No Dark Place

6

The rain held off until Simon of Evesham and his escort of five knights were almost at the doors of the Benedictine convent in Worcester.

“God’s bones,” Simon said to the young knight who rode by his side. “Ten more minutes and we would have escaped it.” He scowled with annoyance and pulled the hood of his light wool cloak up over his head.

“I don’t mind the rain,” Philip replied. “I think it feels refreshing. The road has been so dusty that my throat hurts.” He held his face up to the sky as if he would drink in the flow of water cascading from the dark clouds above.

Simon grunted and pulled his hood even further forward. “All I can say is that there had better be a good reason for my sister to have sent for me at such a time. I don’t want to be away from Evesham for long. I expect to have news any day now that Earl Robert has landed.”

There was a stream in front of them, with a narrow bridge that required their party of six to file across it one by one.

Ducks floated on the rain-dappled, greenish water and an old boat was moored along the far shore.

When they had reached the other side of the bridge and Philip was once more riding next to Simon, the young knight said, “It’s been a long wait, almost a full year since the earl formally renounced his allegiance to Stephen and declared for Matilda.”

“Aye, well, he had to settle his estates in Normandy before he could come back to England,” Simon said.

The rain began to fall harder.

“You have no idea what Lady Isabel wants?” Philip asked. He was on comfortable terms with Simon, having served in the lord of Evesham’s household since he was a child of eight.

“I have no idea,” Simon replied grumpily. “My sister has communicated with me very rarely since she insisted on immuring herself in that convent. I cannot imagine why she is so insistent that she must see me now.”

In the distance, Philip saw the spire of the abbey church appear over the trees. He pointed it out to his lord.

“We’re almost there,” he said. “You shall know soon enough.”

Isabel de Leon’s brother and his retinue rode up to the gatehouse of the convent just as the bells were ringing for vespers. The portress told them that they were expected and that rooms in the guest house had been prepared. She summoned grooms to take their horses, and a lay sister to show them the way to their quarters.

Simon could see Isabel after vespers in the cloister, the portress said as they prepared to follow the lay sister across the now-muddy courtyard. In the meanwhile, a cold collation would be served to them in the guest house hall.

“Thank you, Sister,” Simon responded courteously. “Something to eat would be greatly appreciated.”

After they had entered the guest house, Philip accompanied Simon to his room in order to relieve him of his mail. Worcester was officially under the governance of Stephen, and it was wise for any person who might be suspected of favoring Earl Robert and the empress to tread carefully in this part of the world. Simon’s whole party had ridden from Evesham wearing mail shirts under their surcoats.

The room Simon had been given was scarcely luxurious, containing only a bed, one chair, and a small table with a plain pottery washbasin, a pitcher with water in it, and a solitary cup. Philip glanced out the single small window as he waited for Simon to drink some water.

The stone of the abbey buildings looked silvery in the steadily falling rain. He looked across the courtyard at the church and imagined the nuns in their places for vespers, hidden from public view behind a carved altar screen.

Philip knew very little about his lord’s sister except that she had once been married to the Earl of Wiltshire and that after his death she had chosen to reside in a convent rather than to marry again. The lords of Evesham had always been patrons of the abbey of Worcester, which was why she had been sent to this particular institution.

In all these years, however, Isabel had never taken the vows that would have made her a nun. For the last thirteen years she had been content to live as a humble lay sister, working with her hands, doing menial tasks that Philip knew his lord disapproved of.

Simon put down the cup from which he had been drinking and said, “I am ready for you to undress me, Philip.”

They had brought no squires with them, so it was Philip’s place to perform a squire’s service for his lord.

The young knight went to Simon, unbuckled his belt, and lifted off his sword. Next Simon raised his arms so that the blue wool surcoat could be lifted over his head, revealing the mail shirt he wore beneath. Philip laid aside the surcoat and began to unfasten the shoulder buckles that held the mail hauberk in place. Once that was off and Simon was standing in just his linen shirt and leggings, he knelt to undo the spurs that were strapped to his lord’s boots.

There came a knock upon the door and Philip went to open it. A young girl stood there holding a pitcher of water and a towel. He thanked her courteously, took the items, and went to pour the water into the basin so that Simon could wash.

Once Simon was dressed in fresh clothes, Philip went to the room he was sharing with the other knights and one of them helped him take off his own mail. Then they all went down to supper in the small dining hall of the guest house, where they were the only guests in attendance.

After supper was over, the same young girl who had brought the water earlier arrived to escort Simon to his sister. Philip and the other knights stayed behind in the dining hall, finishing their wine and talking in carefully lowered voices.

None of them was completely comfortable being lodged in a convent.

