The Song of the Nightingale

by Alys Clare

  ‘Who is a blacksmith like his ancestors, and who left his forest home to work in the cathedral at Chartres, making beautiful things, where he was distracted by a call to arms from his fellow Bretons because they had seen a chance to get even with King John for murdering their beloved Prince Arthur,’ she said in a rush.

  ‘Shhhhh!’ he hissed. ‘Not so loud!’ Then, grinning, he said, ‘There you have my life, Meggie. You know what I am and what I am not, and I have told you the truth.’

  ‘I know,’ she said calmly. It was time, she thought, to tell him something about her own strange heritage and mysterious gifts. Tomorrow, she promised herself.

  He was frowning. ‘There is one more thing,’ he said. His hand was on the sword that lay in its scabbard on the ground beside him. As she watched, he drew it out.

  Despite its sinister purpose, it was an object of great beauty. It was, she realized as she studied it closely, the model for her own miniature weapon. Its hilt terminated in a garnet set in heavy silver, and the crosspieces bore intricate, swirling designs, the very shapes of which seemed to exude mysterious meaning. The long, savage blade was decorated with more curling patterns, and its keen edge shone almost blue in the firelight.

  ‘Did your great-grandfather make it?’ she whispered, awestruck by the sheer power of the object before her.

  Jehan shook his head. ‘No. Skilled as Trudo was, this is an example from an older age, when men put something of their souls into the objects they made.’ He ran his hand up and down the flat of the blade, the movement a caress. ‘This weapon was presented to Raoul de Gaël on the field of battle, given to him by an elderly knight of ancient and pure lineage, for Raoul had saved his life. The knight was old and had no son to leave his treasure to, and he wanted a fitting gift for his saviour. Raoul, however, did not live long to enjoy his reward, and when he was dying, he summoned the one man who he knew would appreciate its beauty and its power.’

  ‘Trudo le Ferronier,’ Meggie murmured.

  ‘Oui. Trudo passed it down to his son Péran; Péran gave it to my father Chrétien; my father handed it down to me. And when that thief stole it from beneath my sleeping body in the rooming house, I had no choice but to follow him until I got it back.’

  Meggie was thinking hard, trying to remember what Josse had told her about the three dead bodies at Hawkenlye. ‘But the sword was buried with the victims!’ she said. ‘It must have been, because my father saw it on the body of the biggest man, once he and the others had been unearthed and brought to the abbey. They all realized he’d stolen it,’ she added. ‘My father said it was far too grand an object for a man like that.’

  ‘It is as I thought,’ Jehan said with a grim frown. ‘When I came to Hawkenlye, I searched everywhere for the three men, but they had vanished. I guessed perhaps someone else had done what I’d planned to do, and put paid to them and their wickedness for ever.’

  ‘So you did intend to kill them!’

  ‘Oui, Meggie, I did. But intention is easy.’

  ‘You couldn’t kill them if they were already dead,’ she pointed out.

  ‘No, indeed not.’ He looked as if he were trying not to smile. ‘So, I searched and searched, and then I heard that three dead men had been uncovered in their shallow grave and taken to the abbey on the edge of the forest. I watched and I waited, and I took my chance. Shortly before they were taken out and buried, I climbed over the abbey wall, got the better of a lock and made my careful and furtive way to where they lay on their trestles, and took back what was mine.’

  ‘And nobody noticed the stolen sword was gone,’ she said softly.

  He had put his sword back in its sheath. It was probably her imagination, but Meggie thought the light wasn’t quite so bright any more.

  Josse and Helewise had made good time, reaching the coast without incident and quickly arranging their passage over the narrow seas in a large trading ship. The ship sailed in the late afternoon, and the captain said they’d reach the far shore round about dawn. He was right; Josse and Helewise were mounting up on the quayside as the first light of the sun brightened the eastern sky.

