Girl In A Red Tunic (31 page)

     His words sounded cheerful and optimistic. But his last glimpse of the two worried faces as he cantered away suggested they were no more confident of this rapid success than he was.

He went straight to de Gifford’s house. Gervase was still there, or perhaps had been out and returned; he was sitting down to a hasty meal as Josse flung himself into the hall.

     ‘Arthur Fitzurse has taken the Abbess Helewise,’ he said breathlessly. ‘He went up to Hawkenlye and claimed to be one of your men sent to fetch her down to join us here.’

     ‘Fitzurse?’ De Gifford was standing up even as he spoke. ‘Why? What does he want of her?’

     Josse shook his head impatiently. ‘I cannot begin to guess. Where does he live? Do you know?’

     ‘He lodges in rooms in the town. A mean sort of place; I should have expected better from the man’s manner.’

     Josse heard Sister Martha’s voice again. Aye, it seemed more than one person had gained this impression of Fitzurse: he was a man who had the air of someone of more means than he in fact possessed. In that moment Josse saw the man again as he had first watched him ride into the courtyard of the Old Manor, looking as if he owned the place.

     ‘We’ll go and look for him,’ de Gifford was saying, reaching for his cloak that he had spread before the fire to warm. ‘Come on!’

     Needing no encouragement, Josse followed him. They mounted their horses and hurried off and after a short time were outside the dilapidated building where Fitzurse had his lodgings. To the surprise of neither man, he was not there and neither was the Abbess.

     ‘Where has he taken her?’ Josse raged as they returned to de Gifford’s house. Trying to keep his voice low, he demanded, ‘
Why
has he taken her?’

     Reading his anxiety, de Gifford spoke calmly. ‘I will summon all the men at my disposal and set them hunting for her. My men are good,’ he added, eyes on Josse’s, ‘believe me, Josse, they know their way around the dark corners of this town very well and they will not give up until they find her.’

     Only a little reassured, Josse watched as de Gifford sent out the summons and, as his men began to arrive, quietly issued his orders. When the last man had gone, he turned to the sheriff and said, ‘What do we do? I cannot just sit here and wait, man, I—’

     ‘I understand,’ de Gifford said gently. ‘You need to be doing something, and so do I. What do you suggest?’

     Josse tried to think what he had been doing before this new and dreadful thing had happened. He’d been desperate to see the Abbess because he wanted to tell her something  ...

     Aye. He knew what it was, and he also knew what he and Gervase must now do. He said – and he was pleased to hear that his voice sounded brisk and decisive and the terrible anxiety didn’t show – ‘We’ll ride out to the Old Manor.’

     De Gifford looked surprised. ‘Do you think to find Fitzurse there?’

     Josse shrugged; it was possible, he supposed, although he did not see quite why. ‘Maybe. But there’s something else that we must look for.’ And, as they rode out of the courtyard and set off along the road northwards, he explained what it was.

Helewise had been riding along behind the sheriff’s man who had come to fetch her down to Tonbridge for some time before she was sure. As soon as she was, she called out to him, ‘I thought you said we were to join Sir Josse and the sheriff at the sheriff’s house? Is that house not in the town?’

     The man turned to her and she caught a glimpse of his sallow-skinned face under the concealing hood. He muttered something about the sheriff living out a way into the country and for a time she had to be content with that.

     But her unease grew.

     She could not have said why; the man treated her courteously enough and, even if he was bluff of speech and not inclined to talk unless he had to, those things alone were not sufficient to explain her vague fear.

     They were deep out in the wilds now, riding along what appeared to be a little-used track that wound along just above the marshy ground that lay on the river’s margins. There were willows and alder and, underfoot, a sort of wiry grass grew in tussocks. Here and there smaller paths – perhaps animal tracks – led off to right and left. The very air smelt wet from the nearness of the water.

     She was about to question her guide again but then, pointing forward to what looked like a length of tumbledown hurdle fencing extending from a wildly overgrown bramble hedge, he said gruffly, ‘We’re here. That’s the sheriff’s house up ahead.’

