Dark Night Hidden

16

Josse was aware of the alien manuscript all the time. Although it was quite invisible to others, hidden in its wrappings inside his tunic, he felt that everyone at Hawkenlye must know what he carried.

The script had taken on the mysteriously charismatic qualities of the forbidden.

Trying to think sensibly about it, he realised that the first step was to ask the opinion of some learned, cultured person who might be able to tell him what it was. The document might not be as dangerous as he thought; simply because he did not understand the words was no reason automatically to assume that they were heretical.

Despite those strange, disturbing paintings. .

There were some erudite women within the Hawkenlye community. Sister Emanuel, for example, whose main duty was the care of the elderly monks and nuns living out their lives in the Abbey’s retirement home, had an air of scholarly competence about her. She assisted the Abbess in maintaining the Abbey’s great ledgers and was reputed to be even more learned than her superior. There was also Sister Bernadine, who probably knew more about manuscripts than anyone else in the Abbey. Josse would have loved to show the manuscript to either — or, even better, both — of them.

But it would not be right. They were nuns before they were scholars and they were vowed to obedience. If Josse asked them about the script, they would, if it proved to be anything inflammatory, have to go straight to the Abbess to report it. He knew he was not ready to let her see it; he might, he realised sadly, never be ready. Not if there remained any danger of her ordering it destroyed.

Pondering the matter, Josse thought of his Lewes chess opponent, Father Edgar. The two of them had enjoyed some lively and wide-ranging discussions and the Father had demonstrated a good grasp of both the contemporary scene and the history of the land; he would be sure to shed at least a small ray of light on the provenance of the manuscript.

But, Josse thought, the same stricture applied to Father Edgar as to the Abbess Helewise; Father Edgar was a man of the Church and therefore answerable to a higher authority. It was quite inconceivable that he would say, ‘Ah, yes, a heretical tract, beautifully written and illustrated; let’s put it on display.’ No. He, too, would cast it into the nearest fire.

I need someone sophisticated and worldly who owes no greater allegiance to the Church authorities than the next man, Josse mused.

His mind turned to the de Clares.

The family was certainly sophisticated; some of its members had at one time had very close connections with the royal court. William the Conqueror had given lands at Tonbridge to his close supporter, Richard Fitzgilbert, as well as the estates at Clare in Suffolk from which Richard took his title. Although he had later rebelled against William’s son, William Rufus — who had attacked and burned Tonbridge Castle in response — his own son Gilbert later became a good friend to the second William.

It was said that there was a blood link between the Norman kings and the de Clares. Richard Fitzgilbert was the son of Arletta of Falaise, a tanner’s daughter who later became the mistress of Robert the Devil, Duke of Normandy, by whom she had a son. That son became William the Conqueror.

The present holder of the de Clare title was Richard FitzRoger, Arletta’s great-great-great-grandson. He was a powerful baron and, as Josse well knew, a man of importance at court.

Perhaps he was too important.

But what about his servant, Gervase de Gifford?

It was some time since Josse had paid a visit to his friend Goody Anne, who kept the tavern down in Tonbridge. Josse resolved to ride down there the next day, gorge himself on Anne’s excellent food and ale and ask a few discreet questions about de Gifford.

He rode down Castle Hill the next morning. The day was sunny and quite warm, with an illusory promise that spring might be on its way. He made his way to the tavern and was greeted warmly by Goody Anne. After the usual flirtatious remarks, she slammed a tankard of ale in front of him and went off to fetch him a dish of mutton stew.

As always, it was a simple matter to start a conversation. This time, Josse merely turned to the man beside him — a stout fellow in early middle age who had been sharing a joke with Goody Anne and whose broad face still wore a beaming smile — and remarked on what a fine day it was.

He endured several minutes of his new acquaintance’s opinion on the weather, then said, as the man took a long gulp of ale, ‘I met a man from hereabouts the other day. His name’s de Gifford, and I believe he is a de Clare man. I wonder if you-’

‘Oh, aye, I know de Gifford,’ the stout man said confidently. ‘Well, that’s to say, I don’t know him personally, like, but I know well who he is.’

