by Alys Clare
‘They were most distressed,’ Augustus said. ‘No doubt about it, was there, Saul?’ Saul shook his head sadly. ‘They loved her, my lady, that’s for sure, and they were genuinely heartbroken to know she was dead.’
‘Did you—’ She paused, thinking how to phrase her question tactfully. ‘Were you able to gain any impression of how the household servants viewed their master and mistress? Did they, would you say, think that Ambrose and his wife were happy?’
‘Without a doubt,’ Saul assured her. ‘They said she made the sun shine for him, which I imagine you’d readily understand, what with her being so young and pretty. But they insisted that she cared for him deeply too, even though he was so much older.’ He turned to the younger man. ‘Wouldn’t you say so, Gussie?’
Augustus nodded enthusiastically. ‘Aye. The old kitchen woman said she – Galiena – had been a shy girl when she came to Ryemarsh as the lord Ambrose’s wife, and they all jumped to the conclusion that she was an unwilling bride. But they had to accept they’d been wrong because she blossomed, according to the manservant, and turned from someone who was reserved with them and hardly spoke into a happy and outgoing young girl who made the sap rise in old Ambrose and only needed a baby or two to complete her happiness.’ Saul dug him in the ribs and he said, with some indignation, ‘Saul, I’m only repeating what they said!’
‘It’s all right, Brother Saul,’ Helewise said. ‘After all, I did ask you to report anything that struck you as relevant.’ There was something else that she was very keen to know; again taking a moment to word her question, she said, ‘And what of visitors? Did they entertain family or friends? Were there any that came regularly?’
‘The lord Ambrose doesn’t have kin, they’re all dead.’ Augustus spoke matter-of-factly. ‘The lady went visiting her folks at Readingbrooke from time to time, often with the lord Ambrose, and the family there would return the visits. She had several sisters, they told us, and an aunt to whom she was devoted who has young children of her own. The family’s a close one, it seems.’
‘I see.’ No need, Helewise decided, to reveal the details of Galiena’s adoption by the family at Readingbrooke. ‘Anyone else?’
‘Well, that neighbour of theirs, from Rotherbridge,’ Saul said. ‘He’s a friend of the lord Ambrose and calls by when he’s passing.’
‘I see,’ she said again, trying hard not to let her sudden excitement show in her voice. ‘And the household – er – they liked all these visitors?’
She knew even as she spoke that the question was absurd. Both Saul and Augustus looked surprised and Augustus, more forthright than Saul, said, ‘I don’t see as how it was for them to have likes or dislikes, my lady, since they’re servants and do as they’re told.’ His comment – possibly a little forthright for a young lay brother addressing his Abbess, but entirely justified, Helewise thought – earned him another dig in the ribs and, casting down his eyes, he muttered, ‘Sorry, my lady.’
‘It’s all right,’ she said. She could not see a way to find out what she needed to know other than a direct question so, after a moment, she asked it. ‘Did you receive the impression,’ she said carefully, ‘that there was any gossip concerning Sir Brice and Galiena? Oh, I know what you said about Galiena being so devoted to her husband, but you both know how servants love to chatter!’ She gave what even to her sounded a totally unconvincing little laugh.
Saul and Augustus looked at each other, then back at her. Then, in unison, they shook their heads and said firmly, ‘Oh, no.’ Augustus added, as if for emphasis, ‘There wasn’t anything like that. Was there, Saul?’
And Saul said, ‘No.’
Well, she thought, that was not necessarily relevant. After all, if Josse had been right and Brice had been Galiena’s lover, he’d hardly have ridden up to the door proclaiming it to the world.
The more she dwelled on it, the more it seemed to her that the very strong denials of ‘anything like that’ were in themselves suspicious. Wouldn’t it have been more natural for Brice and the beautiful Galiena to have engaged in a little harmless flirtation?
But her train of thought was interrupted; Saul was addressing her. ‘My lady,’ he said, ‘there is something else.’
‘Indeed? Go on, Brother Saul.’
‘You remember that we said they seemed upset even before we told them the news?’
‘I do.’
‘Well, it seems there was a young stable lad called Dickon. He was sent to escort the lady Galiena over to Hawkenlye, together with the woman Aebba.’
