by Alys Clare
Helewise hesitated. She sensed her four companions urging her to accept the kind offer and in her head she heard again Abbess Matilda’s words: A day will make little difference. With a smile of sheer relief, she said, ‘Thank you, my lady. We accept.’
As they rode out the next day, she urged Honey on so that she drew level with Josse. Sister Caliste rode ahead, while Brother Augustus and Brother Saul brought up the rear with the packhorse. There was nobody near enough to overhear, but it was still in a carefully soft voice that Helewise spoke. ‘Sir Josse,’ she said, ‘what do you think of this, of Queen Eleanor having left the safety and sanctity of Fontevrault for some island castle?’
Josse frowned. ‘I have been thinking hard, my lady, yet have come up with no satisfactory answer. Undoubtedly the queen has much to occupy her in these uncertain times, for although it appears that King John’s succession is not to be contested, there are many matters for Eleanor’s attention.’ His frown deepened. ‘I could have understood had she gone to some city such as Niort, or Poitiers, or Tours, where urgent matters of State might be addressed. Yet I asked around at Fontevrault and was told that Oleron is a desolate place with few inhabitants and barely a sizeable building other than the queen’s castle and- My lady?’
Helewise was nodding in sudden comprehension. ‘I believe I can help, Sir Josse,’ she said. ‘Our dear Eleanor has just lost her favourite son. Unlike most people, she has not the luxury of privacy, for the death of a king demands the attention of one such as she. Yet she is human too and perhaps her grief has overcome her. You describe this Oleron as a lonely spot where few people dwell; where better for a queen to withdraw and mourn in privacy?’
Now the travellers were south of the great port of La Rochelle, out in the midst of an area of flat marshland that seemed to go on for miles in each direction. The day was warm and sunny, although the soggy ground produced strange mists that snaked up around the horses’ feet and legs. Insects whined and buzzed in clouds around the heads of both humans and animals, and the irritable swishing of the horses’ tails was a constant background sound. Presently the road led up over a low humpbacked bridge and, at the top of the rise, the view opened out before them.
Sister Caliste, riding in front, called out, ‘I can see the sea!’
Josse slipped off Horace’s back and hurried to stand beside her. ‘Aye, you’re right!’ he exclaimed. ‘And there’s an island over there, straight in front of us, maybe a mile off the shore.’
‘Is it Oleron?’ Helewise demanded urgently. Just then she did not think she could bear it if he said no.
He turned, gave her a very sweet smile and said, ‘I believe so, my lady. We’ll have to go on to the coast, find a boatman and ask, but I have been following the instructions that the monks at Fontevrault gave us and I am all but sure that at long last our destination is in sight.’
Helewise set up a brief prayer of thanks. Then, looking round at her companions, she said, ‘The queen awaits us. There is no dwelling, religious house or even lowly cottage where we may seek help, but I notice that this bridge crosses a stream.’ Already Josse and the lay brothers were eyeing her dubiously. ‘Sir Josse, take Brother Saul and Brother Augustus down there to the far bank. Sister Caliste, you come with me along this side of the stream to that stand of willows.’
Josse said, ‘What are we all to do, my lady?’
She fixed him with a direct look. She said firmly, ‘Wash.’
Quite a long time later, the five travellers reassembled on the road. Helewise cast a critical eye over her companions and was surprised and pleased at what she saw. Her own and Sister Caliste’s ablutions had been modest and prim; carefully back to back beneath the concealing willows, they had stripped to their chemises, washed as best they could and then put on clean linen and wimples. Caliste had rubbed the mud from the hems of their robes and banged the dust from their veils, and the two of them had dressed again and stood back to inspect each other. The effect, Helewise concluded, was not bad under the circumstances. The three men, however, had outdone them. Judging from the hoots of laughter and the loud splashing noises that she and Sister Caliste had tried to ignore, Josse and the lay brothers had apparently plunged right into the water. Now they stood with wet hair, decidedly damp garments and sheepish expressions, but all three looked as if they had just stepped from a bathhouse.
