by Alys Clare
Leaving the priory behind, they headed towards the higher land to the south-west of the town. ‘This area is known as Southover,’ said Josse. Helewise nodded. Reaching the steeply rising track that wound its way up Southfire Hill, they began the long, weary ascent. ‘And now,’ he said encouragingly, ‘we are very nearly there! The place where my father Geoffroi first met my mother is perhaps half a mile ahead. He—’
‘He had returned from crusade,’ Helewise interrupted, ‘and made his way to the household of his good friend, Herbert of Lewes, to break the news of Herbert’s death in Damascus to his family.’
Whilst he was gratified that she remembered the tale, nevertheless Josse felt it was his role to tell it. ‘Geoffroi found a compact stone house up on the ridge of the downland,’ he went on, ‘for this was many years before the extension was built, and the dwelling was modest. He saw a courtyard wall decorated with bisected flint stones, and, within, shallow steps leading up to the stout door of the house. And, once inside, he met Herbert’s widow, her son Hugh and her daughter Ida, who, quite soon afterwards, became his wife and my mother. Although,’ he added hastily, ‘naturally there was quite a long gap between the two events.’
‘Naturally, Josse,’ Helewise said primly, although there was laughter in her eyes. ‘As if I would imagine any different.’
They were at the top of the track now, and the house stood before them. The flints in the courtyard wall glistened with a light frost, and the reddish-gold stonework looked bleached by the cold. From somewhere within the large and inviting bulk of the house, smoke rose. Candlelight glittered through a narrow window. Josse led the way through the gate and into the yard and, just as a young lad and a wiry, older man hurried out from a low stable block to the left of the entrance to take their horses, the first snowflakes began to fall.
The cold and the long ride had stiffened Josse’s joints, and for several moments as, with brisk efficiency, the man and the lad set about their task, all he could do was mutter his thanks while he tried to rub the deep ache out of his hips and knees. Helewise, unsurprisingly, had remembered her manners, and was responding politely to the old man – a head groom, perhaps – as he enquired about their journey.
‘Lady Isabelle said to notify her the moment you arrived,’ he was saying, ‘and I’ve already sent one of the stable boys to do just that.’ He turned to Josse, a sympathetic smile on his face. ‘She’ll soon have you warm and snug, with good, hot food inside you.’
He led the way across the courtyard. Josse stared about him, trying to reconcile memory with actuality. There was the original building, and there, to the left, the first extension. But now the dwelling had been extended again: on the opposite side, a tall, graceful wing rose up, set against the original hall and projecting out in front of it.
He was just wondering how large the family had grown, to require so much space, and, indeed, how prosperous his kinsmen must be to be able to afford so much new construction, when, at the top of a flight of shallow stone steps, the main door of the house was opened. A tall, deep-bosomed and wide-shouldered woman stood in the doorway, her comely face creased by a happy smile. ‘Josse!’ she cried, flinging her arms wide and flying down the steps. ‘Dear Josse, you’re here!’
Then she enveloped him in a tight, warm hug, kissing him resoundingly on each cheek. Filled with affection, his head flooding with happy memories, he hugged her in return. ‘Oh,’ he said softly, ‘you haven’t changed at all!’
He disentangled himself and, holding out a hand to Helewise, drew her forward. For a brief moment he looked right into her eyes, feeling as he always did the familiar upsurge of love. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is my Helewise. Helewise, this is my cousin Isabelle.’
Isabelle took Helewise’s hands in hers, and her smile disappeared into a look of horror. ‘Oh, but your hands are icy!’ she exclaimed, squeezing all the harder as if she would comfort Helewise with her own warmth. ‘Didn’t you have any gloves?’
‘Yes!’ Helewise replied with a laugh. ‘Here.’ She held up the thick, fur-lined gauntlets. ‘The worsening cold proved too much for them.’
‘Come inside at once!’ Isabelle commanded, ushering them up the steps in front of her. ‘I have prepared a private room for you –’ there was a definite note of pride in her voice, for such an arrangement was a luxury afforded by only the best households – ‘and now you shall get warm, refresh yourselves with a little food and drink – not too much, for there is to be a welcoming feast for you tonight – and then you must rest.’
