by Alys Clare
A plan which, Meggie reflected, must have somehow gone wrong. ‘What happened to this company?’
He sighed. ‘The majority of its members will, I hope and pray, even now be in Wales, preparing to defend that land against the king’s advance.’
‘Yet you are here, with me, sailing back to where you came from,’ she pointed out.
He sighed again, then gave a soft, ironic laugh. ‘I will tell you what happened to me,’ he said. ‘I sailed with one of the last groups to embark. We were few in number – no more than ten – but our hearts were high and we looked forward eagerly to catching up with our compatriots and setting off on the long march into Wales. But a storm sprang up, and a strong south-westerly wind blew us far off course. Our companions had sailed due north from Brittany, aiming to make landfall at Plymouth, and, since they would have reached England before the storm, I trust they arrived without mishap. We, conversely, were almost shipwrecked, and when finally we made port it was to find ourselves far to the east, on the further side of the great inlet behind the island that guards it.’
She was not sure what place he meant, but she caught the general drift of his tale. ‘Go on,’ she prompted.
‘King John, it would appear,’ he said, ‘keeps a watch on the ports along his southern coast. Those who guarded, moreover, were on high alert; perhaps because reports had reached the king concerning the arrival of many groups of Breton fighting men making their way to Wales. Whatever the details – and I can only guess – there were men waiting for us when we arrived. Our group was attacked, and we broke up and fled for our lives.’ He hesitated, his face grave. ‘Two of my companions were killed. As for the others—’ he shrugged – ‘I do not know. I tried to find them, but without success.’
She tried to imagine what it had felt like, alone in a strange land with men out to kill him. ‘Could you not have made your way to Wales and found the rest of your company?’ she asked.
‘I could,’ he acknowledged, ‘and, indeed, that is what I planned to do, once I had recovered.’
‘Recovered?’
‘I was injured during the storm. A piece of broken mast fell on my head, and I was—’ He searched for the word. ‘As if asleep? Unaware?’
‘Unconscious,’ she supplied.
‘Unconscious, oui, thank you. I was unconscious for two days.’
He’d had concussion for two days, she thought. No wonder he’d needed to recover. And, in that state, newly back on his feet after such an injury, he had landed in England and instantly had to fight for his life. She leaned closer to him, feeling the strong thud of his steady heartbeat.
‘I found a place to rest,’ he was saying, ‘in a miserable, dirty lodging house that stood close to a junction of two major routes, one traversing the land from west to east, one running north up from the coast. It was, in truth, the first place I found that offered accommodation, such as it was. There I paid a small fortune for a bed in a dirty room, where I took off my boots, wrapped my sword in my cloak and hid it under the thin mattress on my narrow bed, and slept for a day and a night.’
As he spoke, she noticed, his hand had gone down to the sword at his side, absently stroking it. The professional healer in her was thinking that, to sleep for so long, he must surely still have been suffering the after-effects of the concussion. That or he had simply been exhausted . . .
‘When finally I woke,’ he went on, ‘it was dark, and by the silence I guessed it was the middle of the night. I lay trying to remember where I was and what I was doing there, and then, as memory came back, I realized something: my sword had gone. I leapt up, making myself so dizzy that I began to retch and would have vomited had there been anything in my belly. I went over every inch of that filthy, squalid room, and, although I found my cloak, flung in a corner, my sword had indeed disappeared.
‘When I could stand without falling over, I left the room and searched the rest of the house. It was run by an old woman and her daughter, and, as I ran through the other rooms and the silence continued, I began to be very afraid for them. With good reason: the house had been wrecked, the few objects of the least value stolen and the remainder smashed to pieces. The old woman lay on the floor of her kitchen, and somebody had beaten her very severely. Her daughter crouched in a corner, mute with shock, for she had been raped.’
‘What did you do?’ Meggie whispered.
