The Song of the Nightingale

by Alys Clare

  It was quite different at Hawkenlye Abbey, Little Helewise reflected. Abbess Caliste was, presumably, as honour bound as any other nun, monk or priest to obey the pope’s dictates, yet somehow she and her loyal team were managing to succour all the desperate people who came asking. Little Helewise knew – or suspected – that men such as her father, her uncle Dominic and her grandmother’s dear friend, Sir Josse d’Acquin, were helping to the best of their ability, and quietly sending as much as they could spare for the abbey to distribute. It made Little Helewise proud, even if sometimes, if she was honest, she might wish her own household kept back just a bit more for their own use. It was a selfish thought, perhaps, but she was only sixteen and life was dark and frightening.

  The reality of her bleak, miserable situation broke out all at once from the corner of her mind in which she had tried to pen it. She suffered the ensuing wave of distress, then, when it had passed, straightened her spine and raised her head. Had anyone been there to witness, they might have thought she was steeling herself to go into battle.

  She sighed, trying to find something to be cheerful about. Feeling suddenly exhausted, she crossed the cold stone floor and sat down on her bed, swinging her legs up and lying back on the soft pillows. She pulled up the wool blankets and the thick fur cover, snuggling down and making a warm nest. Gazing out across the chamber, she caught sight of a silver box resting on the low table beside the bed. It had been a gift from her father. He had brought it back from a recent trip to London, hoping, she guessed, to cheer her up.

  If only it were that simple.

  The box was a pretty thing. It was rectangular in shape, about the size of her hand, and, although the sides were decorated with a swirling pattern of leaves, the top was plain. She reached out for it, holding it up so that she could see herself reflected in the bright metal.

  She saw her own wide eyes staring back at her, light in colour like her grandmother’s. Her thick, dark hair was drawn back severely, leaving her pale face mercilessly exposed. She read knowledge in her eyes; the lids were puffy from weeping, and the dark circles that were etched deeply around them bore witness to sleepless nights.

  She was pining. She was listless, miserable, and her customary high spirits appeared to have quite deserted her. Anxiety rode her constantly. Hardest to endure was the enforced imprisonment within the house. Not that she was alone in having to bear it; every young woman of her acquaintance was in the same position. The harsh winter was to blame: that, and the widespread, desperate poverty of the people of England. Bands of the homeless and the dispossessed lived – existed – out in the wilds of the countryside, and even the ones who had begun as honest men eventually became desperate. Cold to their very bones, often sick or wounded, hunger drove them to violence, and terrible tales were whispered of their crimes. Men such as Little Helewise’s father no longer considered it safe to permit their womenfolk to travel the roads and the tracks unless they were accompanied by at least one strong, stoutly-armed man to act as guard, and the trouble with that was that most strong men in the employ of those such as Leofgar Warin were far too busy on essential tasks to have any spare time to escort a young woman while she went off visiting.

  Little Helewise was lonely, longing more than almost anything to be allowed to go and visit family or friends. One member of the family in particular . . .

  It was no use asking. Her mother Rohaise, frowning, always tense and anxious, preoccupied with running a home on increasingly tight rations, had no time for such queries. Had Little Helewise pleaded again, she knew she would get exactly the same answer: if you have time on your hands and are bored and at a loose end, I will find you something to do. The something to do would invariably be a dreary, repetitive, dull task such as helping mend the household linen, or chopping endless cabbages and root vegetables for the soups that seemed to have become the household’s sole food. To make matters worse, the task would have to be done beneath the stern, eagle-eyed scrutiny of her mother, who had a way of making it perfectly clear that she considered her daughter far too prone to daydreaming, time-wasting and generally failing to drive herself, whatever that meant. Working in her mother’s company was, Little Helewise reflected, uncomfortable at the best of times. Now, it would be—

  No. She must not think of that.

  She lay back on the bed and hunched the blanket and the soft fur more tightly around her ears. She stroked the fine wool of the blanket with her fingertips. Her family were growing wealthy because of wool and, despite the increasingly severe demands of the king’s incessant taxes, this wealth appeared to keep steadily growing. Not that it was doing them much good at the moment, when the terrible winter meant that food of every kind was in such short supply. But the flocks were surviving, despite the snow that refused to go away and the cold wind that went on blowing out of the north-east. The thick wool that now insulated the ewes against the elements would be shorn in the spring, as it was every year, and sent over to the Low Countries, where it would be turned into the fine, highly prized cloth that fetched the highest prices.

  Money.

  Yes, it was good to know it was there, shoring up her family and keeping them safe from the sort of lives endured by the tramps, vagabonds and brigands who paced the lanes and the tracks and somehow existed out in the woods. She would never take it for granted; never underestimate its importance.

  But, oh, oh, it couldn’t buy happiness, and it couldn’t solve the sort of misery she was facing now.

  She was on her own, and sometimes her heart hurt so much that it felt as if it would break.

  Of all the extended family, it was Little Helewise who pined most for the absentee: Ninian, the adopted son of Josse d’Acquin, had been forced to flee England late the previous October – over three months ago now – and not a word had come to say where he had gone, how he was, whether he was managing to eke out an existence, or even if he was still alive.

