Ashes of the Elements

Chapter Five

Seeing Josse on his way, Helewise felt much calmer than she had done earlier. It was not so much that he had resolved the problem of what to do about Caliste, more that it had been such a luxury to speak frankly with someone of Josse’s sound common sense.

‘You must certainly postpone the girl’s admission into the ranks of the fully professed,’ he had agreed. ‘It wouldn’t be fair, Abbess, either on the girl or on the community, to promote her to a life of dedication and maturity for which, from what you tell me, she isn’t yet ready.’

As well as endorsing Helewise’s own view, he had, however, also ventured a suggestion of his own. A typically practical one, and one which the Abbess herself should have thought of. And I might have done, she had reflected, listening to him, had my mind not been fixed on the abstract things of the spirit, at the expense of the more tangible matters of the day to day.

‘Why not put the girl to working with one of your nuns with a particularly strong but, if I may use the word, simple faith?’ Josse had said tentatively. ‘If you have such a sister.’

‘Indeed I have!’ Helewise said, lighting on the idea. ‘Sister Beata, whom you have met — a nurse in the infirmary. She is just such a one, and the perfect mentor for a novice who needs to be coaxed more firmly into our spiritual fold!’

But, dampening her enthusiasm, another thought struck her.

‘What’s the matter?’ Josse must have read the sudden doubt in her face.

‘Oh — merely that, at present, I have another young woman working in the infirmary. She has been with us for a couple of months while we and others search for a permanent post for her. Her name is Esyllt, and she arrived with her late mistress, a very old and crippled woman who died while she was with us, taking the holy waters. Esyllt was left with nowhere to go, and we thought it better to keep her here than to let her roam the countryside alone.’

‘Ah, it’s a big world out there, fraught with perils for an innocent young girl,’ Josse agreed.

‘Well, it wasn’t exactly-’ Helewise made herself stop. No need to gossip about Esyllt, and why Helewise was quite sure she wasn’t a suitable companion for the novice Caliste. Anyway, for sure, Josse would see what she meant, if and when he ever met the girl. ‘I shall move Esyllt to the aged monks’ and nuns’ home,’ the Abbess said decisively. ‘The Good Lord knows,’ she added in a murmur, ‘her vivacious spirit should have an excellent effect there. And Esyllt has gentle hands, and is used to caring kindly for the very old. Her late mistress spoke highly of her,’ she explained to Josse, ‘and it is partly at her earnest behest that we are at such pains to secure the right place for Esyllt.’

Esyllt transferred from infirmary to old people’s home, she had mused, Caliste moved from her pupillage under the wise but controversial Sister Tiphaine, to work under the watchful eye of Sister Beata, whose childlike faith might just work the necessary miracle.

Yes, I have much to thank you for, Sir Josse, Helewise thought now, as she watched him mount up. It occurred to her, not for the first time, that, at some point in his life, Josse d’Acquin must have become very used to the command of men …

‘Oh, Abbess, I almost forgot!’ He stilled the circling horse and gave Helewise a rueful grin. ‘I encountered a friend of yours on the road, a man named Tobias Durand. He asked to be remembered to you.’

‘Tobias Durand?’ She frowned, then recalled. But she would scarcely have called him a friend, having barely met him. ‘Indeed? And was there a message for me?’ Perhaps he had sent word regarding the Queen, who must surely have left for France by now.

‘No message,’ Josse replied. ‘Merely to send the Abbess Helewise of Hawkenlye his respects.’

‘Charming,’ Helewise murmured. Then, aloud, ‘Where did you say you met him?’

‘I didn’t. In fact it was on the track leading from the forest, some five miles off to the north-east.’ Josse waved a hand behind him. ‘The fellow was hawking. Said it was good land there, where the trees give way to fields and hedgerows. Plenty of small game, for the training of a new bird.’

‘Oh!’ Helewise was faintly surprised, since she had understood from Queen Eleanor that Tobias and Petronilla lived quite close to the coast. It seemed unnecessary, to come all the way to this particular stretch of the Wealden Forest, when there must surely be good hawking to be had nearer to home.

Still, it was none of her business.

‘Perhaps Tobias will pay us a call,’ she said.

‘Not today, he won’t.’ Josse turned his horse. ‘Said he was off home when I saw him.’

‘But I thought you said you met him this morning?’

‘Aye, I did.’ He steadied the horse, who was impatient to be, away. ‘Wait, Horace! We’ll be off directly!’

Then Tobias must have left his home very early, Helewise thought, still puzzled. Unless he had been staying with friends hereabouts? Yes! That must be it!

‘Was he alone? Tobias, I mean?’ she asked Josse. ‘Or with a company?’

