The Song of the Nightingale

by Alys Clare

  ‘They say he’s killed,’ Tiphaine said shortly, hoping to indicate by her brevity that she did not wish to gossip.

  The young nun’s eyes widened. ‘Will we be safe?’ she whispered.

  Tiphaine took pity on her. ‘Perfectly safe. It’s not nuns he’s accused of murdering, and anyway we’re here to help him.’

  The four guards left by Tomas were lounging around the entrance to the undercroft. One of them, seeing the two figures approach, got up from his leaning pose against the wall and went to block the door, a cudgel in one hand. ‘No entry here,’ he said. ‘Dangerous prisoner inside.’

  Tiphaine regarded him steadily. ‘His wounds need to be cleansed,’ she said. ‘The punishment cell is filthy and probably rat-infested. If those cuts become inflamed and the fever starts up in his body, your prisoner will die before you have the chance to take him out and hang him.’

  It was apparent from the men’s expressions that they didn’t like the sound of that. They put their heads together and muttered for a while, then the man who had blocked the door turned round and opened it.

  ‘Go on, then,’ he said grudgingly. He handed her the key. As the young nun slipped past him, he shot out a hand and pinched her bottom. ‘We’ll have to search you when you come out again, so don’t go trying to smuggle him out under your skirts, Sister!’ They heard the sound of the door being firmly closed and locked behind them.

  ‘That hurt!’ the nun said, rubbing her buttock as they hurried along the dank passage.

  ‘I’m sure it did,’ Tiphaine replied. It had been courageous of the girl not to cry out.

  They reached the door, and Tiphaine inserted the key and turned the lock. She struggled with the bolts, finally managing to push them back. She looked at them thoughtfully for a moment, then, reaching in her satchel, took out a small pot of grease. Taking the bowl and the water from the young nun’s hands, she gave her the pot. ‘Put some of this on those bolts,’ she instructed the nun.

  ‘Why?’ the girl asked, taking the pot. ‘You’ve got them open now, and—’

  Good Lord in heaven, Tiphaine thought, what were young nuns coming to, asking questions like that? ‘Just do it,’ she said tersely. Then she stepped down into the tiny cell.

  She waited for her eyes to adjust. The passage was dim enough, with just two little windows set high up in the walls admitting light. The only illumination within the cell was through the open door.

  He was lying on his side, his long legs curled up, his face to the wall. His instinct to prevent his cut flesh hurting even more by contact with the ground had probably saved his life, Tiphaine reflected, since he had kept the deep wounds out of the filth on the beaten-earth floor. Crouching down, she placed the bowl on the ground and poured in the hot water, adding the fragrant herbs. The clean, sweet smell of lavender quickly permeated the enclosed space, and Tiphaine felt the usual uplift of the heart.

  The prisoner stirred. ‘Keep still,’ Tiphaine said. ‘I have brought water and herbs, and I will clean the wounds on your back.’

  He nodded. She sensed him tense, preparing for the pain that her ministrations would cause, and her hands were as gentle as a mother’s with a newborn baby. She bathed, wrung out the soft cloth, bathed again, and he made no sound. Finally, when the wounds were as clean as she could make them, she smeared on generous amounts of the healing ointment.

  ‘What is that?’ came his muffled voice; he had, she realized, buried his face in his sleeve to silence any cry that fought to escape him.

  ‘A tried and trusted remedy which seals the flesh and minimizes scarring,’ she replied.

  ‘And it really works?’ Despite everything, there was a touch of sardonic amusement in his tone.

  ‘It does.’ She rubbed in a little more, then, sitting back on her heels, sealed the pot. It was hard to see in the darkness, but she thought she had put a good coating of the cream on each cut. She was about to replace the pot in her satchel when his hand shot out and grasped her wrist.

  ‘Will you leave it with me?’ he asked softly.

  ‘I will, yes.’ She put it into his hand, and his fingers closed round it. ‘You’ll have to feel for where to rub it on, but I dare say that won’t be difficult.’

