The Paths of the Air

Seventeen

Helewise persuaded her unexpected visitor to sleep in her own private room. She offered to fetch bedding but the young woman refused. ‘I am used to sleeping on hard ground and my cloak and blanket are adequate, thank you.’

‘You may lock yourself in,’ Helewise suggested, and the young woman looked relieved. ‘I shall return first thing in the morning. I am in no doubt that you need my help and I am prepared to give it to you, if you in turn are prepared to explain yourself to me.’ The woman had made no reply. ‘Think it over,’ Helewise advised. ‘Sleep well.’

Then she closed the door. As she walked away she heard the key turn in the lock.

She returned shortly before prime. She had collected food and drink from the refectory and now she tapped softly on the door. ‘Hello? Are you awake?’

The door opened a crack and the young woman’s face appeared. Seeing Helewise, she looked relieved. As she saw what Helewise was carrying, relief turned to wide-eyed appreciation.

‘That is a welcome sight, my lady Abbess,’ she said politely. She was wrapping the enveloping cloak around her as she spoke and Helewise caught a glimpse of the tunic and thick woollen hose she was wearing beneath. ‘I am ravenous.’

She seemed to be waiting for permission, so Helewise said simply, ‘Eat.’

Despite her very evident hunger, the young woman folded her hands, closed her eyes and muttered a short prayer before falling on the bread and dried meat. Well-brought up, Helewise observed, despite the fact that she has been masquerading as a man. No doubt she has her reasons…

‘I must go,’ she said. It was time for the office. ‘I will be back soon.’

The young woman hastily chewed what seemed to be a huge mouthful, managed to swallow it down and then, getting to her feet, bowed and said, ‘I shall be here.’ Then, looking up and meeting Helewise’s eyes, she added, ‘I am ready, my lady.’

Hoping very much the woman meant she was prepared to tell her story, Helewise nodded and hurried away.

She returned immediately after prime. The young woman must have been listening out for her because the door opened as Helewise approached. She entered, sat in her chair and said, ‘I am listening.’

The young woman settled on the stool, the wide skirts of her cloak pooling gracefully on the stone floor around her. She had braided her long hair and arranged it neatly. She must also have used some of the water provided to wash her hands and face, for she looked almost presentable. As soon as this is over and I have heard what she has to tell me, Helewise thought, compassion stirring, I shall offer her a bath.

‘I was born in Antioch,’ the young woman began, ‘and until recently spent all my life in that sunny land. My childhood was idyllic, for my family did not lack means and my mother ensured that I spent time each day on my formal education and also on many other lessons. I learned to ride as well as any boy and I was instructed by masters in their craft in such skills as flying a falcon and playing chess. But it all changed when childhood came to an end. As I matured, I came to realize that I was a rich heiress and that my parents, having no son, were anxious to wed me advantageously.’

‘Were you an only child?’ Helewise asked.

‘No. I have a younger sister’ — Helewise detected by the tone of voice that there was no great affection between the sisters — ‘but she was not as marriageable as I, for she was an awkward child and she has grown into an introspective woman who makes little of her looks and has a spiteful and self-seeking nature. My parents soon abandoned their attempts to encourage her, for they had me,’ she went on bitterly, ‘and already my mother had singled out the man whom she wanted me to marry.’

‘You did not care for him?’

‘No, my lady Abbess, I did not care for him at all. Let me describe him to you. I was first presented to him in the summer preceding my sixteenth birthday. He was a man a little past his prime. He was a native Armenian prince of Edessa; extremely rich, extremely powerful; and an alliance between his family and mine would have been highly advantageous to my father.’

‘I did not realize there were such marriages between the Christians and the local nobility.’

‘Indeed so, my lady. Moreover, this prince — his name is Leo Rubenid Anavarza — is Christian and many such as he take wives from the ranks of the Frankish settlers. For some, the main attraction is the money,’ she added. ‘There are many among the local nobility, as you call them, who try to survive and maintain their dignity and their position on a title alone. I speak as one who knows,’ she added, ‘for before my mother enticed Leo Rubenid into her web, many such men were paraded in front of me.’

‘What did he look like, this Leo?’ Helewise asked, drawn to the story.

She smiled. ‘He was squat and swarthy. When we met, it was clear that I was considerably taller than him, and the next time he came he must have been wearing wedges in his shoes for suddenly he was only a hand’s breadth shorter.’ The smile developed into a laugh. ‘Even that was barely noticeable, for he wore a ridiculous puffed-up hat that added inches but also gave the impression that he had an abnormally huge head.’