She reached round Josse to push the heavy, iron-studded oak door wide open, and side by side he and Helewise entered Southfire Hall. The door opened into the first extension, but little could be seen of it just then, for daylight was fast fading and few lamps had yet been lit. Josse had an impression of passages winding away, arched stone doorways leading off them. Isabelle turned to her right, going under an archway in a thick stone wall, and now the original hall that Josse recalled spread out before him.
It was an old structure, rectangular in shape, long and low. A row of stout pillars ran down each of the longer sides, and it was oriented east–west, with the north side facing the courtyard and the gates. Down the middle of the floor ran a deep, stone-lined hearth, in which a bright fire burned. Josse had an impression of quite a lot of people over on the far side of the hearth. Some were seated on an arrangement of benches and settles; one or two sat apart. A trio of children played with their dolls on the stone-flagged floor.
Isabelle cast a quick look across to the little gathering, but hurried Josse and Helewise on down the length of the hall, keeping to the near side of the fire. ‘No need just now for introductions,’ she said with kindly tact, ‘for you are exhausted and chilled to the bone; in no mood, I’m sure, for courtesies and the effort of remembering a dozen names. There will be time later for—’
Suddenly one of the children leapt up and ran around the end of the hearth, turning back on herself to skid to a stop in front of Isabelle. She planted her feet firmly and stared up at the newcomers. She was about eight, Josse thought, and enchantingly pretty.
‘May not even one of us be allowed to say hello and welcome, Grandmamma?’ she whispered, with a knowing smile up at the newcomers as if she knew perfectly well whispering wouldn’t prevent them overhearing.
Isabelle crouched down before the child, her wide skirts fanning out round her. She brushed the child’s fair hair off her broad forehead with a gentle hand, then briefly held the little face in tender hands and kissed it. ‘Be very swift, then, Cecily, for our guests have endured a long ride in the cold and have more need of peace and quiet than grand speeches of welcome,’ she whispered back.
The girl grinned up at Josse and Helewise. ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘I should have realized. Welcome! I’ll save the rest for later.’
She turned and skipped away. His eyes following her, Josse now noticed that another of the group had also come towards them. She was a short, round-faced woman, and she took very small, precise steps, moving with an odd, jerky action. ‘I tried to stop her, Isabelle,’ she said with an edge of self-righteousness, ‘but, as usual, she had her own ideas.’
All the affection that had warmed Isabelle’s expression as she greeted Josse and Helewise, and crouched to pet her granddaughter, abruptly vanished. ‘Thank you, Cyrille,’ she said neutrally. ‘No harm done.’
Then, her shoulders stiff, she strode on down the hall and led Josse and Helewise out beneath a second arched entrance at the far end. This gave on to a stone-walled passage that extended to right and left, with one or two elongated slit windows and several doors opening off it. Isabelle walked on to the furthest doorway, and, going on inside, stooped by the lively fire burning in the small hearth to light a taper, with which she set a flame in two lamps. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘please, relax and make yourselves comfortable.’
Josse stared round the room. It was generously sized, yet its spaciousness was dwarfed by the huge bed set against the far wal
l. The bed had a carved wooden head and foot, and was piled with pillows, crisp linen, soft, fluffy wool blankets and glossy pelts. Beside it, a small table held a brass tray on which there was an earthenware jug of some steaming liquid smelling of spices, a wooden platter of bread, cold meats and cheese, and a jug of hot water beside a bowl which had a clean white cloth neatly folded over it. Helewise, standing right beside him, let out a quiet moan of pleasure. Turning to Isabelle, she said, with fervent sincerity, ‘Oh, thank you!’
Isabelle smiled. ‘It’s a pleasure to receive you both,’ she replied. Then, looking straight at Helewise, she added, ‘Josse’s wife is as welcome beneath this roof as Josse has always been.’
Josse opened his mouth to speak, but Helewise’s sharp elbow in his ribs stopped him.
‘I’ll leave you,’ Isabelle was saying, already moving towards the doorway. ‘If you need anything, please call.’
Josse hurried after her. ‘Helewise will, I’m sure, make immediate use of your kind hospitality,’ he said, ‘but, before I do likewise, will you take me to see your father? He is, after all, the reason for our visit.’
