by Alys Clare
Ninian turned to look at him. ‘Yes, Josse, I know.’
‘Don’t think ill of your mother,’ Josse urged. ‘She was young and inexperienced, and her cousin manipulated her and made it happen.’
Ninian’s clear eyes showed no shadow of doubt. ‘Yes, I understand that. The squire who sought me out to tell me explained what it was like back in those days.’ Then, curiosity in his voice, ‘How did you know?’
‘Your mother told me.’ For a precious moment he gave the lovely memory full rein. Then, carefully storing it away again, he added, ‘I’ve known since the three of us were together in the house in the woods, all those years ago.’
‘You never told anyone?’
‘I told Abbess Helewise of Hawkenlye but nobody else. As for your mother, I understand she told just one other person. It was her secret, Ninian, and now it’s yours.’
Slowly he nodded. Then, his voice so tentative that it made Josse’s heart ache, he said, ‘Do you think he knew too?’
Josse had to think for a moment. ‘King Richard, you mean?’
‘Yes.’
Did he? Josse wondered. Apart from his understandable wish to rout out the evil things that were being done on his mother’s island, had the king found out the identity of one of the knights’ intended victims? Had his fear for the boy urged him on in that dash across Oléron, that furious attack on the tower at World’s End?
Perhaps. It would be typical of Richard to adopt a cause for a sentimental reason and pursue it as vigorously as only he knew how. On the other hand, he was not renowned for acts of kindness for his full siblings, so was it likely he would have fought so hard for a half-brother? Then again, King Richard’s full brothers were in the habit of conspiring against him, whereas Ninian was not. Perhaps . . .
‘I don’t know, lad.’
Ninian nodded. ‘Well, you weren’t there,’ he said fairly. ‘I think—’ He stopped, reddening again.
‘Go on. What do you think?’
He raised his head proudly. ‘I think he did know that we shared a father. He took such care of me, Josse. Sir Piers was going to take me on the horse he’d grabbed, but the king wouldn’t let him. He said I’d be safer with him. It was stormy that night and the wind was howling, and the knights were yelling and I was really scared, but I thought I heard him say something about brothers sticking together.’ He raised his chin as if defying Josse to contradict.
In that moment he looked so like Henry II of England that it was unmistakeable. If he had cause to adopt that particular expression that night, Josse thought, then King Richard would have known the truth in that instant even if he had not done so before.
Did it matter? he asked himself. If it helped a grieving boy to get over a terrible period in his life, then would it hurt to let him believe that his royal kinsman had deliberately set out to save his young half-brother’s life? It might well be the truth, in any case . . .
‘Then,’ he said, reaching out to put an arm round the boy’s shoulders, ‘you’re probably right and he did know.’ Smiling, trying to lighten the intense mood, he said, ‘Lucky for you, young Ninian, that he was there.’
With that the matter was settled. He and Ninian exchanged a deep look, as if sealing a bargain. And he knew that neither of them would refer to it again.
Eighteen
When it was fully dark, Ninian saddled the horses and they rode down to the shore. The seaman with whom Josse had negotiated their passage was waiting, and he and two of his hands helped Ninian settle the horses in the hold. Josse took their packs and went up on deck, where he found a spot up in the stern for himself and Ninian. It was a warm night and a light wind blew steadily from the south-west. The crossing ought to be relatively smooth.
Ninian came up to join him and they leaned on the rail watching the sailors as they prepared to haul in the gangplank and the heavy ropes that had tethered the boat to the quay. They appeared to be waiting for something, and presently some more passengers came hurrying along the shore: a young man and a woman, each carrying a baby. Twins, Josse thought, as the couple came into the circle of light cast by the ship’s lanterns. No wonder the parents look so exhausted. Hoping that the babies would not cry all night and keep him awake, he turned to watch the captain organize the departure.
Before Josse could even try to go to sleep, there was something he had to do. It was strange; he had known for a long time that he could not avoid this obligation, but there had never seemed any urgency to get it done. Until now when, settling down with Ninian beside him as the ship swiftly left the land behind and, sails billowing, set out into the open sea, suddenly he knew the moment was right.
