by Alys Clare
‘Dead!’ The monk’s eyes widened dramatically. ‘Dear me!’
‘Ever since I learned that Sabin de Retz was looking for Nicol,’ Josse continued, ‘Augustus and I have been trying to find her. She’s not staying in Newenden nor, as far as we can ascertain, anywhere along the road to Hawkenlye, and it appears she’s not in Tonbridge either.’ Glancing at Augustus, he said, ‘Brother Augustus here had the bright idea that she might be enjoying the hospitality of a monastic house and, yours being the obvious choice, we have come here to ask you if you know of her or have had any word of her.’
There was quite a long pause. Then Stephen said, ‘She is not here, Sir Josse.’
Josse’s heart sank. It was not until he heard Stephen’s denial that he realised how much he had been banking on finding her here. ‘And—’ He swallowed and tried again. ‘You do not even recognise the name? She’s young, as I say, well-dressed, apparently, and mounted on a good mare.’
Stephen gave a shrug. Cursing monks for their habits of economy of speech, Josse turned away before Stephen could read his expression; it was not, he thought fairly, the monk’s fault that he could not provide the happy solution that Josse so badly wanted.
Stephen’s voice broke the uncomfortable silence. ‘You say that the young man is dead,’ he said. ‘Forgive my curiosity – very little happens in our daily life here, Sir Josse, and we enjoy the occasional scrap of news of the outside world – but how did he die?’
Josse studied the monk’s face. He wore a bland smile but there was a certain avidity in the round eyes, as if he were hungry for a good gossip and a few gory details. ‘Nicol Romley was suffering from a pestilence that we believe was brought across from the continent,’ he said, speaking more curtly than was polite. ‘But he didn’t die of the sickness; someone struck him over the head and rolled his body into the lake in Hawkenlye Vale.’
Stephen had gone white.
Josse said, after a moment, ‘Do not fear contagion from Augustus and me, for the nuns and monks of Hawkenlye have arranged matters so that the sick and the healthy are kept well apart.’
Again, Stephen seemed to weigh his words before speaking. Then he said, ‘I thank you, Sir Josse, for the reassurance.’
Eyes on those of the monk’s, Josse had the sudden quaint thought that Stephen’s intent stare meant he was trying to convey something about which he would not speak. Perhaps he wants to know more about the foreign pestilence, Josse thought, but fears to ask in case Gus and I condemn him for his morbid curiosity. ‘The disease takes the form of a high fever with a deadly looseness of the bowels that leaches every drop of fluid from the body,’ he began, but Stephen put up a silencing hand.
‘I pray to the merciful one above that I shall not need to know the symptoms,’ he said. ‘We shall include the sick of Hawkenlye in our prayers.’
‘Thank you,’ Josse said gruffly.
‘Well,’ Stephen said after a moment, ‘if there’s nothing else, I will send Bruno for your horses and see you on your way.’ With a beaming smile, he edged Josse towards the door. ‘We live a life of hard work, you know, and these lands that we wrested back from the wild need our constant vigilance to keep them productive.’
‘We would not keep you from your work,’ Josse said. ‘It was good of you to spare the time to see us and I apologise for troubling you.’
‘Oh, think nothing of it!’ said the monk brightly. ‘Bruno! Bruno! Leave your digging and fetch the horses – our visitors are going now.’
‘Now why,’ Josse said to Augustus as they emerged from the track on to the main road up from Hastings and could ride side by side, ‘do I have the impression that Brother Stephen was eager to see the back of us? Can he have truly been in that much of a hurry to return to whatever he was doing when we arrived?’
Augustus frowned. ‘It’s odd he should speak of working hard on the land,’ he said slowly.
‘Why? I understood that to be the way of the Cistercians, to carve out a clearing deep in the forest and cultivate it? I thought their rule involved less hours praying in chapel and more out working the land.’
‘It does,’ Augustus agreed. ‘Or, rather, it did, until the White Monks discovered that, as any farmer could have told them, working the land thoroughly and well doesn’t really leave any time for saying your prayers, at least not when the prayers are of any length.’
