Текст книги "The butcher of Avignon"

Автор книги: Cassandra Clark

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‘What about this miserable devil here?’ Hubert prodded a foot against the dead man.

‘It is the fortune of war, my lord.’

‘Get the hell out before I kill you in cold blood!’ snarled Hubert. ‘And take the body of your poor benighted comrade with you, save his soul. Make sure they give him a proper burial with full rites.’

**

The inn keeper entered uttering apologies. ‘I had no idea who they were,’ he excused. He ordered his servants to bank up the fire and fresh food and wine was brought.

‘We won’t stay,’ Hubert told him. ‘But my thanks for your courtesy.’ He gave the man a gold coin. ‘See that the body is conveyed to Avignon. His companion will have to set to.’

‘Very well, my lord.’ The frightened fellow, bowing and muttering apologies, backed from out of the chamber.

‘You’ll be relieved to be riding back through the night rather than fighting me off.’ Hubert’s tone was savage.

‘It wasn’t your fault. You had to defend yourself. I can’t believe they’d do such a thing. It’s monstrous. Do you have to be mixed up in all this?’

‘I’m the Abbot of Meaux,’ he replied in a derisive tone. His face was set in stone. He slumped down on a bench near the fire and stared at his hands for a long while without speaking. Eventually he raised his head. ‘Pour me some wine, white hart.’

After doing so she went to sit beside him and while he drank from his goblet he said, ‘Remember my confession to you in Beverley Minster? The time when I told you about my bloody past as a knight in the pay of the Duke of Burgundy?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you’re still – ’ he became uncertain. ‘You don’t think less of me? You forgive me?’

‘Forgive,’ she replied heavily. ‘I can’t do otherwise.’

‘My past follows me. Why else do you think Clement wants to recruit me? The English chapter of the Cistercians have become powerful through our trade. We’re a force to be courted by those who threaten England.’

‘I understand.’

‘I’m for peace, you know that, Hildegard, but I’m neither a fool nor a martyr.’ He paused, watching her. ‘I know you have a weakness for martyrs.’

Another pause followed, full of the questions and doubts and desires of a lover who fears and yet longs to hear about his beloved’s past.

Hildegard’s glance never left his face. ‘I suppose you’re referring to Rivera?’ The name sounded strange to her, spoken aloud after so long. She felt her lips tremble.

Hubert’s eyes were luminous in the firelight. ‘I know what happened between you and him. I’m not a fool. And I cannot pretend to live up to him. He must have been a remarkable man.’

Rivera had been a friar following the code of St Serapion, its purpose was martyrdom in the cause of justice. The basic rule was to offer oneself as hostage in cases of kidnap. Hildegard had encountered Rivera over a year ago when he was a spy for John of Gaunt. Through strange and exceptional circumstances he had become her lover and, in obedience to his Order, one violent and terrible night he had gone to his execution on Ludgate Hill at the hands of the London mob. Her grief at losing him had become more bearable in recent months but now she was compelled to put a hand to her eyes. Her voice thickened. ‘Forgive me, I can’t talk about Rivera just now.’

He enfolded her in his arms, sword, blood, death around them. ‘I understand, dear heart. Some other time.’

Against his shoulder she muttered, ‘The truth is, Hubert, I’d rather have you alive than dead.’

**

They left the inn that night, riding through the darkness of the countryside to reach Avignon as dawn was turning the sky to pearl.

They discovered the palace in a state of uproar when they arrived.

Another murder.

It was close enough to Hildegard to make her feel dizzy with fear.

The nun who shared her cell had been found with her throat cut. A servant had discovered the body lying in a pool of gore on a bed in the cell she shared with Hildegard.

The rumour that met them was that it was Hildegard who was dead, the interrogating nun from England, a spy probably, deserved all she got. That was how it was told by one of the stablers soon after they rode into the yard.

Then Hildegard was recognised and the rumour was revised. The nun was a concubine of one of the cardinals and a love rival had done away with her. Or she was with child and the father, a prelate, refused to accept it and thought it expedient to get rid of her and the child both. And on, with ever more lurid accounts, until Hildegard wanted to escape into a place of peace and security where common sense prevailed. But there was nowhere like that in the whole of Avignon. And she had to brazen it out and pray, with one eye over her shoulder, that the murderer would not strike again.

One thing was obvious. If it was a case of mistaken identity as it seemed, it must mean someone was frightened. And that could only mean one thing, she was getting closer to the truth.

