The Enchanter's Forest (21 page)

     ‘Are we almost at this place, whatever it’s called?’ Josse asked in a low voice.

     ‘Yes. I’m fairly sure it’s over the next small rise, then about another couple of miles,’ Joanna replied. ‘And it’s called Folle-Pensée.’

     ‘Foolish thought? Mad thought?’ Josse suggested.

     ‘Yes, I suppose just that.’ She paused, then said, ‘We have among our people healers of both body and mind, and they say that the waters issuing from the spring at Folle-Pensée can help when patients are troubled by strange thoughts. Me, I think it’s the skill and the patience of our healers that makes them well.’

     ‘Aye.’ Josse was sure she was right. He was thinking of something similar that he had once observed and presently he said, ‘I once met a young mother who believed she was unfit to care for her child. There was no reason for this belief, for she was intelligent and competent and in fact her little boy was thriving. Sister Euphemia – she’s the Hawkenlye infirmarer’ – Joanna nodded – ‘said she’d seen such conditions before in new mothers and that it was often just a matter of listening to their fears and not dismissing them out of hand, then treating them with kindness and patience until they began to feel better.’

     Joanna was looking at him with interest. ‘I have met the infirmarer,’ she said, ‘and what you say merely enhances the impression of her that I have already formed.’ She dropped her eyes, frowned and then, looking straight at him again, said, ‘Josse, doesn’t it strike you that fundamentally we are all striving for the same thing?’

     He had an idea what she was trying to say. ‘Go on.’

     ‘Well, your nuns and monks are good people who look after the sick and the troubled and who don’t spare themselves in trying to help others. Hawkenlye Abbey is not so very different in essence from Folle-Pensée, nor from other special centres that I’ve seen and been told about where my own people strive to drive out the demons of mental and bodily sickness so that their patients can resume happy and healthy lives. Yet were I to say as much to someone such as the terrible old priest whose stinking and unwholesome presence bedevilled my days when I was wed to Thorald, he would have accused me of possession at best and heresy at worst.’

     Josse waited a moment before speaking. Then he said, ‘Joanna my sweet, as I’m sure I must have said to you before, it’s unwise to judge the whole church by one foul-minded and frustrated man. You’ve met men and women from Hawkenlye; I don’t suggest that you take them as the norm, for in their way I believe that they are as unusual as your stinky old priest, but I would venture to say that maybe you could try to see them as the good face of the church, and that as such they can perhaps do a little to redress the balance for you who have experienced the most evil one.’

     She opened her mouth to say something but apparently changed her mind. Giving him a very sweet smile, she said, ‘I’ll try, Josse.’

They sat for some time longer in the deep shade. Josse closed his eyes and dozed. Then he sensed Joanna getting to her feet; as he opened his eyes and looked up at her, she met his gaze and said, ‘Time to go. Will you wake Meggie, please?’

     They packed up, mounted and rode out into the sunshine. As before, Joanna was in the lead; watching her, Josse thought the set of her shoulders suggested a certain tension. It’s important to her, he reflected, this meeting between her man from the world of the outsiders and her new people. Well, I shall strive not to let her down.

     Meggie, slumped against him, had her thumb in her mouth and was still sleepy. Just when I would have welcomed her chatter as a distraction to my increasing sense of apprehension, Josse thought with a grin, she decides to lose herself in her dreams. Hugging her close, he squared his shoulders and tried to still the increasingly wild pictures that his mind was throwing up.

Reality was quite different from imagination. The tiny settlement of Folle-Pensée lay hidden away at the end of a track that twisted and turned through the trees, among which outcrops of the local stone – reddish-pink granite – stood out starkly. The path opened out into a wide clearing, in which were set several simple dwellings made of wooden stakes and brushwood as well as a collection of squat, ground-hugging little cottages made of the local granite. On the far side of the settlement there was a path whose edges were marked with stones; this led off into a particularly dense area of forest, where tall trees – pine, birch – overshadowed holly, broom and gorse. Watching Joanna closely, Josse saw her turn to the entrance to the secret path and give a low bow of reverence.

     Then she slid off Honey’s back; he wondered whether to do the same – wasn’t it good manners to wait to be asked? – but then she looked at him and gave a quick nod, so he dismounted as well, reaching up and taking Meggie in his arms. Joanna was walking slowly up to the largest of the stone cottages and just as she put out her hand to tap on the partly opened door, it was flung wide and a man appeared in the entrance.

     Josse’s first impression was of vigour and glowing health; it was only at the second glance that he noticed the man had to be all of sixty, for the leathery skin of his beaming face was deeply lined and his long, smooth hair and neatly groomed beard were perfectly white. He was dressed in a flowing robe the colour of a clear evening sky.

     He threw open his arms and had enveloped Joanna in a warm embrace; ‘Beith,’ Josse heard him mutter, ‘Beith, how good to see you returned to us!’ Then he added something in a low voice that Josse did not catch.

     With the old man’s arm still around her shoulders, Joanna turned to indicate Josse. ‘Huathe, this is Josse. And Meggie of course you already know.’

     The white-haired man put out a hand and gently touched Meggie’s round cheek; she gave him a coy smile. ‘Yes, indeed. You, little one, are growing well.’ Then, turning intent blue eyes on to Josse, he said, ‘Josse. I am very glad to meet you.’

     There was quite a long pause, during which Josse felt as if various bits of him were being inspected individually. It was a weird sensation, as if careful probes were being sent through his head and chest. He made himself stand quite still and tried hard not to resist the gentle inspection. His response must have been the right one for, after a few more moments, the white-haired man nodded, stepped forward and embraced both Josse and Meggie, still held firmly in her father’s arms. Then, standing a little away, the man said, ‘I will let it be known that you are to be given every courtesy while you are here with us. Welcome to Folle-Pensée.’