Isabelle turned back, her face full of contrition. ‘Of course, Josse! I’m sorry – I should have thought. Come with me.’
With a quick enquiring glance at Helewise, who nodded her encouragement, he followed his cousin along the passage.
Isabelle led him back through the central hall, walking swiftly and keeping to the shadows. They entered the extension through a different archway; this one was set further away from the main door. They strode on, along successive corridors, until, right over on the east side, they came to a low doorway set deep within the wall. Isabelle tapped gently and called out, ‘Father? Are you awake?’
There was the mumble of a reply. Isabelle opened the door, and then stepped aside to let Josse go past, following him into the room.
Lying in a narrow little bed beside which a small brazier burned lay the still figure of a very old man. At first, had Josse not known that this was his Uncle Hugh, he would not have recognized him. The last time he had seen him – twenty years ago, as Helewise had so recently reminded him – Hugh had been a loud, stout man with quite a lot remaining of his curly, auburn hair. Warm-hearted, generous, demonstrative, quick to anger but far quicker to laugh, Josse had many happy memories of him. In his own mind, Uncle Hugh had been undisputedly the lord of his own household; everyone else had known full well (although nobody ever let on to Hugh) that, in reality, it had been his wife Ysabel who was in charge. But Ysabel had been dead nearly ten years now, and already Josse had felt her absence. Plump and breathless, yet exuding always an air of calm, quiet competence, Ysabel had been a strong woman.
Now, Josse looked with sad, shocked eyes at the husband Ysabel had left to carry on without her. He was diminished: shrunken from the big barrel-bodied man he had once been into a skeletal figure who barely raised the heavy bedding. Josse knelt down beside the bed, reaching out to take hold of one of the bony white hands. ‘Uncle Hugh?’ he said gently. ‘It’s me, Josse.’
The waxy lids peeled apart, opened, and Hugh’s eyes met Josse’s. For a moment he did not speak, and his unaltered expression suggested he hadn’t understood. ‘I’m your nephew, Josse,’ Josse repeated, ‘Ida’s son.’
‘No need for long-winded explanations,’ came Hugh’s thin, reedy voice. ‘I had but the one sister, so any nephew must be one of her sons.’ Then the hand inside Josse’s suddenly contracted into a squeeze – a surprisingly strong one – and Hugh said, ‘Good to see you, Josse.’ He closed his eyes again, still holding Josse’s hand, and presently there came a small snore.
‘He knows who I am!’ Josse said softly after a while; he wanted to make sure Hugh was asleep before starting to talk about him. ‘I wasn’t really expecting that.’
Isabelle came to crouch beside him, looking at her father with loving eyes. ‘He has good days and bad days,’ she said. ‘Well, not days, really – he can change very quickly from recognizing us, and conversing perfectly logically, to crying out and protesting wildly about things that quite clearly disturb him profoundly. We cannot understand what distresses him so, for his words make no sense.’
‘And you cannot hazard a guess?’
Isabelle frowned in thought. ‘He seems to think there is some evil here,’ she said after a moment. ‘Within this dear old house, which all of us – and Father in particular – have always found to be such a protective, safe, good place, he seems to fear that there is a hidden danger that none but he perceives.’
‘A hidden danger,’ Josse repeated softly. He hoped very much that his uncle’s fear signified no more than the fuddling of the mind that so often accompanied old age; the idea of evil and peril being present here, in this warm-hearted household, was quite abhorrent. ‘Do you think he could be right?’
‘Oh, I don’t know, Josse!’ Isabelle’s frustration and distress were apparent in her tone. ‘He believes it, anyway. At times he tries to sit up, staring wildly round the room, and he says something that sounds like “Marte”, or perhaps it’s “Maria”; I can’t tell, since only the Mar sound is clear.’
‘Martyr? Or the blessed Virgin Mary?’ Josse suggested. ‘Had he become very devout in old age?’
Isabelle grinned. ‘Not particularly. I think that in truth he only went to church as often as he did because of Father Edgar. You remember him?’
‘The chess-playing priest!’ Josse exclaimed, memory surging back. ‘Aye, indeed I do.’