**

Cardinal Fondi was a handsome man in his thirties, not, Hildegard judged, as handsome as Hubert his contemporary, but good enough to attract women and make his choice. And it was certainly a fact that his choice was an admired beauty, easy to see as an ideal image of the madonna with a serene, oval face, long dark hair parted in the middle, eyes so unnaturally large and dark that Hildegard suspected she used Belladonna, and her child pretty too, all three drawing admiring glances whenever they appeared in public.

For the most part Carlotta and the child stayed over in Villeneuve at their spectacular villa and lived the life of any other noble family. The only difference was that their allegiance went to the head of the Catholic Church in France and not to a secular monarch, chosen by birth or fortune. The pope himself of course owed allegiance to no earthly lord but saw every monarch in Europe as his personal vassal.

Carlotta played the grand hostess to the hilt. Hildegard could not fault her grace and charm. Even so, when she found those darkly foreign eyes that seemed to have no depth to them fixed unmovingly on her face she felt a shiver of uneasiness.

‘You look pale, domina. Drink this.’ Carlotta plucked a goblet from a silver tray held by a brocade-clad page.

Hildegard took it but eyed the contents with misgivings.

‘I assure you, there is no poison in it,’ Carlotta gave a throaty laugh and touched Hubert on the arm in a gesture that did nothing to allay Hildegard’s qualms. The love rival rumour about the murdered nun flew into her mind before she realised how absurd it was. She was not Hubert’s lover and there was no rivalry to speak of. This woman could do whatever she pleased as long as she could square it with her protector. Hubert and Fondi drawing swords made her smile.

Carlotta turned to Hubert. ‘Her face has the look of an avenging angel, carissimo. So pure, so untouchable. You will never defeat her. I believe you’ve met your match at last. Perhaps I shall mix her a love potion? Would you like that?’

‘You talk nonsense, cara.’ Hubert, however, looked strangely pleased.

When they had a moment alone Hildegard hissed at him. ‘How could you arrange for me to stay here without consulting me first? I can’t do it.’

‘I’m your abbot. You’ll do as I think best. You’ll be safe here. That madman who killed your cell mate in her bed obviously mistook her for you. He’s not going to give up.’

‘We don’t know I was his intended victim.’

‘Oh come on, she was a blameless Scots woman, an Augustinian over here in the train of a petitioner for some obscure living up there. All she was known to do was pray, eat and sleep. Whereas you – everybody knows you’ve been ferreting around, asking questions, stirring up trouble.’

‘You should have asked me first.’

‘I knew you’d object.’

Hildegard closed her eyes in exasperation. ‘I’m close, very close, to finding out who killed those two boys – and now that poor nun. I can’t just give up to wallow in luxury over here.’

‘As you said to me yesterday, I want you alive, not dead. You’re safer here.’

He refilled her goblet and pressed her fingers round the stem. ‘I’ll taste it first for poison.’ He drank from it then turned it so she could drink from the impress of his lips.

‘Even so,’ she continued after sardonically doing as invited, ‘the friar who warned me to get you away to safety saved my life too.’

‘Was that his intention? If so, we have an ally.’

‘Which is more than that poor nun had. Oh, Hubert, I do wish I’d spoken to her. She seemed to sleep all the time, or pray, for what good it did her.’

‘She died as she would have wished, in the sanctity of her belief.’

‘I need to be in the palace, Hubert. I can’t do anything from here. I’ll decline Fondi’s invitation.’

‘Tell me what you’d do if you were over in Avignon and I’ll do it for you.’

A flame of doubt was reignited. He was Clement’s man. How could she forget? He wove a spell over her and she kept on forgetting. He must be trying to find out what else she knew.

‘Suspicion must fall on whoever crossed the bridge that night when you and Fondi walked over. I’ve spoken to Bellefort and he seems an unlikely candidate and he also has plenty of witnesses to say he hurried straight across.’

‘If that gaggle of fools can be trusted. They’ll say anything Bellefort tells them to. But I take your point. I can’t see him getting out of his litter in a raging storm to say his prayers and slit the odd throat without making a drama out of it.’

‘Then there’s you and Fondi.’ She gave a little laugh as she ticked their names off on her fingers. ‘Another name that came up is Montjoie, and then, of course, there’s Cardinal Grizac.’

‘Whose acolyte it was in the treasury. That must rule him out.’

