Ashes of the Elements

Chapter Nineteen

Raising her head to return the greetings of those eagerly awaiting them at Hawkenlye Abbey, Helewise noticed that, standing at the back of the little clutch of anxious nuns, was Caliste.

Oh, child, I must speak to you! Helewise thought, giving the girl a quick smile.

‘Abbess dear, your forehead!’ Sister Euphemia was crying, trying simultaneously to wring her hands and put out an exploratory finger to touch the wound. ‘That dressing looks filthy! You must come with me at once, and I will see to you!’

‘Sister Euphemia, I thank you, but-’

‘Abbess! Oh, Abbess, a night spent in the woods, and no proper, hot food inside you all that time!’ Sister Basilia moaned, taking hold of Helewise’s sleeve in a firm grip as if she would drag her bodily over to the refectory and stuff her with simmering stew and good new bread.

‘Abbess, I wish audience with you,’ Sister Emanuel’s quiet voice said in Helewise’s left ear. ‘A matter of urgency-’

‘Please!’ Helewise burst out, drowning the clamour. ‘Sisters, thank you for your welcome and for your concern. You cannot know how it gladdens my heart to be among you again, and, in due course, we shall all go to pray, to give thanks to the Lord for His care. Now, then.’ She turned to them one by one. ‘Sister Euphemia, my wound was tended adequately by Sir Josse, and the pain is not great. I will, I promise, present myself at the infirmary and ask for your ministrations, just as soon as I am able. Sister Basilia, both Sir Josse and I would benefit from a hot meal; will you please take Sir Josse to the refectory straight away? I will join you in a little while. Sister Emanuel, what…’

But Sister Emanuel had silently slipped away.

Making a mental note to seek her out as soon as she was free, Helewise caught Sister Caliste’s eye and, with an all but imperceptible gesture, indicated that the girl should follow her.

Then, with a good deal of relief, she extracted herself from her fussing, well-meaning nuns and fled for the privacy of her own little room.

* * *

When she and Caliste were safely behind the closed door, Helewise said without preamble, ‘I have seen your sister. She is well, and she is pregnant.’

Sister Caliste’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘Abbess, I am so sorry!’ she said from behind it.

‘Sorry?’ Helewise sank down in her chair. ‘For what, Sister?’

‘What must you think of it all!’ Caliste cried. ‘And Selene is my sister, my own flesh and blood!’

Helewise thought for a moment. Then: ‘Caliste, we do not choose the family into which we are born. Whoever they are, of whatever station in life, indeed, of what faith, is not within our power to control. What we do have to do, however, is to make our own choices, guided by our heavenly Father and in the hope that we do what is right.’ She paused. ‘Your sister has, through no fault of her own, lived her life in a society whose standards are very different from our own, and whose people have not had the benefit of God’s holy light.’

In a sudden flash, she was back in the forest. And the age-old wisdom — the feminine wisdom — in the Domina’s intelligent eyes seemed once more to flood through her.

She did not live with the blessings of God’s holy light. And yet …

I am back in my Abbey now, she told herself — told the Domina — firmly. Things are not the same, here.

Sister Caliste was waiting patiently for her to go on, but she seemed to have lost her thread.

She smiled feebly at the girl. ‘All is well,’ she said.

‘Oh!’ Caliste looked surprised, as if she had expected more. After a moment, she said, ‘Abbess, I shall not see Selene again.’

‘You cannot be sure,’ Helewise said gently. It seemed a hard thing for a young girl to accept. ‘After all, the Great Forest is but a step away!’

‘Yes, but it extends across hundreds of miles,’ Caliste said, ‘and the Wild People roam its entire length and breadth.’

‘Nevertheless-’ Helewise began.

‘Abbess, forgive me for interrupting you, but it is not that.’ Caliste’s smooth brow wrinkled in a frown. ‘How to explain?’ she muttered. Then: ‘You said before that I should wait a while before taking my final vows,’ she went on.

‘I did,’ Helewise agreed. ‘I wondered if you were entirely sure you knew what you were doing.’

Caliste smiled. ‘You were right, Abbess Helewise. I thought I was, but that’s not good enough, is it?’

‘No.’

