by Alys Clare
Josse urged Alfred forward. ‘I shall accompany you to the abbey,’ he stated firmly, ‘and I shall make quite sure that no further harm comes to your prisoner.’ It was not the moment for further discussion, so he waved for Tomas to lead his party on ahead, falling in behind.
‘I do not care for this,’ Helewise muttered, riding close beside him. ‘Should we not fetch Gervase?’
‘He claims he cannot stand against Lord Benedict,’ Josse replied tersely.
‘But Gervase is sheriff here!’
He glanced at her. ‘Lord Benedict is a close friend of the king.’
There was nothing more to add.
He could sense Helewise’s unease, and suddenly realized that, as well as feeling distress at the prisoner’s capture, she must also be anxious not to go inside the abbey. Catching her eye, he said, ‘Go up to the cell. I’ll find you there.’ She nodded. Her eyes held his and he tried to get across the unspoken message: find Meggie! Don’t let her do anything foolish!
Helewise nodded again, then kicked her horse and turned away towards the forest and the short cut that led across to the clearing.
Someone at the abbey must have seen the horsemen approaching, for Abbess Caliste was there at the gates as they rode in. Tomas leapt down from his horse, tossing the reins to one of the abbess’s escorting group of nuns, and he stood facing her, a swagger apparent in his stance.
‘I require use of a secure cellar, Sister,’ he began, ‘where I can lock up my prisoner till Lord Benedict of Vitré gets here. He—’
Josse, also off his horse, pushed past Tomas and his men and went to stand before the abbess. ‘Good morning, my lady abbess,’ he said, making a courteous bow.
Abbess Caliste turned to him, frowning. ‘Sir Josse? Are you involved in this business?’ She looked very doubtful.
‘Only by chance, my lady. I encountered this man and his companions on the road, where they overtook me on their way here.’ He paused, thinking hard. ‘They claim to have caught the man responsible for the recent assault and deaths hereabouts.’ He laid careful emphasis on claim.
Abbess Caliste’s eyes were on him, and she said softly, ‘What would you have me do, Sir Josse?’
He took her arm and, turning away from Tomas and moving off a few paces, out of Tomas’s earshot, he muttered, ‘We have to do as he asks, my lady, for I understand that Lord Benedict has jurisdiction in this matter. Have you a place where he can be locked up?’
‘There is the punishment cell,’ she said uncertainly.
Josse knew of it. It was a small, windowless chamber built into the stones of the undercroft below the nuns’ dormitory. It was always cold, the walls often running with water, and, once the door had been locked, totally dark. It was so small that only someone of less than average height could stand or lie down stretched out.
It was a terrible place.
‘Is there nowhere else?’ he muttered.
‘Nowhere that is truly secure,’ she whispered back. ‘We do not usually expect to lock people up.’ He went to speak but she forestalled him. ‘Sir Josse, if I suggest some less harsh alternative, they will surely reject it and hunt around until they find what they are looking for.’
Aye, he thought, she’s right.
Abbess Caliste stepped past Josse. Fixing Tomas with cool, assessing eyes, she said, ‘Follow me.’
Josse, walking behind the men roughly dragging the hooded man along, felt the abbess’s distress as acutely as he did his own. This penning up of a man within such a foul place was wrong, surely, whatever he had done.
With a lay brother now leading the way, the party went in through the low archway into the undercroft. Someone pushed the prisoner’s head down to prevent him bumping it on the lintel. They half-pushed, half-dragged him along the passage to the tiny door at the end. Someone flung it open, and the prisoner was hurled inside. They heard a thump as he fell, hard, on to the stone floor.
Abbess Caliste’s voice rang out, firm and authoritative: ‘Remove the hood and unbind his hands. You will not leave him lying there unable to help himself.’
