The Devil's Cup

by Alys Clare

  By mid-morning, when the first of the day’s visitors came by, she had finished. The interior of the Sanctuary sparkled with cleanliness, with every pot and knife washed and dried, the simple wooden shelves emptied, dusted and re-stocked, the bedding laundered and now spread out on the bramble and hazel bushes to bleach and dry in the bright sunshine. Helewise had had time to unpack her large bundle – it contained her bedroll, a couple of soft blankets and a change of personal linen – and to tidy herself, too, and now she greeted the arrivals with a serene smile.

  Thus the first day of Josse’s absence began.

  Early that same morning, Meggie, waking to profound darkness and a different smell, wondered at first where she was. Then, stretching, she remembered.

  Hawkenlye Abbey was overflowing. The sick, the hungry, the wounded and the plain desperate had always found their way to its gates, and now, when the usual and just about bearable hardships had been augmented by a new sense of uncertainty, the daily, steady trickle had turned into a spring tide. Every bed and makeshift cot in the infirmary was occupied. Every day the monks down in the vale were stuffing sacks with straw to make more mattresses, and they were now erecting awnings to form shelter from the rain, if nothing else, since their guest accommodation had long been filled. Even the beds in the nuns’ refuge for penitent whores and unwed mothers were all in use; not exclusively with whores and unwed mothers, for those who were at the end of their strength and their endurance were far too exhausted to be fussy.

  Abbess Caliste had offered Meggie the little room where she sat and worked each day, and had herself fetched a palliasse, a pillow and a blanket. Meggie had settled down for the night with her head under the abbess’s large, oak table. The room had one small window, set high up beside the door, and its size, together with the room’s location in a shadowy corner at the end of the cloister, accounted for the darkness. That, and the fact that it was still so early: now, lying still and listening, Meggie couldn’t hear a sound.

  She knew she wouldn’t sleep again. Propping herself up, arms behind her head, she thought about her father. How far would he have got? They would travel swiftly, for Josse and Geoffroi both knew the terrain very well, at least for the first twenty or thirty miles. With any luck, some time today they’d cross the wide Thames estuary and land safely on the northern side. Their plan had been to keep off the bigger roads and the main thoroughfares, keeping to the lanes, tracks and byways. Josse had told her he intended to avoid London. ‘Too full of Prince Louis’s supporters,’ he’d added.

  Prince Louis. Meggie’s musings moved to the invader. It was odd, she reflected, that, despite Hawkenlye Abbey being so full, and despite the fact that many had come because they knew a foreign army was somewhere in the land, nobody seemed very worried about it. It’s not their war, she thought. It’s a power struggle between two men who both wish to rule the land, and whichever one wins, it won’t make much difference; not, at any rate, to the vast mass of ordinary people.

  ‘Kings and princes fight for who owns the land,’ Josse had once said in one of his more philosophical moods. ‘Everyone else fights for existence.’

  Meggie smiled. She suspected he was quite right.

  Her mind roved on and an image of Jehan appeared. Where was he? Was he, too, heading north-east? Oh, but he …

  Deliberately she stopped the thought. It hurt in so many ways to think about Jehan that it really was better not to.

  She got up and, with swift, economical movements, shook out her blanket and the thin straw mattress, rolling them tidily around the pillow, fastening the binding and stowing the bundle behind the door. Then she went outside to the washroom. Back in the abbess’s room, brushing and re-plaiting her hair, she heard running footsteps outside. There was a peremptory tap on the door, and it opened to reveal Luke, one of the lay brothers, a pitchfork in his hand and a strong smell of horse manure clinging to him.

  ‘You’re to come, quickly,’ he panted. ‘Please,’ he added with belated politeness.

  ‘Of course.’ Meggie was already stooping to pick up her satchel. ‘What’s happened?’

  Brother Luke was already hurrying back along the cloister, turning back from time to time to make sure she was following. ‘It’s her in the infirmary,’ he said. ‘The noisy one.’

  Hadil! Meggie quickened her pace to a run and, overtaking Brother Luke, raced to the infirmary.

