Fitzjohn glanced round with satisfaction. ‘And thus ends Sir Robert Tresillian.’ He did not cross himself but instead drew his sword and pointing it at the sky bellowed, ‘And so lives my lord Thomas of Woodstock!’

A shocked silence followed.

One by one his men began to attend to their belongings, tying and untying a strap here, inspecting a buckle there, anything but look at their companions. Fitzjohn’s lips tightened at this lack of enthusiasm. With a curse of impatience he turned to his trumpeter. ‘A blast or two. Rouse the dullards.’

While the horn shrilled Hildegard, stunned and appalled by Fitzjohn’s announcement, turned inside the office and, in a dazed voice asked for any mail.

Too stunned to realise that the clerk was handing over a small missive she stared unseeingly at the wall behind him. The Chief Justiciar, condemned in absentia, then returning only to be caught and executed?

The king’s enemies crept ever closer to the king himself.

In a blur she nodded her thanks to the clerk and walked outside again to see Fitzjohn and his retinue mounted already and heading for the gate. A horse brushed by her and she saw it was Edmund.

‘We’re going hunting, domina. Pray for our quarry.’ Then, white-faced, he rode on after his lord.

**

Tresillian had not been popular in several opposing quarters. First, with the people. During the great revolt, the hurling time of the peasants’ uprising, he had ordered a bloody aftermath, even forcing the fourteen year old king to accompany him to several mass hangings - the most repulsive being nineteen men in Essex hanged together on one specially built gibbet.

Later, to everyone’s astonishment, aware of King Richard’s sympathy for the rebels, he had become one of his most vociferous supporters. Was it conscience or expedience that brought a change? Whatever it was, next he earned the hatred of the King’s Council, Woodstock, Gaunt, and their ally the earl of Arundel among the leaders, for his support for the king.

Now, through some chicanery, he had been attainted for treason along with the rest of Richard’s close advisors. Mayor Brembre had been executed despite his strong defence before parliament. The others, including de la Pole and Archbishop Neville, had so far escaped.

Who would be next to be hunted down?

She was astonished at Tresilian’s folly in returning to Westminster, to the very heart of the fire that was consuming the royal court.

**

The wind at the top of the tower whined and blustered, strong enough to pitch her over the battlements. She staggered as it tossed her garments into disarray and whipped at her cloak. Gripping it tightly she edged across the roof to a more sheltered spot behind a buttress.

Before taking out the letter from her scrip she looked down onto the house tops far below, onto the winding alleys, the canal, the squares, the belfries rising above the clusters of red roofs and the market place with its windswept stalls.

Along the lane that ran round the outside of the palace walls she could see the small figures of Fitzjohn and his men trotting their horses in a tight, colourful bunch. She saw them come to a stop at the west gate where evidently they were waiting to be allowed out through the city walls.

Open land stretched flat and water-logged to the west where the arable fields began with a track leading back towards the river.

Then she took out the battered and travel-stained message, slit open the seal, and began to read.

**

It was in cipher. Not that anyone else would have known.

A letter from her superior, the lady Prioress of Swyne, it appeared to be a query about some woollen leggings and whether she had managed to purchase any locally to bring back for her sister nuns, and there was news about the priory bees and the poor outlook for honey later that year because the cold weather was withering the blossom on the branch. They had never had such rains, it said.

The general tone may have suggested a code to the suspicious, enough to make the censor believe he understood the secret message that was being sent, a commonplace grouse about the political situation at home, about which mere nuns could do nothing but grumble.

Underneath that was another message, using the cipher that had been agreed while still in England. She took out her missal. The message took a few minutes to work out as she had to commit it to memory as she worked, leaving nothing written down. Soon she had it. News, now somewhat out of date, about the doings of the King’s Council and the secret plans of their victims to counter the accusations.

Then something made her look twice and flatten out the vellum and the scrawl of water-stained ink marks on it.

Do not trust him under any circumstances. I know him well. He is… The following word was almost obliterated but it looked like deadly.

She stared. Whom should she not trust?

The wind snatched at the paper she was holding, forcing her to bring it close under her hood to reread it. She could nowhere find a name. It made no sense. Mangled by the courier over the long miles from England, it looked as if a page or two was missing. It cannot be, she exclaimed aloud.

Had the censer got to it first? To make any sense of it he would have to know the cipher and she was sure it could not be broken by anyone who did not have the key.

‘A curse on him!’ she shouted in sudden rage. Her voice flew away on the wind. ‘Curse you! Curse the courier! Curse the censor! Curse all the saints! Who does she mean?’

It was pointless to give way to anger. After her outburst she became calm, glanced towards the door, checked her knife, reassured herself that everything was as it should be then placed the letter in her scrip and closed her eyes to focus on what she must do next.

**

The warning would refer to someone she had mentioned in her letter to the Prioress. Of course she had mentioned Hubert in passing, her surprise at finding him here, in Clement’s pocket as it were. She had mentioned Athanasius. And had she mentioned Grizac? She was sure she had. Anyone else? Pope Clement of course. Each had their own cipher which she had communicated to the prioress.

I know him well.

The Prioress knew Hubert well but had no need to inform Hildegard of the fact. She must know Athanasius. He had admitted it himself. Did she know Grizac? He had been in York for some time and they could easily have met. And Clement? It was unlikely that she knew him personally, and anyway, it was general knowledge that he was treacherous, nobody needed to be told.

Hildegard did not trust any of them anyway.

Common sense told her that the prioress was probably trying to warn her against loose talk, an incautious word that might betray her allegiance and cause her to be summoned in front of the council of heretics. She could guard against that easily enough.

Do not trust him.

She didn’t.

She wouldn’t.

She wouldn’t trust any of them.

The prioress must mean Grizac.

**

Before she returned to the lower floor she went over to the crenellated parapet and gazed down again with her thoughts still teasing out the different strands of the problem that presented itself.

The river was as swollen as ever, still swamping the mead on both banks and hurling debris along from further upstream to gather under the arches nearest the bank where the current was slowest and sluicing as fast as ever under the chapel with its guiding light.

Her gaze sharpened.

John Fitzjohn’s small troop of cavalry had not gone out into the countryside to hunt as expected but were now down on the river bank outside the ferryman’s cottage. They were almost too far away to be seen but she narrowed her eyes to try to make out what was going on.