The Chatter of the Maidens

Chapter Twenty-two

It was dusk.

Helewise had remained in the Abbey church after Vespers. The evening prayers had included an impassioned appeal for Alba, and the sisters had put their hearts into praying for the soul of their late companion. Considering that nobody had really liked her — Alba had not been a woman to invite affection — the fervour with which the nuns had pleaded with God to treat her kindly had touched Helewise deeply.

Now she knelt alone beside the trestle table that bore Alba’s body. Sister Euphemia had straightened the twisted neck, and one of her nurses had dressed the corpse in a clean coif and brushed the mud and the grass from the black habit. Alba lay with her arms crossed on her breast, her face calm, those troubled, anguished eyes closed forever.

Standing up and leaning over the body, Helewise gave a muffled exclamation. Then, with a quick look to ensure that she really was alone, swiftly she reached down, picked something up and, with some difficulty since it was quite bulky, stowed it away in one of her sleeves.

Then she fell to her knees and resumed her prayers.

She recited the ‘Ave Maria’. Then, her mind filled with the love and the mercy of the Virgin Mary, she addressed a special plea to her. Reminding her politely that Alba had cried out for forgiveness, she begged the Holy Mother to intercede on Alba’s behalf.

‘Sweet Virgin Mother,’ Helewise prayed, ‘have mercy on one of your daughters who knew no mother of her own. She knew she was a sinner, that she had taken innocent life. But — but-’

Words failing her, Helewise closed her eyes and, trying to fill her heart and her soul with her plea, dropped her face into her hands.

Some time later, she heard the door open and quietly close again.

She stood up, turning to face whoever had just come in.

She was amazed to see that two people were slowly walking towards her: Meriel and Jerome. She waited until they had reached her then, with a small bow, she stood back to let them see Alba’s body.

Meriel gave a gasp, and put her hand to her mouth. Her face working, she shook her head. ‘Oh,’ she whispered, ‘oh, I didn’t want it to end like this!’

Jerome put his arms round her, holding her close to him, muttering soft endearments. Tactfully, Helewise withdrew; walking with soft footsteps, she let herself out of the church and stood outside to wait.

They were not long.

Jerome said, ‘Abbess Helewise, I am very sorry that we ran away. But I saw-’

She put a hand on his arm. ‘I know, Jerome. There is no need of explanations, nor of apologies. Indeed, when we set out into the forest earlier, it was my most fervent prayer that you and Meriel would still be in hiding.’ She hesitated. ‘I feared that Alba would do you harm.’

He was nodding, as if these facts were already known to him. ‘Yes. We were not, as you appear to know, fleeing from her.’

‘And I think,’ Helewise went on carefully, ‘that her intention was not in fact to hurt you.’ She met his eyes; she did not want to spell out, in front of the weeping Meriel, that she thought Alba had run off into the forest only to harm herself.

He said quietly, ‘I understand.’ He glanced at his wife, huddled against his side in the shelter of his protecting arm. ‘Meriel?’ he said. ‘Are you feeling better, now that we’re out in the good fresh air? She felt faint,’ he added to the Abbess.

‘I am not surprised,’ she said.

‘I’m all right,’ Meriel said, wiping the tears from her face. ‘It was just seeing her.’

‘And you can only have heard of her death just now, when you returned to the Abbey,’ Helewise said.

The young couple exchanged glances. Then Jerome said, ‘Actually, we knew much earlier. Soon after it happened.’

‘You — how?’

Again, the exchange of glances. Meriel muttered something to Jerome; it sounded like, ‘We’ve got to tell her,’ and, turning to face Helewise, she said, ‘Abbess Helewise, we’ve been with someone of the Forest People. Er — a woman.’

A shiver went up Helewise’s spine. Oh, but she remembered the women of the Forest People! Well, she remembered one of them, and one was quite enough. Trying to sound calm, she said, ‘And who was this woman? Did she have a name?’

‘She said she was called Lora.’ Jerome was still looking uncomfortable, as if having spoken with one of the Forest Folk were somehow a disloyalty to Hawkenlye and its Abbess. ‘She seemed to know all about us, and she was kind. She fed us, gave us a drink. And told us where to find a dry shelter.’

