by Alys Clare
‘No?’ Lady Richenza glanced over at the door, as if to make sure it was closed, then, in a gesture expressive of relief, flung back her veil.
Josse studied her. In other circumstances, he reflected, she would have been quite beautiful. Now, she was very pale; the full lips were colourless and dry, and the wide blue eyes were darkly circled. Of the swollen, pink eyelids that follow lengthy tears, however, there was no sign.
She was married to a fat, cruel and vicious old man, Josse told himself. It is quite unreasonable to look for grief at his demise.
‘Sir Josse?’ Helewise prompted. ‘Lady Richenza is waiting.’
‘Oh – aye, of course.’ He brought his thoughts under control. ‘My lady, we come from Hawkenlye Abbey, where the nuns are concerned for an elderly woman who has gone missing from the infirmary. A search has been organized, and we have come to ask if you, or any of your household, have seen her. Perhaps she is staying here? Perhaps you—’
‘What sort of a woman is she?’ the light little voice asked.
‘Er – she is old, as I said, and she has been troubled in her mind by the signs and portents which have been reported recently, such as—’
Lady Richenza shook her head impatiently, setting the heavy gold earrings jingling. ‘No, no, no, I don’t need the details,’ she interrupted. ‘Is she quality? Is she a lady?’
Josse looked at her coolly. ‘No. She’s a peasant, from a little village deep in the Kent countryside.’
Lady Richenza’s smooth white brow creased in a frown. ‘Then what would she be doing here, among my guests?’ she asked, sounding genuinely puzzled. ‘Oh – you mean she might have come here looking for work? We are, I suppose, taking on extra people to help with the feast …’ She waved a vague hand in the direction of the hall. ‘Sebastian says close on a hundred will attend.’
Josse felt his anger rising. Helewise, who had returned to stand beside him, put a warning hand on his arm. Swallowing his anger, he said mildly, ‘She would not have been wanting work, no. We wondered if perhaps somebody might have brought her here?’
Again, Lady Richenza seemed totally mystified. ‘Why would they do that? I don’t know this woman – I’m quite sure I don’t. What’s her name?’
‘Lilas. Lilas of Hamhurst.’
The girl smiled, as if at the unlikelihood of her knowing someone with such an absurd name. ‘Unless she has been smuggled in and locked in the deepest cellar, she’s not here,’ she said.
‘Who might know, if that really had happened?’ Helewise asked.
Her quiet tone seemed to make the suggestion a possibility, and, with a considered look at her, Lady Richenza said, ‘Sebastian, I imagine.’ She added bitterly, ‘He knows everything that goes on at Medley.’
Josse bowed. ‘Then, with your leave, my lady, we will go and ask him.’ Without waiting for a reply, he strode over to the door and wrenched it open. Turning to bid her farewell, he noticed that, in that brief instant, she had already pulled down her veil. At a stroke, she had turned herself once more into the impenetrable, grieving widow.
Helewise caught him up as he hurried back down the passage. ‘Well, what else did you expect?’ she demanded in an angry undertone. ‘She’s barely more than a child, and yet some relation – some man – decided it was appropriate for her to be married to that fat, cruel old goat! And you act as if her failure to be driven to her knees with grief offends you!’
Stung by her fury, he stopped dead. ‘I am not offended!’ he hissed back. ‘Helewise, you should know me better than that!’
She muttered something that might have been, yes, I should. Then, calming herself with an obvious effort, she said, ‘Was it, then, her attitude to Lilas that made you so cross?’
He gave her a rueful grin. ‘What do you think?’
She smiled back, taking his arm. ‘We’d better find that supercilious steward, and ask him if he really has hidden the poor old woman away somewhere.’
Josse sighed. ‘Aye, you’re right, although I don’t imagine he’d tell us if he had.’
They found Sebastian standing in the hall’s entrance, greeting yet more visitors. Once he had ushered them inside, he turned to face Josse and Helewise. Before he had a chance to speak, Josse said, ‘We are searching for an elderly woman, Lilas of Hamhurst. Lady Richenza has no knowledge of her; have you?’
‘I do not know the name,’ Sebastian replied. ‘Why would she be here?’
