The Enchanter's Forest (43 page)

     He thought then that he knew who had killed Florian of Southfrith and, meeting the Abbess’s eyes, he saw in their expression that he was right.

     ‘I spoke just now of someone who was deeply discontented and who, instead of sitting back in happy appreciation of all that life had provided, instead was compelled ever to strive for more: a larger house, a purer-blooded horse, higher status, more reverent awe from everybody else. When their own options grew fewer and fewer, this person turned the force of their driven nature to another, whose steps they tried to force along a certain path almost from birth.’

     The tears were falling silently down her face; Josse, unable to witness such pain any longer, said softly, ‘You speak of yourself, Primevère, and the person who has tried to put you in harness all your life is your mother.’

     Primevère turned to him. ‘She can’t help it!’ she protested. ‘She acts out of love for me; although she never liked Florian she believed, as I did, that he was very rich and so she grudgingly accepted him. Then when she saw that I no longer loved him, she was delighted because it meant that, sooner or later, she would be able to persuade me to abandon him and our life of deepening poverty at Hadfeld, when she planned to take me back to France to marry a distant kinsman of hers who has high social standing and is wealthy beyond counting. She had, or so she told me, already written to the man to tell him about me.’ She dropped her head in shame, as if she too were in some way responsible for her mother’s actions. ‘Then, of course, Florian came up with the idea of pretending he had found Merlin’s Tomb and suddenly there was so much money coming in that I could have anything I wanted. I began to express doubts about leaving Florian and going to marry the new husband my mother had selected but not because, as she thought, I was tempted by Florian’s sudden wealth.’ She leant closer to Ranulf and he tightened his arm around her. ‘It was because, even though I was married to Florian, I could not bear to go away and leave the man I love.’

     ‘So your mother hired the guard Hal to kill Florian,’ Gervase said slowly. ‘She, then, is guilty of his murder.’

     ‘She did not actually kill him!’ Primevère cried. ‘She’s an old woman and she could not possibly have carried out such a brutal slaying!’

     ‘But she paid someone else to do it for her,’ Gervase said relentlessly. ‘She must have told Hal to say to Florian that the guards were too busy that night with the visitors for any of them to accompany him home with the money. Then, as Florian set off, Hal must have ridden hard and overtaken him, setting up his garrotte rope and then, presumably, spooking Florian’s horse so that he rode full tilt into it. No doubt he’d have had a weapon of some sort with which to finish the job if the fall didn’t kill Florian. Then he dumped the body, caught the horse and its precious bags of money and rode off into the night, finding some place to hide up until he could sneak over to Hadfeld and report back to Melusine.’

     ‘Yes,’ Primevère whispered. ‘Yes, that’s what happened.’ A sob broke out of her. ‘When
Maman
told me, she thought I’d be pleased.’

     And that – the memory of that moment – was finally too much; Primevère turned her face into Ranulf’s chest and collapsed into his arms.

‘Do you want my help?’ Josse panted as he ran after Gervase.

     ‘No, Josse. I can have a band of men ready swiftly and there’s no need for you to come as well.’

     They reached the stables and Gervase was untethering his horse. ‘Will you go after Melusine too?’

     ‘Oh, yes,’ Gervase said grimly.

     ‘And what of Hal? He’s now a very rich man and he rides Florian’s fast horse, so—’

     ‘His new wealth is what will give him away.’ Gervase was in the saddle now, clearly impatient to go. ‘He won’t resist the temptation to start spending. I’ll get him, Josse; you’ll see.’

     With a nod and a very faint smile – Gervase, Josse thought, was going to derive a certain grim pleasure from catching the two people behind the murder of Florian – he put heels to his horse and clattered off across the courtyard and out through the gates.

Thoughtfully Josse made his way back to the Abbess’s room. Shortly afterwards she appeared in the doorway carrying a platter of food and a mug of wine. ‘Sir Josse?’ she said. ‘Ranulf has taken Primevère to the infirmary to lie down and I have arranged for food to be sent in to them. Will you eat too?’

     It was only then, with the prospect of food before him, that he realised how hungry he was. He went to join the Abbess and they sat down on a stone seat in the cloister outside her room while he ate.

     ‘We have come to the end of this particular road, Sir Josse,’ the Abbess said as he finished his meal.

     ‘Aye.’ He swallowed. ‘Gervase seems to think he’ll catch both Melusine and the guard Hal.’

     She was slowly shaking her head. ‘I still find it difficult to accept the fact that Primevère voluntarily gave up her own mother,’ she said. ‘It was a terrible thing that Melusine did, but the woman was so misguided that surely it almost amounts to a sickness, in which case we ought to pity rather than condemn her.’

     ‘Perhaps,’ Josse suggested gently, ‘such a sentiment might form her defence, if and when she is put on trial.’

     The Abbess turned to him. ‘Oh, Sir Josse! To think of imprisonment and possibly even the gallows, when all her life she has been used to such luxury!’

     He shrugged. He could not find it in him to feel quite the same sympathy. Instead he said, ‘I think I may know why Primevère acted as she did.’

     ‘Oh?’

     ‘I think she may have inherited some of her mother’s instinct for self-preservation,’ he said. ‘She realised full well that she and Ranulf were likely to be suspected of murdering Florian and so, before any questions could be asked or any arrests made, she got in first and revealed who really did it.’

     ‘But her own mother!’ the Abbess repeated.

     Josse gave her a quick grin. ‘Who no doubt guessed precisely what her daughter would do and is even now on her way across the Channel bound for home.’

     ‘But then – will she not be brought to justice?’

