Ashes of the Elements

by Alys Clare

  One morning, curiosity overcoming her, Helewise stopped by Peg’s bench and looked down over the girl’s shoulder to see what she was reading. It was an ancient and, to Helewise, almost incomprehensible manuscript on tree lore.

  * * *

  When Peg’s year as a postulant was up, she renewed her request to take her vows and be admitted to the community. Helewise, still dubious, could find no valid reason to refuse; in the midsummer, when Peg was fifteen, the girl took the veil and became the youngest novice that Hawkenlye Abbey had ever had.

  When Helewise was preparing her for her first vows, Peg had said, ‘Abbess, may I be known by another name?’

  Initially surprised, Helewise quickly understood. Or thought she did. ‘Yes, Peg. Sister Peg, I do see, is not the most harmonious of epithets, is it?’

  Peg smiled. ‘No. But it’s not that. My foster parents chose according to their own lights, and I have never complained. It’s—’ She stopped. Then asked, ‘Need I give a reason, Abbess?’

  Helewise, who reflected that she was usually prepared to accept unquestioningly what every other new nun chose to call herself, saw no justice in making an exception now. ‘No, Peg. I suppose not. What name do you wish us to call you?’

  Peg said, ‘Caliste.’

  * * *

  Sister Caliste had spent the past year as a willing and obedient novice. In much the same way, Helewise thought, as she had probably spent her early years as a dutiful chicken-tending peasant child. What troubled the Abbess was that, just as the life of a peasant could have utilised only a fraction of Caliste’s potential – only a fraction, apparently, of her soul – the same could be said of her life as a novice nun.

  There is no complaint I can make against her! Helewise repeatedly told herself. She is always punctual, always diligent, always does her best to please. Never complains – which was more than could be said for many of the sisters – even when the most arduous tasks are laid on those straight young shoulders.

  Why, then, did the Abbess feel so uneasy about Caliste?

  * * *

  Helewise rose from her knees, suppressing a groan of pain; she had been praying for an hour, foregoing the midday meal in the hope that offering her hunger to God might please Him, as a fair return for beseeching His help.

  Quietly closing the great west door behind her, Helewise left the church.

  Oh, but I do not feel any easier! she thought miserably as she crossed the cloister and made for the privacy of her room. I still cannot decide what to do, although that indecision itself makes me feel that the girl’s final vows must be postponed, at least until this present and deeply unsettling business has been—

  ‘Abbess?’ called a voice.

  Helewise turned. Sister Ursel was hurrying towards her, a broad smile on her face.

  Helewise, crushing the thought that a long conversation with the porteress was the last thing she wanted just then, arranged her own features into a corresponding smile and said, ‘Sister Ursel. What can I do for you?’

  ‘Abbess, you’ve got a visitor!’ Sister Ursel said. ‘Sister Martha’s just seeing to his horse, and he’s having a bit of a natter with her, but then he says he’d like to come to see you, if that’s all right? Only I said I thought it would be.’

  Helewise waited patiently for her to finish. Then said, ‘And who, Sister Ursel, is “he”?’

  ‘Oh, didn’t I say?’ Sister Ursel chuckled. ‘No, I didn’t, did I? It’s just that I was so pleased to see him again, looking exactly the same, for all it must be two years since he came to see us, and…’

  ‘Sister Ursel?’ Helewise interrupted gently.

  ‘That Josse, Abbess!’ Sister Ursel exclaimed. ‘That Sir Josse d’Acquin, I should say. Come over from his grand new house, he has, to pay his respects!’

  * * *

  As she sat in her room waiting for Josse to finish his gossiping with Sister Martha and come to join her, Helewise reflected on what a wonderful piece of chance it was, for Josse to turn up just now. Why, it might be heaven sent, it was so perfect! An outsider, but a friend nevertheless, whom she knew to be sensible and trustworthy, arriving at the very moment that she had need of a wise and sympathetic ear!

  As she heard Josse’s heavy tread outside, she saw, in a flash of insight, that heaven sent was precisely what he was; her hour-long, desperate prayers had been heard after all.

  * * *

  The Abbess Helewise looked well, Josse thought, sitting down on the same insubstantial stool he remembered from two years ago; had nobody suggested to her, in all that time, that the larger of her male visitors might be easier in a chair? She had the same calm expression, same clear grey eyes, same wide mouth.

