by Alys Clare
The latest remedy appeared to be affording no more relief than all its predecessors. Sister Liese gave a quiet sigh. She wondered what the strange old nun who had been the abbey’s herbalist in the past would have suggested. Sister Tiphaine, they said, had an almost magical touch with all growing things and was rumoured to have conversed with the spirits of the forest. ‘Superstitious nonsense,’ Sister Liese muttered to herself. Nevertheless, she knew full well that she was fast approaching the state of mind where she’d have authorized any treatment at all if it had promised to work.
Once again, Sister Liese turned to peer down the long infirmary ward to the entrance. Early that morning, at her wits’ end, she had asked Abbess Caliste’s permission to send for Meggie, and the abbess, bless her compassionate heart, had instantly done so. Now, as Sister Liese waited with growing impatience (she was, she realized, pinning quite a lot of hope on Meggie), she tried to piece together all she knew about the young woman.
They had met, of course, many times over the years, although Sister Liese admitted to herself that this didn’t mean she knew Meggie; she didn’t, not in any meaningful way. More to do with me than with her, she thought honestly. Meggie, it was true, had a reserve about her, but the infirmarer knew full well that she had held off from making any approach towards closer friendship with Meggie.
Like old Sister Tiphaine, Meggie too had a connection with the forest. Hers was even stronger, for she was the daughter of one of the strange, powerful Forest People. She had apparently been trained in their ways, even to the extent – or so the rumours said – of visiting the place somewhere in Brittany where the elders of the people were skilled in the treatment of those who were sick in their minds.
Sister Liese knew that she must overcome her deep-rooted prejudice about the Forest People and their strange ways. Abbess Caliste had told her so, gently but firmly: ‘Whilst it is true that they perceive God in a way that is not the same as ours,’ she had once said, ‘that is no reason to be suspicious of their methods and dismiss them as ignorant. One has only to look at their skills as healers – again, different from ours but no less effective – to realize that God works through their hands just as he does through yours and those of your nursing nuns.’
The infirmarer had been striving to obey. She felt sure she had made progress. Now, in this current emergency, if help could be found for her patient she didn’t really care where it came from. She was fervently praying and hoping that the deeply disturbed woman in the infirmary would respond to whatever Meggie came up with, and wholeheartedly grateful that Meggie was on her way.
The distraught woman wasn’t Sister Liese’s only patient, after all, and people suffering from the pain of injuries, and the distress and anxiety of sickness, needed peace and quiet, and they certainly weren’t getting any at the moment. Patients and nuns alike reflected in their tense faces the stress of living with the constant, distressing shouts and screams, and only the deaf and the insensate were spared.
Once again, Sister Liese glanced towards the door. Still no sign of Meggie. Watching the door isn’t going to make her arrive any sooner, the infirmarer told herself firmly. She turned back to the woman in the bed.
It was hard to guess her age. Her skin was heavily lined, giving an impression of advanced years that might be inaccurate. She was small, dark-complexioned and fiery, with black eyes shaped like almonds and set at a slight tilt in her face. She was modest in the extreme: even the Hawkenlye nuns, long accustomed to a life in which nobody displayed an inch of bodily flesh if they could help it, had been taken aback at the lengths to which the raving woman went to keep her garments wrapped tightly around her. It had taken the combined persuasive efforts of the abbess and the infirmarer to encourage the woman to remove the long white scarf wound around her head, tightly fastened beneath the carefully arranged veil and covering both her face, down to the eyebrows, and all of her chin and throat. Her hair, revealed, was black and streaked with grey at the temples and, as soon as Sister Liese had finished inspecting the skull for wounds (she had wondered if the woman’s deep distress had been caused by a blow to the head), the patient had rapidly and deftly covered herself up once more.
The infirmarer still hadn’t managed to examine her patient below the throat. It is just as well, she thought ruefully, that I don’t suspect broken ribs or a cracked pelvis.
