Read Online A Parliament of Spies by Cassandra Clark - Free Book Online

was safety in numbers.
     
    Martin’s bag, packed for the journey, was discovered in one of the wagons. The contents looked pathetic as they were tipped out onto a table – a clean tunic, some woollen hosen, and a trinket wrapped in a piece of cloth, presumably a memento from his wife – not much as the sum of one man’s life.
    ‘No clues there,’ murmured Edwin as if he expected an incriminating note as he sifted through the things.
    During the rest of the day Master Fulford’s other kitcheners were called in to give an account of themselves.
    It was as the master cook had told them. Everything was on the record – he had waved his clerk’s parchments to prove it – but with such a lot of coming and going it was impossible to know who had been able to slip away without
being spotted. The brewmaster confirmed what the cook had told them, the cook’s account was confirmed by the chamberlain, the steward’s by the sub-steward, and so on. What was clear was how the chamberlain had arrived at a figure of forty in his first head count and the Pope’s man at forty-one in the second. The extra man was the murderer.
     
    Archbishop Neville was given a full account of what they had discovered – precious little, Edwin complained – and one of his pigeons was dispatched at once with a message seeking additional information from Bishopthorpe: had anyone been working in the herb garden at any time that morning, was anyone at all seen near the garden or on the path under the infirmary windows?
    The baker and his clerk were recalled but could only repeat their story. The murderer had to have entered through the garden. But neither Martin nor anyone else had been noticed around there. In the confusion of departure everybody had been too busy to notice anything exceptional.
    The herberer was not mentioned because there was nothing to report other than a dislike of his manner. In none of the accounts did anyone say they had seen Martin other than in the yard helping to load wagons.
    Now resigned to staying in Lincoln until more information turned up, the three of them went separate ways: Thomas to the scriptorium to talk shop about the chronicle of Meaux his abbot was planning, Edwin to continue his duties on behalf of his lord, and Hildegard to have a look at the famous vines in Bishop Buckingham’s garden now there was a break in the rain.

     
    She plunged her hand in among the wet leaves and tugged at the roots. They came up easily. Short and straggly. Wet earth clinging to them. A herb of some sort, perhaps.
    The woman she had seen just now had collected an entire scripful before hurrying back up the garden to greet a young man just coming out of the bishop’s hall. The leaves were clearly useful for something.
    She sniffed one. It had no distinctive smell. She crinkled a leaf and tasted it. It had no particular taste either. Fern-like, it looked undistinguished but clearly it had a use.
    Regretting that the woman had disappeared before she could ask what it was, Hildegard decided to take a sample. The gardener Archbishop Neville had mentioned, who ran the gardens outside the London walls at the place called Stepney, would be the one to identify it – if he lived up to his reputation.
    She got up off her knees. It might be something she could add to her cures.
     
    An uneasy couple of days elapsed. The delay, the suspicion, set everybody on edge.
    Neville was also beginning to fret about being late for the opening of Parliament. It was now three weeks away and he had to be constantly reassured that he would be in Westminster well before then.
    Hildegard met Edwin as she was crossing the yard to go onto the cathedral close shortly after Lady Mass that morning. She had decided to visit St Hugh’s shrine before hordes of pilgrims turned up and turned it into a bunfight. But Edwin detained her.
    ‘I was just coming to find you, Domina. His Grace
wishes you to go to his chamber.’ He added that he had no idea what it was