Ashes of the Elements

Chapter Six

When Helewise finally emerged from the infirmary and spared a few moments to greet Josse, he realised without her having to tell him that she was both preoccupied and very busy. In addition to the dying man, a woman in the nuns’ care had just given birth to twins, one of whom was sickly. So sickly that the Abbess was anxious to fetch the priest and arrange for immediate baptism. ‘Just in case,’ she added, with a sad little smile.

Also, one of the monks from the vale was being treated for a septic foot, and Brother Firmin had asked the Abbess to send down an extra pair of hands to help deal with the sudden rush of pilgrims, encouraged by the fine weather to come and take of the holy waters.

‘Does Brother Firmin not appreciate how busy you are, you and the sisters, with your own concerns?’ Josse asked her mildly.

A flash of anger briefly lit the Abbess’s grey eyes, there and gone in an instant. After taking a rather audible deep breath, she said, ‘Brother Firmin’s duty is to his pilgrims, Sir Josse. If he feels that he is short-staffed and cannot fulfil his duties properly, then he is right to ask for help.’

‘Ah,’ Josse said quietly. And folded his lips over what he would have liked to say next.

‘I’m sorry that I can’t help you in this matter of the murdered man,’ the Abbess said, looking around her as she did so. ‘Now, where is Brother Saul? I want him to act as my messenger, and go to find Father Gilbert…’

‘I wouldn’t dream of imposing,’ Josse said. ‘I shall proceed on my own, Abbess, and, in due course, report my findings. If I may?’

‘Yes, yes,’ she said, still looking for Brother Saul. ‘Ah! I see him.’ She hurried off towards the distant figure of Brother Saul, raising a hand and hailing him as she did so. Then abruptly she stopped, turned, and called back to Josse, ‘He lived in a tiny hovel down by the ford. His woman is called Matty, and he has two fellow-poachers named Ewen and Seth. Seth, I believe, is Hamm’s cousin.’

As Josse thanked her, he wondered how, in the midst of all she had on her mind, she had, first, discovered that information, and, second, stored it away and remembered it to pass on to him.

A remarkable woman, the Abbess of Hawkenlye.

* * *

Hovel, he reflected as he rode down the track to the ford, had been about right.

The track petered out into a muddy slipway as it neared the water. The stream issuing out of the forest was quite wide just there, fast-running over a good, firm base, the water slightly brown from the peat, and from the centuries upon centuries of fallen leaves that had gone into the making of the stream’s banks and bed.

It would have been a lovely spot, had it not been for the row of dwellings straggling up the track on the far side.

Two were deserted; even the most desperate of people, surely, could not live in a house with no roof and half its walls gone. The middle three were reasonably sound, and the last in the row was no more than a lean-to built against its neighbour, now being used to house livestock. A scrawny pig and a handful of miserable-looking chickens raised their heads as Josse splashed through the water, and a dog on a short length of fraying rope dashed out, gave a token few barks, then ran back into the lean-to with its tail curving tightly over its backside, as if in anticipation of a good hard kick.

Somewhere within one of the dwellings a baby cried, until it was silenced by a woman’s harsh voice.

Dismounting, Josse put his head into the doorway of the first hovel. The baby was sitting on the mud floor, naked but for a tattered shirt several sizes too big. It had its fist in its mouth, streaks of greenish snot ran from its nostrils, and the filth on its cheeks was lined by the tracks of tears. Close to its small right buttock was a turd, its end smeared from where the child had sat on it. There was no sign of the woman with the harsh voice.

He went on to the next doorway. The door was closed, and through a gap at the top, he peered inside. There was nobody there.

In the third house, a woman sat on the step, just inside the door. From the chipped pot on the floor beside her and the meagre pile of earth-covered turnips and carrots in her lap, it seemed she was meant to be preparing vegetables. In fact, she was staring listlessly in front of her, face cast down into lines of dejection. If she had heard Josse’s approach, she was not sufficiently interested to peer out and see who it was come a-visiting.

Josse said, ‘Are you the widow of the late Hamm Robinson?’

She looked up at him, tears welling in her eyes. At some time, she had suffered a broken nose; there was a big lump midway between the tip and the bridge. She had also lost several teeth. She said dully, ‘Aye.’

Josse went to stand beside the woman. ‘I am sorry for your loss,’ he said.

She sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. ‘Don’t know what’ll become of me,’ she said mournfully, sliding a quick glance up at him. Her voice took on the familiar whine of the professional beggar. ‘Nowhere to call me own, no man to bring in a bit of this and that,’ she moaned. ‘Where me next meal’s a-coming from, the dear Lord above only knows.’

Josse reached into the purse at his belt and took out some coins. ‘Perhaps these will tide you over.’ He dropped them into her lap.

Her hand shot out and the coins disappeared. ‘Thankee,’ she said.

Josse hesitated. There seemed little point in asking this browbeaten, dejected woman if her husband had had any enemies. Would she know? And, if she did, would she tell Josse?

He asked instead, ‘I believe your husband — er — worked with his cousin Seth? And another man — Ewen, is it?’

