Fortune Like the Moon

Chapter Six

The midday meal — more of the excellent bread, this time with a vegetable stew containing a few morsels of mutton — was taken in silence, other than the melodious voice of a nun reading from the Gospels. It was the parable of the talents, and, Josse decided, had a special meaning for him. The exhortation to use his talents, in the symbolic sense, was well-timed, and his shaky self-confidence was boosted as he reminded himself that, inexperienced as he was, he had wits.

And, as he ate his stew, he employed them.

He glanced around at the assembled company, trying not to make it obvious. He counted sixty-eight nuns sitting at the long main table, another seventeen sitting by themselves at a smaller table, separated from the main refectory by a screen. With the addition of the Abbess and the nun reading from the Gospels, that made eighty-seven. Plus, he reminded himself, the three sisters who chose to isolate themselves in the leper house. And, presumably, ten or a dozen sisters who were on duty in the hospital while the rest of the community ate their meal. Say, a hundred, roughly, in all.

Was one of them a killer?

Looking from face to face, he couldn’t make himself believe it. Of the women he was able to study — for one or two kept their heads bent over the table, so that his view of them was cut off by their veils — not one showed any expression that was not calm and pleasant, not to say serene. There were women of all ages, from black-veiled fully professed nuns, in middle age or more, down to the obviously youthful, who wore the white veil of the novice or, in the case of one girl who looked scarcely out of her teen years, the plain black garb of the postulant. Was she, he wondered, the unsuitable Elvera, who had befriended the dead nun? Of all the women, he observed, she alone showed any signs of distress; there was a suggestion of redness around the eyes, and he caught her in the act of shooting him a rapid look; her eyes dropped the instant she noticed that he was studying her.

It heartened Josse that someone, at least, had been shedding tears for Gunnora.

By the time the meal ended and he stood to join the nuns in their prayers, he had made up his mind what the next step was.

* * *

Abbess Helewise seemed unsurprised when he announced, as they left the refectory, his intention of seeking out Gunnora’s family, provided the Abbess was willing to divulge the whereabouts of their home.

‘That I will,’ she said. ‘Follow me back to my room, and I will tell you where they live and how to get there. I think,’ she added over her shoulder, ‘that you are taking the logical next step.’

Once they were within the privacy of the Abbess’s small room, he said, ‘May I ask you a further question, Abbess?’

She inclined her head, which he took for an affirmative.

‘The nuns sitting apart from the community just now, at the midday meal. I have not been able to work out why.’

She smiled briefly. ‘And you are asking yourself if there is some lurid explanation? They are in disgrace for some heinous misdemeanour? Contaminated, perhaps, from nursing patients with the plague or the pox?’

‘Neither of those things!’ he protested, not entirely accurately.

‘They are our virgin nuns,’ she said quietly, all traces of amusement gone from her face. ‘As in the abbey at Fontevraud, our community is divided, with separate accommodation according to how a sister opts to use her life in God. Most choose the easier life of the Madeleine Convent — many of us lived a full life in the world before entry here, and do not consider ourselves worthy of a life spent solely with God. But for those women who led an exemplary life in the world, who, even before taking the veil, lived quietly, modestly and in celibacy; there is the option of enclosure in the Virgin House, where they spend their days and much of their nights in contemplation and communion with the Lord.’

He was nodding earnestly, even while a part of him was thinking, what a life! ‘And those sisters, the virgin nuns, do not join with you, even for meals?’

‘No. The Rule considers it is best for them not to brush too closely with those who retain one foot in the world. They are segregated in chapel, also, and they live in separate accommodation; their small house is attached to the Lady Chapel.’ Her eyes met his, and, anticipating his next question, she answered it. ‘Gunnora would not have had any contact whatsoever with any of the virgin sisters. Assure yourself that none of them would even have known who she was.’

And so, she seemed to add silently, you can cross those seventeen women off your list of suspects.

He said gravely, ‘I thank you, Abbess Helewise. I shall do precisely that.’

