Girl In A Red Tunic

by Alys Clare

‘Aye, my lady, so I appreciate, but what if Leofgar too took a less frequented and more roundabout road? After all—’ He made himself stop.

  But she guessed what he had been about to say: after all, a man who creeps away under cover of darkness is unlikely then to ride home along the best-used and most public road, especially if that road takes him through a populous market town and over one of the busiest river crossings in the south-east of England.

  ‘Yes, I understand your meaning,’ she said quietly. ‘And Wilfrid is right in saying that they may well be still on their way home.’

  ‘My lady, I would be delighted to offer you hospitality,’ Wilfrid said quickly. ‘Will you and Sir Josse not come inside? I will light a fire and food will be prepared for you while you wait for your son to arrive.’

  It was a kind offer, she thought, and her opinion of this man of her son’s rose a little more. And indeed, what else was there to do but wait at the Old Manor and see if Leofgar turned up?

  ‘Thank you, Wilfrid.’ She exchanged a look with Josse, then said, ‘We would be very pleased to accept.’

  Wilfrid turned and gave a whistle and a boy of about eight came running round from behind the house. ‘This is my lad,’ Wilfrid said. The lad gave the visitors a big grin. ‘We’re teaching him the care of horses. Here, Simeon, take these two and make sure they want for nothing.’ With a formal bow he took the two sets of reins from Josse and solemnly handed them to his son who, despite his small stature, gamely took them and, making an encouraging clucking sound with his tongue, led the horses off behind the hall. To the stables, Helewise remembered. The smell of sun-warmed hay fleetingly filled her nostrils and there was a memory of laughter; then it was gone.

  ‘Please, my lady, Sir Josse,’ Wilfrid was saying, ‘follow me.’

  They climbed the steps up to the main door, Wilfrid going ahead. He opened the door and, stepping back, waved his hand to usher them inside. Little had changed, Helewise saw: new hangings over that far door that was always draughty; a different table at the far end of the room; a careful and clearly recent repair to the huge iron-bound wooden chest that stood against the wall opposite the door. Otherwise it was very much the place she had left eighteen years ago. Her eyes went to the section of wall on the far side of the room, beyond the sooty stones where the fire would soon be burning in its central hearth; Wilfrid was already busy with flint, straw and kindling. There on the wall, in the place where it had always been, was the ancient shield of the Warins, Ivo’s kin. Dark with age now and blackened by the smoke of a thousand fires, the device could still just be made out. A bear, long-clawed and fierce, stood on its hind legs against a background of deep blue sky and soft green grass on which there was depicted a tiny castle flying a long red pennant.

  The fire began to crackle and Wilfrid pulled forward two high-backed, carved oak chairs. Then he excused himself, saying he would see about some refreshments, and Josse and Helewise were left alone. Josse paced slowly away down the length of the hall, touching the old stones, smoothing his fingers across the shiny surface of the table, looking everywhere.

  Helewise stared into the fire ...

  She is in the hall and her new husband is impatient with the servants who bustle around them, telling them to hurry up and bring this meal they’ve prepared. But it is clear that there is no malice in his words for the fat woman and the slim young man who serve the food are clearly amused and trying not to laugh out loud. She has a sudden fierce hope that Elena will be happy here, that she will like the fat woman and the slim young man, for where she goes, Elena goes; but it is important to Helewise that her old nurse settles in this new place to which her young mistress has brought her. She hears the fat woman say something to the dark young man, not quite quietly enough, but although it is a ribald remark and the fat woman should not really have made it, the young bride is so glad that she did because it’s just the sort of earthy, crude, rude thing that Elena would say.

  The meal is served, eaten and cleared away in record time. At last the servants melt away into their own quarters at the back of the house and Ivo takes Helewise on to his lap. She puts her arms around his neck and kisses him passion ately, gasping between kisses ‘I’ve been waiting – hours – and hours – to do that to you!’

  His hand slides inside the bodice of her red tunic and his fingers cushion the warm, smooth roundness of her breast, taking the nipple in gentle fingertips and playing with it until it stands erect. ‘And I this to you,’ he says huskily.

