by Alys Clare
Josse, knowing what he now knew of Gunnora, found that hard to believe. Passion, from a woman like that? Perhaps she had been good at simulating it.
‘Anyway, it didn’t matter,’ Olivar was saying, ‘because we’d be man and wife very soon, and then we’d be able to kiss, make love all night if we wanted to. So—’ his voice broke on a sob. Quickly bringing himself under control, he tried again. ‘So I said, “How soon can it be? When do you come out of the convent?” And then she told me. Said she’d changed her mind about marriage, didn’t feel that she wanted to be a wife after all.’
Helewise murmured something, but Josse couldn’t catch the words.
‘Yes, I know.’ Olivar was weeping openly now. ‘I couldn’t believe it, you’re right. I said, “Sweeting, it’s me! Olivar! You haven’t to be Brice’s wife, he’s married to your sister, remember?” I didn’t tell her what had just happened to Dillian – I know it was wrong, but I didn’t dare. Gunnora might have used that as further grounds for staying where she was – after all, she might have thought they’d have made her marry him, now that he was a widower. “It’s us that are to marry,” I said, “you and me, like we planned!” And’ – again, the break in his voice – ‘she just stood there, at the top of the steps’ – he waved his arm, indicating behind him – ‘and said she’d decided to stay in the Abbey a little longer. Or, failing that, she’d leave and get her father to reinstate her in his will, then live at Winnowlands on her own. Then she turned her back on me and made a dainty little curtsey to the statue of the Virgin.’
He paused briefly, collecting himself, then the grim narrative resumed. ‘I was standing beside her, and I tried to turn her round to face me. I don’t really know why – I think I thought that if I could just get her to kiss me – gently, you know, I didn’t intend to force her – then she’d get a bit aroused and remember how sweet it used to be for us, before, when we embraced.’
You poor deluded man, Josse thought. What an optimistic hope!
‘So – so – I took hold of her shoulder, and I said, “Gunnora, my dearest love, won’t you hug me? Please?” and she twisted herself out of my grasp and said, “No, Olivar, I don’t care to. I am going to pray.” Then’ – the weeping was loud now, each sob breaking out of him as if tearing him apart – ‘then she started to go down the steps, almost dancing, as if to say, see how happy I am? See how I love to be a nun, to pray before the Holy Mother?’
It seemed unlikely that he could go on.
But he didn’t need to; Helewise’s quiet voice took up the tale.
‘She danced down those slippery steps, and she missed her footing, didn’t she?’ Josse saw the young man nod. ‘It’s so easily done,’ Helewise said, ‘it’s the condensation from the spring, it settles on the stones and makes them as perilous as ice.’
There was another, longer, silence. Josse was beginning to wonder if either of them would finish the story – was there, indeed, any need, when both appeared to know perfectly well already what happened? – when Helewise spoke again.
‘You tried to catch her, didn’t you?’ Once more, the nod of agreement. ‘I knew. We saw the little bruises on the tops of her arms – we thought at first that someone had held her fast while another person – well, never mind that. Someone did indeed hold her, but the marks were from your hands on her, trying to stop her fall.’
‘Yes.’ Olivar’s brief monosyllable was so wracked with agony that Josse could have wept for him. ‘But it was no good – she was already tumbling forward, and I couldn’t hold her. She slipped out of my grasp, flew through the air, and then … then…’
‘She fell against the statue,’ Helewise finished for him. ‘By the most terrible ill fortune, the plinth caught her across the throat. Didn’t it?’
‘Aye.’ He rubbed at his eyes like a punished child crying at the injustice. ‘I leapt down the steps after her, to see if she was hurt. I don’t know what I expected – she was lying so still that I thought she’d bumped her head, knocked herself unconscious. Then I turned her over, and I saw.’
