Girl In A Red Tunic

Chapter 4

It was night and Helewise was dreaming again.

She had gone to sleep thinking about Josse’s quite unexpectedly easy and natural way with children and uppermost in her mind had not been the extraordinary reaction he had evoked in little Timus. It had been the thought — which in truth was never very far away — that Josse had a child of his own and he did not know it.

The daughter whom Joanna de Courtenay had born him would be about a year old now. Rumour of mother and child had reached Helewise occasionally: they said Joanna had been living as a herbalist deep in the Great Forest. They said she lived hidden away in a little hut and that she talked with the Wild People. They said she made simples and potions and would help anyone who came a-knocking at her door. If they could find it. They said she lived high up in a tree and could charm the bees and the birds and talk to the animals in their own strange tongues. Then, in the spring of the year, there was a whisper that she had gone away. Helewise had discreetly tried to find out from the Abbey’s own herbalist, Sister Tiphaine, who always seemed to know more than a good nun should about the goings-on among the mysterious and pagan forest people, if this rumour were true. Sister Tiphaine had looked her Abbess right in the eye and said calmly, ‘She may well have left, my lady. But she will be back.’

Which had not answered the question in any satisfactory way at all …

For all that her thoughts as she fell asleep had been on Josse’s child, it was her own sons who flooded Helewise’s dreams. The first image was one that had disturbed her sleep before. She was young, dressed in a sunshine-yellow gown that she had made from an expensive length of French silk brought back by her indulgent father from a trip to a trading port on the south coast. She had reason to remember that gown very well and there was not one single detail of it that she had forgotten. But, in the way of dreams, the chronology was not quite right because she had worn that gown when she was a fast-maturing girl of fourteen (she had been so proud because she and her nimble-fingered nurse had had to let out the bodice to accommodate Helewise’s richly rounded breasts) whereas, in the dream, she was wearing the yellow gown at a time after she had given birth to both her sons.

And there, too, dream time played tricks because the sixteen-month gap between them had disappeared and, as if they were twins, she fed them together, one held tenderly in the crook of each arm. Milk ran from her freely and in her sleep she turned and moaned softly as the never-forgotten feeling of let-down surged through her breasts under the linen sleeping shift. In her dream she sat on a grassy bank beneath a spreading willow tree and Ivo, kneeling before her and kissing her bare feet, took her toes in his mouth even as her hungry sons took her nipples and he sucked and licked them as if they were coated with honey. My Flora, he said, breaking off to look up at her and give her a wink, my Queen of the May. Then Leofgar turned from a suckling baby into a boy of five and stood in front of her, feet firmly planted in the green grass, demanding an apple because he needed the core to throw at a huge rook that was eating the corn. Dominic, also growing from babyhood to childhood in the blink of an eye, stood with her in the cool kitchen of the beautiful rambling old manor house that had been her marital home and helped her make gingerbread men with black, dried-fruit eyes. Then she was a girl again, newly married and wearing the red silk gown that had caused such problems because her new father-in-law gave it to her as a wedding gift — he must have noticed her generous breasts because she did not have to let that gown out at all — and she loved it, yet the more straight-laced members of her large family sniffed their disapproval and said that scarlet was a dangerous, pagan colour and only worn by wanton women. Elena, the old nurse, had just smiled and said Never you mind, my sweeting, it’ll be a lucky colour for you because it belongs to the Old Ways and the Great Mother, and she’ll see how you honour her and she’ll keep you fertile.

Elena had known. She always knew …

Helewise woke lying on her back from a dream in which Ivo had been making love to her. Shocked at the response that was still coursing through her throbbing body, she got silently out of bed, crept along the length of the dormitory to the little recess at its far end where, breaking the ice on a basin of water, she sponged herself down until her flesh was bright red and she was shivering like a wet hound.

She tiptoed back to her bed but, not yet daring to risk more dreams, fell to her knees beside it and prayed to God to restore her peace of mind and her serenity. After quite a long time, she got back into her cold bed. As sleep took her once more, she seemed to hear a voice that could have been Josse’s or Ivo’s saying, quite kindly, No good praying for that, dear heart, not until this trouble is past.

But the voice disappeared in the deep dark of profound and dreamless sleep and she forgot all about it.

She was awake before the summons to Prime and was already praying in the cold, dark Abbey church when the rest of the community quietly filed in. As the office began, she gave her heart, mind and soul into God’s hands and promised to do her best, humbly asking His forgiveness if her concentration wavered but begging Him to understand that the circumstances were a little unusual.

