The Chatter of the Maidens

by Alys Clare

  ‘Hmmm. I think,’ Abbess Madelina said, ‘that your next step must be to seek out the former family home. Assuming that you have been told where it was. I am afraid we were not.’

  ‘I have been informed,’ Helewise reassured her. ‘Berthe told me.’

  ‘Good. Much as I should like you to stay here with us and rest for a few days after your long journey, I do feel that we have told you all that we are able to. And every day you remain here is another day for the trail, if indeed there is one, to go cold.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Helewise agreed. ‘And another day that Meriel is missing and possibly in danger.’

  ‘Missing?’

  Helewise realised that she had not yet told Abbess Madelina about that. Nor, indeed, about the slain pilgrim found on the path in the Vale. Trying to minimise her distress – and with the distinct feeling that she was not succeeding very well – she explained.

  Shaking her head in dismay, Abbess Madelina said as Helewise finished speaking, ‘I shall pray for you, Abbess. I shall keep you with me in my thoughts, and, if you will permit, I shall ask Sister Celestine to ask the Lord to aid you.’

  Helewise and the two lay brothers set out from Sedgebeck after joining the sisters for their noon meal. Helewise was quite sure that the kindly nuns had shared more of their precious stores with their guests than was prudent, for the meal was very good, and the portions were generous.

  She had told the brothers where they were bound for next. ‘We only have the single name, Medely, to guide us,’ she had said as they set out, ‘and, for all I know, it may be but a tiny hamlet. None of the Sedgebeck sisters knew of it when we asked them over dinner.’

  Brother Saul suggested enquiring at Ely. But Augustine said, ‘I once went to a place called Medely Birdbeck. There was a fair there, and we put on a show for them.’

  Wondering whether Abbess Madelina’s prayers were already having an effect, Helewise said, ‘Let’s begin there, then.’

  It was not a long ride to Medely Birdbeck. But, far from being the substantial and thriving place that Helewise had been expecting – fairs, after all, were not held in the middle of nowhere – it proved to be all but deserted.

  There were more than twenty dwellings, set around a pond fringed with willows, and a crossroads met in the middle of the village. But most of the dwellings were quite obviously uninhabited. Smoke was coming out of only two or three chimneys.

  ‘What has happened here?’ Helewise whispered. The sense of dread before the unknown – never far away, all the time that she had been in the Fens – came rushing back.

  ‘They suffer greatly from the ague hereabouts,’ Augustine said, his face falling into lines of sorrow as he stared out towards the empty stretch of ground leading down to the pond. ‘They do say it’s spread by the biting flies, which bring the sweating, feverish sickness. It’s accompanied by a trembling so violent that it fair shakes a man to pieces. The strong can survive, but the young and the elderly . . .’ He did not finish his sentence.

  ‘And they have all died here?’ Helewise said.

  Augustine shrugged. ‘I cannot say for sure, Abbess, but it seems likely. I’ve seen places like this before. We never used to stay around to ask, though. Better not to linger, where the sickness has already claimed so many.’

  Helewise had a sudden sharp awareness of what she was asking of these two loyal men. ‘You are quite right, Augustine,’ she said. ‘You and Brother Saul must retreat to – well, to whatever you feel is a safe distance while I go on and—’

  Both the brothers spoke together. Brother Saul said, ‘You must not go on alone, Abbess, there may be desperate ruffians lurking,’ and Brother Augustine said, ‘The biting flies are worst in the warm dampness of summer, there is nothing to fear from them now.’

  Despite herself, Helewise laughed. ‘How convincing you both are,’ she murmured. ‘Very well. Let’s see if one of those smoking chimneys belongs to the house of somebody who can help us.’

  The first occupied house was temporarily empty, although there was a pot of something simmering over the fire, and a small child lay asleep under a patched blanket.

  The door of the next house opened a crack as they approached, and an old man stuck his head out. ‘What do you want?’ he asked.

  ‘We seek news of a family that once lived hereabouts,’ Helewise said.

