Girl In A Red Tunic

Chapter 17

Two things pressed on Josse’s mind. First, he must get back to Hawkenlye and tell the Abbess what had happened; he would be able to reassure her that, although Arthur Fitzurse had brought what he claimed was evidence to prove that Walter Bell lay dead in the woods above the Old Manor, not only had Gervase de Gifford rightly dismissed this evidence out of hand, he also seemed more than ready to believe that even if Walter Bell had indeed died there, then it was as a result of Rohaise exercising her legal right to defend herself against a violent attack.

The second thing he must do — or at least try to do — was to speak again to Leofgar. Something kept niggling at him, one small detail of the story that Leofgar had told him, and he could not quite bring it into focus. It was something that Walter Bell had done, something that Josse knew was important and that he must remember, but he was damned if he could think what it was … Reasoning that Leofgar must want to speak to Josse almost as urgently as Josse wanted to consult him — wouldn’t he be desperate to know what was happening? — and that when the two of them had previously met, it was in that dell in the forest where Leofgar had been lying in wait for him, Josse decided to ride back to the Abbey via the woodland paths.

Soon after he entered in under the trees he dismounted and, leading Horace, made his tortuous way to the place where the beech tree hung over the dell. It was too much to expect Leofgar to be there waiting for him but after a short while the young man appeared, as silently and unexpectedly as before.

‘I have been watching for you,’ he said, grasping Josse’s hand and holding it tightly. He looked drawn and his words fell out in a rush. ‘I thought you would come back. Have there been developments? Have you discovered anything?’

‘Steady there,’ Josse said, trying to calm him. ‘One good thing has happened: Gervase de Gifford believes in your innocence.’ Leofgar made to speak — Josse guessed he was about to demand if Josse had repeated his story to the sheriff — but Josse held up his hand. ‘I have not told him the full tale that you told me,’ he said gently, ‘for in truth it is not my secret to tell. But de Gifford is an intelligent man and, knowing the foul reputation of the Bell brothers as well as he does, he has worked out for himself a possible course of events that is as near the truth as makes no difference.’ Wanting to make certain that Leofgar realised what he was being told, Josse added, ‘De Gifford does not see any crime in a woman defending herself from an attacker wielding a knife who bursts into her house with the aim of stealing her goods and raping her.’

As Leofgar sagged with relief, Josse suddenly remembered what it was he needed to ask. Giving the young man a few moments to recover, he then said, ‘Leofgar, when we talked before about that terrible day, we concluded that whatever Walter Bell was sent to find — and de Gifford also suggests that Arthur Fitzurse was the man who sent him — it was not your family valuables.’

‘Yes, I remember,’ Leofgar said. Then, impatiently, ‘That’s what we have to find out! What it is he’s really after!’

‘Aye, I know,’ Josse said soothingly. ‘What I’m asking you is with that end in mind. You told me, Leofgar, that when Rohaise was watching Walter Bell — before he knew she was there — she saw him searching somewhere within the hall. Where was it?’

Leofgar frowned as he tried to recall exactly what his wife had said. ‘She was hiding behind the hangings, clutching Timus to her and trying to keep him quiet …’ Then, as if the remembered scene had suddenly clarified, he said de cisively, ‘Walter Bell went straight over to the table. That was where he searched first.’

‘The table.’ Josse was nodding. ‘Aye, it always did sound an unlikely place for a thief to begin, unless, that is, someone had told him to look there first.’ A smile spreading across his face, he thumped Leofgar on the shoulder and said, ‘Thank you. Now I know what to do next.’

Grinning back at him, Leofgar said, ‘Go and search my table?’

‘Exactly that, because Rohaise did not report that Walter Bell succeeded in finding anything in, on or under that table.’ And, he thought, I saw with my own eyes that Arthur Fitzurse met with no more success when he looked. But he did not voice the thought; there seemed no need yet to add to Leofgar’s worries by revealing that Arthur Fitzurse had also searched the Old Manor. ‘So,’ he concluded, ‘whatever Bell came hunting for-’

‘-is still there!’ Leofgar gave a whoop of joy. ‘Go, Josse, be on your way, I beg you, and God’s speed,’ he said more quietly. ‘May you meet with success.’

‘I have a feeling that I will,’ Josse said. ‘Tell that to your pretty wife, Leofgar, and make sure she keeps her hopes up and her heart high.’

‘I will,’ Leofgar assured him. ‘Come back soon. I will watch for you.’

With a grunt of assent, Josse clicked to Horace and, leading the horse down the narrow track, set off in the direction of the Abbey.

