The Law of Angels (32 page)

“You’ve been watching me?”

“I’m not the only one.” He turned to the next page. There was a drawing of a man with familiar brutal features. He was unmistakable. It was the servant from the convent of the Holy Wounds, Matthias, the one she suspected had held a knife to her throat a few nights ago.

She gave a hurried glance over her shoulder.

“It’s all right. He made himself scarce when those children turned up. Do you know him?”

“He works for the nuns. He’s a sort of handyman.”

“Is it something to do with those two girls you brought with you?”

She agreed it was. “How did you know about them?”

Gilbert smiled. “Everybody knows you snatched them free. You made yourself popular. He’s gone anyway. Time for vespers I expect.” His lip curled in disdain. He closed up his pattern book and put it carefully inside a leather bag on the grass beside him and then gave her a careful look. “If you wait here long enough you’ll see someone else of interest.”

“Who?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Wait and see.”

Chapter Twenty-four

The representatives of the holy family had packed up and left by now and Gilbert and Hildegard were alone under the oak tree.

The sun had fallen like a ball of fire to the distant edge of the cleared land on the other side of the river. Its light was slanted, sending long fingers of shadow across the meadow. The little campfires stood out brightly as pinpricks of light and their brightness made the shadows seem deeper.

It was still light enough to recognise someone at several paces. And yet, under their tree, in the shadow of its spreading branches weighted with summer leaf, they were probably hidden well unless someone came right up to them and walked in to where they sat.

“What is this about, Gilbert?” she asked. Danby’s suspicions were uppermost in her thoughts.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. See what you make of it. I haven’t made sense of it myself yet.”

“Is it something to do with your master?”

He nodded. “Actions always have consequences. He will discover this soon enough. His sorrow is not ended yet.” He put a sudden hand on her arm to stop her reply. “See?” he breathed. “Look there, along the path. He’s on time.”

Hildegard peered in the direction he was pointing and drew in a breath. She was mystified by Gilbert’s air of secrecy. “But it’s Baldwin.”

“Every night for three nights he has walked along this path in the same direction. If you watch you’ll see he goes along the river to the woods.”

“And then?”

“I haven’t had the courage to follow him.”

“He’s going for a walk. Taking the evening air. That’s all.”

“Is he?”

“Why should you think otherwise?”

Baldwin—it was definitely him—was approaching along the path and Gilbert lowered his voice to a whisper. “You don’t know what happened just before Dorelia disappeared. I was there the night the master was out searching for you.” His face was a pale oval in the twilight. It was turned towards her. His eyes were dark hollows reflecting no light. It was like looking into a void. “I was there all the time,” he whispered. “They don’t know what I heard. They assume my leg makes me deaf as well. Or stupid.”

“I’m sure they—”

“Don’t waste your breath with your compassion. It’s unwanted. Just know that I was there unheeded all that night.”

“And?”

“There was a visitor.”

“To your master’s workshop?”

“Indeed.”

“He must get many visitors. He’s a well-known guildsman—”

Baldwin was now level with them. Gilbert put a warning hand on her arm and they waited in silence until he walked past. The glazier carried on along the river bank just as Gilbert had predicted.

“This was a visitor the master would not have welcomed,” he continued in an undertone. “It was John Gisburne.”

“What did he want?”

“Dorelia.”

“What do you mean?”

“He must have thought: If master Baldwin can sell Dorelia to his own brother he can certainly sell her to me.”

Hildegard could not believe what he was saying. “Did he go into the house?”

“Of course he did. Baldwin let him in. Dorelia was alone. The old cook of the master’s is as deaf as a post and the two little servants would be asleep. There was nobody else there, apart from me, whom they discounted, and Jankin, whose presence they rather objected to until Baldwin suggested he go out in the town with a wad of money. He was reluctant to do that. He’s fond of Dorelia. He knew what they were up to. But he went. He went all right.”

Gilbert rubbed a hand over his brow. Without thinking he unloosed his hair and it fell in a flood of light to his shoulders. As if he knew it could be seen in the darkness he pulled up his hood to conceal it. “Gisburne,” he said, “left towards dawn.”