The dull eyes raised to his had a sudden spark of life in them. ‘You’re very well informed,’ she said tartly. ‘What’s it to you?’

‘Woman, it may interest you to know that I’m about the only person hereabouts who has the slightest interest in bringing your husband’s murderer to justice!’ he cried, suddenly angry. ‘I am trying to find out all I can about him, and I shall want to talk to everyone who knew him!’

‘Huh! That won’t take you long! There’s me, and I don’t know nothing about what he got up to, leastways, except he used to go into the forest, for all that I tried to stop him.’ She sniffed, making a thick snorting sound in her throat; had Josse not been standing in front of her, she might well, he thought, have hawked up the loose phlegm and gobbed it out on to the road. ‘Right, weren’t I?’ she flashed, with a sudden angry spiritedness. ‘Seeing as how them Forest People’ve gone and done for him!’

‘Yes, I know. As I said, I’m sorry.’ Josse brought his irritation under control. The woman was, after all, recently bereaved. ‘Did these men Ewen and Seth go with Hamm into the forest?’ he asked, trying to keep his tone conciliatory. ‘Did they — er — hunt with him?’

She eyed him with half-closed lids. Her eyes, he noticed, were an indeterminate pale colour, and the lashes were short and sparse. ‘They were poachers, the three of them,’ she said baldly. ‘As well you know. Everyone knows that, someone’ll have told you by now.’

‘Yes, I did know,’ Josse acknowledged. ‘The general view is that your husband was poaching the night he was killed, and that the Forest People didn’t like it.’

‘T’aint their game, no more’n it were his,’ the woman said bitterly. ‘They’ve got no call to go stopping other folk helping their-selves. Not to the game, anyhow, and as to the other-’ She bit off whatever she had been about to say.

‘The other?’ He tried to keep the excitement out of his voice.

‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘I’ll not say no more. I’ve been beaten by my own man long enough, I won’t risk one of them others starting where Hamm left off.’

‘But-’

‘No.’

And he watched as, with a dignity he wouldn’t have thought she possessed, the woman got to her feet, carefully picked up her pot and gathered her vegetables up in her fraying and filthy skirt, then stepped down inside her house and firmly closed the door.

* * *

Josse came upon Hamm Robinson’s partners in crime by sheer fluke. Riding up into the outer fringes of the forest, intending to have a look at the place where Hamm was found, he heard their arguing voices.

His luck did not extend to overhearing anything useful; hearing his horse, instantly they stopped talking. Far from being cowed like the woman, though, they went on the offensive.

‘Oi! What d’you think yer doing?’ one man called out.

The other was brandishing a stout staff. ‘State yer business!’ he said grandly.

Josse rode right up to them; Horace was a tall horse, and, being mounted, Josse felt he had the upper hand. Despite the stout stick.

‘Ewen and Seth, I take it?’ he said. ‘Friends of the late Hamm Robinson? Or should I say fellow thieves?’

It was a stab in the dark. But it got a response; the man carrying the stick began to swing it threateningly above his head, crying, ‘It were his idea! Hamm found it, it were Hamm made us go in along of him! I never-’

At that point, the other man hit him. Swung his elbow violently into the man’s stomach, so that he bent over into a right-angle, whooping for breath.

‘Take no notice of Ewen,’ Seth said over his friend’s gasping. ‘He’s right, sir, it were Hamm who said there was good game to be had in the forest, and us what went along with him.’

‘Game,’ Josse repeated. The wounded man had not, he was quite sure, been speaking of game. But, whatever he had meant, Josse wasn’t going to find out.

‘We’ve got our bellies to fill, same as everyone else,’ Seth went on self-righteously. ‘When there’s rabbit and deer aplenty in there,’ he jerked a thumb back towards the dark forest behind him, ‘then where’s the harm? That’s what I say, sir!’

‘Quite,’ Josse said. ‘Only someone, apparently, didn’t agree. To the extent of slaying your late cousin with a well-aimed spear.’

The man paled visibly at the reminder, but stood his ground. The wounded man — Ewen — renewed his moaning. ‘I told you, Seth!’ he said shakily. ‘Told you, aye, and him too! Hamm, I says, you go in there again, and they’ll-’

He was, Josse observed, not a man to learn a lesson quickly; as before, what he had been about to say was abruptly cut off. This time, the blow was severe enough to floor him; as Josse turned Horace’s head and kicked him into a trot, he saw Seth aim a booted foot at his fallen friend’s head.

* * *

All the way back to the Abbey, Josse puzzled over what a smalltime poacher and, probably, petty thief, could have discovered deep within an ancient forest. What could be valuable enough to make not only Hamm but his two colleagues go into that place of fearful legend? Superstitious, like all their kind, it must surely have been something extraordinary.

Whatever Hamm had discovered, it seemed to have led directly to his murder. It had always struck Josse as fairly unlikely, that these mysterious forest folk should have speared a man to death purely for snaring a brace of coneys; it was far more credible that, somehow, Hamm had uncovered something they preferred to keep secret.

But what?