He was so eager to tell the Abbess what had happened and about this thrilling and promising new prospect of searching for the precious thing that Walter Bell was sent to find that, as soon as he could, he mounted and kicked Horace to a canter. Arriving at the Abbey gates in a thunder of hooves, he drew to a halt, slid off Horace’s back and, after the most perfunctory of greetings to Sister Martha and Sister Ursel at the gate, he ran off to find the Abbess.

‘She’s not there!’ Sister Martha’s voice called after him.

He stopped dead. ‘Where is she?’ he asked, turning to look at the two nuns.

They looked at each other and then back at him. Then, in a voice that reflected her puzzlement and the very beginnings of anxiety, Sister Ursel said, ‘Isn’t she with you?’

He got the tale from them in time. Plunged almost into panic by their dread, they both kept trying to talk at once and for a while he could make no sense of what they said. Some man had come up from Tonbridge and told Sister Ursel that he had been sent by the sheriff and would the Abbess Helewise please go down with him to join Gervase de Gifford and Sir Josse d’Acquin there as something had happened and they wanted her to know of it and to give her opinion. Sister Ursel had thought it a little odd, but then hadn’t another of the sheriff’s men come up to the Abbey earlier with a similar message for Josse, and hadn’t he set off without a qualm in answer to that summons? Anyway, odd or not, the Abbess, bless her, hadn’t hesitated but had ordered Sister Martha to prepare the golden mare so that she could be on her way. ‘And it wasn’t for either of us to question her actions, was it, Sir Josse?’ Sister Ursel asked tearfully. ‘She’s our Abbess and we must do as we’re told!’

Full of pity for the two distressed nuns, Josse agreed that it was for the Abbess to order her own comings and goings, and he reassured both sisters that it wasn’t their fault and nobody would hold them to blame.

‘That’s all very well, Sir Josse,’ Sister Martha said after waiting patiently for him to finish. ‘But if she’s not with you, where is she?’

Trying to keep his own fears under tight control, he said, ‘What was the man like, the one who claimed he had come from the sheriff?’

The two nuns looked at each other, then Sister Martha said, ‘Dark sort of aspect to him. Rode a decent horse and although he wore a cheap, thin cloak, I thought I caught a glimpse of a fine tunic beneath it. And there was something else …’ She broke off, frowning as if trying to search for the words to describe a fleeting impression. Then, apparently finding them, said, ‘The man who came for you, Sir Josse, who I sent down to the Vale to find you, he sounded like what he was, if you understand me. This other fellow, he sounded as if he were putting on a voice. Speaking with words he didn’t usually use.’

‘Could he,’ Josse said cautiously, not wanting to lead her, ‘have been just pretending to be a sheriff’s man?’

Sister Martha shot him a quick look. ‘Aye, Sir Josse, he well could. I reckon there was a man of quality hiding under that dirty cloak, or at least a man who habitually puts on the airs of one, and he didn’t much like having to act otherwise.’

A man who habitually puts on airs … Aye, Josse thought. A shrewd assessment of Arthur Fitzurse, if ever I heard one. Wondering what on earth this meant, what Fitzurse could possibly have been trying to do in luring the Abbess away from Hawkenlye, he did his best to reassure the two nuns that it was probably a simple mistake that would soon be cleared up. ‘I’ll go straight back down to Tonbridge,’ he said, taking Horace’s reins back from Sister Martha and swinging up into the saddle, ‘and I’ll have the Abbess back here before you know I’m gone!’

His words sounded cheerful and optimistic. But his last glimpse of the two worried faces as he cantered away suggested they were no more confident of this rapid success than he was.

He went straight to de Gifford’s house. Gervase was still there, or perhaps had been out and returned; he was sitting down to a hasty meal as Josse flung himself into the hall.

‘Arthur Fitzurse has taken the Abbess Helewise,’ he said breathlessly. ‘He went up to Hawkenlye and claimed to be one of your men sent to fetch her down to join us here.’

‘Fitzurse?’ De Gifford was standing up even as he spoke. ‘Why? What does he want of her?’

Josse shook his head impatiently. ‘I cannot begin to guess. Where does he live? Do you know?’

‘He lodges in rooms in the town. A mean sort of place; I should have expected better from the man’s manner.’

Josse heard Sister Martha’s voice again. Aye, it seemed more than one person had gained this impression of Fitzurse: he was a man who had the air of someone of more means than he in fact possessed. In that moment Josse saw the man again as he had first watched him ride into the courtyard of the Old Manor, looking as if he owned the place.

‘We’ll go and look for him,’ de Gifford was saying, reaching for his cloak that he had spread before the fire to warm. ‘Come on!’