  She forced herself to slow to a dignified walk on entering. The infirmarer was very strict with all her nurses, insisting that at no time did anyone display a sense of panic or undue hurry, lest a nervous, anxious patient be further troubled. As Meggie made her way majestically up the ward, she thought impatiently that it had never seemed so long.

  The curtain was drawn across the recess. There was no raucous, angry shouting; no wailing or sobbing. Nothing, in fact, except the mutter of worried voices.

  She slipped in between the curtain and the wall and went in. Sister Liese and Abbess Caliste stood, heads close together. ‘… kept a watch, but we’ve been so busy and I didn’t think there was any need,’ the infirmarer was saying in an anguished voice.

  Abbess Caliste looked up and caught Meggie’s eye, then, turning back to Sister Liese, said calmly, ‘Nobody did, Sister. Besides, your nurses have all been working so hard and so ceaselessly that sleep was imperative, and it was quite right to send them to their beds and leave just the one nun on duty.’

  ‘She should have …’ the infirmarer began. But a swift look from her superior silenced her.

  The bed was empty: Hadil had gone.

  ‘She’s not – I suppose she hasn’t merely gone outside for some fresh air, or to speak to her son?’ Meggie ventured.

  The two nuns shook their heads. ‘We have searched, and there is no sign of her,’ the abbess said.

  ‘What does Faruq think?’ The nuns exchanged a glance. ‘He doesn’t know, does he?’

  ‘No,’ Abbess Caliste said.

  Then Meggie understood the urgent summons. ‘You want me to tell him.’

  ‘Yes,’ the abbess replied serenely. ‘You spoke to him yesterday, Meggie. You have, perhaps, reached the beginning of friendship. It would, I believe, be best that he hear this news from you.’

  ‘Of course,’ Meggie murmured. It was hard, as she and virtually everyone else had discovered, to refuse the abbess. ‘He’s down with the monks in the vale, I imagine?’

  ‘He is,’ said the abbess.

  Both nuns were looking at her expectantly. There was no alternative but to do as she was asked.

  Faruq was standing outside the guest accommodation in the vale, vigorously rubbing his face and head with a length of linen. He was dressed as immaculately as on the previous day, and looked clean and refreshed. Putting down the cloth and noticing Meggie, his expression clouded; she realized that surprising him in his ablutions had embarrassed him.

  She stepped back a pace or two, lowering her head.

  In a few moments he was standing beside her.

  ‘I’m sorry to disturb you so early,’ she said.

  He shook his head impatiently. ‘It is no matter. What has happened?’ She paused, and he said with urgent, anxious irritation, ‘Tell me! My mother, is she worse?’

  Meggie met his light eyes. ‘No. She’s gone.’

  For a moment he didn’t answer. Then, slowly, a wry half-smile spread over his face. ‘Gone,’ he repeated softly. ‘Oh, I should have foreseen this!’ His eyes narrowed in anger, but Meggie didn’t think it was with her; already she had formed the opinion that Faruq wasn’t a man who would punish the messenger who brought bad news.

  However, he might well wish to punish those he imagined had been neglectful of their duty. ‘There was an infirmary nun on duty overnight,’ she said, ‘but only one, for all of them are worn out with the long hours of work and it was judged best if—’

  He held up a hand, stopping her. ‘Please, there is no need to defend them,’ he said. ‘I have seen with my own eyes how they wear themselve
s out in their care for their patients.’ He hesitated. ‘I am angry with myself, for not having the sense to realize what would happen and issue a warning. Even more, however, I am furious with my mother, for she is stubborn, headstrong, and now has put herself in danger, for she is not equipped to travel through an unknown land and, even now, already, she will be at grave risk.’

  There was a silence; a heavy sort of silence, Meggie thought. Her mind was working busily, throwing up suggestions, ideas, solutions. She said, ‘Yesterday you said there wasn’t any point in telling me where you were bound, you and your mother, because it seemed you wouldn’t be going any further. I think, don’t you, that you should tell me now.’

  He stared at her. ‘Why?