He raised his head and looked up into the blue sky, as if praying. Then he said, ‘I tended them as much as they would allow, fetching blankets to cover them and setting a fire in the hearth, to warm them – for they were shivering with cold and shock – and also to heat water, for both had wounds that needed treating. However, in the state they were in they did not welcome the ministrations of a stranger, and a man at that, and so I did as the daughter asked and fetched a neighbour, who shoved me out of the way and told me she would take over.’ He smiled faintly. ‘As for me, I set off after the bastard who had stolen my sword.’
She had been listening, fascinated, to his tale, in thrall to his quiet voice speaking so close beside her. It was a moment before the obvious question occurred to her: ‘How did you know which way the thief had gone?’
‘The old woman must have been made of granite, for, despite the beating she had received, she had kept her wits about her and listened to the three thieves’ talk. She said they came from the West Country – many travellers lodge with her, and she is familiar with regional accents – and one of them made reference to moving on eastwards. I told you, I think, that the lodging house was on a crossroads between roads going north–south and east–west?’
She nodded.
‘It did not take much of a guess to decide they had gone east, and that’s the way I went.’
‘And you followed them all the way to Hawkenlye.’
‘I did, yes, eventually. It became easy to pick up their trail, once I understood their habits, for they preyed on the weak. They picked lonely houses, isolated hamlets, dwellings inhabited only by women or old men, the sort of people less likely to fight back when three brigands broke down the door.’ He frowned. ‘I grew to despise those men; to realize that they did not deserve life.’
‘So you went to the little chapel in Hawkenlye Vale seeking a priest, because you knew you were about to commit a sin and you wanted absolution.’
He turned to her, surprised. ‘You know about that?’
Again, she nodded.
‘Then you will know, too, that no priest was to be found. I had forgotten that England lies under an interdict.’
They had reached a familiar point, she thought. It was her turn to pick up the narrative. ‘Then – then you sought out the three men and, quickly and mercifully, you killed them with a stab straight into the heart. You carved a bind rune into the chest of the biggest man, telling anyone who cared to look that his death was in revenge for the terrible crimes he had done. You buried them out on the edge of the great forest, and there, a few weeks later, they were found and taken to Hawkenlye Abbey.’
He drew breath as if to speak, and she waited. He must have changed his mind.
‘You remained in the area, living in my hut,’ she went on, ‘and, when eventually you and I met, you told me you were returning to Chartres, and I said I wanted to come with you because I have to find my brother.’
She thought back over the last three days, remembering how they had run from the four men who had suddenly appeared and chased them. Remembering how frightened she had been.
She thought she understood now why Jehan had insisted they took such care not to be found by the horsemen. ‘You didn’t think those four men were Lord Benedict’s men, hunting for you, did you?’ She did not give him time to reply. ‘You thought they were the ones who attacked your group as you landed. They were, weren’t they?’
He smiled grimly. ‘Not the same men, no, I do not think so, for our landing was many miles further to the west. It is possible that they were looking out for men such as me, which I take as an encoura
ging sign, for it means, perhaps, that my countrymen are still finding their way across the water to unite with the king’s enemies in Wales.’ He glanced at her, a faint smile on his face. ‘I believe now, though, Meggie, that possibly I exaggerated the danger, and that the four men who chased us were no more than opportunist thieves.’
She nodded. It hardly seemed to matter now, anyway. She and Jehan were safe on the water, making good speed. Soon – early tomorrow, perhaps, if the wind did not change – they would arrive in some small port, and the last stage of the journey would begin.
She leaned against Jehan, glad of his warmth beside her under the cloaks and blanket. Tonight would be cold. She was just congratulating herself on how calmly she had revealed to him that she knew about the men he had killed when she was struck by a frightening thought.
He’d slain the three men whom he had known to be evil. He had followed the trail of their cruel, brutal crimes for many miles across southern England, and he was right not to show them any mercy.
But what of his other victims? What about the man he’d flogged, and the man who was found in the river, drowned? All right, they had only received what they had dished out, but how had Jehan known, he who was a stranger in the area? Had he deliberately gone out looking for violent men on whom to administer retributive justice?
