The Enchanter's Forest (36 page)

     ‘You refer, I believe, to this magical grand-dam of mine,’ he said lightly.

     ‘I do, and she was considerably further back in your ancestry than that.’ There was no levity in Joanna’s tone, he noted.

     ‘Tell me?’ he asked.

     ‘Not much to tell,’ she admitted. ‘I only know that she was an ancestress on your mother’s side, a native Briton, and that she lived close to here and tended the sacred fires on Mount Caburn.’

     Josse tried to think what that might mean and failed. ‘She was – she was pagan?’

     ‘Of course. Six generations back, the new religion was by no means universally accepted in Britain.’

     The new religion. She must mean Christianity. So she was telling him that, not all that long ago, a woman of his blood had stood on the summit of a hill, very close to where he now sat, chanting incantations and feeding the sacred flame in the service of her gods.

     For a moment an image appeared before him out of the darkness and the low flames of their own small fire suddenly seemed to grow immensely, searing up into the night sky in vivid hues of violet, purple and gold, while a tall woman in a pale robe, a circlet of silver around her head, cried aloud in a voice that sounded like singing.

     He blinked and both woman and fire were gone.

     Beside him Joanna laughed softly. ‘If I’m right and you saw it too,’ she murmured, ‘then we just witnessed your grandmother’s great-great-grandmother going about her holy work.’

     Slowly he shook his head, but more in wonder than in denial. Once, not so very long ago, he might have shied away from thinking about Joanna’s strange power in his daughter’s blood, never mind some equivalent force that came from his own forebears. But that was before he had spent this precious time in her company and grown to understand a little – just a little – of what she and her people truly were.

     Now, far from being ashamed to think that his own blood contained elements of the same power, he was proud. Staring out in the darkness, silently he called out to that woman from so long ago, sending her his recognition, his blessings and his love. As if a warm arm had been slipped around him, he felt all three sentiments returned.

Soon after that they had made love – she, he was sure, also trying not to think that it might be for the last time – and settled down to sleep.

     In the morning they had ridden back to Hawkenlye. She had slipped off the golden mare’s back and silently handed the reins to him, for there was no place for a fine animal such as Honey in Joanna’s forest life and the mare was better off being useful at Hawkenlye. They had made their farewells brief – for Meggie’s sake, they solemnly told each other – and he had watched as, with Meggie holding her mother’s hand and twisting round so as to go on waving to him till the last possible moment, Joanna had set off along the track that led into the forest.

     Then, his mind gone numb, he had returned to the Abbey.

     Where now, with the sounds of the monks settling for the night all around him, he lay seeking respite in sleep from the grief of his loss.

     Eventually he must have drifted off, only to wake with the dawn to the sound of Brother Saul muttering in his sleep.

     With a sigh, he turned over on to his side and, to distract the natural drift of his thoughts, went back over everything that the Abbess had told him about Florian of Southfrith, his wife and his mother-in-law. Not that he could make himself care greatly, but then he had offered to go with the Abbess today and to give her what help he could in her noble attempt to find out who had killed the young man. The least he could do, he reasoned, was to try to appear interested. It would serve as a distraction, even if nothing else.

He presented himself outside her room after Tierce. The day was already hot and promised to become hotter; the sooner they began, the better.

     He walked beside her across to the infirmary and waited while she sought out Sister Euphemia. There was a muttered conversation between the two women and at one point the infirmarer waved a hand to indicate the many empty beds. Then she called out to Sister Caliste, who appeared from a recess at the far end of the room. The infirmarer spoke to her, the young nun nodded eagerly, and then all three women came back to Josse.

     Sister Caliste and Sister Euphemia were both looking at him with love and compassion in their eyes: God’s boots, he thought, do they
all
know? But instantly he regretted the moment of anger. Kindness was, after all, not that common a commodity and a man should be grateful when offered it. He bowed briefly to the nuns.

     ‘Both the Sisters will accompany us, Sir Josse,’ the Abbess was saying, ‘since neither has any pressing duties that require their presence here and both may be of assistance to Primevère, if indeed she is sick.’

     ‘I shall be pleased of your company, Sisters,’ he said gravely. ‘Come, let us be on our way.’

     But the infirmarer held back. ‘The Abbess tells me you bear a wound, Sir Josse.’ She nodded at the bandage on his right arm. ‘May I tend it for you and see how it heals?’

     He drew back his arm as if she had tried to grab hold of it. ‘No you may not!’ he cried. Too loudly and too forcibly; the three nuns were all staring at him.

     But Joanna had wrapped that piece of linen around his arm; Joanna had stitched the wound after Meggie had bathed it and he knew, from the steady reduction in discomfort, that it was mending well. The sutures would have to be taken out some time but until then he didn’t want anybody else to touch it, no matter how well-meaning they were.

     He could not, of course, explain all that.

     ‘I apologise for my rudeness.’ He gave Sister Euphemia a curt bow. ‘It’s just that . . .’ He stopped, at a loss.

     But she gave him a loving smile and said quietly, ‘It’s all right. I understand.’

     And he realised that there was no need for explanations after all.

Probably out of deference to Josse’s feelings, they left Honey in the paddock. The Abbess rode the Abbey cob, Sister Caliste had the pony and Sister Euphemia was left with the mule which, before mounting, she had fixed with a very firm eye as if to say, now I’ll have no nonsense from
you
. It must have worked for as they set out, Josse observed with a faint smile that he had never seen the mule behave better.

