Fortune Like the Moon

The Third Death
Chapter Twenty

Very early one dull, foggy morning, when the season was meant to be spring but felt far more like dead of winter, the man let himself quietly out of the house and set off along the too-familiar path. He went on foot. The still, moisture-laden air seeming to cling round his lower legs as if trying to hold him back, he made his slow way back to the place where he had first broken down and cried out his grief for her.

The place he had visited and revisited so many times that he could no longer count them.

There was nobody about. Spring was late this year, and the promise of new growth was still but a hope. As if the world were being held back, halted in her year’s round, the predominant feeling in the air was of dead things. Last autumn’s leaves, choking the hedgerows and the ditches; old, dry stubble in the fields from last year’s crops. Bare branches on the trees, with still no optimistic, tentative first show of green. And, within the houses, still the comforting household fires were lit; for it remained bone-cold, the strength and power of the waxing sun so late in coming.

The earth had endured her long winter sleep. Now, it should be spring.

For him, time, cruelly, seemed to have stood still since her death. His eyes saw the outward small signs of the passage of weeks and months, but his brain didn’t accept what he saw. It was, and would ever be, the pre-dawn grey of a morning in July, when he ran in horror from what had happened to the one being in the world whom he had truly loved.

They had cared for him devotedly, the round-faced nun and the fussy old monk. The sister, looking at him with a mixture of compassion and exasperation, had treated him like a recalcitrant child, who, knowing full well what was good for him, yet refused to do it. In vain she pleaded with him to get up and go for a walk in the good strong sunshine, or to eat up this fine, strength-building food, how could he expect to grow better if he did not look after himself?

The monk, whom he had learned to call Brother Firmin, had placed his faith not in good food and hearty exercise but in the love of God. And in the holy spring water, a cool cup of which he brought to the patient every morning. And the patient had drunk it, more to please the old monk than for any belief that it would do him any good.

The Abbess herself had not forgotten him. Far from it; regularly, every day that she could spare the time, she would come to the infirmary and sit with him when her work was done, before the evening meal. Often she would just remain silently at his side, sometimes saying her rosary, sometimes not. Or, if he greeted her with any sort of animation, she would talk to him. Not in a way that demanded a response; merely a brief description of some element of her day that she thought might interest him. An encounter with a fractious visitor to the shrine; details of how a sick patient was now getting better; even, once, the peaceful death of the oldest monk in the retirement house.

And, for all that he rarely spoke a word, she did not abandon him, either.

Perhaps, he reflected, he had been a hopeless case. For none of the various treatments had been of any benefit whatsoever; he wondered, later, if he had made up his mind that they wouldn’t be, even before those kind people’s efforts had begun. In the end, because accepting their well-intentioned ministrations when he knew that nothing could make him better had started to seem a little callous, he had one day pronounced himself cured. Got up out of his bed, told them they needed it for more urgent cases. Gone with them one last time to church, where Brother Firmin, who seemed more inclined to believe in this sudden cure than did Sister Euphemia, had prayed in heartfelt thanks for God’s blessed miracle.

Then the man had left.

But she had known. Abbess Helewise had known.

When he went to seek her out to tell her he was leaving the Abbey, she hadn’t, thank God, tried to stop him. It was as if some practical part of her were saying, ‘We’ve done all we can do, my monks, my nuns and I. If you are to be made whole again, it is up to God to make you so. You are in His hands now.’

He had knelt before her as he had taken his leave, and, in a whisper, asked for her blessing. She had given a small gasp, almost as if she read what was in his heart. Then he had felt the pressure of her thumb as she traced the sign of the cross on his forehead and said quietly, ‘God go with you, Olivar.’

She had given him Gunnora’s cross.

* * *

He had returned home to Brice, since that was the only place he could think of to go. Brice had adopted the tack of trying to jolly him out of his grief. Dear old Brice. Olivar smiled faintly at the memory of his brother, perplexed as ever before an emotion too deep for him to understand, suggesting they went off on pilgrimage together. ‘We could go to Santiago, even to the Holy City, if the Infidel will let us in!’ he said. ‘Wouldn’t you like that, Olivar? Wouldn’t it be good, to get right away from here, to be on the road together, meet new people, see wonderful sights? I’m willing! I’d love it, truly I would. I’ll go anywhere, if it’ll help you.’

