undershift, a light summer habit and a pair of much darned woollen leggings. On top of all that came her missal in its leather pouch.
There was one more thing.
The prioress’s servant had met her discreetly in an empty chamber off the cloister.
He drew something from his sleeve and handed it over. ‘The bill of exchange,’ he whispered. ‘She says to guard it with your life!’
It was now tucked inside a secret pocket in her belt. She ran her
fingers round and felt the slight bulge of the folded sheet of vellum. It was the price of the cross of Constantine.
 
Shadows were lengthening across the inner court as she made her way down to the wool-sheds with everyone else to witness the final stages of the packing of the staple. The high-roofed timber shed was a fog of wool fibres. Cressets were lit, casting a misty glow over everyone and making the shadows leap along the bales.
Wool was sold in two ways, as clip or skins, and graded as either good, middle or young. After that it had to be weighed and corded up into sarples for ease of taxation. After the St Martinmas slaughter the skins with wool still on them, the fells, had been snapped up by Ser Ludovico, an envoy sent by the Vitelli company in Florence. He had also made an offer for the clip that Lord Roger, after much negotiation, had accepted.
The skins were now being sacked up, two hundred and forty to a sack, and by tomorrow the entire consignment would have been loaded onto packhorses for departure at dawn. The clip was also ready to go and formed a soft wall deep inside the shed
Roger had already made his entrance when Hildegard slipped in through the doors. He was accompanied by Ludovico and a large and gossiping retinue of household servants.
Ludovico was the darkly handsome Florentine banker betrothed to Roger’s daughter, Philippa, and was accompanied by his own retinue as befitted his status. He stood by, smiling and silent, while Roger strode about the sheds, getting in everybody’s way, seeing, no doubt, not wool but gold ingots stacked up. He was due to make a handsome profit even though there was a tax of thirty-three per cent on exports. The northern lords, including the abbots, had been given a special dispensation from the king to send their staple through Ravenser to Flanders instead of from London to Calais where the rest of the wool export was sent. Well pleased with this arrangement, Roger was saying, ‘Think of the saving we’re making on carriers’ costs, let alone insurance against pirates in the Bay of Biscay!’
‘Top-quality wool is this,’ said his foreman, equally pleased. He went to stand beside the cellarer from Meaux. Both men were covered in fibres but were grinning with satisfaction just like Lord
Roger. It was the crowning achievement of a year of hard labour for the floods had meant many sheep had been lost on the more vulnerable pastures. The bad weather had hit Meaux harder than de Hutton where the chalk uphills were well drained. But now both domains were content. The harvest of wool was gathered home.
The packers were still cording the fells as the light waned, stacking them in great soft bales, to leave narrow passageways between. The shed was full of shadows by the time they called a temporary halt to have a bite to eat and drink before finishing the job.
Everybody lingered. The bales and the skins inside the sacks were being marked with the owner’s stamp: ‘de H’ for Roger de Hutton above a small image of a castle on a hill, and the initials ‘Mls’ indicating the abbey of Meaux, over the sign of the cross to show its monastic origin. Mls stood for Melsa, the Latin name by which the abbey was referred to in its charters and legal documents. It meant honey, a place of sweetness and delight, Hildegard remembered, her heart heavy.
Despite the bustling of the final preparations, she felt sharply aware of time fleeting by. She stood apart from the others, unable to share their excitement at the prospect of the great convoy about to set off into the unknown. Soon, she thought miserably, the sheds would be empty, the labourers gone, and nothing would remain. Even Roger’s liveried servants in their scarlet and gold would be forgotten, the monks and their saintly toil gone as if they had never existed. All things pass like time and glass.
She avoided the feast Lord Roger laid on later and instead walked slowly back along the lane towards the guest house.
The decision to leave had been too sudden, she decided as she reached the gate. There had been no chance to say farewell to anyone at Swyne – and who knew whether she would survive the dangers of the journey.
All day the bell had been calling the monks to the various offices. The prior had conducted one set of prayers at tierce, the sacristan had seen to sext and nones. At vespers the abbot was still nowhere to be seen and the prior had appeared again.
Now the purplish light of evening increased her sense of the end of things. Soon, she thought, even our names will be unremembered in the fall of days.
Angry with herself for being unable to join in the general merriment, she lingered on the garth for a final breath of air before turning in and scarcely noticed the steward as he came striding down the lane from the direction of the packing sheds until he planted himself in front of her. At his heels was one of the abbot’s young clerks.
‘I’m still looking for Reynard,’ he stated in a harassed tone. ‘You haven’t clapped eyes on him, have you, Sister?’
She shook her head.
‘We’ve searched every nook and cranny and nobody’s seen him since he went down to check on the staple yesterday.’
‘I thought he was supposed to be travelling with the convoy to Bruges?’
‘So he is. That’s what’s so enraging. It’s the worst time to go missing, damn his eyes. Even young Pierrekyn knows nothing.’
‘Who’s that? Roger’s new minstrel?’
‘That one.’ Ulf gave a sort of grimace. ‘Reynard met him in Kent and got permission for the lad to travel back with him. Roger was overjoyed to have sent a clerk and got a minstrel and a contract in return. Good business, says he. Losing the clerk somewhat spoils the deal!’
‘Is this contract you mention the trading agreement Roger was making with Melisen’s father, the Earl of—?’
‘You know about that, do you?’
‘I suppose somebody must have mentioned it,’ she replied, carefully.
Ulf was watching her closely. ‘Are you worried about something?’
She nodded. ‘I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I feel sick and confused. Maybe it’s something I’ve eaten. I’ll take an infusion of St John’s Wort when I get back to my chamber.’ She felt tears begin to prick her eyes.
‘I’ve never seen you like this before.’ He put a hand on her arm and, touching her sleeve, added, ‘And this is thin stuff. I hope you’ve got a good, thick cloak to go over it for when you’re in the Alps?’
‘I’ll be fine.’
‘You won’t be fine with frostbite or the rheum. Come and see Lady Melisen. She’s got more cloaks than she knows what to do with.’
‘I’m a Cistercian, not a mendicant—’ she began but he was already
escorting her along the lane towards the guest lodge, the young clerk running eagerly behind.
 
