The Enchanter's Forest

by Alys Clare

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Was there – oh, this is difficult, Josse, but was he justified in believing Joanna was behind the death of her husband?’

  ‘No,’ Josse said firmly. He knew Gervase wanted him to elaborate but he wasn’t going to.

  Gervase let out an exasperated sigh. ‘You’re as bad as Sabin,’ he grumbled. ‘She admitted that Joanna revealed quite a lot about her past that night in then inn at Dinan, but she said it was in confidence and totally refused to tell me anything.’

  Josse sensed that it was not mere curiosity that made Gervase so keen to know. He was, after all, a man of the law. Taking pity on him, he said, ‘Gervase, Joanna was wed against her will to a cruel old man who made her life a misery. She wanted him dead – of course she did! – and she consoled herself by envisaging ways in which he might die. That does not amount to murder any more than does wishing someone dead.’

  ‘The wish might be the more potent weapon, when we speak of a woman such as Joanna,’ Gervase muttered.

  ‘Aye, but back then she hadn’t come into her full power. And since when was anyone accused of murder simply for wishing to be rid of someone they loathed? Great heavens, most of us would be on trial sooner or later if that were the case.’

  There was a silence. Then Gervase said, ‘You’re right, of course, Josse. So, go on with your tale. What happened when we left Dinan?’

  ‘Joanna’s brother-in-law – a man named Césaire de Lehon – set someone to follow us and the man tried to kill us on our way back from the Brocéliande.’

  ‘Good God! You weren’t hurt?’

  ‘No.’ Josse glanced down quickly to ensure his sleeve covered the bandage; there was no need to mention his wound to Gervase and for some reason he felt compelled to minimise the drama. ‘Joanna somehow sensed his approach and we were able to fight him off.’

  ‘Did you kill him?’

  ‘I? No. But I am almost sure that he is dead.’

  ‘Did Joanna kill him, then?’ Gervase’s voice had dropped to a whisper.

  ‘No, no.’ Josse waved away the suggestion. ‘We – er, we had help. From one of the forest people over there. I believe it – I believe he had been following us, protecting us. He came to our aid when we were in danger.’

  Sensing that Josse did not want to say more, Gervase tactfully ceased his questioning on the matter. Instead he said, ‘So you set sail from another port?’

  ‘Aye, St Cast. We were lucky and picked up a small, light craft that utilised every breath of a strong south-westerly and got us home as fast as flying.’

  ‘And after that—’ Again, Gervase stopped. Josse, who did not want to think about after that any more than he did about the attack in the forest, was grateful.

  Josse broke the small silence. ‘What will you do about the death of Florian?’ he asked without much interest. ‘Will you go along with what everybody else seems to think and decide that, with the killer very likely miles away by now, there’s little point in doing anything?’

  ‘Josse, I hope you know me better than that.’ There was a mild reproof in Gervase’s voice. ‘Tomorrow I will visit the widow – what is her name?’

  ‘Primevère. She’s extremely lovely, pretty tough and she’s pregnant.’

  ‘Ah. And just bereaved, poor soul. I will tread carefully with my enquiries and try not to upset her.’

  ‘Her grief comes and goes,’ Josse said bluntly. ‘It may sound cruel, but I’ll wager she may well lament the loss of the money that her husband was bringing in rather more than that of the man himself.’

  ‘It does sound cruel,’ Gervase agreed. ‘You should not—’ But he bit back whatever reprimand he was about to issue, instead clapping a hand on Josse’s shoulder. ‘Come and eat, my friend,’ he said. ‘Sabin has done wonders for the fare on offer in my house and we have some delicious French wine. Then, if you wish, we will make up a bed for you and you shall stay the night.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Josse said. ‘The food and the drink I accept with pleasure but if you will excuse me, I shall ride back to the Abbey later. I have,’ he finished with a deep sigh, ‘much on my mind and a ride in the cool night air will do me good.’

  The meal lived up entirely to expectations and, for the time that Josse sat at Gervase’s table, watching the sheriff’s benevolent smile as he listened to Sabin chattering away happily about their forthcoming wedding, some of the cheerfulness rubbed off on him and he felt his spirits lift. In order to keep Sabin talking – she had an entertaining way with her – Josse asked about the visit to her former mistress in Nantes.

