by Alys Clare
Helewise heard someone approach. She was outside fetching water from the stream, busy preparing vegetables and beans in a stew for supper. She had returned from the House in the Woods earlier with generous supplies of food, which Tilly had helped her carry. But she was not in the least hungry. The ongoing, gnawing anxiety had quite taken away her appetite, but she knew she must force herself to eat. Besides, there were others to consider.
She looked up to see who was coming. It was probably Tiphaine, although she could not help hoping it might be Meggie. Or, even better, Josse . . .
Tiphaine stepped out from beneath the shadow of the trees and into the clearing. She gave Helewise the low, reverent bow that she had always performed before her superior and, approaching, said, ‘Your son’s given a name to the dead man. He was called Hugh de Brionne.’
Helewise repeated the name to herself. She did not think she had ever heard it before. ‘Who is he?’
Tiphaine shrugged. ‘Some lord’s son. His old father’s close to the king, or was when he had any wits left.’
Helewise thought about that. Then she said, ‘Has his identity had any bearing on the hunt for Rosamund?’
Tiphaine came to stand beside her, and Helewise was grateful for her solid, strong presence. Tiphaine was a woman who was very close to the earth, and strength emanated from her. ‘I don’t know, my lady,’ she said gently. ‘Reckon they’re still thinking about that.’
Helewise studied the lean, weather-beaten face. Tiphaine looked tired. ‘Come and eat,’ she said, taking the older woman’s arm. ‘It’s nothing special but at least now we’ve got enough for the next few days.’
With dismay, she heard what she had just said. The next few days. Dear God, was it going to be as long as that before they found Rosamund? The familiar guilt seared through her again.
They were stepping inside the little hut, and Tiphaine was watching her. ‘She’ll be found, my lady,’ she said. ‘I am quite sure of it. She’s not dead.’
Helewise stared at her. ‘How can you be so sure?’ she cried sharply. ‘She’s only a girl, Tiphaine! She could be—’ Horrible images flashed before her eyes, but with an effort she shut them off. Tiphaine was trying to comfort her, she realized, and she had just shouted at her. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘It’s just that I’m so desperate to accept she’s all right but I don’t know if I can believe you.’
Tiphaine went on looking at her. Then she said, ‘You can, my lady,’ and turned to set out the wooden bowls for supper.
They sat down close by the hearth to eat their supper. It had grown much colder once darkness had fallen, and the warmth was welcome. Helewise was quite pleased with her bean stew, which was greatly improved, she thought, by the addition of some of Meggie’s dried herbs. She tried to eat slowly – if she ate beans quickly her stomach tended to bloat – but she was too hungry, and she wolfed down her bowlful. Beside her, Tiphaine ate her stew mechanically, her thoughts clearly elsewhere, occasionally emitting a grunt of satisfaction.
‘I’d have thought we would have had a visit from Meggie before now,’ Helewise ventured, trying to suppress a belch. Her pleasure in the taste of the herbs had brought the girl to mind.
‘She’ll return here when she’s ready,’ Tiphaine said calmly. Then, her eyes narrowing, she added softly, ‘She’ll be on the little girl’s trail, like as not.’
Helewise spun round to look at her. ‘How do you know that?’ she demanded.
Tiphaine looked up from mopping her bowl with a piece of bread, her expression registering surprise at Helewise’s sharp question. ‘Stands to reason,’ she replied, swallowing a mouthful. ‘Joanna knew how to follow a person’s footsteps across many miles. Meggie’s her daughter. I expect Ninian can do it too, since he’s her son. They’ve both inherited many of her gifts, so why would that not be one of them?’
Helewise was torn between a sudden glow, because she was sure Tiphaine was right, and a stab of pain.
Josse had loved and lost Joanna, and he did not often speak her name. To have Tiphaine refer to her so readily and easily, as if she had just stepped out of the hut and it was not ten years and more since she had gone, was a shock, and not entirely a pleasant one.
Helewise had to admit that she did not much care to hear Joanna’s name.
