by Prue Batten
The Prioress led all the women outside and as I followed she met me at the door and crooked her finger. She was a stately woman and we moved along the cloister away from the nuns who had gone to their separate duties.
‘Master Gisborne will be here within the hour and Sister Thea will collect you from your cell. I am glad that you have attended our devotions and that you might have found some measure of comfort in prayer because I saw you at Lady Ghislaine’s graveside and I noticed in the chapel that you had been weeping.’
How alert you are, Reverend Mother.
‘I do not know the connection between you and I do not wish to, but we at Saint Eadgyth’s are ever grateful to she and her son. Without the monies that Master Gisborne pays us, it is doubtful that we should continue here quite as comfortably as we do.’
I must have looked surprised because she swiftly counteracted any likely response.
‘You did not know? Then I must prevail upon your discretion. It would not do for us to betray Master Gisborne’s confidence.’
I nodded.
Gisborne, you come at me always from secret places.
The Reverend Mother scrutinized me and I felt the pressure of her gaze.
‘I had thought you were family but I can see by your ignorance of our beneficence that you are not. Let me say this. Lady Ghislaine was someone blessed by God. We loved her in her short time with us. She was dying when she arrived at our door and yet having her here was like having God’s Light shining. It is difficult to put into words but when she died she left us all better people. Her son knows this and whilst we did all we could for her and he thinks to repay us, in truth we wished we could have done more and he needs do nothing. Sometimes however, a prioress must take what God provides and in this instance, He provides us with a gratuity. We are in turn, grateful.’
I wanted to say something but was without words. Would she understand if I said that I cared for Lady Ghislaine’s son? Would she understand my fear of him and for him? I remained silent and as if she understood, she indicated my cell.
‘There is warm water for you to wash and we have taken your old clothing away. Sister Thea will collect you when Master Gisborne arrives. In the meantime, perhaps you should rest.’ She began to turn away, her robes swinging around her. ‘And perhaps you might pray.’
With that she left and I knew I wouldn’t see her again, but a new dimension had been illuminated and I stored it in my mind to think upon. I washed my face and hands, using what was left of the piece of soap, took the small comb and ran it through hair that was then twisted into a knot and then I sat on the cot, waiting.
But I was never one to wait with ease and jumped up, my limbs busy, my mind busier. I wondered if it was anticipation of what was to come, or perhaps of seeing Gisborne but whatever the issue causing my distrait, I determined not to wait in the cell, but to go back to the bottom of the orchard.
Everything around glittered, the sun spring bright. The headstones glared and I squinted as I read Lady Ghislaine’s name. I did not speak this time but noticed a rose lying with my self-styled cluster of the day before. A stunningly folded petal that looked as if it were shaped from fabric, a bud that had almost but not quite opened, as if it were shy of showing what it really was. It was as faded as a copper platter that might have been found in the ancient burial mounds that littered the fields of England. I had never seen a colour like it, almost implausible. Kneeling on the dew-wet grass, I touched it with my finger.
‘You have found my mother.’
My heart clanged but far less sweetly than the Priory’s bell. It rang with warnings of dangers past and present, of what was to come and I couldn’t help the way I jumped.
‘You startled me.’
I stood and looked from the rose to him.
‘Good morning, Ysabel. Are you rested?’
‘Thank you, I am. And yes. As you say, I have found your mother.’
I dared him to speak, to laud her praises as the Prioress had done, but he maintained a silence and I felt prompted to speak again.
‘It’s a beautiful rose, I have never seen anything like it.’
‘Indeed. It is a mere adolescent and grows on the priory wall. It was a cutting from my mother’s garden. She found some specimens of wild rose that she loved and blended them. She had thought to carry it to Anjou.’
So she was a gardener.
‘It’s the colour of old copper.’
I could barely believe that we stood over his mother’s grave and blandly discussed elements of botany and reached up with my hand, indicating that he help me off my knees. His palm slid over mine and grasped and he pulled gently.
‘It’s good to see you this morn, Guy. I confess to feeling at odds and awry with what is to come; your companionship gives me a modicum of strength.’
‘A modicum? Then I must try harder.’
He gave me that sideways look and I smiled.
‘Already I feel happier. I must tell you that I have failed miserably as a would-be nun. I am altogether too self-indulgent.’
We began to walk and I noticed he didn’t look back toward his mother.
‘Indeed.’ He spoke in a voice that had an almost invisible lilt to it. ‘Whilst the doors of the church would no doubt always be open to you, I must say I cannot see you succeeding as a Sister.’
‘I can’t imagine succeeding at anything right now. I tell you, I’ve never felt more displaced in my life. A woman in straightened circumstances has little choice. Men are able to pull themselves out of their situations by many means, as you are aware. For women there is the church, marriage or prostitution. None of those appeal and I would prefer to think I am not suited.’
He took my elbow and guided me through the opening in the hedge.
‘What would you do if you could cut your own cloth?’
‘If I could legitimately do anything I liked, I have always admired the trobairitz. Do you know of them?’