‘So how do they manage?’
‘They invented the system of lay brethren,’ Augustus said. ‘That boy Bruno, he was dressed in brown instead of the white that Stephen wears. Well, he’ll be a lay brother.’
Josse frowned. ‘But we have lay brothers at Hawkenlye, although you wear black like the monks.’
‘Aye, but the Cistercians had them first,’ Augustus said with a grin. ‘Reckon whoever set about making sure that the system at Hawkenlye Abbey worked all right wasn’t above pinching a good idea from another order.’
Josse smiled in response. Then, recalling where the conversation had begun, he said, ‘So what you’re saying is that it’s odd for Stephen to say he’s got to get back to manual work because it won’t be the likes of him who carries out the farming and forestry tasks?’
‘Aye,’ Gus agreed. ‘If he wanted an excuse to see us on our way, it seems to me he ought to have come up with something more convincing.’
An excuse to see us on our way. Aye, Josse thought as, the road smoothing out in front of them, they kicked their horses to a canter. Aye, that’s just how I saw it.
And as they covered the miles back to Hawkenlye, he tried – with a singular lack of success – to work out why Stephen had wanted them gone. By the time the Abbey came into view, all that he had managed to come up with was that Stephen had not been as convinced by Josse’s reassurances concerning the sickness as he claimed to be.
Back at Robertsbridge, as soon as Josse and Augustus had ridden off down the track, Stephen had raced to climb the hill behind the Abbey. He knew from long experience that, on a clear day, it allowed someone standing at its summit a good view of the place where the track to Robertsbridge Abbey joined the main road coming up from the coast; he wanted to make quite sure that his visitors had gone.
He waited for some time, stamping his bare feet in their rough sandals against the cold, hard ground and, as the sweat of exertion cooled, wrapping his arms round himself in a vain attempt to stop the shivering. Then at last the two horsemen came into view; the young monk was leading, the big knight following. As Stephen watched, a smile of relief on his face, the pair emerged on to the road and their pace increased. He watched until they were out of sight and then turned and hurried back down to the Abbey.
He turned left instead of right at the foot of the hill and ran along the track to the buildings hidden in the forest.
She was waiting for him.
‘Have they gone?’ Her accent was strong but he could understand her if she spoke slowly.
‘Aye. I waited until they broke into a canter to be sure. They’re hurrying back to Hawkenlye now.’
‘They will not return here?’
‘I do not think so.’
‘What did they say about Nicol?’ she demanded urgently. Her face was pale and her wide blue eyes showed her fear but she was still beautiful, even to an avowed monk who ought not to notice such things.
Stephen took a step closer to her and placed a gentle hand on her arm. ‘He did not die of the sickness,’ he said. ‘That knight – he is Sir Josse d’Acquin – says he was struck down by an unknown assailant.’
Sabin gasped. ‘It is just as I feared!’ she cried. ‘They tried before in Troyes and now they have followed us to England. Nicol would not accept that we were in danger and so would not agree to take care, and now he has paid the price for his – his insouciance and he is dead. Oh, dear God, he’s been murdered!’ She gave a sob that seemed to come up from the very heart of her.
‘You are safe here,’ Stephen reassured her, ‘we are so deeply buried in the forest that nobody can find us
unless they know the way.’
‘That Sir Josse found you,’ she pointed out coldly.
‘Aye, but he had a lad with him who’s a monk and probably knows all about us,’ Stephen replied.
She drew her heavy cloak more firmly round her, pulling the hood up over the neat white cap that covered her fair hair. Turning to Stephen, she gave a very small smile and said, ‘I apologise for my rudeness. It is not right to speak in this manner when you and the other monks have been so kind to us during the week and more that we have imposed ourselves upon you.’
Stephen spread his hands, palms upwards. ‘It is what we are here for, to help those in need,’ he said simply. Then: ‘How is he?’
Sabin shrugged. ‘Restless. He was not in his room when I went to find him earlier and I was worried that he had somehow found out that the knight and the young monk from Hawkenlye had come here.’
‘He was not in the Abbey buildings when they arrived,’ Stephen said quickly.