The dark woman had been travelling from the coast towards London, accompanied by her son, when she had taken ill. The son, worried about her mounting distress, had brought her to Hawkenlye Abbey. Now, having handed her over to the nuns’ care, he spent most of his time outside in the sunshine. Sister Liese didn’t blame him, for his mother was absolutely furious with him. When he ventured inside to see how she was, she instantly began shouting at him in their own language, waving her arms, little hands screwed up into fists as if she longed to punch him, face distorted in fury and spittle spraying from her mouth. Sister Liese surmised, from the woman’s repeated shouts of ‘Go! Must go!’ that the anger was because the son had interrupted the journey to wherever they were bound and brought his sick mother to the nuns’ care.
At times, the haunted, driven look in those slanting dark eyes was quite terrifying.
At the abbey gates, Meggie exchanged a greeting with Sister Teresa, on watch in her little shelter. ‘I know why you’re here,’ the nun whispered, ‘and the infirmarer isn’t the only one who’ll say a prayer of thanks that you answered our call.’
‘I was …’ Meggie began. Then from the infirmary a loud cry rang out, harsh and distressing. ‘Oh. I see what you mean.’
‘Go on in,’ Sister Teresa urged, giving Meggie a little push. Meggie clutched her satchel and hurried off.
The infirmarer strode down the long ward to greet her, one of the nursing nuns hastening to join her, almost as if Meggie’s arrival deserved an official welcome. Meggie recognized the younger nun as Sister Maria, and noticed with dismay that the long, plain face – usually the girl resembled an amiable horse – was haggard with anxiety.
‘Thank you for coming,’ Sister Liese said, giving Meggie a little bow. ‘Please, come with me.’ Spinning round, she strode back up the infirmary to the recess at the far end. Pulling aside the curtain, she said quietly, ‘Here is our patient.’
Meggie tried to take in the whole scene with one quick glance: the patient, emitting harsh little cries, twisting violently in the narrow bed, hands busy pulling, pleating and folding the linen sheet; Sister Audrey, some potion in a little cup that she had presumably been trying to administer, but most of which had been spilled down her habit; another nun, even younger than Sister Maria, whose big brown eyes were full of unshed tears. And, even now hurrying down the ward and almost upon them, a man of about twenty, black hair worn long, tall and broad in the chest, his handsome face creased into a frown. Before the woman in the bed could catch sight of him, Meggie took a deep breath and said, with quiet control, ‘I should like a few moments alone with her, please.’
Such was the authority in her soft voice that the cubicle emptied instantly. On departing, Sister Liese – the last to leave – firmly drew the curtains into place.
When the sound of receding footsteps had faded, along with the hissed and angry conversation between the tall young man and the infirmarer, Meggie sat down on the edge of the woman’s bed and, for a while, simply smiled at her. The woman’s cries slowed and then stopped, and gradually her rapid, gasping breaths calmed. Her hands relaxed, one of them trying to smooth out the bunched, creased sheet. After a while, Meggie covered it with her own. Meeting the woman’s wide-eyed stare, she said softy, ‘It doesn’t matter. There’s no harm done.’
She thought the woman had understood. Under her touch, the restless hand trembled and then lay still.
Meggie said, keeping her tone calm, as if this were an everyday conversation, ‘There were a lot of people, weren’t there?’ Slowly the woman nodded. ‘Too many, perhaps,’ Meggie added.
The woman nodded again, more vigor
ously.
‘They were trying to help you,’ Meggie said quietly. ‘They were worried about you.’
The woman gave a deep sigh, closing her eyes briefly as if she wished to shut out the world and all its troubles. Meggie was about to speak again – were her tentative words being understood? – when the woman said, ‘Yes. I know. They are good but they do not help.’ A flash of anger crossed the lean face.
Meggie made herself wait until it had passed. Then she said, ‘How, then, can we help?’
‘I must go!’ the woman said in a harsh voice. ‘I – we – have an urgent mission. There is danger, bad, evil danger, and nobody understands the peril but us; nobody can stop the evil but us!’ She paused, then – as if it was a secret and should not be spoken of aloud – hissed, ‘Through their greed and their folly my kinsmen began it, although they cannot have known what they were unleashing on the world, and now it is for us to finish it.’ The dark eyes flashed with rage and frustration. ‘It is our responsibility!’
Meggie studied her patient. Was this the ranting of someone whose mind was unhinged? It seemed wise to explore a little further before deciding.