Not prepared to tell him, Josse repeated what he had said to Lady Richenza.
‘And you think she might have wandered away from Hawkenlye Abbey and found her way here?’ Sebastian asked. ‘No; as far as I am aware, she has not. Wait – I will check.’
‘I think he’s telling the truth,’ Helewise whispered as the steward glided away. ‘He was very quick in offering to ask the rest of the household, and he would hardly do that if he had something to hide.’
‘Aye,’ Josse agreed. ‘Anyway, there can surely have been no real need for him to go and check: to echo Lady Richenza, nothing happens here that he doesn’t know about.’
Presently Sebastian returned. Either, Josse reflected, he was a very good actor, or the name Lilas of Hamhurst really was unknown to him. Shaking his head, he said, ‘I am sorry. We cannot help you.’
‘I believe him,’ Helewise said as they rode away.
‘So do I,’ Josse agreed. ‘We’ll have to—’
At that moment, a rider came cantering up fast behind them, following them out of Medley’s great courtyard. Josse and Helewise drew rein, moving to the side of the track to let the rider, who seemed to be in haste, go by.
The horse was a fine bay, moving with graceful, eager speed. The rider, who acknowledged Josse and Helewise making room for him with a briefly raised hand, was cloaked and hooded. Just as he passed them, an overhanging branch snagged at his hood, revealing his face. Hurriedly, he drew the heavy, concealing folds forward again.
In the brief instant in which he had been uncovered, Josse took in the features. He stared after the rider as he flew on down the track.
‘What is it?’ Helewise demanded. ‘Do you know that man?’
‘No, but I’ve seen him before, very recently.’ Josse was thinking hard, trying to recall where he’d seen the man. With its deep eyes beneath jutting brow ridges, and the sharp, prominent cheekbones, it was not a face you saw every day … Then he had it. ‘He was up at the abbey yesterday, when Fitzwalter paraded his tame monk,’ he said, the words rushing out. ‘He was standing towards the front, just behind the massed ranks of Fitzwalter’s men. There must in truth be a link between Fitzwalter and Medley Hall, just as we thought – although I can’t for the life of me think what it is – and that man, whoever he is, proves it.’ Gathering the reins, he urged Alfred forward. ‘We’ll have to ride hard, Helewise – I will see you safely back to the turning for home, then I’m going after him.’
It was an anxious ride. Although Josse had been very glad of Helewise’s company at Medley, now he felt nothing but relief when, on reaching the place where the path for the House in the Woods branched off the main track, she set off for home and left him to go on alone.
As they had hurried along, she had called out to him, suggesting that she went with him. He did not want that. He was quite prepared for possible danger – he had a strong sense that it was lurking – but would not risk her safety. Since, however, any mention of danger would instantly have glued her to his side, he said instead, ‘No, go on home – I’ll be faster on my own, and there’s less chance of his spotting one pursuer than two.’
He knew she did not want to leave him, so, as soon as he had ridden off, he spurred Alfred on. The sooner he was out of her sight, the better.
The rain began. He did not dare risk stopping to drag on his hooded cape, and so had to endure the downpour. It both helped and hindered: it helped because the mounted man he was trailing was now leaving a clear pattern of hoof prints in the wet mud, but it hindered because it cut visibility to perhaps twenty paces. Joss
e reassured himself with the thought that, if he could not see his quarry, then the man could not see him.
The horseman and Josse were now on the track that led round the northern edge of the great forest. They passed the turning down to Tonbridge on the right and, presently, the bulk of Hawkenlye Abbey. The rider went on and, to judge by the horse’s imprints, he did not slow his steady pace.
Josse followed the twists and turns of his route. He thought he knew where the rider was headed, although it was a surprising destination, and at first he doubted his conclusion. This mysterious rider had a connection with both Medley Hall and the Fitzwalter faction, and surely neither could have anything to do with this place? After a few more miles, however, there was no more uncertainty. Careful now – he did not want to be spotted at this stage – Josse went on.
He followed the track that ran between the two ridges, emerging cautiously into the hanging valley. There, ahead, was Wealdsend – and there, even now approaching its firmly barred gates, was the hooded horseman.