‘But he didn’t arrive here!’ she exclaimed. ‘Neither did Aebba, not until she rode in with the lord Ambrose. Galiena arrived alone.’
‘Aye, my lady. It seems that Aebba returned from the trip with her young mistress by herself and when the lord Ambrose asked what had happened to the groom, she said he had gone on with the young lady.’
‘Here to Hawkenlye?’
‘That’s what Aebba said.’
If that were so, Helewise thought, then Galiena had been lying, because she had said that she had dismissed both Aebba and the groom just before reaching the Abbey gates. ‘So, according to the servants at Ryemarsh,’ she said slowly, ‘Aebba and this Dickon set out to escort Galiena to Hawkenlye, only Aebba turned for home some time before they reached here’ – something occurred to her and she amended her words – ‘some time between setting off from New Winnowlands, where Sir Josse left the three of them, and here. Leaving Dickon to bring Galiena on to Hawkenlye, after which he was meant to return to Ryemarsh. Yes?’
‘Yes,’ Saul agreed, and Augustus nodded.
‘Whereas, according to Galiena, both Aebba and Dickon saw her almost to the Abbey before she sent them both home.’ She would have to speak to Aebba. Now that Galiena was dead and Dickon missing, she was the only one left of the party. Which, Helewise realised, meant that Aebba could say whatever she liked and nobody could contradict her.
‘There has been no news of the lad?’ she asked.
Again, Augustus and Saul exchanged a look. This time it was Augustus who spoke. ‘There hadn’t been, no, my lady. But we—’ He stopped, drew a breath and resumed. ‘Saul and I left early in the morning. We passed the turning up to New Winnowlands, then thought we’d stop for a bite to eat. It was hot by then and we sought some shade, which meant we had to ride some way up a sheep track leading up into a copse of willows. We’d just dismounted when the horses started acting spooked and we noticed this terrible smell.’ His eyes wide, he said quietly, ‘We looked around and we found a body, wrapped in a bit of sacking and lying in a shallow ditch with leaves and branches and that over it. Over him, I should say.’ He looked at Saul who, with a brief touch on the younger brother’s sleeve as if to say, it’s all right, lad, I’ll tell the rest, took up the narrative.
‘We weren’t much more than a mile or so past New Winnowlands so we rode back there for help. I know Sir Josse’s man Will, he’s a sound fellow. Anyway, he finds a cart and comes back with us to where we found the body and he says straight away, soon as he sees the face, that’s the groom as rode by with the master and the company, just a few days back.’
She was struggling to take it in. ‘You mean that Will recognised the dead man as poor Dickon?’
‘Aye,’ Saul said heavily.
She said quietly, ‘Could you tell how he died?’
‘Blow to the back of the head,’ Saul said shortly. ‘Looks as if someone crept up on him and took him unawares.’
‘Could it have been an accident?’ she asked.
Saul gave a faint shrug. ‘Possibly, my lady, I suppose. Only if so, would someone not have gone for help, just as we did when we found him? Innocent people don’t see a man take a mortal blow then leave him to fend for himself.’
‘Indeed not,’ she agreed. ‘But could he not have been thrown from his horse? You did not find his horse, I take it?’
‘No we didn’t,’ Augustus said. ‘But, my lady, if it happened like that, who put him in the s
ack and buried him?’
‘No, no, of course, it would have been impossible.’ Impatient with herself, she could not think why she was being so slow; shock, perhaps. ‘So for some reason Aebba turned for home first,’ she said slowly, trying to make sense of events. ‘Dickon rode on with Galiena, although we do not know how much further; she lied about Aebba coming to the gates with her so she may also have lied about Dickon. Anyway, he set off back to Ryemarsh by himself and was attacked about a mile this side of New Winnowlands. The blow killed him and he was put in the ditch.’
‘That about sums it up,’ Saul agreed.
Helewise put her hands to her head as if pressure from her palms could somehow stop the whirl of thoughts and impressions flying wildly around in her mind. ‘I do not understand!’ she exclaimed.