  But, knowing her as he did, for all that – for all that she might appear well – there was something on her mind. There had to be! Because, as he rambled on and on about his new house, about this plan and that, about Will and Ella and their respective skills in looking after him, he suspected quite soon that she wasn’t really listening.

  ‘Oh, really?’ she said, and, ‘Lovely!’ and, ‘How very pleasant.’ When he said, feeling slightly mean, ‘There’s a terrible smell in the main hall, I think it’s probably been used by wild boar,’ and she answered, ‘Oh, how nice,’ then he knew she wasn’t listening.

  He leaned forward, noticing, from a closer vantage point, the fine lines of anxiety between her brows. ‘Abbess Helewise,’ he said gently, ‘that wasn’t the right answer.’ Briefly he confessed to what he had just done, and, her pale cheeks flushing slightly, the Abbess apologised. Waving away her discomfiture, he said, ‘Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong?’

  Her eyes flew to his. ‘Nothing! I’m worrying about nothing, I’m quite sure. And, anyway, I shouldn’t be unburdening my concern on to you, why, you’ve only just arrived!’

  ‘Ah.’ He bided his time.

  After several moments, she said, ‘It’s Sister Caliste. A young novice.’

  ‘Ah,’ he said again.

  She sighed. He perceived in her the struggle between her natural reticence and her need for the relief of talking. Eventually – as he had hoped it would – the need to talk won.

  ‘Yes.’ Another sigh. ‘You see, my strong instinct is to put off the first of her final vows, and I can give no good reason for it.’

  ‘Must you explain your decision?’ he asked.

  ‘Officially, perhaps not.’ She smiled briefly. ‘But Caliste is a sensitive and intelligent girl, and I feel I owe her an explanation.’

  There was a reflective silence in the little room. Then Josse said, ‘You and I, Abbess Helewise, have shared our worries before, to both our own and others’ benefit.’ He hesitated. Should he go on, even bearing in mind all that they had endured together in the past?

  Yes, he decided. He should.

  He said gently, ‘Why don’t you tell me about her?’

  After a slight pause, Helewise did so.

  * * *

  Listening, Josse thought, I think she’s quite right, for what it’s worth. Another year as a novice will give both girl and the Abbey some much needed extra time.

  ‘… you see, Sir Josse,’ the Abbess was saying, ‘and, what with her odd behaviour since the time of the murder, well, it’s just the final straw.’

  Realising he had missed something – something rather important – Josse said sharply, ‘Murder, Abbess?’

  She murmured something; it sounded like, ‘Now who’s not listening,’ then proceeded to tell him the few slim facts about the death of Hamm Robinson all over again.

  ‘I bring you bad luck,’ Josse observed when she had finished. ‘The last time I was here, it was because of a murder. Now here I am again, and, heralding my return, someone else is slain.’

  ‘People have been killed in the intervening years,’ the Abbess said. ‘Much as it pains me to say so, we live in violent times, Sir Josse. When men are hungry, when they act recklessly and fear retribution, such things lead all too easily to the swift blow,
delivered too hard.’

  Sobered by her words, yet at the same time relieved that he was not actually some dread harbinger of death, Josse nodded. ‘But the murder of Hamm Robinson was unusual?’ he prompted. ‘Killed with a spear, you say?’

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘A spear with a flint head. Which, according to our friend the sheriff, implicates the people of the forest, but, as I told you, since they’ve left the area, he has abandoned any faint hope of bringing them to justice.’

  ‘It could equally be some devious soul making it look as if the forest dwellers are responsible,’ Josse said.

  ‘Exactly what I thought,’ the Abbess said.

  ‘Hmm.’ Josse frowned in concentration. The concept of these Wild People, as the Abbess had called them, was new to him. He knew the old legends, everyone did, but to have figures from the ancient tales apparently take on flesh and blood and kill a man, well, that took a bit of swallowing. ‘Abbess, about these forest folk who—’

  ‘Sir Josse, there is no point in pursuing this!’ she interrupted. ‘We must follow the sheriff’s example, and accept that the matter is closed.’

  ‘Hm,’ he said again. Then, remembering something, ‘Abbess, you were saying that your young novice began acting up – how did you describe it? Behaving oddly? – when this Hamm Robinson was killed? Surely, then, you can’t forget about it, since it affects one of your nuns?’

