‘If so the sentries must have seen him go over.’

‘The sentry said nobody but the cardinals and Hubert crossed the bridge that night. But he heard no argument because of the storm.’

‘You believe him?’ Gregory’s eyes were sharp.

‘I see no reason for him to lie about it.’

‘Not unless he’s complicit with the murderer.’ Gregory frowned.

‘He means it could have been the sentry who murdered Taillefer,’ Egbert interpreted.

‘It could have been anyone,’ she admitted glumly.

‘Storm, argument, bell, theft, murder. Is it one of those puzzles destined to remain forever unsolved?’ Egbert shared her gloom.

‘Let’s look at it from another angle,’ Hubert suggested. ‘How did this second thief get hold of the dagger? Did somebody inside the palace pass it to him to sell at the highest price or was he working from inside the palace himself?’

‘There is a way somebody from outside could get into the palace,’ she mentioned hesitantly, wondering if she was breaking faith with her informant. ‘I was told in confidence that a certain postern is left unlocked some nights. If the fellow trying to sell the dagger knew about that he could easily have got inside - ’

‘Entered the mortuary - ’

‘And stolen the dagger.’

‘And then,’ added Hubert, ‘he could have found his way out to le Coq d’or?’

‘Easily.’

‘And the rest follows.’

‘Taillefer, knowing he would not be allowed onto the bridge, fled underneath the arch where the whores usually worked and was killed there.’

‘Except,’ Hildegard interrupted, ‘Taillefer’s garments were almost dry.’

‘So our version of events doesn’t answer the question how he got onto the raft without getting thoroughly soaked to the skin.’

‘And another yawning hole in all this is that no-one saw him under the arch.’ Hildegard frowned.

What seemed much more likely was that Taillefer had met the cardinal at the steps leading onto the bridge. Grizac was a figure of authority who could take him across, but then a quarrel, the raised voices, the knife across the throat, the body over the parapet, falling, to the cardinal’s ill luck, onto a floating raft of debris instead of into the water where he should have been swept away, the current taking with his lifeless body all clues to his murder.

She could not accuse one of the cardinals in front of these three men. Their allegiance was to Clement. They would close ranks against her.

There was a silence but then Gregory got up and went over to one of the servers. When he returned he had a flagon of something that when it was poured out into four beakers was definitely not water.

‘The flaw is that this boy, Taillefer, was not seen to go onto the bridge and it’s equally true that he wasn’t seen to run under the arch. Even if he had done so without being noticed - in all the rage of wind and rain that wouldn’t have been unlikely - he couldn’t have got onto the dam unless he had swum across from the bank. And that was impossible in the given conditions.’

Hildegard sighed with frustration. ‘Thank you, Hubert. That sums it up.’

‘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.