Melisen was more than happy to offer Hildegard a travelling cloak. First she had her maids bring out a scarlet one lined with squirrel. It was a heavy woollen fabric dyed in a sumptuous, eye-catching shade and was quite unsuitable for someone who wanted to travel unnoticed. Hildegard ran her fingers over it but said it was a colour her prioress would not allow.
‘These sumptuary laws,’ scoffed Melisen. ‘Never mind, I’ve got lots more. Bring forth the green one with the cat-fur lining,’ she told her maid. ‘Oh, and there’s that dark one of camlet with purple taffeta inside. And I do believe there’s a blue wool with a sheepskin lining. Now that will suit you, Sister. Try it on. You’re very fair. I would think blue is very much your colour. What do you think?’ She hauled it out herself from the pile being strewn on the bed.
Feeling a little overwhelmed by Melisen’s generosity and enthusiasm, Hildegard took up the cloak. She remembered liking blue in the past. It had been her husband Hugh’s favourite colour.
At Melisen’s insistence Hildegard was forced to try on several other cloaks until they decided on the blue one after all.
‘That’s just right, isn’t it, Pierrekyn?’ Melisen turned to the minstrel.
He stepped from out of the shadows. He had been so quiet Hildegard had not realised he was there.
‘For a youth he has remarkably good taste,’ said Melisen giving him a dig in the ribs. ‘Go on, tell us your verdict.’
Tall, and as broad-shouldered as a ploughman, the boy still wore a sulky expression but despite that he was surprisingly good-looking, with full lips, a mop of dark copper-coloured curls and green eyes veiled by thick, dark lashes.
He eyed Hildegard consideringly and then cast his glance over the pile of cloaks. ‘The blue, definitely,’ he agreed before returning at once to his dark corner with his lute.
His fingers floated over the strings in a phrase from a
chanson
Hildegard recognised. It was a lament by a lover for his mistress:
‘So fast the fetters of her love have bound me …
’
She glanced swiftly across at him but he was gazing innocently into space.
Hildegard was pleased with the cloak and thanked Melisen sincerely. It was a good blue but dark enough to allow her to pass unnoticed and warm enough for the worst the weather could unleash. The prioress would probably have expected her to wear a long white pilgrim’s cloak but there was no time for that if she was to leave straight away. There was no time for anything.
She thought of the abbot again in a flood of confusion.
‘This is so kind of you, my lady,’ she repeated when a few other garments had been thrown onto the pile, a couple of fine wool shifts and a pair of red woollen hosen among them.
‘It won’t matter about your hose being red,’ Melisen said, ‘because nobody’s likely to see and if they do then they’re the ones at fault, not you.’
She also brought out a pair of mittens made of fur and to top it all a rather fine beaver hat.
‘Now you hardly look like a nun at all!’ she exclaimed when Hildegard tried on all the outer garments together. ‘You’re very good-looking for a nun. Roger never stops wondering why you didn’t remarry. Anyway, I’m so immensely grateful you’re going to bring me those sleeves. I’ve longed and longed for some ever since I saw the Duchess of Derby wearing a pair at court. They had little pearls sewn all over them. If you can manage to find some I’ll be your friend for ever. And the brooches too,’ she added. ‘You won’t forget those, will you?’
 
Hildegard made her way back to her chamber with her parcel of clothes. She wanted to get a good night’s sleep in preparation for their early start. The brooches Melisen had described interested her. They were intended for her personal retinue and were to depict a white hart wearing a gold crown and chain.
It was the symbol used by King Richard as his own emblem. It had also been adopted by the rebels after they had been routed at Smithfield and their leader, Wat Tyler, had been done to death by the Mayor and his men.
The general view was that the promises made by the fourteen-year-old king were broken only under pressure from his ambitious
uncles, the barons. It was Gaunt, above all, who had made the king renege.
Now men and women wore his symbol to show whose side they were on. Some of them let themselves be known as the Company of the White Hart as if they had formed a guild of rebels. Their enemies claimed they were bent on bloodshed and destruction, while their supporters claimed they would be the saviours of the common people and of the king himself. Gaunt had brought in draconian measures to forbid all kinds of associations and societies, making himself many enemies among the guildsmen in the process.
It was strange that Melisen should want brooches modelled on such a symbol, thought Hildegard as she got into bed. Maybe it was just a whim, a pretty device that had caught her eye. Her father’s lands were down in Kent, of course, where the insurrection had been fomented. It might be worth remembering that.
BOOK: The Red Velvet Turnshoe
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