With the half-moon overhead in a clear night sky, Andressa departed through the postern gate, heading towards Bishopsgate along the muddy road as her thoughts focused on what lay ahead.
Maxton.
He had to know.
But what she didn’t know that the moment she left St. Blitha, she was followed.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Fortunately, St. Blithawasn’t too far from Farringdon House.
Alasdair had been running perhaps ten minutes, fifteen at most on his bad ankle, when he came to Bishopsgate, which remained open because of the two churches and the hospital on the road beyond. It was nighttime, with an icy chill to the air, as there had been snowfall in London the week before. But that snow had quickly turned to water, leaving the roads swimming in mud puddles.
In fact, the entire north side of the city seemed swampy and cold to the bone, with little warmth in sight. At Bishopsgate, the usual guards were nearby, sentries appointed by the Lord Mayor of London, and really no more than older men who had bells and horns to sound in times of trouble. The weapons they carried were clubs.
They didn’t even look at Alasdair as he came near. In fact, they continued standing around their blazing fire as Alasdair passed beneath the big stone archway and headed straight for St. Blitha. The bright half-moon low in the sky gave little light to travel by, but Alasdair could see St. Blitha in the distance. Someof the windows had glowing light from within, signifying the life within.
He moved faster.
As Alasdair neared the front entrance, a figure in pale robes caught his attention, moving further down the road that paralleled the old walls of the church. As he watched, the figure went off the road, headed through the trees, and entered the abbey through the postern gate. A nun was returning, evidently, slipping in through the rear of the abbey. She’d moved quickly, a wraith that was soon gone from his sight.
But Alasdair didn’t give the figure entering St. Blitha’s yard much thought; he was in too much pain from his ankle, and there was too much to tell the Mother Abbess. In fact, by the time he banged on the front entry to the church, he’d forgotten all about the wandering nun. Now, he was becoming angry because they didn’t open the door fast enough.
It was an old, warped door that finally creaked open on its rusted hinges. In truth, the response was very quick but, for Alasdair, it wasn’t quick enough. He pushed his way into the shadowed, cavernous reception area just as a nun with bushy eyebrows approached him.
“What do you want?” she demanded in a heavy Italian accent. “We take no men for the night. You will have to sleep outside if it is lodgings you are looking for.”
Alasdair’s temper was short. “I’m not here tae sleep,” he said. “Where is Seaxburga?”
The nun stood her ground. “Get out,” she said. “You’ll not violate the sanctity of this place.”
“I’ll not get out,” Alasdair snarled. “I came to see Seaxburga and if ye’ll not tell me where she is, I’ll go find her myself.”
Before the nun could reply, a woman’s voice could be heard from the chamber off the entry. “Sister Petronilla, be on yourway,” the Mother Abbess said as she came into the light. “Douglas… why have you returned?”
Alasdair pushed past the bushy-eyebrow nun and headed straight for the Mother Abbess. He marched into the chamber where she was standing, motioning the woman to follow him as he went. The Mother Abbess obeyed, curiously, shutting the door softly behind her.
“Well?” she said. “What is it? Why are you here?”
Alasdair turned to the woman. “They know,” he said flatly. “They know of the plot tae kill John. Ye have a traitor in yer midst, woman.”
The Mother Abbess looked at him as if rather confused by his statement. “Whoknows?” she asked. “What are you talking about?”
Douglas was agitated. He waved his arms around as he found the nearest chair and planted himself. “I was followed when I returned tae England from our Holy Father,” he said as he gingerly touched his swollen ankle. “For almost a year, I was followed. The assassin who was paid tae follow me, sent by someone in the Lateran Palace no less, caught up tae me today. He told me that the plot against John is known and he told me that the information came from St. Blitha. Had I not escaped the man, I’d still be taking insults from him.”
The Mother Abbess listened to him carefully, surprisingly calm at the shocking news as Alasdair grunted and raged. When he was finished spewing forth his information, she turned away from him, making her way over to a sideboard table that contained expensive wine in a fine pewter pitcher. It was the very best wine, purchased with money she’d accumulated while everyone in her charge starved. She poured one cup, only for her, and took a sip as if it would help her think.
“He told you that the information came from St. Blitha?” she asked. “And he was sure of this?”
Alasdair groaned as he lifted up his muddy boot and put it on one of Mother Abbess’ fine chairs. “He was gloating,” he said, rather sarcastically. “Of course the man was sure. He had no reason tae lie. Which of yer nuns did ye tell, Seaxburga?”
The Mother Abbess knew who she had told, but who could have betrayed her? Sister Dymphna had been fearful when she’d first been told of the plan, vocal in her concern. She was in charge of the postulates, and she’d been known to gossip to them in the past, so it was possible she’d told one of her charges and word had spread. But that was unlikely, as Sister Dymphna had been known to smother charges that displeased her. The women under her were terrified of that particular inclination.
Then, there was Sister Agnes, who did the dirty work down in The Chaos. She was the one who took the bodies of the dead from the vault and boiled them down to bones that were then ground up and mixed with oats and other rubbish to be fed to the pigs. However, before she boiled them down, she removed what fat she could from the bodies and mixed it with animal suet to make the tallow candles that they used at the abbey. Their candles had an odd smell because of it, and they were quite yellow in color, but it was simply the way they did things at St. Blitha. Fat, from any breathing creature, was too valuable to be wasted.
Lastly, there was Sister Petronilla, the master of the garden who could poison a man so cleanly that there would be no trace of it. The entire garden that the Mother Abbess was so proud of was peppered with poisonous plants amongst the roses, but no one ever commented on that. They were simply awed by Sister Petronilla’s green thumb, but it was a green thumb with a purpose– every one of those poisonous plants had served the means to an end from time to time.
Each sister with her particular gifts.