* * *

She said farewell to him in her room, wishing him a safe journey and God’s speed. Then, with a pleasant sense of having earned her approbation, notwithstanding the more intrusive of his questions, he set off to find his horse.

A nun wearing a sacking apron over her habit was working in the stables, sleeves rolled back to display forearms any sailor would have been proud of. She was mucking out, and wielded a pitchfork with an easy rhythm that suggested long familiarity.

‘I’ve fed your horse,’ she said, as he greeted her and announced he was about to leave. ‘Rubbed him down and all. He’ll not be thinking to work again this day, I reckon. You’ll no doubt find him a deal frisky.’ She grinned, showing gaps in her side teeth. ‘I was about to turn him out with our lot, he’d have looked like a king alongside ’em.’

He looked out to the paddock she indicated, where a solid but amiable-looking cob had raised an enquiring head. There was a more delicately built but short-legged pony — surely on the small side for any but the slightest-built of the sisters? — and a mule. He saw what the sister had meant.

‘Thank you for your care of him.’ In any other stable, he’d have offered a coin or two, but it didn’t seem appropriate in a convent. Instead he paid her a compliment: ‘You run a sweet-smelling, well-tended stable, Sister-’

‘Sister Martha,’ she said. ‘I thank you, sir knight.’

‘Josse d’Acquin,’ he supplied.

She grinned again. ‘I know. I know, too, what you’re here for and, as to where you’re bound now, I can guess.’ The smile faded and she moved closer to him, face intense. ‘Find him, sir. I had no great love for Gunnora, God punish me for my lack of charity, but no creature ever deserved that fate.’

He met her honest blue eyes. ‘I’ll do my best, Sister Martha. You have my word.’

With an emphatic nod, as if to say, the word of a knight’ll do for me, Sister Martha went back to her mucking out.

* * *

The lands of Gunnora’s father lay some eighteen miles roughly to the south-east of Hawkenlye. Setting out the hour after noon, Josse would arrive at dusk. The estate was sufficiently close to the town of Newenden for him to put up there; it was his intention to view Gunnora’s home this evening, gleaning what impression he could, and then retire to an inn. He would present himself to her family in the morning.

It ocurred to him on the road that it would better serve his purpose not to draw attention to himself. He stopped and dismounted, extracted a light and well-worn cloak from his pack, and, removing his embroidered tunic, stowed it away. He held the cloak at arm’s length, studying it with a critical eye. Worn it might be, but it still looked suspiciously good quality. With a slight sigh, he threw it down on to the track and trod it into the dust. Then he shook it and put it on. He drew the hood over his head so that its edge shaded his face; the afternoon sun was strong.

Abbess Helewise’s directions had been accurate, and he found his way to Winnowlands easily, only once having to ask for assistance. Odd, he thought, riding away from the small group of dwellings where he had consulted an old man laboriously winding up water from a well. The old boy seemed friendly enough as I rode into the yard — I even thought he was about to offer me water. But as soon as I mentioned Winnowlands, he changed.

Trying to put aside one possibly loopy old man’s prejudice and maintain an open mind, Josse rode on.

* * *

The Winnowlands estates, he could see straightaway, were rich. The land here, on the edge of the escarpment that rose up to the north of the great marshland, was good, and put to a variety of uses. Herds of cows grazed in well-grassed meadows, and flocks of sheep fattened themselves on the sparser grass nearer the marshes. The land under the plough was well-tended and looked fertile, and the strips were neat and tidily fenced. There were several huddles of dwellings, and, inspecting one which was clearly visible from the road, Josse noted that the reed-thatch roofs looked sound. One or two small cultivated areas near to the dwellings were thick with cabbages, carrots and onions, and in one, someone was growing some tiny pink flowers. In a fenced-off run, a sow and her young rootled in the dirt.

The land, quite clearly, yielded a good living. This should have been a happy place.