  She sighed. ‘Because you and I are going to go after her.’

  Faruq and Hadil had arrived at the abbey on horseback, and their mounts had been tended in the Hawkenlye stables. Now, only Faruq’s graceful arch-necked black gelding remained: Hadil’s horse – a grey mare, according to her son – had gone.

  Meggie and Faruq stood side by side in the stables, and she sensed his intense frustration. ‘Only one horse!’ he moaned. ‘I will have to go alone, although—’

  ‘You won’t,’ she interrupted. ‘You don’t know the countryside round here, and wouldn’t know where to begin. I have a horse, and he is nearby. Pack up what you need, tell the kitchen nuns we need food and water, and by the time you’ve done that and tacked up, I’ll be back.’

  He began to say something, but she didn’t wait to hear what it was. She gathered up her skirts in one hand, ran out of the stable and raced for the abbey gates.

  Auban raised his head from his grazing and regarded her with friendly interest. Sweating and puffing, for she had run all the way, Meggie put her arms round his neck and briefly leaned against him. ‘We’re going on an excursion, Auban,’ she told him. He flicked an ear. ‘I have to borrow you without your master’s permission, but then he’s not here to ask, so I have no choice.’ She swallowed the emotions that flared up at the thought of Jehan’s absence and what it probably meant. ‘Come over to the hut’ – she took hold of a lock of Auban’s long, luxuriant cream mane – ‘and I’ll fetch your tack.’

  She worked swiftly, and soon the stocky horse stood ready. She wondered briefly whether to pack a bag for herself, but time was precious and she begrudged even the few minutes it would take her. She secured the little dwelling, then set off again. She led the horse for the first half-mile, for the track made riding difficult, then mounted up and kicked him into a trot, then a canter.

  ‘Well, then?’ she asked.

  She and Faruq had left the abbey and drawn rein a few yards from the gates.

  Faruq turned to look at her. His eyes didn’t quite meet hers.

  She said, exasperated, ‘Look, Faruq, we need to find your mother because she’s in danger, and you said as much yourself. She’s also sick. We need to find her quickly. I appreciate that whatever you’re doing here is your own business, and probably a deadly secret, but if you don’t tell me where you were bound, I’ll have no idea where your mother might have gone and we’ll probably set off in quite the wrong direction and waste an awful lot of time.’ She ran out of breath. ‘So?’

  He was smiling at her. ‘I did not hesitate because I was reluctant to share the deadly secret with you. I hesitated because I don’t actually know where we were heading.’

  ‘You – what?’

  He looked abashed. ‘We have – had – a destination, a purpose,’ he said, ‘but I do not know where we must go.’

  She shook her head, not understanding.

  He watched her. The tension seemed to increase as, slowly, he made up his mind to trust her.

  ‘We came to England because we must seek out the Queen,’ he said eventually.

  Whatever Meggie had expected him to say, it certainly wasn’t that. ‘I suppose,’ she said with heavy irony, ‘there’s no point in asking why?’

  He shook his head. Then, quickly, he said, ‘Please, it is not with the intention of hurting or harming her, or of in any way distressing her – this you must believe.’

  Strangely, for she barely knew him, she did. ‘And you think your mother may know where to find her, and has set off to do so?’

  He shrugged: a very foreign gesture, she thought. ‘I do not know. Before she told me about the …’ He stopped. ‘Before we embarked on our long journey, I would have said she had no idea about such worldly matters as how to discover the whereabouts of the queen of an alien land, for she – my mother – has always been a woman whose very existence was focused on home, hearth and kin; who rarely, if ever, raised her eyes above her own, near horizon. Now, I have come to see her in another light altogether.’

  Meggie suppressed her irritation. All very poetic and moving, she thought, but it’s not helping us find Hadil. ‘I know, or can guess, where the Queen is,’ she said with some asperity.

  ‘You can?’ Faruq stared at her in amazement.

  Meggie grinned. ‘Don’t look so impressed,’ she said, ‘it’s common knowledge.’ That was probably an exaggeration, but Meggie had the advantage of frequent contact with Josse, who knew the ways of kings and queens better than most and who, where necessary, could make a very good guess.