  ‘The pain is already much lessened,’ he said, ‘but that’s not why I want it.’ He hesitated. ‘It smells of the outdoors,’ he went on, a catch in his voice.

  The brief comment all but broke her heart. She heard a gasp and felt a hand on her shoulder, and only then realized that her young apprentice had followed her down into the cell. Tiphaine glanced up at the girl, whose face was wrung with compassion. The wide, blue eyes were filled with tears. ‘We can’t leave him here,’ the girl hissed in Tiphaine’s ear. ‘We can’t! We’ve got to—’

  ‘Hush,’ Tiphaine commanded. Such horrified anguish would not help the poor prisoner.

  Too late; he had heard. He turned round, looking first at the young nun and then at Tiphaine.

  It was Tiphaine’s turn to gasp. Remembering, grabbing hold of the girl, she said urgently, ‘Is this him?’

  The nun shook her head, bewildered. ‘Is it who?’

  Trying to hold on to her temper and speak calmly, Tiphaine tried again. ‘You said that, six weeks back, you’d met a man in the vale who was seeking a priest because he was about to do a bad deed. You described him as a brown man. Is this him?’

  Her eyes gazing down at the tall figure before her, Sister Estella, apprentice herbalist, said, ‘No, it’s not.’

  For Tiphaine, the reply was both relief and anguish. Relief because the prisoner was not the man who had been looking for forgiveness for a sin he was going to commit; not the legendary Brown Man who was wanted for murder. The anguish because, all the same, he was lying helpless in the punishment cell, accused of killing three men and flogging another.

  His presence there was affecting Tiphaine deeply, for she knew who he was.

  Moreover, the thought of leaving him there was making her feel physically sick, for he was a man of the outdoors who had never lived within walls. And now he was penned inside this tiny space, cut off from the light, the sky, and the air, only to emerge again to walk to his hanging.

  Not if I can help it, Tiphaine thought grimly.

  She reached down and tightened the man’s grip on the pot of ointment. ‘Remember the smell of the forest,’ she said softly. ‘Do not despair.’

  Then she got up, slung her satchel over her shoulder and, grabbing Sister Estella’s hand, hurried out of the cell.

  Tiphaine dismissed her apprentice, sending her off to make some more white horehound and lungwort cough mixture, a remedy she had recently learned. In fact there was plenty of the mixture on the shelves in the herbalist’s hut; Tiphaine needed to be alone because she had a great deal to think about.

  For the young man in the punishment cell to be hanged was out of the question. For one thing, he was not the Brown Man whom Josse and the others believed had committed the revenge crimes. Whether or not the prisoner had murdered anybody was not, as far as Tiphaine was concerned, relevant. Knowing who he was – more important, knowing what he was – she knew he could well have killed, although she also knew he would not have done so without a very good reason.

  He could not die because he was a good man. He was loyal and true, protecting those who could not protect themselves, looking out for people on the point of starvation or despair and doing what he could to help them. He was the respected, valued, beloved leader of a group of others like him, and if Lord Benedict were to bring about his death, the world would be a poorer place.

  Tiphaine strode away from the abbey, heading for the deep forest. The beginnings of a plan were forming. She sent a silent prayer of gratitude to whichever divine being had put it into her head. It was a wild plan, depending on several things outside Tiphaine’s control. The chances of it working without a hitch were slim.

  It was, however, the best she could do.

  She hitched up her robe, lengthened h
er stride and sent out a long, silent, continuous call to the person she urgently needed to find.

  SIXTEEN

  Jehan had insisted that they stay in their hiding place for the remainder of that day and all the following one. Or, rather, he insisted she stay hidden, while he repeatedly slipped out to see what was happening. When she complained, with increasing vociferousness, about her enforced captivity, finally losing her temper and yelling at him that she was leaving right that moment, and would get across the narrow seas and find her way to Chartres by herself, he had put his hands on her shoulders, stared intently into her eyes and said, ‘Please, do no such thing. If they are who I fear them to be, the men outside want to kill me. They saw you with me, and so I am afraid that means you are in danger too.’

  She was not sure why, but she had believed him.