     She strained to see but the dwelling was as yet still concealed by the bramble thicket. It could, she thought, be but a single storey, hardly a house for a man such as Gervase de Gifford. And why on earth did he opt to live in such apparent neglect and squalor out here in this moist, misty, damp wilderness?

     As if her guide felt that her unspoken question required an answer, he said, in the same low and slightly husky voice, ‘Sheriff has his official residence in the town, see. He likes to get away here whenever he can a’cause of it’s quiet and folk don’t come a-knocking on his door.’

     Well, that made sense, Helewise thought. Didn’t it? Gervase de Gifford would very likely be at everyone’s beck and call in the course of his day’s work so why should he not choose to have a house right away from the hurry and bustle of Tonbridge and get away to it when his duties permitted?

     Yes, she thought, chewing at her lip, but why has he brought Josse here? Why did Gervase choose this place for our meeting?

     Again the man seemed to read her mind, for his next remark gave her the explanation she needed. Turning round in the saddle to look back at her – he was now a short distance ahead – he said, ‘Sheriff’s brought that Sir Josse d’Acquin along here to show him something what some man’s brought him. It’s evidence, they say, and nobody’s to see it as doesn’t have to.’

     Ah, now she understood! Somebody had found something – oh, dear God, let it not be anything to incriminate Leofgar; amid her tension, the old familiar dread reared its head – and, since this something, whatever it was, had to be kept from prying eyes, de Gifford had wisely had it brought to his house out here. What a diplomatic man he was!

     Trustingly, in anticipation of seeing Josse and the sheriff again very soon, Helewise kicked Honey’s smooth sides and hurried to catch up with the man.

     Three things happened almost simultaneously. Riding on had meant that de Gifford’s house came abruptly into view and instantly she knew it could never have been a dwelling of that fastidious man for it was little more than a hovel, the damage of years left unrepaired, the walls breached and bowing outwards, the reed thatch of the lowering, overhanging roof rotting and dark with age. And, just as she cried out and would have turned Honey’s head and put heels to her, galloping off in her fear back along the way they had come, the man leaned out and put a strong hand on Honey’s bridle.

     Then as he led her captive around the end of the bramble hedge and across the filthy, rubbish-strewn and mud-ridden yard to the low door of the dark little hut, she realised what it was about him that had not been right. It was when he said Josse’s name, as he had done when first he came for her and as he had just done again now. Other than the educated, people usually referred to him as ‘That Sir Josse’ or, if brave enough to make a stab at the rest of his name, ‘That Sir Josse Daikin.’

     Why, then, should a sheriff’s man with dubious grammar and a common man’s speech know how to say ‘D’Acquin’ with perfect intonation and be careful always to do so? It was almost as if, despite the disguise, he would not lower himself to the depths of pretending to be quite that ignorant.

     Her heart thumping with fear, Helewise heard the man give her a curt instruction to dismount. He grasped her wrist in a firm hand and took Honey’s reins, tethering the mare with his own horse to a post set in the mud of the yard. Then, still holding Helewise’s wrist, he opened the door of the hut and pulled her through into the odorous darkness beyond.

Josse and de Gifford reached the Old Manor in record time. It was as if, Josse thought, feeling Horace’s great strength beneath him as the horse stretched himself to a full gallop, we expect to find her there and cannot bear to wait an instant longer than we have to for the reassurance that she is safe.

     But the Abbess was not at the Old Manor. Wilfrid came out to meet them; he would have heard us coming, Josse realised, for we made no attempt to ride quietly. Wilfrid reported that no visitors had been received since Josse and de Gifford last came by and no word heard from the master. Josse put out his hand and briefly touched the man’s shoulder; ‘I cannot tell you much,’ he said softly, ‘but be assured that your master is well, as I believe are your mistress and the child.’

     Wilfrid did not utter a word but the expression in his eyes was answer enough.