  ‘It was not the death that made her behave oddly,’ the Abbess said firmly. ‘I must make that plain, because there is no question of her being involved, in any way.’

  ‘Ah.’ Why, Josse wondered, are you denying it so strenuously, unless you really fear the opposite?

  ‘No, indeed,’ the Abbess went on. ‘It was merely that – oh, it sounds silly and insubstantial, now that I try to put it into words.’

  ‘But, please, Abbess, do so.’

  ‘Very well. You see, Sir Josse, a couple of nights before Hamm Robinson was slain, I heard Sister Caliste get up out of her bed. I think she was walking in her sleep – certainly, she gave no sign that she was aware of me, following her.’

  ‘I see. And what did she do?’

  ‘She walked to the door, quietly opened it, and stood on the top of the steps outside.’

  ‘Innocent enough,’ Josse said. ‘Perhaps she merely needed a breath of air.’

  ‘In her sleep?’ Abbess Helewise spoke with faint irony. ‘And that’s not all. Standing there, straight as a reed, she was gazing out over the wall.’

  ‘Over the wall,’ Josse repeated.

  ‘Yes. Her eyes were wide open, and she was humming softly under her breath, some weird succession of notes, so very different from anything I’ve ever heard before that…’ The Abbess gave a faint shudder. ‘Well, never mind.’

  Josse, trying to remember the layout of the Abbey, was picturing the scene. ‘Top of the steps leading to the dormitory, you said, and looking out over the wall?’ The Abbess nodded.

  He sighed. He was beginning to understand the Abbess’s unease.

  ‘Then, Abbess,’ he said heavily, ‘your young Sister Caliste, whether knowingly or not, was staring out over the forest.’

  And the Abbess, her eyes full of anxiety, said, ‘Exactly.’

  Chapter Five

  Seeing Josse on his way, Helewise felt much calmer than she had done earlier. It was not so much that he had resolved the problem of what to do about Caliste, more that it had been such a luxury to speak frankly with someone of Josse’s sound common sense.

  ‘You must certainly postpone the girl’s admission into the ranks of the fully professed,’ he had agreed. ‘It wouldn’t be fair, Abbess, either on the girl or on the community, to promote her to a life of dedication and maturity for which, from what you tell me, she isn’t yet ready.’

  As well as endorsing Helewise’s own view, he had, however, also ventured a suggestion of his own. A typically practical one, and one which the Abbess herself should have thought of. And I might have done, she had reflected, listening to him, had my mind not been fixed on the abstract things of the spirit, at the expense of the more tangible matters of the day to day.

  ‘Why not put the girl to working with one of your nuns with a particularly strong but, if I may use the word, simple faith?’ Josse had said tentatively. ‘If you have such a sister.’

  ‘Indeed I have!’ Helewise said, lighting on the idea. ‘Sister Beata, whom you have met – a nurse in the infirmary. She is just such a one, and the perfect mentor for a novice who needs to be coaxed more firmly into our spiritual fold!’

  But, dampening her enthusiasm, another thought struck her.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Josse must have read the sudden doubt in her face.

  ‘Oh – merely that, at present, I have another young woman working in the infirmary. She has been with us for a couple of months while we and others search for a permanent post for her. Her name is Esyllt, and she arrived with her late mistress, a very old and crippled woman who died while she was with us, taking the holy waters. Esyllt was left with nowhere to go, and we thought it better to keep her here than to let her roam the countryside alone.’

  ‘Ah, it’s a big world out there, fraught with perils for an innocent young girl,’ Josse agreed.

  ‘Well, it wasn’t exactly—’ Helewise made herself stop. No need to gossip about Esyllt, and why Helewise was quite sure she wasn’t a suitable companion for the novice Caliste. Anyway, for sure, Josse would see what she meant, if and when he ever met the girl. ‘I shall move Esyllt to the aged monks’ and nuns’ home,’ the Abbess said decisively. ‘The Good Lord knows,’ she added in a murmur, ‘her vivacious spirit should have an excellent effect there. And Esyllt has gentle hands, and is used to caring kindly for the very old. Her late mistress spoke highly of her,’ she explained to Josse, ‘and it is partly at her earnest behest that we are at such pains to secure the right place for Esyllt.’