  The boat had docked at Boulogne, and it was a leisurely day’s ride from there to Acquin. Josse’s heart rose at the thought of returning to his family home again so soon, and, indeed, his kinsmen and women seemed equally delighted to see him, welcoming Helewise with the courteous affection they had bestowed on her back in the autumn. The womenfolk and the servants produced a splendid meal, considering it was at very short notice, and Josse’s brother Yves broached a new barrel of wine.

  Josse felt quite guilty when he explained to Yves and his calm-faced wife, Marie, that they were only staying one night and would leave very early in the morning. ‘We must get to Chartres as soon as we can,’ he added, very much wanting his brother to understand. ‘We now have two independent sources who have told us that’s where Ninian’s going, and where Meggie has gone to look for him, and so we really must—’

  Marie put out her hands and took his between them. She smiled at him, hushing the rest of his sentence. ‘Of course you must, dear Josse,’ she said. She glanced at Yves, in her eyes the look of a wife who has known, loved and understood her husband for years. ‘If it was one of ours, Yves would probably have to be tied down to stop him setting out right now.’

  ‘Oh!’ Josse exclaimed. ‘Maybe we should—’

  ‘No,’ Marie and Helewise said together, exchanging a smile as they did so.

  ‘One night will make no difference,’ Helewise added, ‘and we had a very early start this morning.’

  ‘Come back to us when you have found them,’ Yves said. ‘We will prepare a party for you all – the biggest celebration this old house has ever seen!’

  ‘We will try to send word,’ Helewise said. She shot a look at Josse. ‘It’s not easy,’ she whispered to him, ‘preparing a feast – it’s nice to have a little warning!’

  Josse said a silent prayer. All this talk of feasts and celebrations was, he thought, tempting fate.

  Later, as Marie showed Helewise to her sleeping quarters, Helewise confided in her the reason for their urgent need to take Ninian home. Marie nodded understandingly. ‘And your granddaughter will deliver her child when?’

  ‘In July,’ Helewise replied. ‘Of course, they won’t be able to marry, even assuming we find Ninian and he comes home, for the interdict still prevents it. But at least there’s now a chance that he will be there for the birth.’

  ‘Yes,’ Marie said. The interdict, she was thinking. Yes, the interdict . . .

  At long last, Ninian was approaching Chartres. He was tired, Garnet was even more tired, and both of them were dusty, sweat-stained and stinking. Before he entered the city, Ninian made up his mind to get both his horse and himself as clean as he could. It was, he thought as he rode through the open countryside south of the town looking for somewhere suitable, rather like the ritual cleansing of a man about to be knighted, where you stripped, washed, donned clean clothing and spent the night alone in a prayer vigil.

  He found what he sought: a spot where a hurrying stream ran in a shallow valley between stands of willows. It was a good distance from the road and, down in the water, he would be out of sight of anyone passing by. He rode down on to the narrow stretch of sandy bank, slipped off Garnet’s back, unfastened his baggage and removed the horse’s saddle and bridle. He would clean those first, he decided, while he was still in his filthy clothes.

  Garnet had already taken off for the new spring grass and was on his back, feet in the air, rolling with such abandon that Ninian thought he’d never stop.

  Some time later, washed, dressed in the cleanest of his garments and mounted on a well-groomed horse whose tack gleamed as brightly as his rider’s boots, Ninian rode into Chartres. He knew he must find somewhere to lodge – which, although not impossible, would not be easy, as he had very little money – but that was of secondary importance.

  He found an inn where decent stabling was on offe
r, leaving Garnet in the care of a bright-looking young lad. Then he headed out up the street, across the square and into the cathedral.

  It was very strange to be back. A decade ago, when he and Josse had been there, the new building had been in skeletal form, its walls and arches just beginning their soaring flight up towards the heavens. Now the structure was complete, and craftsmen were busy working on decorative stone and metalwork, and putting in magnificent stained-glass windows.

  For some time Ninian just stood and stared. He had never seen anything as beautiful as the evening sun through the coloured glass of Chartres.