Finally, after the wine was done, two of the knights announced that they were going to go to the stables to check on the horses. The rain had stopped and Philip, who wanted an excuse to get out into the cool evening air, decided to go along with them. He was at the door of the dining hall when he was intercepted by a young novice dressed in a shapeless brown wool dress, who told him that his lord wished him to come to the cloister.

The girl was wearing high wooden pattens to protect her feet from the mud, and Philip followed her across the yard and around to the cloister at the back of the church.

The Worcester Abbey cloister formed a perfect square of stone arches around an open courtyard. Sitting in the middle of the courtyard upon a stone bench were a man and a woman.

The evening sun slanted over the west archways of the cloister and fell on the grass of the courtyard, which still sparkled with drops from the rain that had fallen earlier. The air smelled fresh and clean. Philip crossed the courtyard and came to a halt in front of the two on the bench.

“You wished to see me, my lord?” he asked respectfully.

“Aye,” Simon returned. He turned to the woman beside him on the bench and said, “This is the knight I told you about, Isabel.”

For the first time Philip turned his eyes to look at Simon’s sister.

He saw a face that, while no longer young, was still heartbreakingly beautiful. Isabel’s veil concealed the color of her hair, but her perfectly arched eyebrows were a glossy black. Her eyes were dark dark blue. The merciless light from the setting sun exposed fine lines at the corners of those eyes, but nothing would ever detract from the perfect bone structure that lay beneath her delicate fair skin.

Her eyes were regarding him searchingly, and there was a definite look of strain in their dark blue depths. He met her gaze squarely and tried not to look as dazzled as he felt.

She turned back to her brother and said a little doubtfully, “He is very young, Simon.”

“He is a very competent young man, Isabel,” Simon replied.

Philip stood in front of them and waited.

After a minute she said, “I had hoped you could go yourself.”

“It is impossible.” Simon sounded grim. “I expect to hear from Earl Robert any day now. I cannot be away from Evesham.”

A faint frown dented the skin between her perfect eyebrows.

“Are you absolutely certain that you want to do this, Isabel?” Simon asked. “Frankly, I think Nigel Haslin is so desperate to replace Guy with a new earl that he is seeing in this boy only what he wishes to see. There is small likelihood that Hugh is still alive after all these years.”

“Nigel would not have sent to tell me about this boy if he was not certain that he is my son,” Isabel said. Her voice was quiet, but Philip could hear the emotion that she was trying to keep in check. “He is a kind man, Nigel Haslin. He would not seek to torment me with a pretender.”

“Isabel…” Simon said wearily.

“I have never believed that Hugh was dead,” Isabel said. “They never found his body.”

“If he was alive, he would have tried to reach you,” Simon said.

“Perhaps not.” Isabel’s voice was full of pain. “I was not a good mother to him, Simon. It is quite possible that he did not trust me to take care of him.” She looked down at the tips of the brown leather shoes that peered out from beneath her brown wool skirt. “I did not take very good care of him when he was a child.”

“You did the best that you could,” Simon said gruffly.

She shook her head.

Simon sighed. “I suppose you will not rest easy until we have sent someone to identify this boy.”

She swallowed. Philip had to restrain himself from reaching out a hand to comfort her. “No,” she said. “I won’t.”

“Very well,” Simon said resignedly. He looked at Philip. “The situation is thus. Thirteen years ago my sister’s husband, the Earl of Wiltshire, was killed in the chapel at Chippenham. That very same day, her son, the heir to the earldom, disappeared. We believe he was kidnapped by the man who killed the earl. Several days later, the body of the kidnapper was returned to Chippenham, the apparent victim of outlaws on the road, but nothing has ever been heard of Hugh.”

Philip had always known that there were strange circumstances surrounding the death of the previous Earl of Wiltshire, but he had never heard the full story before.

“Jesu,” he breathed. Then, remembering that he was in a convent, “I beg your pardon, my lady.”

Isabel said nothing.

Simon grunted. “The Lady Isabel has just received word from one of the Earl of Wiltshire’s vassals, a man named Nigel Haslin, that he has discovered a boy whom he thinks may be my nephew, Hugh. Nigel has asked the Lady Isabel to send someone whom she trusts to see if he can identify him.”

“And is there such a man?” Philip asked.

“Aye,” Isabel said. “The priest who was chaplain at Chippenham during the years that Hugh was a child.” Unmistakable pain deepened the lines in her face. “He knows my son well. He will know if this boy is indeed Hugh.”

Philip said diffidently, “How old was your son when he was kidnapped, my lady?”

“Seven,” Isabel said.

Philip hesitated, glancing at Simon. Simon’s face was stoic, giving nothing away.

“Boys of seven can change beyond recognition in thirteen years,” Philip said gently. “It is entirely possible that it will be impossible to say for certain whether this boy is your son or no.”