Or did he just like beating and killing people?
Some tiny, involuntary movement must have given her away. Perhaps, as the sudden doubt was quickly replaced by fear, she had shrunk from him.
Then she remembered what he had said: I am not the man you believe me to be.
And, afraid to her very depths, she wondered what she was going to do.
SEVENTEEN
‘They say he is the man responsible for the three men’s deaths, and for Matthew’s flogging and Rufus’s killing,’ Josse said. He and Helewise were sitting together in the cell by St Edmund’s Chapel, and, for the time being, they were alone. Little Helewise was once more helping the nursing nuns in the Hawkenlye infirmary, and there had been no sign of Tiphaine for a couple of days.
Meggie had not returned.
Josse had told himself many times each day that his daughter could take care of herself; that seeing her companion arrested and taken away must have been very frightening, driving her to hurry away and hide somewhere that nobody could find her. Meggie knew the forest better than anyone other than its own people; she would have found somewhere safe by now.
Somewhere safe. Following the usual natural progression, his thoughts moved on to Ninian. Was he safe? Where was he?
Josse thought back to the brief and unsatisfactory meeting that he and Helewise had had with Gervase de Gifford. The sheriff had told them bluntly that the matter of the prisoner in the Hawkenlye punishment cell was out of his hands, Lord Benedict de Vitré having issued Gervase with a direct command not to interfere. It had hurt the sheriff’s pride, Josse and Helewise had agreed afterwards, to make that admission.
Josse had found a moment to ask Gervase about the possibility of getting a secret message out to the Cathar community in the Languedoc; with an ironic lift of an eyebrow, Gervase replied that, while communications did occasionally reach him from the south – although none had done since winter – he had not the least idea how to initiate the passing of a message in the opposite direction. He added, sounding more than a little offended, that, had such a means of communication been available, didn’t Josse think he’d have suggested it long ago, the moment Ninian’s name had been cleared?
But it wasn’t available. Josse and his missing family were on their own.
As he had also done many times each day, Josse forced himself now to think about something else.
Word had spread that Lord Benedict de Vitré had been informed of the prisoner in the punishment cell. It was rumoured that he was in no hurry to come and collect him. Lord Benedict, Josse thought, must have a cruel streak and was relishing the thought of a man being confined in a cell so small that he could not stretch out; so dark and airless that sometimes he must gasp for breath.
As if her thoughts echoed his own, Helewise said, ‘I hate to think of him in that dreadful place. His guards have orders to make sure he stays alive, but I do not imagine they are providing anything but the most basic food and water.’
Josse doubted they were doing even that. Water, aye, probably they’d give him water, but it took several weeks for a man to die of hunger.
He looked at her. She was pale, thin, and had dark circles beneath her eyes. He guessed she had sacrificed rest and sleep in order to pray for the prisoner. Sensing him watching her, she raised her head and met his eyes. ‘Do you think he is guilty?’
‘They claim to have a witness who saw him running from the site of the Tonbridge man Rufus’s death.’
Her scornful expression told him what she thought of that. ‘We should ask ourselves what motive he has for the killings,’ she persisted. ‘Who is he? Why has he taken it upon himself to deal out vengeance on the victims of crime? That’s supposed to be the sheriff’s job,’ she muttered, ‘and, ultimately, God’s.’
God, Josse reflected, didn’t seem too bothered just then about taking revenge on the cruel and the heartless, the robbers, rapists and murderers. But he did not think he ought to say so. ‘I don’t believe anyone knows who he is,’ he said. ‘He’s just the Brown Man, as Sister Estella would say.’
Helewise was looking thoughtful. As he studied her, her expression changed, and now she looked slightly abashed. ‘I suppose—’ she began, then stopped.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
She smiled ruefully. ‘Oh, I’m probably just being silly, but I was just wondering . . . Josse, it is the Brown Man who’s in the cell, isn’t it? He was dressed in brown, after all – you and I saw his garments, even if not his head and his face – and we have all assumed he’s the man who met Sister Estella in the vale when he was looking for a priest.’