Why, then, Josse wondered as he slowly rode on, was there such an air of despondency? The few people he had seen — and why were they so few? Where was everyone? — seemed hardly to be aware of the stranger in their midst. Wasn’t that in itself strange? Josse had travelled countless miles, through all sorts of alien lands, and the one constant factor among all the different peoples he had encountered — especially the country people — was their curiosity. Well, you could understand it. They lived small lives, probably never went further away than the boundaries of the manor where they’d been born and where, in due course, they’d die. Saw exactly the same faces, year in, year out. A stranger was a rarity. Someone to be stared at, his possible provenance and purpose discussed and analysed for days, if not weeks, afterwards.

But these people working away on the Winnowlands acres seemed preoccupied. Dejected, Josse thought, would not be inaccurate. Was it — could it be — that they shared the family grief for a dead daughter? It was a possibility. But surely such an exaggerated response was unlikely; to grieve deeply, one had to have known the dead person well. And would any of these serfs working in the fields have known anything of Gunnora, other than a vague distant presence? Even more distant, for the last year of her life.

And, Josse thought as he rode on towards the manor house, hadn’t Abbess Helewise said that her lay brother detected a deep misery in these people even before he gave them the news of Gunnora’s murder?

No. Something else had happened here. Something so bad that it affected all the people whose security depended on the Winnowlands manor. And, whatever it was, it had predated Gunnora’s death.

He drew rein on the top of a hillock that rose up on the other side of the road from the Winnowlands manor house, and, in the golden light of late afternoon, stared down at the place that had been Gunnora’s home.

It was a solidly built construction, clearly the home of a wealthy family, and of generous proportions; stout stone steps led from the wall-enclosed courtyard up to the entrance, at first floor level, and there was space for a large hall. There was a solar at the western end, and what appeared to be a private chapel. Two turreted extensions suggested that the original building had been extended at some time, perhaps to make room for an increasing family. Beneath the living quarters was a wide undercroft; its narrow door stood ajar, and Josse could glimpse within the shadowy depths a profusion of stores.

As he watched, a man, clad in a leather jerkin over hose tucked into stout boots, appeared from behind the house. He called out a reply to some unseen presence within the house; it seemed to have been a demand for firewood, for he disappeared inside the undercroft and emerged with a basket of small logs.

A fire? When the day had been so hot?

A cooking fire, Josse decided. The person within wanted to get on with preparing the master’s supper. But, as he watched, he noticed a billow of smoke issue from some aperture in the roof. Not the sort of smoke that comes from a well-established fire, such as might have been kept in all day for the purposes of cooking or water-heating; the smoke that comes when a fire is newly lit.

Someone, then, had ordered the man in the jerkin to light a fire. When the day was still so hot that Josse could feel the trickles of sweat running down his back, even sitting still.

He heard the sounds of an approaching horse, coming from his right. The man in the jerkin heard them too, and came slowly down the steps from the hall to await the new arrival. Josse quietly urged his horse to take a few paces back, so that he was hidden behind the bulge of the hillock; it did not seem wise, whichever way you looked at it, for Josse to be observed peering down at the goings-on in the Winnowlands household. Dismounting, he crawled forward so that he could peer down into the courtyard.

The newcomer was a young man, slim, well-dressed in the latest fashion. He had shortened his tunic to mid-thigh length, and the richly decorated hem was cut away into exaggerated slits at the side, revealing the muscles of the man’s buttocks, clad in very tight hose. On his feet — and unsuitable, surely, for riding — he wore soft leather shoes with elongated points at the toe. His fair hair was very neatly cut, the fringe a dead-straight line above the wide forehead, except for where one careful curl had been arranged. He said something to the leatherjerkined man, who must, Josse thought, be some sort of senior house-servant, and the man shook his head. The young man leaned down off his horse, and, this time, spoke more loudly. Josse picked up a word or two: ‘… must see him … do insist … come all this way … no authority to bar the door against me!’

The older man’s reply was also audible; even more so, since he was in fact shouting.

‘I know very well what you’re here for, and so does the Master! I tell you, young sir, he doesn’t want to see you!’

‘I will see him! It’s my right!’