  ‘The Duchess looked well,’ Sabin replied, ‘and there was no sign that the malady is accelerating in its progress through her poor body. When I explained my plans, she did not protest overmuch that she must lose me. Us, I should say,’ she corrected herself, glancing at Benoît. ‘Then I asked if I might present Gervase to her and he quite won her over with his charms!’ She laughed delightedly.

  ‘You exaggerate, sweetheart,’ Gervase protested.

  ‘Oh, no I don’t,’ Sabin flashed back. ‘Anyway, she said she was not a woman to stand in the way of love and she gave us her blessing.’

  ‘She has found another to help her in her sickness?’ Josse asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Sabin answered. ‘I was able to reassure myself that Grandfather and I leave her in good hands.’

  ‘And now I have my beloved books and equipment with me once more!’ Benoît put in with a cackle. Turning his all but blind eyes towards Josse, he added, ‘The books, I admit, are nowadays of more use to Sabin than to me and they will be hers entirely one day. But I still have skill in my hands and my sense of smell is as sharp as ever; I can be of use here, even in my infirmity.’

  ‘You can, Grandfather,’ Sabin assured him affectionately. ‘And I still have much to learn from you.’

  They will be happy, Gervase and his bride, Josse thought. Even the presence of a blind and often crotchety old man under Gervase’s roof did not appear to be a drawback and, indeed, Gervase seemed genuinely fond of the old boy. But, pleased for his friend and his bride though he was, the contemplation of others’ marital bliss was a difficult one for him to bear just then.

  He took his leave when the last jug of wine was empty. Benoît bade him farewell from where he sat; Gervase and Sabin went out into the courtyard to see him on his way.

  ‘I will call at Hawkenlye after going to see Primevère tomorrow,’ Gervase said.

  ‘We will expect you,’ Josse replied.

  He swung up into the saddle and Horace took one or two steps towards the gateway. ‘Ride safely,’ Sabin said.

  Expressing his thanks with a bow, Josse was about to depart. But then, perhaps prompted by all the empty hours of tomorrow with nothing much to fill them and so distract his thoughts, he looked down at Gervase and said gruffly, ‘I don’t mind coming with you to see Primevère if you like.’ Struck with the idea that the offer needed explanation, he said, ‘The Abbess Helewise and I have discussed Florian’s murder at some length and it might help were I to pass on our thoughts to you as we ride.’

  Gervase, good friend that he was, seemed to pick up more than Josse’s words said. ‘Nothing I’d like better, Josse.’ He gave an encouraging smile. ‘I’ll ride along by the Abbey and collect you.’

  Josse nodded briefly, then wished them both goodnight and, the familiar ache for Joanna already returning, rode off into the darkness.

  Chapter 19

  Helewise knew that she could no longer put off sharing her suspicions with Josse. Early the next day she sent one of the nuns to seek him out down in the Vale and, very shortly after the summons, he tapped at her door and entered her room.

  His face was grey beneath the suntan and his eyes looked sunken and dull, the lids slightly puffy. He said, his tone unenthusiastic, ‘My lady Abbess? You sent for me?’

  She longed to speak of the subject that just had to be uppermost in both their minds but she held back. We are old friends and have deep af
fection for each other, she told herself. If he wants to ease his pain by sharing it with me, he will. All the time he chooses to keep it to himself, I cannot say a word.

  Although it grieved her, she made herself smile and said, ‘Yes, Sir Josse. I am uneasy in my mind about several things concerning our visit yesterday to Primevère and I hoped you might be willing to discuss them with me.’

  ‘I am at your disposal,’ he said expressionlessly. Then, a very small amount of enthusiasm entering his voice, ‘That is, until Gervase arrives, for I have offered to go with him to Hadfeld today.’

  ‘I see.’ That’s good, she thought; he will at least have something positive to occupy him. ‘Then before he collects you, let us walk outside in the sunshine while we talk,’ she suggested, getting to her feet; the prospect of spending any time with this new, sad Josse within the confines of a small room was nothing short of awful.