‘Excellent!’ Helewise exclaimed. ‘And Brother Augustus has even removed some of the dust from the horses. Well done! Now, before we have a chance to get dirty again, let’s go and find the queen.’
They reached the shore and soon found a narrow inlet where several boats were tied up to a wooden jetty. Josse found a group of seamen crouched over a cooking fire on which something savoury was stewing, and one of the men confirmed that the island across the water was indeed Oleron. Standing up, he pointed to a grim and forbidding fortress that stood on the point directly opposite. ‘That’s the castle,’ he said, puffing out his chest. ‘The queen’s castle.’
‘Really?’ Josse obligingly acted the part of a man overawed and deeply impressed. Then he said swiftly, ‘Can you take us over there?’ He turned to indicate his companions. ‘We are five, with six horses.’
The man contemplated the group, rubbing a thumb across the dark stubble on his chin. He bent down to mutter with the other seamen and then, straightening, named his price. It seemed reasonable to Josse, although he guessed that the seaman was probably inflating his usual rate in the presence of unknowing strangers. More for form’s sake than anything else, he offered two-thirds and in the end they settled on three-quarters. Then the man summoned a younger version of himself, who had to be his son, and, with two other men, they led Josse and his companions down the beach to a low, flat wooden craft with a broad beam and a single mast. Soon both humans and horses were standing on the salt-bleached deck as the seamen wielded their long poles and pushed off from the jetty.
It was less than a mile across the stretch of water to the island. Many sea crossings had never quite convinced Josse that boats were safe and he was glad of the abbess’s presence beside him. They stood in the bows of the boat, staring ahead over the calm sea to the flat, green outline of Oleron, and he could sense her tense excitement. He did not think it was the crossing that was making her nervous.
He said, ‘We have made good time, my lady. The queen will be surprised, I believe, to see us so soon.’
She looked up at him and he read gratitude in her face. ‘Do you think so? Oh, I hope you are right — it seems so long since her messengers came to Hawkenlye and I have been anxious in case she is angry with me for delaying.’
Josse smiled. ‘The queen is a great traveller. She understands better than most that nobody could travel from the south-east of England to the west coast of France in much better time than we have taken.’ Impulsively reaching out to grasp her hand, he added, ‘Stop worrying!’
She laughed softly. ‘Very well!’ Then — and he noticed belatedly that Sister Caliste and Brother Saul were watching — she extracted her hand and stepped a deliberate pace away.
They landed on the Ile d’Oleron and stood looking around them. It was a long, thin island, lying at an angle to the mainland and stretching out roughly south-east to north-west. Eleanor’s high-walled castle stood at the south-east corner; it was, Josse thought, staring up at it, the obvious place, for it commanded the straits between the island and the mainland. For some reason he felt a sudden deep shiver of apprehension. Something very bad had happened — or was about to happen — here.
He pulled himself together. ‘Come,’ he said bracingly, ‘let us mount up and set a smart pace as we ride up to the castle.’
They set off, Josse and the abbess in the lead, and within a short time were approaching the narrow stone bridge that led over a deep gully to the castle on its headland. Guards stood at each end of the bridge and, on the far side, where an arched entrance led through the great wall into the courtyard beyond, an iron portcullis was poised ready for l
owering. Arrow slits dotted the smooth stonework in a regular pattern and, high above, men could be seen on watch behind the crenellated walls. The castle gave the impression that it was bristling with weaponry and spoiling for a fight.
But that was fanciful, Josse told himself firmly. Wasn’t it?
He dragged himself out of his strange mood and made himself pay attention to the abbess’s exchange with the captain of the guard, who had stepped forward to bar their progress. Josse was about to offer his help but realized she did not need it; she was doing perfectly well on her own. The guard seemed impressed and, giving her a gallant bow, led the way across the bridge and in through the archway.
They were in Eleanor’s castle at last.
Eleanor gave them a short time to refresh themselves and then sent for the abbess and Josse. Briefly — and ungratefully — it occurred to Helewise to wonder why Josse was summoned, since the construction of a new chapel at Hawkenlye surely had nothing to do with him. She put the unworthy thought firmly away as they entered the vast room and, deeply and reverently, she bowed before the queen.