He’d meant well.

They’d told him all about that other business, with Gunnora’s wild cousin Elanor. Olivar pitied both her and that foolish young husband of hers. They had been greedy and callous, yes, but whoever had imagined they killed Gunnora, Elanor holding her while Milon wielded the knife, had been quite wrong. Milon didn’t have it in him to kill, of that Olivar was sure. Not coldly and calculatingly, anyway, although it did appear that he had strangled Elanor in the heat of an angry quarrel.

He had gone on trial for that. The Abbess and that big knight, who had been sent to investigate the deaths, had given evidence. Not willingly, or so folk said. Neither, apparently, had spoken out vindictively against Milon; they’d just answered the questions asked of them truthfully. Tried, as far as they could, to speak up for him.

But the truth had been bad enough to hang him. Murder. He’d murdered Elanor, his pretty, lively young wife. He had admitted as much as they led him out to his execution. He had gone to his Maker pleading for forgiveness, crying out that he hadn’t meant to kill her, that her death had been a terrible accident, that he’d give anything, anything, his own life, even, to have her alive again, laughing and dancing by his side.

Olivar sympathised. Although, in truth, he had to admit that his beloved Gunnora hadn’t been a woman to laugh and dance — bless her, she was not given to frivolity — still, he, too, would have willingly laid down his own life if, by doing so, she would live again.

But the laws of nature did not operate that way. And nor did the laws of God.

* * *

When Milon was dead and buried, Brice had made up his mind to put the whole wretched business behind him. Despite having lost his wife, having his wife’s sister die through a terrible accident which continued to devastate his brother, and having his bastard cousin-by-marriage die by the hangman’s noose for killing his bride, still, he had returned to normal life. With what some people were calling indecent haste.

Let them, Olivar thought. They didn’t know Brice. Didn’t understand his direct, uncomplicated nature, his lack of sentiment; even his own brother was tempted sometimes to call him shallow. No, he corrected himself, Brice wasn’t really shallow. He was practical, down-to-earth, a little unimaginative. But he was a good man. He would marry again, in time, although no bride, surely, would bring him what would have come his way, had Dillian not died before her father did. Few fathers-in-law owned estates like Winnowlands.

Other than Brice’s gift to Hawkenlye Abbey, the entire Winnowlands fortune was going to the Crown. And there was a rumour, on the face of it unlikely but strangely persistent, that the new King, Richard, planned to award a part of the estate and a not insignificant manor house to that big knight …

I don’t care if he does, Olivar thought as he neared the river. I wish the fellow well of it. Nobody was ever truly happy at Winnowlands, not in Alard’s household, anyway. Let the man do better if he can. Me, I am beyond such things.

He clambered down to the water, and, pausing by the shallows, where the salmon ran in spring, he sat down on the soaked grass. They had come here often together, he and Gunnora. That was why, of course; why it had become his special place.

He had always thought she was intended for his brother. Brice, the elder son at Rotherbridge, would be betrothed to Gunnora, elder daughter of Alard of Winnowlands. Loving her from afar, as he had done for as long as he could remember, he had had to endure the spectacle of Brice and Gunnora together, stiffly and reluctantly leading the dancing, sitting together at table on feast days.

Then, quite unexpectedly, a tiny glimmer of hope had started to shine. Shortly before her eighteenth birthday, when, everyone expected, the betrothal would be announced, she had come to seek him out.

‘I do not wish to marry your brother,’ she had told him. Right here, beside the river, in this very spot. ‘I do not love him, and I fear he would not make me happy.’

He had tried to read the expression in those deep blue eyes.

Why was she telling him this? Why, indeed, had she taken the trouble to find out where he was and come to find him?

Could it — could it possibly — be that she did not love his brother because she loved another?

Him?

He had stepped forward. Not to touch her — oh, no, not that, not then — and the tense silence had continued.