‘Ninian, lad,’ he began, ‘we were talking earlier today about that time when you and your mother and I were together in the house in the woods.’
‘Yes,’ Ninian agreed tentatively.
Josse had asked himself over and over again how he would tell Ninian what he had to know. In the end he had decided on a simple statement of facts. ‘Your mother and I fell in love,’ he said. ‘We lay together and she conceived a child, a little girl who was born the following October.’ He waited but Ninian made no comment; Josse could sense his tension and the boy hardly seemed to be breathing. ‘I did not know about our child for quite a long time,’ he went on. ‘For her own good reasons, your mother did not tell me. I met my daughter – she’s called Meggie –’ Ninian gave a gasp of recognition and Josse remembered his references to that little girl – ‘when she was sixteen months old and, although she continued to live with her mother out in the forest, she and I have had regular contact ever since.’
There was a long silence. Then Ninian said, ‘Why did you not marry my mother?’
Josse had expected the question. ‘I wanted to and, in a way, so did she, for our love was true and enduring, but she was not willing to abandon the strong voice that called her to her life in the wild, and it was not a life that I could join.’
‘Why not?’
‘She lives with people like her, Ninian. They are not like me.’
‘Are they like me?’ Ninian spoke intently but so softly that Josse had to strain to hear.
‘Your mother is of their kind, as was her mother,’ he said. ‘Mag Hobson, your grandmother, was one of the Great Ones of the forest people, as indeed is your mother. I do not know, lad, but I imagine that your inheritance on the distaff side would make you welcome out in the wild, if you chose to go.’
‘I was looking for my mother when you and I met,’ Ninian said. ‘You did not ask why that was.’
‘That’s true.’ Josse thought back. ‘I had imagined it was because you were concerned about her.’
‘I was only worried after I’d looked for her and been unable to find her. I went looking for her because I wanted to ask if I could go and live with her.’
But you were too late, Josse thought, pain ripping through him. Your mother would have done all she could to persuade you back to the life she thought you ought to lead but, in the end, she would have let her heart rule and given you the best, biggest and most loving welcome any lad ever had.
He did not think it would help either of them to say so.
‘What now?’ he asked gruffly.
‘Now? I do not know.’ Ninian sounded far too world-weary for a boy of fourteen.
‘You could return to Sir Walter,’ Josse suggested. ‘He would be pleased to see you, I’m sure, and you could continue your training with—’
‘No.’ Ninian spoke the single word with utter conviction. ‘Sorry, Josse. I know you are trying to persuade me on down the path my mother envisaged for me, but I don’t want to take it any more.’
‘What do you want?’ Josse hardly dared to ask.
Ninian gave him a very sweet smile. Then, settling down on his folded blanket and wrapping his cloak round him, he said, ‘I’ll tell you tomorrow.’
Josse listened to Ninian’s breathing, deepened by sleep, and wondered why the soporific sound was not making his own
eyes heavy. Sleep, though, was far away; quietly he got up and walked along the deck until he was standing directly behind the figurehead up in the prow. He looked at the carved wooden face and torso, faded by years of sun and saltwater. She was bare-breasted, her long hair flowing around her shoulders, and the expression on the strong face was fierce and proud. An image of the black goddess, wrapped in Ninian’s pack, floated into Josse’s mind. Soon she’ll be safe, he thought. Soon we shall—
‘May I join you?’ A soft voice spoke beside him.
Turning, Josse saw that it was the young man who had come aboard with his wife and twins. ‘Aye,’ Josse said with a smile. ‘I’d have thought you’d be grabbing some sleep while your babies were quiet,’ he added.
The man returned the smile. ‘Yes, it is true that the presence of young makes sleep a rare commodity.’ There was a short silence. Then he said, ‘You are Josse d’Acquin.’
‘Aye.’ And you, Josse thought instantly, are of the forest people, for they do not use worldly titles but call a man simply by his name. Hard on the heels of that realization came another: his companion might bring word of Joanna.
