The Hour of the Fox by Cassandra Clark

Author:Cassandra Clark
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781448304110
Publisher: Severn House Publishers
Published: 2020-01-01T16:00:00+00:00

FORTY-SEVEN

To Archer’s question he could have admitted that he had gone out to Barking Abbey again and had deliberately not mentioned this to Beata. He had hobbled his horse in the little copse as before and walked on into the village where he lurked about wondering how he could get in to speak to Sister Mercy again. He was more than half-convinced he was on a fool’s errand.

Sitting in a corner of the alehouse with a view of the abbey gates he made himself inconspicuous enough to find out that one of his fellow drinkers supplied firewood to the abbey. Some pleasantry got them into conversation. He found out that the nuns paid up promptly but that he, like all the other suppliers, was never allowed any further inside than the outer court of the farm buildings.

‘We’ve no idea what goes on in there but we can guess!’ He gave a knowing laugh. ‘It’s run as a prison for them young lasses. But what’s their crime? Being virgins? Waste of good maidenheads. They keep ’em till their spirit breaks then they’re no use to nobody. And what’s it for? So they’re pure enough to offer up a few useless prayers for the souls of men rich enough to buy a place in heaven?’

‘You’ll get yourself done for Lollardry, mate.’ The men laughed.

‘I’ll supply the wood not stand in the middle of it whilst it burns,’ the first man said.

‘It’ll never come to that. Not here. Not in England. We don’t burn folk for their ideas,’ said somebody else and another round was bought.

The conversation turned to other matters and Chandler let it flow round him as they didn’t seem to mind him and he even contributed an anecdote or two himself. And then his ears sharpened when one of them, a carter by trade, harked back to the first point about the abbey being run like a prison. It was something that plainly troubled him.

‘At least they pay over the top,’ he told Chandler when he noticed his interest. ‘Take the other night,’ he continued. ‘All I had to do was drive into the City after curfew. They had a pass or summat and we were let through even though I told them I doubted we would be.’

‘Were you taking something in?’ asked Chandler. It was probably untaxed fish from down river.

‘Flesh,’ replied the man succinctly.

‘Beef?’

‘Human.’

The others jeered.

‘It’s this young lass he had to take in to one of their priories,’ his companion explained to Chandler. ‘I reckon he fancied her! He won’t shut up about her.’

‘What happened?’ Chandler asked in as lacklustre a tone as he could manage.

‘Nowt happened,’ somebody jibed.

‘That’s what’s narking him!’ somebody else remarked amid further derision.

Chandler bent his head towards the man who looked shame-faced and muttered, ‘They may be right, I won’t deny it. Pretty, she was, about sixteen maybe. She was lovely, like a little angel, but she was in a terrible state. I had to drive her and two other nuns –

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