She laughed again, a happy, musical sound. Then her face fell. ‘My lady, when I picture him now I see a figure of fun but, believe me, he is far from that. I could have persuaded myself that marriage to a man old enough to be my father with greasy hair, a sweaty, pockmarked face, several missing teeth and extremely bad breath was tolerable. There were advantages, after all; I would be a princess, I would be given the best of everything and my life would be one of pampered idleness. But I discovered something about Leo Rubenid that turned him in the blink of an eye from someone I just might have married into a man whom I would not have touched had he been the last man on earth and the survival of the human race up to the two of us.’

‘Goodness!’ Helewise exclaimed. ‘Whatever was it?’

‘I discovered that he was a monster,’ the young woman said calmly. ‘Let me tell you a little more about him. He was fifteen years older than me and he came from a family of many brothers. He had been wed before; he married young and his wife gave him four sons with a reputation for troublemaking. One took offence at some remark made by a prostitute in Ayas and he sliced off her lips. Another tried to raise a mercenary force to fight against his own father. These men and their brothers would have been my stepsons, even though I was but a year older than the eldest. My lady, you will have noted one factor in my mother’s choice of a husband for me?’

‘Yes,’ Helewise answered. ‘The preponderance of boy children in Leo’s line, which your mother must have hoped would spread to your own family when you wed.’

‘Yes, quite right. Leo was always son-hungry. His wife died giving birth to a fifth son conceived much too soon after the birth of the fourth. But Leo Rubenid is not a man to take a doctor’s or a midwife’s word that his wife has suffered internal injuries which must heal before he beds and impregnates her again. Had I agreed to marry him, he would have swept me off to his fortress in Cilicia, which is a hundred miles north-west of my family’s home and a turbulent land in which a cauldron of races and religions bubbles in constant enmity. Dwellings must be like Leo’s, for the only way to survive is behind high, stout walls. There is no urban sophistication whatsoever. Once inside my husband’s castle, there I should have stayed, reclining on my silken cushions and listening to the fountains splash into their copper bowls, all the time waiting for the moment when I should be summoned to my husband’s side. To his bed.’ She looked down.

‘You said you discovered that he was a monster?’ Helewise prompted.

‘Yes; yes, I did.’ The young woman seemed reluctant to go on. But then she raised her head and said, ‘There was a boy in my father’s employ. He was very sweet, very young — well, about my age, in fact, but he had not had my sophisticated childhood — and he was a jongleur. You know what that is, my lady?’

‘An entertainer, I believe.’

‘Yes. The jongleurs are professional entertainers who sing, play instruments, dance, tumble and juggle. The boy of whom I speak was a lute-player, a singer and a poet. He made up his own songs and he was very popular, for often the songs poked gentle fun at the great and the good. He-’ She blushed suddenly and once again looked down. ‘He thought he was in love with me, my lady. He wrote a love song for me, and when I made it clear that although I was flattered I did not and could not love him, he wrote another song that was a thinly veiled attack on Leo Rubenid.’ Her voice was shaking. ‘Leo got to hear about it — any number of his obsequious friends and acquaintances would have made sure of it — and his men waylaid my little lute-player as he ran an errand for my mother late one night. His body was found the next day. They had cut off his hands, my lady, and stuffed them in the opposite sleeves, as if to emphasize that he would never play the lute again. Then, so that he would never sing again either, they slit his throat.’

Helewise sat in stunned silence. Then she said, ‘You are in no doubt that Leo Rubenid was behind this atrocity?’

‘None at all. Without actually admitting anything, he made sure I knew that he ordered it and witnessed it. It was horrible!’ She dropped her face in her hands and her shoulders shook with silent sobs. Then, recovering, she straightened up and said, ‘Would you have accepted such a man as your husband?’

‘Of course not.’ An image of her dear Ivo swam before Helewise’s eyes. ‘My husband was a very different man and I loved him dearly.’ Noticing a sudden spark of interest in the young woman’s face, she added firmly, ‘But we are not here to speak of him. Could you not persuade your parents that Leo Rubenid was unsuitable? Surely if you had told them what you knew they would have viewed him with new eyes?’

‘My father, yes; for he has always been inclined to listen to me and believe what I say. But my mother had made up her mind and nobody, not even my father, can divert her from her path once that has happened. She is not a bad woman, my lady; it is simply that she sets herself a task and she will achieve that task, even when she realizes it was not the wise course she initially believed it to be. She is a very strong woman. She would say, I am sure, that she has had to be for she has borne a greater weight of responsibility for her family, its lands and its possessions than many a man.’

‘That is very often the case,’ Helewise remarked. ‘We are spoken of in disparaging terms as the weaker sex, the fragile vessel, and men proceed with their wars and their squabbles without so much as discussing them with us, never mind actually inviting our opinion. Yet do we not also live in this world? Should we not be a party to what is done upon it?’

‘Of course we should,’ the young woman said firmly. ‘As for being weak and fragile, what about giving birth? I’d like to see a man do that without yelling for his mother.’