  In time, he went where he knew he would: down into the crypt. To his surprise – for he knew very well where the Black Goddess figure intended for this place was now hidden – there was another Madonna statue in the niche that had been specially built. He stood staring up at her. She too was carved from black wood, and she too was clearly divine, but there the resemblance ended. The Black Goddess at Hawkenlye was the Mother depicted before she gave birth, her belly swelling in a great curve. This statue represented the archetypal mother and child, the infant cradled in her arms and looking up adoringly into her loving face.

  ‘Beautiful, isn’t she?’ whispered a voice at his side. Looking down, he saw an ancient, tiny woman, eyes bright in the creased old face.

  ‘She is,’ he whispered back.

  The old woman looked around to check they were alone. Then, leaning closer and enveloping Ninian in garlicky breath, she added, ‘Course, she’s not the one we was meant to have.’

  His heart gave a lurch. ‘Really?’ he managed to say.

  She shook her head. ‘No.’ Her eyes went misty. ‘That one, she were a small, black, immemorial image.’ She paused, apparently lost in rapture. ‘Or so they say,’ she added, returning to herself. ‘This ’ere one’s a substitute,’ she hissed, laying a bent old finger to the side of her nose. ‘Lovely, all the same.’ Then, as if fearing she had said too much, she gave him a nod and scuttled away.

  He stood alone in the crypt, the Madonna and child before him. The sounds of the industrious workmen high above him faded away as his mind turned inwards and, in a moment like an epiphany, he thought he understood.

  There was a greater purpose to everything that had happened, right back to the time when his mother had vanished from this very spot. Somehow she linked everything together. His mother, Joanna. There was a sudden, painful ache of longing for her in his heart, and he put his hands to his breast as if to soothe it.

  She had brought him here; acting in some unfathomable way, she had put in his mind the chain that linked together the Black Goddess figures, all the way from the Languedoc to Chartres. And – his eyes were suddenly wide open as further comprehension dawned – the bonshommes were wound up in it all.

  The bonshommes, yes, of course, with their worship of the female principle. One hand moved from his heart to where he carried the set of images, wrapped in their silk cloth. ‘I will do as you ask,’ he said softly out loud, addressing he knew not who. ‘I will undertake the task entrusted to me and somehow make sure that the bedrock of your beliefs, hidden deep in these images, will never be lost.’

  Then he fell on his knees, closed his eyes and gave himself up to the power of the spirit he could feel humming and beating all around him.

  TWENTY

  Josse and Helewise were within a few hours of their destination. If the weather remained fine, and if the steadily increasing amount of traffic on the roads and tracks did not delay them too much, then, Josse had announced, they should reach Chartres by nightfall. Helewise breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Although it was only early in the season, already spring seemed to be well into its stride here, and the sun had been beating down on them for most of the last few days. She was hot, travel-stained and weary, and she longed for the relief of getting down from her horse and not facing the imminent prospect of getting back on again.

  The good weather appeared to have brought everyone out of their homes, Helewise reflected as she rode along behind Josse. Well, that was understandable; after a long, hard winter, during which you only left the shelter of your own four walls when you had to, and when the days were so short that you got up and went to bed in profound darkness, it was only natural to want to feel the blessed sun on your face again. Everywhere she looked she saw people busy in the villages and fields, tending their animals and their land, mending walls and roofs damaged by winter rain and snow, making sure gates, fences and hedges would be strong enough to contain cattle and sheep turned out on the fresh, new grass. And it seemed that any man, woman or child with time to spare had saddled up and was making for Chartres.

  That, too, was no wonder, Helewise thought. Word of the magnificent new cathedral nearing completion south-west of Paris had spread to England, so it was hardly surprising that the people of northern France all knew about the marvel in their midst and were anxious to see for themselves. Josse had told her about the fire that had burned down the previous structure, back in 1194, and how the people, believing this to have been a sign from the Holy Mother that she wanted a more magnificent church to house her precious relic, had set to in their hundreds and thousands to obey her. Men and women had dragged carts laden with stone from nearby quarries, the bishop and the cathedral chapter had given up part of their income, and the king himself had funded the construction of the grand North Porch. With such a noble example to follow, other members of the nobility had rushed to contribute, as had men of lesser rank; it was said that the merchants of Chartres were donating magnificent stained-glass windows for the new cathedral, each representing the craft of the brotherhood that had donated it.