  Meggie had hoped that, at some moment during all that time, he might have found the opportunity to explain the comment he had made just before the attack came, or, indeed, to tell her why the men were so intent on harming him. She had hoped in vain; all she managed to extract from him was a solemn promise to reveal all she wanted to know once they were safely out of England.

  She found she believed that, too.

  Around dawn of the morning of the second day after their flight from the band of men, Jehan was at last prepared to continue on their way. The hiding place had been comfortable enough, but, all the same, it was a huge relief to leave it.

  Meggie was still not quite sure how they had managed to escape. Auban’s surprising turn of speed had been crucial, for he had succeeded in outdistancing their pursuers sufficiently to get out of sight of the four men. Then Jehan had taken what Meggie thought was a big risk: slowing the horse to a casual lope, he had ridden right into the heart of a small town that crouched in a narrow valley among the downs. The place was busy, with a row of stalls selling the tired-looking remnants of winter-stored vegetables. ‘We’ll be seen, and someone will tell the four men which way we’ve gone!’ she cried.

  ‘No they won’t,’ he had replied, as calmly as if they were out for a springtime stroll. Then, with a swift movement that almost unseated her, he turned Auban’s head into a narrow alley between two buildings, following it to the far end, where there was a dilapidated barn. Quite sure that they must have been followed, that, any minute, a loud, challenging voice would demand to know what they thought they were doing, she turned to look back up the alley.

  Nobody was following. People were milling about in the road beyond the end of the alley, all of them apparently too intent on the day’s business to bother about much else. Jehan slipped off Auban’s back and, shouldering aside the barn door, led the horse inside. There was a narrow stall, concealed behind a partition, and Jehan put Auban into it, tending the horse carefully and whispering words in a language Meggie didn’t understand. At one point he turned to her, nodded to a bucket lying in a corner and asked if she would go and find water. She took it, went back up the alley again and, in a courtyard opening off the far end, found a well.

  Once Auban was settled, Jehan set about preparing their own quarters, up in the hay loft above the stall. And there, safe, warm, adequately fed from Jehan’s supplies – reasonably comfortable, in fact, other than the constant pique of her burning curiosity – Meggie had spent the next day and a half.

  Now, it was so good to be moving again that she was prepared to be reasonable and wait a little longer for explanations. In any case, there was enough to think about without giving her attention to whatever story Jehan was going to tell her; for they still had to get out of the little town and down to the coast, where there might or might not be a boat that would take them across the water.

  The town appeared to be still asleep, and they did not encounter a soul until, passing an outlying farm, they met a young woman leading a small herd of cows in for the early milking. Other than an uninterested nod in their direction, the milkmaid ignored them.

  There was a stretch of woodland to the south of the little town, and they used its cover for many miles. When they emerged, halfway down a long, gentle shoulder of land, the sea lay sparkling below them. Narrowing her eyes against the bright sunlight, Meggie could make out a tiny harbour, surrounded by a few simple dwellings. Several small but sturdy fishing boats were tied up along a wooden jetty, as well as a couple of craft being loaded with cargo. Jehan smiled in satisfaction. ‘That,’ he said, ‘is just the sort of place I was hoping to discover. Come; we will find out if one of those mariners will carry us over the sea.’

  Still cautious, he made Meggie wait with Auban, hidden in a stand of pine trees, while he went on alone. He was not gone long, and when he returned he looked pleased. ‘The boat at the far end of the quay can carry us and our horse,’ he said. ‘We sail with the tide.’

  Not entirely sure what that meant, she nodded. He looked at her enquiringly. ‘Come on, then!’

  ‘We’re going now?’

  ‘Oui. On the tide, as I just said.’

  Another lesson learned, she thought, studying the heaving sea that filled the little harbour and slapped up against the foot of the low cliffs.

  The boat was sturdy but basic, with a space let into the deck for the storage of cargo – and, on this trip, a horse. It was fortunate, Meggie reflected, that it was a fine day, for there was not even a rudimentary cabin and no shelter up on deck. She and Jehan sat down aft, opposite the helmsman, and wrapped themselves in their cloaks and one of Jehan’s blankets. They ate a little of their remaining food, and one of the sailors offered them a sip of some fiery spirit from his flask. It brought tears to the eyes, but, as Meggie discovered, it set a heat in the blood as if you were beside your own hearth.