Helewise smiled. ‘So, you pleaded not to marry Leo Rubenid but your mother said you must?’ She wanted to hear the rest of the story.

‘Yes. I do not know how it would have ended — I hope I would have had the courage to kill myself rather than take that man as my husband — but something happened and suddenly everything changed.’

‘What was it?’

‘I fell in love. It was very swift and, as I said, afterwards absolutely nothing was as it had been. Then I understood what being married to someone really meant and, because I loved my man totally and with all my heart, body and soul, I knew I would rather die than marry Leo Rubenid.’

‘Who was the man?’

‘He was a knight. He had come out to Outremer to fight for his lord’s kin against the Saracen threat. His lord had abandoned the fight and he, wishing to continue, went off to ally himself with a military order.’

‘The Knights Hospitaller,’ Helewise said. ‘My dear, I know something of this tale and, although I have not met him, I believe I know the identity of your man.’

‘Do you?’ breathed the young woman. Then she shook her head quickly and in a different tone said, ‘Yes, he offered his services to the Hospitallers and they were grateful to accept him. But later he encountered his lord again and the lord was very sick, so he escorted him back to the home of his kin. That was my home, my lady, in Antioch. My mother is a cousin of this sick lord and she and her ladies nursed him back to health. While this was going on, I had met my knight and we had fallen in love.’

‘He was a vowed monk!’ Helewise was shocked. ‘He had no business falling in love with anyone, especially the delicate young daughter of his lord’s kinswoman!’

‘He was not,’ the young woman said levelly.

‘Not what?’

‘He fought with the Knights Hospitaller and he took a name in religion; he was known as Brother Ralf. But he was not of them. He did not take his vows.’

Helewise wondered whether this was the truth. Was it not all rather convenient, that she should fall in love with a man she believed to be a monk, only to discover that he wasn’t?

The woman seemed to read her thoughts. ‘I am telling the truth, my lady. I give you my word.’

But I do not know you, Helewise thought. Your word may be worthless. ‘So you and this Brother Ralf ran away together?’

‘Not then. For three years we were mostly apart and we tried to live our own lives. He was fighting with his warrior monks; I was desperately trying to create new reasons why I should not yet proceed with my marriage to Leo Rubenid. He — my knight — visited me quite frequently, for his lord was still living in my house and he was permitted to attend him. We used to wonder if the magic would fade away during the long periods when we had to be apart but it never did; in fact our love grew. Then we learned that King Richard was sailing for home and our kinsman announced he would go too. There was no more reason for my lover to come to my home and we did not know what to do.’

Helewise had a dozen questions buzzing in her head but she said nothing. The narrative was compelling and she did not want to interrupt.

‘Then,’ the young woman went on, ‘the man known as Brother Ralf was selected for a secret mission. There was a young prisoner of the Hospitallers called Fadil who was to be ransomed back to his master. Only the payment for him was not gold or coin; it was something far more valuable and potentially very dangerous. The prisoner’s family had no intention of parting with this precious thing and the Hospitallers were planning to keep both prisoner and payment. Of the monks, Brother Ralf alone survived. He fled across the desert with Fadil and he had the ransom in his satchel. He knew he had to keep it out of the hands of all of those who so badly wanted it; he must take it so far away that they would never find it. He came for me, my lady, for he had to leave Outremer and go back to England, never to return. He could not go without me and one night he was there in the little courtyard below my window, and he said I must put on travelling clothes and steal a pair of stout boots, then pack up just a small bag for we had to travel fast and far.’

‘And that is what you did?’ Helewise was incredulous. ‘You abandoned your home and your family and you left?’

‘I loved him; I love him now,’ she said, her face softened by emotion. ‘Yes. I packed, dressed in my riding clothes and my travelling cloak, took my horse, my knife and my weapon and, before anyone even knew he was there, I joined him and off we went.

‘We rode by night and hid by day and in about a month we reached Constantinople, where as I told you we said farewell to Fadil. Lord, what a relief — I’ve never known anyone complain like Fadil! Brother Ralf and I had everything to lose if we were caught but so did Fadil, for he would have been returned to Hisham and Hisham would have found exquisitely awful ways of punishing him for running away. Yet, despite that, he constantly moaned that he was hungry, he was tired, it was uncomfortable to ride for such long hours at a stretch and why did we have to ride at night in the dark?’ She smiled. ‘The three of us shared a farewell meal in Constantinople, which Fadil paid for, and what a feast it was! After a month on short rations, it was wonderful to eat such delicacies and we wolfed them down. I paid for my greed, though. I was sick as a poisoned dog all night.’

Helewise liked the young woman’s frankness. ‘So then it was just you and Brother Ralf on the long road home?’

‘Yes. A month to get from Antioch to Constantinople; two years to travel from there to our eventual destination. It has been a hard journey, my lady.’