‘Is he a newcomer to the area?’

‘Hm? Newcomer? Well now, I wouldn’t like to say. He’s been a frequent visitor up at the Castle, they say, for many a day. But whether or not he’s taken up residence here, that I cannot tell you, my friend.’

‘Is he well liked?’

The stout man gave him an assessing glance. ‘He’s the law, isn’t he? Liking don’t much come into it, far as I can tell.’

‘Is he respected?’

Again, the sly look. ‘Like I say, he’s the law. Makes sense for a man to respect those with power over him, wouldn’t you say?’

The stout man’s genial air was, Josse was realising, slightly misleading. He might enjoy a good laugh and a mug of ale, but beneath the cheery exterior there appeared to be a shrewd brain. With a nod to Josse, he said, civilly enough, ‘My dinner’s nearly ready. I’m away to the table over there to eat it.’

It was as clear a snub as any. Josse wished him good day and turned back to his ale.

He had just finished his mutton stew — it was excellent — when a quiet voice beside him said, ‘I hear you were asking about me, Sir Josse. Can I be of assistance?’

He spun round. Gervase de Gifford, immaculately dressed in a burgundy-coloured tunic with rich gold braiding, stood behind him.

‘Word travels fast,’ Josse observed.

De Gifford gave a faint shrug. ‘I am fortunate in that someone happened to overhear your mention of my name.’

It was more than that, Josse was quite sure. There was probably a man — maybe more than one — in de Gifford’s pay who kept his eyes and ears open and reported anything likely to be of interest to the sheriff. Well, it made sense; Josse felt a moment’s admiration for de Gifford’s efficiency.

‘I wanted to talk to you,’ Josse said quietly.

‘Indeed? What about?’ The light green eyes studied him.

‘Er — to do with the subject of the conversation we had yesterday.’

De Gifford nodded, as if in recognition of Josse’s diplomacy in not mentioning what that subject had been. ‘I see. There have been further developments?’

‘In a way, yes, although not in the sense that something new has happened.’ Josse glanced around him; the tavern was quite full and certainly no place to take out and wave about the alien manuscript. ‘I have brought something to show you,’ he said, lowering his voice. ‘Is there somewhere private where we could go?’

De Gifford said, ‘Yes. Follow me.’

Josse drained his mug and obeyed.

De Gifford led the way out of the tavern and along the road, taking a narrow alleyway between some low wooden houses. The alleyway was foul with dirty water and household waste; de Gifford, Josse noticed, stepped very carefully so as to protect his soft leather boots.

They soon left the last of the dwellings behind. The air improved quickly and Josse saw that they had come to a path that led down to the river. De Gifford headed for a spot where a fallen tree made a low seat; sitting down, he patted the gnarled trunk beside him and said, ‘Make yourself comfortable. Few people come along here at this time of year and if anyone does, we shall see them approach. Now, what did you want to show me?’

Josse reached inside his tunic and withdrew the linen bundle. Unwrapping the cloth, he held out the manuscript to de Gifford, who took it from him in gloved hands.

He studied it for a long time, turning the parchment pages slowly, staring at the graceful, even writing and at the lively, colourful pictures. Josse, burning to ask what he made of it, restrained his impatience with difficulty.

Eventually de Gifford said, ‘I cannot be absolutely sure, but I believe this is a Cathar tract.’ Josse opened his mouth to speak but de Gifford held up a hand. ‘Please, Sir Josse, do not say anything — I do not want to know how you came by this.’ He glanced up at Josse. ‘Yet. As I say, I am not certain. But the writing is in the langue d’oc, the speech of the Midi. It describes a ceremony and the illustration here’ — he turned to the painting of the group of people with their arms raised in reverence — ‘is a depiction of the ceremonial rites.’ He stared down at the picture for a moment. Then: ‘It is exquisite, is it not?’

