by Alys Clare
Meggie, too, was preparing to leave. She had arrived back at the House in the Woods to be greeted by her father, bustling about in the stables and the outhouses and apparently assembling, overhauling and cleaning his fighting gear. Even as she was wondering why nobody seemed to be helping him, he explained where he was going and she understood. Belatedly he had remembered to give her the message from Abbess Caliste, and now she was answering it and on the point of setting out for Hawkenlye Abbey.
Now, all appeared to be ready. Josse stood at Alfred’s head, stroking the big horse’s nose, calming him. Yves was stuffing a warm cloak into one of his bulging saddle bags, muttering under his breath as he went through everything he had packed. Geoffroi was already mounted on his dark brown mare; despite the sense of hectic excitement in the yard, both Geoffroi and his horse exuded an air of calm. Meggie looked up at her brother, and, sensing her eyes on him, he turned and gave her a sweet smile.
I am forgiven, then, she thought, very relieved.
There had been a nasty little scene when Josse had said to Geoffroi that he was to accompany his father and his Uncle Yves on their mission to join the King. Geoffroi had at first looked nothing but delighted but then, very swiftly, the expression of joy had been replaced by one of regret.
‘I can’t come with you, Father,’ Geoffroi said. ‘I’m needed here, particularly at the forge, where Jehan has far more work than he can manage alone, even with Meggie’s help. Much as I’d wish to go, I must remain, and—’
‘You can’t be of any help whatsoever to Jehan because he’s not at the forge,’ Meggie interrupted, her anxiety, pain and sheer anger at Jehan’s continued and unexplained absence boiling over and homing in on quite the wrong target. ‘So you may as well go somewhere where you can be useful.’
There had been a stunned, shocked silence. Even as Josse opened his mouth to administer the well-deserved reprimand, Meggie, hearing the echo of her furious words, ran across to her brother, took his big, muscular body in her arms and whispered, ‘I’m sorry, Geoffroi, I’m so sorry. You didn’t deserve that, and I spoke without thinking.’
He had gently disengaged himself and walked away.
Now, his smile had been doubly welcome: it didn’t do for loving siblings to say farewell before a potentially risky journey with unresolved distress between them.
The whole household had come out to bid the master farewell, God’s speed and safe return; moved, Meggie had to look away.
Like everyone else, Meggie was uneasy about Josse setting out to join the King. She didn’t know quite why; it wasn’t exactly that she felt he was past his prime, and no longer up to the rigours of the road and, in all probability, some fighting along the way. Her father had been a fighter for most of his life, and she well knew that he could look after himself. No: what concerned her was something else; something to do with deep sorrow … Although she tried to banish the images, she kept seeing Josse bent in grief, tears on his face.
Stop it, she commanded herself.
It would be a relief to get to the abbey, where it sounded as if the abbess and Sister Liese had a challenging and absorbing task for her. She tried to turn her thoughts ahead to her patient; a delirious woman, raving about something very dangerous. It was intriguing, to say the least.
But still she found her attention returning to her father and his quest. A sudden thought struck her. Was there time? She glanced around. Tilly had just raced back inside the house, apparently having forgotten to give Josse and his companions the package of food and drink she’d spent the morning preparing. Good: they wouldn’t be leaving just yet.
Meggie slipped away from the press of people and ran inside. She hurried along the passage to the place she’d made her own within her father’s household, reaching behind the rolled-up mattress for the pack she kept hidden there. Unfastening the drawstrings, she reached inside. The object – so familiar in her hand – was small, but quite heavy. For a moment she held it to her heart. It was her heirloom from her father, and doubly precious because of that. Then she tucked it away inside her gown and went back outside.
Very shortly afterwards, they set out. Josse and Yves rode ahead, Geoffroi followed, with Meggie walking beside him.
Their route took them initially through the forest, so nobody would ride very fast; Meggie, on foot, could easily keep up. They would continue together until the narrow path through the trees emerged on to the main track that circled the forest. Shortly after that, they would come to the place where the roads parted: one to go on to Hawkenlye Abbey, one to curve northwards and descend to Tonbridge, down in the river valley, and then on, over the North Downs and to London and beyond.
On, in fact, to where the King was.
They went in silence for the main part, each deep in their own thoughts. Once or twice Meggie heard Josse exchange some remark with Yves, and a couple of times both brothers laughed.
Soon – too soon – they came to the parting of the ways. Looking up at her brother, Meggie thought, I’m so glad he’s going. He’s like a young Josse, but he has the full strength and vigour of his youth. She blinked away tears. He’ll look after Father. No need to worry.
Josse, Yves and Geoffroi dismounted, and each in turn took Meggie in their arms to kiss her. Josse was the last. He didn’t speak, simply stared into her eyes. He hugged her very tightly for a moment, then let her go.
She watched as the three of them rode off down the hill. When they were almost out of sight, she gave a last wave – which she doubted they’d have seen – and strode on towards the abbey.
She had the strongest sense that – quite soon – she would be going after them. She didn’t know how, or why, but that didn’t seem to matter. The foreknowledge was just there, firm in her mind, and she knew there was no point in trying to pretend otherwise.