‘You’ll be admitted when the Master’s good and ready, and not a moment sooner! Now you’d better be gone, Milon, afore the Master hears and comes out himself to send you packing!’

The younger man gave a short laugh, an unpleasant, mocking sound. ‘That one? Come out here? Ha! It’ll be the first time in a long while if he does, Will, and you know it!’

‘I’ll not admit you, Milon, so there’s no use you hanging around.’ The man in the jerkin — Will — now advanced towards the youngster, and even from a distance Josse could see the menace in his face. ‘Be gone! You’ll be told, when there’s aught for you to know.’

Milon turned his horse with a savage jerk at the reins. Glaring at Will, he had his parting shot: ‘I’ll be back, you dirty peasant! Just you wait!’

Will stood looking after him as he spurred his horse into a furious gallop and, raising clouds of dust, set off back the way he had come. Then, the heavy face full of disgust, he spat out a heavy gobule of phlegm in the direction the young man had taken. There could not, Josse thought, have been a more eloquent valediction.

Josse waited until Will had gone back inside, gave him a few minutes in case he came out again — somehow he didn’t fancy having to explain himself to Will right there and then — and, after a good interval, mounted, rode down off his hillock and set off for Newenden and his bed for the night.

* * *

He returned the next morning. He had found lodgings in an acceptable inn, eaten a good supper, even been provided with hot water to remove the dust and sweat of the journey. Now he was dressed in his best, as befitted an emissary from the Abbess of Hawkenlye Abbey; he and Helewise had agreed that this would be his role, and that, as his reason for calling on Gunnora’s father, he would say that the Abbey urgently needed to know what were his wishes concerning his daughter’s body.

He rode up to the manor house, and was about to call out to advertise his presence when the man, Will, came out from the undercroft.

‘Sir?’ he said, looking up at Josse from beneath a hand shading his eyes from the sun.

‘Josse d’Acquin,’ Josse said. ‘I come from Hawkenlye, with matters of a personal nature to discuss with your master of Winnowlands. May I see him, please?’

Will went on staring at him. Then, slowly, shook his head. But it was not in rejection of Josse’s request; it appeared to be more in distress at the whole situation. ‘Aye,’ he said on a sigh. ‘Bad business. I’ve tried to say to him, gently, mind, that he should make up his mind, send word. Can’t be pleasant for them at the Abbey, left with a body they can neither send away nor bury. Wouldn’t like it, myself.’ He had summed up the dilemma with admirable brevity. ‘But, sir, it ain’t as easy as that. He won’t listen to me, won’t listen to nobody. He’s-’ He broke off, and scratched his head as if perplexed at how to describe his master’s condition.

‘Disturbed? Wrong in his mind?’ Josse suggested, hoping he wouldn’t offend the man by plain speaking.

But the man, far from taking offence, seized on Josse’s words with apparent relief. ‘Aye. Wrong in his mind. Aye, sir, that he is. Wrong in his body an’ all, but that he’s been these many years. Worse now, of course. Much, much worse.’ Sadly he resumed his head shaking. ‘But this here, this wrong in his head thing, this is what I find so hard to deal with, sir. I mean, I can’t tell him what to do, now, can I? Not me in my position. But then someone ought to. It ain’t right. None of it.’

This time the rueful head shaking went on for some time. Josse said gently, ‘May I dismount?’ And instantly Will looked up at him, dismay on the blunt features.

‘I’m sorry, sir, that I am! Of course, of course, here, let me help.’ He leapt to take Josse’s horse’s bridle, and Josse swung down out of the saddle. ‘I’ll put him here for you, in this nice patch of shade,’ — efficient man that he was, he acted as he spoke — ‘and take off that saddle. Like some water, eh, my fine fellow?’ He patted the horse’s neck affectionately. ‘Bet you would!’

The horse secured, Will returned to Josse. As if he had been turning it over in his mind in those few moments, now he seemed to have reached a decision. ‘You come in with me and see the master, sir, if you will,’ he said firmly. ‘Can’t do no harm. Nothing can make him any worse than he is, not now. Nor any better, seemingly.’ The features drooped briefly. ‘A good man, he was, sir, in his way,’ he said earnestly. ‘Don’t let how he’s fetched up deceive you. He has his faults, like all of us, but he was never all bad.’