Then a portion of the picture suddenly became clear. She saw a young woman riding with her servants, in the middle of acting out a plan that had to be made to work if her undeclared pregnancy were to be attributed to her elderly husband. But the young woman’s thoughts were not with her husband at all but with her handsome lover. Whom she just had to meet once more before riding on to Hawkenlye where, in time, she would dutifully be reunited with her husband and present the conception to him as the fruits of his lovemaking.
So perhaps, just perhaps, thought Helewise, she dismisses both of the servants so that she can enjoy a final idyll in her lover’s arms. The woman Aebba does as she is told and rides home to Ryemarsh. But perhaps the young groom, anxious for his mistress’s safety, turns back to check that she is all right. He sees the lovers together and, in order to ensure his silence, the man – Brice of Rotherbridge, according to Josse – strikes out and the lad is killed. Perhaps Brice only means to render him unconscious but, in the heat of the moment with Galiena sobbing and crying beside him, he panics and hits too hard.
The poor young groom is dead and Brice bundles him up, covers him with leaves and the lovers run away. Galiena hastens on to Hawkenlye, Brice goes … where?
Where was Brice?
She would have to ask Josse.
Josse.
Somebody was speaking his name; pulling her attention back to the present, she listened.
‘… ought to know about this,’ Saul was saying.
‘Sir Josse?’ she asked.
‘Aye, my lady.’ Saul, she thought, was eyeing her curiously. ‘Are you quite well?’ he asked quietly.
‘I am, thank you, Brother Saul. You were saying?’
‘Oh. Aye.’ He frowned. ‘Merely that, what with Will being involved and the poor dead lad’s body now at New Winnowlands awaiting burial, me and Gus thought we ought to inform Sir Josse as soon as we could, after telling you, that is.’ He gave her a brief bow.
‘Quite right, Brother Saul,’ she agreed. ‘I wish I could help you, but I’m afraid that telling Sir Josse will have to wait. You see, he’s just this afternoon set off for the north-eastern reaches of the Great Marsh.’
‘Where has he gone?’ Augustus asked.
‘He is looking for somewhere called Deadfall,’ she said.
Yet again, she watched the two of them exchange a look. But this time, both men looked more than anxious; they looked fearful.
Thinking that perhaps Josse’s aunt’s maid’s young man was not the only one to have known dreadful tales of this strange place that had the power to strike fear into the hearts of grown men, she rested her chin in her hands and said, not without a tinge of resignation, ‘Very well, then. You had better tell me what you have heard about Deadfall.’
‘It’s not really either of us, although the name was already familiar to you, Gussie, wasn’t it?’ Saul said.
‘Aye,’ Augustus said heavily.
‘Already familiar?’ said Helewise.
‘Aye, when old Brother Firmin told us the tale,’ Saul replied. ‘A party of pilgrims came from the Marsh and talking to them seemed to remind Brother Firmin of legends he had long forgotten. Or so he said. It was last winter, wasn’t it, Gussie?’
‘Aye,’ Augustus agreed again.
If the younger man were to be asked for confirmation at every turn, thought Helewise, then this story would take the rest of the day to tell. ‘So Brother Firmin scared you all with an old ghost story at the fireside?’ she prompted.
‘Aye, my lady.’ Now Saul was frowning, as if trying to decide whether the story were fit for a lady’s ears.
‘I need to know it, Brother Saul,’ she said gently. ‘As you say, Sir Josse has ridden off to Deadfall and if there is danger there, then we must send help.’
‘Oh, I don’t reckon as how it’ll be dangerous, not to a man of Sir Josse’s quality,’ Saul said. ‘I don’t see him as someone who is afraid of the dark!’ He laughed nervously.
‘I am sure you are right.’ Then, putting her full authority into her tone, ‘Now, the story, please.’
But Saul glanced at Augustus, who, picking up his cue, told her what she had to know.
‘Brother Firmin knows those parts where the sea and the land merge,’ he began. ‘Seems he grew up thereabouts. He said there were such tales told as to keep children safe in their beds at night, else they might have wandered off and been drowned in a creek that wasn’t there yesterday, or put their feet on to boggy ground that would suck them down easy as a stone falling in a pond.’
‘Cautionary tales,’ murmured Helewise. ‘Go on, Augustus.’
