The Dragon of Handale

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Book: The Dragon of Handale Read Online Free PDF
Author: Cassandra Clark
Tags: Fiction, Historical, Mystery & Detective, Women Sleuths
Hildegard had done wrong. Of her own secret thoughts about Hubert de Courcy, the prioress could know nothing.
    The priest’s story, however, was simply outrageous. A man dead. Killed by a dragon or a ghostly nun? The penitent with the bloody mouth worried her. As did the half-underground cell. It was a species of refined cruelty, surely, to keep imprisoned in those cold, cramped quarters someone who could see others walking about freely in the open air. What sins were these nuns accused of to merit such punishment?
    If anything was designed to keep her here, there was enough for now. She would not rest until she understood what was going on.
    Feeling helpless, torn by the knowledge that none of this was her direct concern, she pulled out her beads from the embroidered pouch on her belt.
    The cellarer turned at that moment. “Devout, I see.” She eyed Hildegard suspiciously. “Always a virtue, of course.”
    “I have concerns about a nun with a bloody mouth,” Hildegard offered. “Is it some kind of punishment, or has she been injured?”
    “I know who you mean. She has had trouble with her teeth for some time. She begged the barber to extract one and now suffers daily and with less stoicism than one would wish for.” The cellaress avoided Hildegard’s glance and, briskly, as if having no time for such trivialities, conducted her into the scriptorium.
    It was a small chamber above the prioress’s own chamber at the end of the building, abutting the church. It had a dusty, unused look, but when Hildegard glanced round, she saw that it was equipped well enough. She would have to make ink afresh, but there were unsharpened quills in a jug and a ream or so of vellum on a shelf.
    The cellaress explained that they would be pleased if she would help order the correspondence with the master mason at work on the current extension. “Absent at present with other works across the county. Always on the move, these masons with their little armies of labourers. He’s a great catch for us. His current work in Durham is with the cathedral there. Under the control of Walter Skirlaw. We’re fortunate to have snared him.”
    “‘Snared’?”
    “Such a catch for us. So much in demand, the good ones.”
    “And costly, no doubt?”
    The cellarer was not to be drawn out on how such a small foundation such as hers could afford a man so much in demand. “For now, you can file those papers, if you will. Put the accounts in some sort of order.”
    “Do you expect me to do those, as well?”
    “The subprioress will see to that.”
    I am to be a mere dogsbody of a filing clerk, then, thought Hildegard. Well, so be it. I’m here to help and to forget my own self.
    The cellarer was staring at her. “Have you experience of greater responsibility, mistress?”
    “I’m here for prayer and contemplation, sister, and to resolve certain doubts in my mind.”
    With a sideways glance, the cellarer left.
    Hildegard moved over to the table. A horn blind covered an unglazed window looking out onto the outer garth, where a cow was stalled under a thatched lean-to. There was a swinecote next to it.
    She sat down to read through the heap of receipts and demands.
    And so the afternoon between sext and nones passed in her first day at Handale Priory.
     
     
    When eventually the next bell began to toll, Hildegard got up with an exclamation of relief. Now, maybe, something would happen to give a more favourable impression of this grim place.
    The scriptorium was in a chamber above that of the prioress. A stone stair led down past the door. As Hildegard descended, she was met by a waft of warm air and noticed that the door stood open. It briefly raised the temperature in the freezing stairwell. As she descended, she could not help casting a glance inside.
    Prioress Basilda was heaving herself out of her chair. A man wearing a blue townsman’s cloak over a brown houpelande was offering his arm to her. Intent on each other, they did not notice
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