  She led the way across the cloister, around the end of the infirmary and towards the rear gate. Passing it on their left, they walked on, turned right when they met the far wall of the Abbey and, a little way along it, settled on a stone bench overlooking Sister Tiphaine’s herb garden. There, after a few moments’ contemplation of the sweet plant smells encouraged by the sunshine, she spoke.

  ‘Primevère did not wish it to be known that she is pregnant,’ she said. ‘She excused the pallor and the nausea by saying that the heat did not agree with her.’

  ‘Aye, I noticed that, too,’ he said, a faint stirring of interest in his voice. ‘For all that she said she was affected by standing outside in the sunshine watching the workmen, her vantage point on the mounting block is in fact in the shade. And people as dark as she, I have observed, tolerate the heat better than their fair-haired and light-skinned counterparts.’

  ‘True. And did you notice her reaction when I said I had brought two nursing nuns to see if they could help cure whatever was wrong with her? She knew full well that an experienced healer such as Sister Euphemia would be aware of her condition straight away, and indeed Euphemia spotted it without so much as the briefest examination.’

  ‘Aye. I also noted the care with which she descended the mounting block; she does not want to risk losing this baby, my lady.’

  Wondering if he was edging towards the same conclusion that she had reached, she nodded. She was about to speak when he said, ‘The young groom was uneasy. Something is going on there that goes amiss with the servants. It is not, I would say, a happy place.’

  ‘Yes, and Primevère’s mother looked alarmed to see us at first,’ she agreed. ‘I wonder why? Was she aware that Florian’s scheme was based on a falsehood and did she therefore believe that we had come to make accusations?’

  ‘I think, my lady,’ he replied, ‘that her unease had more to do with the presence of Ranulf of Crowbergh in her daughter’s hall.’

  ‘But why?’ she demanded. ‘He and his family live close by and what is more natural than for a neighbour to help out at such a time?’

  He frowned slightly but she noticed that he did not take up the point. Instead he said, ‘I observed that Ranulf seems to make himself at home in Florian’s house and he addresses its mistress by her Christian name.’

  ‘So did I, but Primevère has said that the Crowbergh family were good friends to her and Florian.’

  ‘Aye, that is so. But, my lady, it surprised me that he should be willing to spare the time away from managing his own household in order to lounge in his dead neighbour’s hall.’

  ‘Probably he has a very efficient wife,’ she said, unable to keep a certain tartness out of her voice.

  He turned to look at her. ‘My lady,’ he said quietly, ‘he has no wife. She died last autumn.’

  ‘She – oh!’ The implications swiftly sinking in, she said, ‘But he implied that he was a family man, I’m quite sure he did, and so did Primevère!’

  ‘He is a childless widower,’ Josse said neutrally.

  ‘But that was not how it sounded – not only was there Primevère’s initial implication that he is older than he really is, but in addition I was left in no doubt that when he left us he was on his way home to his wife!’ Ranulf of Crowbergh was clever, she realised; without actually speaking an untruth, he had set in her mind the fact that he was married.

  Not that marriage ever stopped anyone . . .

  She jerked her attention back to Josse. ‘He has money,’ he was saying, ‘both wealth of his own and that which he inherited from his wife.’

  So he, she thought, who so kindly offered to extend his neighbourly duties to taking over the running of Merlin’s Tomb, was not concerned with the income when he did so. He had no more need of the money than Primevère, with her rich heiress mother.

  ‘Yet Ranulf is well known at Merlin’s Tomb,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘The guard recognised him instantly and was at pains to smarten up his bedraggled appearance and hide the ale mug from which he had no doubt just been drinking.’

  ‘Aye. And Ranulf, I noticed, did not welcome the news that Gervase de Gifford was on his way home. I dined with him and Sabin last night and it was he who told me of the death of Ranulf’s wife. Nor did Ranulf like my suggestion that Gervase is unlikely to drop the matter of who killed Florian without making some enquiries of his own.’

  There was silence between them as their various observations and opinions sank in. Helewise thought about all that they had said. There was one thing that they had left out; Josse because he was not aware of it, she because . . . She was not quite sure, except that, if you looked at it one way, it was the piece that made the puzzle fit together.

