The Law of Angels Read Online Free PDF

those devils have done?” Cecilia marched over to Hildegard, and instead of being frightened as she might well have been she was in a fury of indignation. “They’ve smashed the hives, uprooted the plants, pulled the doors off their hinges and even ransacked your chest in your little chamber, Hildegard. We couldn’t stop them!”
    Marianne was fingering a large bruise on her cheek. “They’ve wrecked everything they could lay their hands on!” she confirmed. “Every crock, every pot, every pan. All smashed to smithereens because they couldn’t find who they were looking for!”
    Hildegard went cold. “Petronilla?”
    The women glanced at each other.
    Agnetha stepped forward. “I’m afraid they were after Maud.”

 
    Chapter Three
    When the men first appeared their leader had been all smiles, telling the nuns that he only had the welfare of his little kinswoman at heart, but when they failed to offer her up he ordered his men to search the place, if necessary to turn it inside out.
    “They even dragged the mattresses off the beds and stabbed their swords into the corn bins,” Marianne said in a disgusted tone. “As if she could have been hiding there!”
    “Did any of them wear livery?” Hildegard asked.
    The women shook their heads.
    Hildegard recalled the emblem on a silver chain worn by the knight in black. It was like the ones worn by the barons’ retainers, but she couldn’t place the symbol. “At least you’re safe. And it was lucky the sheep came down just then,” she added.
    Agnetha shook her head. “It wasn’t luck. It was Dunstan’s quick thinking. He was on the ridge and when he heard me shout he realised something was wrong. The flock had already been gathered and he just told his dogs to run the whole lot down at once. When he followed them he said he’d block the dale end to prevent the men coming back—although,” she added, “I doubt whether they’ll bother to return. I think they were eventually convinced Maud wasn’t here.” Despite her words she glanced fearfully towards the woods.
    “Did they say anything else?”
    “One of them muttered, ‘All this way for bloody nothing.’ He was in a fine rage.” Marianne shuddered.
    “Dunstan was magnificent—” Cecilia added.
    “He saved us.”
    It was obvious the women were in shock. Hildegard listened to them go over things again as she poked among the wreckage. They were right though. Every pot had been smashed. The bench where they sat in the evenings was broken. The vine trellis ripped from its moorings. Plants uprooted. When she looked into the orchard she noticed the upended bee skeps.
    Why do that? she wondered. It was sheer malice.
    Everywhere the air was thick with smoke.
    The house itself had taken the worst of the attack and the thatch on the kitchen roof was smouldering. She went across the yard to have a closer look but there seemed nothing they could do to stifle it.
    Agnetha followed. “We emptied the entire water barrel on all the timbers we could reach, but it’s useless in this weather. Everything’s too dry. Then they came back in and stopped us anyway.”
    The nearest water source was across the meadow at the stream. The thatch would have to burn itself out. Hildegard brushed her hands over her eyes. It had happened so quickly. She couldn’t grasp it all at once.
    A sudden thought struck her, however. Ignoring the women’s warning shouts she ran inside the house and began to feel her way through the smoke until she reached her small chamber at the end of the corridor. Cecilia had said her chest had been rifled, its contents thrown to the floor. It was true.
    Rummaging amongst the debris her fingers closed over a small leather bag and she dragged it from the smouldering ashes. Inside the bag was a missal. Small, with a cover of tooled leather, the text on its vellum pages was written in black and red, the capital letters decorated in gold leaf. It was wrapped in a piece of ancient linen embroidered in