by Alys Clare
The pasture land fell away into a narrow valley, in which Josse could see the roof of a small building with a large cross rising from one end. Beside the building was another one, longer and lower. From what he had been told of the Hawkenlye community, he guessed these must be the shrine of Our Lady’s spring and the monks’ house.
He was nearing the imposing gates of the Abbey. As he drew level with the enclosing wall, a nun emerged from a small room let into a corner tower, and demanded to know his name and his business.
He was prepared for this. Nobody required to know your identity or your bona fides when you checked into an inn in a market town, but riding into a convent was different. Reaching inside his tunic, he took out the papers which King Richard’s secretary had issued. One of them bore Richard’s personal seal.
It was enough for the porteress, who bobbed a sort of curtsey and said, ‘You’ll be wanting Abbess Helewise, I shouldn’t wonder,’ at the same time pointing towards a cloistered courtyard adjacent to the great Abbey church. ‘You’ll find her in there. Get one of them to show you the way.’
Them, he realised, meant a group of three nuns gliding from the cloister in the direction of the church. Nodding his thanks to the porteress, he dismounted, and, leading his horse, approached the nuns, one of whom took his horse’s reins in a tentative and evidently reluctant hand, while another undertook to show him to the Abbess’s room.
Looking all about him while trying not to make it obvious, he followed.
His guide whispered, ‘Who shall I say?’
He told her.
Moving ahead of him with a small gesture of apology, the nun entered the courtyard under an archway, crossed the cloister and opened a door. She murmured something to the sole occupant of the room, but her voice was too quiet for Josse to make out the words. She beckoned Josse inside, then, her task completed, sidled past him and closed the door.
Abbess Helewise had looked up as the nun spoke. Now, as Josse stood before her, she sat perfectly still, studying him. Her face, framed in starched white beneath the black veil, was strong-featured, with well-marked eyebrows, large grey eyes, and a wide mouth which looked as if it smiled readily.
But she was not smiling now.
If he hadn’t known it was impossible, he’d almost have said she was waiting for him; there was no suprise in the calm face, no expression of enquiry in the eyes.
‘Josse d’Acquin,’ she said, presumably repeating what her nun had said. ‘And what, Josse d’Acquin, do you wish of us?’
He presented his papers and allowed them to speak for him. If Abbess Helewise was as impressed by the royal seal as her porteress, she gave no indication, but, opening up the letter which it secured, read right through it.
Then, folding it and smoothing it with a surprisingly square and strong-looking hand – somehow Josse had imagined nuns’ hands to be invariably pale and long, more suitable to prayer than to cracking walnuts – she looked up at him.
And said, ‘I had imagined someone like you would arrive, sooner or later. You wish, I have no doubt, that I tell you what I know of Gunnora of Winnowlands?’
‘I do, madam.’ Was that the right form of address for an abbess? If it wasn’t, she didn’t seem to mind.
Her face, tense with some inner strain, suddenly relaxed, and for an instant she almost smiled. ‘Please, my lord knight, sit. May I offer you refreshment?’ She reached for a small brass bell. ‘It is’ – now the smile was unmistakable – ‘a long way from the court of King Richard.’
‘I have not come direct from there.’ He returned the smile, pulling up the indicated chair and seating himself. ‘But, aye, refreshment would be welcome.’ Another of Josse’s soldierly habits was never to refuse food or drink when it was offered, on the grounds that you never knew when it was going to be offered again.
Abbess Helewise rang her bell, and asked the nun who responded to bring ale and bread. When these had been served – the bread was warm and unexpectedly delicious, and there was a sliver of some strong cheese with it which Josse guessed was goat – the Abbess began to speak.
‘Gunnora had been with us a little under a year,’ she said, ‘and I cannot say that her admission to our community was entirely a success. She appeared to be devout, spoke with fervour, at our first meeting, of the certainty of her vocation. But—’ The dark eyebrows drew together. ‘But something was lacking. Something did not ring true.’ She glanced at Josse, and, again, there was the faint smile. ‘You will no doubt ask me to elaborate, and I fear I cannot. Except to say that, in general, Gunnora had the wrong character for convent life. She said the right things, but they did not come from the heart. As a consequence, she did not really fit in with us, and, knowing this, naturally, she was not happy.’ Instantly correcting herself, she said, ‘Did not appear to be happy, rather, for she confided neither in me nor, as far as I know, in any of her sisters.’