She commanded herself not to be so selfish. What Tiphaine had just said was good. It gave them hope. ‘You really think they can do it, Tiphaine? You believe that we’ll get Rosamund safely back?’
Tiphaine reached for more bread and nodded. ‘Aye.’
Her assent, Helewise reflected with a private smile, could have been to either of the questions. It was probably to both.
She bent down to pick up the jar of small beer that Tilly had lugged across the forest that morning and, filling two mugs, handed one to Tiphaine. Raising her own, she said, ‘To Rosamund, wherever she is. May God keep her safe.’
There was a muttered Amen and the sound of Tiphaine slurping up her beer.
Helewise had hoped that Josse might have called in before nightfall and, even better, might have stayed in the hut overnight, but she had not really expected him to. As she lay up on the sleeping platform, drifting into sleep, she pictured Josse’s face. In her imagination, he was standing on the edge of the clearing outside the hut and he turned to look at her. There was just sufficient light to see his face, and his expression as he met her eyes brought a smile to her face.
She would go to look for him in the morning, if he did not turn up at the hut first. She had to tell him that the identity of the dead man was now known. It would, she reflected drowsily, give her a fine excuse to seek him out.
Ninian had gone to settle the horses for the night. The saddles and bridles were safely concealed back in the sleeping place, and he had fashioned rope head-collars and tethered the horses to the trunk of an alder. They would have hobbled them and set them to wander, but they were both afraid the animals might be seen.
That must not happen.
He checked once again to make sure the knots were firm and then dipped under the low branches of the pine trees where he and his sister were going to spend the night.
Meggie looked up at him. She had lit a small fire, contained within a circle of stones from the shallows of the river. ‘All well?’ she asked softly.
‘Yes.’ He lay down on his blanket and gave a deep sigh.
Meggie watched him. She could tell how tired he was. She was wrapped up warmly in her cloak and blanket, leaning comfortably back against her saddle. ‘Go to sleep,’ she said. ‘You look as if you can’t keep your eyes open any longer.’
He yawned widely. ‘Very well. Call me when it’s my turn to watch.’
‘I will.’ She smiled at him, but he had already shut his eyes. He turned on his side, away from her, and wound his cloak around him. He would get a decent sleep before his turn came, she reflected, since she felt wide awake, despite her bodily fatigue. Her mind was racing, refusing to shut off. It was no use fighting it, and so she let her thoughts roam back over the hours and the miles since she had set out from the House in the Woods.
She had been surprised at the ease with which she had picked up Rosamund’s scent. Well, she corrected herself, it was not exactly a scent, because that implied that it was something you could detect with your sense of smell. It was more a sort of feeling, a certain knowledge that Rosamund had stood just there. Meggie remembered how it had felt to stand with her eyes shut absorbing Rosamund’s essence, concentrating so intently on the strange sensation that she had barely registered her father and Gus coming up behind her. She had believed that was going to be all she could manage, but then she had realized there was more. She found the direction in which Rosamund had set off and, once she became used to interpreting what her senses were telling her, it was relatively easy to follow where Rosamund and her abductor had gone. Provided she went quickly – she had a strong suspicion that this weird effect would not be long lasting – there was a chance that Rosamund might
be found.
Meggie had barely heard the others agonizing over where Rosamund could be and how they would set about finding her. She had volunteered the small amount of information she had – Helewise, she had noticed, had been watching her keenly, as if she’d known Meggie’s thoughts were not entirely on the discussion – but in the privacy of her own head she had been struck with wonder at her newly-discovered gift and longing to begin testing it. As soon as her father and Helewise had set off for Tonbridge, she had slipped away from the house and almost instantly she had discovered Rosamund’s trail. Already, the essence had been fading; she’d known that she was going to have to hurry.