‘She’d gone away,’ Meriel went on, ‘but, this afternoon, she came and sought us out. She said there had been a death. We asked who it was, and she said, “It is the one who carries a murderer’s guilt. The Great Oak has answered her call.” Well, we realised she must mean Alba, but we had no idea what all that about the oak meant. She said we must go. That we could not turn away from those who needed us. Then Jerome-’

‘Then I said that I was being hunted by one who wanted to take me away from my wife,’ Jerome said, picking up the story. ‘And she — Lora — laughed. She laughed quite a lot, Abbess, which we thought was weird considering she’d come to report a death. Then when she stopped, she looked at Meriel and back at me, and she said, “It is not in the gift of any human being to take an honest, loving husband from his cherished wife. Fear not, he will not succeed.” Then she told us where to go, and she disappeared!’

His voice had risen dramatically on the last few words; with a giggle, Meriel dug him in the ribs and said, ‘She didn’t disappear, Jerome, she slipped away through the trees.’

Helewise’s head was spinning. These two young people had been so lucky! she was thinking. Their love and their honesty seemed to have impressed this Lora of the Forest Folk, and she had looked out for them.

She wondered how the woman had known about the death. Oh, dear Lord, had she been watching?

‘Er — Jerome?’

‘Abbess?’

‘This place where you were, the shelter Lora found for you, was it nearby?’

‘No, no, it was miles away. That’s why we’ve only just got here — we’ve been walking through the forest for ages.’

‘Then how did the Forest woman know about Alba?’ she whispered. ‘There cannot surely have been time for her to witness the death, come to find you, and for you to get back here!’

‘She didn’t see Alba fall, Abbess,’ Meriel said, her voice low. ‘But she said they always know when somebody dies in the Great Forest. She said-’ She broke off, her face going quite white. Then, in a whisper, she finished, ‘She said the trees tell them.’

The trees. Yes, Helewise reflected, I expect they do.

Then, realising what she had just thought — how readily she had accepted a pagan superstition — she shook herself, and offered a swift, sincere prayer for God’s forgiveness.

Really, she thought, still angry with herself, I’ve lived too long near this Great Forest!

Meriel and Jerome were looking at her in silence, clearly waiting for her to say something. Bringing herself back to the present moment — which was quite difficult — she said briskly, ‘Now you must both get some rest. You have had an anxious time, these many days and weeks. You must put it all behind you, and think about the future.’

In a hollow voice, Jerome said, ‘I cannot, Abbess. I have to go back to Denney and-’

But she was already shaking her head, smiling as she did so. ‘No, Jerome. You do not. Bastian was not searching for you to drag you back to Denney. He needed to find you to tell you that you are free.’

‘Free?’ Jerome and Meriel spoke in chorus.

‘Yes. You had taken no official vows, so there was no need for you to ask for release from them.’

‘But I had my hair cropped!’ Jerome cried. ‘And I’d grown a beard! I only shaved it off to marry Meriel!’

Ah, but he’s so young! Helewise thought, her heart melting. ‘Those things are but the outer signs,’ she said gently. ‘They do not alone make a man a monk.’

‘Thank the Lord!’ Meriel said fervently.

Jerome turned to her and, with a whoop of delight, took his wife in his arms.

Thinking it was time to leave them alone, Helewise slipped away.

The Abbey was host to its young guests for almost a fortnight. During this time Alba was buried, and the first desperate grief of her shocked youngest sister began to abate.

Berthe spent much time with Josse. He did not turn the conversation round to Alba, and Berthe rarely mentioned her; for much of the time, they spoke of everyday matters. The weather. The burgeoning spring. The work Berthe was doing in the infirmary.

But once, the girl said, ‘Is it for the best, Sir Josse, that she died?’

His mind flying across several possible answers, eventually he just said, ‘Aye, child.’

She nodded. As if his word were all she had lacked, straightaway she seemed to be calmer.

And she never spoke of her dead sister again.

Bastian, too, stayed on for a while.