Eleanor stepped down from the raised dais where she had been sitting and took Helewise’s hand. ‘You have made good time, Helewise,’ she said.
In a flash Helewise thought, you were right, Josse. Then she said meekly, ‘We had a reliable guide, madam.’
‘Yes,’ Eleanor said, looking at Josse. ‘I know.’
Helewise knew it was probably not the right thing to speak before being spoken to but she could not help herself. She stared into Eleanor’s eyes; the queen’s face was pale and drawn, and her deep-set eyes were shadowed with dark circles. ‘I am so sorry, my lady, for your loss.’
There was a moment’s absolute silence. Helewise, quite sure she had broken some rule of etiquette, was about to apologize when the queen gave a sigh and said softly, ‘You too have sons, Helewise.’
‘Yes, my lady.’
It was enough.
The queen seemed to shake off the outward manifestations of her grief. Straightening up and squaring her shoulders, she said abruptly, ‘The new chapel is to be dedicated to St Edmund, who, like my dear son, died from an arrow shot. It is to be under the auspices of Hawkenlye Abbey, but I leave its exact site for you to decide, Helewise, in collaboration with the architect and the builders. I recall that the abbey does not have a great deal of available space within its walls and I would not have some existing building altered to make room. Within the chapel, the Hawkenlye community and the people will pray for the soul of King Richard.’ She paused, looking wryly first at Helewise and then at Josse. ‘Like all men, my son was a mixture of good and bad. He confessed his sins and was shriven before he died, but nevertheless I fear that many more prayers must be said for him before his soul may ascend to Our Lord in heaven.’ She fell silent, the lines of deep grief once more very apparent on her face.
Helewise waited. Eleanor again brought herself back from the dark paths of grief to the matter in hand. With a peremptory ‘Come!’ she walked across to a wide oak table on which there were several large rolls of parchment. With Helewise and Josse either side of her, she unrolled the largest, revealing a beautifully drawn illustration of a small chapel. ‘This is what I want,’ she said quietly. ‘Something simple, for my son was a plain man. Something for the ordinary people, who loved him.’
Helewise was not at all sure about love. It seemed to her that the unspoken opinion of most people was that the late king had cost them rather more than he was worth. This, of course, was no time to say so.
Eleanor was unrolling other parchments, showing them plans and elevations. ‘You will go from here to the city of Chartres,’ she said, ‘where they are building the new cathedral on the fire-blackened ruins of the old one. There, you will find the stonemasons and the carpenters whom I have chosen to build my son’s chapel and you will give them my written orders. Payment will be effected through the auspices of the Knights Templar, with whom I have arranged credit. It is my wish that work begin as soon as possible. I have already commissioned a similar chapel at Fontevrault, dedicated to St Lawrence, and it is my firm intention that prayers shall be said at both chapels within the year.’
It seemed a tall order. Helewise, briefly meeting Josse’s eyes, guessed he felt the same, but then Eleanor was the queen, enduring, loved and respected; her people were long in the habit of obeying her.
‘Very well, my lady,’ Helewise said. ‘It shall be as you command.’
Eleanor looked at her intently for a moment. Then she said simply, ‘Thank you.’
Helewise sensed that they were dismissed. With a brief glance at Josse, she bowed low and began backing away from the queen. They had reached the great doors, which a silent statue-like guard opened for them, and Helewise was preceding Josse through to the vast open space beyond when Eleanor called out, ‘Sir Josse! A word, if you please.’
His eyes flicked to Helewise’s and she felt an absurd urge to giggle at the horror in his face. ‘It is my turn to reassure you,’ she whispered, pushing him back into the great hall. ‘Stop worrying — you have done nothing wrong!’
Then the guard was gently but firmly closing the doors in her face. Whatever was in store for Josse, he was going to have to face it by himself.
Eleanor had dismissed her guard; she and Josse were alone. She went to sit on a low bench beside the empty hearth and beckoned to him to join her. After a moment’s hesitation — was it right to sit beside a queen? — he obeyed, lowering his buttocks very cautiously in case she suddenly protested that it wasn’t what she had meant at all and he should kneel at her feet instead. No such protest came.