‘I see.’ He tried to absorb the rapid thumbnail sketch of the dead nun, and failed. He was having a problem of adjustment: until this moment, she had been just that, a dead nun. Now, suddenly, she was a person. Not a very happy person. ‘Did she have any particular friends?’ he asked, more for something to say than any real desire to know. Was it relevant if she did have?
‘No.’ Abbess Helewise didn’t hesitate. ‘Well, not, that is, until—’
She was interrupted by a knock on the door, followed almost instantly by the arrival of a plump nun of about fifty. ‘Abbess Helewise, I’m so sorry to barge in on you, but – oh. Sorry.’
Blushing a hot, embarrassed red, the nun backed out of the room.
‘May I present my infirmarer, Sister Euphemia,’ the Abbess said calmly. ‘Euphemia, come back in. This is Josse d’Acquin.’ Josse stood up and bowed. ‘He has come from the Plantagenet court. He wishes to hear what we may be able to tell him of poor Gunnora.’
‘He does?’ The infirmarer’s eyes rounded ‘Why?’
Abbess Helewise glanced at Josse, as if to say, shall I tell her or will you? Receiving no response, she said, ‘Because, Euphemia, King Richard has doubly a need to understand what lies behind her murder. For one thing, she was of our community here at Hawkenlye, and his mother the Queen Eleanor has close contacts with our house. For another, it was in order to perpetrate the good and clement reputation of our new sovereign that a number of prisoners were released from jail, one of whom, it seems likely, committed this outrage on our sister.’
Josse could not recall either reason having been expressed in the papers from Richard’s court. His opinion of Abbess Helewise rose.
The infirmarer was looking increasingly distressed. ‘Abbess, it’s about the poor lass that I need to speak to you! Only…’ She looked pointedly at Josse.
‘I’ll wait outside,’ he said.
‘No,’ Abbess Helewise said, in a tone that suggested she was used to people doing what she said. ‘Whatever Euphemia has to say, I shall only have to repeat to you. You had better hear it from her own lips. Euphemia?’
Josse felt sorry for the infirmarer, who had clearly neither expected nor wanted an audience of more than the Abbess. ‘It’s not easy,’ she hedged.
‘I am sure it is not.’ The Abbess was relentless. ‘Please, try.’
‘I know I shouldn’t have done it,’ the infirmarer burst out, ‘and it’s been on my conscience ever since. I can bear it no longer, truly I can’t, believe me! I’ve just got to tell someone. I’ll confess and do penance, I don’t mind, it’ll be such a relief. Whatever I’m told to do, I’ll do it, with a good grace, no matter how harsh it is!’
‘Quite,’ the Abbess said when the infirmarer at last paused for breath. ‘Now, what shouldn’t you have done?’
‘Shouldn’t have gone looking at her, examining her. Only I meant well, really I did, and anyway, I let my curiosity get the better of me.’
‘How?’ asked the Abbess patiently. ‘I think you had better explain, Euphemia. You speak of Gunnora?’
‘Of course! I said, did
n’t I? I was laying her out – oh! Terrible it was, that great wound in her poor throat, made me fair weep, I can tell you.’
‘You did well,’ the Abbess said, more warmly. ‘It cannot have been a pleasant task.’
‘That it wasn’t! Anyway, when I’d tidied her up at the top end, I thought I ought to—’ she paused delicately.
‘Go on, Euphemia,’ the Abbess said. ‘Our visitor is aware, I’m sure, of the other outrage perpetrated on our late sister. You were saying, you went on to wash the cuts and abrasions caused by the rape, and—’
‘That’s just it! There wasn’t any rape!’ interrupted the infirmarer.
‘What?’ The Abbess and Josse spoke the word together. ‘There must have been,’ the Abbess went on, ‘the thighs and the groin were drenched in blood.’
‘You must be mistaken,’ Josse said gently. ‘It’s quite understandable, Sister Euphemia, after all, it must have been an appalling job.’