He had asked the Abbess to show him where Brother Bartholomew was buried, which she did. They had put him in the little area, beneath three of the Vale’s chestnut trees, that was reserved for pilgrims who died while at Hawkenlye. The graves there were plain and simple, but the grass was kept clipped and sometimes the monks planted flowers.

She stood by his side as he prayed.

‘I had thought to take him home to Denney,’ Bastian said as they walked back up to the Abbey. ‘But I think now that I will not.’

‘The decision is, of course, yours,’ she murmured.

Bastian was silent for a moment, as if hunting for the right words. Then: ‘He is very peaceful where he is, Abbess.’

More peaceful than he would be buried at Denney? he wondered.

But she did not ask.

Before Meriel and Jerome left Hawkenlye, taking the fast-recovering Berthe with them, Helewise asked the two of them to come to see her.

They stood before her in her room. They were, she noted, holding hands.

It was now ten days since Alba’s death, and the Abbey was still alive with a constant buzz of excited talk. It was understandable, Helewise realised, and probably inevitable.

Still, the sooner they could get back to normal, the better. And a good first step would be to see these two, and the little sister, on their way.

‘Thank you for coming to see me,’ she said, smiling at Meriel and then at Jerome.

‘The thanks are ours,’ Meriel said. ‘I don’t know how we’d have got through this terrible time without you, Abbess.’

‘It is my nuns you must thank,’ she said gently. ‘They have been praying for the three of you. And, with them, prayer also has a practical side — it was a stroke of genius on Sister Euphemia’s part, to ask Berthe to help her with the two new babies in the maternity room.’

‘I don’t suppose for a moment that she really needed Berthe’s help,’ Jerome said.

‘Neither do I,’ Helewise agreed. ‘How do you think she is? Berthe, I mean?’

Meriel gazed at her for a moment before replying. ‘She truly is beginning to get over it, I believe,’ she said. ‘It was a frightful shock to see Alba fall. It will recur in her dreams for a while, I dare say.’

‘Yes, I expect it will,’ Helewise agreed.

‘But she is beginning to see that there was really no escape for Alba,’ Meriel went on. ‘Even if you had refused to let Bastian take her back to Denney to answer for the murder of poor Felix — and there was no reason why you should refuse, Abbess, we quite understand that — then it was really only postponing the inevitable. Sooner or later, Alba would have had to face up to judgement for her sins.’ She paused. Then: ‘Is it fairly certain that she killed the monk in the Vale, too?’

‘We think so, Meriel, although with both victim and probable murderer dead, there is no way we can be certain. But it seems likely. We surmise that Alba went to the Vale to check that there was nobody there who might have recognised Berthe. And, of course, she found exactly what she was dreading she’d find. Somehow she must have lured him outside, then killed him with his own staff.’

‘She’d have recognised a Denney Templar all right,’ Jerome said grimly. ‘She used to go and spy on their comings and goings — she was obsessed with them. We never knew why.’

Helewise said quietly, ‘I believe I do.’ Then she told them what Alba had said about her parentage.

Meriel was aghast. ‘Did you believe her, Abbess?’

Helewise sighed. ‘My reason tells me I should not,’ she said, ‘since I knew perfectly well that poor Alba was a liar. But somehow that makes no difference — I did believe her, yes.’

‘Her father was a Templar!’ Jerome breathed. ‘No wonder my uncle Bastian was so keen to get her back to Denney. He must have been terrified she’d tell someone!’

Helewise looked at him. ‘Your uncle was only doing his duty,’ she said. ‘He was quite right in wanting to have Alba put on trial for Felix’s murder. And as for the other business, he may not even know about the rumour regarding the identity of Alba’s father. The warrior knights are, I am quite sure, very discreet.’

Jerome grinned briefly. ‘That they are. I’ve lived around the Templars for much of my life, and I’ve never heard so much as a whisper of gossip about babies fathered by illustrious monks.’

‘And I do not believe it will benefit anybody if such gossip begins now,’ Helewise said firmly, looking searchingly at each of the young people. ‘Alba is dead, and beyond our help. Even if the truth about her could be uncovered, it would do her no good. And it might do the Denney Templars a great deal of harm.’

