Ashes of the Elements

Chapter Eighteen

Helewise, watching Josse, felt a wave of pity for him. He does not understand, she thought. It was as though he were still on some upper level of comprehension, where things were merely what they were, with no more profound or symbolic meaning.

But I understand, she realised wonderingly. For all that she had lived her life in the narrow worlds of, first, the homes of knights and, second, within the walls of an abbey, she knew, at some deep place in her mind, what the essence was of this strange, archaic, parallel world into which she and Josse had stumbled.

For a moment she felt a brief return of last night’s trance state, and, as if she were dreaming while awake, she seemed to see a circle of women, chanting, creeping apprehensively through dark underground passages, emerging into some rock womb of the earth where, at last, the ultimate mystery was revealed …

To them. To the women.

With a start, Helewise shook her head violently — sending shock-waves of pain from her wounded forehead — and dismissed the vision. I am a nun! she cried silently. I worship the one true God and His holy son Jesus Christ, and I live my life of service and devotion in an abbey dedicated to the blessed virgin, Mary!

What have I to do with the Great Mother?

From somewhere deep within herself — or possibly from the older woman standing so still, so tense, at her side, there came the beginnings of a reply. ‘We are all to do with the Great-’

But Helewise said aloud, ‘No,’ and the soft inner voice was stilled.

Josse was speaking. Bringing herself back to the present — not without difficulty — Helewise listened.

‘… another reason for killing Hamm Robinson?’ he was saying, directing a ferocious frown at the Domina.

Unperturbed, she said, ‘Hamm Robinson? Who is he?’

‘The man you stuck through with a spear!’ Josse cried.

‘Ah. You wish to know whether he was similarly an uninvited witness to a secret ceremony.’

‘Aye.’

A faint sneer crossed the smooth pale face of the Domina. ‘He was. He stood there at the edge of the holy grove, and I could see him drooling at what he saw. His life was already forfeit because he had killed the oak in the silver fruit grove. However, we would have slain him twice over, were that possible, for his double offence against us. Yes, Outworlder. The man Hamm was witness to that other procreation ritual, which took place in the grove two moons ago.’

‘You mean,’ Josse said slowly, ‘that the poor lass had to go through that twice?’

‘Still you do not understand,’ the Domina observed, her tone a few degrees colder. ‘Selene is aware of the honour of her role. It is the epitome of forest life, to be selected as preserver of the elemental essence of all that we are. And, naturally, she knew that, if the first seed-sowing were unsuccessful, then there would be another.’

‘You mention only one other ritual,’ Helewise said. ‘Why was there not one last full moon?’

The Domina turned her deep eyes to Helewise. ‘Because-’ she began.

But Josse did not let her finish. ‘There was!’ he shouted. ‘I was in the forest that night, I stood in the clearing with the fallen oak trees, and I heard your damnable chanting! You were there, I know full well you were!’

Helewise, amazed at the sudden profanity, was momentarily afraid of the Domina’s reaction. Slowly the older woman turned, until she was facing Josse, and, even from where she stood, Helewise felt the malevolence. But then, perceptibly, the Domina relaxed, and she said calmly, ‘We were there. I do not deny it. But there was no ritual that night.’ Pointedly she turned back to Helewise, as if to say, only another woman can understand these matters. ‘We believed Selene to have conceived, following the first ritual,’ she said. ‘Hence there appeared no need for a second. However, what had been within her slipped away. Her womb did not hold new life.’

Helewise, amid everything else, was struck with the incredible skill of anyone who could tell, so early on, whether or not a girl was pregnant. ‘It’s very hard to judge,’ she agreed, ‘in the first weeks. The symptoms are quite slow to show up.’

The Domina was looking at her with amusement. ‘Symptoms,’ she repeated.

‘How else?’ Helewise asked simply.

The Domina moved closer to her, eyes narrowed in concentration. ‘There is life, or there is not life. And life sends out its own emanations.’ She held out an arm, the hand outstretched so that the thumb and fingers spanned a rough circle. ‘The aura of a newly conceived infant is faint but detectable, from the very moment when its life begins.’ She must have noticed Helewise’s incomprehension, for, lowering her hand, she said, ‘Ah, well. Perhaps, like so many other things, it is a skill that Outworld women have lost.’

Incredible, Helewise thought. Quite incredible. If she understood right, the Domina was claiming that she had known straight after the first ritual that Selene had conceived, but, as often happened, the new pregnancy was not sound, and had soon failed. Now, two months later, the girl had been impregnated again …

‘Is she pregnant now?’ she asked.

The Domina smiled. ‘She is. And, this time, the new life is vibrant and strong. It is a male child,’ she added.