There was an instant’s silence, and Josse was sure Tomas would argue. The man stood facing the abbess, eyes fixed to hers, mouth open for some crudely-worded refusal. But Hawkenlye Abbey appointed its abbesses wisely; in this her own place, Abbess Caliste was not to be gainsaid. After a short, tense moment, Tomas turned away, nodding curtly at one of the men who had shoved the prisoner inside the cell. The man went down the low steps, and there was the sound of a knife sawing through rope. Then he emerged once more, slamming the door behind him, and Tomas rammed the bolts home. Then he turned the big iron key in the lock, removing it and swinging it on its ring.
He turned a triumphant face to Josse. ‘Let’s see him try to get out of that,’ he said.
Shocked and horrified, Josse stood looking at the door. There was so little space in the tiny room.
And the prisoner was tall.
Tomas was rubbing his hands, his delight palpable. ‘I’m leaving my best men here to watch over him,’ he announced, ‘while two of the others come with me to fetch Lord Benedict.’ He leered at the abbess. ‘Don’t you or your ladies go getting any ideas about handing in some little treats, Sister, because my men won’t approve of that.’ Then, chest thrust out, he strutted away.
Josse and Abbess Caliste were ushered back along the passage.
As the sound of their receding footsteps rang out, for the first time there was a reaction from the man in the punishment cell: a thin animal howl of anguish, swiftly cut off.
Josse went with the abbess to her room, both of them deeply shaken by what had just happened.
‘I am not at all easy in my mind that the prisoner’s fate is to be decided by Lord Benedict,’ the abbess said as she sank into her chair. ‘Sir Josse, we must inform Gervase de Gifford, who surely will not stand by and allow a man to be condemned without trial?’
‘I do not know, my lady,’ Josse replied. ‘In these times, it is not easy to stand up to a man who has the favour of the – er, of those in very high places.’
She understood; he could tell by her suddenly wary expression. ‘I see,’ she said neutrally. Then, passionately, she cried, ‘But, Sir Josse, even if the man in the undercroft is indeed he who carried out the revenge killings, he should be allowed to explain himself and give his reasons! Many people, I believe, would applaud his actions, not punish him for them. Yet I fear that, as soon as Lord Benedict arrives, our poor prisoner will be dragged out and hanged from the nearest suitable tree.’
Josse had the same fear. His mind was working frantically, trying to think of a way either to get the prisoner out of the cell or find some argument that would make Lord Benedict see the sense and justice of a proper trial, but so far he could think of nothing. He had briefly wondered if it would be worth speaking to the witness, but, from what Tomas had said, it was clear she had been promised a hefty bribe. Times were so tough, for the vast majority of the population, that, although it was deeply upsetting to think that this woman would see a possibly innocent man hang for something he might not have done, it was hardly surprising.
Absently, he let his eyes roam around the room, going back in his mind to the many times he had sat here with Helewise. As if Abbess Caliste could read his thoughts – perhaps she could, for she was an extraordinary woman – she said softly, ‘Go and find her, Sir Josse.’
In the little cell by the chapel, Josse found Helewise and her granddaughter, huddled in quiet conversation with Tiphaine. Helewise got up to greet him as he went in.
‘There’s no sign of Meggie, Josse,’ she said, her worried eyes holding his. ‘Little Helewise and I have searched through the forest in a wide arc all around the clearing, and, unless she’s deliberately hiding from us, too, she’s not here.’
‘She’ll have gone to the hut!’ he cried. ‘We must—’
‘I’ve just come from there,’ Tiphaine said. ‘I’ve come to fetch herbs from the abbey, but there’s on
e or two things Meggie keeps that they don’t have, so I called in at the hut before I came here. Sorry, Josse, but she’s not there either.’
His legs felt suddenly weak. He sank down on to the nearest bed and dropped his head in his hands.
He heard the rustling of fabric and felt Helewise’s hands take hold of his, removing them from his face. ‘Dear Josse, if we can’t find her, then there is little chance anyone else can,’ she said gently. ‘If she was with him when he was taken—’
‘No if about it,’ he protested.
‘If she was,’ Helewise repeated, ‘then she had the good sense to realize that she could help him far more if she remained free than by hurling herself impotently at a company of men and demanding they release him.’