‘Why so?’ She looked at him with curiosity.

‘Maurice was his acolyte. Why would Grizac murder Taillefer?’

‘Revenge? Don’t forget Maurice might have had a companion in the treasury and if they quarrelled and a knife was drawn – it could easily have been Taillefer. Think how Grizac would feel then? Positively murderous.’

‘It sounds plausible.’

‘It was the same method. Just like the nun yesterday. I know it’s not in the least evidential but – ’

‘It suggests something else to me.’ His lips scarcely moved.

‘What’s that?’

‘Execution.’

She stared at him.

‘Deliberate and planned. Were those three linked in some way we’re unaware of? Or is it a warning?’ His face was without expression.

Both were silent until Hildegard whispered, ‘A professional assassin?’

‘Maybe there’s something big at stake, bigger than either of us can know?’

It was a relief to feel she was not alone. ‘It was what I thought at first.’ She avoided mentioning the miners and John Fitzjohn. ‘But if there is something behind it what is it?’ She stopped suddenly. What had led Hubert to make such a suggestion? Who was being warned off? She shivered. She waited for his reply with bated breath.

But he did not say anything. He seemed to be waiting for Hildegard to supply the answer.

Suppressing what was a horrifying suspicion she stared at him for a long moment.

‘There’s also this,’ she managed to say at last. ‘Someone must have known Maurice was going to break into the treasury, apart from the page he changed places with, I mean. And it must have been someone with knowledge of the lay out and how to get into it and what the movements of the guards were. A professional killer would have that knowledge. Unless,’ she finished weakly with her thoughts in turmoil, ‘the page was lying and he conducted an outsider to the pope’s chamber by a similar ruse.’

Hubert frowned. ‘Where is he?’

‘The page of the bedchamber? Back in his village in the mountains. It’s a day’s ride from here. I checked.’

‘I’ll go and search him out. I’m sure I can be persuasive enough to make him tell me every secret he’s ever known.’

Shelving her fears she asked, ‘Might I come with you?’

Hubert’s response was an unexpected look of pure delight. It made her squirm with guilt.

They rejoined Fondi and Carlotta in the gilded chamber. Musicians were brought in and soon a night of black velvet turned to silver as dawn approached and the winter beauty of the villa and its terraces and gardens brought some solace to Hildegard’s troubled thoughts.

To witness the loving exchanges between Fondi and Carlotta, however, only made her long more hopelessly for what could never be.

**

On good horses, the same ones they had hired before, they covered the distance into the mountains in rather less than a day. It was late afternoon by the time they rode into the hamlet where the page of the bedchamber lived.

The place was impoverished like many of the villages in the countryside round here where the peasantry was forced to eke a living and, in fact, it was little more than a muddy track sloping between a few rough looking thatched barns.

A labourer wrapped in rags pointed with his ash wand to a house at the top of the lane and when they entered the enclosure at the side they saw that building work had started on an enlargement of the living quarters and that a barn for the cows was being rethatched. Someone was beginning spend money.

Hubert slid down from his horse and went over to the door at the back. A suspicious voice stopped him. ‘Who’s there? Who are you?’

‘I come from Avignon,’ Hubert replied. ‘I’m searching for the page to his Holiness the pope.’

‘Is he calling him back?’ A face appeared in the window space but the door remained bolted.

‘He may do if he answers one or two questions,’ replied Hubert.

‘He’s out there.’ The woman, his mother or elder sister, gestured over to the barn.

Hildegard got down and crossed the yard with Hubert.

When they ducked their heads under the lintel they saw the page, now dressed in rough work clothes, with a knife at the throat of a lamb. He slit the struggling creature’s throat with practised efficiency and flung the bleeding carcase to one side. Then he heard his visitors and looked up. The knife dripped blood.

He began to back away into a corner of the barn, the knife held in front of him. ‘Who are you? What do you want? I’ll use this!’ he threatened.

‘Peace, child. We come merely to talk.’

‘I don’t know anything.’

‘I’m sure you know many things.’ Hubert nodded to Hildegard to leave them.

Walking away she heard Hubert talking softly to the boy. Soon they appeared at the door of the barn and while she waited outside with the horses, they went inside the cottage after an exchange of shouts between the boy and the woman.

Hildegard stood by the horses for some time. Night fell. One or two candles came on inside the cottage. The village street was devoid of human life.