‘We?’ she said. ‘Us?’ The woman frowned. ‘You said we and us,’ Meggie elaborated. ‘You were not travelling alone?’
The woman shook her head. ‘No. I am with my son.’ She jerked her head in the direction of the door, at the far end of the infirmary. ‘Faruq.’ She all but spat out the name.
‘He is very concerned about you,’ Meggie said.
‘He made me come here!’ the woman cried. ‘But I cannot stay! I will recover, I tell him, I will be better as soon as we travel again, and how dare Faruq override my wishes? Must go!’ she repeated urgently. She threw off Meggie’s hand and tried to get out of bed.
‘Won’t you wait a little, regain your strength?’ Meggie suggested mildly, not doing anything to restrain her. ‘There is nourishing food here, and a warm bed. Will your journey not be accomplished all the more swiftly if you permit yourself a short delay while you rest awhile?’
The woman paused. She fixed Meggie with an alarming glare, and then very slowly sank back on her pillows. ‘Perhaps,’ she admitted.
There was silence in the little recess. For a while, all was still; the woman closed her eyes, and Meggie wondered if she had gone to sleep.
Then she sensed a small movement behind her. Turning, she saw the curtains part just enough to admit the tall young man. Catching his eye, Meggie put her finger to her lips and he nodded his understanding. He came to stand right beside her. ‘She sleeps?’ he asked, his words barely more than a breath in her ear.
‘Yes,’ she whispered back.
Together they studied the woman. She seemed to have fallen into the deep sleep of total exhaustion. Her body was relaxed, her mouth had fallen open and she was snoring gently, her breathing slow, deep and regular.
The young man’s face broke into a relieved smile. ‘You have worked a small miracle,’ he observed. ‘You have done in a few moments what nobody else managed in as many hours.’
‘I think she had worn herself out,’ Meggie replied.
‘Perhaps, but you had the sense to send everyone away,’ he said. Meggie thought that it was a little ungrateful to speak of sending away the kindly, concerned nuns who had been trying so hard to help, and it seemed the young man agreed, for swiftly he added, ‘They have done all they could, I know.’
Silence fell once more. Then Meggie said, ‘What is your mother’s name?’
‘Hadil,’ he said. He grinned suddenly. ‘In our language it means the cooing of doves.’
Meggie smothered a laugh. ‘Well, I’m sure she lives up to her lovely name under normal circumstances,’ she said kindly.
The young man – Faruq – gave her a sidelong glance. He didn’t reply.
He moved away a little and stood staring down at his mother, his face unreadable. Meggie took the chance to study him. She saw now that he was a little older than she’d initially thought, for, up close to him, she could make out fine lines around his eyes. Where his mother was small and intense, he shared barely a feature with her, except for his intensely black hair and the tough wiriness of his body. He was tall, well muscled, long-legged and elegant; his skin was pale where his mother’s was dark, and his eyes were a mix of blue and green. He was dressed in a shin-length tunic of fine wool, padded hose and good boots, on top of which he wore a good-quality cloak. Like his mother, he was kitted out for riding; Meggie had noticed her cloak, draped across the end of her bed, and the costly boots on the floor beneath it. Underneath the tunic the young man wore a chemise in a fabric that Meggie didn’t recognize. It was fine, with a slight gloss, and brightly white.
After a pause, Meggie asked, ‘Where are you bound?’
Faruq spun round to look at her. His dark face showed a torment of frustration, and she suspected anger was boiling up, as yet under control. ‘It is not important,’ he said with cold, firm finality, ‘since it appears we shall be progressing no further.’
FOUR
Helewise shifted the heavy bundle to the other shoulder and trudged on along the narrow, winding track through the forest. It was very early in the morning on the day after Josse’s departure, and almost all of her thoughts rode with him.
Although she had kept a smile of encouragement on her face as he, Geoffroi and Yves rode away, with Meggie walking behind, the effort had drained her. Considering that only four members of the large household had left, the House in the Woods had felt alarmingly empty once they’d gone.