With this ambiguous introduction echoing in his head, Josse followed Will up into the hall and went forward to meet the lord of Winnowlands.

* * *

Gunnora’s father, it was immediately apparent, was dying. He was lying on a bed as close to the great fireplace as he could be placed, despite the fact that, in the sun-warmed hall, the fire hadn’t yet been lit. He barely stirred as Will quietly spoke to him — ‘Sir Alard? Be you awake?’ and announced Josse, other than to turn his head towards them. He wore a fur-trimmed gown of heavy wool, over which a rug had been arranged. At his neck could be seen the collar of a linen shift, quite clean; dying he might be, but those who were looking after him were tending him devotedly.

His face was pale grey, without so much as the suggestion of colour. The flesh had all but gone, making the strong nose the more prominent. The eyes were dark, made more so now by the fact of lying deep within their sockets. In the dimness of the hall, as Josse’s eyes adjusted from the brilliance outside, he could, he thought, be looking at a skull.

‘What do you want, Josse d’Acquin?’ Alard of Winnowlands asked, in a voice that cracked on the words.

‘I come from Hawkenlye, Sir Alard. From the Abbess Helewise, who requires of you to know what are your wishes regarding the body of your late daughter, Gunnora.’

‘My late daughter Gunnora,’ Alard echoed. Astoundingly, the words were infused with bitter, mocking irony. ‘My late daughter.’ There was a pause. Then he said, this time quietly and expressionlessly, ‘With Gunnora, do what you please. Bury her with the nuns. She wished to be with them in life, let her stay with them in death.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ Josse said. ‘Abbess Helewise and the sisters will be relieved to have your decision.’ He hesitated. ‘Sir, may I-’

‘Get out.’ The words, said in the same toneless way, at first failed to register. Then, as Josse stayed where he was, Alard raised himself slightly, fixed Josse with those burning black eyes and yelled, ‘Get out!’

Josse had scarcely begun to move when the coughing began. At first quiet, it grew so swiftly to its violent, prolonged climax that Will only just had time to thrust a square of linen to Alard’s lips before the blood spurted out. The linen, washed and smoothed, was soon covered with fresh stains to lie alongside the old. Josse watched, transfixed and helpless, while the master of Winnowlands coughed away some more of what remained of his lungs.

* * *

Will joined him outside some time later.

‘It’s a pity you had to witness that,’ he said, coming to stand beside where Josse leaned against the sunny front of the house. There was a scent of lavender from bushes growing against the undercroft; Josse had been breathing in the good, clean smell.

‘Aye,’ Josse said. ‘Has he long been like that?’

‘The sickness grew slowly in him,’ Will replied. ‘At first no more than a cough that persisted, gradually growing till he was troubled constantly. He began to grow weak, didn’t want to eat. Then, last winter, he began to cough up blood.’

‘Ah.’ And that, Josse knew, invariably meant life would not go on much longer.

‘He’d have gone afore now,’ Will said, ‘only he’s so strong. Used to be, anyhow. There was plenty of him to waste away, if you take my meaning.’

‘Aye.’ Josse had seen the same in other men.

‘And, besides, he can’t go yet.’ Will paused, glancing sideways at Josse as if wondering how many more family affairs to reveal to this stranger.

‘Oh, no?’ Jesse tried to sound casual, disinterested.

Will’s quick smile indicated he wasn’t taken in. But, nevertheless, he went ahead. ‘No. He can’t die, not afore he’s decided.’

‘Decided?’

‘He’s not got long for this world, as well he knows, what with the priest and the physician either side of him with their long faces and all that telling him so. Prepare your soul, priest says, make a good confession, arrange your earthly affairs so as you have credit in heaven. But it ain’t as easy as that, is it, sir?’

‘No,’ Josse agreed. It seemed sensible not to lead Will off at a tangent by asking, what isn’t?