‘But it’s different now.’ The girl’s face grew serious, earnest. ‘It’s as if — that is, I think-’ She paused, collected herself and said, ‘I was worried about Selene. It felt as if a part of me was being drawn out of me and away into the forest, to share in what she was doing. That’s why I went off to look for her that day, because I needed to see her. Oh, we were only together for a moment — it took a very long time to find her, even though she was actually looking for me, too — but it was enough. I didn’t tell anyone where I was going, only that old dear, Hilde, in the infirmary, and I thought I could slip out and be back again before anyone noticed I was gone. I felt she needed me, you see. Selene, I mean. I felt that she was apprehensive.’

Helewise said quietly, ‘That is only natural, under the circumstances.’

Caliste threw her a grateful look. ‘I knew you would understand. But things have changed. She’s no longer calling me, she’s happy. She’s done what she wanted to do, and now she’s gone away from me.’ This was said totally without self-pity. ‘And it means, Abbess — oh! it’s so wonderful — it means I can be whole again. And that means I’m ready.’

Mentally, Helewise went through the hurried, breathless little speech again. Ready. Did she mean ready to take her vows? She looked up at the radiant, beautiful face, even lovelier now that the worry of uncertainty had gone.

You are ready, Helewise thought. Ready, with God’s help, to make a very good nun.

She rose, went round to stand in front of Caliste, who, fully appreciating the gravity of the moment, fell to her knees. Taking Helewise’s outstretched hands, she bent her head over them. Softly Helewise heard her say, ‘Thank you.’

‘It is I, or, rather, the community at Hawkenlye, who should thank you, Sister Caliste,’ Helewise replied. ‘Already we appreciate your talents with the sick. You are loved by your patients, and you are steadily earning the respect of your fellow nuns, especially those of them who are also nurses. As one of the fully professed, we will from now on be assured that you will continue to be with us.’ She helped Sister Caliste to her feet, and, on impulse, leaned forward and dropped a soft kiss on her cheek.

‘Oh!’ Caliste said. Then, a wide smile of pure joy spreading over her face, she said, ‘Abbess, may I go and tell Sister Euphemia the news?’

And Helewise said, ‘Of course.’ Realising as she spoke that she was echoing the Domina’s benediction, she added, ‘Go in peace.’

* * *

Josse, having eaten rather too well of Sister Basilia’s splendid meal, took himself off down to the monks’ quarters in the vale and begged a quiet corner and a bed roll from Brother Saul. With a sympathetic look, Brother Saul obliged.

As Josse settled himself down in the shade behind the pilgrims’ shelter, Saul said, ‘I will see that you are not disturbed, Sir Josse.’

‘Thank you, Saul.’

* * *

It was not Brother Saul who awakened him, but the sound of running feet.

Opening his eyes, Josse saw Brother Michael pounding down the track from the Abbey, habit flying, arms waving. Josse, instantly wide awake, leapt up and went to meet him.

‘How did you know,’ Brother Michael panted, ‘that I was coming for you?’

‘Intuition,’ Josse replied. ‘What is it, Brother Michael?’

‘I was up at the Abbey,’ Brother Michael said, ‘getting some liniment for one of the pilgrims taking the water — he’s been carrying a sick child for two days and he’s ricked his back, really painful, it is, makes him walk all sideways, and I thought I could-’

‘Brother Michael,’ Josse prompted.

‘Sorry, Sir Josse. While I was there, this rider came in, horse all lathered up, and he says he must see the Abbess, he has terrible news.’ Brother Michael’s eyes rounded with the drama of his tidings.

‘And?’

‘He was directed to Abbess Helewise, he disappeared into her room, then, before you could say a Hail Mary, the two of them came out again and she — the Abbess — sees me and says, Brother Michael, go and get Sir Josse!’

‘And here you are,’ Josse observed. ‘Well?’

Brother Michael’s simple face looked mystified. ‘Well what?’

‘What was the rider’s message? Why does the Abbess need me?’ Josse said patiently.

‘Oh! Didn’t I say?’ Michael smiled in relief, as if overjoyed that Josse’s question could be so easily answered.

‘No, Brother Michael, you didn’t.’

Brother Michael leaned towards him, face grave. ‘There’s been a death,’ he whispered. ‘Another death!’