  Faruq was slowly shaking his head, still, clearly, deeply impressed. ‘So, which road will my mother have taken? Which way should we go?’

  ‘We go that way,’ Meggie said without hesitation. Pointing almost due west, along the road that wound off around the bulge of the forest, she added, ‘If your mother has discovered where the Queen is, that’s where we’ll find her.’

  FIVE

  A mile or so down the road, breaking a silence that had lasted for some time, Faruq said, ‘She wasn’t really sick.’

  Meggie smiled. ‘Ah. I see.’

  ‘But she was totally exhausted!’ Faruq cried, as if she had demanded an explanation. ‘We’ve been travelling for so long and come so far, and then the sea was very rough when we undertook the crossing – she was so frightened, and it was not easy to calm her – and then she began vomiting, and didn’t want me to watch, so it was impossible to help her, you see, and then she insisted we set out straight away, although she was still so very weak, and I … well, I said she had to have a rest and I made her go to that abbey.’ He paused, his expression anguished. ‘I just thought she’d get a proper bed for the night, and perhaps a hot meal. I didn’t expect those nuns to be so diligent.’ He glanced at Meggie, eyes wide in wonder. ‘They really cared about her!’

  ‘They did,’ she agreed.

  He went on looking at her. Then he said, ‘You knew she wasn’t ill, didn’t you?’

  ‘I didn’t think the raving was because she’d lost her wits, no,’ she replied. He raised a dark eyebrow. ‘I’ve had a little instruction in caring for those who wander in their minds,’ she said briefly. Before he could ask, she went on, ‘Enough to suspect that your mother was angry rather than mad. I imagine she wasn’t at all pleased when Sister Liese insisted on putting her to bed and looking after her?’

  Faruq tried to suppress a smile and failed. ‘She was livid.’

  ‘And so, cleverly, she fooled us all into thinking she had fallen into a deep, restorative sleep,’ Meggie said softly, ‘then, once everyone had settled down for the night and there was just one worn-out nun left on duty, she slipped out, saddled her horse and set out to continue on this vitally important journey of yours.’

  Faruq said, ‘I hope that nun won’t get into trouble. It wasn’t her fault, I’m sure of that. My mother can be very crafty.’

  Meggie nodded. ‘I’m sure. No, I don’t believe she will.’ They had come to a stretch where branches bordering the track swept down low, so that for a while they had to ride single file. When there was room to ride abreast again, she said, ‘Will you not tell me about it? This journey, or quest, or whatever it is?’

  ‘No.’ He frowned, shaking his head. ‘I have told you already more t
han I ought to.’

  ‘You had to, or else I’d have had no idea how to set about following your mother!’ she said crossly.

  He inclined his head in acknowledgement. ‘True. But, you see, in truth I don’t know the whole story, not from the beginning. My mother refuses to … She and her …’ He stopped, and she had the impression he’d just forced himself to bite back whatever he’d been about to say. ‘As to what I do know, she made me swear, on everything that is most dear and precious to me, that which I hold deepest in my heart, not to reveal our purpose.’ His light eyes were fixed on hers. ‘It is dangerous. Believe me, there is such grave danger, and we …’ Once again, very firmly he shut his mouth.

  ‘If you’ve taken such a solemn oath,’ Meggie said after a while, ‘then it wouldn’t be right for me to try to persuade you to break it.’ He gave her a look of such gratitude that she was deeply moved. ‘But if circumstances change and you discover you need someone on your side, and perhaps that entails a little explanation, then I’ll respect the need for secrecy. And I’ll do my best to help you,’ she added.

  He smiled. ‘Already you are helping me.’

  ‘Yes, so I am.’ She smiled back.

  It was around noon, to judge by the sun’s position, that they found Hadil.

  They came across the grey mare grazing beside the road. She was still saddled, and a large, soft leather bag was secured behind the saddle. She had a broken rein and there were grass stains on her right shoulder.