Read Online The Dragon of Handale by Cassandra Clark - Free Book Online
Authors: Cassandra Clark
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the enclosure wall. Chilled, she let herself into the silent house.
A candle in a sconce was fixed just inside the doorway, and she lit it at once, using the tinder that always stood beside it in a niche in the wall. The entrance to the guest quarters was windowless, but the candlelight flared into the corners and dispersed the shadows. She was about to cross to her chamber, but then she thought she heard a sound like an aumbry door closing inside.
She froze. No other sound followed except for the drip-drip of a leak in a room above.
Her knife was still inside her bag on the floor by her bed. She looked round for something to defend herself with. Nothing was at hand. The words of the mason came back: “If I’m not capable of seeing off a nun or two…”
Emboldened, she doused the candle and stepping silently towards the door, gripped the metal ring, and, so it did not squeak on its hinge, turned it gently round until she felt the latch rise. Whoever was inside was in darkness, too, the shutters being closed, and with luck would not notice the movement.
Her shoulder against it, she inched the door ajar.
Silence within.
She pushed the door wider and stepped inside.
C HAPTER 7
Without warning, something came flying out of the darkness and hit her in the face. A brutal commotion of blows and flailing limbs followed and then the sense of a black cloak muffling her face, fingers clawing; then she grasped flesh, soft pouches of her assailants’s face as she groped for the eyes in a reflex to defend herself.
As suddenly as it had occurred, the attack ended. All that remained was a black shape flying out of the door and, between Hildegard’s fingers, a piece of torn fabric.
Her attacker hurled itself across the garth, with Hildegard speeding after, but the shape was immediately swallowed up among the shadows in the cloister. Sprinting over, she was in time to glimpse the hem of a cloak disappearing behind a pillar.
By the time she reached it, a line of nuns were processing towards the refectory. Two by two they came, cowls pulled half over their faces, crosses and beads swinging. Innocent as lambs.
But one of them was her attacker.
Enraged by her own stupidity, Hildegard poked her head inside the church. It was the nearest place for anyone to seek refuge. She was forced to peer through a fog of smoke and incense to make anything out. One or two nuns were pacing down the nave in front of her, one of them swinging a censer as if to block her progress.
She fingered the piece of fabric between her fingers. Someone at Handale must have a torn gown, she thought.
She moved closer to the two she had followed inside. They had gone to stand against the wall to her left, heads bowed, hoods casting deep wedges of shadow over their faces. In the flickering candlelight, it was impossible to tell one from another. Those in the inner circle were grouped round the prioress near the altar, discussing something in low voices. They were too far along the nave to have just come inside. She turned her attention back to the two by the wall. Was her assailant one of these?
She listened to try to detect anything in their breathing to show they had been running, but they were both as composed as stone. She cursed to herself, free of nunlike vows, and peered along the wall, but they were the only two here. A closer look showed how optimistic it was to expect to find a tear in their garments. Most were threadbare. And she didn’t know whether it was a fragment of a sleeve or a hood or the edge of a cloak she held.
Prioress Basilda, as massive as usual in her wooden chair, was being helped out of it by the cellaress and the sacristan. The pimply priest was present. The nuns in attendance were speaking in wispy voices.
After this, supper.
She turned to go.
If the intruder was a nun and not one of the servants or lay sisters, which seemed most likely from her black garments, then she must have missed vespers in order to have
A candle in a sconce was fixed just inside the doorway, and she lit it at once, using the tinder that always stood beside it in a niche in the wall. The entrance to the guest quarters was windowless, but the candlelight flared into the corners and dispersed the shadows. She was about to cross to her chamber, but then she thought she heard a sound like an aumbry door closing inside.
She froze. No other sound followed except for the drip-drip of a leak in a room above.
Her knife was still inside her bag on the floor by her bed. She looked round for something to defend herself with. Nothing was at hand. The words of the mason came back: “If I’m not capable of seeing off a nun or two…”
Emboldened, she doused the candle and stepping silently towards the door, gripped the metal ring, and, so it did not squeak on its hinge, turned it gently round until she felt the latch rise. Whoever was inside was in darkness, too, the shutters being closed, and with luck would not notice the movement.
Her shoulder against it, she inched the door ajar.
Silence within.
She pushed the door wider and stepped inside.
C HAPTER 7
Without warning, something came flying out of the darkness and hit her in the face. A brutal commotion of blows and flailing limbs followed and then the sense of a black cloak muffling her face, fingers clawing; then she grasped flesh, soft pouches of her assailants’s face as she groped for the eyes in a reflex to defend herself.
As suddenly as it had occurred, the attack ended. All that remained was a black shape flying out of the door and, between Hildegard’s fingers, a piece of torn fabric.
Her attacker hurled itself across the garth, with Hildegard speeding after, but the shape was immediately swallowed up among the shadows in the cloister. Sprinting over, she was in time to glimpse the hem of a cloak disappearing behind a pillar.
By the time she reached it, a line of nuns were processing towards the refectory. Two by two they came, cowls pulled half over their faces, crosses and beads swinging. Innocent as lambs.
But one of them was her attacker.
Enraged by her own stupidity, Hildegard poked her head inside the church. It was the nearest place for anyone to seek refuge. She was forced to peer through a fog of smoke and incense to make anything out. One or two nuns were pacing down the nave in front of her, one of them swinging a censer as if to block her progress.
She fingered the piece of fabric between her fingers. Someone at Handale must have a torn gown, she thought.
She moved closer to the two she had followed inside. They had gone to stand against the wall to her left, heads bowed, hoods casting deep wedges of shadow over their faces. In the flickering candlelight, it was impossible to tell one from another. Those in the inner circle were grouped round the prioress near the altar, discussing something in low voices. They were too far along the nave to have just come inside. She turned her attention back to the two by the wall. Was her assailant one of these?
She listened to try to detect anything in their breathing to show they had been running, but they were both as composed as stone. She cursed to herself, free of nunlike vows, and peered along the wall, but they were the only two here. A closer look showed how optimistic it was to expect to find a tear in their garments. Most were threadbare. And she didn’t know whether it was a fragment of a sleeve or a hood or the edge of a cloak she held.
Prioress Basilda, as massive as usual in her wooden chair, was being helped out of it by the cellaress and the sacristan. The pimply priest was present. The nuns in attendance were speaking in wispy voices.
After this, supper.
She turned to go.
If the intruder was a nun and not one of the servants or lay sisters, which seemed most likely from her black garments, then she must have missed vespers in order to have
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