  She is sitting astride him now and she feels his hard penis push against her. A moan of desire escapes her and she whispers in his ear, ‘Is this where you mean to bed me, husband?’

  He laughs. ‘Oh, aye, wife. I shall fling you on to the clean rushes and ride you like a man on a wild horse until you cry for mercy!’

  ‘Until I cry for more,’ she corrects him, greedy for him, hungry to have him ...

  ‘Are you hungry, my lady?

  Wilfrid was addressing her. Wilfrid, who so resembled his father whom she had just been seeing again in her mind’s eye as the slim young servant he once was.

  She was not hungry at all; far from it, for her stomach felt as if it were tied in knots and she sensed the onset of a slight queasiness. But Wilfrid, or someone, had prepared a platter of cured strips of meat and bread generously buttered, and in these times of hardship she knew she must not refuse. ‘Thank you, Wilfrid’ – she was very relieved that, despite the tumult of her memories, her voice sounded perfectly calm – ‘I should like to take a little food.’

  He held out the platter and she helped herself, then watched as he did the same for Josse; he, she noticed, had considerably more of an appetite. Then Wilfrid offered them some watery beer – ‘I’m sorry that it’s not better quality but, like every household, we’re not able to offer ale of our usual fine standard at present’ – and they both drank. When they had consumed all that they wanted, Wilfrid took away the leftover food and the beer jug and once more disappeared down the passage that led to the kitchen quarters.

  Josse went over to the door and stood looking outside, as if by staring down the track he could somehow make Leofgar and Rohaise appear. He was, Helewise had observed, unusually quiet and she wondered if his silence might be out of respect for her and her memories. If so, she would really rather he chattered away to her on virtually any subject under the sun, her memories being almost more than she could cope with.

  To encourage him to talk to her, she said, ‘How long, Sir Josse, should we give them, think you?’

  He turned from the door, closed it – there was a cold wind blowing in – and came back to the hearth where she sat, throwing himself down into the other chair. ‘I have been thinking, my lady, that it may be that they travel only by night. If indeed they have a need to keep their journey a secret, then maybe they rode out from the Abbey and then, when dawn broke, found a place to hide themselves away out of sight for the hours of daylight, planning to set out again once it is dark.’

  ‘But why should they want to disguise the fact that they are returning here?’ she asked. It was all so strange! ‘They live here. Why be furtive about their homecoming?’

  He stared at her. He looked worried. ‘I am thinking more and more as time passes that they are not coming home,’ he said neutrally.

  She felt instinctively that he was right. What, indeed, was the point of a furtive flight in the middle of the night only to ride away to the one place everyone would expect to find you?

  ‘I think,’ she said, ‘that I must agree with you. Wherever Leofgar has taken his wife and child, he is not bound for here.’

  Josse was looking at her sympathetically. ‘It will be dark soon,’ he said. ‘Do you wish to set out for Hawkenlye and try to reach the Abbey before nightfall?’

  She thought about it. Then: ‘No. For one thing, the journey will be easier’ – safer too, she thought but did not say, if indeed this vicious ruffian Walter Bell is abroad – ‘in the morning. For another thing, if
we stay for the night then we shall be giving Leofgar a little longer to appear.’

  He gave a small bow of acknowledgement. ‘It is your choice, my lady, but I think that is a wise decision,’ he observed. Standing up again, he added, ‘I’ll find that Wilfrid and request that he arranges accommodation for us.’

  She and Josse were made as comfortable as it was possible for unexpected guests to be made in the midst of a hard November when nobody had much of anything to spare. Josse said he was quite happy to bed down by the fire and Wilfrid found him a straw mattress and a couple of blankets. Helewise, for reasons of her own, would greatly have preferred the same but both Josse and Wilfrid looked quite shocked when she suggested it and Wilfrid protested that he had already arranged that a bed be prepared for her in the smaller of the bedchambers on the upper floor of the solar block.