Sabin smiled again, more generously now, and a dimple winked in her pale cheek. ‘He was,’ she corrected him. ‘He’d gone to beg some ingredients from your herbalist and he heard the horses. He hid in that little room just inside the gate and watched.’
Stephen sighed; Sabin’s old grandfather was becoming quite unpredictable. But then, the monk reminded himself, the poor old boy had been through a lot recently and probably spent much of his waking hours afraid of another attempt on his life. ‘Has he returned to the guest quarters?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ Sabin replied. ‘Now that he has the necessary ingredients to finish whatever remedy he was in the process of making up, he will be quite happy. For the time being,’ she added, looking anxious again.
‘Sabin,’ Stephen began cautiously, ‘I do not in truth believe that the knight represents any threat to you or your grandfather. He seemed to me to be a good man, sincere in his wish to find you and, I would surmise, in so doing discover who killed poor Nicol and why.’
Sabin stared at him, blue eyes intent. ‘Perhaps,’ she said softly. ‘But what if you are wrong? Somebody tried to kill Grandfather and me in Troyes by setting fire to the lodging house where we were staying. Now somebody – perhaps the same man – has pursued us to England and he has slain Nicol. I followed poor Nicol to Newenden in order to insist that he take the danger seriously but I arrived too late; they told me he had gone to Hawkenlye. I would have followed him there straight away but for Grandfather; I had to return here to Robertsbridge because he was still so sick from the smoke that he breathed in and the pains in his chest that followed. When finally I went to Hawkenlye, almost a week later, still in pursuit of Nicol and also to try to find if anyone at the Abbey could help me, it was to overhear that he was already in his grave.’ Her face working with emotion, she said, ‘And now we find out that he did not die of the pestilence but was struck down by an assailant! Stephen, I dare not trust anybody, even your knight!’
Stephen gave a faint shrug. ‘Then you had better stay here,’ he said, with a note of resignation that did not go unnoticed.
‘Where else should I go?’ Sabin asked, spreading her hands wide in appeal. ‘Should I return to Hawkenlye, dragging Grandfather with me, for us to suffer the same fate as Nicol?’
‘Perhaps you would not,’ Stephen said. ‘If you could but persuade yourself that Sir Josse d’Acquin is no threat but in fact your protector, then might returning to the place where Nicol was slain be the first step in bringing his killer to justice? There is much that you could tell the knight that would help in that worthy aim, is there not? We could arrange an escort for you to ensure your safety on the journey; have no fear on that score.’
She stared at him for some moments. Then she said, ‘Grandfather overheard you talking to the knight, Stephen. He left the little gate room and crouched just outside the door of the refectory and he didn’t miss a single word.’ Her expression chilling until the blue eyes were icy, she went on, ‘Just when, I wonder, were you going to confirm to me what, from my visit, I already suspected: that the sickness that drove Nicol to seek help is now rife at Hawkenlye Abbey?’
Chapter 14
Sister Tiphaine and Lora had spent the night in the forest, in a compact shelter deep in its heart that the forest people occasionally used when in the vicinity. Despite the cold, Lora had contrived to make the shelter quite comfortable; she lit a small fire, prepared warm food and a hot drink and, when it was time for sleep, provided Tiphaine with a woollen cover that kept the herbalist as cosy as she usually was in her own bed back at Hawkenlye.
There had been no sign of Joanna at her hut when they went looking for her that morning. Lora had found the place without any difficulty and it was clear to both women that somebody – almost certainly Joanna – had recently been there for the dead bracken had been cut away from the clearing in which the hut was situated and the patch of earth where Joanna grew her herbs and her vegetables had been weeded and dug over ready for the spring planting. The hut itself was, Tiphaine had noticed, quite hard to spot, even when you knew quite well where it was. The undergrowth had advanced around the base of its walls and the branch of a birch tree bent low over its roof, in a gesture that was almost protective. Standing with her hands on her hips at Tiphaine’s side, Lora had observed that Joanna had learned a lot since she had first fled to hide in the Great Forest; when Tiphaine queried the remark, Lora turned to her with a wry expression and said, ‘She’s learned how to disguise her habitation so well that even I had to look twice.’