A wind began to whine from off the summit of the mountains. It was a bleak place. Anybody would want to leave it. The boy must have some special skill to have been plucked from such a place to be raised to what for him must have been a dizzying height. A village priest, she supposed, his bishop, the hierarchy by which peasants with some sort of promise could be lifted from their origins to a different life.

She thought of William of Wykeham, back in England, a clever boy who had impressed his tutor, attracted a benefactor, and after achieving the zenith of becoming Lord Chancellor of England, had now founded a college in Winchester for the education of impoverished boys such as he had once been.

Her musings stopped when Hubert reappeared. The door was noisily shut and bolted behind him.

They rode right away from the village before he told her what the boy had said to him.

**

Their horses walked side by side through the woods. Shafts of moonlight stippled the path. When she looked at Hubert his face was silvered by the mysterious light as he spoke.

‘When Maurice failed to return down the back stairs that night after dealing with the pope’s bed and doing what else he had been assigned to do, our young friend Gaston here began to worry. He feared that Maurice had been caught red handed and that his own part in the break-in would be revealed. He said he waited half the night and only when his nerves got the better of him he crept back up the stairs. He had to pass the guards but they were so involved in their dice they didn’t notice him or if they did it meant nothing and was straightaway forgotten because, of course, he had a right to be there.’

‘What happened when he reached la chambre du pape? Did he go right inside?’

‘No, he heard voices. One voice stood out. It was the pope himself. Clement’s gravelly tones are unmistakable. The other voice he did not recognise. But he did hear a name.’

Yes?’

‘Grizac.’

‘But was he mentioned because Maurice was his acolyte or was it because he was being addressed?’

‘My very question. But Gaston was unable to answer. He said he thought it sounded as if it was mentioned in passing and it was likely to be so because only one other voice spoke, that was the one unknown to him. But he admitted that Cardinal Grizac might have been standing by in silence, too shocked to speak. In retrospect he realises that they must have found Maurice’s body but at that point Gaston didn’t know he was dead. He fled in terror, nevertheless, back down the stairs, praying, he said, that Maurice would not betray him. When he heard he was dead he had the grace to say he was ashamed of the joy that sprang into his heart. He was saved. Maurice could never betray him now.’

‘That explains his surly manner when I spoke to him. He was in a state of sheer terror for his life.’

‘He also told me that Cardinal Grizac was in the chapel from matins to lauds. My two brothers confirm this as they were there themselves.’

‘I know.’

Hubert raised his eyebrows. She could see his expression in the moonlight. Grim and unyielding.

‘Presumably your brothers did not accompany the pope to his bedchamber so they will not know who was there when Maurice's body was discovered.’

‘That would be too easy.’

‘What time did Gaston go up there?’

‘He says it was after lauds.’

‘He just missed being seen by the guards then. That’s when they say they went up.’

‘It means that the body was discovered first by the pope and this unknown fellow.’

‘And left to be discovered by the guards?’

They rode for some way under the trees until eventually Hubert murmured, ‘I feel we can discount Gaston as the murderer. I’m afraid, though, it only brings more confusion.’

‘We’re looking for an assassin?’

Later she asked herself if it had been Hubert’s intention to drive her to that conclusion.

**

Grizac. Had he been in la chambre du pape and if so why? Was it important? He had to discover the truth about his acolyte some time. It was natural for him to be one of the first to be informed. The official identification when Athanasius and Hildegard had been present might have been a formality. More to the point who was the other person in conversation with Clement?

It was some time since Hildegard had seen Grizac visit Athanasius in his cell. When she made her daily call on the old monk she brought his name into the conversation.

‘The cardinal must still be grieving over the death of poor Maurice.’

‘I’m sure he is.’ He did not raise his head from his book.

She tried again. ‘Have you seen his eminence recently?’

‘He’s staying at his villa on Villeneuve, I believe. Licking his wounds.’

‘Wounds?’

‘The wounds of losing his Maurice, of course.’

He wasn’t the only one. Hildegard remembered the stricken little face of Elfric. It swam before her in all its pathos. He had lost a beloved brother, tied to him by the blood of kinship. She recalled Peterkin’s attempt some time ago to start a courtly discussion about the comparative grief of losing a father or losing a brother. Now she wondered how the grief caused by the loss of an acolyte would be tallied.

**

Inconvenient as it was to submit to Hubert’s plan that she should become Fondi’s guest, she had to admit it was pleasant.

