by Alys Clare
A DARK NIGHT HIDDEN
Alys Clare
www.hodder.co.uk
Also by Alys Clare
Fortune Like the Moon
Ashes of the Elements
The Tavern in the Morning
The Chatter of the Maidens
The Faithful Dead
Copyright © 2003 by Alys Clare
First published in Great Britain in 2003 by Hodder and Stoughton
An Hachette UK company
The right of Alys Clare to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise, circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
Epub ISBN 978 1 444 71668 9
Book ISBN 978 0 340 79332 9
Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
An Hachette UK Company
338 Euston Road
London NW1 3BH
www.hodder.co.uk
For Joey, my mother,
and in memory of her mother Mabel
and all the wise women
CONTENTS
A Dark Night Hidden
Also by Alys Clare
Copyright
Dedication
Part One: Lewes and Hawkenlye Abbey
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Part Two: The Great Forest
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Part Three: Hawkenlye Abbey
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Postscript
About the Author
Siqua sine socio,
caret omni gaudio;
tenet noctis infima
sub intimo
cordis in custodia.
If a maid lacks a lover,
She lacks also all joys;
She keeps in her heart
A dark night hidden.
Carmina Burana:
cantiones profanae
Author’s translation
The spiteful wind of a bleak, icy February blasted down the muddy track and around the sparse huddle of buildings as if it hated the world and everything in it. There had been snow earlier in the day, but now it was too cold for further flakes to fall. Even if they had, they would have been blown halfway to the chilly sea before being allowed to settle. The wind was out of the north-east: it could as easily have come from the frozen Arctic wastes.
One of the buildings was a gaol. Inside one of its three cells, a young woman lay on the soiled stone floor. She had spent many hours trying feebly to discover which area of the dank stone was the least wet, but such meagre effort was now beyond her. The damp in part comprised melted snow that had found its way in through the cell’s single, tiny window; too high to allow a view of the forgotten world outside, too small to permit the flow of fresh air, good only, it seemed, for letting in the fast-blown snow. In part, the moisture seemed to be a constant weeping from the very flags of the floor.
In part, too, it was the woman’s own bodily waste. For there was no receptacle put out for her use, and she was now too weak to do anything but let the urine flow out of her where she lay.
She was feverish. She knew, in some part of her mind that retained a little lucidity, that the fearful wounds she had sustained had become infected. Even if the lash itself had not poisoned her flesh, then this filthy cell would have done so, probably the instant she had been flung inside it.
Musing to herself as if it were a matter of academic interest, she reflected on her faint surprise that her back should pain her so much more than her brow. For they had but whipped her back – twenty-five lashes, a lighter penalty because of her sex – whereas her forehead had received the brand.
A letter, they said. Just that, a single letter. Burned into the smooth skin of her forehead with a red-hot iron. A time of terrible agony – she could still hear the echo of her own screams – but now, nothing. It was as if whatever it was in the body that transmitted pain had been excised. It was, she supposed, a blessing. Of a sort . . .
Her eyes closed. Reality faded – another blessing – and she slipped into a state somewhere between sleep and unconsciousness. Her mind, released from her desperate plight, took wing. And her senses filled with the past.
She saw them, those beloved companions. Saw their smiles, their love for her, for each other. She felt the warmth of their arms as they embraced her. She smelt lavender, that scent forever associated with the newcomers who had come from the south bearing the great news. And she heard the joyous sound of their voices raised in song.
The hallucination was so vivid that she thought they were there. That, against all reason, all hope, they had come for her.
She raised her head from the foul sludge on the floor. She said, ‘I’m here! I’m here!’
She believed herself to be shouting. But her voice emerged as a croak, barely audible.
‘Here I am!’ she cried again. ‘Oh, don’t go without me! Don’t abandon me!’
She struggled to her feet, falling forward against the cell wall. Gazing up at the window so far above, she beat her fists weakly against the dripping stones. ‘Here I am! Oh, why don’t they come?’
Perhaps they didn’t want her any more! Aghast, she put a blood-and dirt-stained hand to her mouth as if to stop the terrible thought. But then, why should they want her, she who had betrayed them, who, through her own passion and weakness, had introduced the crack in their defences that had so swiftly and frighteningly led to the downfall of them all?
No.
She sank down to the floor. No, they will consider themselves well rid of me. I am alone. Quite alone.
She tried to pray for them, a prayer of beseeching: please, of thy great mercy, let them be safe. Keep them safe. A soft sob broke from her, but she did not recognise it as her own. Her head shot up, her senses alert.
Somebody is here! she thought wildly. There’s someone – maybe several people – in one of the other cells! Oh, is it, can it be, them?
She got to her knees, leaning heavily against the wall. Holding on to the hinge of the stout door, she began to beat her fist against it. ‘Are you there?’ she called. ‘Oh, please, answer me! Forgive me! Don’t shun me now, when I have such need of you!’
No reply.