* * *

Helewise had been hoping for the same little post-prandial rest that Josse had enjoyed. Having seen the radiant Sister Caliste on her way, she had submitted herself to Sister Euphemia’s tender hands, and now wore a fresh dressing over the cut on her forehead. Sister Euphemia had given her a cloth soaked in the infirmarer’s special marshmallow solution, her specific for bruising, and Helewise, when she remembered, was pressing it periodically to her head.

Sister Basilia had totally overridden Helewise’s protests that she really wasn’t very hungry, and stood over her while she ate her platter of hot meat and gravy.

Then, at last, with a whole hour until it was time for Nones, Helewise had slipped away to her room. But, just as, settled in her chair, she was gratefully closing her eyes, she remembered Sister Emanuel.

It is my own fault, she told herself sternly as she stood up again. Rushing off like that, spending a night out in the open, away from the safety of the Abbey walls, it is hardly my nuns’ fault if, when at last I return, there are matters about which they need to consult me.

Sister Euphemia’s pad of lotion pressed to her throbbing forehead, she set off for the retirement home.

* * *

Sister Emanuel was standing by the bed of one of the oldest residents, an ancient, sour-faced nun who, in her working life, had been superior of a convent up on the North Downs. Demanding, never satisfied, it was, Helewise reflected, a tribute to Sister Emanuel’s devotion that she never let the old woman get under her skin.

‘… leaving me here all morning with a soiled pillow,’ the thin, scratchy voice was saying, ‘why, in my day, things were different, let me tell you, young woman!’

Sister Emanuel’s murmured reply was inaudible. Catching sight of Helewise, she made an excuse to the old nun and approached the Abbess.

‘Good afternoon, Abbess.’ She made a deep reverence.

‘Good afternoon, Sister Emanuel.’ Helewise paused. Then, since it was her policy to leave her nuns in no doubt that she understood the various crosses they had to bear, she said softly, ‘The Abbess Mary is a great perfectionist, is she not? And, as such, not your easiest patient.’

‘She is quite right to complain,’ Sister Emanuel replied. ‘Her porridge was spilled, and the mess was not properly cleaned up until I returned from Tierce.’

‘That, I should have thought, scarcely constitutes all morning,’ Helewise observed.

Sister Emanuel shot her a brief look of gratitude, swiftly supplanted by her usual expression of lofty calm.

‘You wished to speak to me, Sister?’ Helewise said.

‘I did, Abbess.’ Sister Emanuel looked down the ward, and, spotting another of the nuns who worked in the home, made a small gesture and then pointed to the door. The nun nodded her comprehension. Sister Emanuel said, ‘The Sister will take charge. Shall we go and sit outside, Abbess?’

‘As you wish.’

Sister Emanuel led the way out to the bench where she and Helewise had sat before. Then, when they had settled themselves, she said, ‘The girl Esyllt has been absenting herself.’ She paused, as if still uncertain how much of Esyllt’s aberrant behaviour she must reveal to her Abbess. Then she went on, ‘I realise that I — we — do not have control over her comings and goings out of working hours, but…’ She trailed off.

‘But she has been absent when she should be working,’ Helewise finished for her. Yes. That probably explained the dirty pillow that wasn’t changed quickly enough.

Sister Emanuel gave a brief nod. ‘Yes.’

‘Is she here now?’ Helewise asked.

Sister Emanuel’s face showed her inner struggle. ‘Well … Abbess, I am quite certain she has been delayed somehow, and that very soon she will return. I’m sure that, once she is here, she will work twice as hard and make up for the lost time.’

‘I see.’ Helewise thought briefly. Esyllt, she was well aware, was a godsend to the devoted and hard-pressed Sister Emanuel, and the Abbess understood the Sister’s conflict. Reporting Esyllt’s absence might mean some sort of disciplinary action that would rob Sister Emanuel of her best assistant, but, on the other hand, Sister Emanuel really couldn’t go on allowing Esyllt’s flouting of the rules, which actually meant that the retirement home often had to do without her anyway.

Helewise said carefully, ‘Sister, when Esyllt returns, would you please send her straight to me? I do not wish to usurp your authority within your own area of responsibility, but will you let me deal with this matter?’

‘Gladly!’ Sister Emanuel said. ‘But, Abbess, do you-’ She broke off. The most disciplined of nuns, it was alien to her training to ask a question of her superior.