Fine dining, music and frivolity. But the next day everyone was summoned to dine with the pope in the Great Tinel. After that would come forty days and nights of privation during Lent.

Hubert suggested that Hildegard remain behind at the villa rather than risk another attempt on her life but she refused.

Alone, in a villa, far from help?

‘I’m sure you mean it with the best of intentions, Hubert, but no, definitely not. I want to see what’s going on,’ she added, unwilling to let him know how much she was beginning to fear the assassin, if that was what he was. She could not see how she was part of any larger plot but the Scottish nun’s murder weighed heavily on her mind. She felt remorse that the poor woman might have died in her stead.

They crossed the bridge that afternoon in a cavalcade, bodyguards on both sides of Carlotta in a silk curtained litter, Fondi and Hubert walking on either side of Hildegard.

The rain had let up and a watery sun appeared and disappeared behind scraps of scudding cloud.

The palace was buzzing with activity as all the guests from their Avignon town houses mingled with those who dwelt in Villeneuve, everyone accompanied by retainers to add to the clamour of the guests staying in the palace itself.

It was Shrove Tuesday. Clement dined alone in his enclosure at one end of the refectory, sitting on a dais so he could look out over the heads of his flock, safe from any attempt on his life. Armed guards stood in a stiff row, eyeing everyone with cold suspicion.

Clement’s food taster was placed a little below him near the doorway from the pope’s own kitchen where he received the dishes specially prepared for him. Before the pontiff was allowed to taste the slightest morsel the food was tested, gingerly it had to be admitted, by an elderly courtier. Wine was tested too. Poured into a goblet of chalcedony, held to the light and inspected for a change of colour that would betray the presence of poison. When it was passed as safe it was handed next to a servant and placed in Clement’s jewelled grasp. She saw him drink deeply, ask for more, and the same drawn out procedure took place. Meanwhile, he picked pensively at the food in front of him served on an array of gold platters.

She thought of the peasant woman they had met earlier, living in the mountains in what was little more than an animal barn and wondered what she ate off. Not gold, that was for sure. Well, not yet. Not ever.

Fondi was enjoying himself and started to recount some joke to Hubert. The two Cistercian brothers who accompanied Hubert could not take their eyes off Carlotta. Her wild beauty, if tinged by madness, held them spellbound.

She was showing them her daughter’s squirrel and they passed it along the table, the little creature quivering at the sight of food, while Carlotta, teasing it with morsels from her plate, tossed her head and gave that familiar throaty laugh as it tried to snatch the titbits from between her lips. Soon bored, she handed it over to Fondi who absentmindedly stroked it as conversation with Hubert became more serious.

Too distant to hear what was being said Hildegard looked round at the other diners. A lot of wine was being downed. Bellefort's noisy group at another table were urging one of their number to get up and sing. He was lifted up onto their table where he launched into a popular chanson. The pope’s personal entertainers had not yet arrived. A lute player, inaudible in the developing uproar, doggedly continued with what was evidently a ribald song he was mouthing to judge by the guffaws of the men sitting near enough to hear the punchline.

When no-one was looking Hildegard got up and began to make her way towards the doors.

**

Apart from one guard sitting at the top of the steps with a stoup of ale in one hand there was no-one else guarding the upper floors. They were all carousing inside the Great Tinel.

The cressets had not been fired up yet and the passage grew darker further along towards the guest chambers. Her soft boots made little sound on the tiles as she walked to the end.

The body of the nun would have been removed by now.

When she reached the door she hesitated.

From far off came the sound of musicians, the shrill squeal of bagpipes sounding as macabre as a stuck pig, followed by the muffled war thump of a bodrum adding a more ominous undernote to the roar of conversation and masculine guffaws. The arrival of the musicians marked the start of the night’s entertainment. Eventually everyone would pour into the Grande Chapelle to sing lustily to the saint in whose honour they were enjoying themselves. Close at hand was only a thick silence. If she listened she could hear herself breathing and the whirr of blood through her veins.

Lifting the latch slowly enough not to make a sound, Hildegard pushed open the door and stepped inside.

**

It was early evening. The sun had appeared from behind the clouds for a last show of brilliance throwing a dazzle of light across the chamber through the narrow window slit. There was no need for any additional light.

Illuminated in its brief gleam was the nun’s bed against one wall. It had been stripped to its straw pallet. A faint stain showed at one end, no more than a shadow’s breath. Her own bed, unillumined, on the other side had been made up as if for its next occupant. A few belongings lay orphaned on the blanket.