Reaching deep inside herself, she found a louder voice. Some strength with which to thump the door. ‘Please!’ she cried.
After long moments of effort, she had an answer. But it was not the one she was so desperately hoping for.
Footsteps sounded along the passage outside. Heavy footfalls, from large feet in stout boots. The woman’s heart filled with hope, and she raised herself so that her face was almost up to the small, mean grille let into the wood of the door. ‘I’m here! Oh, thank you, thank you . . .’
The brilliant flame of a torch scorched across her dark-adapted eyes. Covering them with her hands, she w
as suddenly flung backwards into the cell as the door was unlocked and thrust open.
Hope dying, she raised her head.
Above her stood not a beloved companion but her gaoler. Even as she felt the chill of ultimate despair, he swung a bunched fist at her head and sent her reeling.
‘Stop that bawling, else I’ll give you something to bawl about!’ he shouted, his harsh voice in the narrow cell hurting her ears.
‘Oh, please!’ she sobbed. ‘Won’t you let me see them? Won’t you at the least tell them I am here?’
Her words seemed to puzzle the man. Most things did, for he was not employed for his reasoning powers, simply for his brute strength.
‘Ah, enough!’ he said. ‘God alone knows what you’re ranting about, I don’t. Can’t make out a word of it.’ He made as if to retreat out of the cell. But then, staring down at her as she lay at his feet, he caught sight of a faint glimmer of pale, soft skin. The swell of a breast, white, rounded . . .
The woman’s gown had been ripped from her back for the flogging. She had tried to fasten the torn pieces together but with little success, so that now they no longer decently covered her upper body.
It was to be her final undoing.
The gaoler forced the torch into a bracket high on the wall. Then he fell heavily to his knees and grabbed at her.
Knowing what was coming, she made one last effort. Slipping to one side, swift as a snake, she wriggled out of his grasp. Leaping to her feet – she was small and light, and possessed of the adrenalin-fed strength of desperate peril – she evaded him and made a lunge for the door.
She almost reached it.
But the gaoler had long arms – the crueller of his associates remarked that his knuckles grazed the ground as he walked – and he shot out a hand and grabbed her ankle. Then, with a smile of pure lust, he pushed his hand up her calf, her thigh, until his strong fingers pinched hard into her buttock.
‘Now where d’you think you’re going, my little beauty?’ he crooned. ‘Out into the cold night when you could be nice and warm with old Forin here?’ His other hand was pulling at the front of her gown, reaching in and closing on her breast.
Wrestling, drawing on the last of her strength, she tried to push him away, spitting into his ugly, coarse face.
That was a mistake, for it angered him.
‘Slut! Whore!’ He shook her, so hard that her teeth clamped together, painfully biting her tongue. ‘Spit at me, would you?’ He threw her down on to the floor and her head bounced against the stones with a loud crack. She went limp.
But the gaoler did not notice. Blood lust ran hot in him, and in seconds he had ripped away the remnants of her clothes and pulled down his breeches. Fiercely aroused by the fight she had put up, he was hard and more than ready. Forcing her legs apart, he thrust into her, savage strokes that tore at her; he was built like a bull, and not for nothing did the town whores evade him unless there was no choice.
His climax came quickly, for a man like him had no concept of self-control. Panting, he slumped on the woman. ‘There, now,’ he managed after a while, ‘that weren’t so bad, eh?’ And – thinking that he might again have for free what he normally had to pay for – ‘We might do that again, now, eh? Old Forin might come by again, maybe bring you . . .’
But whatever his unimaginative mind might have come up with as a suitable gift for a woman he had just raped was never to be expressed. For, belatedly, he had noticed his prisoner’s unnatural stillness.
Rising up – he was kneeling between her wide-spread legs – he gazed down at her. There was blood on her thighs, and he wondered if he had just deflowered a virgin. Shame if so, he’d have made more of the moment if he’d known. Silly cow ought to have said.
Then he saw the other blood. Flowing from the back of her head, where she had hit the floor.
He thrust one hand into her long, dark hair, pooling around her head. He felt something warm and wet and, withdrawing his hand, he saw that it was covered in her blood.
He stared down at her small white breasts. Soft, they were, and nicely rounded. He put his hand on one, pinching the nipple hard; that’d wake her up if she was shamming.
She made not the slightest move.
He stared at her face. Her eyes were wide open, fixed; he could not bear to look into them. Leaning down over her, he listened for a hint of breath, watched for any rise and fall of her chest.
Nothing.
Standing up, pulling up his breeches and straightening his tunic, he said, in a low and somehow triumphant tone, ‘She’s dead, then. Aye, dead.’
He reached up for the torch and took it from the bracket. Then, leaving the cell door open – she certainly wasn’t going anywhere now – he strolled off along the passage.
Dead. Ah well, it’d save the hangman a job.
Part One
Lewes and Hawkenlye Abbey
Winter 1192–93
1
‘King Richard a prisoner? Nonsense – this cannot be so. Someone must be having a wicked jest!’