‘I’m not mistaken.’ Euphemia spoke with dignity. ‘Sir, I may not know much, but I do know the female genitalia. I was a midwife, afore I entered the cloister, and I’ve seen more vaginas than you’ve had hot suppers. Oh!’ Belatedly remembering where she was, she blushed again, a hand to her mouth. ‘Forgive me, Abbess Helewise,’ she muttered from behind it, ‘I didn’t mean to sound coarse.’
‘I am sure you didn’t,’ Abbess Helewise said graciously. ‘Continue. You were explaining to us your familiarity with the private parts of the female anatomy.’
‘Yes, that I was. Well, see, the hymen was still there. In full, like.’ Euphemia paused, but nobody spoke. ‘She was virgo intacta when she died, Abbess. Nobody’d raped her, not then, not ever.’
‘But the blood?’ Josse said. ‘What about the blood?’
‘It came from her throat, I reckon,’ Euphemia said quietly. ‘Whoever did for her, he scooped up the blood from her cut neck and smeared it on her – smeared it down there. Left her there, skirts up over her belly, legs all open, covered in blood.’
There was silence in the room as they all thought about that.
Then the Abbess said, ‘Someone killed her, and made it seem as though he had also raped her.’
‘Because,’ Josse added, ‘murder and murder plus rape are two different crimes.’
The Abbess looked up and met his eye. Nodding slowly, she said, ‘Two very different crimes.’
Chapter Four
‘And now, if you please, Abbess Helewise,’ Josse said when, Sister Euphemia having gone back to her infirmary, they were once more alone, ‘I should be grateful if you would tell me everything you can recall of Gunnora’s last hours.’
Helewise wondered if he had intended to sound so pompous. Studying him, observing the slight tension evident in the way he leaned forward in his seat, she decided in his favour. The man was nervous – perhaps uneasy at being inside a convent, it did affect some people that way, especially men – and his anxiety had given rise to an overformal tone of voice.
He was also, she had noticed, considerably too large for the delicate little chair he was sitting on. Well, it was hardly more than a stool, really, all right for a lightly built woman but not equal to the task of supporting a tall and broad-shouldered man. One, moreover, who appeared to have an innate restlessness, so that, trying to keep still on his inadequate seat, the effort was readily apparent.
It was up to her, Helewise decided, to put him at his ease. With that in mind, she arranged her face in what her late husband had been wont to refer to as her despot-after-a-good-dinner expression. Smiling benevolently at her visitor, she noticed brief alarm, quickly replaced by a tentative answering smile.
Oh, dear. Perhaps dear old Ivo had been right about the despot.
‘How much do you know about the daily routine of a convent, my lord d’Acquin?’ she began. ‘I ask because, without a working knowledge of our life, it will be more difficult for you to remark on any oddities in Gunnora’s final days.’
‘I understand. Madam, I know little other than that your hours are determined by the saying of the offices, and that your prayers intercede with Almighty God on behalf of all mankind.’
It was nicely said, and she inclined her head in recognititon. ‘Indeed, we follow the discipline of the Divine Offices, throughout the twenty-four hours of the day. Our rule, like that of the great foundation at Fontevraud, is modelled on the Benedictine Rule, although there are certain significant modifications. However, we are not like a strictly enclosed order, in that prayer within our own house is not our sole occupation. We serve the community in other ways.’
‘As I was escorted in, I saw a sister helping a man to accustom himself to walking with a crutch,’ Josse said. ‘And I could be wrong, but I thought I heard a baby cry.’
An observant man, this Josse d’Acquin, Helewise thought, to have noticed so much in the brief seconds it would have taken him to cross from the gates to the cloister. ‘You were not wrong. We run a hospital here, in the long wing beside the church. Sister Beata, whom you saw, has been caring for a poacher who lost his foot in a man trap. We also have a wing for the care and rehabilitation of penitential whores. It would perhaps surprise you, sir, to know how many former harlots are redeemed by motherhood into the wish for a purer life.’
‘I am happy to hear it.’ He appeared to have detected a reproof in her tone, which she had not intended, for he went on, ‘I did not wish to sound as if I were prying, Abbess Helewise, when I mentioned the baby – it was merely that the sound surprised me.’ In a convent, hung unsaid on the air.