  He is still alive, Little Helewise said silently to herself. If it were not so, I would know. She repeated the same phrases most days. Sometimes she managed to convince herself.

  Her grandmother and Josse had gone after him, once he was no longer suspected of murder and it was safe for him to come home. Little Helewise’s hopes had ridden high, so sure had she been that they would find him. Sir Josse was a legend – strong, determined, capable and resourceful – and Grandmother Helewise had the reputation of never giving up on a task until it was completed to her own and, more importantly, God’s satisfaction. Grandmother Helewise used to be abbess of Hawkenlye Abbey; the habit of command, and the ability to inspire awed respect from lesser beings, was still draped around her like a rich and elegant cloak, or so it seemed to her granddaughter.

  Not that such considerations had held Little Helewise back when her grandmother and Josse had returned alone. She remembered now, deeply ashamed of herself, how she had railed at the pair of them for their failure, not seeing until it was too late the shame in Josse’s brown eyes and the pain in her grandmother’s face.

  ‘You should have tried harder and ridden further!’ Little Helewise had screeched, beside herself with bitter disappointment and the agony of her loss. ‘How could you let him go?’ Then she had rounded on Josse. ‘You claim you look on him as a son!’ she shouted. ‘How could you just give up? I thought you loved him!’

  Even in her distress, she had seen the tenderness of the deeply sympathetic glance her grandmother bestowed on Josse. ‘There are reasons, Granddaughter,’ Helewise said quietly. Josse made as if to stop her, but she shook her head. Then she said, ‘Little Helewise, you must be very brave.’

  And she told her where Ninian had gone.

  Of course, Little Helewise had understood then, or at least she had begun to, once the storm of fierce, furious, angry, helpless tears had passed and she was herself again. Ninian, her beloved man, her one true love whom she had loved as long as she could remember, appeared to have wandered into the middle of a vicious, terrible war; one in which – accor
ding to Josse, who had patiently and lovingly tried to explain – the pope and the king of France had joined forces in order, each for their own reasons, to eradicate a heretical sect who lived somewhere far to the south in a land called Languedoc. Ninian had been making for a specific address – that of an elderly woman who was the sheriff of Tonbridge’s mother – but apparently this distant land was in uproar, and the town where the old woman lived had been razed to the ground by the crusading knights and their armies. Nobody had any idea where Ninian might now be.

  If, indeed, he was still alive.

  Nobody had said that out loud, but Little Helewise had been quite sure they were all thinking it. She had vowed then and there not to give in to such negativity, replacing it with her constant silent assurance to herself: he is alive, and he will return to me.

  She had quickly made her peace with her grandmother and Josse, offering a sincere and heartfelt apology even before her mother had time to order her to. Both the older people had understood. She thought she had seen tears in Josse’s eyes, and her grandmother had given her a hard, bracing hug and murmured, ‘Chin up. Have courage, dear heart, and we shall pray that all will be well.’

  Over the slow winter months, Little Helewise had discovered painfully that having courage and keeping one’s chin up were easier said than done. Praying might be all right for her grandmother, who had after all long been a nun, but, as far as Little Helewise was concerned, it made a poor substitute for a real-life, handsome young man whose brilliant blue eyes danced with laughter and who loved her as fervently as she loved him.

  Enough, she now told herself firmly. She could feel tears pricking behind her eyelids, and all of a sudden she despised herself for being so weak. Yes, she was faced with an ongoing, miserable anxiety which nothing she could do would lessen, but she was not improving matters by lying alone in her chamber weeping about it. She sat up, threw back the covers and stood up, automatically reaching down to straighten the bed and leave it tidy; her mother was fussy about things like that.

  Her mother . . .

  Suddenly, Little Helewise knew what she wanted to do. Living under her parents’ roof was not helping her. On the contrary, Rohaise’s attitude – that Little Helewise should count her blessings and start doing a great deal more to help the management of the household, and that it would probably be better for everyone concerned if she put all thoughts of Ninian behind her and got on with her life – was, Little Helewise now realized, one of the most disturbing and hurtful elements of the whole situation. It would, she reflected ruefully, have been so nice to curl up beside her mother on the bench beside the hearth, open her heart and reveal all her worries and anxieties. She pictured her mother’s face, the expression tight, anxious; the sharp eyes on the lookout for any behaviour requiring a reprimand. Slowly, Little Helewise shook her head. There wasn’t going to be a tender fireside scene, because her mother just wasn’t the type you went to for comfort.

  But, Little Helewise thought, I know someone who is.

  Moreover, if only she could get herself to that welcoming household where suddenly she so longed to be, maybe there might be some way of organizing another search party to go and look for him. The people there missed Ninian almost as much as she did; of that she was convinced. And, when all was said and done, if there was going to be another attempt to find him and bring him home – and how urgently she wanted him! – then it certainly wasn’t going to set out from her parents’ home.