Facing the door, in the same stream of light was a wooden stool, empty. The floor had been swept. In the glare of the sun the polished stone gave off a transient lustre the colour of a nightingale’s egg.

Hildegard moved further inside. Nothing here to speak to her. Nothing to say what had happened. Who had caused it to happen. What the nun’s last thoughts were. Nothing here.

She went over to the window, sunlight catching her in a hard dazzle and she turned, blinking, to view the chamber from a different point of view.

When her sight cleared she hesitated.

The servant had been too hasty after all. The job was only half done. Under the nun’s bed was a layer of dust.

There was something…picked out in the harsh light. She crouched down to get a better look. In a scuffle of paw marks there was a little pile of mouse droppings.

She remembered the many cats slinking around the palace.

Not a mouse, surely?

Straightening, she searched round to find something to contain the crusted heap until she could have another look at it in a good light.

Already the beam of the setting sun had shifted, falling now into an empty corner and, as she searched her sleeves for something to wrap the droppings in, the light decayed little by little, leaving her in a silver gloaming.

She bent down and scooped the droppings into her scrip. In the sudden darkness as the sunlight shifted something made her glance towards the door. A movement on the threshold made her freeze.

Someone was watching her.

**

A blur of white emerged from the darkness and a figure stepped into the chamber.

Hildegard jerked to her feet. ‘Hubert! What are you doing here?’

‘Why did you leave us?’

‘I knew I’d left some things here,’ she told him, feeling the lie was justified.

‘Get them then and let’s return to the others.’

‘I didn’t think you’d notice I’d left.’

He stepped aside as, quickly picking up her few belongings from the bed, she walked out into the passage.

‘Let me carry those for you.’ He insisted on taking each article separately, her comb, leggings and missal. ‘Is this all?’

‘Yes.’ Except for the small parcel hidden in her scrip she added silently.

She stepped aside so he could lead the way. She did not want anybody walking behind her just now. Especially one of Fondi’s allies.

Not after what she had just found under the bed.

**

All her old suspicions of Hubert were swarming back as they made their way down into the Tinel.

‘Why on earth did you follow me?’ she rounded on him before they sat down.

‘To make sure no-one else did.’ He was curt.

Throughout the rest of the feast he avoided her glance but she caught him once or twice giving her a surreptitious appraisal that baffled her. Everyone’s attention, however, was on Carlotta.

She was gorging on peaches and figs, brought in from the hotter climate of Outremer, and every now and then she would feed one to Fondi with a great show of sensual pleasure as his strong teeth bit into them and made the juices run.

Food was so plentiful it arrived in any sort of order. Fish with sugar subtleties. Fowl with lobster. Crayfish with hare. Wild boar with eel.

Enormous meat platters were brought in, spilling over with haunches of venison, hams, pig’s trotters, steaks and sausages, and when wild boar, rare and bloody, was placed before them Carlotta with a loud laugh speared a piece Fondi cut off for her, and tipped it on the end of her eating knife into her mouth with a sigh of pleasure.

Blood ran down her chin and Fondi, with an amorous smile, put out the tip of his tongue to lick it away. Soon their faces were smeared with grease. What remained of the torn carcase swam in its own blood. Carlotta’s sharp knife speared it again and again.

Hubert, noticed Hildegard, ate little and must have been fasting because he avoided meat altogether and only picked at a few shreds of fresh water fish cooked in almond milk, toying with each piece before slowly putting it into his mouth and chewing with pensive deliberation.

Clement was dining in full view of everyone to fit the importance of this last rich meal before Lent, instead of alone in his privy chamber as usual. He was leaning comfortably back among the braided cushions of his wooden dining chair, an object gilded and grand enough to be called a throne, both hands clasped in front of him under his pectoral cross. A stouter man would have rested them on his stomach but Clement was lean and rested them lightly as if prepared to use them.

He had a cold look, with very black, all-seeing eyes that continually flickered over the faces of the diners. They scraped unblinking over her own table, paused, returned, then moved on to encompass the rest of them.

Countless dishes continued to be heralded forth to be piled on the trestles in front of them, servants hurried back and forth to the kitchens, the botteler brought more wine from the cellars. The music played. The temperature rose.

A page went up to the enclosure, bowed with a pretty flourish, said something at which Clement’s lips drew back in a narrow smile, and received a morsel from the holy platter as a reward.