Needing no encouragement, Josse followed him. They mounted their horses and hurried off and after a short time were outside the dilapidated building where Fitzurse had his lodgings. To the surprise of neither man, he was not there and neither was the Abbess.

‘Where has he taken her?’ Josse raged as they returned to de Gifford’s house. Trying to keep his voice low, he demanded, ‘Why has he taken her?’

Reading his anxiety, de Gifford spoke calmly. ‘I will summon all the men at my disposal and set them hunting for her. My men are good,’ he added, eyes on Josse’s, ‘believe me, Josse, they know their way around the dark corners of this town very well and they will not give up until they find her.’

Only a little reassured, Josse watched as de Gifford sent out the summons and, as his men began to arrive, quietly issued his orders. When the last man had gone, he turned to the sheriff and said, ‘What do we do? I cannot just sit here and wait, man, I-’

‘I understand,’ de Gifford said gently. ‘You need to be doing something, and so do I. What do you suggest?’

Josse tried to think what he had been doing before this new and dreadful thing had happened. He’d been desperate to see the Abbess because he wanted to tell her something …

Aye. He knew what it was, and he also knew what he and Gervase must now do. He said — and he was pleased to hear that his voice sounded brisk and decisive and the terrible anxiety didn’t show — ‘We’ll ride out to the Old Manor.’

De Gifford looked surprised. ‘Do you think to find Fitzurse there?’

Josse shrugged; it was possible, he supposed, although he did not see quite why. ‘Maybe. But there’s something else that we must look for.’ And, as they rode out of the courtyard and set off along the road northwards, he explained what it was.

Helewise had been riding along behind the sheriff’s man who had come to fetch her down to Tonbridge for some time before she was sure. As soon as she was, she called out to him, ‘I thought you said we were to join Sir Josse and the sheriff at the sheriff’s house? Is that house not in the town?’

The man turned to her and she caught a glimpse of his sallow-skinned face under the concealing hood. He muttered something about the sheriff living out a way into the country and for a time she had to be content with that.

But her unease grew.

She could not have said why; the man treated her courteously enough and, even if he was bluff of speech and not inclined to talk unless he had to, those things alone were not sufficient to explain her vague fear.

They were deep out in the wilds now, riding along what appeared to be a little-used track that wound along just above the marshy ground that lay on the river’s margins. There were willows and alder and, underfoot, a sort of wiry grass grew in tussocks. Here and there smaller paths — perhaps animal tracks — led off to right and left. The very air smelt wet from the nearness of the water.

She was about to question her guide again but then, pointing forward to what looked like a length of tumbledown hurdle fencing extending from a wildly overgrown bramble hedge, he said gruffly, ‘We’re here. That’s the sheriff’s house up ahead.’

She strained to see but the dwelling was as yet still concealed by the bramble thicket. It could, she thought, be but a single storey, hardly a house for a man such as Gervase de Gifford. And why on earth did he opt to live in such apparent neglect and squalor out here in this moist, misty, damp wilderness?

As if her guide felt that her unspoken question required an answer, he said, in the same low and slightly husky voice, ‘Sheriff has his official residence in the town, see. He likes to get away here whenever he can a’cause of it’s quiet and folk don’t come a-knocking on his door.’

Well, that made sense, Helewise thought. Didn’t it? Gervase de Gifford would very likely be at everyone’s beck and call in the course of his day’s work so why should he not choose to have a house right away from the hurry and bustle of Tonbridge and get away to it when his duties permitted?

Yes, she thought, chewing at her lip, but why has he brought Josse here? Why did Gervase choose this place for our meeting?

Again the man seemed to read her mind, for his next remark gave her the explanation she needed. Turning round in the saddle to look back at her — he was now a short distance ahead — he said, ‘Sheriff’s brought that Sir Josse d’Acquin along here to show him something what some man’s brought him. It’s evidence, they say, and nobody’s to see it as doesn’t have to.’

Ah, now she understood! Somebody had found something — oh, dear God, let it not be anything to incriminate Leofgar; amid her tension, the old familiar dread reared its head — and, since this something, whatever it was, had to be kept from prying eyes, de Gifford had wisely had it brought to his house out here. What a diplomatic man he was!

Trustingly, in anticipation of seeing Josse and the sheriff again very soon, Helewise kicked Honey’s smooth sides and hurried to catch up with the man.