Josse d’Acquin, house guest of his late mother’s brother, Hugh of Lewes, heard his own heated words and belatedly remembered his manners. ‘I apologise, Uncle,’ he muttered. ‘But, nonetheless, I am certain there can be no truth in this terrible story. Why, the King heads a great army!’ Or at least he did three years ago, Josse added silently to himself, when he rode off with such proud pomp at the head of the vast crusading force. Since then, King Richard had suffered mixed fortunes. Moreover, of late the sparse news filtering back from Outremer with returning crusaders had been depressing.
And, for all that there were many tales that boasted of the King’s bravery, prowess and deeds of outstanding daring, there were also the hushed voices that spoke of sickness. Of a recurrent fever. Of a wound. Of plotting between Richard’s own brother, John, and the King of France, Richard’s sworn enemy. There were even – God forbid! – whispers that said King Richard was dead.
Trying not to dwell on that frightful thought, Josse blustered on. ‘How could it be that those whose sworn duty it is to guard the King would have allowed him to be taken?’
Hugh had waved the apology away. ‘Oh, Josse, I understand your emotion and I too, on hearing the fell news, had the same reaction: there must be some foul trickery here.’ His shocked eyes met Josse’s. ‘But not so. The reports flying around at court are, I deeply regret to say, absolutely true.’ He glanced over his shoulder as if to ensure that they were not overheard, then, putting his mouth close to his nephew’s ear, whispered, ‘Editha has it from Howell, who, as I believe we have told you, is kin to one of the secretaries of Walter of Coutances.’ The whisper dropped to a still softer pitch as Hugh added, ‘And it was Walter himself who broke the news to Queen Eleanor!’
‘Aye,’ Josse said distractedly. ‘Aye, you have indeed spoken of Howell’s important and influential cousin.’ He refrained from adding that it was strange how Howell – married to Hugh’s middle daughter Editha – managed to have distinguished relations whilst remaining unutterably dull and unremarkable himself. ‘But how does Walter of Coutances come by the news? Is there not still room for hope that the report, wherever it comes from, may yet prove false?’
‘I do not know, Josse.’ Hugh gave a heavy sigh. ‘I pray you are right, yet in my heart . . .’ He did not continue with the remark. Then suddenly he burst out: ‘I fear for England if Prince John rules us!’
Josse, too, had his misgivings concerning the Prince. He had encountered the man a matter of months previously, and knew better than many with what single-mindedness, even then, John’s hungry ambition had been fixed on the throne of England.
Yet, indeed, with Richard gone, who else was there?
But Hugh was speaking again. Josse arrested his despairing thoughts and listened.
‘Editha and Howell will be here again by and by,’ Hugh said. ‘Then we shall have fresh tidings, for they have been visiting Howell’s family. I pray God the news is good.’
‘Amen to that,’ Josse agreed.
‘Until then,’ Hugh said, on another sigh, ‘let us try to turn our thoughts to happier matters.’ His face brightening, he managed a light laugh. ‘A game of chess, perhaps? I believe you like to play?’
‘Er – it is many years since I enjoyed a game, and I fear that what skills I once possessed may have deserted me. But I will take up the challenge, Uncle, if you issue it.’
Now Hugh’s laughter was stronger. ‘That I do, nephew, albeit on another’s behalf. For if the guest whom we expect this afternoon can indeed spare the time to grace us with a visit, he will certainly not wish to pass up the chance of pitting his wits against a new opponent.’
His heart sinking – chess had never really been his game – Josse said, trying to put a note of polite enquiry into his voice, ‘And who may this guest be, Uncle?’
‘Why, Father Edgar!’ Hugh exclaimed, as if Josse ought to have guessed. ‘You remember, our priest!’
‘Oh.’
Hugh wrapped an affectionate arm around Josse’s shoulders, thumping the fist of his other hand against his nephew’s broad chest for good measure. ‘Ah, now, Father Edgar’s a good fellow, Josse, with a wide-ranging mind and possessed of lively intelligence. You have not yet had occasion to assess the measure of the man.’ Noting Josse’s expression – which despite his best efforts must have remained sceptical – Hugh laughed again and said, ‘Just wait! Just you wait!’
Josse had been the guest of his uncle and aunt throughout the Christmas season and the month of January. Aware that he had neglected them for far too long, he had not been entirely sure what sort of a welcome he would receive. His father’s kin were from northern France, where Josse’s four brothers lived with their wives and their children on the family lands of the d’Acquins. Josse’s father Geoffroi, however, had married an Englishwoman, Ida, daughter of Herbert of Lewes with whom he had fought in the Second Crusade. As a boy, Josse had been despatched by his mother to visit his English relatives and he had kept warm, though faint, memories of Uncle Hugh, Aunt Ysabel and his three cousins, Isabella, the eldest (who was the same age as Josse), Editha and Aeleis. Until this Christmas, however, he had not seen any of them for more than twenty years.