Iris Collier - Day of Wrath

‘Have you come to listen to Prime, Jane? How strange, the monks haven’t come down yet. They always do at sunrise, you know. Let me take a look.’

She climbed up on the bed and looked through the tiny window. Then she turned and looked at Jane. ‘No sign of them. Well, well, not like them to be late.’

She drank the beaker of milk Jane handed her and sat on the edge of the bed.

‘Agnes, tell me once again the names of those people who came to see you just before the fire. Try to remember. It’s very important. Can you remember the fire? Is it coming back to you? We also want to find out who killed Ambrose. You see, he’s not with us any more. Someone murdered him. Someone strung him up on a tree. Try to remember, Agnes. We are relying on you.’

Suddenly Agnes bowed her head and began to cry bitterly with great sobs that racked her frail body. ‘Oh yes, my darling Ambrose,’ she sobbed. ‘He’s gone, hasn’t he? And that little girl, too. Brother Benedict told me what had happened. All that noise and shouting, it was quite horrible. I felt sure that any moment the mob would break down that door.’

‘Lord Nicholas wouldn’t let that happen. Now try to think, Agnes. Who came to see you recently, just before the fire? Please, please, try to remember.’

Suddenly, Agnes stopped crying. She lifted her head and looked intently at Jane. There was something different about her; a new strength which showed itself in the keenness of her gaze.

‘Well, I’ve told you about Father Hubert – poor man, do you really think he could have killed my Ambrose? Then there was Brother Martin who worked in the Infirmary with Brother Michael. Now he used to come often.’

‘What did he want, Agnes?’

‘Oh, he always wanted my opiates. I kept them in the shed, in a special place. Brother Michael sometimes came, and used to help himself. He bought up a lot of my stock just before dear Ambrose died.’

Brother Michael, thought Jane with growing excitement; the tall, intense Infirmarer, with his ugly face and bald head. Yes, it was just possible.

Telling Agnes to rest quietly, Jane went out, locking the cell door. She ran over to the gatehouse. The door was locked. There was no sign of the gatehouse keeper. The sun had now risen and still there was no sound from the monks’ choir. Something was wrong.

She ran round to the parish church and hammered on the Vicar’s door. Hobbes was an early riser and opened the door immediately. He gazed in astonishment when he recognised Jane.

‘Why, Mistress Warrener, what’s happened?’

‘There’s something wrong in the Priory. The monks haven’t come down for Prime, and there’s no one in the gatehouse.’

‘Not yet sung Prime? Good heavens, they must’ve over-slept. Come into the church and wait here. I’ll see what’s up.’

He opened one of the connecting doors and disappeared. Minutes later he came running back. ‘Quick, quick, fetch the Prior. They’re all there, asleep in their beds. I can’t wake them up.’

‘They’re not…?’

‘Oh no, they’re breathing all right. Some of them snoring.’

They went across to the Prior’s house, where he was up and grumbling at the disturbance of having an extra twenty people to feed at breakfast. He stared in astonishment when he saw Jane and the Vicar.

‘Not up for Prime?’ he said when he’d listened to them. ‘Things always go wrong when I’m especially busy. I gave instructions to Brother Michael to fill in whilst Father Hubert’s away. Well, you’d better take me to them, Vicar, and I’ll wake them up all right.’

Together they went back to the Priory church. The Prior dashed up the night stairs into the dormitory and came down looking very angry. ‘They’re all asleep, and I can’t wake them up. Someone’s given them something lethal to drink last night. And the devil of it is, Brother Michael’s not with them. His bed’s empty.’

Then Jane knew that she had to warn Nicholas. She ran home to fetch Melissa, and rode up the street, past Edgar Pierrepoint’s house. He was standing at his front door, scratching his head and filling his lungs with fresh, morning air. He waved when he saw her.

‘What’s the hurry, Mistress Warrener? You’re the second person I’ve seen up at the crack of dawn today.’

She reined in Melissa. ‘Who else have you seen?’

‘Why, the ugly old devil, that Infirmarer. I had to get up early this morning, for natural reasons, you know – I’m not as young as I used to be – and I heard the sound of horses’ hooves and ran to the window to take a look. And there he was, riding one of the Prior’s horses as if the devil himself were after him.’

‘How long ago was this?’

‘Well before first light. Two hours ago, I suppose. He took the Portsmouth road.’

Worse and worse. Jane galloped up to the manor. The courtyard was seething with horses and dogs, and in the middle of it all, sat King Henry on Nicholas’s horse, Harry. Nicholas, looking furious, was mounted on a bay stallion, the prime mount from the Prior’s stable.

She pulled Melissa to a halt. Nicholas came over.

‘Jane, what is it? What’s happened?’

She told him the news. ‘Brother Michael’s had a head start. He’s well mounted and he took the Portsmouth road. Tell the King he mustn’t go to Portsmouth.’

‘And who’s this wench that says King Harry mustn’t go to Portsmouth?’ said the King, who’d ridden over to join them.

‘Mistress Jane Warrener, your Grace. You’ll hear her sing tonight. But she brings bad news. You can’t go to Portsmouth, Sire.’

‘Can’t go? You tell your King that he can’t review his fleet? Just because a disgruntled monk’s after him? It’s too late, Peverell. This is a fine horse you’ve lent me. Come, I intend to race you to Portsmouth. We’ll get fresh horses from Southampton to bring us back. Mistress Jane, my compliments, I look forward to making your acquaintance tonight.’

He blew her a kiss, Harry pawed the ground restlessly, and without waiting for Nicholas, the King set off down the road towards the village and the main coast road. Nicholas, with a despairing look at Jane, followed. He had no choice.

* * *

They reached Portsmouth at midday. Both horses were exhausted, but not King Henry. He rode up to the gatehouse of Domus Dei, the hospital, founded three hundred years previously for the relief of pilgrims going to Canterbury, Winchester and Chichester, now run by twelve brethren under the control of a warden. Since its foundation it had accumulated wealth with which the brethren had built extra buildings – a brewery, a forge, a smithy, a captain’s chamber and a great chamber, a pigeon house, and a house for visiting dignitaries. This complex stood near the Hard, where, out across the blue waters of Portsmouth Harbour, tucked away in the lee of the western shore, King Henry’s warships placidly sat on the still water, with not a drop of wind to fill their sails. Southampton had ordered out the towing boats to drag the vessels nearer the shore, but the great wooden tubs hardly moved despite the frantic efforts of the crews.

Unperturbed, King Henry made himself comfortable in the presence chamber of the visitors’ house and ate game pie and cold chicken and quaffed flagons of ale.

‘This is a damnable state of affairs,’ he said to Nicholas, who was breathing a sigh of relief that, with no wind, the King would have to look at his ships from the comparative safety of the visitors’ house. ‘You said there’d be no wind, and no wind it is. Never mind,’ he said turning to Southampton. ‘Get the Admiral’s barge ready, and whilst we’re waiting we can go through those plans I sent you for the castle I want built to the east of here, and some forts along the entrance to the harbour.’