  Esyllt transferred from infirmary to old people’s home, she had mused, Caliste moved from her pupillage under the wise but controversial Sister Tiphaine, to work under the watchful eye of Sister Beata, whose childlike faith might just work the necessary miracle.

  Yes, I have much to thank you for, Sir Josse, Helewise thought now, as she watched him mount up. It occurred to her, not for the first time, that, at some point in his life, Josse d’Acquin must have become very used to the command of men …

  ‘Oh, Abbess, I almost forgot!’ He stilled the circling horse and gave Helewise a rueful grin. ‘I encountered a friend of yours on the road, a man named Tobias Durand. He asked to be remembered to you.’

  ‘Tobias Durand?’ She frowned, then recalled. But she would scarcely have called him a friend, having barely met him. ‘Indeed? And was there a message for me?’ Perhaps he had sent word regarding the Queen, who must surely have left for France by now.

  ‘No message,’ Josse replied. ‘Merely to send the Abbess Helewise of Hawkenlye his respects.’

  ‘Charming,’ Helewise murmured. Then, aloud, ‘Where did you say you met him?’

  ‘I didn’t. In fact it was on the track leading from the forest, some five miles off to the north-east.’ Josse waved a hand behind him. ‘The fellow was hawking. Said it was good land there, where the trees give way to fields and hedgerows. Plenty of small game, for the training of a new bird.’

  ‘Oh!’ Helewise was faintly surprised, since she had understood from Queen Eleanor that Tobias and Petronilla lived quite close to the coast. It seemed unnecessary, to come all the way to this particular stretch of the Wealden Forest, when there must surely be good hawking to be had nearer to home.

  Still, it was none of her business.

  ‘Perhaps Tobias will pay us a call,’ she said.

  ‘Not today, he won’t.’ Josse turned his horse. ‘Said he was off home when I saw him.’

  ‘But I thought you said you met him this morning?’

  ‘Aye, I did.’ He steadied the horse, who was impatient to be, away. ‘Wait, Horace! We’ll be off
directly!’

  Then Tobias must have left his home very early, Helewise thought, still puzzled. Unless he had been staying with friends hereabouts? Yes! That must be it!

  ‘Was he alone? Tobias, I mean?’ she asked Josse. ‘Or with a company?’

  ‘What?’ Josse, clearly, wasn’t really interested. ‘Oh, quite alone. Now, Abbess, I must be on my way. Good day to you!’

  ‘Good day, Sir Josse. Come to see us again.’

  ‘I will.’ Josse grinned. ‘Apart from the pleasure of your company, Abbess, I’m intrigued by this poor dead body you trod on.’

  ‘I didn’t—’ she began. But, with a wave of his hand, he was gone.

  Yes, she thought, walking back towards the cloister and her room. I might have known. Mention the words ‘suspicious death’ to Josse d’Acquin, and you ensure yourself of the pleasure of his company. At least, until the murder is solved.

  * * *

  The new arrangements were put into effect straight away and, as far as Helewise could tell, seemed to work well. Esyllt, who had a strong and melodious singing voice, which she liked to use as she worked, quickly became a favourite with the old monks and nuns living out their retirement at Hawkenlye Abbey. True, one or two of the more straight-laced old people expressed shock, that a young woman who wasn’t of the community should be allowed to tend them, and one old monk in particular took exception to Esyllt’s song about the young lad and his lass, and what they got up to on a moonlit harvest night. But the dissenters were overruled by the majority, who grew to cherish Esyllt for her brimming happiness and her loving touch on ancient, painful bodies.

  Quite what it was that made Esyllt so cheerful, nobody knew or thought to enquire. Everybody worked hard at Hawkenlye Abbey; to have someone among them who had a pleasant word for all, who sang as she went about even the most crude of tasks, seemed like a gift from a thoughtful God, to brighten the long days.

  Sister Caliste settled down too, in the infirmary. Sister Beata had at first confessed to Helewise that she was afraid the remarks of the infirmary patients might affect Caliste; most of those cared for by the nuns were from the outside world, and many didn’t know about convent etiquette, that forbade the making of personal remarks. Caliste, whose beauty shone like a beacon, was, in Sister Beata’s opinion, the recipient of far too many compliments.