Three things happened almost simultaneously. Riding on had meant that de Gifford’s house came abruptly into view and instantly she knew it could never have been a dwelling of that fastidious man for it was little more than a hovel, the damage of years left unrepaired, the walls breached and bowing outwards, the reed thatch of the lowering, overhanging roof rotting and dark with age. And, just as she cried out and would have turned Honey’s head and put heels to her, galloping off in her fear back along the way they had come, the man leaned out and put a strong hand on Honey’s bridle.

Then as he led her captive around the end of the bramble hedge and across the filthy, rubbish-strewn and mud-ridden yard to the low door of the dark little hut, she realised what it was about him that had not been right. It was when he said Josse’s name, as he had done when first he came for her and as he had just done again now. Other than the educated, people usually referred to him as ‘That Sir Josse’ or, if brave enough to make a stab at the rest of his name, ‘That Sir Josse Daikin.’

Why, then, should a sheriff’s man with dubious grammar and a common man’s speech know how to say ‘D’Acquin’ with perfect intonation and be careful always to do so? It was almost as if, despite the disguise, he would not lower himself to the depths of pretending to be quite that ignorant.

Her heart thumping with fear, Helewise heard the man give her a curt instruction to dismount. He grasped her wrist in a firm hand and took Honey’s reins, tethering the mare with his own horse to a post set in the mud of the yard. Then, still holding Helewise’s wrist, he opened the door of the hut and pulled her through into the odorous darkness beyond.

Josse and de Gifford reached the Old Manor in record time. It was as if, Josse thought, feeling Horace’s great strength beneath him as the horse stretched himself to a full gallop, we expect to find her there and cannot bear to wait an instant longer than we have to for the reassurance that she is safe.

But the Abbess was not at the Old Manor. Wilfrid came out to meet them; he would have heard us coming, Josse realised, for we made no attempt to ride quietly. Wilfrid reported that no visitors had been received since Josse and de Gifford last came by and no word heard from the master. Josse put out his hand and briefly touched the man’s shoulder; ‘I cannot tell you much,’ he said softly, ‘but be assured that your master is well, as I believe are your mistress and the child.’

Wilfrid did not utter a word but the expression in his eyes was answer enough.

De Gifford was speaking to Wilfrid now, explaining that they had come to look for something that might well help to put matters to rights so that everything could return to normal. Josse gave Wilfrid a wink behind de Gifford’s back — the sheriff had sounded a little pompous — and was rewarded with the first real smile he had seen on Wilfrid’s handsome face.

De Gifford strode on into the hall, Josse on his heels. They approached the long table and de Gifford ran his hands over its smooth surface. ‘Oak, d’you think, Josse?’ he asked.

‘Aye,’ Josse agreed. ‘Plain but well made.’ He bent to look at the frame that supported the table top but if there were any concealed drawer or space there, he could not see it. Then, lying down on his back, he looked up at the under surfaces; again, nothing.

De Gifford was feeling up and down the table legs. They too were plain and unadorned; this was a workmanlike piece, there to serve a purpose and do its job, and nobody had wasted their time beautifying it with carvings and mouldings. Nevertheless the sheriff went on looking and so did Josse.

It was de Gifford who was first to speak the obvious. ‘There’s nothing, Josse,’ he said. ‘If this damned table holds a secret, then it keeps it too close for us to find.’

Josse was looking around. ‘Perhaps there’s another table,’ he said hopefully. ‘Do you remember noticing one when we searched the house with Fitzurse?’

De Gifford shook his head. ‘No. On the contrary, I recall thinking how little the young Warins possess. The Old Manor is but sparsely furnished.’

Josse privately agreed — he had received the same impression — but all the same the two of them had a quick look around the other rooms of the house.

They did not find another table.

‘The trouble is,’ de Gifford mused as they set about a desultory hunt of the chest in the hall and the hangings on the walls, ‘that we don’t know what we’re looking for and so may very well have missed it.’

‘Fitzurse knew, if we surmise aright,’ Josse replied, ‘and he did not find it either, although both you and I watched him search.’

‘Hmm.’ De Gifford straightened up, rubbing at his back. ‘What now, Josse?’

‘I confess I am very disappointed,’ Josse said. ‘I had really thought that we should find a hidden drawer or panel and within it some object to explain what Fitzurse is about.’

‘Well, we didn’t,’ de Gifford said somewhat curtly. ‘We should return to Tonbridge, Josse. There is nothing more we can do here and we may get back to find that there is news of the Abbess.’

With that hope high in his heart, Josse followed him outside. Wilfrid came to see them off; observing their expressions, he remarked, ‘You didn’t find what you came looking for, then.’

‘No,’ Josse said. With an optimism he was far from feeling, he added, ‘But we will!’

Then he kicked Horace and rode off behind de Gifford back to Tonbridge.