Isabelle laughed. ‘You always were an awful chess player,’ she observed. ‘And you took forever to make your moves.’
‘Especially when I played Father Edgar,’ Josse agreed. ‘Mind you, he was very good.’
‘So he ought to be,’ Isabelle said with spirit, ‘seeing as he never let anyone he found beneath our roof get away without playing him at least once. Why, I recall how, one day, he …’
Her quiet voice went on with the reminiscence, but Josse barely heard. Southfire Hall, chess, he was thinking. There was some connection; and it was a strong one, powerful enough to reach out to him down the long corridor of the years. But he could not bring to mind what it was.
Josse became aware that Isabelle had fallen silent. Hugh was sleeping deeply now, and the fingers twined with Josse’s had gone slack. Gently Josse tucked his uncle’s hand beneath the bedclothes, then he got to his feet.
‘Goodbye for now, dear uncle,’ he murmured. ‘I’ll come back soon.’
Treading softly, he and his cousin left the room, and she quietly closed the door.
TWO
Helewise opened her eyes and, still dazed with sleep, looked around the room. She hadn’t meant to nod off. When Josse had gone off with his cousin to visit his uncle, Helewise had merely thought to stretch out on the luxuriously dressed bed for a short while and rest her tired body. But the rigours of the long day, and the hard ride in increasingly cold and progressively more alarming weather, had taken more out of her than she realized. She had drawn a thick, warm, soft blanket over herself, snuggled a hollow for her head in the wonderfully soft pillows, and before she had time to finish warning herself to stay awake, had fallen asleep.
She had dreamed vividly. She saw a small boy standing in the doorway, peering at her round the edge of the door. Be careful, whispered this dream boy. There are monsters here. There’s one under my bed, and there is probably one under yours, too. She had heard her own voice whisper back. I will be on my guard, she promised. I will take a big stick and thrust it furiously into the space beneath the bed, and it will poke the monster very hard in his eye, and he will run away. The dream boy had giggled, but the laughter had not quite extinguished the fear in his blue eyes. He had a mop of thick, fair hair, and, as he smiled, she saw that he had a gap between his two front teeth. They were the big teeth; the child seemed to be about six. Then, in the way of dreams, the boy changed, features, colouring and clothing morphing until Helewise knew, somehow, that she was looking at the boy version
of Josse. He was frowning – angry about something – and he had a big stick in his hand. A hand reached out and smoothed her hair, and the adult Josse – her own beloved Josse – bent down over her and said softly, ‘Sleep, dear heart.’ She had been vaguely aware of the big bed rippling as he lay down beside her, and then slumber had reclaimed her.
Now she sat up, propped by the mound of pillows and rubbing the drowse from her eyes. Her dream was still vivid, and she smiled at the memory of the handsome little boy, and of the image of the child that Josse had once been. He was no longer beside her on the bed, although the rumpled covers and dented pillows confirmed that he had been there. Helewise’s smile widened. Josse had very nearly protested when Isabelle had referred to Helewise as his wife, and only her timely dig in his ribs had stopped him. For I am his wife, Helewise thought. Did not the wise and devout monk Gratian state that the only thing necessary to make a binding bond was the spoken willingness of each partner to take the other as their spouse? And so we have done, my Josse and I, Helewise reflected. She had said to him, I receive you as mine, so that you become my husband and I your wife, and then he had repeated the vow to her. In Gratian’s view – and Helewise’s – that made her and Josse married, even if the vow had been made alone, in a place apart, and without witnesses. In any case, until the endless quarrel between King John and the Pope came to an end – if it ever did – and the interdict was at last lifted, the absence of priests in England meant that Helewise and Josse’s solemn and sincere vows to one another were the best they could do.
Helewise stretched extravagantly, enjoying the sensation of being warm right to the tips of her toes. This brief, restorative period of privacy wouldn’t go on much longer, and soon now she must get up and set about tidying herself, in preparation for meeting the family and attending the feast that they had kindly prepared. There seemed to be rather a lot of people to meet, and it had been a thoughtful gesture on Josse’s cousin’s part to hold back from making the introductions the moment Helewise and Josse had arrived.