The Chatter of the Maidens

by Alys Clare

  Lips folded into a tight, unforgiving line, Alba maintained her silence.

  ‘Very well,’ Helewise said. ‘You will go from here into the church, where you will prostrate yourself in prayer. You will ask God to forgive your sins against your sister and against this community, and you will remain there until the arrival of our confessor . . .’

  Sister Alba had been listening carefully to the Abbess’s pronouncement. Watching her, Helewise had the growing feeling that something was amiss . . . Alba’s face had gone from its hectic flush to a deadly pallor.

  And, out of nowhere, Helewise suddenly felt a dreadful sense of threat.

  Also by Alys Clare

  Fortune like the Moon

  Ashes of the Elements

  The Tavern in the Morning

  THE CHATTER OF THE MAIDENS

  Alys Clare

  www.hodder.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain in 2001 by Hodder and Stoughton

  An Hachette UK Company

  Copyright © Alys Clare, 2001

  The right of Alys Clare to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  Epub ISBN: 9781444726749

  Book ISBN: 9780340793282

  Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

  338 Euston Road

  London NW1 3BH

  www.hodder.co.uk

  for my parents,

  with my heartfelt thanks for all their love and support.

  CONTENTS

  The Chatter of the Maidens

  Also by Alys Clare

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Part One: Newcomers

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Part Two: Travellers

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Part Three: A Predestined Death

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Dies nox et omnia

  mihi sunt contraria,

  Virginium colloquia

  me fay planszer,

  oy suvenz suspirer.

  (By day, by night,

  All conspire against me,

  And the chatter of the maidens

  Draws forth my tears

  And my frequent sighs.)

  Carmina Burana:

  cantiones profanae

  (Author’s translation)

  The fire took hold quickly.

  At first, no more than a few whispers of pale smoke issued out of the isolated cottage. Lifted up on the slight breeze, the smoke broke into several tiny plumes, one of which was carried off across the steeply sloping field behind the dwelling. An old horse stood there, half asleep, eyelids drooping. He was disturbed by the smell of smoke, which penetrated even his comatose state; roused to action by the first stirrings of alarm, he shambled off up the slope, only stopping when he reached his favourite shady spot beneath the giant oak tree.

  In the small time it had taken for the horse to move away to his place of safety, the fire had grown.

  Grown at an alarming rate, as the tiny sparks of flame took hold of the dry material all around, licking along the pieces of straw and brittle hay, eating into the piles of tinder-dry leaves and the handfuls of soft thistledown. Then, the fire’s appetite, no longer satisfied by such small offerings, leapt faster than the blink of an eye to the neatly chopped pieces of small kindling.

  After that, there was no turning back. Putting out the blaze, even had there been anybody around who wanted or was able to do so, was rapidly becoming an impossible task. The fire had overrun the hearth; what now roared and whooped within the lonely dwelling was like some terribly altered, monstrous form of the quiet, docile domestic fire that usually burned there.

  For these giant flames had not been kindled to heat food in a pot or water in a pan. They had been brought into existence for a very different and far darker purpose.

  Outside, in the thicket of undergrowth surrounding the little cottage, something moved. A strand of bramble was pushed gently aside, and a stealthy footfall came down gingerly on a stand of nettles. A saw-edged leaf stroked against the back of a hand, and there was a softly muttered oath as the stung flesh was whipped away from the nettle’s sharp attack.

  The unseen watcher inched forward. Neck craned in the effort to see into the burning cottage without emerging from the hiding-place, the figure soon forgot the small pain of the stung hand as the full power of the fire became evident.

  Tension seemed to grip the heavily cloaked figure.

  Then, suddenly, there came the sound of a distinct sniff.

  Then another. And, as the fleeting hint of the smell of roasting meat grew until it was all but overpowering, the unseen watcher gave a short, unpleasant laugh.

  But this was no gleeful expectation of a good dinner. It was not beef, or lamb, or pork that crackled and spat in the roaring flames.

  It was human flesh.

  The figure had now emerged from hiding, as if well aware that there was no longer any possibility that anybody could be witness to its movements. Creeping slowly forward, one arm raised to protect the face from the fierce heat, the head once more strained to see.

  The watcher moved nearer and nearer to the entrance to the cottage. Progress was jerky, as though the desire to see was fighting with the urgent message to flee away from the heat and the pain. The urge to see appeared to be winning: pulling the hood of the cloak right over face and head, leaving the smallest gap for the eyes, the figure inched right up to the gaping hole where the cottage’s wooden door had once stood.

  For a brief instant, the figure leaned forward and stared into the blazing interior.

  Then, relief evident in the sudden lowering of the shoulders as the built-up tension dissipated, the figure turned and walked swiftly away.

  The fire took a long time to die down.