Understanding, Helewise said quietly, ‘I do have an inkling of what this may be about, Sister Emanuel.’

‘She is deeply troubled, poor girl,’ Sister Emanuel said, shaking her head. ‘If she can be helped, Abbess…’ Again, she left the sentence unfinished.

‘I pray that she can be,’ Helewise said. She glanced at Sister Emanuel. ‘If that is the case, Sister, and there is a way out of her troubles for Esyllt, am I right in assuming that you would wish her to continue working here with you and your old people?’

‘Oh, yes!’ Sister Emanuel said, with uncharacteristic fervour. ‘Abbess, she is the best worker I have ever had.’

* * *

The afternoon was lazy with midsummer heat. Small blue butterflies flittered about the rosemary bushes that formed a hedge on the southern side of the cloister, and Helewise, reluctant to shut herself away in her room, sat down instead on the stone bench that ran along against the wall.

Esyllt, she thought sadly, is in torment. And, unable to come to me with her trouble, she appears to be trying to sort it out by herself. Oh, but she is so young! And, for all the happy confidence she used to possess, she is in truth but an inexperienced girl.

Helewise’s late husband had been wont to say, ‘Don’t go out looking for trouble, nor waste time worrying about things that might never happen.’ However, the Abbess, not being quite such an optimist, had always been a great believer in facing up to the worst that could happen, and planning what to do if it did. Usually, she had found, it didn’t. Nevertheless, having decided what to do if it did meant that those terrible four-in-the-morning anxieties, that ate at one’s peace of mind and took away any chance of sleep, could more readily be dismissed.

The worst that could have happened to Esyllt, Helewise was more and more convinced, was that, in the forest for some as yet unknown purpose on the last full-moon night, she had come across Ewen Asher, fleeing from his treasure-seeking activities in the fallen oak grove. And that he, full of the various thrills of finding valuables and being scared out of his wits, had been unable to resist the armful of well-developed womanhood that had literally tumbled against him. He had stripped Esyllt of her undergarments, been on the point of raping her — perhaps even succeeded, poor lass — when, in her horrified disgust and her terror, she had drawn the man’s own knife and stuck it into him.

As if that were not enough, Helewise thought miserably, now the poor child has to sit up here knowing that another is in jail awaiting trial for the murder.

What would happen if, as seemed highly likely, Seth Miller were found guilty and sent for execution? Would Esyllt let him hang, or would she come forward?

Helewise already knew the answer to that. Not that it was in the least consoling.

Trying to banish from her mind the dreadful images of a well-developed female body jerking and twisting on the end of a rope, while the face blackened and the swollen tongue began to protrude, abruptly she got up, went into her room and firmly closed the door.

* * *

She was on the point of going across to the Abbey church for some quiet moments of prayer before Nones when, from somewhere outside, she heard raised voices, followed by the thump of running feet. She was actually moving across to the door when someone’s fist began banging on it; opening up, she was met by the face of a stranger.

‘Abbess Helewise?’ the man gasped.

‘Yes?’

‘Abbess, do you have Sir Josse d’Acquin, King’s knight, putting up here?’ he demanded urgently.

‘Indeed. He is resting at present, down in the vale. Where the monks tend the pilgrims who-’

‘Abbess, forgive me, but please will you send for him?’ The man’s distress was evident. ‘We need his help!’

‘Of course,’ Helewise said, already leading the man back outside and looking round for someone who could take a message to Josse. ‘Ah! Brother Michael!’ she called. ‘Will you come here, please?’ Turning back to the man, she said, ‘Now, where do you come from, and what is the trouble?’

The man watched Brother Michael come hurrying across from the infirmary. His face intent, at first he didn’t answer.

‘Who sent you?’ Helewise repeated, rather more firmly.

‘Eh? Oh, yes. I’m Tobias Durand’s man, I serve him and the Lady Petronilla. And, oh, God!’ Momentarily his face crumpled, as if overcome all over again by whatever dire happening it was that required Josse’s help. ‘Abbess, we shall need your prayers, yours and all the sisters’,’ he said.

‘Why?’ she demanded.

He swallowed, and, making a very evident effort to control himself, said, ‘There’s been a death at the hall.’