Helewise had her arm round him now, and he was leaning against her, the big body shaking. ‘There was so much blood!’ he cried, ‘all over that horrible plinth, pooling on the floor under her, soaking down into the black cloth of her habit, and I didn’t know what to do! I remember thinking I mustn’t leave her there, for her life’s blood to run into the holy spring water, so I picked her up and carried her outside. I think I intended to take her up to her sisters, but I’m not sure – it’s all so hazy, that bit of it. She was getting heavy, and I felt very sick – I laid her down on the path, but it was all dusty, and I thought it wouldn’t be nice if her poor hurt neck got dirty. So I carried her to the less-used path, where there was clean, damp grass at the edges, and settled her there. I’d brought her sister’s cross for her, as a betrothal present – I knew Gunnora didn’t have hers any more, she’d said she was going to give it to the Abbey. I didn’t think Dillian would have minded – for all I knew, she might have left it to Gunnora anyway. I knew where she’d kept it, in that old box of hers, and I went up to her chamber and took it. It wasn’t long after she died – everyone was in such a state, I don’t think they ever knew what I’d done. I brought it with me, that night. When I came to meet Gunnora.’
He paused for some moments. It seemed to Josse that, having gone back in his memory to a time before the terrible death had happened, he was reluctant to resume his account.
Eventually he spoke again.
‘After she – afterwards, I went back into the shrine and I cleaned away all the blood. It’s a holy place, and I knew it wasn’t right to defile it. It took so long. I took off my shirt and used it as a wash cloth, but I had to keep scooping up water to wet it, over and over again. And there was so little light, just a few candles burning, and I couldn’t really see if I’d done it properly. In the end, I just had to leave it. I wanted to get back to her, you see. She was all on her own, out there in the dark.’
Helewise said something, her voice soft, soothing. Josse saw Olivar nod briefly.
‘I said, “I’m back, Gunnora,” then I bent over her, unfastened the chain and put the cross round her neck,’ he went on quietly. ‘It looked so pretty, against the black of her habit. I was kneeling by her side, and I stayed there for a long time, just looking down at her. Then I ran away.’
Helewise was rocking him gently, crooning as if she were soothing a child waking from a nightmare. ‘There, there,’ the soft voice intoned, ‘all done, you’ve got it out of you now. There, there.’
There was a silence. An extended silence.
Olivar said presently, ‘Is she buried?’
‘She is,’ Helewise said. ‘Tucked up snug and safe in her coffin, where no more harm can come to her.’
‘Is she with God?’
Josse noticed Helewise’s hesitation; he wondered if Olivar did. ‘I expect she soon will be,’ Helewise said. ‘We have prayed for her soul, and we will continue to have Masses said for her. We will do all we can to shorten her time in purgatory.’
‘She was good!’ Olivar protested. ‘She will not have many sins staining her soul, Abbess. Soon she’ll be in heaven.’
Helewise murmured, ‘Amen.’
Then, dropping her head down on top of the dark head resting against her shoulder, she began to pray out loud for the late sister of the Abbey, Gunnora of Winnowlands.
Chapter Eighteen
They put Olivar in the infirmary.
When Helewise had finished her prayer for Gunnora, he had straightened up, looked around him with an expression that suggested he didn’t quite recall where he was, then, remembering, had slowly slumped to the ground. His face in his hands, he said, in a tone which had torn into the souls of both those who heard, ‘She is gone. What is there left for me now?’
He had suffered some sort of collapse. Josse and Helewise, at a loss to know what to do, had half led, half dragged him up the hill to Sister Euphemia. Observing his extreme dis
tress, she had prescribed a draught of her poppy mixture, strengthened with a little precious mandrake root. ‘It is best that he sleeps, for now,’ she said. ‘To give him some of the blessed oblivion is, I fear, really all that I can do.’ Her round face creased in concern. ‘It’s only a temporary solution, mind,’ she added practically, ‘the poor soul will find nothing changed for the better when he wakes.’
She found a corner of the infirmary for him, where he could lie screened by thin hangings, a little apart from the sights, sounds, and smells of the other patients. One of the nursing sisters placed a shallow bowl of full-blown roses by his head, and their powerful scent soon wove itself through the air. ‘Roses are good for grief,’ Sister Euphemia remarked, nodding her approval. As Olivar gradually relaxed into sleep, she stood over him for some minutes. Then, with a tender touch of her hand on his shoulder, left him.