  ‘Eh?’ He stuck his head out further. ‘A nun! You’re a nun!’ The sight of her seemed to reassure him, and he opened the door a little wider. ‘What family? You’ll be lucky if they’re still alive, we had the sickness bad, lost many of our number. Some that didn’t fall ill have fled. Couldn’t say where.’

  ‘I believe that the husband and possibly the wife of this family have died of the sickness,’ Helewise replied. ‘They were smallholders who rented their farm, and they had three daughters, one of whom became a nun, and—’

  But the old man was already nodding enthusiastically. ‘That’ll be Alba,’ he said. ‘Aye, we all gave a cheer when that one ceased her meddling and took herself off to take the veil, even though most folks reckoned it were no more than fear of the ague as drove her to it.’

  ‘We know about Alba,’ Helewise said. ‘But can you help us over the rest of the family?’ She was aware that she was holding her breath; the prospect of possibly getting some answers at last was making her tremble with anticipation.

  ‘Well,’ the old man said, drawing out the word and eyeing his eager audience, ‘you’ve got it right about the lassies’ father dying. Wilfrid took sick and, for once, his enemy wasn’t someone he could bully into submission or cheat out of what was rightly his.’

  ‘I see,’ Helewise muttered.

  ‘Do you?’ The old man looked at her, a twinkle in his eye. ‘Yes, Sister, I see that you do. Anyway, like I says, Wilfrid got the ague, and shook himself apart within the sen’night. Not that many mourned him.’

  ‘What of the girls’ mother?’ Helewise prompted. ‘We heard she died then, too, but—’

  ‘No, no, no, no,’ the old man interrupted. ‘Whoever told you that got it quite wrong. Adela – now, she was a saint and no mistake, loving, gentle woman she was, God rest her. But the Almighty took her to her rest many a year ago. Ten years, was it?’ He frowned at them in perplexity, as if they could answer his question.

  ‘What happened to the younger sisters when their father died?’ Helewise asked.

  The old man put a gnarled finger alongside his nose. ‘That’d be telling,’ he said. ‘We knows what we knows, but as to if we ought to tell. . . .’

  Brother Saul spoke. ‘This lady is the Abbess of Hawkenlye,’ he said stiffly. ‘She has come all the way from Kent for the sake of Alba and her sisters, who have sought shelter there in the Abbey. If you have any information that can help her, then, in God’s holy name, I ask you to give it!’

  The old man shrank before him. ‘All right, all right!’ he cried. ‘No need to take on! Meriel, she was planning to leave even before Alba came hurrying back from her convent all in a pother. Planning to take her little sister, too, I shouldn’t wonder, they were always close, them young ’uns. But, like I says, up pops Alba, upsets whatever plans Meriel had made’ – a distinctly shifty expression crossed his face just then, Helewise noticed, so that she wondered what it was he wasn’t telling them – ‘and whisks both the girls up and away, without so much as a farewell or a backward glance.’

  ‘And you don’t know where they went?’ Helewise said.

  ‘I do now!’ He gave a catarrhal laugh. ‘They went to Hawkenlye!’ Convulsed with laughter at his own wit, he wiped tears from his eyes.

  ‘You have been most helpful,’ Helewise said when he had stopped laughing. Best to flatter him, she thought, it might predispose him in our favour. ‘I wonder, though, if you could further aid us by indicating where the family used to live?’

  ‘That I could.’ He stepped outside and, raising his arm, waved it towards one of the ways leading out of the village. ‘Follow the road for a while
, then it’ll become a track. It’s muddy normally, but it’s been dry recently – well, that’s to say, up till the night afore last – so you’ll probably do all right. Go on down the track, across the stream, up the bank the other side, and the farm’s at the top.’

  Helewise thanked him, and she and the brothers set off in the direction he had indicated. He called out after them, ‘You won’t find anybody there, you know!’

  Brother Saul waved a hand in acknowledgement. Whatever else the old man said – they could still hear him shouting – was obscured by distance.

  The track was winding, and led through woodland. The trees were rapidly coming into leaf, and there were bluebells on the drier parts of the wood’s floor. Birdsong filled the air.

  It should have been a pleasant ride, but Helewise could not rid herself of her apprehension. It was gloomy under the trees, for one thing.