  At least, Helewise thought as, later, she wearily climbed up the winding stone staircase, I have not been put in the main bedchamber. Nevertheless, she was quite sure that she would be powerless to withstand the flood of memories that would assault her the moment she lay down to sleep.

  As indeed she was ...

  Ivo has been teasing her about taking her there and then down on the rushes, in the hall where she sat on his lap and so aroused them both, but she knows full well that he isn’t serious because he has already shown her the sleeping chamber. He led her up to the larger of the two rooms that open off the solar soon after they arrived at the Old Manor and he showed her the big marriage bed made up ready for them. Someone – perhaps the jolly fat woman whose name, she now knows, is Magda; perhaps Elena – has placed a sweet-smelling garland of lavender and rosemary on the pillows. It is because this bed is so very inviting that Ivo and his bride have been so desperately impatient to get into it.

  Now, at last, it is time. Down in the hall Ivo stands up with Helewise in his arms, intending to bear her off up the spiral stair to their bedchamber. But Helewise is no lightweight – she is only a little shorter than Ivo, although not nearly as broad in the shoulder or deep in the chest – and, with a shout of laughter, he has to admit defeat and he sets her on her feet. But there is in truth no need for him to carry her to bed; she cannot wait to be there and she runs ahead of him up the stone steps, holding his hand and dragging him behind her.

  Up in the bedchamber, a soft summer breeze stirs the light hangings and makes the rose petals that float in the bowl of warm, scented water set out for their use skim across the surface like tiny pink boats. Ivo tears off his tunic and tries to remove his undershirt without loosening the strings that fasten the neck, and he almost throttles himself. Helewise, breathless with both laughter and lusty excitement, helps him and then positions herself before him and stands quite still so that he can untie the laces that fasten down the back of her gown and pull the red silk tight against her curvaceous body. As soon as the laces are sufficiently slack, she drags the lovely, bright garment over her head and places it carefully over a clothing chest that stands stoutly by the bed. Ivo is naked now, and she finds the sight of his hairy chest, flat belly and obvious strength very arousing; he is the very epitome of healthy masculinity. He is a big man. But Helewise is unafraid and she stares at his manhood, reaching out her hand to touch. As her fingers begin to caress, Ivo lets out a moan of desire and, pulling off his bride’s chemise, picks her up, lays her on the bed and sets about celebrating their marriage for the very first time under his own roof.

  Helewise, Abbess of Hawkenlye, lay in her narrow, solitary bed and shivered. Fighting the past, fighting the seductive pictures and sensations that tried to pull her back to the woman she used to be, she gave up trying to sleep and, getting out of bed, fell on her knees on the floor. She prayed, as hard as she had prayed for anything, for the strength to overcome her own memory and the grace to remind herself that she was now and would ever more be a nun.

  It was hard, so hard.

  It was not until the night was pitch black and perfectly still – even the owls had fallen silent – that peace of a sort fell upon her and at last she fell dreamlessly asleep.

  Chapter 9

  Josse, stretching on his straw mattress, reached out and gave the fire a poke with a length of firewood; it had died down to embers but he thought he could re-ignite it. The morning air was bitterly cold. Daylight, as Josse and no doubt the Abbess too had suspected, had brought no sign of any arrivals during the night.

  He wondered how the Abbess had slept. She had seemed distracted yesterday and that did not bode well for sound sleep. The upper chamber would have been cold, too, because although the efficient Wilfrid lit a fire there as soon as he knew his guests were going to stay overnight, a small fire lit only a short time before retiring did not do much to warm a stone-walled room.

  He had hoped so much that she would find her son here or, failing that – and with hindsight he realised that it always had been unlikely – that Leofgar and his wife and child would have got home during the night and be there now this morning, greeting the Abbess with smiles and saying, Oh, you weren’t worried, were you? No need for anxiety, it’s all very simple really!

  The more time that passed with no sign of the young family, the more certain Josse was that there was plenty of cause to be worried and that it wasn’t simple at all.