Isabel shook her head sharply. “Bones don’t change,” she said, “and Hugh looked just like me.”

After a moment, during which he tried in vain to picture a male Isabel, Philip asked, “What do you wish me to do?”

“Father Anselm is presently serving in the cathedral at Winchester,” Isabel said. “I want you to escort him to Nigel Haslin’s home of Somerford Castle, where he can meet with Hugh. Father Anselm will know if this boy is truly my son.”

“But my lady…” Philip looked once again to his lord, and once again encountered that stoic, unhelpful face. Simon clearly did not approve of this plan, but just as clearly he was going to go along with it.

Philip began carefully, “If this boy is indeed your son, as he claims to be…”

At that Simon finally spoke. “You don’t understand, Philip. The boy makes no such claim. It is Nigel who thinks he is the heir to Wiltshire.”

Now Philip was thoroughly bewildered. “You have the right of it, my lord. I don’t understand.”

“This Hugh was the foster son of the Sheriff of Lincoln,” Simon explained. His voice took on a noticeably sarcastic note. “Evidently the sheriff found him starving in the streets of Lincoln when he was a child and took him in. He told the sheriff that he did not remember who he was.”

Philip stared. “He did not remember?”

“That is what he said. That is what he still says.”

“It is perfectly possible that he is telling the truth,” Isabel said sadly. “There is no reason for him to want to remember, and many reasons for him to need to forget.”

“I find it hard to believe that one would forget that one was the Earl of Wiltshire and the Count of Linaux,” Simon said grimly. “I don’t want you to get your hopes set upon this boy, Isabel. It is most likely that he is some clever pretender playing on Nigel Haslin’s desire to rid himself of Lord Guy.”

Isabel bowed her head and said softly, “For fourteen years I have done penance for my wrongs to my son, and for fourteen years I have prayed that he would be returned to me. Perhaps God has finally answered my prayers.”

Simon made an impatient gesture. “All right, Isabel. We will send the priest to look at this boy. But I want you to promise me that if Father Anselm returns to you and says that he is not Hugh, you will accept the priest’s judgment.”

Isabel’s beautiful face was very pale. “Father Anselm wants Hugh to be alive as much as I do,” she said. “I will believe what he tells me.”

Philip traveled to Winchester by himself. Over his hauberk he wore a simple brown surcoat, and if he was stopped, the story he had prepared was that he was a knight in the service of Nigel Haslin. Winchester was a city that was firmly in the grasp of King Stephen; the Bishop of Winchester was in fact Stephen’s brother. It would not be conducive to Philip’s health for anyone to find out that he was a knight of the household of Simon of Evesham. All knew that Simon was going to declare for Earl Robert and the empress.

This was another reason that Simon had sent Philip to escort the priest and had not come himself. Philip’s face was unknown in Winchester; Simon’s was not.

As the young knight rode through the rolling country north of Winchester, the September forest was filled with white plovers and skylarks, and the chalk stream of the River Itchen flowed gently southward on its peaceful way to the Channel. Philip’s thoughts, however, were not as pleasant as his surroundings.

He was on a fool’s errand. Simon knew it. Philip knew it. Apparently the only one who did not know it was the Lady Isabel.

Philip hoped to God that this priest would be sensible enough to know it, too.

This young man whom Nigel Haslin had produced in the hopes of pushing Guy le Gaucher out of his earldom must be very clever indeed, Philip thought. What a stroke of genius, to say that he did not remember who he was. It was a perfect excuse for not knowing the answers to questions that Hugh de Leon would be expected to know. Philip could almost admire such cleverness, if it were not going to result in such obvious pain to the Lady Isabel.

She must have been scarcely more than a child herself when Hugh was born. And to have spent the last fourteen years locked away from the world, doing penance for some imagined wrong she had done to her son! It did not bear thinking on.

I would like to wring this pretender’s neck, Philip thought fiercely. And Nigel Haslin’s as well, for allowing political considerations to bring that woman pain.

The afternoon was cool and bright when Philip entered the city of Winchester through the Kings Gate, which lay right beside the cathedral close. He gave a coin to a youngster who was standing in the busy cathedral courtyard and told him to hold his horse. Then he began asking around for Father Anselm.

At last he found the priest saying confessions in a carved booth in the rear of the cool dark church. There were three old women already waiting outside the confessional, and Philip got into line behind them to wait his turn.

The incense Philip had smelled when he first entered the church was overlaid by the overpowering smell of garlic that emanated from the old lady standing in front of him. Philip tried to breathe through his mouth and was much relieved when it was her turn to enter into the confessional booth.

She took forever.

How many sins could one old woman commit? Philip thought impatiently, shifting from one foot to the other in an effort to get comfortable.