‘Aye.’ Josse was thinking fast. His strong inclination was to tell de Gifford the truth; for some reason, he trusted the man. And, even if de Gifford subsequently revealed himself to be too devout a Christian to entertain the thought of preserving and treasuring a heretical document, then Josse could with all honesty say that neither he nor anybody else knew for certain how it had come to be hidden at Hawkenlye. That ought surely to absolve both him and the Abbey community from blame.

And, however hard he tried, he just could not believe in the picture of de Gifford as an obedient, devoted Christian. .

He said, ‘It was found in the book chest at Hawkenlye Abbey. One of the nuns thought she saw signs that the Abbey’s manuscripts had been disturbed and a search was instigated. This was found concealed beneath the other manuscripts.’

‘No doubt smuggled into the Abbey and hidden by whoever it was who arranged for the woman Aurelia to be brought for treatment in the infirmary,’ de Gifford said.

‘We cannot be sure of that,’ Josse said quickly.

‘No, of course not,’ de Gifford murmured. Then, turning intent eyes to Josse, he said, ‘Why did you bring it to me?’

‘I needed to consult someone with learning who was not vowed to mindless obedience to the Church,’ Josse replied.

De Gifford smiled. ‘I am flattered on the one count, a little perplexed on the second. Why, Sir Josse, do you perceive me as potentially disobedient to our priesthood?’

‘I — that was not exactly what I meant.’ Josse tried to think how to explain himself. ‘I suppose I just thought that, since you are neither priest, monk nor cleric of any description, you would not be bound by any vow and you would make up your own mind.’

‘How perceptive,’ de Gifford said softly. ‘I am honoured by your judgement of me. Indeed I do make up my own mind, sometimes in matters where such independence of spirit is not altogether wise.’ He was studying Josse as he spoke and, when he had finished, went on staring at him in silence, as if thinking how to go on.

‘I will, I think, repay your confidence with one of my own,’ he said eventually. ‘You are aware of whom I serve?’

‘Aye. Richard FitzRoger of the de Clares.’

‘And you are also aware of the family’s close connections with the Crown?’

‘Aye. I know something of the Norman line. My father’s lands are in France and I grew up with tales of Duke Robert of Normandy and Arletta his woman. In my country we call him le Diable.’

‘The Devil.’ De Gifford nodded.

‘Arletta wed the Count of Brionne, and they founded the de Clare dynasty,’ Josse went on. ‘I know they have had their differences with the Crown, but, as I understand it, the blood tie always seems to manage to overcome them.’

‘Yes. It does.’ Now de Gifford was staring down at his booted foot, making patterns in the dirt of the path. ‘Richard FitzRoger’s great-grandfather once saved William Rufus from an assassination plot. And he was at the King’s side in the New Forest when the Rufus fell.’ Suddenly the bright, intelligent eyes were on Josse’s again. ‘No doubt you, who know of the reputation of the one they call le Diable, are also aware of what they say of his descendants who sat on the English throne?’

‘In what way?’ Josse asked cagily.

De Gifford gave a small sound of impatience. ‘Please, Sir Josse, do not be coy. We speak in the open, with no witnesses. If I subsequently claim that you spoke of matters of which it is best not to speak, then it is but my word against yours. What they say of the Conqueror’s family is that they honour the old gods.’

‘I know of the rumours, aye,’ Josse said. ‘I’ve never placed very much credence in them. The Crown has been a major patron of the Church and-’

De Gifford sighed. ‘You cannot deny that William Rufus was loathed and mistrusted by the clergy. Why do you think that was?’

‘Because-’

But before he could get an answer out, de Gifford had forestalled him. ‘Because he did not bend the knee before their altars!’ he said fiercely. ‘Oh yes, he went through the ceremonies for the sake of form. But they knew full well where his heart lay.’

‘And you’re going to tell me that his close friend Gilbert de Clare shared his beliefs?’ Josse asked shrewdly. ‘That, even now, the shadow of the old ways lies on the family?’

De Gifford studied him. ‘No. I would not tell you that.’ He grinned. ‘I might, however, plant the seed of suspicion in your mind.’