  He watched the Abbess as she came gliding across the hall towards him from the stair that led down from the guest chamber. Her face was composed but she looked as if she had passed a restless night. Standing up to greet her, he said, ‘The excellent Wilfrid is preparing breakfast for us, my lady, and he reports that our horses can be ready as soon as we give the word.’

  She bowed her head slightly. ‘Thank you, Sir Josse. I suggest that we eat sparingly and swiftly and get on our way as soon as we can. I do not think—’ She broke off.

  But he knew what she had been about to say. ‘No, I agree,’ he said softly. ‘I don’t think they’re coming here either.’

  They did not discuss what was obsessing them until Wilfrid had brought their small breakfast – some dry bread, a rind of cheese and a very faintly flavoured drink that seemed to consist mainly of hot water – and gone off to bring the horses round. But as soon as they were once more alone, Josse said in a low voice, ‘Where are they, then, my lady? Have you any idea? Can you say where your son might go if for some reason he could not come home?’

  She frowned. ‘I have been thinking about little else since I awoke,’ she confessed. ‘I do not know very much about Rohaise’s kin, the Edgars, although I recall being told that Rohaise was brought up by her godmother, who is now dead, and I conclude that she is not close to her own parents. It is possible that they too are dead; I cannot be sure. But in any case I do not know where they live.’ She gave a faint shrug.

  ‘What of your other son?’ Josse asked. ‘Might Leofgar have sought sanctuary in the household where he grew up?’

  She turned dark-circled eyes to him. ‘You think then that Leofgar seeks a place of sanctuary?’ she whispered.

  Mentally kicking himself for the blunder, he said hastily, ‘Indeed no, my lady, it was but a figure of speech.’

  But he could tell that she was not convinced.

  After a moment she said, ‘Dominic was brought up in his uncle’s household. My brother Rainer,’ she explained. ‘Ivo’s parents predeceased him and Ivo himself was an only child; my sons have neither uncles nor aunts on the paternal side of the family. Dominic came to treat his cousins as brothers and indeed he is as another son in that household, or at least he was until he went abroad and I am sure that he will resume that position when he returns home.’ She paused. ‘Although Rainer would have made Leofgar welcome, I do not think that he has gone there.’ Looking up and meeting Josse’s eyes, she said, ‘There always seemed to be so many people in my brother’s cheerful home – open, friendly people – and I just can’t see it as being the place for somebody hiding a secret.’

  There was a brief and, on Josse’s part, surprised silence. Then he said softly,
‘That is your conclusion, my lady? That Leofgar has something to hide?’

  ‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘I wish it were not so but it is surely the only explanation. Let us think back,’ she said, and a little colour crept into her face as she leaned towards him. ‘Leofgar brought his wife and son to us at Hawkenlye because he was worried for Rohaise’s health, in particular her state of mind. There also appears to be something amiss with little Timus, who is unnaturally quiet.’ She flashed a brief smile at him and said, ‘Or was, that is, until he had the good fortune to meet up with a certain large and friendly knight who managed to make him laugh.’

  Embarrassed that she should refer to his tricks, Josse waved a dismissive hand. ‘It was nothing. Really. The lad was ready to laugh again, that was all.’

  ‘Then you do my family another great service,’ she went on, relentlessly ignoring his protestations of modesty, ‘by extracting from Leofgar the admission that his priest believes Timus to be a changeling who must be removed from Rohaise’s care in order that he be given back to the place where he came from and the true child brought home again. Time passes and, in Hawkenlye’s healing atmosphere, Rohaise begins to improve. Perhaps, as she returns to her right mind, she sees this tale of changelings for the nonsense that it is. But then something happens and Leofgar takes the decision to run away in the middle of the night, taking his wife and child with him. But what happened?’

  Josse paused. But there was no point in prevaricating since she must surely be thinking exactly the same thing. ‘De Gifford came hunting for a man known to be violent and whom there was evidence to suggest was making for the Abbey. And then the man’s brother is found hanging by the neck.’

  ‘My son saw this man,’ the Abbess said slowly. ‘And that same night he fled from Hawkenlye and went we know not where. Sir Josse, surely there has to be a connection!’