Whiter than the Lily (21 page)

Moaning in his sleep, Josse twisted his head as if to turn his eyes away from what he was seeing. But the screams went on, accompanied by the sound of the
rasping shingle as the hungry waves reached out for the new ship.

Then there was the smell of burning and, on another shore – or perhaps the same one under a different light – a long ship set out across the smooth water with smoke pouring from its deck. Josse was in the water helping the craft on her way and then, with the magical, all-seeing vision given to dreamers, he was high above, looking down on to the ship. He saw the tall, broad-shouldered body of a king, pale hair bound beneath a helmet with cheek pieces and nose guard, deep eyes closed in death. His belt was fastened with a great buckle, decorated with interlaced running lines in which were twined the graceful, stylised shapes of snakes, birds, bears and wolves. The warrior’s spear and battleaxe lay beside him and his shield was at his head. To his left was a giant whetstone, the mask of the god and strange runic inscriptions etched into the stone and the delicate figure of a stag standing proudly on the circle of bronze that topped the stone. Laid on his body, his long hands clasped on its hilt, was his broadsword, decorated with garnet-studded gold. From the shore came chanting as the king’s people honoured his passing.

And, in time, there came the stench of burning flesh.

Josse woke with horror in his mind. Sweating, breathing as hard as if he had just run up the slope again, he sat up, eyes wide, trying to see into the night.

Behind him Horace gave an uneasy nicker. Josse reached out a hand and gave the horse a pat. It
was meant to reassure but Josse was not sure he had reassurance to give.

The darkness was so total that he could not see a thing. He sat quite still, listening. There was scarcely a sound except for the steady drip as rainwater fell from the eaves of his shelter. Drip, drip, drip.

But then there was another sound: somewhere out there a stone had been disturbed.

He listened.

Nothing.

But there
had
been a sound, he thought, feeling the goose bumps of fear start on his flesh. And stones do not move by themselves …

Some small animal, he told himself. Now that the rain has eased, the little creatures of the night will be about their business. The concept was quite comforting and he began to imagine some stoat or weasel nosing around in the wet grass.

Then he heard breathing.

He shot backwards until he was pressed up into the corner formed by the walls of his shelter. He eased his dagger out of its sheath on his belt and, with his other hand, felt across to where he had placed his sword. Then, quite still again, he listened.

Nothing.

His heartbeat gradually slowed down. He took a steadying breath, then another. The ears play tricks, he thought. Just as fear can make a man see things that are not there, so the same can happen to the sense of hearing. There
was
no breathing, he told himself firmly. It would be quite impossible.

After quite a long time, he wrapped himself up in his blankets again and lay down.

The rain had stopped. But in the distance, from the south-west out across the marsh, thunder growled menacingly over the sea.

Josse lay, eyes staring out blindly into the blackness, waiting.

He had not been asleep. He
knew
he hadn’t, afterwards; despite the suggestions that it had been a dream, that the very real dangers of his situation had sent him a fear-induced nightmare, he knew it was not so. He had been wide awake.

His senses alert, he sat listening, skin prickling with apprehension. The disturbed stone and the breathing he thought he had heard earlier had not recurred; the night was silent and, for the moment, the sky gods were resting and even the thunder had abated.

He began to relax. He laid his sword down beside him and flexed his right hand. His left hand was still on the hilt of his dagger but now he no longer gripped but only touched it, as if to reassure himself it was still there if he needed it. His back against the solid stone, he folded up a corner of blanket and put it behind his head, resting the tension in his neck and shoulders.

It was still totally dark. Never before had he experienced the sensation of literally not being able to see his hand in front of his eyes. He was just experimenting, wriggling the fingers of his right hand to see if he could make out the movement, when it happened.

There was no warning, not one single sound to put him on guard. There was just the one flash of bright light and, right there in front of him, a face staring intently into his, so close that he could look into the silver-grey eyes and feel the cool breath on his cheek.