‘I bring you news that will gladden your heart,’ the man began, ‘although it is not that which you yearn to hear.’
‘Joanna is not . . . She’s . . . ?’
‘I can add nothing to what you already know,’ the man said, with an air of stopping further questions. ‘I am sorry but that is not why I am here.’
‘You were following me?’
‘Yes. We know you went to Rouen, and Deidre and I – she’s my woman; I’m called Ruis – were sent after you. We’ve been watching you and this afternoon, after you had arranged to cross the narrow seas on this ship, I bought passage for us too.’
‘Why?’
Ruis paused for some time. Then he said, ‘You saw Joanna, both before the great ceremony and on that night when the power was raised.’
‘Aye. I . . . Aye.’ Josse found it both a joy and a pain to remember and it was hard to speak.
‘You did not lie with her when you met in the cathedral?’
‘No. We . . . She had to return to her encampment.’
‘You observed her face on the night we raised the power?’
‘Aye.’
‘How did you think she looked?’
He pictured her, pale, with grey circles round the eyes. He recalled how he thought she looked exhausted, as if the ordeal had taken all her strength. ‘She was tired. Very tired.’
‘Yes,’ Ruis breathed. ‘She was.’
‘It was taxing, what she had to do?’ Josse asked, desperate to know.
‘Very, although she was fully prepared for it and the extreme exaltation would have provided her with all the strength and energy she needed and more.’ He paused. ‘Josse, she was weary before the ceremony began.’
‘Why?’ The word shot out of him, for he was suddenly angry, so angry, with this calm young man who spoke for the strange people whom Josse could not understand and never would. ‘Just what was it you’d made her do?’
Ruis laughed softly, but Josse could not begin to imagine what was amusing him. ‘Neither we nor anybody else made her do anything. The days when Joanna could be forced into any act against her will were long gone.’ He turned to look at Josse, his eyes bright in the light of the stars and the slim moon. ‘She had a rare power,’ he added. ‘She was a great gift to us, and we shall honour her always for what she has done.’
‘What has she done?’ Josse whispered.
Ruis’s smile spread, as if he were suddenly suffused with joy. ‘She and the entity known as the Bear Man gave up their essence that night and merged themselves in the cone of power. It rose up to the heavens and drove down deep into the ground in that place that has always been sacred to us. The force that lies within the earth answered and it opened up to admit them. The power is now great – greater than it has ever been – and nothing can destroy it. Now and for ever we and what we believe will stay there.’
‘But what of the priests?’ Josse demanded. ‘They will finish their great cathedral and it will—’
‘Yes, indeed they will,’ Ruis agreed serenely, ‘but it does not matter. They cannot stop what now breathes through the very stone, wood and glass of their building. It will be there as long as the world lasts, for even if the cathedral falls, the power will remain. It was there at the beginning; it will be there at the end.’
‘And this . . . this mission was for Joanna to fulfil?’
‘With the one other, yes. It is what she was born for; her destiny was marked out for her.’
‘She knew? She accepted this?’ He had to ask.
‘Deep inside her, she always knew. When she received her orders, she welcomed them with joy. Her acceptance would have been total except for one thing.’
‘What was it?’
‘You, Josse. You and her children. She loved all of you dearly and did not want to leave you. It was only when we gave our solemn oath to do as she asked that her mind was set at rest.’
‘What did she ask?’ He could barely form the words.
‘She wished you to raise them. Meggie is already yours and devoted to you. She will sorely miss her mother, but she has the consolation of being able to see and speak to her in the form that she now takes.’
‘Aye, I know.’ Josse had seen Meggie chattering with Joanna.
‘Ninian, too, has found his way to you.’ Ruis glanced up the deck at the sleeping boy. ‘He will not return to his life as a squire, Josse. He will ask you in the morning if he may live with you.’
‘I’ll say yes, with all my heart!’
Ruis smiled. ‘I know. I see the love you have for each other shining around you both. It began long ago and now this journey that you have taken together has reawakened it.’