  The flames consumed everything that was combustible within the cottage, and gradually their intensity diminished. As the sun set and evening came on, the brilliant fire faded to a reddish-orange glow. From time to time, another small part of the wooden beams which had once held up the roof would fall into the fire’s remains, causing a brief flare-up. And, as the darkness outside grew deeper, a chilly wind blew up, which, for a while, fanned the flames into an echo of their former ferocity.

  On the floor of the cottage lay a body. Clad when it had been placed there, now scarcely a trace of any cloth garment remained. The leather boots, too, were ruined, and a heavy buckle, which had once fastened a belt, was now blackened, the belt burned through in places.

  The victim lay across what had once been the cen
tral hearth. It seemed not to have made any attempt to get away from the fire; helpless to prevent the terrible onslaught of the flames, unable to escape from the conflagration, what had once been human and alive was now blackened and contorted, hair and garments flared to mere remnants, flesh burned from the bones.

  As the heat had begun to destroy the corpse, the muscles had stiffened and contracted. And, in a dreadful parody of someone raising their fists to defend themself – as if fists were any use against fire – the body’s arms were bent at the elbow and held up in front of the remains of the face.

  With a little sigh, a heap of ash and charred wood close to the heart of the dying fire suddenly collapsed in on itself. Even that sound seemed loud, for the night was advanced now and, outside, all was still and silent. Within the burned corpse, however, something continued its work; the fire’s energy was still smouldering on, continuing to eat away at bone, fat and marrow.

  By first light, there was little left to show of the fire’s victim. Most of the bones of the skeleton had detached from each other; all that remained that was instantly recognisable as human was the arch formed by a part of the rib cage.

  And the bare, smoke-darkened skull, its empty eye sockets black and staring.

  Next to the ribs, something else stuck up out of the floor of the cottage. It was a spike, made of iron, and the end protruding out of the floor had been wrought into a hoop. It had once been hammered into a wall as a tethering-ring for horses.

  In the depths of the crevice where the end of the hoop joined the upright section, a fragment of material had escaped the flames. It was tiny, and looked at a glance like the frayed end of a piece of twine.

  It was not material. Nor was it twine. It was all that was left of the rope that had bound the victim securely to the spot where he was to die and be cremated.

  PART ONE

  Newcomers

  Chapter One

  Josse d’Acquin lay sweating and groaning, wracked with pain and delirious with fever.

  His body might have been safe in his bed at New Winnowlands, snug under covers that had been clean when he lay down even if they were now soaked in his sweat, but his mind was not recognising the fact. As far as his brain was aware, he was attempting to climb a harsh rock face, a heavy weight on his bare back and his arm extended below him as he tried to support the weight of a large pig.

  The pig, for some reason known only to itself, was periodically lunging upwards, swinging level with Josse and burying its yellow fangs into the hot skin of Josse’s upper right arm.

  Josse cried out, writhing in the damp bed linen, his aching legs tangling in the twisted sheet. The pig attacked again, fastening its teeth into Josse’s arm and letting go with its trotters so that its full and not inconsiderable weight hung entirely from Josse’s agonised flesh.

  The pig looked at Josse and winked a surprisingly blue eye, and suddenly it began to rain, cold, delicious drops of water that splashed down abundantly, dislodging the grinning pig and bringing blessed, cooling relief for the pain. . . .

  And Josse’s maidservant, Ella, with the air of one talking to herself, said quietly, ‘There, there, Master, just you rest easy, now, give that wound a chance to mend’ – she bent down to wring out the cloth in the icy water, then replaced it on Josse’s arm – ‘. . . and, presently, I’ll bring you summat to drink and see if you’re up to me spooning you some broth.’

  Awake and sensible now – or so he thought – Josse watched as the pig trotted away to the far corner of the bedchamber, where it circled a few times like a dog settling in its kennel, then lay down and began to whistle.

  ‘Ella, there’s a pig in the corner,’ Josse said. Funny, though, his words didn’t seem to have come out right. It sounded as if he had been groaning. He tried again. ‘Pig, Ella!’ he repeated.

  Startled at hearing him speak, she looked up, flashed him a brief, shy smile, then swiftly returned to her wringing and bathing; she was a chronically self-conscious, unconfident woman, and Josse sometimes reflected that he could probably count the number of words she had ever addressed him of her own volition on the fingers of his two hands.

  He tried again. Struggling to sit up – which proved unwise as it made his head swim so violently that he thought he would be sick – he waved his uninjured arm in the general direction of the pig. Following his pointing finger with his eyes, he began to say, ‘The pig, Ella . . .’

  Only to find that it had disappeared.

  Ella gently took hold of his left arm and laid it back on the bed, pulling up the covers and arranging them around his chest. He wished she wouldn’t, he was far too hot anyway, without being tucked up like a sickly child.

  ‘I’ll be back directly,’ she assured him in a voice hardly above a whisper, then picked up her cloth and bowl and backed away from the bed and towards the door as if he were royalty.