  And for another, no matter how hard she tried, she could not rid herself of the irrational, unlikely and fear-induced suspicion that they were being followed. Trying not to let the others see, once or twice she spun round quickly, in a vain attempt to spot whoever – or whatever – it might be before it, or they, could slip into the shadows. But she didn’t see anything.

  Which, she told herself with rigid firmness, was because there was nothing whatsoever to see.

  They found the farm – the old man’s directions had been very accurate – and, just as he had said, it was deserted. Saul dismounted and went to peer inside one of the two tiny windows set either side of the door of the main building, returning to report that what he could see of the interior had been stripped bare.

  ‘A dead place,’ Helewise murmured.

  Augustine looked at her enquiringly. ‘Do you feel it, too, Abbess?’

  ‘Feel what?’ she asked anxiously.

  ‘Death,’ he replied simply. ‘Wasn’t that what you said? A dead place?’

  ‘Yes, but I—’ How could she explain it? ‘Never mind.’

  They rode back in silence, in single file along the track through the woods.

  Then, suddenly, Augustine pulled Horace to a sharp stop, jerking the horse’s head. Dread overwhelming her, Helewise edged the mare close to him, glad to have Saul’s guardian presence behind her. ‘What is it?’ she asked, battling to keep her dread out of her voice. ‘Augustine, what have you seen?’

  He pointed.

  And, deep in the woods, down in a dell surrounded by trees and thick underbrush, was a burnt-out cottage.

  ‘I’m going to look,’ Augustine announced, sliding off Horace’s back and looping the reins round a branch.

  ‘No, Augustine, it might be dangerous!’ The protest was out before she could stop it.

  But Augustine took no notice. Neither did Saul, who, even as she spoke, was jumping off the cob and following Augustine into the woods.

  It was surely better to be with them than left by herself on the track, so Helewise dismounted too and, making her way more carefully because of her long skirts, went into the still, dim interior of the woodland.

  The dwelling could only have been very small, hardly worthy of the name cottage. The remains of four smoke-blackened walls stood up from a tangle of brush, and the new growth of rose-bay willow-herb – the country folk’s ‘fireweed’ – was busy trying to cover the great black scar in the land. Anything that might once have been within the little house had been crushed to the ground by the beams from the roof, which had obliterated all beneath them as they fell.

  Helewise shuddered. ‘Come away,’ she said, wishing her voice sounded more authoritative. ‘This is an awful place, we—’

  But, with an exclamation, Saul hurried forward into the dwelling. Her cry of ‘Be careful!’ was arrested in her throat as Saul bent down and, swinging up his arm, held aloft a human skull.

  Augustine put his hand on her arm, and she was vastly comforted to feel his warm, firm touch. ‘Abbess, stay here,’ he said gently. ‘I will help Saul.’

  She should have gone with him. She was both men’s superior, after all. But her legs had started to shake; she was afraid that, if she moved, she would fall.

  Saul had carefully replaced the skull on the ash-soft floor of the dwelling. Now he and Augustine were crouching down, rummaging among the charred remains of beams and wooden wall supports. Saul murmured something – his tone sounded questioning – and Augustine replied. They were both picking up pieces of what looked like wood, holding them up to each other and then putting them back.

  Suddenly Augustine let out a sharp breath, nudged Saul and pointed to what looked like a spike, sticking up out of the ground. His fingers were busy trying to pull something offit. . . .

  Then Saul stood up, ashen-faced, and swiftly crossed himself. Helewise heard him say, ‘Dear God above, the poor wretch!’ Then, bowing his head, he came out of the dwelling and returned to her side. Augustine stood quite still in the centre of the cottage, gazing down at whatever it was he held between his fingers as if he could hardly believe his eyes.

  Helewise said, ‘It was a human skull, wasn’t it, Saul?’

  He sighed. ‘Aye, Abbess. I’m afraid it was.’

  ‘And the rest of the body . . . ?’

  ‘Aye, he’s there, what’s left of him. Only his bones, mind, and some charred remnants of his clothing and that. Leg bones, ribs, arms.’ An expression of deep disgust crossed his face.