Then, determined to complete a session of hard work before anyone else popped up with a claim on her time, she hurried away to her little room and firmly shut herself in.

Josse woke up a long time after the Abbess. He had slept soundly and was relieved to discover that yesterday’s headache had quite gone. His fever had not returned the previous evening and he was very much hoping that he would be allowed to get up today.

Sister Caliste brought him porridge and a hot drink, then the infirmarer came for her customary check. She pronounced him well but warned him not to overdo it and to return for a nap in the afternoon. Then a young nun in the white veil of the novice brought him his clothes — someone had kindly washed out his linen — and, with relief, he dressed and set off to see what had been happening in the outside world while he lay abed.

He went to see Horace and found that as usual Sister Martha had been spoiling this guest in her stables. Horace looked half asleep and very well-fed and Josse, thanking Sister Martha for her care, made a mental note to make sure he found the time to take the big horse out for a ride to remind him that he had been put on this Earth to bear Josse and not to stuff himself in a warm, sweet-smelling stable.

At the back of his mind since waking had been the Abbess’s son and his family. He had formed a vague plan of offering to talk to Leofgar and perhaps also Rohaise in an informal sort of a way to see if they unwittingly revealed rather more of what was going on than Leofgar as yet had told his mother. But he did not feel he could do this until he had talked it over with the Abbess; accordingly, soon after the community had emerged from the Abbey church after Sext, he went to find her.

His tentative tap on the door elicited an unusually curt response: she barked, ‘Yes? Who is it?’

Surprised that she had not heard the jingle of his spurs and guessed who it was, he said, ‘It’s me.’

Her voice warming by several degrees, she called out, ‘Please, come in, Sir Josse.’

He did so, closing the heavy door behind him with exaggerated care as if she now suffered his headache and he did not wish to cause her the pain of a loud noise. When he looked at her, he wondered if he might by chance be right, for she was pale and had greyish circles under her eyes, as if exhausted.

He said without thinking, ‘Try not to worry. I’m sure that between us all we can help them.’

She gave him a wry smile. ‘Thank you, Sir Josse. I was not actually thinking of Leofgar at that moment. I had just managed to turn my mind fully to these reports from our outlying properties out in the Medway valley and I was at last making progress.’

Until you brought my son and his problems right back to my attention, hung unsaid in the air.

‘I’m sorry, my lady.’ Josse was contrite. ‘Er — can I help?’

It was a foolish question and he knew it before it was confirmed by her ironically raised eyebrow. ‘With the reports? I think not, and indeed I would not wish such a task upon a friend since the writing is all but illegible and the content, once deciphered, deadly dull.’

‘I did not really mean help you with your work.’

‘I know, Sir Josse,’ she said gently. ‘I was teasing you.’

Teasing was a good sign, he decided. Teasing meant she wasn’t as bowed down by her anxiety as he suspected. ‘I thought maybe I’d have a talk with your son and his wife,’ he said as casually as he could, which didn’t sound very casual at all. ‘I have yet to meet the lady and, if she’s awake and feels adequately restored, perhaps she would appreciate a visitor.’

The Abbess had put her stylus down and was looking at him with affection. ‘Forgive me, Sir Josse, I quite forgot to ask after your own health, but if you are up and about, I would guess that you are recovered.’

‘Aye, my lady, thank you, but the infirmarer has summoned me back for an afternoon sleep.’

‘You must have it,’ urged the Abbess. ‘It is rare for Sister Euphemia to be so indulgent, so make the most of it.’

He grinned. ‘Very well.’

‘And as to your proposal to speak with Leofgar and Rohaise, I think it is an excellent idea. I have been to see Rohaise this morning and she is well rested. Sister Euphemia has suggested another undemanding day — she is still concerned at Rohaise’s pallor — but I am sure that a visit from you would brighten her up. You may find Leofgar with her but I believe he intended to take Timus out for some fresh air.’

‘It might be a happy chance to catch her on her own,’ he mused. ‘Do you not think, my lady?’

She gave him a conspiratorial smile. ‘I do, Sir Josse. Indeed I do.’

He found Rohaise sitting in the little curtained recess that was a copy of the one in which he had been cared for at the other end of the infirmary. She was dressed in a warm woollen gown in a russet shade, over which she wore a sleeveless tunic edged in fur; her dark hair was neatly braided and partially concealed by a small, stiff white veil held in place by a plaited cord of silk. She sat on a low stool at the foot of the bed and she was sewing a hem in what appeared to be a very long length of white linen.