‘What?’ Josse, clearly, wasn’t really interested. ‘Oh, quite alone. Now, Abbess, I must be on my way. Good day to you!’

‘Good day, Sir Josse. Come to see us again.’

‘I will.’ Josse grinned. ‘Apart from the pleasure of your company, Abbess, I’m intrigued by this poor dead body you trod on.’

‘I didn’t-’ she began. But, with a wave of his hand, he was gone.

Yes, she thought, walking back towards the cloister and her room. I might have known. Mention the words ‘suspicious death’ to Josse d’Acquin, and you ensure yourself of the pleasure of his company. At least, until the murder is solved.

* * *

The new arrangements were put into effect straight away and, as far as Helewise could tell, seemed to work well. Esyllt, who had a strong and melodious singing voice, which she liked to use as she worked, quickly became a favourite with the old monks and nuns living out their retirement at Hawkenlye Abbey. True, one or two of the more straight-laced old people expressed shock, that a young woman who wasn’t of the community should be allowed to tend them, and one old monk in particular took exception to Esyllt’s song about the young lad and his lass, and what they got up to on a moonlit harvest night. But the dissenters were overruled by the majority, who grew to cherish Esyllt for her brimming happiness and her loving touch on ancient, painful bodies.

Quite what it was that made Esyllt so cheerful, nobody knew or thought to enquire. Everybody worked hard at Hawkenlye Abbey; to have someone among them who had a pleasant word for all, who sang as she went about even the most crude of tasks, seemed like a gift from a thoughtful God, to brighten the long days.

Sister Caliste settled down too, in the infirmary. Sister Beata had at first confessed to Helewise that she was afraid the remarks of the infirmary patients might affect Caliste; most of those cared for by the nuns were from the outside world, and many didn’t know about convent etiquette, that forbade the making of personal remarks. Caliste, whose beauty shone like a beacon, was, in Sister Beata’s opinion, the recipient of far too many compliments.

But even Sister Beata had to admit that the girl hardly seemed to hear. ‘In fact, Abbess,’ Sister Beata went on, ‘sometimes it’s quite hard to make her hear anything! It’s as if-’ Sister Beata’s face crumpled into an uncharacteristic frown as she sought the words. ‘As if she’s listening to inner voices. Or music, perhaps, since, quite often, she starts to hum softly, as if she’s joining in.’

‘I see.’ Helewise did see, all too clearly; it was that strange humming of Caliste’s that had so disturbed the Abbess, the night she had found the girl sleepwalking.

Caliste might appear settled in her new work. But Helewise was very afraid that there were currents moving beneath the smooth surface. Currents that would, she feared, bring trouble.

* * *

Josse had discovered, in the first few days of his homecoming, that his impression of work on New Winnowlands being all but finished had been an illusion.

The builders were still busy on the kitchen, and there was a problem with the solar, which, apparently, only the master builder himself could put right. It was entirely Josse’s fault, was the implication, for being so daft as to want a solar in the first place.

Josse tried to help, making suggestions, rolling up his sleeves and offering his strong arms and back.

But it was made quite obvious that he was not wanted; the builders, who never actually said so, managed to imply that, by hanging around where they were working, Josse was offending against some unwritten but unbreakable rule.

So he retired to his hall.

But there was nothing to do!

The long summer days drew him outside, yet, once there, he had to keep dodging workmen. In desperation, he remembered the Hawkenlye murder.

And thought, damnation and hellfire, I’ll see if I can do better than that sheriff fellow!

* * *

He arrived in Tonbridge, where, enquiring for Sheriff Harry Pelham — bless the Abbess, for informing Josse what the man’s name was — he learned that, it being the midday hour, the sheriff would likely be taking his dinner.

Fortunately for Josse, the sheriff’s preferred inn was the one where Josse had himself once put up; leading his horse into the yard, he met the innkeeper, Goody Anne, hurrying across from one of her storehouses with a side of ham under one strong arm.

‘Well! Good day to you, stranger!’ she cried, giving him a broad smile. ‘And just where have you been all this time?’

Grinning back, Josse said, ‘Here and there, Anne. How are you?’

‘I’m well. We’re very busy, but that’s how I like it. Are you eating? I’ve a side of beef just broached, and this here ham’s in its prime.’ She gave the haunch a friendly slap.

‘I’m ravenous,’ Josse said. ‘And I’ve a thirst on me like a man lost in the desert.’

Anne batted her eyelids at him. ‘You’ve come to the right place to see to your appetites,’ she said. With a seductive swing of her ample bottom, she disappeared through the door into the kitchen. Faintly her voice reached him: ‘All your appetites!’

In the taproom, Josse ordered beer and food. Then, casting his eyes round the company, he tried to guess which man might be Sheriff Pelham.