But Josse had remembered something and was hardly listening. ‘You told the Abbess Helewise that you had not come for the heretic woman!’ he exclaimed. ‘You said you’d have brought her to the nuns’ care yourself, had you known where to find her!’

‘Yes, I would have done.’ De Gifford’s expression was indulgent.

Josse shook his head in puzzlement. ‘But she has broken the law. All of them have.’

‘They have broken the Church’s law,’ de Gifford corrected. ‘They dare to worship God in a different guise from that ordained by the men of the Church. Yet these clerics are but men, no better qualified than any other men to say that the deity is this, or that, and no other. These matters are for each man’s conscience, are they not?’

‘I–I don’t know. No priest would agree with that, for sure.’

De Gifford shrugged. ‘So? How speaks your conscience, Sir Josse? Do you follow without question when your priest orders you? Would you betray a fellow man to the Church for punishment because he had another faith?’

After a moment Josse said, ‘No. I would not. I have not, indeed, for I am well aware that a heretic woman lies even now in Hawkenlye Abbey.’

‘Yes. There is no need for you to prove yourself to me. I would not do so, either. Sir Josse, when I began my investigation into the death of Father Micah, I already knew about the band of heretics and I suspected that his death might in some way be linked to them. I do not believe necessarily that they killed him but, even were that so, I should keep an open mind over whether it was murder or self-defence.’

‘Self-defence?’

‘Father Micah threatened to kill them. If a man tries to kill you, Sir Josse, do you not hit back and try to prevent him?’

‘But he is — he was a priest!’

‘A vicious and over-zealous priest who belonged to a faith in which the heretics did not believe.’

Josse thought about it. ‘Aye,’ he said, ‘I understand. Take away the religious context and it’s just a man threatening to kill another and the victim hitting back.’

With a calm smile de Gifford said, ‘Precisely.’

Josse sat in thought for some moments. It was, he was discovering, one thing to suspect that an urbane and worldly man of the law might be less than totally committed to the faith of his homeland. It was quite another matter to have had that suspicion confirmed.

After a while, he looked up at de Gifford and said, ‘Where do you think they are?’

‘The heretics?’ De Gifford shrugged. ‘I have no idea. There are many places out in the forest and the wild where they might be hiding, although I doubt if they would have survived the bitter weather unless they found some sort of shelter and were able to build themselves a fire. And it is unlikely that any household has taken them in for, were they to be discovered, the house would be destroyed. That particular clause of the Assize of Clarendon is, I believe, quite widely known.’

‘Might they not have left England and returned to wherever it was they came from?’

‘I have asked myself that question. But I do not think that they would leave Aurelia behind. Somebody obviously cares deeply for her, to have taken the risk of formulating the plan to bring her to Hawkenlye. Had the big man who carried her there stayed after delivering her to the nuns, no doubt someone within the Abbey would have insisted he be put under guard until the matter could be investigated.’

‘Aye, someone did,’ Josse said grimly.

De Gifford gave him a sympathetic glance. ‘I see.’

There was something Josse wanted to return to, something that de Gifford had said earlier. ‘When you looked at the manuscript you said it was written in the langue d’oc and was a — what was the word you used?’

‘Cather. Yes, I said that I believed it is a Cathar tract.’

‘And the Cathars are heretics?’

‘Oh, yes. They are probably the biggest thorns in the Church’s side that all those great spiritual lords have ever experienced.’

‘I know nothing about them,’ Josse confessed. ‘Will you tell me?’

‘Of course,’ de Gifford replied. ‘Catharism is a dualist faith, and its followers believe that we are here in our earthly existence under sufferance, having been torn away from our spiritual entities in the heavens against our will. The most fervent wish of a Cathar is to be reunited with his or her spirit, which is why they view their life on earth with such indifference and why they go so willingly to the stake. It is also, incidentally, why they do not recognise marriage, since to procreate means that they have separated yet another soul from its spirit and brought it down to endure life on earth.’

‘If they do not marry and bear children,’ Josse asked, ‘how can the sect hope to continue?’

De Gifford smiled. ‘I do not think that continuance on earth concerns them much. But in fact quite a lot of them have been married and had children before they become Parfaits.’