She had also understood that she needed a horse. She waited until her father returned, riding Alfred and leading Helewise’s mare, and as soon as she could she went into the stables and tacked up Daisy, apologizing to the mare for having to take her out again so soon. For a desperate few moments she had not been able to locate the bridle; it had been on Will’s workbench, waiting for him to mend a fraying stitch. Typical of tidy-minded, painstaking Will, the strong needle and the thick thread were on the bench beside the saddle, and Meggie had quickly done the repair. It was not as neat a job as Will would have done, but the stitching would hold.
She made herself ignore her guilt over setting out without telling her father. It was an unbreakable house rule, imposed on them all from Josse himself to the smallest child of Tilly and Gus: always let someone know where you’re going and when you expect to be back. It was quite right and made total sense, living as they did in the depths of the wildwood and in the middle of hard times, when there were desperate men about who would attack and harm you for the price of your boots.
I’m sorry, dear, dear Father, she said to him silently as she led Daisy away, looking over her shoulder all the time in case someone spotted her. I know you’ll worry, because, although you try to hide it, you get twitchy even when I stay over at the hut for a few days, and it’s pretty safe there.
She knew she had to go alone. The presence of anybody else – even someone she loved as profoundly as she loved her father – would have altered the balance and might have obliterated that small, clear voice that seemed to be calling out to her: Follow me. Follow me.
She had ridden on for all the rest of that day, sometimes quickly, when there was only one obvious direction to take and she did not have to keep dismounting to check that she had not gone wrong, and sometimes agonizingly slowly. Once, out to the west of Hawkenlye Abbey, she had become confused by many sets of hoof prints and boot prints and it had taken her almost till dusk to find the trail again. By then it had faded so much that it was barely detectable . . .
The awareness that she was cold broke across her thoughts. She reached out to poke the fire, and the sudden, leaping flames sent a wave of warmth out to her. Ninian had collected plenty of firewood, so she put a couple of lengths on top of the blaze.
Ninian. She glanced over at his sleeping form. It had been quite a surprise to discover that she had not been the only one on Rosamund’s trail . . .
She had spent her first night on the high ground to the west of the Hawkenlye vale. Although the mighty woods of the Wealden Forest ended to the south-west of the abbey, there were still occasional wooded rises, and she had made her meagre camp at the top of one of them. She had come well prepared, making fire with her flint and steel and cooking a simple supper. The hot drink had been very welcome, and she had dosed herself with her own herbs. Wrapped in her heavy cloak and a couple of thick wool blankets, she had not fared too badly.
In the afternoon of the next day, she had spotted a rider ahead. Tensing, she had studied him. Her first instinct had been that it was Ninian, but then Rosamund had seen her abductor at quite close quarters and believed him to be Ninian. Meggie had forced herself to wait, testing out her first impression, and realized that she had no reason to doubt it. She put her heels to Daisy’s sides and hurried to catch him up.
His expression as he turned to look at her had been unreadable, even to her, and it had crossed her mind that he was deliberately keeping her out, shutting away whatever he was thinking so that she did not pick it up.
Then he smiled. Smiling too, happy to see him, glad that she would not have to pursue the trail alone, she said, ‘So you can do it too.’
He replied simply, ‘Yes.’
He told her he had found the spot where Rosamund and the man who had taken her had spent the previous night. ‘At least, I’m pretty sure I have,’ he added. ‘Two people lay there, and there was a fire, although only one horse.’
‘She’s only small,’ Meggie said. ‘She’d have ridden behind him.’
She suggested returning to the camp site so that she, too, could inspect it, but Ninian said there was no need. ‘The trail’s already faint and there’s no point,’ he went on. ‘Anyway, I think I know where he’s taking her.’
She had been so excited at his words that she hadn’t pursued the matter of the camp site. ‘Where?’ she demanded.
He stared at her, his blue eyes brilliant in the soft autumn sunshine. Not our mother’s eyes, she remembered thinking absently, for hers were dark, darker than mine, which are just like Father’s. Ninian, too, must have his father’s eyes.
She did not know for certain who had fathered her half-brother, although she had a pretty good idea.