A lady could not be the first to speak in such matters, as well he knew. Had always known. So, heart thumping, mouth so dry that he could hardly speak, he spoke instead.

Said, simply, humbly, ‘Lady, could you, do you think, love me?’ She had made no answer, merely cast down those great eyes in a delicate gesture of modesty. ‘I love you, Gunnora,’ he had rushed on, ‘I have always loved you! Will you agree to marry me?’

Then she had looked up. Met his desperate eyes with her own. In which, for a split-second, he had seen what was, surely, an unlikely emotion.

Triumph.

But then it was gone, and, in the unspeakable joy of taking her, at last, in his arms, he had forgotten all about it.

He had fallen in with her plan without a moment’s thought, helped and encouraged her every step of the way. It had seemed such a clever plan! For her to retire behind the stout walls of a convent until Brice was safely married to someone else, then emerge for Olivar to claim her as his bride, what brilliance! And it was foolproof — Alard might well refuse his permission for Gunnora to choose a husband, but he could hardly argue with a daughter’s pious intention of becoming a nun.

The year he had been forced to endure without her had been constant torment. Before, even though he had thought her out of his reach, he had had the dubious comfort of seeing her regularly. Speaking with her, listening to her voice, watching her graceful ways. But then, to be awarded the great prize of her love, only to lose her behind the walls of Hawkenlye, had been almost more than he could bear.

The night he went to meet her had been both anxious and terribly thrilling. He had not been able to eat for a week, and he had been subject to fearful headaches, which would come without warning, strike into one side of his forehead like the point of a dagger, and, while they endured, leave him good for nothing but lying in the darkness, periodically vomiting into a pail.

Then, at long, long last, they had been reunited. He had taken her in his arms, tried to kiss her, thinking that, after a year apart, she would be as ardent and eager as he.

He had known, really, when she wouldn’t kiss him on the lips. Had known, only hadn’t been able to believe it.

She had … No. Even to himself, he could not use the words ‘betrayed him’. Even then, in his dire, dreadful disappointment, he could not bring himself to criticise her. She was mistaken, he told himself instead. That night, seeing me again after so long with the good sisters, she thought she did not want me. It was a shock, seeing me! And I should not have thrust myself on her, I should have had more sense. More patience.

It would have been all right. Soon, she would have remembered how she and I loved one another. And everything would have happened as we planned.

But it couldn’t.

Because she fell down those steps and she was killed.

And, for all the satisfaction and pleasure that my life has given me since, I should have died with her.

* * *

After a long time, he got slowly to his feet. He had brought with him a stout sack, which now he unfolded and spread on the grass. Reaching down into the shallow water at the river’s edge, he selected a collection of large stones, the heaviest that he could lift. He filled the sack, stood up, then, grunting with the effort, dragged it along the grass as he went on around the bend in the river.

Here, out of sight of the road above, there was a place where the strong, swift current had formed a deep black pool beneath the eroded bank.

He tied the top of the sack securely, then, using a strong length of rope, fastened it tightly around his waist. It bit painfully into his thin frame, but that hardly mattered now.

He stood for a moment, thinking of her. Of how she used to smile, in those lovely, endlessly sunny days that long-gone summer, when, so unexpectedly, the future suddenly seemed to promise so much. Of her lips as he kissed her, the swell of her firm young breasts. Her eyes, which he had, he now realised, never really read. Of her long dark hair.

Gunnora.

My love. My lost love.

He had her cross around his neck. Taking it in his hand, clutching it in a strong grasp, he took one last look at the world.

On the opposite bank, a young willow was showing a faint hint of green; it looked as if, at long last, spring might be coming.

Olivar smiled slightly. Spring. Well, even if it was here, it was, for him, irrelevant.

Raising his eyes to the wide sky above, where somewhere, so he had been told, heaven was, he murmured a last prayer for her, and then one for himself. Mercy. Forgiveness. And, please, dear Lord, the chance that, one day, she and I may be reunited?

In the midst of that thought, he jumped.

The weighted sack did its work well. Within seconds, the waters closed over his head, and he disappeared.