The woman who had joined the line behind him heard the clink of his mail shirt and gave a fiercely disapproving snort. Obviously she did not approve of him wearing mail inside the house of God.

Philip folded his arms, bent his uncovered blond head, and stared moodily at the tips of his dusty boots. He thought that he would have to get the priest to meet him after he was finished here. He was damned if he was going to whisper the Lady Isabel’s commission through a confessional screen.

At last the old lady came out from behind the curtain, blessing herself and already muttering her penance. She passed Philip in a cloud of garlic, and he pushed back the red velvet curtain and entered the confessional himself.

The old lady had left her smell behind.

“Aye, my son,” a soft voice said from the other side of the screen. “You have come to make your confession?”

The priest sounded surprised. Philip thought that he was probably the first male he had seen in his confessional in a while.

“No, Father Anselm,” he said. “I have come in search of you. I have a commission for you from the Lady Isabel de Leon.”

Silence.

Philip waited.

At last, “Lady Isabel?” the disembodied voice said waveringly.

“Aye, Father. It is important. Can we go somewhere and talk?”

“I must remain here for another half an hour,” the priest said. His voice still sounded breathless. “After that I can meet you at the front door of the cathedral.”

“Very well,” said Philip. “My name is Philip Demain and I will be there.”

As Philip left the confessional, he got a very self-satisfied, I told you so kind of look from the old lady who was waiting to go in behind him. Obviously she thought that he was leaving so quickly because the priest had refused to hear his confession due to the fact that he was desecrating the church by wearing armor.

Philip gave her a pleasant smile.

She looked affronted.

He decided he would go and get something to eat before returning to the cathedral to meet the priest.

Half an hour later Philip stood in front of the great carved wooden doors of Winchester Cathedral. With a cup of ale and an eel pie in his stomach, he was feeling a bit more in charity with the world.

The cathedral doors were open to the September sun and a tall priest wearing a long brown robe and sandals came through them. It did not take him long to pick out Philip.

“Philip Demain?” he asked as he came up beside the young knight.

“Aye,” Philip said.

“I am Father Anselm,” came the simple reply.

The priest was as tall as Philip, which was not something that often happened. Unlike Philip, however, he was very thin, almost emaciated, and his dark eyes had a haunted expression that was not entirely comfortable to look upon. He appeared to be somewhere in his early forties, younger than Philip had expected.

“We can go into the cathedral garden, if you like,” Father Anselm said in a voice that was a little stronger than the one Philip had heard in the confessional.

Philip nodded and followed the priest around the side of the great gray stone church and into the grounds of a small, neat herb and flower garden that lay against the cathedral walls. There was an empty stone bench placed along one of the paths, and the priest led him to it. The three other benches in the garden were filled with people, all of whom were speaking in low voices.

From the garden one had a good view of the two hills that looked down on Winchester, St. Giles Hill, which lay on the east bank of the Itchen, and St. Catherine’s Hill, which lay to the city’s south.

“So,” Father Anselm said, “you have come from the Lady Isabel?”

“Aye, Father, she has sent me with a commission for you.”

The priest nodded. His haunted brown eyes were fixed unwaveringly on Philip’s face. “How…how is she?” he asked.

Philip was surprised, not so much by the question as by the urgent manner in which it was asked.

“She is well, Father,” he replied after a minute. “She is resident in the Benedictine convent in Worcester and has been there for the last fourteen years.”

The priest wet his lips with his tongue. “Aye,” he said. “I know.” He seemed to make an effort to pull himself together. “So,” he said resolutely, “what commission does Lady Isabel have for me?”

Philip told him. Then he quickly reached out his hand to steady the man, who had gone so pale that Philip was afraid he might faint.

“Hugh?” the priest said. His voice was a mere thread of sound. “Nigel Haslin thinks that he has found Hugh?”

“Aye, Father. He has asked Lady Isabel to send someone to Somerford to verify the man’s identity.”

Older men might refer to Hugh as a boy, but Philip, who was his exact age, never would.

“Can it be possible?” Father Anselm said with palpable wonder. “Could God be that good?” The priest’s great dark haunted eyes lifted toward the sky. “After all these years, can He have actually given Hugh back to us?”

The scent of flowers and herbs was rich in the mild September air. The sun was warm upon Philip’s uncovered head. He felt his face freeze at the priest’s words.

“You must prepare yourself to be disappointed, Father,” he said as gently as he could. “There is little likelihood that Hugh could have survived for all these years.”

The priest did not even hear him. Instead he clasped his hands together in an attitude of prayer. “Can it be possible?” he repeated in the same wondering voice as before. “At last am I to be given the chance to make up for all the wrong that I did to that boy?”