‘And you?’

‘I didn’t.’

‘You deserted?’

‘Call it that if you like. You’re a nit-picking nun. I see it differently. No pay, no service. And you’ll certainly know what a tight-fisted devil Gaunt is even to his own flesh and blood. I decided I’d head back to France, maybe do better for myself fighting in the pope’s army. The winning one. The victor at Cesena.’

She felt sick at the thought. He had not changed. Blood on his hands. Death in his heart. Keep talking, she reminded. ‘And now you’re Clement’s personal bodyguard? That is some achievement.’

‘Our mutual friend, magister Athanasius, saw my potential at once. I could tell him everything he wanted to know about my sainted brother and his keeper, Woodstock.’

So he was not even loyal to his own kin.

He took her silence for a chance to boast. ‘I was with Hawkwood in the papal states when I first met Clement. When I turned up here he remembered me. We get on, we do. You might not believe it. And this place suits me.’ He paused but then could not resist adding, ‘It was me to encourage Woodstock to send the miners to Clement. It scotched de la Pole’s game and gave Clement something he wanted. A word to brother Jack and he fell for it. Clever, eh?’

Her mouth was dry. While he was talking he was playing with his knife, smiling to himself and moving so that her escape was blocked.

Long ago in Yorkshire Escrick had committed a terrible murder as well as killing the innocent lock-keeper, and Hildegard had been the person to reveal the truth. He had never forgiven her. When he was banished from England their paths crossed again. Escrick had been found out in further treachery and humiliated by the Florentine merchant Ser Vitelli, a fact for which he also blamed Hildegard. Now, for the third time, they faced each other.

‘Escrick, you’re certainly a survivor. No-one could dispute that.’ As he preened at what he thought was a compliment, she took the opportunity to ask, ‘But before we go any further, and just so I can get it straight in my mind, can you tell me something. It was you who stabbed Maurice, wasn’t it?’

‘What if I did?’

‘And then you stole the dagger from him?’

‘Was that the body in the mortuary?’

‘You know it was.’

‘Then why are you asking?’

‘Just to be sure. I like things straight, you know that.’

‘Yes, get your thoughts in order, Hildegard, before the final stroke - because after that it’ll be too late.’

‘Why did you take the dagger?’ she persisted, playing for time. ‘Let me understand that.’

‘Because, Hildegard, it was obvious I could turn it into more than the gold and jewels it was made of. For some reason it was desired above rubies and pearls. Why shouldn’t I help myself now and then? Nobody’s ever going to help me. I knew dear brother Jack would give his eye teeth for it, for one, because he told me so. But I guessed I’d get a better price on the open market.’

So he had not known the true significance of the dagger after all.

She asked, ‘Was it you who attacked me on the way back from le Coq d’Or?’

‘You and your sainted paramour,’ he snarled. ‘He shouldn’t carry a sword. What sort of abbot does that?’

‘One who survives attacks by villains, evidently.’

‘So clever, aren’t you, Hildegard, you haven’t changed one jot.’

‘And you were the stranger at le Coq d’Or trying to sell the dagger.’

‘That rat hole! And to be thieved from by a beardless stripling!’

‘So you chased him - ’

‘And he ran under the bridge and tried to escape by jumping onto the rubbish trapped under the arch. That’s where I caught up with him.’

‘What happened next?’

His jaw tightened. ‘Before I could find the dagger on the stupid devil the whole raft began to drift under the bridge with our weight and I knew I’d be done for if I didn’t jump back onto the bank. He crawled further away onto the logjam and I couldn't reach him. I thought the river would sweep him down stream and that would be that, but I never have good luck. It just stuck there. For anybody else the river would have done its work and finished him. But not for me.’

His self-pity brought tears to his eyes. ‘Enough talk, Hildegard.’ He shot out an arm and grabbed her round the neck before she could move. He forced her face up to his. ‘Remember Florence? Remember the house of that merchant? You and me, remember? I believe you were almost willing to let yourself go with a real man that time. You were on the verge of surrendering to me. I could see it in your eyes.’

His mouth had lowered until it was almost touching her lips. She could tell he was working out whether to force himself on her now in the secrecy of the roof void or to finish her off with one stab of his knife to her heart.

**

From the distant, echoing, stone-ribbed chapel floated the ethereal voices of the choir, bass, tenor and treble expressing purity and a timeless beauty, the sound spiralling and descending and rising in woven harmonies as far from what was about to happen in the straw-filled cavity than could be imagined.

Somewhere, good and evil were poised in perfect symmetry like angels on a pin-head.

Hildegard could not hope to win in a trial of strength against Escrick. When he saw the uncertainty on her face he raised his knife and smiled at the prospect of a pleasure he had long desired.

‘Your last words then, Hildegard. Prepare. Finally, tell me now, who sent you to interfere in the pope’s trade with England?’

She strove to keep her lips from trembling. ‘There is no trade with England. Only a traitor to King Richard would claim so. You should know that Woodstock does not speak for England.’

‘If not now, then soon,’ he sneered. ‘He’ll be king in Richard’s place one day. That’s all he lives for. But that’s nothing to me. I serve his Holiness now. He has his precious dagger back. The thief has been despatched. Now there’s only you, stirring up trouble. He wants a clean end to this business.’

Strength was seeping back into her veins now her initial shock at finding him here had worn off. Her mind began to clear. ‘Does he want to know where his gift from Woodstock is?’

Escrick’s eyes glinted. ‘I knew you’d have something to do with that. Do you know where those absconding losels are?’

‘Yes.’ She spoke with conviction. It was true. They were where this monster and his master could not reach them.

‘Prove it.’

‘Not to you. I’ll speak with Clement or no-one.’

She saw him hesitate. He pulled her closer but she knew he would not knife her just yet.

‘Take me to him, Escrick,’ she urged.

He gripped her round the waist with the blade of the knife against her throat and glared into her eyes. ‘If you’re lying, my beauty, I shall enjoy torturing you with my own hands, very slowly, very painfully and very fatally, and even then it will not end.’

She held his glance. ‘Escrick, I am not lying. I know where they are. Kill me and you’ll never find them.’

‘Say Escrick to me in that voice one more time,’ he muttered hoarsely. ‘Say it as if you mean it.’

Whatever he thought it meant she repeated his name and then his mouth, breathing out foul fumes into her face, came down to envelope hers, biting her lips and forcing his tongue deep into her mouth. She wanted to gag and for a moment she thought he was going to rape her there and then but when he lifted his head it was to make his usual whining plaint. ‘It’s your fault I’ve suffered the wrath of his Holiness, losing those bastards. It was you, helping them escape. You will pay for it, Hildegard. That’s a promise. But later. When we’ve got what we want out of you. Now, get moving.’

He was breathing heavily and she felt that he might change his mind at any moment and ravish her first before dragging her in front of Clement but he pushed her ahead of him, the point of his knife piercing through the layers of her clothes until it broke skin.