He was in luck. A newcomer entering the room shouted out, ‘Sheriff? I’ve a message for you!’ and a stout, strongly built man in a battered leather tunic stood up and said, ‘Here!’

Josse waited until the newcomer had given his message and left. Then, casually, he sauntered across to where the sheriff was tucking into his meal and said, ‘May I sit beside you?’

The sheriff waved a knife on whose point was speared a leg of chicken. ‘S’a free country,’ he said, spitting out small pieces of pale meat which landed, like minute snow flakes, on the front of the already stained tunic.

Josse tucked into his own dinner. Observing the sheriff’s progress as he did so, he waited until the man had finished, wiped his greasy mouth with an even greasier sleeve, burped, taken a draught of beer, said, ‘Ah! That’s better!’ and relaxed, leaning back against the wall.

Only then did Josse say, ‘I was visiting Hawkenlye Abbey recently. They tell me a man was killed, and that you, Sheriff, went to investigate?’

‘Aye?’ the sheriff said warily. Josse could almost hear the silent, and what’s it to you, stranger?

‘I’m known to the good people of the Hawkenlye community,’ Josse went on. ‘I hear there’s a suggestion of some weird forest tribe being involved in this death? They say that someone cleverly put two and two together, and virtually solved the crime there and then.’

His vanity thus appealed to, the sheriff became voluble. ‘Well, stands to reason,’ he said, leaning confidingly towards Josse. ‘See, the dead man was a poacher, a no-good fellow, I’ve had my problems with him before. Anyway, how I see it is that he goes into the forest after game, he comes across this group of Forest People, they don’t like him trespassing into what they see as their preserve, so they chuck a spear at him. Kill him stone dead.’

‘Very likely, very likely,’ Josse agreed. ‘Clever deduction, Sheriff! The only solution, really, isn’t it? Especially when you knew these Forest People were in the vicinity that night.’

‘Well…’ the sheriff began. Then, more aggressively, ‘That uppity Abbess woman, she didn’t believe me! Me, who’s lived round here man and boy, who’s known about the comings and goings of those wild folk all my life! Why, my old father used to talk of them, and his father before that!’ He picked a piece of meat out of a back tooth, spat it on the floor and said, ‘Women! Eh? Think they know it all!’

‘I am actually rather impressed with the Abbess Helewise,’ Josse remarked.

It was a mistake. The sheriff, anger darkening his face, said suspiciously, ‘She sent you here, didn’t she? Sent you to talk to me, try to trip me up!’ He put his face right against Josse’s. ‘Well, let me tell you, Sir Knight, whoever you are, that Harry Pelham doesn’t take kindly to folk making a fool of him!’

‘I’m not trying to do that, Sheriff Pelham.’ Josse got to his feet. ‘There’s no need,’ he added, ‘for anyone to make a fool of you.’

Harry Pelham, who seemed to be working out whether or not that last remark came to a compliment, sat with his mouth open as Josse shouldered his way out of the room.

* * *

Riding up the ridge towards Hawkenlye, Josse thought about the death of Hamm Robinson.

Not that it took him long; the facts were brief enough to be summed up in a single sentence. And, as Abbess Helewise had said, nobody seemed to have investigated the matter. Not at all.

I shall, Josse thought. I shall visit his family, his friends, if he had any. Visit the spot where he was found.

I shall think about this strange slaying. And, only when I have done so, shall I know if to accept this all-too-obvious, all-too-convenient conclusion.

* * *

Arriving at the Abbey, he was informed that the Abbess was in the infirmary, speaking with a man dying of the wasting sickness, whose last hours were being made even more agonising by his fear over what would become of his wife and his many children.

Josse went over to the infirmary. Standing just inside the door, left slightly ajar to let in the sweet-smelling air, he looked around him.

Yes. There was the Abbess, kneeling beside a poor, feeble-looking man who was clutching her hands tightly in his. So the man had a large family? Yes. Josse had observed before how often men suffering from the terrible blood-spitting were yet potent enough to father a whole tribe of offspring. Josse studied the Abbess’s intent face. She was speaking earnestly to the man, nodding as if in emphasis, every part of her clearly determined to get her message across.

Josse, unable to hear what she was saying, couldn’t tell what that message was. Assurance of God’s mercy? Hope for the afterlife? It occurred to him that, if he himself were dying and desperate, there was nobody he would rather have, both at his side and on it, than the Abbess Helewise.

A soft voice said, ‘May I help you, sir?’

Turning, he saw a young girl in nun’s black, over which she wore the white veil of the novice. She was quite tall, slimly built, and carried herself like a queen. The skin of her finely boned face was cream and smooth, and her eyes were deep blue. Despite the stark habit, despite the fact that her sacking apron was stained with something Josse didn’t want to dwell on, the girl was beautiful.