Then darkness closed in again.

Sweat breaking out on his cold flesh and his heart in his throat, Josse fought for control. His body remembered its training even while his horror-struck mind was in shock and he was on his feet, sword in hand, lunging forward out of the shelter, before he knew it. Then his voice came back and he shouted in a great roar, ‘
Who’s there? Show yourself!
’

Nerve endings tingling as he subconsciously awaited the blow, he twisted from side to side, his sword making great deadly sweeps in a wide arc in front of him. ‘Show yourself!’ he cried again. ‘I am armed and I will attack if you approach again without warning!’

But I cannot see him, he thought. How can I attack what I can’t see?

He waited, listening.

There was nothing.

Presently the rain began to fall again.

Helewise was still pondering on the wisdom of her decision not to send Brother Saul and Brother Augustus chasing after Josse when she woke the next morning. She had been quite sure she was right when she had dismissed the brothers last night; a strong part of her mind told her that they were passing on pagan horror stories and that she should set a good example by giving the frightening old legends no credence.

And, as she had told the brothers, Josse had been offered their company but had declined it. He did not believe he was going into danger. Why, then, should she?

But I do believe it, she thought as she went into the Abbey church for Prime. Although it appears irrational, I fear for him. And, she told herself, fears are none the less real just because we do not perceive the reason for them. Just as this day, dawning so fair and so warm with the sky above clear and blue, holds the promise of rain.

She did not know how she could be so certain it would rain that day, any more than how she was sure that Josse was in danger.

And she did not know what to do.

But, she thought as she entered the great church, I am going to the right place to ask for help.

She went straight back to her room after the office, forgoing her breakfast as an offering to God in return for his guidance. She still did not know what to do.

She had half expected to see Ambrose at Prime; it was not unusual for visitors staying more than a day or two to slip into the habit of worshipping with the community. However, he had not appeared and Helewise concluded that he preferred to remain down in the Vale with the monks. Well, if he found comfort in the company of those good souls and their simple little shrine, then that was fine. As far as Helewise was concerned, the poor man could stay as long as he liked.

Putting her anxiety about Josse firmly to the back of her mind, she reached for the ledger she had been working on yesterday and resolutely set to work. If there were going to be any heavenly guidance, it would arrive in its own good time. Feeling calm for the first time in many hours, she bent her head and picked up her stylus.

Late in the afternoon she was disturbed by Sister Martha, who announced that there was a visitor wishing urgently to speak to the Abbess. Suppressing a sudden excitement, Helewise waited a moment, then said composedly, ‘And who is the visitor, Sister?’

‘He
says
he’s Brice of Rotherbridge,’ Sister Martha
replied, as if she had cause to doubt that the man spoke the truth.

Brice! The man whom Josse suspected of being Galiena’s lover! If Josse were right – and Helewise realised that she believed he was – then Brice was also the man whom she herself had been pitying so deeply because he did not know that his young love was dead.

And I, she thought, shall have to tell him.

She said quietly, ‘Ask him to come in, Sister Martha.’

After a few moments, Brice of Rotherbridge strode into the room and stood in front of her.

She had not met him before, although she had known his late brother. There was a resemblance between them, she thought. She remembered – just in time – that, after the matter concerning his dead wife and her sister, Brice had made a generous donation to Hawkenlye Abbey. As she looked up into his brown eyes, the memory served to provide an opening remark.

‘Some years ago, Sir Brice,’ she said, ‘you gave us a handsome gift. Please be assured that we have used it well.’

‘Of that I have no doubt, my lady Abbess,’ he replied, giving her a graceful bow. Then, a wry expression crossing his face, he added, ‘How very long ago that all seems now!’

‘Four years,’ she murmured. What a lot, she thought, has happened in that time. ‘You wish to see me, Sir Brice?’