You have ridden all this way for nothing, my friend, Josse said silently to him. There is nobody there.
But the horseman had reached out and, with the pommel of his drawn sword, he was banging on the stout wooden panels of the gate. Astonished, Josse watched as a small gap appeared. It widened just enough to let horse and rider pass within, then abruptly the gates banged shut. Even from where he was, Josse heard the clang as the locking bar on the inside fell into its brackets.
He knew it was foolhardy, but he could not stop himself. He edged Alfred on, gently, cautiously, until he was near enough to make out the buildings within the paling fence. As before, all looked deserted; the rider must already have led his horse into whatever stabling was provided, for there was no sign of the bay. The man, too, was nowhere to be seen.
Then, just as Josse was about to turn and ride away, through the gloom and the ever-increasing rain there was a brief flash of brightness: as if someone had opened a door and slipped inside a lighted room.
The rider had been admitted.
Josse was all alone, out in the rain.
THIRTEEN
Josse looked down at his sodden cloak. It would be today, he reflected, when he was dressed in his best, that he would be in for a soaking. Turning Alfred, he rode back down the valley until, in the shelter of a stand of pine, he drew rein. He unrolled the rain cape that Will had given him and, removing his rain-soaked cloak, replaced it with the cape. He pulled the hood up over his head. It did not afford much warmth but it did deflect the rain, as Will had obviously known it would.
Which, Josse thought glumly, was just as well. Having uncovered a link between Medley Hill and Wealdsend, he knew what he had to do next: go back to Medley and find out the identity of the horseman, and the nature of his urgent errand with Lord Robert Wimarc of Wealdsend.
As Josse rode back along the track, vainly hoping it would take his mind off his bodily discomfort, he tried to work out what might link the inhabitants of the two manors. Benedict de Vitré had worked for the king – and, judging by the wealth evident in every aspect of Medley and those who dwelt there, had done very nicely out of his association with his monarch. Was Lord Wimarc, then, also a king’s man? Had the unknown rider been hurrying to Wealdsend to take news to its master of arrangements for the funeral feast? For the redistribution of power, now that Lord Benedict was dead?
Josse shook his head. He did not know: the only thing he could do was try to find out.
He was riding past the turning to Tonbridge when, coming towards him, a horse and rider materialized out of the driving rain. Uneasy, Josse put his hand to the hilt of his sword. The rider was almost upon him.
‘Who’s there?’ he called out. ‘Show yourself!’
He did not know what he feared; he only knew that he was afraid. That, among the many and varied happenings of the day, something had quietly warned him: Be careful.
He waited.
Shapes materialized on the track. There were two of them, in single file: a young man rode in the lead, mounted on a very familiar mare, and behind him came a lad on a friendly looking brown pony.
Josse let out a yell. He hurried towards the young man who, grinning widely, said, ‘It’s good to see you! Helewise was worried, so, since the mare was saddled, I borrowed Daisy and came to look for you.’ He glanced behind him. ‘Geoffroi insisted on coming, in case I managed to lose myself in this appalling weather.’ He rolled his eyes, his grin widening.
‘I’m very glad to see you, too – both of you,’ Josse said. ‘As you see, I am perfectly safe. But now I must hurry on, since I need to go back to—’
His son and his adopted son, Josse realized, had taken up positions either side of him. ‘She – Helewise – was worried about that, too,’ Ninian said cheerfully. ‘To quote her exact words: “The silly old fool will no doubt have some plan to rush off somewhere else, and you are not to allow it.” So, we’re not. Allowing it.’
‘Father, you’re soaked!’ Geoffroi said anxiously. ‘You must come home. The wind’s getting up –’ the lad was right, Josse realized – ‘and you’ll take chill if you stay out.’
An image of his own hearth floated before Josse’s tired eyes. Food. Wine. Dry clothes. Warmth.
Medley and its inhabitants will not vanish overnight, he told himself. ‘Very well,’ he said aloud. And, with vast relief, Ninian and Geoffroi riding either side of him, he set off for home.