Brother Firmin had presented himself and announced, although Sister Euphemia had given no indication of either wanting or needing assistance, that he had come to help her. He had brought a cup of the healing spring water for the patient. He waited patiently while Olivar was settled down, then, observing that Olivar had in fact gone to sleep, sent one of the sisters to fetch him a stool, which he placed at the foot of Olivar’s bed.
‘I will remain here,’ he announced to Sister Euphemia. ‘Yes, sister, I know full well that the young man sleeps. But it may be of help to him, in some way, that somebody is with him.’
Then, putting the cup of spring water carefully beside the roses, he closed his eyes, and, lips moving in silent prayer, he settled himself down to his vigil.
* * *
Josse had sought out Brother Saul and asked if he would make the journey to Rotherbridge. Brice had to be notified, and, this time, Josse felt that it was acceptable to ask another to set out on the errand. Josse had a suspicion that Abbess Helewise might prefer it if he were to stay at the abbey. He was trying, haltingly, to explain this to Brother Saul, when the brother put out a hand to touch Josse’s arm and said, ‘There is no need. I understand.’
Abbess Helewise, Sister Euphemia, Brother Firmin, Brother Saul, the unknown sister who had brought the roses, all of them, Josse reflected, so eager to help, so full of compassion, with willing hands, willing legs, hurrying to do what was asked of them, often before it had even been asked …
For the first time, it dawned on him what a good place Hawkenlye Abbey was.
* * *
Josse asked Abbess Helewise, ‘How did you know?’
They were back in Helewise’s room. She was sitting straight-backed in her usual place, but he had the impression that the effort of appearing normal was costing her dear.
She turned to look at him. She raised her bandaged right hand, waved it at him, then, with a wince, lowered it into her lap.
He shook his head incredulously. ‘You ran your finger round the edge of the plinth? To see, I imagine, if it had enough of an edge to cut someone’s throat?’
‘I did.’
‘Abbess Helewise, how reckless!’
‘Don’t you start,’ she flashed back, ‘I’ve already been reprimanded for my irresponsibility by Sister Euphemia, thank you very much.’
She managed to look both indignant and pathetic at the same time. Knowing her as he was beginning to, he knew the latter was not intentional; it was, he decided, the combination of her pale but resolute face and that damned great wad of wrapping on her hand.
‘Does it hurt?’ he enquired kindly.
‘It does.’
I’ll wager, he thought. It would have hurt badly enough before we staggered up here with a semi-conscious man. The dear Lord knows how that little adventure must have affected her.
He remembered his original question. ‘Actually, that wasn’t what I meant.’ It was better to change the subject, he thought, to talk about Olivar and Gunnora, than to risk undermining her courage by his sympathy. Not that it was easy to ignore her state; her face was very pale, and the wide brow beneath the starched white linen headdress was beaded with sweat. ‘I really wanted to know what made you suspect what happened,’ he ploughed on, ‘when I’d been doing my utmost to convince you that Milon was lying through his teeth and had killed Gunnora after all.’
‘I went down to speak to Brother Firmin about the resumption of our services for pilgrims,’ she began. ‘The devotions, and the distribution of the healing waters. Life has to go on, you know, and we’ve had so few visitors since the murders. There will be unnecessary suffering, all the time we do not throw open our doors to those in need. While I was down in the valley, I thought it was about time I made a visit to the shrine. I have been guilty of allowing my worldly preoccupations to interfere with my devotions,’ she said sternly.
Josse was about to say that he was quite sure the Lord would understand, but something about her expression made him change his mind. ‘Quite so,’ he muttered.
She shot him a glance, as if not entirely convinced by his bland reply. ‘I went into the shrine’ – fortunately, it didn’t seem that she was going to pursue it – ‘and I knelt to pray, right in front of the Blessed Mother’s statue. I noticed that the plinth seemed to be very shiny, as if someone had recently been polishing it.’ She bowed her head. ‘I know that I should have been concentrating on my prayers to Our Lady,’ she said, ‘but, as I said, I am easily distracted at present.’
‘Understandable,’ he remarked. ‘Wouldn’t any abbess be, with two suspicious deaths among her nuns?’