After what seemed to the very nervous Josse a painfully long silence, Eleanor said, ‘Sir Josse, why do you imagine I have come here to my castle on this backwater of an island?’
Josse cast around frantically for a diplomatic answer but all he could think of was the truth. ‘We — that is, the Abbess Helewise and I — wondered if you might have sought a little solitude, madam, in which to grieve,’ he said quietly.
‘A gentle thought,’ she replied, ‘and, indeed, an accurate guess, for it is all too true that I have great need of such a retreat.’ She sighed. ‘I have lost the staff of my old age, the light of my eyes,’ she murmured, ‘and it all but breaks me.’ There was another pause and Josse felt her sorrow flow around him like a dark cloud. Then she said, ‘But the luxury of solitary grief is not for one such as I. Why, even here matters of State occupy me and in the brief time that I have been on the island I have granted two charters and, when the blackness of my thoughts threatens to overwhelm me, I distract myself with a new project to set down once and for all a just and reasonable system of laws for maritime trade.’ She fell silent, a frown creasing her face.
‘I can think of nobody more fitted to-’ Josse began.
As if she hadn’t heard him, she spoke again, shocking him into silence: ‘There are foul rumours concerning a group of knights who, so they say, have been indulging in devil worship,’ she said bluntly. ‘They sacrifice young boys and perform unspeakable sexual misdeeds.’
In a flash of understanding Josse recalled the moment of deep unease as he stood looking up at the castle. Something very bad had happened here. ‘Aye,’ he breathed. Then, eyes on hers, ‘Was it right here, within these walls?’ he asked urgently.
She looked at him, surprise on her face. ‘No, but very close: on the island. How did you know?’ Then, anger darkening her eyes, she hissed, ‘Did somebody tell you?’
‘No, madam, I swear it.’ To his huge relief, she seemed to believe him. ‘Just a sensation. I felt there was evil here.’
‘You felt right,’ she muttered.
‘What has it to do with me?’ he asked. ‘Or with you, my lady? This is your island, I appreciate that, but-’
Again she interrupted him. ‘I remember you, Josse d’Acquin,’ she said. ‘You came to our aid once before. Do you remember?’
‘Aye, my lady.’ Embarrassed, he lowered h
is head.
‘I was preparing the way in England for my son’s crowning and you helped to defend his good name. Well, now I call upon you to render to me the same service again.’
‘Your son…? Madam, I do not understand.’ Josse stared at her. He read something in her expression, something that made his heart thump in alarm, and he thought that perhaps he did understand after all.
‘Yes, yes,’ she said slowly. Then, suppressed fury sharpening her voice, ‘Rumours, Josse, always rumours! So much has been said about my son King Richard, so much that is bad. Evil. So much that is untrue.’
‘They are saying that he knew of this group of knights?’ Josse asked tentatively.
‘They are saying that he was one of them,’ she replied brutally. ‘They say he joined them in their foul, unnatural rites, that he had carnal knowledge of young boys, that he came here, to this very island, not long before he died to lead one of their most frightful ceremonies — ’ she drew a shaky breath — ‘that he was there to hear the terrible screams.’
‘My lady, I…’ But Josse was lost for words. He wanted to state firmly that he was quite sure there was no truth in the rumours, that the late king was innocent of the dreadful accusations, but he was not at all sure that he could speak the words and sound as if he were telling the truth.
‘I have a mission for you, Josse,’ the queen said quietly. ‘When you have completed it, report back to me. I continue my progress for some weeks, but by mid-July I shall be in Rouen. I wish you to investigate these rumours and find out if there is any truth in them. If there is not, you are to arrest all those responsible for blackening the name of the king and bring them to me for trial and punishment.’
There was a long, aching silence.
Finally Josse said, ‘And if there is?’
The queen’s dark, unfathomable eyes stared straight into his. It was rather like being pinned to a wall. ‘If there is,’ she repeated, ‘bury it. Bury it so deeply that it can never emerge.’