‘Parfaits?’

‘Perfects. Pure Ones. Men and women who refrain from sexual intercourse, who eat neither meat nor any animal products, nothing that is brought into being by progeniture or coitus. They do not kill either man or beast. They take a vow to honour all these obligations and that is called the Consolamentum. When the vow has been sworn, the man or woman becomes a Perfect.’

‘So it’s possible to believe in the faith without making the vow?’

‘Yes. People who do that are referred to as adherents. They are accepted as such by the Perfects and they may take the Consolamentum when they are ready. It is, I understand, quite common for married couples to live as adherents until religious fervour overtakes bodily passion, at which point they forswear the pleasures of the flesh and take the vow.’

Josse, trying to absorb all that de Gifford had just told him, sat slowly shaking his head. Then he said tentatively, ‘Are they — do you think that they are good people?’

‘An interesting question,’ de Gifford observed. ‘Yes, I do. So, I might add, do some of the most powerful prelates of the Catholic Church. The Cathars lead pure lives devoid of violence and hypocrisy, working hard and caring for each other with tenderness and diligence, which is more than can be said for many Christians.’ He shot Josse a glance. ‘Even many of the clergy.’

‘Hm.’ There was one more thing that Josse wanted to know. He said, ‘Why did they come to England? What persuaded these seven people — whether or not they are Cathars — to come to an unknown land, unsure of their welcome, in the middle of winter?’

‘They came as evangelists,’ de Gifford said. ‘And I think that we can indeed assume that they are Cathars. The sect has been attracting many converts in the countries across the Channel and I imagine that they hoped to do the same here.’

‘No wonder Father Micah dealt so harshly with them,’ Josse said.

‘He was afraid,’ de Gifford said simply. ‘He had doubtless been informed by his superiors of the situation in the Low Countries, in Germany and in France. Despite reparations — many Cathars have already died in the fires — the sect is gaining more followers by the days.’

‘Will they win?’ Josse found he had put his question in military terms, as if he and de Gifford were speaking of a war.

‘I do not know.’ De Gifford looked thoughtful. ‘They are not winning, to use your word, in the north of Europe. But matters are very different in the south. The relaxed and colourful culture of the Midi is perfectly adapted for the Cathar faith, and indeed many members of the sect are flocking down to the Languedoc because it is the one place where they can be sure of a good reception.’

‘You said that one of our seven was from the Midi.’

‘Yes. Two, in fact. Guiscard and Aurelia. I imagine that they were sent to the countries of the north to spread the word among existing Cathars that they should head south, and to try to persuade others to convert and go too.’

‘Their mission here has not been a success,’ Josse remarked soberly. ‘It was their misfortune to encounter Father Micah. You said that they would not leave without Aurelia,’ he reminded de Gifford. ‘Do you think to put a watch over her and apprehend them when they come for her?’

De Gifford gave an exasperated sigh. ‘Sir Josse, for a man of your quality you can be exceedingly slow,’ he said tartly. ‘Far from apprehending them, as you put it, I shall be helping them on their way.’

‘You — but why?’

‘Because, as you so accurately observed a little while ago, I am bound by no vow of obedience to the Church and I make up my own mind. I have much admiration for the Cathar sect and I would not see any of its men and women put to the flames for their faith. If I take them under guard, they may not suffer that fate; I do not know. But all the time that it remains a possibility, I will do nothing that might lead to it.’

He sat for some moments regarding Josse, as if deciding whether or not to speak his mind. Eventually, apparently coming to a decision, he said, ‘Sir Josse, I intend to do all that I can to get them away across the Channel and on their way to what safety they can find in the south. Will you help me?’

Through Josse’s mind flashed an image of another, earlier allegiance. He saw the Abbess, distressed, her face flushed from the passion of her convictions.

Addressing her silently he said, Helewise, my dear friend, in this instance I believe you to be wrong. If ever you discover what I am about to undertake, I hope that you will forgive me for the hurt it must cause you.

Then, turning to de Gifford, he said, ‘Aye. I will.’