In the morning, the effects of the previous day’s drenching were all too evident. Josse was shivery, his joints ached and his throat was sore, so that it hurt to swallow. His family urged him not to go out; they had all congregated round the hearth in the main house, and Helewise, Tilly and Eloise – even the usually reticent Ella – told him, with varying degrees of bluntness, that he was foolish even to contemplate it.
Helewise knew they were all wasting their breath.
‘I have to go to Medley,’ Josse repeated for the third time. ‘I must ask that condescending steward the identity of the hooded rider. Don’t you see?’ he cried in frustration. ‘There’s a link between Medley and Wealdsend, and if I can discover what it is, it may help us find Lilas!’
‘You’re not the only person looking for her,’ Ninian pointed out. ‘The Hawkenlye nuns and monks may well have found her by now.’
But Josse shook his head. ‘No. Someone’s taken her. I know it.’
Silently Helewise handed him a heavy wool tunic, lined with linen and with a padded interlining, and his old travelling cloak. ‘Wrap up warmly and don’t stay out too long,’ she said calmly. If he was set on going out, she had reasoned, she could at least try to limit the potential harm to him. ‘Once you’re home again, settle down beside the hearth and don’t move.’
He looked up at her. His eyes were full of gratitude.
He really doesn’t look very well, Helewise thought, her heart going out to him. Before her emotions could undermine her, she hurried on. ‘Ninian, you and I will ride over to Hawkenlye, and ask if there are any reports of Lilas. If Eloise can spare you, that is?’ She looked enquiringly at her granddaughter, sitting with Inana on her lap.
‘Yes, of course,’ Eloise replied. She was frowning. ‘But I thought – er – you always said you’d never go back to the abbey? You said you thought your presence might remind the nuns and monks of your time in authority there, and that wouldn’t help Abbess Caliste.’
And I still think exactly that, Helewise thought. But, if I do not go, Josse will set out for the abbey the instant he returns from Medley Hall. She met Eloise’s eyes and, hoping the girl would understand, said simply, ‘Needs must.’
Eloise opened her mouth to speak and then, as comprehension dawned, she nodded. She gave Helewise a very sweet smile.
Helewise and Ninian took the forest path to Hawkenlye. Although the morning was dry and cold, the previous day’s rain had left the main track that ran around the forest perimeter sodden and muddy. Now, in late autumn, it was possible to ride alon
g the path through the forest, since the vegetation that clogged and narrowed it in summer had died back.
If any of the forest people were nearby and observed them, Helewise reassured herself, quelling her slight unease, it was unlikely they would be perceived as intruders. Ninian, after all, was Joanna’s son.
As they emerged from beneath the trees and rode down the long slope to the abbey, Helewise drew her hood forward to shadow her face. The fewer people who recognized her, the better.
They dismounted in the forecourt, and Ninian took their horses off to the stables. Keeping to the shelter of the walls, Helewise hurried along the cloister and tapped softly on the door of the abbess’s room.
A voice called, ‘Enter!’
Helewise went in.
It felt so disturbingly strange to be back there that she almost turned and ran.
Don’t you dare, she told herself.
She pushed back her hood, and Abbess Caliste gasped.
‘Forgive me,’ Helewise said quickly. ‘I ought not to be here. But there is a reason.’ Hastily she explained. ‘So, if you can just tell me if there is news of Lilas, I’ll be on my way,’ she concluded.
Abbess Caliste had risen and come towards her. Now, as Helewise finished her apology, she opened her arms and took her former superior in a close hug. ‘It’s so good to see you,’ she murmured. ‘You have been away too long.’ She released her. ‘Now, sit down, and I will send for a hot drink to warm you after your ride.’
‘Ninian is with me,’ Helewise said.
‘Then he shall join us. The drink, I warn you, will be watery and tasteless, but it will at least be hot.’
Before Helewise could protest, Abbess Caliste had gone to the door and issued her order. With a wry smile, Helewise accepted the inevitable and sat down in the visitors’ chair.
It was some time before Ninian arrived. The abbess had informed Helewise regretfully that, despite extensive searching, Lilas had not been found. She was describing what they planned to do next when, after a cursory tap on the door, Ninian came in.