Standing with his head through the gap between the curtains, he said, ‘Lady Rohaise, may I come to talk to you? I am Josse d’Acquin.’

She had raised a startled, wide-eyed face to him at his first words, as if her thoughts had been far away and he had made her jump. But, as he identified himself, her expression relaxed and, putting her sewing aside, she stood up.

‘Please come in, Sir Josse.’ Her voice was low-pitched and attractive. He stepped between the curtains and into the recess. She pulled another stool forward from where it had been set back out of the way beside the wall and invited him to sit. As she resumed her seat, he did so.

‘You are the very exceptional man,’ said Rohaise, ‘who not only is a good friend of the Abbess, my mother-in-law, but also performed the miracle of making my little boy laugh and speak.’

Overcome by her praise, he muttered, ‘Hardy speak, my lady. It was but the one word.’

‘You cannot know what that one word means to me,’ she said urgently. ‘I wish with all my heart that I had been there to witness the moment, but I was sleeping. They gave me some drug that rendered me senseless,’ she added tonelessly.

He wanted to go on talking about the child but her words seemed to imply criticism, and he leapt to Hawkenlye’s defence. As kindly as he could, he said, ‘They are skilled healers here, Lady Rohaise. Put yourself in their hands, I do urge you, and they will do their very best for you.’

Her dark eyes met his and his kind heart shuddered at the misery he saw in their depths. ‘I am not sure that I can be helped,’ she said. She sighed. ‘There has been too much …’ Her voice trailed off.

‘Too much?’ he prompted.

She did not respond, instead reaching out her hand for the sewing. ‘I asked for something to do,’ she explained, ‘for when my son is not by my side I worry about him. I worry even when he is with me, now, and I fear that it will take more than hemming sheets to stop me.’

‘Why do you worry so?’ Josse asked gently. ‘Your boy is healthy, is he not? Some parents would say that, offered the choice, they would prefer a quiet child to a boisterous one.’

‘Oh, Timus can be as boisterous as any little boy,’ she replied quickly. ‘Sir Josse, he used to-’ But, as if someone had put a hand over her mouth, she stopped.

‘Can you not confide in me, my lady?’ Josse asked. ‘I am here to help; you have my word on that.’

She gazed into his eyes, her needlework forgotten in her lap. ‘I am not a fit mother,’ she whispered. ‘Timus deserves better, for I fear that I contaminate him a little more with every day. I stopped feeding him, you know. My milk was bad for him and he was better off with Adela. She stopped coming to our home too, you know. She knew. She saw it all.’

The poor woman makes no sense, Josse thought, deeply concerned. Making up his mind that the best way to respond was with the prosaic and everyday, he said, ‘Well, once your boy was weaned, he had no more use of a wet nurse. Isn’t that so?’

‘Oh, yes.’ She sounded dreamy, as if her thoughts were far away.

‘I do not believe that you can possibly contaminate your own child, my lady,’ Josse pressed on. ‘It is clear that you love him.’

‘Is it?’ She almost snapped out the words. ‘Is it?’

‘You have brought him here in order that help be given to him over these strange silences of his, have you not?’

She gave him a tiny smile, enough to put a faint dimple in her gaunt cheek and give him a glimpse of how pretty she might have been under other circumstances. ‘Coming here was my husband’s idea, Sir Josse,’ she corrected him. ‘He told me — went on telling me until I was so tired that I silently screamed at him to stop — that this was a good place where they would help me. Me,’ she repeated, emphasising the word. ‘He thinks, like everyone else, that I am in dire need of help because I am an unnatural woman who cannot raise her child.’

‘I am sure that is not so!’ Josse protested, but even as he spoke the words he was wondering whether there might not be some truth in Rohaise’s pitiful accusations against herself. Then, like a blessing, he remembered the Abbess’s report on her talk with the infirmarer. ‘They tell me,’ he said, lowering his voice and leaning closer to her, ‘that quite a lot of young mothers have feelings such as yours and that many get better.’

Damnation! He hadn’t meant to say that, to imply that some did not! ‘That is,’ he hurried on, ‘things quite naturally improve as the child grows and thrives, and — well, all turns out for the best in the end.’

It sounded lame even to him. He was not at all surprised when she turned cool eyes on him and said, ‘So I have been told, Sir Josse. But it is a different matter to be you, out there where things make sense and normality rules, and to be I, who am forced to live in this nightmare world that threatens me.’

