Dakin.
“I reckon I’m safe enough in the enclosure, and if I’m not capable of seeing off a nun or two, I’m not worth saving anyway.” He grinned for a moment, but then his expression turned bleak. “We want to get to the bottom of it, mistress, but we don’t know where to start.”
“You could begin by telling me something more about Giles himself. Where was he from? How long had he worked with you? Were there any circumstances in his life that brought him enemies?”
A few glances were covertly exchanged. So there was something, then.
Settling down round the freshly stoked charcoal brazier, the stonemasons told her what they wanted her to know about Giles.
It amounted to very little. He was second to Dakin. A journeyman mason. Employed, like Dakin, by their master for a year or more. They travelled from site to site. Never a cross word. What else to say? Dakin shrugged. “That’s it, mistress. He was my right hand. A regular and blameless life. Now snuffed out like a candle.”
Hearing the bell for the next office, Hildegard apologised for having to leave. She thanked them for their ale and promised she would do what she could to help from within the priory. Somebody must know the something that would lead to the killer. The priest, for a start. He seemed to have a good idea of what was going on within the precinct. She mentioned the warning he had issued, and they again mocked the idea of a dragon running loose.
She was about to leave, when a sound came from inside the lodge. She glanced across. A young woman was standing in the entrance, looking out. Dark-haired, with large hands and with a workman’s leather apron over a russet kirtle, she wore a thick shawl pinned at the front by a pewter brooch. She surveyed the group round the brazier with a sour smile.
“And this is our imaginator,” announced Dakin. “Mistress Carola cawer of stone devils.”
She nodded briefly in Hildegard’s direction, then turned to the men. “When you boys have finished yarning, you might decide to do some work today.” She went back inside the lodge.
Hamo chuckled. “Come on, lads. Orders is orders.”
“Back to the grindstone!” Will chuckled without rancour and began to head towards the shell of the new structure.
Dakin turned to Hildegard. “Come and visit us again. The prioress doesn’t rule you. We’ll show you the house we’re building. You’ll find she’s doing well for herself. And maybe by then we’ll have discovered something that will put Giles’s killer in chains.”
By the time Hildegard had crossed to the door of the enclosure, the men had returned to their work. One of them began to chip at a piece of stone. A chisel chimed regularly on a chisel, echoing the regular and deeper tolling of the priory bell.
Master Fulke had honoured the priory by purchasing a trental from them—that is, he was paying in gold for thirty masses to be sung to ease his soul to heaven when the time came for him to depart to what he must assume would be an even better life.
Hildegard understood now where the money for the new building was coming from, but she couldn’t help wondering what Fulke’s sins were that he believed he needed so much help from the Great Measurer. Or was it something more to do with the earl of Northumberland? The priory had been his own family’s endowment more than two hundred years ago, when one of his Percy ancestors had founded it for the greater glory of the Virgin Mary.
Was there something in it for Fulke in these days of shifting allegiances? Did it somehow help his dealings with the earl to be seen to support the Handale Benedictines?
Putting these matters aside for the moment, she made her way out of the church in the wake of the ever-silent nuns and trudged across the wet grass to her chamber.
The rain had stopped and the pale northern sun had made a fainthearted appearance. It was a blur of watery crimson behind the black skeletons of the branches hanging over
“I reckon I’m safe enough in the enclosure, and if I’m not capable of seeing off a nun or two, I’m not worth saving anyway.” He grinned for a moment, but then his expression turned bleak. “We want to get to the bottom of it, mistress, but we don’t know where to start.”
“You could begin by telling me something more about Giles himself. Where was he from? How long had he worked with you? Were there any circumstances in his life that brought him enemies?”
A few glances were covertly exchanged. So there was something, then.
Settling down round the freshly stoked charcoal brazier, the stonemasons told her what they wanted her to know about Giles.
It amounted to very little. He was second to Dakin. A journeyman mason. Employed, like Dakin, by their master for a year or more. They travelled from site to site. Never a cross word. What else to say? Dakin shrugged. “That’s it, mistress. He was my right hand. A regular and blameless life. Now snuffed out like a candle.”
Hearing the bell for the next office, Hildegard apologised for having to leave. She thanked them for their ale and promised she would do what she could to help from within the priory. Somebody must know the something that would lead to the killer. The priest, for a start. He seemed to have a good idea of what was going on within the precinct. She mentioned the warning he had issued, and they again mocked the idea of a dragon running loose.
She was about to leave, when a sound came from inside the lodge. She glanced across. A young woman was standing in the entrance, looking out. Dark-haired, with large hands and with a workman’s leather apron over a russet kirtle, she wore a thick shawl pinned at the front by a pewter brooch. She surveyed the group round the brazier with a sour smile.
“And this is our imaginator,” announced Dakin. “Mistress Carola cawer of stone devils.”
She nodded briefly in Hildegard’s direction, then turned to the men. “When you boys have finished yarning, you might decide to do some work today.” She went back inside the lodge.
Hamo chuckled. “Come on, lads. Orders is orders.”
“Back to the grindstone!” Will chuckled without rancour and began to head towards the shell of the new structure.
Dakin turned to Hildegard. “Come and visit us again. The prioress doesn’t rule you. We’ll show you the house we’re building. You’ll find she’s doing well for herself. And maybe by then we’ll have discovered something that will put Giles’s killer in chains.”
By the time Hildegard had crossed to the door of the enclosure, the men had returned to their work. One of them began to chip at a piece of stone. A chisel chimed regularly on a chisel, echoing the regular and deeper tolling of the priory bell.
Master Fulke had honoured the priory by purchasing a trental from them—that is, he was paying in gold for thirty masses to be sung to ease his soul to heaven when the time came for him to depart to what he must assume would be an even better life.
Hildegard understood now where the money for the new building was coming from, but she couldn’t help wondering what Fulke’s sins were that he believed he needed so much help from the Great Measurer. Or was it something more to do with the earl of Northumberland? The priory had been his own family’s endowment more than two hundred years ago, when one of his Percy ancestors had founded it for the greater glory of the Virgin Mary.
Was there something in it for Fulke in these days of shifting allegiances? Did it somehow help his dealings with the earl to be seen to support the Handale Benedictines?
Putting these matters aside for the moment, she made her way out of the church in the wake of the ever-silent nuns and trudged across the wet grass to her chamber.
The rain had stopped and the pale northern sun had made a fainthearted appearance. It was a blur of watery crimson behind the black skeletons of the branches hanging over
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