  Always providing, of course, that looking at it that way was the right way.

  I will ask Josse what he thinks, she decided.

  ‘There is something else,’ she said, lowering her voice in the unlikely event that anyone might be listening.

  He gave a quick grin. ‘I had a feeling there was.’

  ‘When I brought Primevère’s mother here to view poor Florian’s body,’ she began, hardly registering his remark, ‘I offered her some wine to restore her after the shock and to refresh her for the ride home. Actually she drank rather a lot and as a consequence spoke more freely on the way back than she probably intended to. She told me that Primevère no longer had any love for her husband.’ She turned to face him. ‘She said she was all but certain that he no longer shared her bed.’

  Josse gave a slow nod. Then: ‘But would she necessarily know? It’s but the work of a moment to plant a child on a woman and a man does not ask his mother-in-law’s permission before he beds his wife.’

  ‘Yes, Sir Josse, I appreciate that, but Primevère and her mother do seem particularly close and Melusine has sharp eyes. I find that I can well believe she was right.’

  ‘Well, I shall just have to bow to your feminine intuition on such matters, my lady.’ He smiled again, slightly more genuinely this time, she thought. ‘So, if it’s not Florian’s child she carries, do we need to look very far for the father?’

  ‘It is a terrible accusation to make if she is – if they are innocent,’ Helewise murmured. ‘But then poor Ranulf is a widower, you tell me, and Primevère a very beautiful young woman—’ With an effort she made herself stop.

  But, glancing up at Josse and meeting his eyes, she thought that she had already said quite enough.

  By mid-morning, Gervase and Josse were well on the way to Hadfeld. On the early part of the ride they had been discussing Ranulf of Crowbergh; Gervase had asked some relevant questions of a few well-informed men and he was able to report on his findings. He had discovered that Ranulf was in truth very wealthy, with extensive estates some miles to the west of Hadfeld and, or so it was said, an even larger property in France – it was near Le Mans, or so one man had insisted – where he bred war horses and finer-boned animals for regular riding.

  ‘I am thinking,’ Gervase observed, ‘that perhaps, in addition to speaking to the lady Primevère, we ought also to pay a call on Ranulf of Crowbe
rgh.’

  ‘And I am thinking you’re right,’ Josse agreed with a grin.

  All was quiet at the house of Florian of Southfrith. For once there were no workmen on the building site; although the new construction was clearly not complete – far from it – there were not even any workmen’s tools or piles of stone lying around. The courtyard stood empty under the sun, the air hot and still and no movement except for the flutter of a pair of doves in the shade beneath the mounting block.

  Josse and Gervase tethered their horses and Josse murmured to the sheriff that, only the day before, the men had been busy at work on the new building.

  Gervase absorbed this with a nod. Then he led the way up the steps and in through the partly open door, calling out to announce himself and Josse.

  At first there was no reply. Then there came the sound of hurried footsteps from the passage leading off the hall and Melusine appeared. Josse greeted her and presented Gervase to her.

  Studying her as she spoke the required polite phrases to Gervase, Josse noticed that, for the first time in his admittedly limited experience of her, she looked flustered. Her face was flushed and her hair was less than perfectly restrained by the black silk cap.

  Gervase was asking to speak to Primevère, explaining that, just returned from a journey, it was now his duty to find out all that he could about the death of Florian.

  ‘Primevère can tell you nothing,’ Melusine stated flatly. ‘She knows no more than I do, which is that Florian went off to Merlin’s Tomb, he stayed away longer than usual and then we were told that his body had been found in the forest.’

  ‘I see. Nevertheless I should still like to speak to the lady myself. Sometimes a seemingly irrelevant question can bring to someone’s mind some fact that they had quite forgotten about until prompted, and I have known such small facts become the key that unlocks the mystery.’

  ‘My daughter is sick in bed and can see nobody,’ Melusine said. She put up a hand to tuck a thin strand of hair under her cap and Josse was surprised to note that the hand trembled. ‘She is in no state to answer questions, relevant or not.’