‘But threatens you with what, Lady Rohaise?’

He wondered afterwards if he had spoken too urgently, for she seemed to flinch, then her eyes closed and two huge tears rolled down her sallow cheeks. Then she bent her head over her sewing and began to weep.

With the horrible sensation of having done more harm than good, Josse got up, summoned one of the nursing nuns — it was Sister Beata, who might not have had the cleverest brain but certainly had the most generous heart — and asked her to look after Rohaise. With a worried little frown, Sister Beata wiped her hands and hurried into the recess, where she crouched down beside the weeping young woman and enveloped her in soft, loving arms, muttering kindly as the girl turned her wet face into the nun’s bosom.

Feeling utterly redundant, Josse slunk away.

With nothing better to do, he remembered his resolve to exercise Horace and he fetched the horse from the stable. Trying to allow the bracing autumnal air to take his mind off his failure with Rohaise, he kicked Horace into a canter and then a gallop and they pounded along the track that led around the forest, the horse’s big feet sending up flying divots of frosty earth. After a while they slowed to a canter, then a brisk trot, until finally Josse drew the horse to a halt and they turned back towards the Abbey.

They were not far from the gates when Josse spotted the figures of a man and a small child. The man was crouched down beside the small and well-wrapped figure of the boy and as Josse drew closer he saw that Leofgar was showing his son how to make a skeleton leaf.

‘…gently, now, don’t damage the veins of the leaf — there!’ Leofgar was saying as he held up the child’s clumsy attempt. ‘That’s very good, Timus, we’ll take it home as a present for your mother.’

The child caught sight of Josse before his father did. With a smile of welcome that went some way towards making up for Josse’s failure with the boy’s mother, Timus pointed and said, ‘Man!’

Spinning round, Leofgar’s wary expression instantly relaxed into an ironic grin as he saw who it was. ‘I should have guessed,’ he called, ‘you being the only person who inspires my son to speech.’

Hurrying to cover the remaining paces between them, Josse slid off Horace’s back, keeping tight hold of the reins in case the horse should frighten the child by a bit of innocent curiosity; the disparity in their sizes suggested this might be unwise. Then he went to greet them. With a nod to Leofgar — Josse could not for the moment think of any suitable reply to the young man’s comment — he knelt down beside the child and opened his arms for a hug. Timus rushed straight up to him and snuggled against his chest, grasping a fold of Josse’s cloak and pulling it over his head. Josse, thinking it was a game, began to laugh but Timus turned a solemn face up to him and whispered something that he did not understand.

‘What was that, Timus?’ Josse asked. The little boy repeated the word, which sounded like hide, but still Josse did not quite catch it. Leofgar made as if to remove his son from the nest he had made of the cloak against Josse’s broad chest but, to Josse’s surprise and faint dismay, the child cowered against him and would not be budged.

‘If you will lead my horse, I’ll carry the lad back to the Abbey,’ Josse said, trying to make light of the strange occurrence.

Leofgar was not fooled. ‘It is not as it seems, Sir Josse,’ he said softly.

‘I was not making a judgement,’ Josse protested.

Leofgar smiled thinly. ‘No? The smallest part of you was not saying, see how this silent child pulls away from his father into the protecting arms of a near-stranger! Does this not suggest that the child fears the father?’

‘I do not believe that.’ It is true! Josse told himself. But whether he believed it because of Leofgar himself or because he was Helewise’s son, he did not dare think about.

They walked slowly along the track towards the Abbey gates. Horace walked obediently behind Leofgar, and Timus, still snuggled in Josse’s arms, put his thumb in his mouth and with the other hand reached out and delicately took hold of a strand of Josse’s dark hair, which he twiddled with small, deft fingers.

The silence between the two men was hardly companionable and Josse was relieved when Leofgar broke it. ‘May I risk a confidence, Sir Josse?’

‘A-?’ Josse played for time while he thought rapidly. Then he said, ‘I would be honoured to hear anything you would wish to say to me privately. But I cannot give my word that I would not repeat it to — to another.’

‘To my mother,’ Leofgar said calmly. ‘Yes, I know. I think, though, that I must speak anyway.’ Not giving himself further time for consideration, he plunged on, ‘Sir Josse, there are several reasons why I have brought my wife and son here to Hawkenlye. The first you know, for it is no secret that I wished to consult the excellent infirmarer and her nuns not only about my mute son’ — he shot a swift and loving smile at the sleepy Timus — ‘about my hitherto mute son but also about my sick wife. This we have done. The other — no, if I am to be honest with you, as indeed I wish to be, another reason is because my wife feels threatened at home.’