She had wandered listlessly from small task to small task for the remainder of the day, finding nothing to take her mind off her anxiety. Tilly, Gus and their children managed the domestic life of the house, just as they always did, and food appeared on the table that evening; a good, solid meal, as if Tilly were exhorting the depleted family to keep up its strength. Ninian and Eloise, too, had their children to care for and, with Josse’s absence, Ninian was now nominally the head of the household, which brought its own responsibilities.
One of which, it became apparent straight away, was the provision of food and shelter for what seemed a large band of the bowmen busy harrying the French invader in and around the Great Forest. It wasn’t as if they’d taken advantage of Josse being away to start using his house as a place of succour, for Helewise recognized many of the faces from previous visits; that evening, however, was the first time so many had turned up all at once.
The House in the Woods was largely self-sufficient. Out beyond the forest fringes there was a handful of small, inconspicuous fields under cultivation for wheat and barley. In an acre of cleared land close to the house, there was an expertly tended and very productive vegetable garden. For meat, there was lamb in season and mutton for the rest of the year; Josse’s sheep shared pasture lands with Dominic’s, and the flock was steadily growing. Both men were making good money from the wool, and, in those times of such hardship, having a regular supply of meat was even more valuable than money.
So, feeding the bowmen had not presented much of a problem, although the fare, produced at short notice by Tilly, was simple. They had all then set out bedrolls and settled down for the night in the hall. As one of them remarked, it made a nice change to sleep beside the embers of a good, big fire.
The presence of the bowmen hadn’t disturbed her; indeed, it had been quite diverting, for the men had been rough but amusing company. But their visit had served to harden a tentative idea that had been forming in her mind: she did not want to stay at the House in the Woods without Josse. There was no point, she had discovered, in trying to analyse why she felt this way. For one thing, it was such a powerful feeling that she knew it would not respond to logic, and for another, she suspected it had to do with what the House in the Woods would be like if Josse didn’t come back, and she couldn’t bear even to begin to think about that.
Having made her decision, the next question had been: where should she go? She was welcome at Hawkenlye Abb
ey – Abbess Caliste had made that perfectly clear – and there was always work there for another pair of hands. But I left the abbey, she thought. I cannot go back.
Besides, there was another place that was possibly even more suitable …
And now, with the sun just appearing above the eastern horizon and colouring the soft clouds pale yellow, she was on her way. She had kept the farewells brief, merely mentioning to Ninian before they all retired the previous evening where she was going, and saying that she would be away for several days.
At the place she was heading for, she would find the constant work that she so badly needed; it was, moreover, a place that was her own, that she had brought into existence and where she was in overall charge. She didn’t like to admit that this was a factor in her decision, but she knew that it was. Pride, she castigated herself as she shifted the bundle yet again to the less painful shoulder. Always my pride, that I must ever see myself as the calm, dependable person in authority, whom others leap to obey and who knows what to do in even the most trying of circumstances.
It was a matter she must take up yet again with her priest. How many times, she mused, had he heard her speak the same words? How many times had she performed the penance, always determined that she would force herself to do better? Well, he – and she – would just have to endure it again.
She was on the final half-mile. As if imposing a preliminary penance, she made herself walk faster. Thin strands of bramble scratched at her face, she turned her foot on a half-buried root, the bundle felt as if it had doubled in weight and size, so much did the muscles of her shoulders, arms and back burn, and still she forced her pace. At last, aching all over, sobbing for breath and gasping with thirst – for the morning was already warm – she burst into the little clearing before the Sanctuary and, with vast relief, dropped the bundle on to the soft, mossy grass.
It did not take her long to recover for, despite her years, she was strong and fit. She stood up, brushed the leaves and twigs from her dark gown, straightened her headdress and veil, then rolled up her sleeves and opened up the Sanctuary. For now, she had it to herself, for it was still too early for the day’s supplicants and nobody had stayed overnight. Good, she thought. She lit a fire in the circle of hearth stones in the middle of the room, then, as it took hold, collected a couple of buckets and went to fetch water from the little stream that ran nearby. She put some on to heat, for there was laundry to do and it promised to be a good drying day. Then she tipped a large quantity of stream water over the flagged stone floor and gave it the sort of scrubbing it hadn’t received in months.