  Josse lay and listened to her heavy tread as she hurried down the narrow stair that led down to the hall. He heard her shout out to Will to inform him that he wasn’t to let on to the Master – silly woman, did she imagine that having a sore arm meant Josse had gone deaf, too? – but she was that worried, she feared Sir Josse was nigh on ready to expire of the fever. . . .

  ‘Fever,’ he murmured aloud. ‘Fever.’

  It was actually quite a relief to know that he had a severe fever. Fevers brought delirium, didn’t they? And sweats, and dizziness that made you want to throw up, and weird dreams, and visions of imaginary pigs in the bedchamber.

  Fever. That was all right, then.

  For a short and rather dreadful time, Josse had been afraid he was going mad.

  When he next woke, he judged it to be a little before dawn; there was a pearly quality to the darkness, which, if it couldn’t exactly be called light, seemed to suggest that the coming of the day wasn’t far off.

  Josse lay and thought about dawns he had witnessed. But it demanded too much concentration in his weakened state; instead, he let his mind drift.

  He realised that he felt different; the world had lost that strange, unreal quality that it had had for the past . . . the past how long? Was it days, or was it weeks? For the life of him, Josse couldn’t decide.

  I hurt my arm, he recalled. It had been hurt before – I was cut with a sword – and then it got better. I was treated, very expertly. . . .

  Thinking about that brought a pain of another sort. A pain in his heart, in his memory. He abandoned those particular recollections.

  The wound had been mending well, he thought instead. Or so I believed. I went out riding – did I? Is that right? Aye. Riding. With . . . He frowned, trying to remember his friend’s name. Man with a wolfhound, wanted me to ride out with him, see the beast go through its paces . . . And I took that ditch, down at the bottom of my own orchard, and old Horace spooked at something and very nearly threw me, except that I managed to hold on. But the jolting and wrenching tore into that cut of mine. And something must have happened to it, some foul air must have got at the open wound, because it went bad.

  As full recollection returned – it was to prove only temporary – Josse remembered that the friend with the wolfhound was his neighbour, Brice, and that the pain in his infected cut had been so terrible, so unrelenting, that he had begged Will to lop the arm off and be done with it.

  Remembering how bad the agony had been was not a good thing at all, Josse was quickly realising. Whatever reason there had been for the pain’s having abated somewhat now no longer applied; with the speed of an incoming tide on a flat shore, it came racing back.

  And, as if that were not enough, accompanying it was a sudden heat in his blood that felt like being on fire.

  Trying to call out whilst gritting his teeth, Josse yelled for Will. Or Ella. Or anyone. . . .

  Brice of Rotherbridge, who owned the manor adjoining Winnowlands, had felt quite strongly about being roused from his bed before it was entirely light. Stomping down the hall to enquire of his man the reason for the summons, he had been
informed that Josse d’Acquin’s Will was outside, at his wits’ end over his master’s sickness, not knowing where to turn or what to do, and. . . .

  Brice had waited to hear no more. Flinging on his cloak, forcing his feet into his boots, he had been mounted on his horse, out of his own courtyard and riding into Josse’s in a shorter time than he would have thought possible.

  Creeping into Josse’s bedchamber – it soon became apparent that there was no need for stealth, because Josse was not only awake but crying out with pain – Brice was horrified at the state of his friend.

  He leaned over the bed – it smelt of sweat and sickness – and put a hand on Josse’s forehead. ‘He’s burning up!’ he cried, turning to look at Will, then at Ella. ‘How long has he been like this?’

  Ella, sensing an accusation, buried her face in her apron and would not reply, but Will stood his ground. Squaring his shoulders, he said, ‘It were that day you went hunting together, sir. The Master nearly took a fall, and it tore open that cut in his arm, and—’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes, I know that, I was there!’ Brice interrupted. ‘I meant how long has he had this fever?’ Anger rising suddenly, he shouted, ‘Don’t you understand about fevers, either of you? Your master may be dying, and there you stand, useless as a pair of gargoyles and marginally more ugly!’

  At this, Ella burst into tears and ran from the room. With one anxious glance after her, Will turned back to face Brice and said, ‘There’s no call for that, Sir Brice. Ella, she’s been wearing herself to a shadow, caring for Master, day, night, all the time. And it’s a’cause we don’t know what we should rightly do that I came to ask you.’ He was glaring back at Brice as ferociously as Brice was glaring at him; it was as a very obvious afterthought that he added, ‘Sir.’

  Brice’s anger had gone as quickly as it had come. A hand on Will’s shoulder, he said, ‘I am sorry, Will. Please attribute my rudeness to anxiety. Apologise to Ella for me, too, please.’ Will gave a brief nod of acknowledgement. ‘Now,’ – Brice turned back to Josse – ‘what are we to do?’