‘He said his brother used to send him messages by courier from Avignon to York.’ Simon, keen to put himself in the right, told Hildegard, ‘He lived to hear from him. When Fitzjohn told him he was coming down here he was in heaven, thinking he’d meet his brother in the flesh again. Then this.’

‘What ‘this’ exactly?’ asked Hildegard.

‘Done in,’ Peterkin crossed himself. ‘His brother, that is.’

‘Nobody knows yet who did it but we’ve all vowed to bring the murderer to justice,’ Edmund explained darkly. The others nodded in agreement.

‘I was the first to find out about it.’ Peterkin spoke again. ‘It was when I went down to the kitchens to fetch Sir Jack his bread and wine. You were there, domina.’

‘I knew I’d seen you somewhere before.’ Hildegard looked him up and down. So Elfric’s brother was the acolyte of Cardinal Grizac.

Peterkin gave her the same disarming smile he had bestowed on the kitcheners. ‘You were the nun sitting quietly by while they all pitched in with their crackpot opinions.’

Alarmed by their vow to find the murderer, Hildegard was moved to warn them. ‘You’re brave and loyal lads, without a doubt, but you must tread carefully. This place is full of danger, especially to us English. Under Clement’s rule we’re seen as the enemy here.’

‘I support Pope Urban,’ Bertram announced in an emphatic tone.

Instantly there was a small cheer.

‘I think that’s a view you must certainly keep to yourselves.’

‘What about you, domina? Where do your sympathies lie?’ probed Peterkin.

‘My Order, to my sadness, has come out in favour of the antipope Clement,’ she told them.

‘But what about your own secret view?’ Peterkin asked, with childlike persistence.

‘That is for me to know,’ she replied lightly. ‘Just remember to step carefully, I beg you.’

‘That means she’s on our side but can’t say so,’ Bertram announced with an air of solemnity.

The rain still howled over them, tugging at the bushes as if to uproot them. Despite that it felt strangely safe under their shelter. They were away from prying eyes for once. Hildegard realised how oppressive she found the atmosphere in the palace. It was not only the acolyte’s murder but the sense of being watched whatever she did, wherever she went. It was more than the natural claustrophobia of living in an enclosed community. It was enemy territory and there was no way of forgetting it. Perhaps the boys felt like this too, forming a little brotherhood in a nest of enemies.

The leaves rattled in the gusts of wind that now and then threw rain in their faces but they were sheltered well enough. Hildegard felt sorry for these lads, so close in age to her own son, an esquire in the Bishop of Norwich’s army and, like him, far from home, in a place among knights whose dangerous machinations they were too inexperienced to understand.

‘I shall remember Elfric,’ she told them, ‘and especially his brother.’ Remembering something Athanasius had told her she asked, ‘What was his real name?’

‘It was Hamo but they frenchified it to Maurice when he came over here.’

‘And he came here with Cardinal Grizac?’

‘You know the cardinal?’

‘I’ve met him.’

‘What’s he like? They say he was going to be made pope and then something happened and Clement was elected instead.’

‘Yes, so I believe.’

‘Something?’ mocked Edmund. ‘A massacre, that’s what happened. Fear made them follow Clement like sheep.’

She peered out from between the leaves. ‘The rain seems to be slowing down. We might take our chance and run for the gatehouse. Will Sir Jack be looking for you?’

‘He can’t blame us for having the sense to preserve our garments from the depredations of the weather.’ It was Peterkin. The others laughed.

‘You’ll always talk us out of trouble, won’t you, Peterkin?’

‘I’ll certainly have a good try or die in the attempt.’

‘Talk yourself out of that, then.’ Laughing, they bundled him out into the rain.

In a burst of energy they rest of them exploded from the shelter in a turmoil of movement and shouts and wet leaves.

More slowly Edmund courteously lifted aside the low-hanging branches for her. ‘Forgive them, sister. Bertram is a sound man in a fight as is Peterkin. He’s older than he looks and soon to be an esquire against his wishes, as you heard. The two pages are still learning how to conduct themselves in an adult world.’ He gave her a conspiring smile.

‘And Elfric used to receive letters from his brother?’

‘He reads well.’

A patch of blue sky had appeared although rain still fell in long, single streaks.

‘We would be honoured if you’d come and watch us tilting at the quintaine. We’ll demonstrate how we can trounce these Avignon weevils and make you proud to remember the glories of Crecy and Poitiers.’

‘I shall be honoured to accept. There’s much pleasure to be found in the joust.’

‘For now, sister, we shall accompany you back to the palace gatehouse.’

**

The guard looked through the grille and saw the soaking wet figures approaching up the muddy lane towards the palace. When he recognised Hildegard among them he grudgingly let them back in.

‘Sir John has been searching for them pages. Nothing but trouble, they are.’

‘We had to shelter from the squall,’ she told him.

He grunted. ‘You keep them under control, domina.’ He glowered at the boys as he unlocked the gate. His face disappeared for a moment as he stepped back to let them in and he was still scowling when he reappeared.

Ignoring him the boys accompanied her across the Great Courtyard. It was full of puddles and devoid of the usual bustle of folk attending to their duties and they arrived almost unnoticed. Before parting at the steps leading up into the first antechamber, Hildegard asked Edmund if he was the leader of the group.

‘I’m not the leader, only the tallest. We don’t believe in leaders. Peterkin is the strategist in our guild.’

‘Guild?’

‘We’ve seen how our elders organise themselves for protection and how the apprentice boys at the Great Rising were outwitted by their lack of efficient planning. We want to copy the best of what our elders do while keeping to the ideals of the apprentices. We’ve formed a guild of retainers the better to serve our interests - and to be prepared for any sudden changes.’ he added grimly.

‘I wonder what Sir Jack thinks?’

‘He won’t know until he steps over the line.’

‘The line - ?’

‘He often goes too far, cuffing me on the head, using a peremptory tone to me, continually carping over nothing. It puts me into such a boiling rage I could - ’ he bunched his fists.

‘And how will forming yourselves into a guild help you?’

He gave her a sudden innocent smile. ‘Forgive me, my lady. We are but wild boys who talk no sense.’ He bowed with such grace and formality he looked twice his age and she judged that he had been well-trained by Fitzjohn whether he liked it or not.

‘I must go. Don’t forget our invitation to watch us at the quintaine,’ he called over his shoulder as he sped after the others up the steps to where Fitzjohn was no doubt waiting with a hard question or two about where his attendants had been hiding.

The quintaine was the wooden target on a swivel that the boys practised riding at with short, wooden lances as a training in the skills required for the joust and later, of course, for the battle field. She imagined she might very well find her way down to the tilt yard to watch them one day.

Meanwhile, her excursion out of the purlieus of the palace had cleared her mind and raised her spirits, as well as providing a useful insight into the situation that most concerned the cardinal.

She wondered if he had known that Maurice corresponded with Elfric, the younger brother who lived in what had become enemy territory.