  ‘It is a terrible thing to have seen, Saul,’ she said gently.

  He glanced at her. ‘Oh, it’s not that, Abbess, bless you. I’ve seen my share of dead bodies; they don’t normally disturb me, beyond feelings of sorrow for the death. No, it’s – he was—’ But, shaking his head, he did not seem to be able to go on.

  Augustine had joined them; silent and soft-footed, he had made no sound. He stared at Helewise, and his face, too, was pale.

  ‘That was no accidental death,’ he said. ‘Not a case of a man falling asleep while his supper cooks and, in his slumber, not noticing the fire spreading from the hearth and setting the house on fire. No. That’s not what it was.’

  ‘What, then?’ She could hardly speak.

  Augustine held up what he had been holding so carefully in his hand. It looked like . . . it looked like the frayed remains of a piece of rope.

  ‘He was tied to a stake in the ground,’ Augustine said quietly and, instantly, the sense of dread that Helewise had been feeling grew till it all but floored her. Evil was there, right there, in that place where a poor man had been tied up inside a cottage and left to burn to death.

  ‘Could – could it not have been somehow accidental?’ she whispered. ‘Might it not have been an animal that was tethered to the spike, not the dead man?’

  Augustine shook his head. Then he held up his other hand, and the object that had been concealed behind his back came into Helewise’s view.

  It was a skeletal human hand, the fingers pulled up into a claw. Around the wrist was tied another length of rope.

  Chapter Twelve

  They would have left the wood sooner, had Brother Saul not insisted that they bury the remains.

  Helewise had resisted the temptation to suggest it; the expedition was under her command, and she was responsible for the brothers who were with her. She could sense peril all around them – and the sense that they were being followed, their every movement being observed, grew stronger by the minute – and, despite the clear Christian duty to inter what was left of the dead body, she felt it was an occasion when the living must take precedence over the dead.

  But Saul insisted.

  Augustine went to help him. They found lengths of wood to use as makeshift spades and, working hard, managed to dig a shallow pit within quite a short space of time; the recent heavy rain now worked in their favour, having softened the ground. Then Helewise helped them to pick up all the pieces of bone they could find and place them in the grave.

  Augustine held up the pelvis. ‘This was a man and no mistake,’ he said quietly.

  ‘How
can you tell?’ Helewise asked.

  The boy gave a faint grin. ‘My family have been gravediggers, in their time. I was taught about bodies when I was quite young, and told how the wider opening’s for a woman’s skeleton, the narrower, more pointed arch for a man’s.’

  Helewise felt quite faint. ‘Thank you, Augustine. Shall we put those bones in with the rest?’

  When they were as satisfied as they could be that nothing of the man had been left within the ruined cottage for animals to destroy, the two lay brothers filled in the grave. Helewise recited the prayers for the dead, and they all stood in silence for some time with bowed heads. Saul found two pieces of roughly straight wood, and he fashioned them into a cross, tying them together with a piece of twine taken from the cord around his waist. He stuck it into the ground above the dead man’s head.

  Then they returned to the horses.

  It could reasonably be expected to be dark, in there under the trees. But, when they emerged into open countryside, to Helewise’s dismay she noticed that the sun had almost set.

  Dear God, where were they to sleep that night?

  Saul kicked the old cob into a canter and overtook both Helewise and Augustine, disappearing up the track into the gloom. They caught sight of him again as they entered Medely; he had dismounted and, leading his horse, was tapping at the doors of each of the inhabited dwellings.

  Nobody was answering his knock.

  Even the house from which the old man had peered out was shut up and dark. If he were within, he was lying low.

  Saul turned to her, a look of desperation in his face. ‘I am sorry, Abbess, but I can’t make anybody hear.’

  ‘Never mind, Saul.’ She was, she realised, feeling better now that they were out of the wood. ‘We shall go into one of the empty houses. Should anyone come to ask what we’re doing, we shall say, with total honesty, that we tried to ask for accommodation but were ignored. We shall not do any harm, and we shall be gone tomorrow.’