Something, probably, that Hamm reckoned he could turn readily into cash, for nothing else, surely, would have made him risk the forest by night.

Buried treasure? A hoard of Roman coins? The rumours spoke of Roman occupation of the great Wealden Forest; they had extracted iron from it, made sound tracks through the primeval woodland, traces of which could still be found now, a thousand years later. Had Hamm, in the course of his poaching, dug into a rabbit warren under some ancient oak and come across a bounty he didn’t expect?

Speculation. It was all speculation. No matter how likely it was beginning to sound, Josse had no proof.

And, he concluded as he rode through the Abbey gates, there was only one way to change that.

* * *

Abbess Helewise was sitting in the cloister, eyes closed, the late sun on her face. Josse didn’t like to disturb her, but, on the other hand, she had said he might report any findings to her …

He was still hovering, trying to decide if to wake her or not, when she said, ‘I’m not asleep. And I know it’s you, Sir Josse, nobody else here wears spurs that jingle when they walk.’

He went to sit beside her on the narrow stone ledge. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you. I know you’ve had a busy day.’

She sighed. ‘Indeed. But the outcome has, in part, been satisfactory. The sick baby was baptised — his brother, too — and he has, I think, taken a turn for the better. He is suckling well, and has a little colour.’

‘Thank God,’ Josse said.

‘Amen.’ There was a slight pause, then she said, ‘And you, I imagine, have news, too?’

‘Aye.’ Briefly he told her what he had discovered, and what he now thought had happened. ‘I’m going to have a look,’ he added, with an attempt at nonchalance. ‘Tonight, probably. Nothing like striking while the iron’s hot!’ He attempted a laugh, not very convincing, even to himself.

The Abbess said slowly, ‘You think Hamm Robinson was killed by the Forest People because he had found out about something they prefer to keep to themselves, and now you propose to go into the forest tonight, and try to find out what this something was.’

‘Aye.’ Funny how, when she said it, it did sound a little foolhardy. ‘I’ll be all right, Abbess, I can take care of myself.’

‘Yes, Sir Josse,’ she said with heavy irony, ‘you have, I’m well aware, eyes in the back of your head which will see the spear coming.’

It was not a good thought; he felt the muscles of his back contract in a brief involuntary spasm. ‘I’ll be armed,’ he said defensively. ‘And, unlike poor Hamm, I’ll be on the look out.’

‘That’s all right, then,’ said the Abbess.

‘I have to do something!’ he said with sudden fierceness.

‘Hush!’ she hissed swiftly, ‘someone will overhear!’

‘I want to find out who killed him and why,’ Josse went on, in a whisper that was almost as loud as his normal speech. ‘I can’t just let it go, even if you can!’

That last remark was unfair, and he knew it. Regretting the words as soon as he had spoken them, he said, ‘Sorry, Abbess. I know you would find the killer if it were within your power.’

She didn’t reply for some time, and he was afraid he had mortally and irredeemably offended her. But then, stretching out a hand in his general direction, she said, ‘I will have a pack made up for you — some food, drink, a flint and a torch. If you are going into the forest by night, it is only sensible to take precautions.’

‘But-’ He didn’t want to be burdened with a pack. Still, if doing what she could to help him was her way of showing that she had forgiven him — and that she, too, wanted to do her bit to catch the murderer — then it seemed he had little choice but to accept.

He valued her friendship too much to let ill-feeling remain between them.

‘Thank you,’ he said humbly. ‘I shall be grateful.’

* * *

He ate with the sisters that evening, and, on an impulse, went with them to Compline. The last office of the day, it had, he found, a particularly calming effect on his stretched nerves. It was always that way, he reflected, listening to the heavenly sound of the choir nuns, just before going into action. Muscles and sinews taught as bowstrings, mouth dry, heartbeat unsteady. Whereas, as soon as the fight began and you-

But that didn’t seem a very suitable thing to recall, in church listening to hymns of praise. Deliberately he turned his thoughts to his devotions.

* * *

He slipped out of the Abbey a couple of hours later. All was quiet, and, as he raised the Abbess’s small and neatly prepared pack on to one shoulder, not a single light showed from any of the Abbey buildings.

He collected his sword and his knife from the corner of the wall between the porteress’s lodge and the Abbey’s front wall, where he had concealed them earlier in the day. Sliding his sword into its scabbard, he felt his confidence grow. He opened the gates just enough to slip out, and carefully closed them behind him.

Then he set off up the track into the forest.

* * *

The moon was waxing, and, only a day from the full, gave sufficient light for Josse to make his way without stumbling. Until, that was, he moved deep under the shadow of the trees. He stopped and waited for his eyes to adjust, fiddling idly with the strap on his pack.

His hand encountered something. An object — made of metal, to judge by its cool smoothness — fastened to the flap. Feeling all around it with his fingers — it was quite small — he thought it was a little cross.

The Abbess, he thought. She put it there, for protection.

God bless her kind heart!

His night vision had sharpened as much as it was likely to. With gratitude for such a friend giving a lift both to his spirits and to his steps, he headed on into the depths of the forest.