  Helewise thought about the precious relic. The Sancta Camisia was reputed to be the shift that the Virgin Mary had worn when she gave birth to her holy son. It had apparently been presented to the great Charlemagne by no less a person than the Byzantine Empress Irene, although history was less clear on how the garment had come to be in her hands. According to some, the Virgin had worn the shift on the occasion of the Annunciation, not the birth, although Helewise did not see that one necessarily excluded the other. Mary had been poor, hadn’t she? The visit from the angel, and the spark put into her womb that had become the Blessed Saviour, were only nine months apart, so she could easily have worn the shift on both momentous occasions. Assuming it was adequately voluminous, her practical mind added.

  She turned the story over in her mind. A part of her felt that she should believe it unquestioningly, and she had an uneasy feeling that once she would have done just that. Now, though, now that she had deliberately removed herself from a place where you were encouraged to think and do exactly as you were told without protest or demur, it was different. And a quiet but insistent voice in Helewise’s head was asking if it was really very likely that a fragile, well-used and probably cheap piece of cloth could truly have survived a thousand years and a journey of several thousand miles, not to mention being turned over, examined and exclaimed over by all the hundreds of people who had handled it.

  It could have survived if God had ordered it, she told herself firmly. In which case, the shift was truly miraculous, and people were right to revere it and credit it with magical healing powers. But she found she no longer automatically believed in such miracles. Human hands healed people: hands worked by minds inspired to use the right herbs and administer the correct sort of touch. Yes, it was undoubtedly God who provided the inspiration – hadn’t Helewise, when she was abbess, heard so many of her hard-working nursing nuns say that they were but God’s instruments, carrying out his work? – but it surely made sense to put your faith in a healer and not in an old piece of cloth . . .

  Moreover, were there not more important things for God to do than to ensure the preservation of one small garment? Would not a loving God of power who cared for his creation be more likely to preserve one small life?

  Her mind drifted on. Perhaps the true miracle was not the Sancta Camisia itself, but the impetus it ha
d provided. Without it, the great edifice to the Holy Mother might not have been built and rebuilt over the centuries.

  Virgin Mary. Holy Mother. Suddenly, Helewise seemed to see the Hawkenlye Black Madonna floating before her eyes, face serene and inscrutable, belly swelling with the growing child inside her.

  Virgin, mother, goddess. Were they one and the same? Were the different manifestations simply mankind’s attempt to render in wood or stone some great fundamental truth that he barely understood? A female truth. Oh, if that were so, then what of the man-made, man-ruled, man-dominant church that had risen up, flourished and now ruled the world?

  Helewise rode on, her thoughts profound and troubling. Josse was now some way ahead, and she was separated from him by a cart and a family group consisting of five on horseback and four walking, one pushing a small barrow. Spared from the need, then, to explain her absorbed silence, she allowed her mind to lead where it would.

  She had been nursing a secret. She had learned a lesson about herself; a realization that had come to her in the days that she had been back in the little cell by St Edmund’s Chapel. She had told Josse that her motive in returning there had been because she felt she must be useful, and she had truly believed that good deeds could only be done within a religious environment; that the very fact of living and working in a place that was a part of a great abbey somehow imbued her efforts with an extra power.

  But then that young woman had come begging for help. She had come to Helewise and, forcing down her shame and her horror at speaking of what had been done to her, had asked Helewise to help her get rid of the rapist’s child that had taken seed in her. And I, oh, I thought only of what I had been taught, Helewise thought, anguished. I thought in the black and white manner of the men of the church, and I turned her away.

  Where was compassion then? she wondered. Where was the natural understanding that one woman should have had for another, facing as she did the awful prospect of a lifelong reminder of the terrible night that robbed her of her maidenhood and implanted in her the child of a man who had done her and her family such harm?