It made sense, as far as it went, but he could see one big objection. ‘Then why isn’t she here, setting about helping him?’ he asked.
Nobody seemed to be able to answer him.
After a pause, Tiphaine spoke. ‘Seems to me someone ought to tend to the man,’ she remarked. ‘Helewise said he’s been whipped, and that punishment cell’s a dirty place.’
Josse looked up at her. ‘Tomas’s men are guarding the door,’ he said. It sounded feeble, even to his own ears.
Tiphaine grinned. ‘There’s a pretty young nun I’m training in the use of herbs,’ she said. ‘Reckon if the two of us go along and she bats her long eyelashes at the guards, they’ll see their way to allowing us to tend their captive.’ She crossed to the door. ‘Worth a try, anyway.’
Josse watched her stride away down the long slope towards the abbey. His mind seemed to overflow with anxieties: uppermost was the need to protect his daughter.
But he did not know how.
Helewise was still crouched beside him, and he was tempted simply to lean against her, close his eyes and rest. She, however, had other ideas. ‘Josse?’ she said, giving his shoulder a nudge. ‘Josse, we were on our way to see Gervase, weren’t we?’
‘Aye,’ he sighed, recalling. The problem of finding Ninian seemed very far away just then.
‘No matter what you say about Lord Benedict taking control in this matter, I still think Gervase should know what is going on,’ she went on.
‘He probably does already,’ he replied.
‘In that case, he should be here,’ she said with spirit. ‘He is sheriff of Tonbridge, and he cannot just absolve his responsibility like this.’
‘He’s not doing that, he . . .’ But Josse found he had no heart for the defence of Gervase that he’d been about to present. In essence, she was right. Maybe it was time someone pointed it out to Gervase.
He got up, straightening his tunic. ‘Come on, then.’
The surprise in her face suggested she had expected to have to work harder to make him agree. Quickly recovering, she wrapped herself in her cloak and followed him out.
FIFTEEN
Ninian knelt in front of the strange black figure, his mind wandering. In the near-darkness of the tiny chapel, the goddess and her child were illuminated only by a solitary votive candle, which Ninian himself had lit. It was late; everyone else appeared to have gone to bed.
He was in a small town called Rocamadour, which was built into the side of a limestone cliff, so its streets and lanes were formed largely of steep tracks and flights of innumerable steps. Pilgrims to the shrine of the Madonna, Ninian had learned, often ascended from the valley floor up to her little chapel on their knees.
It was a long climb.
He was not entirely sure why he had come. He’d had to travel long past the usual time he stopped for the evening to get there, answering a silent but imperative voice that often spoke inside his head.
He had learned to trust that voice, for he believed it was his mother’s. And, indeed, black goddess statues, like the one he was now looking at, were featuring quite strongly in his journey . . .
He had come, he estimated, roughly a third of the way. For the first week on the road, he had been forced to travel via tracks so small and difficult to find that, had it not been for the succession of guides who had helped him, he would never have found his way. The bonshommes and credentes who rode with him on those lonely, secret trails did not know what he carried; they had only been told that they must help him, for his mission was of great importance. As he shared with his guides the hardships of travelling through the mountains when the snows were only just melting, he grew close to each one. But he was leaving them, leaving them all, just as he had left his friends back in the village. He knew – or perhaps had been persuaded – that it was the right thing to do, for them and for himself, but, nevertheless, all his training had led him to believe that you did not run out on a friend when that friend was in danger and needed you. He had done something to help – the information he had taken to the Count of Foix would surely result in the massacre of one big group of freshly-arriving crusaders – but it would do little to arrest the steady progress of Simon de Montfort. And, sooner or later, the front line of the battle would reach the village he had left behind.
It was particularly painful to recall his parting from Alazaïs. She had been his first real friend in the village; she had provided the warm hearth and the kindly, welcoming affection that had helped him when the ache of homesickness became too much to bear. And she was old; even if other, fitter women and men survived the onslaught, it was not likely that she would. Ninian had wondered if he should suggest she came back north with him; there would surely be a home waiting for her with her son Gervase and his family. But he knew, without even having asked, that she would shake her head and, with a gentle smile, refuse.