‘And there’s the living to consider, too, along of the matter of credit in heaven, ain’t there? The living as has their needs, too.’

‘Quite.’

‘See, it all looked so straightforward, year or so back,’ Will said, leaning confidingly close to Josse.

‘Before Gunnora entered the convent?’ Josse guessed. The timing was right, anyway.

‘Aye, that. But that weren’t the start of it.’ Will was shaking his head again. ‘Sir, I tell you straight, I’m glad I’m a simple man. I’ve my little house, my woman, and that’s that. My house ain’t mine to leave to nobody, and as for the rest, what I own I wear on my back, mostly.’

‘Yes, I see.’ Josse did. Began to see, at last, where this was leading. It all began to fit together.

‘There was the two of them,’ Will began suddenly. ‘Gunnora, she was the eldest, and there was Dillian. Lovely lass, Dillian, but she was his second-born. Gunnora had to come first, that’s only right and proper, so she it was Sir Alard offered for the match. But, sir, she wouldn’t have him! Wouldn’t marry him, and all the reasoning, all the threats and the punishments in the world, wouldn’t make her change her mind. So Sir Alard, he says, go on, then, go to your nunnery! But you’re no more daughter of mine! And then it’s Dillian’s turn, because, sir, you can’t say you’ve overlooked an elder sister, now, can you, not when you’ve offered it to her and she’s said, no, thankee just the same, I’m going to be a nun?’

‘No, indeed.’

‘So Dillian, she marries my Lord Brice instead.’ Abruptly Will stopped, face working with some deep emotion. After a moment he recovered sufficiently to say, ‘I’m sorry, sir, that I am, only it’s such a recent pain, see. I still thinks as how she’s going to come riding up the track like she used to, calling out, laughing, playing her little tricks, only she didn’t, of course, all that stopped, when she married him.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Naturally, they all say it was an accident. She fell off the horse, that’s for sure, and I know there’s witnesses to say so, good, honest souls who mean no harm, who are just telling the truth. But why did she get up on that great beast and gallop off like that? That’s what I’d like to know! And I know him, sir, I know that Brice. I tell you, I don’t blame Miss Gunnora for refusing him. I only wish my lovely Dillian had had the wisdom to do the same, but, there you are.’ He gave a deep, gusty sigh. ‘The ways of women always were a mystery, weren’t they? Always will be, too, I reckon.’

There seemed nothing to add to that remark, with which Josse was tempted to agree. Respectful of Will’s evident sorrow, Josse let the silence continue for some time. There was no need, anyway, for hurry. Not now, when he had guessed what had happened. Knew, or so he thought, what had caused the abiding misery of Winnowlands.

Not the death of an elder daughter, an unappealing woman whose departure into a convent hadn’t really dismayed anyone, but the death of her sister. My lovely Dillian, with her laughter and her tricks.

‘So he lost them both?’ he prompted eventually.

‘Hm?’ Will seemed to have forgotten Josse was there. ‘Aye. One after the other, not a sennight between them.’ Another deep sigh. ‘No more daughters. No female heir, securely married to a good man.’ He raised his head and met Josse’s eyes. ‘And the master’s every breath threatening to be his last. What’s to become of us all, sir? That’s what I’d like to know!’

‘Aye,’ Josse said absently. His brain was working hard, and, despite the depressing circumstances, there was an elation in him, at having surmised correctly.

He did a swift resume of Sir Alard’s dilemma. Both daughters dead, one immediately after the other. No more children, and this Dillian, apparently, had herself borne no child. And a son-in-law who, according to Will, was held by popular opinion to have been at best a poor husband, at worst responsible for his young wife’s death. The sort of man, surely, to whom a father-in-law would scarcely leave his undoubted wealth.

No wonder the peasants of the manor seemed so dismal and dejected. There was, in Josse’s experience, nothing more guaranteed to lower the spirits than uncertainty about the future.

And, with the succession of Winnowlands undecided and threatening to remain so, how much more uncertain could the future of everyone on this particular estate be?