     De Gifford was speaking to Wilfrid now, explaining that they had come to look for something that might well help to put matters to rights so that everything could return to normal. Josse gave Wilfrid a wink behind de Gifford’s back – the sheriff had sounded a little pompous – and was rewarded with the first real smile he had seen on Wilfrid’s handsome face.

     De Gifford strode on into the hall, Josse on his heels. They approached the long table and de Gifford ran his hands over its smooth surface. ‘Oak, d’you think, Josse?’ he asked.

     ‘Aye,’ Josse agreed. ‘Plain but well made.’ He bent to look at the frame that supported the table top but if there were any concealed drawer or space there, he could not see it. Then, lying down on his back, he looked up at the under surfaces; again, nothing.

     De Gifford was feeling up and down the table legs. They too were plain and unadorned; this was a workmanlike piece, there to serve a purpose and do its job, and nobody had wasted their time beautifying it with carvings and mouldings. Nevertheless the sheriff went on looking and so did Josse.

     It was de Gifford who was first to speak the obvious. ‘There’s nothing, Josse,’ he said. ‘If this damned table holds a secret, then it keeps it too close for us to find.’

     Josse was looking around. ‘Perhaps there’s another table,’ he said hopefully. ‘Do you remember noticing one when we searched the house with Fitzurse?’

     De Gifford shook his head. ‘No. On the contrary, I recall thinking how little the young Warins possess. The Old Manor is but sparsely furnished.’

     Josse privately agreed – he had received the same impression – but all the same the two of them had a quick look around the other rooms of the house.

     They did not find another table.

     ‘The trouble is,’ de Gifford mused as they set about a desultory hunt of the chest in the hall and the hangings on the walls, ‘that we don’t know what we’re looking for and so may very well have missed it.’

     ‘Fitzurse knew, if we surmise aright,’ Josse replied, ‘and he did not find it either, although both you and I watched him search.’

     ‘Hmm.’ De Gifford straightened up, rubbing at his back. ‘What now, Josse?’

     ‘I confess I am very disappointed,’ Josse said. ‘I had really thought that we should find a hidden drawer or panel and within it some object to explain what Fitzurse is about.’

     ‘Well, we didn’t,’ de Gifford said somewhat curtly. ‘We should return to Tonbridge, Josse. There is nothing more we can do here and we may get back to find that there is news of the Abbess.’

     With that hope high in his heart, Josse followed him outside. Wilfrid came to see them off; observing their expressions, he remarked, ‘You didn’t find what you came looking for, then.’

     ‘No,’ Josse said. With an optimism he was far from feeling, he added, ‘But we will!’

     Then he kicked Horace and rode off behind de Gifford back to Tonbridge.

Chapter 18

Inside the hut it was as dark as midnight. The man put a flame to a wick lying in a shallow bowl of animal fat and in the small amount of light that it gave off, Helewise looked about her.

     There was just the one room and it was crammed with the detritus of years. A narrow bench was set against one wall and, towards the back of the room, there was a small hearth surrounded with stones, although it looked as though nobody had ever cleared away the ash and it had spilled out in a wide area extending well beyond the circumference of the circle of stones. A black cooking pot rested on a trivet beside the hearth. Along the walls, piled up quite high in places, were what looked like bundles wrapped in sacking and on a shelf set up under the roof were bunches of dried herbs and leaves. On a panel of wood that had once been painted white someone had drawn the rough outline of a bulky and indefinable animal. In a rear corner was a thin straw-filled mattress and some pieces of sacking, presumably a bed, and over this hung a strange cross with equal arms, roughly formed and made out of wood that was almost black. Belying the filth and the unkempt air of the hut, a besom stood beside the door, its twiggy hazel brush pointing upwards and the smooth handle stuck into the beaten earth floor. The room stank of burning fat from the oil lamp and, beneath that stench, Helewise’s sensitive nose could detect the smell of unwashed bodies and human waste receptacles that had been spilled and were habitually not emptied before they overflowed.