not intend to keep.’
‘Promises?’ I asked. ‘What promises has he made?’
She did not seem to hear me. ‘It is amusing, I suppose, that it should be so, given that your people accused Harold of the same failing.’
Of course: several years ago, Harold had sworn an oath to be Duke Guillaume’s man, to support his claim to the kingship. An oath made upon holy relics, which he had later broken when he had assumed the crown for himself. As a result he was now dead, killed on the field at HAestinges.
‘Your husband was a perjurer and a usurper,’ I told her.
‘He was a good man,’ she said, and I saw tears forming in the corner of her eyes. ‘He was kind and honest and truthful in all matters, and above all else loyal to his friends. Your lord used to be one of them, at least until his betrayal.’
‘Malet betrayed him?’ I asked. ‘How?’
‘First by joining your duke’s invasion,’ she said, almost spitting the words. ‘And even now, after Harold’s death, he continues to betray his memory. He and Aelfwold both.’
‘Aelfwold? What do you mean?’
But again she appeared not to be listening. ‘He is no better,’ she said, shaking her head as anger entered her voice. ‘But he is nothing but his lord’s man; he merely does what he is told. He cares not for what is right. I trusted Guillaume, and this is how he repays me?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, a little too harshly maybe, but I was tiring of the way she seemed to be speaking only in riddles. Clearly she thought that because I was one of Malet’s men I knew more than I did. Although, I realised, as long as she thought that, I held the advantage.
‘It has been more than two years since Harold died,’ she said. ‘Two years since I stood on that field after the battle and saw him lying there. Does he think that I do not grieve, that I do not deserve to be told?’
‘Told what?’ I asked her, but she had already turned away, her sobs echoing off the walls and the vaults of the church. A glimmer of orange light shone in through the windows. The circatrix, I thought, and froze, thinking that the door was about to open and she would come in. But she did not, and after a moment the light moved on. Even if she was not on her way straight to the church, she must be nearby.
I cursed under my breath. If we were caught together, the consequences would be severe, but particularly for Eadgyth. I recalled the beatings I had taken; I didn’t know whether such punishments were prescribed here at Wiltune. More probably being caught with a man who was not of the church would mean her expulsion from the convent. I didn’t wish that upon her, even if she were the usurper’s widow. For, despite her riches and her private chambers, it was plain to me that she was a broken woman. This nun’s life of humility and servitude was all she had. What else was there for her in this world?
‘Come on,’ I said to her. ‘We can’t stay here.’
I went to the door, opening it just enough that I could peer outside, into the cloister. A cloud had come across the moon, which was good, since it would make us less easily seen. Then I caught sight of the circatrix emerging from the dormitory, her lantern held beside her, iron keys dangling from her belt. There was one more door on that eastern range, which would belong to the chapter house, if I remembered the monastery at Dinant correctly. But after that the next place she’d check would surely be the church. We didn’t have much time.
I watched as she walked along the cloister towards the chapter-house door, unlocked it and went inside. If we were to go, this was our chance.
‘Come on,’ I whispered, signalling for Eadgyth to follow me. The door opened smoothly, without a sound, and I hurried out and down the single step into the cloister, Eadgyth behind me. Beneath her habit she was wearing shoes, I noticed, but that could not be helped now.
‘Quickly,’ I said, and started making for the arch that we had come in through.
She caught my sleeve. ‘This way,’ she said, and headed off straight across the grass, towards the dormitory. I hesitated, but I knew that the longer we waited, the more likely it was that the circatrix would come out from the chapter house and see us.
I went after her, the frost upon the grass biting the soles of my feet. The doors to the dormitory were unlocked and we slipped inside, just as I heard the jangle of keys further down the cloister. But no shouts followed; we had made it. I looked to Eadgyth, but she was already climbing the first few steps up to her chambers.
‘My lady-’ I began, trying to keep my voice low. I was aware not just of the circatrix outside but also of the rest of the nuns in the next room.
‘No,’ she cut me off. ‘I cannot risk being out any longer. I must go.’
‘I would speak with you again later,’ I said.
She shook her head. ‘I will speak no more. There is nothing else I wish to say, to you or Aelfwold. But give the letter to your lord; he will know what it means. If nothing else I ask that you do this for me.’
She appeared so small and fragile, somehow, though I knew that she was neither old nor infirm. As I looked up at her, I could not help but feel sorry for her.
I felt a dryness in my throat, and swallowed. ‘I cannot promise that.’
‘I know,’ she replied, and there was a resigned look upon her face. ‘You are one of his men, after all.’
She turned and, neither making a sound nor looking back, ascended the rest of the stairs. And then she was gone, her dark habit vanishing, becoming one with the darkness. Eadgyth, Harold’s widow.
Twenty-nine
I had to wait until the circatrix was safely out of sight before I could pass through the cloister again. In all it might have been as much as half an hour from my leaving the house to coming back, though it felt like much longer. Wace and Eudo were both waiting in the hall when I returned.
‘Where were you?’ Wace asked.
‘Let’s go somewhere we can’t be overheard first,’ I told them. ‘Then I’ll tell you.’ I wasn’t sure that the walls or floors here were thick enough to stop anyone else from listening.
The mill was close by, and so that was where we went: far enough from the house or from the cloister that we could neither be seen nor heard. The door was unlocked and I pushed it open. Sacks lay piled along one wall, some of them split with grain spilling out. The dark forms of rats scurried away as we approached.
‘Enough of this, Tancred,’ Eudo said. ‘Tell us what’s going on.’
‘It was Eadgyth,’ I said. ‘She was the one who left this.’ And I brought the scroll out from my belt. ‘I caught up with her in the church.’
‘What did she say?’ Wace asked.
‘Nothing I could make much sense of,’ I said. ‘She kept talking about her husband. About Harold, and how Malet was betraying his memory.’
Eudo narrowed his eyes. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘It seems he made some promises to her some time ago, though she never explained properly. Promises which he hasn’t kept, at any rate.’
‘So we were right,’ Wace muttered, raising an eyebrow. ‘He has been conspiring with her.’
‘Except that she seemed to want nothing more to do with him,’ I said.
‘Yesterday she called him
I had wondered what that meant. Aelfwold himself had used it of us the night before we had arrived here, I remembered now. Was that how he regarded us? I tried to put it from my mind; it wasn’t important now.
‘I don’t see how Malet can be a traitor,’ I said. ‘Whatever pledges he might have made to her once, it’s clear that they mean nothing to him now.’
At the very least his message hadn’t given her the answer she wanted. What was it, then, that she believed she deserved to be told?
‘Still,’ Wace said, ‘as long as they continue to pass secret letters between each other, how can we be sure?’
‘There is one way,’ Eudo replied, and he pointed to the letter in my hand. ‘We have to open it.’