Josse, apparently, had endured enough of this. He said, stubbornly returning to the matter uppermost in his own mind, ‘Why were you chanting, then, that night? If there was no ritual, what were you doing?’

Steady! Helewise wanted to say. We are on the Domina’s ground, and it is neither diplomatic nor prudent for us to interrogate a woman possessing powers such as hers!

As if the Domina had heard, she turned and said to Helewise, ‘Do not be distressed. I will answer the man.’ Then, to Josse: ‘There were Outworlders in the grove that night.’ A faint smile crossed her face. ‘Outworlders other than you, man. We were there to observe.’

He looked doubtful. ‘Not to kill?’

‘Not to kill,’ she confirmed. ‘The Outworlder who bled like a stuck pig on to the forest floor did not die at our hands.’ She fixed Josse with piercing eyes. ‘We kill cleanly. And, as you are well aware, Outworlder, that man took a time to die.’

Josse, Helewise noticed, was nodding. ‘Josse?’ she whispered. ‘What does she mean?’

He shot her a compassionate look. ‘I heard him,’ he said.

‘Oh!’ He heard a man die! she thought, horrified. Heard the screams of a long drawn-out death. Oh, dear God!

‘We saw you, too,’ the Domina said to Josse. ‘As I think you are aware. We knew you visited the grove, both that night and the night before.’

Josse gave a brief grin, which looked more like a grimace. ‘Yes. I know. I felt eyes on me, both times.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘You did not harm me,’ he said.

‘No,’ the Domina agreed. ‘Of all the Outworlders in our realm that night, you had some faint sense of what the forest element means.’

Josse nodded slowly. ‘Aye.’

‘You stood by the fallen trees, and you mourned for the life that was no more.’

‘Aye.’

Helewise said tentatively, ‘Josse?’

He turned to her. ‘I couldn’t tell you,’ he said, an apology in his voice. ‘I — it — oh, it’s just not something I knew how to put into words.’

‘No,’ she said softly. ‘I see that.’

He was looking at the Domina. ‘Why?’ he asked.

‘Why?’

‘Why did you not harm me?’ he said. ‘I wondered then, and I wonder now. Wonder, indeed, why you are here with us, answering our questions, tolerating our presence, when you have demonstrated quite clearly before that you do not welcome strangers.’

The Domina pointed to his pack, lying on the stream bank where he had thrown it. ‘That is why.’

‘The pack?’

She gave a soft sound of impatience. ‘No, Outworlder, what is on your pack.’

He looked. As he turned back to the Domina, Helewise knew, before he spoke, what he would say. ‘The talisman,’ he whispered. ‘You saw the talisman.’

‘It is ours,’ the Domina said.

‘Who put it on my pack?’

The Domina smiled. ‘Who do you think?’

‘Caliste,’ he said, an answering smile creasing his face. ‘It was Caliste.’

‘It was,’ the Domina agreed. ‘You must have made a favourable impression, Outworlder,’ she said, with gentle irony. ‘Caliste understands our signs, and, by putting the amulet of the Sword of Nuada on your pack, she was saying, as plain as light, do not harm him.’

‘Dear Lord,’ Josse muttered. Then, as if a new thought had occurred to him, he glanced at Helewise and said urgently, ‘Does that still hold good?’

For a long moment the Domina did not answer. She stared back at Josse, then turned her steady gaze to Helewise.

It felt, Helewise thought amid the fear, as if her very brain were being penetrated. By two thin beams of white light, which seemed to emanate from the Domina’s extraordinary eyes and pierce through Helewise’s pupils.

It was a ghastly sensation.

But, just as she was beginning to feel that she could endure no longer but must cry out for mercy, it stopped.

The Domina said, gazing innocently out over the stream, ‘By ancient law, you should both be put to death. It is not permitted for Outworlders to live, having shared in our secrets.’ Briefly she looked again at Helewise. ‘But you, woman, have taken to yourself one of our own, and she speaks for you.’ Bless Caliste for that, Helewise thought swiftly. ‘And you, man,’ the Domina turned to Josse, ‘bear the sacred talisman.’ She indicated the little sword on his pack. ‘Its protective magic overrides the death penalty. I could not slay a bearer of the Sword of Nuada, even if I wanted to. Not,’ she added softly, almost to herself, ‘without great difficulty.’

Helewise felt her rigid shoulders relax. Josse gave an audible sigh.

But the Domina hadn’t finished.

‘No harm shall come to you, for now!’ she cried suddenly, her raised right hand pointing threateningly at Helewise, at Josse. Then, more calmly, ‘For now, I release you back into your world. But you will not speak of what you have witnessed. Ever.’

‘No!’ Helewise agreed.

‘Never,’ Josse echoed.