“You didn’t do anything?”

“With Gisburne’s armed thugs standing guard all night? I did think of causing a diversion but I couldn’t get out. They locked the door of the small workshop where I sleep, maybe not realising anybody was in there. I weighed up the chances of getting my throat slit if I shouted to be let out and decided against. Besides, I didn’t know how amenable Dorelia was—she’d taken Baldwin’s money before.”

“What do you mean by that?”

He gave a disparaging laugh. “I forget you’re a nun. My apologies, sister. I hope I haven’t shocked you—”

As he had said to her earlier, she now said to him, “Don’t waste your breath. Do you mean Baldwin sold her to other men?”

“He sold her to his brother. Other men have come into the picture. It’s been difficult for them. The master hates to let her out of his sight he’s so besotted. But Baldwin has found ways of keeping him occupied while he turns a profit for himself.”

“Are you serious about this?”

His silence was affirmation enough.

“How can you go on living there?” Hildegard frowned into the darkness.

He paused. “The very question I ask myself a thousand times a day.”

It was dark now, or at least as dark as it ever gets in mid-summer. Baldwin had disappeared into the woods. The trees on the distant boundary of the meadow were like a smudge of charcoal.

“The thing is … the thing is,” he continued, “I fear something worse might happen if I leave. At least, that was my fear.” He paused again. “Now my fear is it’s too late to think like that.”

“Too late?”

“I fear the worst has already happened.”

“Gilbert, you must tell me everything. What is the worst: that Dorelia and Jankin absconded?”

He gave a raw laugh. “He was mad enough to do it, but I doubt whether it would have occurred to him. And certainly Dorelia wasn’t going to swap a golden goose for a mere apprentice. I haven’t put all the pieces together yet but I’m convinced they didn’t abscond.”

He got up. His limp seemed more pronounced for a moment and he pretended to have found necessary some minor adjustment to his leather bag. It gave him a chance to balance himself on the rough ground before hoisting the bag over his shoulder and setting off towards the path.

“Wait!” she called. “What is out there in the woods?”

“Trees.” He turned to look back. “And then it comes out in Two Mills Dale.”

Baldwin must be going to visit the miller at Low Mill, she decided. The fact that he had procured a wife for his brother meant little. Girls were bought and sold for their dowries every day. The question of Dorelia’s alleged fortune, however, remained unanswered and, she realised, the doubt already voiced by Theophilus echoed what Gilbert seemed to be hinting.

Dorelia had been bought and sold at least once.

Remembering the pimp in the stews the other night and what he had shouted to Baldwin made her pause.
“Have you come for your money already, Baldwin?”
the man had called out. What had that been about? Payment for some glazing work the man had done? Or something else?

Uncertainly, she peered into the darkness towards the woods. If there was an innocent explanation she would have a hard time excusing her presence should she turn up at the mill, and if there was something going on she could do nothing about it by herself. She would have to fetch help. She followed Gilbert in the direction of the town and when they reached the busy streets she put a hand on his arm. “What is the worst you fear?”

He shook his head. “I can’t say.”

Her grip tightened. “Can’t or won’t?”

“Can’t.”

“Did you see Dorelia again, after that night?”

He nodded. “After I heard Gisburne leave I called out to her to unlock the door. At first she didn’t seem to hear me so I started to bang on it. That brought her down and she took the latch off. ‘What are you doing locked in?’ she asked. I said, ‘Ask your customer.’ She didn’t like that. I think she believed nobody else knew. I just walked past her. I couldn’t be bothered with her. I went for a walk.”

“Where to?”

He looked startled. “Just through the town. Nowhere special. It was early. The vendors were getting their stalls ready for another day. I just walked about the streets.”

“When did you get back?”

“Late. It was after noon. I heard that big bell in the minster tolling the midday. It was after that. I had nowhere else to go. When I came in the master had already returned. Dorelia had gone. The master assumed she was out somewhere watching the jongleurs. He clung to the belief that she would come back until it started to get dark. Then it came over him. The truth. That she had left him and Jankin was also missing, therefore … they must have left together.”