  In silence, Meggie and Jehan watched England receding behind them. No quartet of horsemen stood on the shore yelling and waving weapons at them. There was no place for any pursuer to hide on the small boat, and the sailors busy going about their duties were plainly exactly what they appeared to be. For the time being, Meggie and Jehan were safe.

  ‘Now,’ Meggie said, leaning closer to Jehan so that he would hear her quiet voice, ‘I believe you owe me an explanation.’

  He turned to smile down at her. ‘Oui,’ he agreed. ‘You have been very patient, Meggie, and you shall indeed have your reward.’ He paused, eyes still on the shore – rapidly disappearing now as the wind picked up and the boat put on sail – and then he began to speak.

  ‘I told you, I believe, that I am a Breton,’ he began.

  She nodded.

  ‘I do not know if you in England know the story, but, seven years ago, our beloved Prince Arthur of Brittany disappeared. He was captured by his sworn enemy: his uncle John, king of England.’

  Meggie, still recovering from the surprising starting point of Jehan’s tale, thought she had heard something to that effect. ‘King John believed Arthur would be the Lionheart’s heir, didn’t he?’ she asked.

  ‘So did everyone, including King John and Prince Arthur. Arthur would continue to be a threat to his uncle, even once the crown was on John’s head, and so he killed him.’

  Meggie stifled a gasp. Was it safe, to say such things out loud? Not that there was anyone to hear . . . ‘The king himself killed his nephew?’ she whispered.

  ‘Oui. With his own bare hands. Then he had the corpse weighted with a heavy stone and thrown into the Seine, so that we who loved him could not even have a body to bury, or a grave to visit where we could pray for him and remember all that he had meant to us.’

  She was surprised at the emotion that shook his voice. The Bretons must have really loved this prince of theirs, she reflected. She was not sure she understood – she could think of no one who displayed a similar devotion to King John, or had done so for his late brother – but then, perhaps Prince Arthur had been a particularly good leader of men. ‘I am sorry that you lost him,’ she murmured.

  He bowed his head. ‘Thank you.’ Then, as if eager to change the subject, he went on: ‘I began with this matter b
ecause I wish you to understand the hatred that exists in the heart of the Bretons for King John, for he is a man who committed a terrible crime and yet was not called to account for it. He will answer one day before the power that judges us all, but for many of us that is not soon enough, especially as we see King John continuing to flourish. We have – spies, I think is the right word, in Britain; men, and women, who watch, who wait, and who, when opportunity presents itself, come back over the water to inform us. These spies, these brave people, they know where to find groups such as mine, who, while keeping up the illusion that we are nothing but hard-working men who travel to wherever there are tasks suited to our skills, yet constantly wait for the word that we hope and pray will one day come. Back in the late autumn, one such spy came to us in Chartres and reported that the king was planning a spring advance into Wales.’

  Meggie remembered Josse having referred to the same thing. Not that she had taken a lot of notice; the doings of the king were very far removed from the daily, small details of their own lives. Save, of course, that campaigns cost money, and each new one meant more tax demands. ‘I heard tell of it,’ she said.

  ‘You did?’ He sounded amazed. ‘From whom?’

  ‘My father.’ Josse’s beloved face swam before her eyes, and her heart gave a painful lurch. ‘He keeps himself informed about such things.’

  Jehan nodded thoughtfully. ‘I see. So, to return to my tale, we now had information that the king would move against the Welsh prince Llewelyn, pulling together many of Llewelyn’s enemies and making them his allies. For we who would see revenge taken against King John for the murder of Arthur, it was too good a chance to pass up. Accordingly, word was sent in secret to many clandestine organizations for men of like mind, and a company set sail for England’s southern coast. From there, the plan was to separate into small groups and make our way to Wales, where we would offer our swords to Llewelyn, standing shoulder to shoulder with him as he prepared to take on the king.’