     Feeling that he ought to make a reply, Josse said, ‘Thank you – er – Huathe.’ Was it all right to call him by that name? Then he held out his hand which, after a pause and a quick smile, Huathe took in both of his own. The old man’s skin was firm and cool – Josse was put in mind of Sister Euphemia’s touch when she tested a hot forehead for fever – and somehow the sensation was instantly reassuring.

     ‘I will show you to your accommodation,’ Huathe said. He led them to one of the shelters that stood on the far side of the clearing, a short distance away from its nearest neighbour. Opening the door, he ushered them inside.

     ‘We eat our evening meal when the sun goes down,’ he said. ‘Until then, make yourselves comfortable; feel free to walk in the forest if you wish, although I would suggest that you do not stray too far.’

     With no explanation as to why they should not, Huathe gave them both a nod, then, pulling the door to behind him, left them alone.

     Josse put Meggie down on the clean-swept, beaten-earth floor, then turned slowly round as he looked about him. The hut was simply furnished: a wooden-framed bed topped with a straw mattress and some blankets; a long, low table; a bench; a stone circle in which firewood and kindling had been laid ready; a shelf on which were some pottery mugs, a jug and a pair of horn-handled knives.

     And that was all.

     Josse noticed that Joanna appeared to be waiting for him to comment. With a smile he said, ‘It’s delightful. It reminds me of your little hut in the forest. It smells the same – your people are so clean, I imagine that all their dwellings are full of the scent of herbs and growing things.’

     She looked flatteringly pleased by his small compliment. ‘Yes they are,’ she agreed. ‘I’m glad you like it.’ Then, unfastening her pack, she said, ‘I want to wash out some of Meggie’s and my clothes, then I’m going to bathe.’

     He sensed that an unspoken invitation hung in the air. Aware of having worn the same undergarments for rather too long, he said, ‘Is it all right if I do the same? I have a change of linen in my pack.’

     ‘Of course.’ Then, blushing and for all the world like some urban housewife, she said, ‘Give me the garments; I’ll launder them for you.’

     She took him outside and showed him to the place where the people bathed. A stream came hurrying down out of the forest and a pool had formed where an upthrusting band of rock ran across the stream bed. Josse stood hesitant on the edge of the water; Meggie was already wriggling out of her clothes.

     Joanna laughed softly. ‘It’s all right, Josse. Everyone bathes here and the sight of a naked body isn’t going to upset or embarrass anyone.’

     Except me, he thought. But Meggie was paddling into the water and it looked as if it might be quite deep on the far side; Josse quickly removed tunic, shirt and hose, then, trying not to think about it, waded into the pool after his daughter.

     When, having finished her washing, Joanna joined them there some time later, Josse had forgotten his awkwardness and was thoroughly enjoying himself. Even the presence of others did not spoil it; Joanna nodded a greeting to the man, the two women and the youth who came to bathe with them and Josse, copying her, did not so much as glance down to make sure that the water adequately concealed his private parts.

     Out there in the wildwood, it just did not seem to matter.

Chapter 10

Twelve of them, including Josse, Joanna and Hauthe, sat down to eat the evening meal. They sat on benches and on the ground around the wide outdoor hearth. The food was simple – flat bread, goat’s milk cheese, small, sweet onions and a dish of mixed stewed vegetables strongly flavoured with garlic – but there was plenty of it. Accompanying it was cider out of earthenware jars, sparkling and sweet and fragrant with the strong scent of apples.

     When the food had been cleared away, Huathe signalled that the people should stay where they were. Then he rose to his feet and walked forward to stand beside the embers of the fire, roughly in the middle of the circle of his audience. Then he said, ‘Here are Beith and her daughter Meggie, who were with us in the early spring of last year. With her is Josse, who has accompanied her from England. All three are our guests and are to be accorded a welcome.’ There was a brief murmur of conversation and Huathe waited until it had died down before continuing. ‘They have come for a particular purpose, which I shall now outline to you.’

     Joanna had been prepared for something like this. Knowing the ways of her people as she was beginning to, she had expected that the unusual mission that had brought her and Josse to the Brocéliande would not be treated as some hushed-up secret. They had not broadcast it back home in the forest but then the community there was so very much more numerous . . . She waited to hear what Huathe would say.

     His announcement was brief and to the point: ‘An unscrupulous man is making money fraudulently,’ he began. ‘In a forest in the south of England, he claims to have found the bones of Merlin.’ There was a gasp from someone in the circle, quickly suppressed. ‘He has invited the credulous to view the bones, implying that their various hurts and sicknesses will be cured. There is a charge for viewing this grave and all profits are going into the young man’s pocket.’ Indicating Josse with a wave of his hand, Huathe went on: ‘The man Josse here represents the Abbey of Hawkenlye, a place where the needy receive genuine care. The rival attraction referred to as Merlin’s Tomb is taking people away from the Abbey’s true healing to seek help where there is none to be had.’

     Huathe paused to let his people digest what he had told them so far. Then he said, ‘It has been decreed that we show Josse the place in the forest here that is commonly known as Merlin’s Fountain and which, according to local legend, is the true burial place of the great enchanter.’

     ‘But—’ a man’s voice began.

     Huathe turned to face the speaker. ‘Yes? You wish to comment?’

     ‘The spring of Barenton is Nime’s place,’ the man said nervously. ‘It is she who blesses the precious water and whose power we feel up there.’

     Huathe smiled. ‘We know that, or perhaps I should say that is what we understand,’ he said patiently. ‘There is power there; that is undeniable. We should accept that, to others, the source of this power may have a different name. To Outworlders, who are not blessed with the understanding of the forces of this Earth that has been bestowed upon us, it is perhaps easier to understand if the power is dressed in the guise of a man.’