     Josse shrugged. ‘Perhaps. Probably, aye.’ He paused. Then: ‘Gervase de Gifford is a very determined man.’

     There was a short silence. Then she said, ‘Well, the tomb is closed, thank the good Lord, and we here at Hawkenlye may now wait in happy expectation of our pilgrims returning.’

     ‘Aye,’ he agreed. ‘Ironic, to think that our – my trip to Brittany was in vain since the tomb was going to shut down anyway.’

     ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

     Again, silence fell between them.

     He thought for some time before expressing the thought that had steadily been growing in his mind. There was something that he very much wanted to do; he knew full well what was behind this final excursion that he had to make and he was quite sure the Abbess would have no difficulty in guessing this reason. But he decided to tell her just the same.

     ‘There’s one thing I would still like to see to,’ he said, sipping at his mug of wine.

     ‘And that is?’

     ‘I want to have another look at those old bones,’ he said.

     ‘You do? Why?’

     He was not sure that he could tell her, for he barely knew himself. ‘Oh, I don’t know, just a feeling I have. We now know whose they aren’t, but I’d still like to see if I could discover where Florian found them and who they really did belong to.’

     ‘A very big woman,’ the Abbess said. ‘Is that not enough, Sir Josse?’

     ‘No, my lady. Perhaps it ought to be, but—’ He shrugged. ‘Somehow I sense that there is still more to this business.’

     ‘Your instincts are usually sound,’ she said loyally. ‘Go and have your final look, sir Josse. If you set out now, you will be there and back again by sunset.’

Chapter 21

He rode slowly along the track that led around the forest fringes. Horace was tired – so was he – but there was no hurry and the horse had been rubbed down and watered when they returned from the earlier journey. Besides, it was cool in the shade.

     His mind and his heart turned constantly into the forest to where he knew – or assumed – she was, she and his little daughter. He wanted more than anything to turn in under the trees and, riding as hard as conditions allowed, go and seek them out. But he had promised her not to; not for the time being, anyway.

     She too had felt the deep, searing pain of their separation; he knew that as well as he knew himself. They had both tentatively explored the ways and means by which they might contrive a life together but in each case the same stumbling block cropped up: she was a woman of the forest, only just starting to come into the power that was both her and her daughter’s destiny, and her home was the wildwood. She had no desire to live among the Outworlders – she had experienced enough of that life to last the rest of her days – and even her love for him did not tempt her to try. He, for his part, knew that life out in the little hut in the clearing was not for him. I am, he had decided ruefully, too used to my comforts and to the security of four stout stone walls around me when I lay my head down at night. And as for all that magic stuff  . . .

     She would not marry him; he had asked her and, lovingly, tears in her eyes, she had gently turned him down. ‘The answer, my beloved Josse, is the same as it was the first time you asked me.’

     The best that they had managed to come up with – and even that, bearing in mind how very great was their sorrow, was not that good and brought little consolation – was that both of them would return to their usual lives and that he would visit her regularly just after the days of the solstices and the equinoxes (he had had to ask her when they fell). She would usually be at home then, she had said, recovering her strength after the ceremonies.

     He did not want to know about those, which was just as well since she didn’t tell him.

     It was July now, less than a month past the summer solstice, and the next quarter day was not until late September.

     How, he howled inside his head, am I to manage?

He rode on determinedly towards the site of Merlin’s Tomb. It was good to have something to do and, as he drew close, he actually felt a tingle of excitement at the thought of having a closer look at the ancient bones.

     There was no sign of the guards and the gate in the outer rail fence was still chained shut. Josse tethered Horace to the top rail, climbed the fence and walked on. The gate in the second, higher fence was closed but the chain had not been refastened. He pushed the gate open and slowly walked across the turf to the open grave.

     Again, some force emanating from the huge bones seemed to reach out for him. But this time he had come prepared. Not allowing the fear to take hold, he strode on to the very edge of the gaping wound in the earth and, standing on the grave’s lip, said softly, ‘Lady, I do not know who you are but I have good news. This place is now closed and I give you my word that I shall do my utmost to find out where it was that you were brought from so that I may return you to your rightful place.’

     He paused, listening intently.

     Other than the sweet, treble song of a wren somewhere in the undergrowth, silence. Except  . . .

     Except what?

     Straining his ears, it seemed to him for a brief instant that he could hear the sound of long, regular breathing. And a – what was it? A sort of pulse, slow and steady, as if the very heart of the earth could be heard beating.

     He sank to his knees. He was tense and expectant, every sense alert. But, he realised in wonder, he was no longer afraid.

     He edged forward so that he was looking down on the bones. They really were enormous and, were it not for the high esteem in which he held the infirmarer, he would have doubted her firm assurance that this skeleton belonged to a woman. If it was indeed a woman, he thought suddenly, then it was somehow even more of an outrage that her bones lay there exposed for all to see. He tried to think what he had with him with which to cover her, and recalled that he still carried his travelling blanket, rolled up and tied to the back of his saddle.

     Running back to Horace, peacefully grazing by the outer fence, swiftly he unfastened the blanket and returned to the grave. Then, kneeling down again, he attacked the problem of how best to tuck it around the bones. The steep sides of the grave had been faced with stone at their lower levels – something he had not noticed before – and he now saw how skilfully the job had been done: the stone sides met the slab that formed the base at exact angles and the fit was so tight that very little earth seemed to have penetrated the pit. The dark metal plaque on the far side of the grave, with its false claim that these were the bones of Merlin the Enchanter, was propped up by a rough chunk of sandstone.