‘Aye, so I am beginning to understand,’ Josse said. ‘She seems-’

But, with an apologetic smile, Leofgar interrupted him. ‘Forgive me, Sir Josse, but I must explain before we- Well, hear as much as I feel able to say, if you will.’

More mystified than ever, Josse said, ‘Gladly.’

Again the smile, and this time Leofgar’s expression was grateful. ‘Thank you. Sir Josse, I am the son of a nun, an Abbess, a woman who stands high in the esteem of the Church, and what I must tell you may displease her when she comes to be told of it. Part of my reason for speaking initially to you is that I would be pleased to have your advice on how my formidable mother is told.’

He paused, apparently waiting for a response, and Josse said, ‘I usually find that the direct approach is best. But I will listen and if I can make any helpful suggestions, I will.’

Leofgar nodded. ‘I am grateful.’ He took a breath, then said quickly, ‘Sir Josse, back at home the clergy have come to know of my wife’s state of mind. Our parish priest has prayed for her and with her and still there is no improvement. He has decided, in his wisdom, that my beloved Rohaise has suffered the misfortune of having a changeling put in the cradle. You understand what that is?’

Memories of half-forgotten folk tales were surfacing slowly in Josse’s astonished mind. A changeling, he recalled, was the name given to a fairy child substituted for a human baby. Hardly crediting that a priest should believe such superstitious nonsense, he said grimly, ‘I understand, aye.’

‘Father Luke tells Rohaise that it is not her fault she cannot be a proper mother — which, as you will imagine, does further damage to her desperate lack of confidence — because the child she tries to care for is not the product of her own womb but an evil spirit, planted in our baby’s cradle for some malicious and secret purpose of the dark world of the spirits.’

Josse, stunned, noticed that in this alarming Father Luke’s version, the innocent ‘fairy’ had become ‘evil spirit’. Dear God alive! ‘Go on,’ he said.

‘He tells us — tells Rohaise especially, for it is she who constantly turns to him for help — that the real Timus is now the captive of the spirits and that only our true and deep penance will make Father Luke’s stern God relent and send our little boy home.’

There was a silence as Leofgar finished speaking. Then Josse burst out, ‘You cannot believe this rubbish!’

‘I, no. I grew up with my mother’s version of what a loving God does and does not do and, besides, I’m too old for fairy stories. But I’m afraid to say that Rohaise, despite her intelligence, is inclined to half-believe what her priest tells her.’ He shot a dark look at Josse. ‘As you will understand, I am sure, the Church and I are not friends at present.’

Josse put a hand on the young man’s arm. ‘Do not judge them all by this one misguided man,’ he urged. ‘And do not hesitate in telling your mother, who will, I’ve no doubt, share your disgust at your Father Luke’s tactics.’

Leofgar sighed. ‘I’m afraid that’s not all,’ he said. ‘Father Luke eventually lost patience with us and commanded us to remain in our own home while he made the necessary arrangements. He does not feel we’re trying hard enough in our prayers, by which he means, I guess, that he suspects that I for one disbelieve everything he has told us and am on the point of encouraging Rohaise in rebellion against him.’

With a chill feeling around his heart, Josse said, ‘For what was he making arrangements?’

‘Not what, who. For him,’ Leofgar mouthed, jerking his head at his sleepy son. ‘Father Luke was coming for him. He was going to take our boy and lodge him with the monks, in the hope that their chilly hearts and strict discipline would frighten the changeling into fleeing back to his own kind and allowing the human child to return in his place. We left to come here just in time, shortly before Father Luke was due to arrive to carry out his threat.’

He watched Josse closely, as if trying to gauge a reaction. Josse, caught off guard, realised that he was scowling ferociously and hurriedly he smoothed out the expression, at the same time clutching Timus more closely as if afraid some lunatic, wild-eyed priest would spring up and try to wrest the child from his arms there and then.

Observant eyes missing neither response, Leofgar said with a grim smile, ‘I have the feeling, Sir Josse, that I’ve found an ally.’

‘You have, lad, you have,’ Josse said fervently.

Leofgar laughed suddenly, a happy, relieved sound. ‘Then will you please do me one more favour and help me explain to my mother that the holy church is after us and we’re on the run?’