There were rational, sensible reasons why she might feel compelled to go after them. She feared for Jehan, and perhaps her presence in the King’s vicinity might somehow prevent him from the consequences of some hot-headed and foolhardy attempt on John’s life. Also, if she were nearby, she would be able to help Josse – and, indeed, Yves and Geoffroi too, if they needed it.
Yes. Those were the reasons Meggie would have given had anybody asked her.
But neither was really why she knew she’d soon be heading north. Whatever was behind that strange compulsion, there was danger involved; she was quite certain of that.
Why else would she have been so irresistibly prompted to hurry back inside the House in the Woods to fetch the Eye of Jerusalem?
THREE
Jehan Leferronier, mounted on a fine, borrowed bay gelding which was a lot harder to handle than his sturdy ginger horse, Auban, concentrated on remembering all that he’d been told about riding such an independent-minded and spirited animal, hoping fervently that it might take his mind off his worries.
So far, the ruse wasn’t proving to be very successful.
In the company of a band of eight including himself, he was riding north. In total, their number was a great deal more than eight, but they had been divided up into small groups in the hope of thus attracting less attention. The measure had been crucial up to now, when they’d been riding through quiet, little-used lanes and tracks in the vicinity of, first, the Great Forest and then the Medway Valley. Although these places were lightly populated, there were always one or two people to watch and take note, and the sheer rarity of strangers passing through some of the most remote areas meant that it was important not to raise too much curiosity. Soon, however, the group would emerge from cover and set off up the main road to London and the Thames crossing, where, with any luck, they would merge with all the other traffic – which would no doubt increase as they neared the capital – and go unnoticed in the crowd.
The morning was fine and sunny, the company was good. Jehan had met up with one old friend, Joséph, and another man he’d known slightly, and the others seemed fine companions, as dedicated to the mission as he was himself. As far as
he could tell, anyway, for the band were not encouraged to talk. They had plenty of food and drink, and the supplies would easily last until they could be replenished. His sprightly horse, although very challenging, was definitely exciting to ride, and already he was appreciating the bay gelding’s finer points. Jehan was well armed – he was a blacksmith, after all, and probably knew more about preparing a fine blade than the rest of the group put together – and his kit was in good order. And the mission – this long-postponed but vital mission – was as close to his heart as it had ever been.
Nevertheless, he just couldn’t stop thinking about Meggie.
He had tried so hard to persuade her to marry him and have his children. It was what he wanted; what he’d wanted almost since he’d met her, and it was why he’d worked so hard to make a living by which to support her, and cobble together a house – it was tiny, but how comfortable and cosy she had made it – in which they could live. But always, always, she held back. Once again – for what seemed like the hundredth time – he felt the anger course through him. Why did she have to keep going off by herself? What was it about that little hut deep in the forest that called to her so insistently? She’d explained, but it hadn’t been much of an explanation. ‘It belonged to my mother, and to my grandmother before her,’ she had said, that vague, unfocused look in her eyes that came over her every time she spoke of the hut, or her mother, or her early years out in the forest. ‘I have to go there from time to time for their sake.’
He was sure there was more to it than that. He suspected that the reason she was so often absent had less to do with needing to look after the little hut – which seemed sturdy enough to manage without any attention from Meggie, or indeed anyone – and more to do with her need for solitude; for time spent alone; for time away from him.
It hurt. What hurt even more was that she seemed somehow to contrive to hide the hut from him if she didn’t want to be found.
It made no sense; it was totally illogical; it smacked of magic (and he told himself there was no such thing as magic). But the fact remained, and he couldn’t ignore it: twice now, he had gone to seek her out in the little hut and tell her it was time to come home; he knew the hut’s location perfectly well, or he had thought he did, and he’d managed to find his way there unaided several times. On those two other occasions, however, it had been different. Once it had been early in February – the first or the second; he wasn’t sure – and snow had fallen heavily. Very anxious, believing she might be in trouble, he had gone to help her home. The little hut seemed to have vanished.
He told himself he must have been confused by the thick blanket of snow. When Meggie had returned a day later, rosy-cheeked and serene and clearly quite unharmed, he had said nothing.
The second time, though, had been in fine, sunny weather; in midsummer, as he recalled. On that occasion he had sought her out because he needed her assistance in the forge. As before, try as he might, he couldn’t find the hut.
Since then, he had stopped going to look for her.
He didn’t like it. He felt that it was wrong for her to absent herself, especially so thoroughly that he was given no chance to go and haul her home if he felt he had reason to, but he realized that she was giving him no alternative.
No. He didn’t like it at all.
Too often he found himself alone at the forge and within the four walls of the little cottage. He’d had too much time to brood. And how he had brooded, both on his dissatisfaction with his life with Meggie and also, with a thrill of excitement that had all the appeal of the dangerous and the forbidden, on the current situation in England.
Thinking of this, and in particular the proximity of Prince Louis and his invading force, had brought back all of Jehan’s enmity towards King John. It was not dead but sleeping, he had said to himself when first it had begun to keep him awake at night. And now it is time to act.
