was no way out of the enclosure down here, either. She began to wander slowly round the enclosure wall.
On the way, she came across several wooden barns standing in plots of their own in what was the outer garth. One of them was evidently a grain store. A lay brother, one of the conversi, was methodically shovelling winter wheat into a sack.
A small stone-built tower with a window loop high up stood nearby. It had a lock with a key sticking out of it. In the opening at the top, a fluttering of wings drew her attention. A couple of birds flew out. The dovecote.
When the conversi had his back turned, she went over to the door and turned the key. The door swung open with a groan. A blast of foul-smelling bird droppings nearly knocked her back. There was nothing else of note. The inside walls stretched up to the window loop she had seen from outside. Some doves were crowded on a perch, softly cooing in the gloom.
She closed the door and turned the key.
Farther on, she came to a lopsided cottage. Its thatch needed replacing and its window openings were roughly made, but it had a pretty symmetry, with honeysuckle growing raggedly round the door. Dead now, it would give off a heavenly perfume in summer.
No one appeared even when she went right up to the door and stood gazing at the upper window for a few moments. When she turned, the main buildings were hidden behind a row of hawthorns. It gave the whole place a secluded atmosphere, separate from the priory and yet a part of it.
By the time she found herself back where she had started, she knew she must have covered every inch of the enclosure. She felt she had seen every building and both entrances. There was no other way through the high walls, and they looked impossible to breach. It must be as Dakin had told her. Anything from outside that had to be brought in must come by boat along the beck or be carried in over the tortuous woodland path.
Her only recourse was to get the girl out past the nuns in vigil at the mortuary. If they were to seek safety at the masons’ lodge, there was no other way.
Fulke arrived. One minute, only women’s voices could be heard from the choir; the next minute, a male voice was booming along the cloister. Where had he come from? And why a day earlier than expected?
Alarmed, Hildegard went to sit in a niche with her beads in her hands and her hood up. No doubt of it, here he was, as large as life.
It was a superficially innocent scene. Suspicion could not be derived from it: the lady prioress, Basilda, sailing in front of the merchant benefactor through the wide-open doors of the priory church; obedient nuns following two by two; barefoot penitents trailing after them. And the priory guest getting up from her niche, the last to enter. The doors closing, the service beginning.
Hildegard observed the scene with increasing anxiety: the nuns, with Sister Mariana among them, almost indistinguishable in the black garments designed to erase any quirk of individuality; the penitents in rough woollen shifts, heads bowed, one snuffling, perhaps with cold; a group of lay sisters in grey; the cooks and gardeners and other labouring members of the community, and even the boy, no more than six or seven, whom she recognised as the keeper of the cow.
And Master Fulke.
Strutting, more vibrantly coloured than any one of them except perhaps Basilda in her gleaming gold-thread cope, he established his preeminent place nearest the altar—this, a gaudy, glittering edifice, was vibrant itself, and seemed to mirror Fulke’s power and glory. Today, it was ablaze with beeswax candles, mirrors reflecting their light back to themselves in a myriad winking images; only the tortured body, agonising on the cross, was black with the threat of the end days.
Strange how candle flame means one thing and hell flame another, mused Hildegard, looking sideways at the scene before bringing her attention back to Fulke.
He made her feel uneasy. A provincial
On the way, she came across several wooden barns standing in plots of their own in what was the outer garth. One of them was evidently a grain store. A lay brother, one of the conversi, was methodically shovelling winter wheat into a sack.
A small stone-built tower with a window loop high up stood nearby. It had a lock with a key sticking out of it. In the opening at the top, a fluttering of wings drew her attention. A couple of birds flew out. The dovecote.
When the conversi had his back turned, she went over to the door and turned the key. The door swung open with a groan. A blast of foul-smelling bird droppings nearly knocked her back. There was nothing else of note. The inside walls stretched up to the window loop she had seen from outside. Some doves were crowded on a perch, softly cooing in the gloom.
She closed the door and turned the key.
Farther on, she came to a lopsided cottage. Its thatch needed replacing and its window openings were roughly made, but it had a pretty symmetry, with honeysuckle growing raggedly round the door. Dead now, it would give off a heavenly perfume in summer.
No one appeared even when she went right up to the door and stood gazing at the upper window for a few moments. When she turned, the main buildings were hidden behind a row of hawthorns. It gave the whole place a secluded atmosphere, separate from the priory and yet a part of it.
By the time she found herself back where she had started, she knew she must have covered every inch of the enclosure. She felt she had seen every building and both entrances. There was no other way through the high walls, and they looked impossible to breach. It must be as Dakin had told her. Anything from outside that had to be brought in must come by boat along the beck or be carried in over the tortuous woodland path.
Her only recourse was to get the girl out past the nuns in vigil at the mortuary. If they were to seek safety at the masons’ lodge, there was no other way.
Fulke arrived. One minute, only women’s voices could be heard from the choir; the next minute, a male voice was booming along the cloister. Where had he come from? And why a day earlier than expected?
Alarmed, Hildegard went to sit in a niche with her beads in her hands and her hood up. No doubt of it, here he was, as large as life.
It was a superficially innocent scene. Suspicion could not be derived from it: the lady prioress, Basilda, sailing in front of the merchant benefactor through the wide-open doors of the priory church; obedient nuns following two by two; barefoot penitents trailing after them. And the priory guest getting up from her niche, the last to enter. The doors closing, the service beginning.
Hildegard observed the scene with increasing anxiety: the nuns, with Sister Mariana among them, almost indistinguishable in the black garments designed to erase any quirk of individuality; the penitents in rough woollen shifts, heads bowed, one snuffling, perhaps with cold; a group of lay sisters in grey; the cooks and gardeners and other labouring members of the community, and even the boy, no more than six or seven, whom she recognised as the keeper of the cow.
And Master Fulke.
Strutting, more vibrantly coloured than any one of them except perhaps Basilda in her gleaming gold-thread cope, he established his preeminent place nearest the altar—this, a gaudy, glittering edifice, was vibrant itself, and seemed to mirror Fulke’s power and glory. Today, it was ablaze with beeswax candles, mirrors reflecting their light back to themselves in a myriad winking images; only the tortured body, agonising on the cross, was black with the threat of the end days.
Strange how candle flame means one thing and hell flame another, mused Hildegard, looking sideways at the scene before bringing her attention back to Fulke.
He made her feel uneasy. A provincial
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