     They rode along the track that circled the forest, staying in the shade of the trees whenever they could, and quite soon they came to the place where the road branched off south-east towards Hadfeld. Soon after that, the Abbess led the way through the gates into Florian’s courtyard.

     Josse noticed that the building work had progressed well since his previous visit. No doubt, he thought, because of that slim and rigid figure who habitually stood on the mounting block keeping an eye on proceedings. As she was doing this morning; today, she was dressed in a gown of violet silk whose tight, high waist accentuated her full breasts. She turned at the sound of their mounts’ hooves and stared out at the quartet with imperiously raised eyebrows.

     ‘Yes? Oh, it’s you, Abbess Helewise. And – Sir Josse? That is your name, as I recall?’

     ‘Aye.’

     ‘And here is Sister Caliste’ – the Abbess indicated the younger nun – ‘and this is my infirmarer, Sister Euphemia.’

     Primevère’s dark blue eyes turned to the infirmarer and the hint of a smile quirked at the corner of her mouth. ‘And to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?’

     ‘When we came to see you a few days ago, it was to bring the dreadful news that you had lost your husband,’ the Abbess said gently. ‘In addition to having to bear your grief, you were already sick and in bed. I have come, with these my trusted companions, to see how you are.’

     There was a flash of something in Primevère’s eyes, almost too brief to catch, but Josse, who was best positioned to see, thought that the swift expression looked like impatience, as if the young woman regretted having to be distracted from the task that currently absorbed her while she dealt with this nuisance that had just arrived in her courtyard.

     But then she smiled widely and, stepping carefully down from her mounting block, holding her skirt high to avoid treading on it, she approached the Abbess and said, ‘How very kind. Please, all of you, come into the hall and I will send for refreshments. It is a very hot day, is it not? Me, I do feel the heat so badly – it makes me feel weak and nauseous. As I am now well, as you will have observed, I have in fact attributed my previous indisposition to nothing other than too much sunshine.’

     The four of them dismounted and Primevère clapped her hands to summon a groom. The lad – he was small and had the narrow chest and pale skin that spoke of malnutrition – took the reins of the horses, the pony and the mule and, with one or two apprehensive glances at Horace, led them off to the stables.

     Josse hurried after him: ‘He’s a big horse but, treated with kindness, he’s very well-mannered,’ he reassured the boy. But his remark was met with a look of fear, swiftly replaced by stony-faced apathy.

     All is not happy here, Josse thought. The lad is afraid, and here is the mistress, a very recent widow, who far from welcoming her well-wishers, seems almost irritated by their presence . . . He resolved to keep his eyes open and his senses alert.

     Primevère led the way up the steps into the cool hall, where the woman in black – Melusine, Josse recalled; that was what the Abbess said she was called – sat on a bench under an open window. She was sewing some piece of embroidery in gloriously rich colours and talking in abrupt and rather curt tones to a man standing beside her.

     She looked up as her daughter led the four visitors towards her. ‘Abbess Helewise,’ she said, nodding up at the Abbess, ‘and you I recognise . . .’ Her eyes had swivelled to Josse and she was frowning. ‘You came before,
non
?’

     ‘Aye,’ Josse said.

     For a moment Melusine looked almost anxious. Then her face cleared and she said with evident relief, ‘But of course, sir knight, you have come to offer your condolences on the death of my son-in-law!
N’est-ce pas?
’

     Primevère said something very swiftly in French. As far as Josse could tell, for the young woman had sat down close to her mother and spoke very softly so that he could barely pick up the words, she was telling her that the Hawkenlye party had come to see how she was faring in her grief.

     ‘Ah, but how very kind!’ Melusine said. ‘The charity of the sisters, is it not famous far and wide?’

     The man at her side spoke for the first time. ‘Indeed,’ he said smoothly, ‘and of all religious foundations, the reputation of Hawkenlye and its good people is the most highly esteemed of all.’

     Josse turned to him, taking in the man’s air of strength contained within an elegant and well-dressed body; the man’s garments simply shouted
expensive
, from the closely fitting tunic of very fine wool to the soft leather boots and the hint of scarlet-died fur at the ends of the wide sleeves. Feeling Josse’s intent eyes, the man met them and, smiling widely, said, ‘I am Ranulf of Crowbergh, family friend to Florian and his household.’ Josse might have been mistaken but he thought he heard a sudden intake of breath from the Abbess, standing close beside him. ‘Sir Josse—?’

     ‘Josse d’Acquin.’ Josse gave a formal bow.

     ‘Sir Josse.’ Ranulf of Crowbergh returned it.

     Primevère had moved across to and through an arched doorway at the far end of the room and her voice could be heard giving instructions to whoever was working there. She returned and, still the epitome of good manners, Ranulf of Crowbergh made a show of pulling up a seat for her and settling her upon it.

     Primevère, after a swift look up at him, gave a little cough and said, ‘You are most kind to concern yourself, my lady Abbess, over my grief and my sickness. The former nobody can help me with, although
Maman
assures me it is but a matter of time.’ She gave a little sigh. ‘As to my sickness, as I said, it was a simple matter of the heat. Now, why, you can see for yourselves that I am well!’ She beamed around at her four guests and indeed, Josse thought, she looked the picture of health, from her glossy dark hair, shining like the coat of a well-groomed horse, to the clear eyes and the faint flush of pink in her cheeks.