He had lost touch long ago with the other Bretons with whom he had crossed to England five years ago. The plan then had been to attack the King through the method of joining forces with his enemy: one of his many enemies. The Breton force had been heading for Wales, to offer their swords to the Welshman Llywelyn and fight with him to bring down the English King. But Jehan had parted company from his countrymen, and because of various events – in no small part because he met Meggie – there had been other preoccupations; he had made no attempt to rejoin his group.
Until now.
He had re-established contact with his Bretons around the time that Prince Louis had landed in Kent. It had involved a trip to the coast, an anxious, desperate time while he tried to locate the place where they’d made landfall five years ago, followed by a very tough interrogation by one of the Breton leaders who suspected he was a spy – he’d eventually managed to convince the man only through the sheer good luck of another member of the group recognizing him – and the telling of quite a lot of lies to Meggie. It had irked him that, although she seemed to expect him not to mind her absences from home for a day, two days, sometimes three or four days at a time, he was required to explain where he’d been and why he hadn’t told her he was going away.
He’d made up some story about travelling further afield to look for work; a story he’d used several times since. Business at the forge had, luckily for him, picked up considerably, so perhaps she didn’t find it hard to believe him.
He wasn’t sure why he had lied. He’d only known he had to; he was utterly convinced he couldn’t tell her the real reason for his absences. Nevertheless, sometimes he asked himself why he was so convinced. She’d known his purpose when they first met, for he had made quite sure to explain himself. She’d understood, and there was no reason why she wouldn’t still understand now. But he’d noticed something a little strange about her: whenever the King’s name was mentioned – to be more exact, whenever he muttered darkly about King John not being fit to live, let alone rule – a part of her seemed to withdraw, and her gaze went distant, as if she was looking at things he couldn’t see.
It was as if she cherished some sort of feeling for the King, amounting – although it seemed absurd – almost to affection, which was surely unlikely since she’d never met him.
Or had she?
Jehan had lied to Meggie. Wasn’t it entirely possible, a nasty little voice said inside his head, that she had lied to him too?
Stop, he told himself firmly. He knew he must not go on worrying over these unanswerable questions, must not continue to torture himself with his anxieties and his suspicions. Apart from the harm he was doing to himself – he had a headache that refused to abate, and wished he had thought to bring one or two of Meggie’s remedies – he was not riding out for his own amusement: there was a task ahead, and a very important one, and he owed it to the cause and to his companions to give of his very best.
With a huge effort, he put Meggie out of his mind. She, and the forge on the edge of the forest, and the life they shared together there, were behind him now, and he must learn to make them as distant from his thoughts as they were physically. He had fallen a little behind his comrades, so he put his heels to the gelding’s sides, aiming to catch up.
But the gelding was not the calm, patient Auban; he was a horse trained for fighting, and Jehan had been given no choice but to accept the loan. Auban, the leader of his group had told him dismissively, was no mount for a soldier. Now, the sudden stab of Jehan’s heels in the bay gelding’s sides had caused him to protest, and it was some moments before Jehan had him under control again.
Jehan endured the ribald teasing of his companions stoically. When they’d had enough, for now, of the endlessly repeated jokes about blacksmiths being terrible horsemen, he turned his thoughts to what lay ahead.
The Bretons had a new leader. His name was Yann Duguesclin, and he came from a small market town a little inland from the old port of Dinan, on the river Rance. He was utterly devoted to the cause, yet lacked the hot-headed impulsiveness that all too often had characterized the Bre
tons’ attempts to achieve their purpose. Yann Duguesclin thought like a true leader: he understood combat; he understood troop movement; he understood, in short, everything to do with achieving military success. It was said he had been a mercenary soldier for much of his adult life, although nobody ventured to suggest in whose pay he had fought. Given Yann Duguesclin’s views on discipline and his ruthless control of his rebel army, it was wiser not to gossip.
Yann told his troops firmly that there had been enough of throwing in their lot with Welsh princes who might at any time change sides and decide to support the King; enough of meekly following where other men led. Now, he had harangued them, it was time for the Breton band to act alone, and that action was going to be direct: the most direct possible. The group of well-armed, well-mounted Breton fighters heading north towards East Anglia all knew their destiny: they were going to seek out John of England and, before Prince Louis or the rebel barons or anyone else had the chance to get in first, they were going to kill him.
In the infirmary at Hawkenlye Abbey, Sister Liese watched as a nursing nun tried to administer yet another nostrum to their wild-eyed patient. Sister Audrey, the ageing and rather unadventurous nun who made the herbal preparations, had run through the standard remedies two days ago and was now resorting to vaguely beneficial substances that surely stood very little chance of helping the poor woman. But how they all wanted to help her! Far from showing any small sign of improvement, however, her symptoms seemed to be getting worse. She cried and raved, beating away those who tried to soothe her and repeatedly trying to get out of bed. ‘Go! Must go!’ she kept sobbing. ‘Danger! Must stop!’ You would have thought, Sister Liese reflected, that the poor soul was in the punishing grip of a high fever, yet, other than sweating from her violent struggles, the woman was relatively cool. It didn’t appear that delirium was responsible for her acute distress.