“Did they take anything with them?”

“That’s the strange thing. Jankin’s sleeping chamber was cleared out, floor swept, nothing left but his bed. Or so the master said. I don’t go up there. The stairs,” he explained, “but Dorelia hadn’t taken a thing. The master came to the landing outside their chamber and just stood there with one of her gowns in his hands. ‘She left this behind.’ It was a green brocade he had given her and really liked her in.”

“How do you explain the fact that she didn’t take anything?”

“I told you, all the pieces aren’t in place yet.”

“But she and Jankin had been lovers for—?”

“It’d been going on for weeks. I don’t know how they got away with it. Jankin liked sailing close to the wind—a kiss behind the master’s back, a hand touching her breasts moments before the master walked into the workshop. Jankin was a devil that way. Dorelia encouraged him. They thought it a great joke to make a fool of the master.”

“Do you believe she’s gone back to Wakefield?”

“Why should she? She had no one there.”

“What about her betrothed?”

“Her what?”

“Didn’t you know?”

His expression changed and his eyes narrowed.

“I wonder if Danby knew?” She watched him closely, trying to make out what that change of expression meant.

“He wouldn’t mention it to me even if he did,” said Gilbert after a pause. “There was never a word about anybody else, not in Wakefield nor anywhere.”

And if no mention of the betrothed, then presumably no mention of the inheritance.

Gilbert innocently confirmed this when he said, “She was the penniless waif, alone in the wicked world, and the master saw himself as the knight on the white charger riding to her rescue.”

“But I thought you said Baldwin sold her to him? That spoils the picture somewhat.”

“Master handed over a large sum of money—to pay a marriage broker Baldwin claimed to know.” His lip curled. “I think it was Baldwin himself, pulling a fast one. He likes money, as does Mistress Julitta. You may have noticed.”

“You think very little of Baldwin.”

“You’d think little of him if you knew him.”

She shrugged. “Maybe.”

“You have realised how he gets his money?” asked Gilbert in a bland tone.

They were at the end of the alley, near the yard, and he lowered his voice. “The master isn’t the only one who forks out for a little personal comfort. Go and ask around the stews. Then you’ll find out all you need to know about Master Baldwin and his wife and what service they provide.” He made as if to walk off but she put a hand on his sleeve.

“What do you mean?”

Gilbert’s face was expressionless. “He brings girls over from the West Riding to York where nobody knows them.”

“Girls?”

“Girls who have no family to protect them. Girls whose fathers sell them because they can’t afford to keep them. Girls sacrificed to save their families from starvation. He sets them to work in different houses and rakes off a profit from them all.”

She looked at him in horror.

“Dorelia was probably one of them but he offered her a more respectable fate. At least on the surface.”

“How do you know this?”

“Ask around if you don’t believe me.”

I will, she thought. “What about Danby?”

“What about him?”

“Does he know about the others?”

He shook his head. “Loyalty rates high with the master. He won’t hear a word against his brother.”

What he had told her could be checked, even by a nun, she thought grimly. Indeed, Danby himself could have checked it if he had heard the rumours, which surely he must have. She couldn’t believe it was something against which he would turn a blind eye. If there was an iota of truth in Gilbert’s suspicions she would certainly find out.

Before they went on into the yard she said, “So do you think Dorelia and Jankin are still together?”

He didn’t reply.

“You were the last person to see Dorelia,” she reminded.

“The last one?” He looked confused then admitted, “Yes, I suppose I must have been one of the last.”

Her question went unanswered.

She watched him go to the door. He claimed he was putting the pieces into place. That’s what she was trying to do herself. What she could not tell was whether they were using the same pieces and whether, when it was completed, they would see the same picture.

Danby had asked her to check up on Gilbert for a very different reason. If he was a fire-raiser it was an activity that seemed to have taken second place to his interest in Baldwin and his master’s wife.

And the whereabouts of Dorelia and Jankin remained a mystery.