  She rearranged her hair, drew on a clean coif and straightened her gown. She was going to seek out her father and ask quite a big favour; one, moreover, about which her mother would undoubtedly have a lot to say. It would be as well to present herself looking neat and tidy, and it would certainly help if she volunteered to do a few useful tasks to help out during what remained of the hours of thin daylight.

  Feeling considerably better, as even sad and anxious people usually do if they can find a purpose, Little Helewise left the chamber and, stitching on a smile, went to find her father.

  TWO

  In the House in the Woods, Josse d’Acquin was finding it increasingly impossible to cope with the varying degrees of depression, irritation, resentment and flashes of fierce, hot temper displayed on a daily basis by almost every one of his household.

  I am a reasonable man, he reminded himself one morning as, frustrated and hurt, he strode away from Hawkenlye Manor and off down his favourite track into the forest. Still fuming, he went over the recent scene: his son hadn’t appeared for breakfast, so his portion had gone cold and stale, and you just shouldn’t waste food, especially now when times were so tough; his daughter had leapt to her absent brother’s defence, using the incident to issue a not very subtle reminder to her father that she, too, might like to have a similar freedom to absent herself from the house; his faithful young servant’s elder boy had timidly edged the bowl of porridge towards him and dipped the end of his spoon into it, upon which his mother, face flushing in embarrassment, had lost her temper and screeched at her son that he should count his blessings, go on his knees to thank God that he and his family had a safe home with Sir Josse, and shouldn’t even dream of stealing food put out for someone else, even if that someone was not actually eating it himself.

  At that point Josse had pushed his chair away from the table – rather roughly, for him – and strode out of the hall, not pausing even to pick up his warm cloak, something he was now regretting, as it was colder out of doors than he had anticipated.

  As he paced along, his bad temper cooling as swiftly as his hands and feet, his mind filled with images of his household, of those dear people – kin, loved ones, faithful servants – who made up his world. He had known loneliness before they all came here to the House in the Woods. It was the fulfilment of a deeply personal dream, to live here with the people he loved; to need them and, more crucially, to be needed by them.

  Restored to good humour – even if not quite ready to go home – Josse thought about them all in turn, bringing each to mind in the way a devout man might handle the beads of his rosary, pausing at each one to think, to pray, to wish them well. To tell them silently, perhaps, what they meant to him.

  His longest association was with his servant Will; with a smile, Josse thought back to the day Will and his withdrawn and silent woman, Ella, had first come into his life. They had proved their worth so many times over the years, and Josse didn’t know what he would do without them. Will, in particular, he regarded as a friend rather than a servant, and would have said as much to Will had he not been very aware that such sentiments would be all but incomprehensible to Will and hence deeply upsetting. Will had a firm and unshakeable belief in a man knowing his place; moreover, Josse was aware that Will was content with his lot. It was not every man who could say that.

  Will and Ella were not Josse’s only servants, for in addition there was Gus, formerly a lay brother at Hawkenlye and now happily married to Tilly, who had begun life as the lowest, lowliest kitchen maid in a Tonbridge inn. Gus, the child of gypsies, had filled out from the skinny boy he used to be and was in his prime, broad shouldered and starting to look a little stout; although of late he, like everyone else, often left the table hungry and had drawn his belt in a few notches. Tilly had developed into an excellent cook, managing small daily miracles by turning meagre amounts of unappetizing food into meals that the household fell on; it was only rarely now that Josse caught a glimpse of the shy little tavern girl of old.

  Both Gus and Tilly had bloomed in their new life at the House in the Woods, and the three lively children Tilly had borne her cheerful, amiable husband were the living proof. The eldest boy was quiet, like his mother, but capable; with a grin, Josse reflected that in truth he did not begrudge the lad a bowl of unwanted porridge. The younger pair – a girl and a boy – tended to quarrel rather more than Josse would have liked, but he hoped it was just a phase.

  Thinking about Gus and Tilly’s children turned Josse’s mind to his own. Meggie, oh, Meggie!
She was suffering badly because of being penned up at home; very obviously, she missed the freedom of going to the little hut in the woods – where once she had lived with her mother, Joanna – whenever and for as long as she liked. But Josse had made a rule: nobody was to leave the house alone, especially the womenfolk. Meggie, bless her loving heart, abided by the dictate, although sometimes she looked so sad, and he wished he knew how to take the frown away from between her delicate brows. It was, he realized, weeks – months – since he’d heard her laugh, and nowadays she rarely even smiled.

  But I have no choice! he thought bitterly. The countryside was full of brigands, robbers, and vagabonds, homeless men who preyed on others not quite so unfortunate, who did not hesitate to attack the vulnerable for little more than a piece of bread. Rumours flew around all the time of travellers robbed and beaten; of lonely households broken into, the occupants terrorized, raped, beaten, even killed. Josse had no fears for such an assault on the House in the Woods; several strong men lived there, and their leader – Josse himself – was a former soldier. He had drilled his household in what they should do if ever anyone tried to break down the stout door; the women, too, had their own roles to play. Josse, smiling, reflected that, had he been an outlaw, he would rather have faced one or two weedy men than Meggie when her blood was up.