‘I do.’ He paused and then said, ‘I am neighbour
and, I hope, friend to the lord Ambrose Ryemarsh and his wife. I visited their household with Sir Josse d’Acquin a while ago and I was there when Ambrose and Galiena decided they would visit you here at Hawkenlye, Galiena going on ahead. Although Sir Josse was unable to join them straight away – and I had pressing matters of my own to attend to – the three of them agreed that they would meet here when they could.’ There was a strange light in his eyes, as if, she thought, he were speaking of something weightier than this innocent reunion of friendly neighbours. ‘I have decided that I will join them. I should like, if possible, my lady, to see my friends as soon as possible.’

She made herself hold his glance. Then, speaking quietly and gently, she said, ‘Sir Brice, I deeply regret to have to tell you this, but there has been tragedy here. The lady Galiena did indeed arrive in advance of the lord Ambrose, but, soon after his arrival, Galiena became sick.’

‘She’s sick?’ Something had leapt into his face, some fleeting expression that was there and gone before she could identify it. Now he looked stern. Almost – could it really be? – accusing.

‘She is dead, Sir Brice,’ Helewise said softly. ‘I am so sorry.’

‘Dead.’ He repeated the word in a whisper. ‘Dead.’ Then, a hand before his face hiding his eyes, he said, ‘How did she die?’

‘We think she might have been poisoned,’ Helewise said. ‘By accident, of course. Something she picked up in the woods, some—’

But Brice, who apparently knew of Galiena’s skills as well as her father did, protested straight away, ‘No. She walks the fields and woods of her home and there is no plant that she does not know. It is impossible that she would have been so reckless as to taste something that was poisonous.’ Then, removing his hand and fixing Helewise with an angry stare, he added, ‘Unless it were something growing in Hawkenlye’s herb patch.’

Biting down her instinctive reaction to the dismissive – and inaccurate – use of the word
patch
, she said, ‘It is, of course, a possibility, although my knowledge of Sister Tiphaine, who is our herbalist, tells me that she is far too careful even to think of growing poisonous plants where incautious visitors could pick them. If indeed she grows anything that is poisonous, I am quite sure that it is kept under her strict supervision.’ Already, she noted, the anger was fading from his face. But, to emphasise the point that she was prepared to consider anything, no matter how unlikely, she said, ‘I will ask Sister Tiphaine if she thinks it possible that Galiena could have taken harm from the herb garden.’

‘Oh, don’t bother,’ he said brusquely. ‘I am sure you are right. I spoke in haste and without due consideration. Forgive me, my lady.’

‘Of course,’ she said instantly. ‘You are, I dare say, not yourself.’

‘Not myself,’ he murmured. Then, rubbing at his jaw, his face puzzled, he said again, ‘She’s dead. That lovely, loving young girl is dead.’ Then, his face crumpling with emotion, he said, ‘I’m sorry, my lady, but I just can’t seem to take it in.’

‘I know,’ she said, wanting to comfort him. ‘It is always so hard to understand the ways of God when the young are taken.’

‘She was
good
!’ he cried suddenly.

The echoes of the word rebounded in the small room. Good, good, good. And Helewise thought, despite herself, despite her sympathy for Brice,
was
she good? In the eyes of the church she was an adulteress; if not with this handsome fellow standing before me, then with somebody. For if the child she carried were in truth the fruit of Ambrose’s seed, then why had Galiena planned and acted out that elaborate deception?

But it was for God to judge her. And, whatever he had done, Brice needed comfort, that was for sure; he looked shocked and pale and she was worried for him. Standing up, she said, ‘Sir Brice, sit down in my chair here. I will call for a restorative for you.’

Dumbly he did as she said. She went outside into the cloister, summoned a nun with a brief beckoning gesture and, in a low voice, told her to fetch spiced wine from Sister Basilia in the refectory; Sister Goodeth had sent up a cask of a good French wine and the best, Helewise reflected, was only suitable for this man who had once been a benefactor of the Abbey.