He said, after teasing her with a pause so long that she had been about to thump him, ‘I believe they’re heading for the Ashdown Forest. They’ve been going west,’ he went on quickly when she opened her mouth to interrupt, ‘and for miles that way there’s little but heathland.’
‘Then what is his destination?’
‘There are hunting lodges out on the forest,’ he said eagerly. ‘They were built for the great lords, so they don’t have to waste valuable hunting time riding to and from whatever grand house they’re staying in. It’s like camping, I suppose,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘only far more comfortable, and I expect there’s a gang of servants to cook the deer the lords have just killed and to warm the beds.’
She hardly heard the last part. ‘Do you know where these hunting lodges are, then?’ she asked.
He grinned. Raising his arm, he pointed. ‘There’s one about five miles ahead.’
They had found it. As soon as they had it in sight, it was obvious that it was inhabited. There were horses tethered outside, and the sounds of human activity could be heard coming from the small yard behind the lodge. Men were hurrying to and fro – the gang of servants, no doubt, Meggie had thought – working to fulfil the orders of an exacting master and make everything ready for his arrival.
There were people within, too; the sound of their voices floated out on the still air.
Was one of them Rosamund?
Meggie, stiff with tension at knowing the child might be so near, wanted to creep up and look, but Ninian grabbed her and threatened to tie her to a tree if she tried. ‘If they see you, they’ll either take you too or have you arrested for trespass,’ he hissed.
‘What do you suggest?’ she hissed back, equally angry.
He loosened his hold on her. ‘We wait,’ he replied. ‘We’ll make camp over there, among the trees –’ he pointed – ‘and the gorse will hide us well enough. Then we watch and work out who’s in there, what they want with Rosamund and—’
‘And how we’re going to get her back,’ she interrupted.
He smiled at her. ‘My thoughts exactly.’
Careful not to disturb Ninian, Meggie got to her feet and crept over to the edge of the secluded spot where they had made their camp. She could see the lodge quite clearly, for it stood out as a rectangle of denser black in the darkness. Everything was quiet now, and only one small light burned.
Earlier, a group of horsemen had ridden up, the horses lathered and the men loud-voiced and exuberant; the hunting, it seemed, had been good. Meggie and Ninian, watching from their hiding place in the gorse, had counted ten men. Meggie could have sworn that Ninian rec
ognized one of them, but when she asked him, he shook his head.
The sounds of a very good party had floated out to them from the lodge. There was singing and laughter and, at one point just after the hunters had arrived, a furiously angry voice shouting harsh but inaudible words. The men, it appeared, had fallen to arguing even before they’d had time to drink more than a couple of mugs of wine.
Meggie stood in the darkness for some time, concentrating so hard that it made her head ache. She was trying to sense if Rosamund was in the lodge, or whether this long, chilly vigil was a complete waste of time. She did not let herself dwell on that for long. If it was, then Rosamund would be far away now and out of reach, even to two people who had inherited their mother’s strange gifts.
Rosamund had to be there. Surely, it could not be that both Meggie and Ninian were wrong?
She arrested that thought too, replacing it with a positive one. Tomorrow the men would set out again, either to resume the hunt or to return to wherever it was they came from. She and Ninian would be ready and, whoever had Rosamund and wherever they went, the two of them would follow.
It seemed as good a thought as any on which to go to sleep. She returned to her bed, stoked the fire again and lay down. She knew she was meant to wake Ninian so that he could take his turn on watch, but she was all but sure that everyone in the lodge had retired for the night. Nobody would go anywhere until morning, so Ninian might as well sleep too.
She rolled on her side, her back to the fire’s warmth, and very soon fell asleep.
SEVEN
The man felt as if his head had been invaded by other people’s thoughts. They were in there, the voices, inside his skull. They ordered him to do things, and when he got it wrong, they grew angry. Lying in the darkness, he gave a low moan, quickly suppressing it. The others had mocked and laughed at him quite enough for one day, and he would not give them the satisfaction of starting all over again.