‘And we’ve all assumed also that the Brown Man is responsible for the beating and the deaths, because he was here in the area at the right times and was seeking forgiveness for a grave sin.’ Josse was on his feet, grabbing Helewise by the hand. ‘Come on.’
She knew without his having to explain what he intended to do. She pulled her hand away, shaking her head. ‘You go,’ she urged.
And he remembered that she still would not go within the abbey. Giving her an encouraging smile, he hurried out of the little cell and ran off down the slope to the abbey.
He knew he ought to have sought out Abbess Caliste first, but he could not wait. He did not know where the sister he must find usually worked, and so wasted time searching down in the vale and in the infirmary, where a harassed nun carrying a reeking bowl of bloody bandages told him curtly to go and look in the herbalist’s hut.
Where, very shortly afterwards, he found her, calmly pouring a glutinous liquid into a small bottle.
‘I’m sure it’s not meant to be as thick as this,’ she greeted him. ‘I really need Tiphaine’s help, but she seems to have disappeared.’
‘Sister Estella,’ he said, leaning against the worn wooden workbench and trying to get his breath back, ‘I’ve come to ask you a favour, and I’m afraid it’s something quite unpleasant, although I hope that won’t prevent you agreeing.’
She put the bottle down carefully on the bench, then wiped her hands on her apron and turned to him, the big blue eyes serious. ‘I will help if I can, Sir Josse,’ she said. ‘What is it you want me to do?’
‘There’s a man in the punishment cell,’ he began, ‘and he’s been accused of—’
A look of relief spread across her round face. ‘Sir Josse, if you’re going to ask if I’ll take some remedies and bathe his wounds, you can set your mind at rest because it’s already been done.’ She looked down. ‘I must confess that it was not I who tended him, for I only went to help Tiphaine, and she did the work.’ Meeting his eyes again, she added, ‘We left him a special little pot of stuff that’s very good at
preventing scarring, so probably he’ll mend well.’ The beaming smile she gave him suggested he would be as delighted as she was at this good news.
She really was a very sweet girl, Josse thought.
He reached out and took hold of her hand. Trying to think how best to phrase the question, he said, ‘Did you catch sight of his face, Sister? He was hooded when I saw him, but I recall that the guards took the hood off, once he was in the punishment cell.’
She was nodding. ‘Yes, they did. He was lying facing the wall when I went in to join Tiphaine, but then he turned and looked at us, and it was then I realized.’
She believes I already know, Josse thought.
Still careful not to betray his desperate impatience, he said, ‘Realized what, Estella?’
‘That he wasn’t the man who I spoke to down in the vale. The one I told you and Abbess Caliste about, when you wanted to know if there had been any strangers about back in January,’ she added helpfully.
He kept hold of her hand. ‘Are you quite sure?’ he asked urgently. ‘It’s dark in the punishment cell.’
But she was smiling, confidence radiating from her. ‘I am absolutely certain,’ she said. ‘I told you, didn’t I, about the Brown Man? How his skin was a beautiful colour, like glossy leather, and he had a beard and an earring and very dark eyes?’
‘Aye,’ he agreed, ‘you did.’
‘Well, the only brown thing about the prisoner in the cell is his robe, which, as you probably noticed, is an earthy sort of colour, and quite dirty, as if he’s been sleeping outdoors. Oh, his hair’s brown, too, but, as I told you, I never saw the Brown Man’s hair because he wore a cloth wrapped round his head, but his beard was black, not brown. The man in the punishment cell’s got very pale skin, nothing like the Brown Man’s, and his eyes are blue.’ There was a short silence. ‘Actually, he’s very handsome too,’ Sister Estella said thoughtfully.
‘I don’t suppose,’ Josse said, with more optimism than expectation, ‘you know who he is?’
Her face fell. Josse guessed that, having thought she was being so helpful, it was disappointing not to be able to provide the answer to his question.