The Domina was watching them, frowning as if deep in thought. Then, her expression lightening, she said, ‘If either of you break faith with me, I shall know. Have no doubt, I shall know.’ Helewise was quite certain she would. ‘And, should that happen’ — the Domina walked over to Josse, staring into his eyes for a moment, repeating the process with Helewise — ‘should that happen, whichever one of you has spoken of our secrets, I shall kill the other.’

In the shocked silence that followed her words, a single thought rushed into Helewise’s head: how very clever!

One of them, she or Josse, might have yielded to temptation, and, one dark night, whispered of what they had seen into some sympathetic ear. After all, it was human nature to confide, and, from King Midas’s poor barber onwards, the torment of carrying a marvellous secret, of keeping it for ever to oneself, was well known.

Yes, one of them might have felt it was worth the risk. Had it been merely their own safety that they were thereby putting in jeopardy.

But for each other, Helewise thought, looking across at him, that big, kind, strong man whom she had come both to like and admire. But for each other! Oh, dear Lord, I would not dare take the risk!

And neither, she knew equally well, would he.

The Domina was nodding in satisfaction. Knowing what Helewise was thinking, no doubt what Josse was thinking, too, she had, Helewise reflected, every right to be satisfied.

The Domina raised both hands, holding them palms-outwards towards Helewise and Josse. ‘Leave the forest,’ she intoned. ‘Do not come back to our deep realms. We go from here now, but we shall be back.’

She was backing away, the soft, subtle colours of her cloak seeming to merge with the undergrowth and the rich green foliage behind her. She was becoming hard to make out …

Her voice floated softly out from the trees: ‘Go in peace.’

Helewise and Josse stood by the stream for some time. Breaking the silence that had fallen around them, eventually Helewise murmured, ‘We wish the same to you.’

* * *

On the long trudge back through the forest, Josse repeatedly asked the Abbess if she were all right, or if she’d prefer to sit down by the track while he went on ahead to fetch a horse to bear her home.

And repeatedly she answered, ‘No, Josse. I can walk.’

He was worried about her. Her face was very white, and the bruise on her forehead was now enormous, the swelling bulging down beneath her left eyebrow and half-closing the eye. She looked, he thought with compassion, as if she had been in a taproom brawl, and come off the worse.

He still felt a little dizzy, especially if he moved his head too quickly. Whatever that woman had been burning on her fire last night, its effects were long lasting.

Turning briefly to check for the tenth time that the Abbess was still keeping up, he let his thoughts go back to the incredible events in which the two of them had just been involved. From which — and this seemed a cause for heartfelt gratitude and thankfulness — they had just escaped.

No. That was wrong. It should be, from which they had just been permitted to escape.

Dear God, but that had been a worrying moment, back there by the stream! By ancient law, you should be put to death, she’d said. How would she have done it? Spear in the back, like poor Hamm Robinson? Hardly, when he and the Abbess had been standing there in front of her — you could scarcely hurl a spear at someone not a yard away. Garrotte, perhaps? A quick loop round the throat, a swift twist, and death from a broken neck? Or a dagger to the windpipe? One neat, deep cut, then oblivion?

With an effort, he made himself stop his ghoulish train of thought.

We know now what Caliste’s connection with the forest is, he mused instead. Her twin lives still with the Wild People, and, given the renowned closeness of twins, she was probably picking up emotions of some sort from her sister. Emotions, perhaps, heightened by the rituals which Selene was undergoing.

Yes. What was more natural than that Caliste would want to be with Selene? Offer her support, perhaps, her encouragement. Give the girl comfort, even. After all, had Caliste been born first instead of Selene, it might have been her out there in the glade. Given all that, the theory certainly seemed likely.

He and the Abbess would, though, never know for sure. Unless the Abbess was able to get it out of Caliste. And, somehow, he couldn’t picture her trying all that hard.

The Forest People killed Hamm Robinson, for their own good reasons. That, Josse knew, was a crime that would never officially be ‘solved’; the perpetrator would escape justice. Would escape Outworld justice, he corrected himself, which was rather different. To say that whoever had flung that spear at Hamm Robinson should himself be executed was, from the Forest People’s point of view, like suggesting every hangman in England was guilty of murder.

Ah, well.

He glanced round to look at the Abbess again. Still marching along, face set. Not far to go now, thank heaven.

He was just beginning to relax, to enjoy the picture of a good dinner and a mug or two of wine which he was conjuring up, when his peace was shattered by an unwelcome thought.

The Domina said they did not kill Ewen Asher.

Josse had already known that, although it would have been a pleasant surprise if she had confessed to it after all.

But she hadn’t.

With a faint sigh, he hefted his pack higher up on his shoulders. Tired though he was, there would be more work ahead when he and the Abbess reached Hawkenlye.

This appalling business wasn’t over yet.