‘You surprise me. Such a profession! It means lady troubadour, does it not?’
‘Why yes, you surprise me that you know.’
We had reached the end of the path through the garden and had stepped into the cloister.
‘I know something of Aquitaine, Ysabel, and can see the charm of what you would wish. There is freedom for such women that resonates with you, obviously. Perhaps when this is over you can return to Cazenay and pursue such a thing.’
Perhaps I could, but whilst my Cazenay cousins adore the troubadours, they would not wish one of their own to become a travelling poet. They believe in a social hierarchy as much as my father’s peers.
I could see Sister Thea at the door to my cell and I turned to Gisborne.
‘Excuse me for one moment, I have some things to collect.’
I left him and walked to Thea’s side. She gave me a warm smile – as if she recognized the blush on my cheeks from something in her past. We went into the cell, one after the other and she gave me a small sack that I pulled open as she passed me the comb to place in the bottom. She picked up the neatly folded cloths and I examined the ache that was as pronounced as the previous day, my belly and breasts taut, reminding me of my womanhood. She dipped her head as she placed these on top of the comb and I gathered the bag shut and pulled it over my shoulder but she stayed my hand.
She dug deep into the folds of her robe and pulled a small hemp string free. It was plaited and knotted at intervals and I knew instinctively that she was giving me support. That she had watched me use her own cord and had thought to assist me further.
How kind and how prescient.
I ran my fingers over the plait, stopping at each knot and then reached forward and hugged the nun and I’m sure it was not my imagination that I heard a little intake of delighted breath.
We left in exactly the manner that we had done everything in the last day - Sister Thea at my side as she led Gisborne and I to the gate. We passed the scriptorium and the nuns therein looked up. I would swear one face, younger than
the rest, had a look of yearning. I wondered what her thoughts told her; to desist and follow the Path or to think on what might have been if Fate had led her a different way.
As we reached the gate, I turned to Thea and took her hands. I could be silent no longer.
‘Thank you, Sister,’ I whispered as I squeezed her palms.
She opened the gate with much key rattling and Gisborne passed through as I stood next to her, almost as if I was afraid to proceed.
But Thea gave me the slightest push and said very softly in a voice as sweet as the bell, ‘Go kindly, my lady, and God bless. I shall pray for you.’
Before I had time to acknowledge the effort she had made on my behalf, she had shut the gate and locked it.
The walls of the Priory stood at my back and Guy waited in front of me, two horses held. ‘Ysabel? Is aught wrong?’
Wrong? God above, where do I begin?
‘Nothing that wasn’t wrong before, only now a lot closer,’ I replied as I took the reins from him and grasped the stirrup.
But he took it away and turned me from the horse’s side.
‘I swear that as long as I am able, I shall keep you safe. Rely on me.’
Our eyes locked and I wanted so much to believe in his omnipotence. Instead I took the stirrup again and as I mounted, the leather of the saddle creaking, I merely said, ‘Thank you. It is appreciated.’
I followed behind, my horse a spritely bay gelding, his ears pricked and his coat sleek and smooth to the touch. As we walked along the road away from the Priory, I heard the bell for Tierce. Hard to believe it was so early in the day and already I felt as if I had been up for hours. I fiddled inside the sleeve of my tunic where I had pushed the hempen string and pulled it out. It was a pretty piece of knotting and weaving. I had a thought that Wilf and Harry would approve as I tied it in a circle and slipped the bracelet over my knuckles to lie on my wrist.
‘What is it?’ Guy asked.
‘A gift from Sister Thea.’
I explained about the devotions and about Thea’s own cord.
‘She grew fond of you in a short time.’
‘Less time to know of my shortcomings. Any longer and I would have received nothing, I can assure you.’
‘Ah,’ he said as he clicked his horse on. ‘You are overly hard.’
You say? Have I changed then? Have I improved?
‘What intelligence did you garner whilst I was in the Priory?’
His back straightened, shoulders lifting with tension and I watched as he sank his weight down through his calves into the stirrups.
‘Gisborne?’ I prompted.
A sigh.
‘Nothing of import. Merely that there has been no sign of De Courcey’s men on the road we travel.’
‘And that is a good thing? Could they not be taking another road entirely and shortcut us on the way?’
‘You forget they don’t know we sailed to Great Yarmouth, Ysabel. If they sailed to Dover, we are like to arrive in Moncrieff well before them, even if they ride at a gallop upon landing. In principle, you should be able to see Cecilia and your father, make up your mind what you will do and be gone before De Courcey enters the demesnes.’
‘And what of Halsham?’
‘God, Ysabel!’ Guy dragged on his reins and spun his horse to face me, frowning with temper. ‘Your questions always raise the issue of trust. You either trust me or you don’t. If you don’t, then say so. I would rather know on what ground we tread before we proceed further.’
His eyes glared and I shivered in the shade of the trees. Intimidation and an incipient threat hung about but I would not be cowed.
‘Trust,’ I said, fiddling with Thea’s prayer cord. ‘I owe you honesty to be sure because we have been as close as a married couple this last few weeks.’