They had waited for the rest of that day. When it grew dark – and much colder – Lora had announced that they’d give it up for the day and try again tomorrow.
Now tomorrow had come.
As the two women strode through the forest, Tiphaine wondered if Joanna would be there this time when they reached the clearing. It was a strange thought, and one undoubtedly brought on by the unusual experience of sleeping out beneath the stars and the trees, but the herbalist realised that she would not be surprised at all to find that, this morning, Joanna had managed to make her hut totally invisible.
They approached the clearing and automatically slowed their fast pace. Tiphaine sensed that even Lora felt a little cowed by the force that seemed to emanate from the hut, and Lora was one of the elders of the forest people and a powerful woman herself.
Lora turned to Tiphaine with a grimace. ‘She knows we’re here,’ she said quietly. ‘Best go up to her openly; no sense skulking in the undergrowth.’
Tiphaine fell into step behind her and they strode across the clearing until they stood before Joanna’s door.
‘Joanna,’ Lora called, ‘we need to speak to you.’
No answer.
Lora raised her hand and tapped on the stout wood of the door. ‘Joanna!’ she said a little louder.
Still no answer.
Then she was standing right behind them, so close that Sister Tiphaine’s veil brushed against Joanna’s arm as the herbalist spun round.
Lora said somewhat caustically, ‘Very clever, my girl. Demonstrating your skill, is that it?’
Joanna did not speak for a moment. She stood quite still, dark eyes studying first Lora, then Tiphaine. Then she said, ‘I knew you were looking for me, Lora, and that there was another with you. Until now, I did not know the identity of the other.’
Then, with a sudden wide smile, she opened her arms and embraced the herbalist, then turned to Lora and gave her a quick bow. ‘Lora, I am glad to see you. And you, Tiphaine,’ she added in a murmur, ‘helped me when Meggie was born. I do not know why you have come’ – she had turned back to Lora – ‘but you are welcome. Come in.’
Stepping forward, she unlatched the door of the hut and led them inside. Tiphaine remembered the night of Meggie’s birth too and she noticed that the hut seemed little changed since that day. Joanna had clearly been busy since her return, for the place was spotless and smelled pleasingly of lavender; the pile of ashes in the small central hearth had been brushed up withi
n its ring of stones, and kindling and small logs were laid ready for the day’s fire. The iron pot that stood ready beside the hearth was black with age and long use but it had recently received a good scrubbing. The beaten earth floor had been swept and the planking shelves on the far wall were dust-free, their contents neatly arranged. The steps up to the sleeping platform were in good repair and there was now a slim barrier bar on the side not protected by the wall of the hut; a low rail along the open side of the platform had also been added. On the platform were a straw mattress and several woollen blankets; among the blankets sat a very pretty child.
Tiphaine stared at the little girl whom she had helped bring into the world and the little girl stared right back, her well-shaped mouth breaking into a tentative, friendly smile. The child had smooth dark hair and her eyes were brown, although of a lighter shade than her mother’s; it was almost, thought the herbalist, as if the child had gold light in her eyes.
And those eyes quite definitely reminded Tiphaine of those of somebody else; somebody whom she knew quite well. In fact, the more she stared, the more she could see Josse in the child’s face. As if Joanna read her thought, she came up to stand beside the herbalist; ‘It’s the smile,’ she said softly and Meggie, obliging child that she was, instantly turned her shy smile into a beaming grin, laughing down at her mother and Tiphaine. Then, after a tense moment, Joanna whispered, ‘Does he know?’
Tiphaine shook her head.
‘Does anybody at Hawkenlye know?’
‘The Abbess Helewise guesses, although I have not confirmed that she guesses aright.’
‘I see.’
Tiphaine could feel Joanna’s faint distress; it felt as if someone were rubbing the fine hairs on her skin in the wrong direction. It occurred to the herbalist that if Joanna could provoke such a reaction when surely no more than mildly disturbed, what might she do when really angry?
