Fear in the Forest

by Bernard Knight

  ‘We’ll wait here until you have finished your visit, Crowner, then slip in one at a time to pay our respects to Nesta,’ said Gwyn with uncharacteristic tact, having been primed previously by the more sensitive Thomas.

  John strode to the door of the little infirmary and went inside. He had visited often enough now, not to seek one of the nuns to admit him, and he walked the few steps to Nesta’s cell, the first in the short corridor.

  The door was ajar and he pushed it open. His usual greeting died on his lips as he was confronted by a familiar broad back, bending over Nesta’s low bed.

  It was Matilda, and her hands were on his mistress’s throat.

  For a second, John was frozen from the shock of seeing both Matilda and what she might be doing to his lover. Before he could throw himself at his wife and drag her off, he caught sight of Nesta’s face looking up at him. It bore an almost roguish smile of guilty amusement. Matilda saw it as well and swung round in surprise, holding her hands open before her, the fingers sticky with a mixture of goose grease and wintergreen.

  ‘Oh, it’s you, is it?’ she snapped, her square face glowering at him.

  She turned back to the bed and laid a folded length of flannel around Nesta’s throat, tucking the ends gently behind her neck. Then she stood erect and rubbed her greasy hands on the apron that covered the front of her black habit.

  ‘She’s had a sore throat since last night, but this salve will help to ease it.’ Without looking her speechless husband in the eye, she swept out of the room and vanished down the corridor.

  ‘That is a truly Christian woman,’ came a voice from behind him and, turning, his battered senses recognized Dame Madge hovering in the doorway.

  ‘Matilda has been nursing me this past ten days, John!’ said Nesta from the bed, her voice a little husky from both soreness and emotion.

  ‘And a more caring and gentle nurse could not be found in the kingdom!’ boomed the gaunt nun. ‘She is a saint and we shall be sorry to lose her.’

  She approached the bed to put a hand on Nesta’s brow and smooth the red hair that streamed across the pillow, while John managed to find his voice again.

  ‘Lose her? What do you mean?’ he managed to croak.

  ‘She will tell you herself after you’ve finished here, Crowner. I’ll leave you two alone, but be brief. Nesta has a phlegmatous throat.’

  She loped off and John, bewildered by the vagaries of womankind, knelt alongside Nesta and took her hand.

  ‘I don’t understand, dear girl! When I came in, I thought she was trying to strangle you!’

  Nesta gave a husky laugh, which ended in a cough, though a hint of her old roguishness returned in spite of her continuing weakness.

  ‘She has shown no signs of wanting to throttle me, though I would understand it if she did.’

  ‘What’s this that Dame Madge said about losing Matilda? Why wouldn’t she tell me?’

  ‘I honestly don’t know, John. I’d miss her ministrations if she did, You must ask her yourself, as the nun commanded.’

  John climbed to his feet, puzzled, anxious and impatient. ‘I’ll do that right now, then come back to see you.’

  He squeezed her hand and went to seek his wife. As soon as Thomas saw his master striding out of the infirmary door and making for the parlour of the prioress, he limped across to visit Nesta himself. Gwyn had already ambled over to the kitchen to wheedle a pastry or two from the lay sisters who did the cooking, before taking his turn at seeing the invalid.

  Thomas was glad to see a genuine smile on the face of the patient, as he automatically crossed himself and held up his fingers in benediction.

  ‘You look better today, dear lady,’ he said, his thin face creased with pleasure. The pretty innkeeper beckoned him closer.

  ‘I feel more at ease with life, Thomas – though I’ve got this soreness of my throat,’ she said quietly, with a slight rasp in her voice.

  ‘Have all your desperate thoughts of self-destruction fled?’ he asked solicitously.

  She nodded and crooked a pale hand to bring him even nearer.

  ‘Let me tell you quickly, before John returns. The secret that I told you about the father of my child has leaked out a little, but your master must still never know, it might destroy the bond between us.’

  ‘It never leaked from my lips!’ protested Thomas, his eyes widening.

  ‘No, no, of course not! But Dame Madge knew straight away the age of the unborn babe – and she must have inadvertently let it slip to Matilda de Wolfe. The dame would have no reason to know it was so significant.’

  Realisation began to dawn on the little clerk. ‘Then Matilda worked out for herself that her husband could not be the father?’