‘Then there was another reason to keep safe indoors, because the heathen men came from over the seas and killed any who stood in their path. They took their long boats up the creeks and the inlets looking for fertile fields and pastures, because their own lands had been drowned.’
‘But that was hundreds of years ago!’ Helewise protested. ‘The Northmen do not come now.’
‘No, my lady, but it seems—’ Augustus paused. Then, in a rush, went on, ‘They left a presence, so Brother Firmin says. They did terrible deeds and the Marsh holds memories.’
The story was, she thought, beginning to sound very like Josse’s account. Fear of the ferocious fighting men of the past seemed to be a long time dying.
‘They attacked the monasteries,’ Augustus was saying. ‘Stole the treasures, killed the monks and ra— er, did harm to the nuns.’
‘I know what they did to the nuns,’ Helewise said softly. ‘I, too, have learned of the east coast’s violent past.’
‘When they launched a new boat, they took a virgin to sacrifice,’ Saul said, eyes round with wonder. Entranced by the tale, he seemed to have forgotten about whether or not his Abbess ought to hear it. ‘Seems their god of the sea and the storm needed a blood sacrifice in payment for keeping the craft and her crew safe from the waves.’
‘And when they were betrayed, they took the traitor and tore his lungs out of his living chest,’ Augustus whispered. ‘They called it the blood eagle.’
As if all three of them were picturing that horror, there was silence in Helewise’s room.
Breaking it – with difficulty, since she knew she must speak normally and was not sure she could – she said, ‘We speak, my brothers, of tales told by the hearth, of ancient legends rooted in folk memory. Oh, yes, I am sure they tell of things which really happened, but these things are past.’ She fixed both men with a direct glance, Saul first, then Augustus. ‘It will, I am sure, reassure you when I tell you that Sir Josse is not ignorant of Deadfall’s fearful reputation. However, when offered company on his visit there, he declined and said he did not see that he would be in any danger.’ Forcing a smile, she said, ‘We must, I think, abide by Sir Josse’s decision and agree with him.’
Then, before either brother could protest, she thanked them and dismissed them.
12
The long June day kept its light late and Josse did not make camp until dusk was at long last falling. He had covered many miles that afternoon and he reckoned he could not be far from his destination. The riding had been easy for much of the way, for he had taken a route that ran along the sou
thern edges of the northern High Weald and the track was level and reasonably well maintained. The long dry spell, however, meant that the surface of the road had been pulverised to fine dust, which clouded up around him as Horace’s big feet repeatedly struck the baked ground. As he had saddled the horse prior to leaving Hawkenlye, Sister Martha had watched his preparations.
‘You’ll need more than those two blankets of yours to keep you comfortable if you’re planning to sleep in the open,’ she had observed.
Turning to her with a smile, he said, ‘Will I?’
‘Aye. There’s rain coming.’
He had stared at her for an instant in total disbelief; he had rarely known a spell of such relentlessly fine, hot, dry weather. ‘Are you sure, Sister?’
‘Quite sure.’ She held out a square of some folded material, loosely wrapped in sacking; it was quite heavy and decidedly malodorous. ‘You’d better take this.’
He took it from her gingerly. ‘What is it?’
‘Linen treated with tallow. It’ll keep the wet out.’
‘Er – thank you, Sister.’ Even as he spoke, he was wondering where he could pack it so that its aroma would not be constantly under his nose.
As if she knew perfectly well what he was thinking, she laughed. ‘Aye, I know it’s none too sweet, but you’ll be grateful for it, Sir Josse, you mark my words!’
Faced with such certainty, he had conceded defeat and stowed the stinking cloth behind his saddle.
Now, settling for the night, he put the cloth package as far away from him as possible. He soon had a small fire going – there was plenty of kindling and dry wood about, there on the edge of the woodlands that cloaked the northern hills – and everything was bone-dry. For safety’s sake he made a hearth of stones to contain the little blaze. He put water in a pot and in it threw some strips of meat and some root vegetables. When his makeshift stew was ready, he began his meal by dipping chunks of dry bread into the rich, hot gravy.
He was so hungry that he could have eaten virtually anything but, fortunately, the Hawkenlye victuals were as usual very good and his meal was delicious.
