Wace shrugged and glanced at the others. ‘Not long ago,’ he said. ‘We heard you rousing a little while afterwards; we thought you might have heard him.’
‘And you didn’t think to go with him?’ After everything we had been saying the night before, I would have expected them to keep a closer watch over him, and especially over his business with Eadgyth.
‘He said he wanted to speak with her alone,’ Eudo put in. ‘He wouldn’t allow any of us to go with him.’
‘Where has he gone?’ At least he had only just left.
Eudo and Wace shook their heads, and inwardly I cursed. They ought to have woken me earlier; I would have made sure, somehow, that the priest was not left on his own. But then I spotted Philippe glancing uncertainly at his two comrades.
‘You know, don’t you?’ I asked them, wondering at the same time what else they might have been withholding from me. ‘Where has he gone?’
They exchanged looks, as if they did not know whether or not to tell me, but Philippe must have seen that I was not about to be swayed, for he spoke up.
‘They’ll have gone to Eadgyth’s private chambers,’ he said.
‘And where are they?’
‘The up-floor in the dormitory …’ he began, but if he said anything else, I did not hear it as realisation dawned upon me. The three of them had been here before now. They must have known all along: about Eadgyth and who she was, who she had been. I felt suddenly foolish. Why hadn’t I seen this?
‘This isn’t the first time that Malet has sent you here, is it?’ I said. ‘When were you going to tell me this?’
‘We didn’t think it was important,’ Radulf said sullenly. I met his stare. Ever since we had met he’d been testing my patience, and I confess that I had even less liking for him at that moment.
I strode towards him; he rose from his stool to face me but before he could raise his hands to defend himself I had grabbed him by the collar of this tunic. I heard Philippe and Godefroi shout out in protest, heard the clatter of wood upon stone as they leapt up from their stools, but I ignored them.
‘What do you know of the priest’s business with Eadgyth?’ I demanded.
Radulf had gone white; no doubt he had not been expecting this. The blood was roaring through my veins now. Before me stood a trained warrior, a man of the sword, a knight of Normandy, and he was afraid.
‘Tell me!’ I yelled, spittle flying, striking his cheek.
But Radulf was clearly too shocked to speak, for no words came out, and before I could say it again I felt hands on my shoulders, tearing me away from him. Desperately I tried to struggle, to flail my arms; all I wanted at that moment was to strike him, to punish him for his lies, but it was no use, for they had me pinned.
‘Tancred,’ someone shouted in my ear, and I recognised the voice as belonging to Wace. ‘Tancred!’
The fury started to fade and I found myself breathing hard as my senses returned. I shook my shoulders and felt the hands lift from them. The others were all staring at me, I realised, keeping their distance. None of them were speaking. The nun, Burginda, had risen from her chair, but she clearly did not know what to do, for she stood as if frozen to the floor. There was silence.
I felt the weight of their gazes pressing upon me. It was too much; I couldn’t stand being in this place any longer, surrounded in this way. I turned and made for the door.
‘Where are you going?’ said Wace.
‘To find Aelfwold,’ I answered, neither looking back nor caring to close the door behind me as I marched outside.
It must have rained during the night, or earlier that morning, for all about lay bright and glistening in the sun. The grass was wet, the ground soft under my shoes. The scent of damp earth was all around me, and had the wind not been so piercing I might have thought that spring was almost upon us.
This was the first time I’d seen the nunnery in daylight, and for some reason it seemed smaller than when we had first arrived. The grounds seemed more confined, the walls pressing in. All was closer than it had appeared at first; the guest house in fact was hardly fifty paces from the cloister.
I passed through the orchard: through the row upon row of leafless trees, set apart at strict intervals, their branches barely touching. Beyond it lay the nuns’ dormitory, where I would find Eadgyth’s chambers. That any nun but the abbess herself should have her own quarters was unheard of, to my knowledge at least, but then perhaps it was not uncommon for a woman of her standing: a woman who, after all, had been wife to a king, even if it was to a false king such as Harold.
I heard Eudo’s voice behind me, calling: ‘Tancred!’
I did not answer but carried on until I heard footsteps and I glanced across my shoulder to see him running up. Further behind, the nun was following, lifting her skirts in ungainly fashion as she hustled across the grass. I knew that I wasn’t supposed to venture anywhere in the convent grounds unescorted, but at that moment I did not care. Finding the priest was all that mattered.
Eudo fell into step beside me. ‘Aelfwold won’t be pleased,’ he said.
‘He isn’t pleased with me anyway,’ I replied. ‘If he had the choice, he’d probably sooner be rid of me. But we have to know.’
‘I thought we would wait-’
‘-until Eadgyth arrived,’ I finished for him. ‘And she is here now.’
By now we’d entered the cloister, which ran around three sides of the courtyard between the church, the dormitory and what I guessed must be the refectory, from the smell of bread that was wafting from it. Ahead of us two nuns were walking, speaking to one another as they did so. They glanced over their shoulders as we came up. Both were fairly young — novices most probably — round of face and in stature, with wisps of brown hair trailing from beneath their wimples. They were alike enough, indeed, to be sisters, if not in fact twins. They shied away as we approached, letting us past.
‘What are you going to do once you find him?’ Eudo asked.
‘I’m not sure.’ I stopped and leant closer to him, lowering my voice. ‘I’ve seen Malet’s letter.’
‘What?’ Eudo asked. ‘When?’
‘Last night,’ I replied. ‘While he was sleeping I went into his room and read it.’
‘You-’ he began, but didn’t go on. No doubt he had been about to rebuke me for having done it alone, except that he had given me the idea in the first place. ‘What did it say?’
I glanced about to make sure no one was listening. ‘Nothing that I could make sense of. Just two words in Latin.
‘What does it mean?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘But Eadgyth will.’
The doors to the dormitory building lay open before us. Inside, a short hallway opened into a larger, vaulted chamber with plastered walls. To one side a flight of narrow stone steps led upwards. I checked to see if the two novices were still about, but they had gone, and there did not seem to be any other nuns near. At this time of morning they were probably out in the fields seeing to the animals, or else tending to the herb-garden, if they had one.
‘This way,’ I told Eudo as I went in, heading for the stairs. The sound of my footsteps echoed off the stonework, though at the same time I could make out voices, raised but nevertheless indistinct.
I began to climb, with Eudo close behind me. The voices grew louder as we ascended. There were two of them: one clearly belonging to the chaplain, for I recognised his gruff tone even though I could not make out his words; the other that of a woman. She sounded agitated, distressed even. It was then that I realised their voices were more than just raised. They were shouting at one another.
I exchanged a look with Eudo, and we hurried on up the stairs, into a wide room with low beams and a sloping roof. Its length was taken up by an oak table, while upon the floor lay richly embroidered rugs in threads of many colours. A private dining-chamber, I guessed, or else a place for receiving and entertaining guests.
There was a door at the far end, and the voices were coming from within. The floorboards creaked gently as we rounded the table towards it, and I hoped that we were not making too much noise, though above their shouting I doubted they’d be able to hear. I let Eudo in front — he was the only one who could understand what they were saying — and he crept up to the door, I behind him, taking care to step upon the rugs so as to muffle our footsteps. He pressed his ear against the door, although in truth he hardly needed to. Even from where I stood I was able to