‘I’ll have a family,’ Josse said slowly, trying to envisage the life that now awaited him. ‘I’ll have two children to raise. Dear Lord, I’ve given my home to Dominic, Paradisa and their family! If only I’d known, I would have—’
‘No you wouldn’t,’ Ruis said calmly. ‘You gave away your house because you were lonely there and you knew others would come to love it much more than you ever did. It was never the right place for you, Josse,’ he added. ‘Now even more, it is not where you should be.’
Josse wondered what Ruis could mean by that, but his thoughts were interrupted, for the man spoke again. ‘There is another place far more suitable, for it is both within the forest, where your children’s blood calls out to them, and in the place where your own heart lies.’
‘Where? What is this place?’ Josse cried.
‘It belonged to the children’s mother. Now that she is no longer here, it passes to you and to them. Until they are of age, it is in your care.’
‘You speak of the house in the woods?’
‘Yes.’
‘She wanted this, that I should live there with Ninian and Meggie?’
‘She did.’
It was a great deal to take in. Josse stood silent, imagining . . .
As if the figure beside him were somehow putting pictures into his mind, he then saw the family that would live in the old house, waking it up from its long sleep with laughter and happiness. He saw Ninian grown tall and strong; saw Meggie with her healer’s skill tending all who came, human and animal, in the way her mother and grandmother had done before her. In her hand he caught a sudden flash of brilliant blue as she dipped a precious jewel into a cup of water.
‘Yes,’ Ruis said quietly. ‘You see true, Josse.’ He gave Josse some moments to enjoy the vision. Then he said, ‘There is one more thing.’
Josse’s breath seemed to catch in his throat. ‘What is it?’
Ruis took his arm and led him down the deck. In the stern, the woman Deidre sat wrapped in shawl and cloak. One baby lay beside her, fast asleep; the other was suckling vigorously at her breast. Embarrassed at being a witness to such a moment of intimacy, Josse turned aside.
‘It
is all right, Josse,’ Deidre said gently. ‘You may look. I do not mind.’
Josse looked; it seemed that his eyes were drawn to the spectacle of the woman and the babies almost against his volition. As he looked, he noticed something. Deidre’s dark eyes met his; she smiled up at him and he thought she whispered, ‘Yes.’
Ruis said, ‘What do you see?’
‘They are not twins,’ Josse said wonderingly, ‘for the one now at the breast is surely several months older than the other.’
‘The one who now suckles is Iana,’ Ruis said, ‘and she is the daughter of Deidre and me. The other child, her milk brother, is not yet a month old. He takes little but his need is the greater, so Deidre feeds him first.’
‘I have heard him!’ Josse knew it; the small mewls and cries that had haunted him were the sounds of a newborn.
Deidre looked down at the tiny child, compassion in her eyes, but she did not speak.
‘You have heard with your heart,’ Ruis said, ‘for although we have been following you, we have not been close enough for you to have picked up such tiny sounds.’
‘But why . . . ?’ The question died before Josse could finish it.
He remembered holding Joanna, feeling the bulk of her satchel beneath her cloak. He saw her face as she was wound up inside the cone of power, fulfilment, exhaustion and a slow, deep happiness turning her expression to one of joy. He thought back to September when, after the equinox ceremonies, he and Joanna had spent their days together and their nights making love.
He heard the echo of Ruis’s words: You have heard with your heart.
He stared down at the baby lying asleep in its soft blanket. His heart overflowed.
Ruis bent down, picked up the baby with gentle hands and placed him in Josse’s open arms. ‘His name is Geoffroi,’ he whispered.
My father’s name, Josse thought. She remembered.
Tears blurred his vision as he stared down into the face of his child. Settling the baby on the crook of his left arm, he touched the soft, rounded cheek with the tip of his finger. Geoffroi opened his eyes and looked up.
Josse had been told that newborns did not focus very well and he was willing to believe it. It must, then, have been some special quality in this third and last child of Joanna’s that made the gaze so purposeful.