He knew who she was, or was almost sure that he did. ‘Sister Caliste?’

She nodded. ‘And you, I think, are Sir Josse d’Acquin.’

He returned her smile. No man still able to see could have done anything else. ‘Aye. I have come to speak to the Abbess, but I see she is busy.’

Caliste looked over to where Abbess Helewise was smoothing the brow of the dying man. ‘She is. She gives him such comfort, sir. She is telling him what will be done for his wife and his little ones.’

‘I would have thought she’d be praying with him.’

The great blue eyes turned to him. ‘That too. But I think that he will not concentrate on his prayers until his anxieties are assuaged.’

Such perception, Josse thought. And the girl had a way with words that suggested some education. ‘I will wait outside,’ he said.

‘I will keep you company, if you wish,’ the girl offered politely. ‘The Abbess likes our visitors to feel welcome.’

‘Most kind,’ Josse said. ‘If you’re sure I’m not keeping you from your work?’

Caliste smiled again, removing her dirty apron. ‘I have just finished one of my less agreeable duties. I was about to visit Sister Tiphaine, to request some herbs for Sister Euphemia’s medicines. If you would care to accompany me, sir?’

Outside, he fell into step beside the girl. Observing her covertly, he noticed that she had adopted the upright glide of a nun, that her hands, temporarily unoccupied, were automatically tucked into the opposite sleeves. Yes, she looks like a nun all right, he thought. But …

But?

He couldn’t define exactly what there was about Caliste. But, as Helewise had discovered before him, in truth, there was something …

‘It is more usual to go to Sister Tiphaine’s workroom the other way, passing the front gate,’ Caliste said, breaking the silence, ‘but I like to go this way. For one thing, I can have a passing look at the tympanum, over the door of the church — she withdrew a hand and pointed up at the great carving, depicting the Last Judgement — and, for another, this way you go through the herb garden.’

They walked on, past the door of the Lady Chapel, past the virgin sisters’ house, past the windowless, doorless walls of the sinister little building which, Josse knew, was the Abbey’s leper house. Sister Caliste, he noticed, crossed herself as they passed. He did the same.

Then, around the corner, sheltered against the south wall of the Abbey, they came to the herb garden.

The month was June, and many of the plants were in full leaf. Stopping, Josse took a deep breath, and the combined aromas of rosemary, sage, mint, lavender, and a dozen other plants whose names he did not know, filled his head. He breathed deeply again, and again, then, feeling dizzy, abruptly he stopped.

Beside him, Caliste giggled. ‘It’s not really very wise to do that, Sir Josse,’ she said. ‘The herbs are powerful just now. You have to treat them with respect.’

‘I see what you mean,’ Josse said. Gingerly, he stepped forward; the dizziness seemed to have gone.

‘This way,’ Caliste said, stepping out along a narrow path bordered neatly with box hedging. ‘Sister Tiphaine’s workroom is just ahead.’

He waited outside the little shed while Caliste went in to fetch whatever it was she had been sent for. She was not gone long, but, even so, her absence gave sufficient time for a warm exchange of words between her and the herbalist. And a soft outburst of laughter.

‘You used to work with Sister Tiphaine, I believe,’ he said as he and Caliste made their way back to the infirmary. ‘Do you regret being moved to nursing duties?’

‘I-’ Caliste hesitated, shooting a quick, assessing glance at him. ‘I will tell you the truth, Sir Knight,’ she said, obviously deciding in his favour. ‘I loved working with Sister Tiphaine, who was kind to me and generous with the sharing of her wide knowledge. When I was told of my new duties, I was sad. But I am a nun, and I must do what I am told.’

Moved to pity, he said, ‘I am sorry for you, child. I know what it is to have to obey, when the dictates of one’s heart say differently.’

‘Do you?’ She stopped, staring at him. ‘Yes,’ she murmured, ‘I believe you do.’ As if recognising in him a kindred spirit, she smiled. But this time, the expression seemed to include all of her soul.

Quite shaken, he smiled back.

After a pause, he said, ‘Have you settled down in your new work? Are you happy, Sister Caliste?’

She replied, ‘I have, and I am. I tell myself that, if I am to make a good nun, then I must learn not to have — what was it you said? Dictates of the heart? Yes. Not to have those. And I am happy.’

There seemed nothing else to say. They walked, in silence, side by side back to the infirmary.

But, as she stood back to let him go in first, Caliste said, ‘Thank you for asking, Sir Knight. It was kindly done.’

In a barely audible whisper, she added, ‘And I do not forget a kindness.’