She had held him in her arms as they had said goodbye. ‘I will keep you in my heart,’ she had whispered. ‘I shall pray for you, every day, and picture you as you journey north.’ He had told her the route he was planning to take. ‘You will see the Great Mother’s shrine at Chartres in the spring,’ she added. ‘Her time of most profound mystery.’ Then she had kissed him and let him go.
They had all turned out to see him off, and he’d left with their promises of prayer and undying friendship echoing in his ears.
And then, as now, his heart had ached to leave them. No friends could have been in graver danger, now that winter was over and the brutal crusade against them was starting again.
He gazed up at the statue high above him. Not including the figure that he had taken back to Hawkenlye from Chartres, she was now the fourth he had encountered. The first had been in the deserted village where he had met Roger of Pépoulie, and it was she, he supposed, who had set his feet on the homeward path. He’d come across the second in the hands of a fellow traveller, staying, like Ninian, in a rough inn at the foothills of the mountains. The man, seeing Ninian’s eyes on her, had kindly handed his treasure to him for a moment. She was about the size of the man’s outstretched hand, and, as he informed Ninian, she kept him safe. The third, he’d found in a church beside the mighty Garonne River, at a spot where travellers waiting to cross went to pray for a safe arrival on the north bank. He had been told that there were many more of them, all over the Languedoc, as if the images touched on some fundamental part of the people’s faith.
And now this one, this Black Madonna of Rocamadour, was looking down on him, silently communing to him some blessing that he felt like a soft stole around his shoulders.
He had once asked Alazaïs why the dark figures were so important. Her answer had been enigmatic: ‘She is the Mother Goddess, and her history is ancient. In Egypt she was Isis; she was also Virgo, Kore, Demeter and Persephone, for her nature is the heart of the feminine and she is both mother and daughter.’
The names meant little to Ninian. He waited to see if she would say more. Presently, she did. ‘She is depicted with her son, usually at her breast or on her knee, but very occasionally still in her womb.’ Vividly, Ninian imagined the Hawkenlye figure. ‘Isis and Horus; and, as depicted by later artists, the Holy Mother and the Holy Child,’ Alazaïs said dreamily. Then, eyes sud
denly intent on Ninian’s: ‘As to whether the child is Christ himself or the child of Christ, that is for each person’s own heart to decide.’
The child of Christ?
At first, Ninian had been shocked by the blasphemy. It was only later that a chance, overheard remark had allowed him to understand the truth that had been staring him in the face: the bonshommes believed the Black Goddess to be Mary Magdalene. The baby she bore was the child of Christ. And, far from being the wild, outlandish fantasy of one mad old woman, it was the belief of most of the bonshommes and many of the dominant aristocratic families.
But he understood there was something yet beyond that extraordinary idea; something to do with the female side of god, which seemed to symbolize the whole essence of the feminine. It appeared to be embodied in the shape of the Black Goddess figures, and they were deeply revered.
Ninian did not fully understand what had happened to his mother in Chartres Cathedral. He and Josse had spoken about it briefly, and Ninian realized Josse was as confounded as he was. It must therefore, he reflected, be in his soul, or somewhere – a place, anyway, that was not his conscious, thinking mind – that he perceived a very important thing: the Black Madonna was connected with some sort of eternal, female, divine figure, and that, in turn, was connected to the mystery that surrounded his mother’s disappearance.
No wonder the Black Goddess seemed so intent on leading him towards Chartres.
‘What’s he supposed to have done?’ Tiphaine’s young apprentice asked as the two of them made their way to the undercroft where the prisoner was shut up. The young nun carried an empty bowl and a flask of hot water. Tiphaine had packets of lavender and comfrey in her worn old satchel, as well as a small pot of healing cream made to a recipe invented by Joanna. Its ability to prevent scarring was legendary.