‘The very time an abbess needs to pray hardest for help!’
Oh, dear. She wasn’t in the mood for understanding. Didn’t, apparently, want to be released from her self-accusation. ‘Go on,’ he said. ‘You were thinking how shiny the plinth was.’
‘Yes. I got up and had a closer look, and I could see a stain of some sort running underneath it, right at the point where it adjoins the rock wall into which it’s set. I touched the place, and the stain felt dry, sort of crusty. So I moistened the tip of my finger in the holy water and rubbed again. What came off was, I was almost sure, blood. I repeated the action, this time getting a good sample. Then there was no doubt.’
‘And you began to see what might have happened?’
‘I did. I thought of the steep, slippery steps, and, in my mind’s eye, I pictured that terrible wound in Gunnora’s neck. I saw that perfectly symmetrical cut. I’d always puzzled over that, hadn’t you?’
‘Aye.’
‘I mean, if you’re slitting someone’s throat, even with an accomplice holding them, surely you haven’t the time to make such a perfect cut?’
‘And nobody did,’ he said. ‘It was done by her falling against a circular edge. It is sharp enough?’
‘It is,’ she said with feeling. ‘I ran my forefinger gently around it, and almost sliced off the top joint. We must have it seen to – I must go and tell Brother Saul to close the shrine until we’ve done so, and he ought to send word to the silversmith immediately.’ She half-rose, as if she were going to go racing down to the vale there and then.
‘I’ll see to all that,’ Josse said hurriedly. ‘You have my word, Abbess.’
She looked doubtful.
‘My word,’ he repeated.
She bowed her head in acknowledgement, sinking back into her chair. ‘It’s sharper than any blade, you know, the edge of that plinth,’ she said. ‘For some reason, the silversmith cut off the skin of silver so that it overlapped the wooden platform. Only by a little. But it was enough to slice through flesh and sinew.’
‘She would have built up a great deal of momentum in her fall,’ Josse said. ‘Those steps are quite high, and she’d fallen from the top. Right on to that perilously sharp circle of metal.’ He shuddered.
Helewise must have noticed. ‘It doesn’t bear thinking about, does it? And just imagine that poor man, Olivar, trying to clean up. Believing it was his fault, that the woman he loved so devotedly was dead because of him.’
‘The only small amount of log
ic there may be behind that is that it was he who requested the meeting,’ Josse pointed out.
‘But I don’t think it was. When we were talking, he and I, down in the shrine, he said that it wasn’t what he wanted, that secret tryst. Furtive, he called it. I had the impression it was something they’d agreed on before she even came to Hawkenlye, that, one day, they’d meet up and she would leave again. Only he, I think, was envisaging arriving at the main gates for her, having me ceremoniously put her hand in his. Going to the shrine was, I’m almost certain, her suggestion.’
‘Why did she change her mind?’ Josse asked, although not in any real expectation of an answer. ‘Olivar’s a fine-looking man, a man of substance, what’s more, and she surely had no doubt of his love?’
Helewise was looking at him, one eyebrow raised in faint irony. ‘Don’t you recall what I said to you, in the course of our very first meeting?’
Most of it, would have been the honest reply; she had, he recalled, said quite a lot. But then he thought he knew what she meant. ‘I do. Gunnora, you said, was not apparently bothered by the vow of chastity.’
‘Indeed.’ She leaned forward, as if eager for his understanding. ‘I have noted it before in young women – not only young ones – who enter the convent. While in the world, they do not question the ways of the world; they know what their duty as women – as wives – is, and has to be. Whether they like it or not is irrelevant. But then, when they take the veil, suddenly all that changes. The realisation that, from the very day they join us, they will for ever more sleep alone, comes to some women, I assure you, as nothing but a vast relief. Gunnora, I strongly suspect, experienced that realisation. She did not want to be any man’s wife. Certainly not Brice’s, whom she never loved, and, she discovered, not Olivar’s either.’
‘Whom she did love?’ Josse asked. He was reeling slightly from what the Abbess had just told him. He wondered if she would have spoken so freely were she not suffering from shock.