  Nesta looked furtively across at the door to make sure that John was not barging in again. ‘Yes. She came to me ten days ago and told me that she was now aware that John was not responsible. She was very gruff at first, and I think she wanted to insult me. But when she saw how poorly I was, she began to attend to me – and since, has been kindness itself.’

  Thomas gaped at this unusual vision of Matilda, as the woman had never made any secret of the fact that she despised him as a misshapen rapist and renegade priest.

  ‘But surely she will tell him that she knows the babe was not his?’

  Nesta gave a little shrug. ‘I just don’t know, dear Thomas. She has it in her power to wound him badly, as he was so proud of the prospect of becoming a father, even to a bastard.’

  The clerk clutched her hand in reassurance. ‘The truth will never come from me, whatever happens elsewhere.’

  John stalked about, looking for his wife, but failed to find her. When he reached the door into the West Range, he found Dame Madge waiting for him. She imperiously beckoned him inside and tapped on the door of the parlour, where they found the prioress sitting at her table. Dame Margaret was not one to beat about the bush.

  ‘Sir John, you have several times asked to speak to your wife about her intentions. Well, now we can put your mind at rest. Matilda wishes to leave our care and return home to her wifely duties.’

  De Wolfe’s senses had received a battering during the past ten minutes and this final piece of news needed some assimilation.

  ‘Coming home?’ he croaked. ‘You mean, this very minute?’

  The prioress shook her head, an amused smile on her plump face. ‘Not quite, Crowner. But within a day or so, no doubt.’

  John rubbed his chin in agitation. ‘But why has she decided to leave? I thought she was firmly set upon taking the veil.’

  Dame Margaret looked across at her colleague with a wry smile.

  ‘We both thought from the outset that your wife’s taking refuge here was more an act of protest and indignation than true devotion. There’s no doubt that she is a deeply religious woman, but the simplicity of life here could never be to her taste. She has made her point now and has said that, grateful as she is to us, she cannot see her future within these confining walls.’

  John needed time to know whether he was glad or sorry. The prospect of divorce or annulment had already been quashed and his daydreams about running off to Wales with Nesta to start a new life were not really a practical option. He had come to hate his empty house and his lonely table and secretly missed Matilda’s pugnacious presence, much as it often infuriated him. He was confused and uncertain whether he was devastated or relieved.

  ‘May I talk to her now?’ was all he could think of saying.

  The Prioress raised her hands, palms up. ‘It depends on whether she yet wishes to speak to you. That is her choice, but Dame Madge will seek her out and ask her. Is there anything else, Sir John?’

  ‘Just one matter, Dame Margaret,’ he said in a low voice. ‘The child – my only child. What happened to it?’

  The nun’s eyes flicked across to Dame Madge and for a moment she looked uneasy.

  ‘It was buried in our cemetery, Crowner. Though it was tiny, it was still one of God’s flock and
was laid to rest with due ceremony.’

  ‘May I just see the place, please?’

  ‘Dame Madge will show you the spot.’

  Again an uneasy glance passed between them before the raw-boned nun showed him out and took him around the back of the new church dedicated to Becket, another penitent gesture by one of Thomas’s killers. Here there was a small cemetery plot, with a dozen plain crosses marking the resting places of the sisters who had passed away during the past thirty-eight years since the priory had been founded.

  Dame Madge led him across to the far corner, almost against the boundary wall. Here a tiny mound of fresh earth, no larger than a mole-hill, was surmounted by a little wooden cross small enough to lie on the palm of his hand. At its foot lay a posy of daisies and buttercups, plucked from the surrounding pasture.

  ‘There it is, Sir John,’ said the dame gently. ‘I’ll leave you in peace.’

  She walked away, and John stood staring down at the dimple of reddish earth, his thoughts rolling forward to what might have been.

  He heard a footstep behind him and, turning, saw his wife. She still wore a white apron, soiled with salve from his mistress’s throat. Coming near, she stood alongside him, but avoided any contact. He turned back to the tiny grave and stared down at it. Suddenly his throat seemed to tighten and his sight blurred with moisture.

  ‘There’s part of me under that soil, Matilda,’ he said, with a break in his voice.

  ‘Yes, John. But come away now. I’ll be home before long.’

  She took his arm and steered him back across the grass.