With no rain the sky was pale blue, rinsed clean, heralding spring and new life. Resting her head against the cold stone of the battlements she eyed the distant country, seeing the horizon as a promise of home and safety.

Back at the Abbey of Meaux, however, there would be no escape. Hubert de Courcy ruled. How could she ever have dealings with him again? He knew about Urb.Md. Mandrake of Urbino. He must surely know about the purpose of it here in Avignon, the devilish reason it had been brought here by the poison-maker and sold on to Clement.

Something so potent no-one could survive it.

Nothing so tellingly demonstrated Hubert’s allegiance to the Clementists.

He was a fallen star. A Lucifer. A traitor.

Her enemy and her love.

A sound behind her made her spin round and she saw Cardinal Grizac standing in the low doorway. He was panting slightly. He must have followed her.

He bent his head and stepped out onto the roof. A gust of wind blew his cloak out like the wings of a hawk. His cross gleamed with a sinister authority. He was not the bullied and apologising figure she had witnessed earlier. He was as he had been when he uttered that furious invitation at the top of the stairs. Tell your mentor I know who the guilty man is.

Hildegard felt behind her for the reassuring solidity of the wall as Grizac strode heavily towards her.

‘Did you tell him what I asked you to?’

She shook her head. ‘He is no more my mentor than -’ she struggled to find the most unlikely person she could think of and blurted, ‘than Thomas Woodstock!’

Grizac gave a start. ‘Woodstock? How did you know he was involved?’

She decided to risk everything with a shot in the dark. ‘Isn’t it obvious? He had the miners kidnapped to give to Clement in return for a poison that could not be detected. But you set Maurice to steal it before his vassal could get his hands on it. I don’t understand why.’

Grizac did not contradict her nor enlighten her. She found herself slipping into a quagmire where all the questions and suppositions she had made over the last few days were flying together in one inchoate mass and in a moment she would be overwhelmed by some incontrovertible fact that would be an epiphany, revealing the truth.

I’m not ready for this. Let Hubert not be involved.

Even at this last ditch, let Hubert not be involved.

For a tense moment they regarded each other until eventually she said, ‘You ordered Maurice to break into the treasury and steal the dagger because you knew it contained a poison with no antidote. Is it true, yes or no?’

‘Neither. He needed no order when he knew what it was and what it would be used for.’

‘Which was?’

‘Clement guessed what I wanted. He may not have guessed why I wanted it!’ He gave a wild laugh, quite out of character. ‘He knew I’d overheard him discuss its potency and that he intended to use it as a bargaining tool with the English traitor, Woodstock. When his bodyguard found Maurice in there it showed my own involvement. He was overjoyed to show me the body of my - he was overjoyed to see how much I – ’ Grizac’s voice failed him for a moment but then he gathered himself enough to say, ‘It must have been one of his happiest moments, to bring me to my nadir! Little did he realise that his own life had been saved. He had no idea why Maurice was willing to risk his life to get hold of something so powerful.’

‘You mean - ?’

‘We wanted to do the world a service. We wanted atonement for the thousands killed in cold blood in Cesena.’

‘You were going to poison Clement?’ Her mouth opened in astonishment.

‘The important thing was to stop Fitzjohn returning to England with it. I knew why they wanted it.’

‘Does this mean you murdered Taillefer to try to get the dagger back when it disappeared from the mortuary?’

‘Why would I commit such sacrilege? Taillefer was innocent.’

‘He got the dagger from someone. And you wanted it.’

‘And so he had to die? Is that what you think? Poor boy. It breaks my heart to think of him, caught up in something he did not understand. The man who murdered Maurice stole the dagger and then killed Taillefer when he ran off with it.’

‘And the nun in my cell? What had she to do with it?’

‘Maybe you were the intended victim? You knew too much. You were already getting close to the truth, I believe.’ He took a step nearer. ‘But tell me, domina, if you know so much, maybe you know who Clement obtained the poison from?’

‘Fondi?’

He laughed. ‘And that she-wolf? And who else knew about it? Your damned Abbot.’ He moved towards her. ‘And now you.’

‘Not I, not until later. It took me too long to realise that it wasn’t the dagger anybody was after but what it contained. I only discovered that when we found the dagger on Taillefer’s body as he was taken from the river. I was about to open the compartment in the hilt when I recognised what it really was, not a dagger at all despite its sharp blade but a receptacle for something too dangerous to handle.’

‘Didn’t de Courcy tell you what it was?’

‘Why should he?’

‘Because he must have known. Fondi would have told him. Then he warned Clement it would be stolen. And Clement sent in his assassin to wait for Maurice to appear.’

‘Not so.’ A voice from the doorway cut in. They both turned.

Athanasius stepped onto the roof. He looked frail as if the wind would blow him over and he was out of breath after the long climb but gathering his black cloak round him he stepped into the lee of the battlements for shelter and surveyed them both with thin-lipped amusement from beneath his black hood.

‘It was I who told his holiness about your plan to steal the poison and thwart his business with Woodstock. That is my job, after all, as you well know, Grizac. You must have suspected as much or why else would you have appeared in my cell to bewail your vast ignorance of the matter?’ He chuckled. ‘Clement would never have been taken in by that even if I had passed on your protestations of innocence to him.’

‘So how did you find out what I intended to do?’

‘You yourself told me.’

‘I?’

‘That night in Clement’s private chapel you were like a man on a gridiron, which is probably how you’ll end up when the Inquisition gets hold of you. It was clear to anybody with eyes in their head that you were up to something. Sweaty hands, darting eyes, gibbering like a lunatic whenever anybody spoke to you. Of course I couldn’t know the details but I thought it worth mentioning your behaviour to Clement’s bodyguard and he, good man, went down to have a look round. He went well armed, prepared for anything. And discovered your little thief.’

‘Maurice was just an unarmed boy.’

‘Ah, so sad.’ Athanasius shrugged with no compassion in his eyes. ‘It’s a shame you can’t tell a lie without showing your guilt, Grizac. That, I venture to say, is your greatest failing. You’re too honest for this world and the quicker you leave it the better, don’t you agree?’

‘You’ll burn in hell for your diabolical plots.’

‘Maybe. In the meantime what shall we do to solve another little problem? Pray, advise me. Unfortunately our guest,’ he gestured towards Hildegard, ‘knows too much to allow her to return to England. Incarceration in one of our stricter nunneries might be a salutary reward for her interference.’

‘My abbot might have something to say to that,’ she said with unfounded conviction.

‘De Courcy will do as he’s told.’

Hildegard looked askance. ‘Are we talking about the same man?’

‘If not told, then bought,’ he snapped, ‘and if not bought, then erased.’ He turned to Grizac. ‘The important thing is what you say to Clement’s inquisitors. They’ll want to know the name of your master.’

‘I work alone.’ Grizac sounded suddenly calm. He even managed a smile. ‘I’ve never had allies. Never felt I could trust anyone enough. Except, of course, for Maurice. And you’ve taken him from me, brother. There’s nothing more you can do to me.’ He began to laugh. ‘I’m astonished a man of your cunning and malevolence could make such a massive mistake. It’s really quite amusing.’ He began to shake with laughter. ‘Imagine! Your one hold over me and you destroy it! What a fool you are, little man. I’ve never been impressed by your humourless threats. You’re too much of this world, brother. You have not been favoured with divine grace and it renders you impotent. You’re nothing more than a rat scrabbling for power over other rats. I pity you, Athanasius. Know it.’