That, thought Helewise, was an understatement if ever she had heard one. ‘You must have been frightened sometimes,’ she said. ‘You knew you were being followed.’

‘We did and I was,’ the young woman agreed. ‘Brother Ralf was incredible. He developed an instinct for danger — perhaps it is common among fighting men; I do not know — and for the most part he led us safely. By the time we reached Greece we had identified the three groups who were on our trail and Ralf thought our best bet was to take ship across to the kingdom of Naples and then make our way up through the Papal States to Lombardy and north across the mountains. We found a ship but we were caught in a storm and blown ashore on the island of Sicily. We had to stay there for almost three months because, of all the evil luck, one of the groups pursuing us had also ended up on Sicily and we had to hide till they left.’

‘I am amazed that these separate parties who pursued you did not lose you on the road,’ Helewise said.

‘They frequently did,’ the young woman replied. ‘We didn’t reach England via the same route. But it wouldn’t have worried any of them if they did lose us because they knew where we were going. They were all aware of Brother Ralf’s English origins and they knew where he was bound.’

‘Then why did you not make for a different destination? You could surely have evaded your pursuers and settled in some foreign land, safe from capture?’

‘We could have done, except that there was an imperative reason why Brother Ralf had to come here.’

‘Because he-’

But with an apologetic smile the young woman interrupted. ‘I cannot tell you, my lady. I am sorry.’

Helewise wondered why not. She thought for a few moments and then said, ‘There were the two Saracens sent by Hisham after Fadil and the ransom, the trio of Knights Hospitaller hunting their runaway monk, and who else?’ She thought she already knew the answer.

‘Leo Rubenid is not a man to suffer an insult in meek silence. As soon as he discovered his betrothed had fled with her lover, he selected two of his most ruthless and efficient Frankish mercenaries — their names are William and Tancred — and a Turkish bowman called Touros to go with them. It was this trio who landed on Sicily and, for me anyway, they presented the worst threat.’

‘Naturally so, for they would have taken you back to Leo and to a marriage you did not want.’

The young woman was watching her, one eyebrow slightly raised. ‘It would not have been marriage that awaited me, my lady,’ she said. ‘Leo would only accept a virgin bride, and the moment he discovered I’d had a lover he would not have wanted me any more. He would, however, have been determined to punish me. He would have made sure nobody knew he’d captured me and then he would have offered me to his men and watched as one by one they raped me. Then he would have had what was left of me sent down to one of the brothels on the coast and ordered some whoremaster to chain me up in a very small cupboard for the exclusive use of those men who were too diseased and too repulsive for the other prostitutes.’

‘You — how can you know this?’ Helewise whispered.

‘Because that is what he did to the girl he wished to marry before me when he found out that she had taken a lover.’

‘And still, knowing this, your parents were keen for you to marry him?’ she asked incredulously.

‘They did not know it, my lady. Please do not think worse of them than you probably do already.’

‘How did you find out?’

‘It was I who was being forced to marry him; it was up to me to discover all that I could about him and so I found people who, for a price, would root out such things. As I told you just now, I kept hoping that I would come up with something that would change my mother’s mind, and indeed I suppose I did, only it became irrelevant because I fled with — with Brother Ralf.’

A look of intense sadness crossed her face. Helewise believed she knew its cause and she got up and stood by over the young woman, putting out her hand. After a moment, it was grasped and tightly held.

‘Your mother would understand if she knew the truth,’ she said gently.

‘I keep hoping so,’ the woman said. ‘I torment myself with the thought that my mother and my dear father believe me to be an impulsive ingrate who abandoned them without a backward glance.’

‘If you love them and they you, then they will feel in their hearts that cannot be true.’ Helewise squeezed the hand and the young woman squeezed back; her grip was surprisingly strong. ‘They have known you all the years of your life. Their understanding of you will have told them what you are and I believe they will be well aware that whatever made you run away, you had no choice.’

There was a short silence. Then: ‘Thank you, my lady. Your words console me.’

Helewise returned to her chair, moving slowly and giving the young woman time to recover herself. When once more she was seated, she considered what she was about to say. Then, meeting the young woman’s eyes, she began, ‘I do not suppose that you are aware of it, but there are two Hospitallers lying in the infirmary here. They are the surviving members of the group that followed your Brother Ralf all the way from the desert outside Margat. One thing puzzles me: if Brother Ralf was not an avowed monk in their Order, why should they have gone to such lengths to try to catch him and punish him? Did they not know that he had not taken his vows?’

The young woman’s green eyes were steady and she did not look away. She said, ‘Thibault of Margat knew all about Brother Ralf. He was well aware that in fleeing Outremer Ralf had committed no crime against the Knights Hospitaller.’ She leaned forward, her expression intense. ‘My lady, it is not Brother Ralf that the Knights Hospitaller want so desperately to get their hands on. It is what he carries with him.’