His eyes opened wider and then slitted again.
Ah, yes, that got a reaction.
‘There are times when your inability to be open frightens me,’ I continued. ‘There are times when you slide off on your own that inspire lack of confidence. Your relationship with Halsham sickens me, cousin or no. And yet despite it all, I would have none other but you at my back, Gisborne. All I ask is that you treat me less as a trouble and more as a trusted friend.’
‘I could ask the same of you.’
‘Trust is earned and I would be less than grateful if I didn’t say you had already earned it, but I know you spy…’
His gaze sharpened.
‘You spy for money and I fear for myself at such times because spies have enemies.’
Oh how selfish I sounded but I needed to air my concern.
He looked at me long.
‘You need have no fear for yourself. I do spy for money as it happens, and have done for a number of years. I am skilled at my job, Ysabel, and would never put your life at risk.’
‘Then answer me. Where is Halsham?’
‘I imagine with De Courcey.’
‘And that doesn’t worry you?’
‘No, it doesn’t. There are some things Halsham doesn’t know, and Davey is one. We have an edge and I hope that Fate will let us play it out.’
You hope?
‘Is there a chance it may not?’
‘Nothing in life is ever certain,’ he replied.
I must have looked stricken because he said:
‘Please, Ysabel.’ He rode his horse next to me and laid his hand on mine. ‘Trust me.’ He picked my hand up and kissed the inside of my wrist, right over the top of Thea’s bracelet and my strength, my determination, folded.
Damn you, Gisborne.
I wanted to be free of this feeling. I wanted to do what must be done and move on. I wanted to leave this life and all that had happened behind.
All of it, Ysabel? You lie to yourself.
I found my fingers curling around his and there beat a moment like that in the room at the inn when he had held me naked against his own body.
‘I want to trust you, Guy. Just as I trusted my own mother.’ I laughed a mirthless laugh. ‘Leastways, as a woman I feel I have little option.’
Our hands were joined across the pommel of my saddle and we sat as still as statues and then, damn him again, he leaned over and kissed me long.
Chapter Nine
The journey continued like a roll of thread unwinding and sometimes I despaired of ever seeing the end. There were other times when I never wanted the end to appear as it meant so many things that I couldn’t bear to countenance. The first time a familiar landmark appeared, my stomach jolted. The instinct to turn and flee was a powerful one and had me almost undone. Would I have continued on without Gisborne’s protection? Somehow I doubted it.
I wondered if his so-called dependability would make me feel safer in this hornet’s nest we approached. Such a good question; such an unanswerable question.
At some point the landscape had begun to change into flat, moist fens where our paths meandered between ditches, bogs, rivulets and patches of feathery reeds that towered above us. The grasses rustled and fluttered to some vague music of nature, the sound slithery and serpent-like altogether. But that was just my anxious mind. In truth the grasses were beautiful and the sound soft, insistent and quite pleasant.
The forests I remembered from my childhood, thick and almost impenetrable swathes, had diminished considerably but many small copses of trees draped over the watery landscape, covering fen violets in bands of shadow. The oatmeal-coloured grasses that now shielded us had been playgrounds for children. Not for me the fear of legendary waterwights, that they would leap from the depths and devour any child that set a toe on the banks. The water had been a source of enjoyment and I had grown with the sound of snipe, bittern and lapwing piping and flapping. I was as comfortable in river-craft as I was mounted in a creaking saddle on a good horse.
The modest sight of Walsocam appeared through the waving banners of the tallest grasses. A small place, it was marked by an inn, a severe church in the Norman style and a smithy’s fr
om where a hammer knocked rhythmically against an anvil. Smoke curled into the pale sky from a dozen or more dwellings and a few bleached grey punts attached to the riverbank by worn mooring lines.
‘I know this place.’ I spoke it quietly, in fear of being overheard.
‘Of course,’ Guy responded. ‘It’s Walsocam. We are a day or less from Moncrieff.’
Again my stomach tilted. Perhaps my nerves were becoming overly delicate but I pulled my horse sharply to a halt occasioning a twist of a disapproving mouth from my companion.
‘I do not wish to stay at the inn, Guy. I’m not sure it is safe and would rather sleep rough if I have to.’
Since we had left Saint Eadgyth’s we had conversed little, both locked in our own thoughts. Once we spoke of my father’s self-styled library. It appeared to contain less than a dozen manuscripts – some Norman, an Irish Book of Hours. But the centerpiece and one that might be worth a king’s ransom was a Saracen’s book of poetry. Guy’s eyes lit up. ‘It is beautiful, Ysabel. Written in the Arab tongue by a skilled scribe. The poems are illustrated delicately and depict their way of life and it is bound in an ancient style. But its value is not in its content, but rather its covers. They are made of wood, the back rubbed smooth as silk and the front heavily inlaid. Not with other woods, but with gems. With large rubies, pearls and emeralds in a pleasing design laced with gold filigree.’
‘How did my father come across such a book? And how could he afford to pay a king’s ransom?’
Even I could detect the bitterness in my voice.