‘Please, there is no need for explanations.’ She smiled at him again, this time more genuinely. ‘One of the girls in our care gave birth last week. We, too, are still sometimes taken aback at the sweet sounds of her baby.’
‘A hospital and a reformatory,’ he said, visibly relaxing now. ‘You have much work here at Hawkenlye.’
More than you think, she thought. Would it appear prideful to tell him the rest? Perhaps. But then she would be speaking for her sisters, who did the hard work. Who deserved recognition. ‘We also run a retirement home for aged and infirm monks and nuns, and a small leper hospital.’ He reacted to the last, as people inevitably did, and she said what she always said by way of reassurance. ‘Do not be alarmed, sir. The leper house is isolated from the community, and we are fortuante in that three of our sisters elected of their own free will to be enclosed with the sick. They, and those of their charges who are able, join in with the spiritual life of the community by way of a closed-off passage leading to a separate chapel, which backs on to a side aisle of the church. You are no more in danger of contagion here than in the world at large, possibly less so, since our nursing sisters are expert at detecting the early symptoms of leprosy. If they have the least suspicion, the patient is put in a separate holding ward until—’ No. No need to go into the clinical details. ‘Well, until the sisters are sure.’
He was shaking his head, had been doing so for the last few seconds of her speech. ‘Abbess, you misunderstand. My response to what you were telling me was not one of fear or horror.’ He paused, then amended, ‘Not entirely so, anyway. I cannot claim to be any more immune to the dread of the sickness than the next man. But actually what was passing through my mind was what a heavy burden of work you and your sisters bear. What a responsibility is yours.’
She stared hard at him, but could detect no insincerity, no attempt to flatter her, win her over. ‘My nuns and I are greatly helped by the lay brothers, who live with the monks down beside the shrine,’ she said. Credit where it was due. ‘They are good men. Unlearned, but strong and willing. They remove from us the need to weary ourselves with hard labour.’
‘I did not know about them,’ Josse said. ‘I was only told of the monks, who care, I believe, for the spring where the holy water flows.’
‘Indeed they do.’ She was careful to keep her tone neutral. No need to reveal to this sharp-eyed visitor that one of her most persistent problems was with the fifteen monk
s in the vale, who appeared to think that living so close to Our Lady’s blessed shrine gave them an aura of holiness that everyone else ought to revere. A holiness that, so they seemed to believe, gave them immunity from hard work. They were, in Brother Firmin’s own words, the Marys, adoring the Lord, or in this case His Holy Mother, while the Marthas – Helewise and her nuns – got on with being ‘busy with many things’.
Instead she went on, ‘You appreciate, my lord d’Acquin, the reason for our hospitals and homes?’
‘Aye. You have a healing spring in your Abbey.’
‘Yes. And, according to tradition, the original sick merchant to whom the Blessed Virgin appeared – you are aware of the story?’ He nodded. ‘The merchant said that Our Lady praised him for giving the spring water to his fevered companions, and she told him it was the best possible cure.’
‘The monks, then, tend the spring,’ Josse summarised.
‘Yes. They see to the immediate needs of those who come to take the water. They provide shelter from the sun or the rain, a warm fire when it is cold, benches to sit on, simple lodgings for those who wish to stay overnight. They collect the water in jugs and pour it into the pilgrims’ cups. They also provide. spiritual counsel for those in need.’
Josse caught her eye. She knew what he was going to say before he said it. ‘It sounds a relatively undemanding life, compared with that of your sisters,’ he remarked.
He had picked up what she had tried so hard to ensure that he didn’t. I must, she told herself sternly, be even more careful not to allow my resentments to show. ‘The monks work devotedly,’ she said, filling the words with sincerity.
He was still watching her, and the brown eyes held a certain compassion. ‘I don’t doubt it.’
There was a moment of silence, during which Helewise felt the very beginning of a sympathy between them.
Then Josse d’Acquin said, ‘You have, Abbess, given me a most clear picture of life at Hawkenlye Abbey. I think, now, that I am ready to ask again if you would tell me what you can of Gunnora’s final hours here.’