‘If one of them really did beget Alba, then don’t they deserve having harm done to them?’ Meriel said.

But Jerome put his arm round her, hugging her to him. ‘The harm would affect all of them,’ he said softly. ‘And the majority do not deserve it.’

Helewise smiled at him. I couldn’t have put it better myself, she thought. ‘Brother Bastian is leaving today,’ she said. ‘I am sure he would want to say goodbye to you both, and to wish you luck.’

‘There’s no need for farewells,’ Jerome said. ‘We’ll be going back to Denney, too, and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t ride with him. He’s been very good to me.’ He gave Meriel a swift glance. ‘And he’s promised to help us if we decide to settle back near Denney.’

‘And will you?’ Helewise asked.

Jerome was still looking at Meriel, apparently waiting for her to answer. ‘No,’ she said. ‘We don’t think so. Too many memories.’

‘I understand,’ Helewise said. ‘What will you do?’

‘Jerome has some money, left with the monks in trust for him by his father,’ the girl went on. ‘That’s why we have to go to Denney, to arrange about the legacy. We think we’ll use it to set up home somewhere around here. We can both work — Jerome was taught lots of skills by the monks, and I can help him. We won’t have much, but we’ll manage. We’ll have each other. And Berthe can live with us, at first.’

‘At first?’

‘Abbess Helewise, she wants to be a nurse. She loves working in the infirmary, and she’d like best of all to become a nursing lay nun, if you’ll have her.’

‘Gladly,’ Helewise said warmly. ‘But let’s wait a while till she’s older. She might change her mind.’

‘She won’t,’ Meriel said with a smile.

Helewise went to the gates to see the three of them, Meriel, Jerome and Berthe, on their way. Brother Bastian was waiting for them, and beside him stood Josse.

She went over to the two men. Josse gave her a smile; Bastian performed his deep bow.

‘Abbess, I like your friend Sir Josse d’Acquin,’ Bastian said as she approached. ‘He is a sound man.’ He gave Josse a hearty thump on his arm; fortunately, it was the left one.

‘Indeed he is,’ Helewise agreed.

‘I am full of admiration for your skill in deduction,’ Bastian continued. ‘You make a good team.’

‘The Abbess is the brains, I am merely the brawn,’ Josse said modestly. ‘On this occasion, I fear she has had to be both brains and brawn.’

‘You were sick, Sir Josse,’ she said. ‘But even from your infirmary bed, you were invaluable.’

Brother Bastian gave a short laugh. ‘If ever I have an insoluble problem at Denney, I may send for you,’ he said. Glancing at Meriel, Jerome and Berthe, and seeing that they were ready, he swung into the saddle and beckoned to the other three. ‘Farewell!’

Helewise and Josse stood watching until the four riders were out of sight. Then, turning to go back inside the Abbey gates, Helewise remarked, ‘He said, if I have an insoluble problem. As if he were of some importance at Denney.’

Josse chuckled. ‘Well deduced, Abbess Helewise,’ he said, copying Bastian’s tone. ‘Our friend Brother Bastian is actually Master Bastian. He’s in charge at Denney.’

With his wounded arm fully mended and memories of the disturbing presence of Alba and her sisters quickly receding into the past, there was no excuse for Josse to stay at Hawkenlye. He wanted to get home, back to New Winnowlands; Will would have managed in his absence, he knew that, but he missed his home.

Before saying adieu to the Abbess, he went to find Sister Euphemia. Steering her outside into the sunshine for a brief moment, he handed her a purse of coins. ‘That is for you to use as you see fit, Sister. It comes with my eternal thanks for saving my arm and probably my life.’

She looked at him. ‘I thank you, Sir Josse. I will put your coins to good use, you have my word.’

‘I know that.’

‘As to saving your life. .’ She paused, eyeing him. He had the impression she was deciding whether or not to reveal something to him.

‘Go on, Sister, you can tell me!’ he said with a laugh. ‘Whatever it is can’t affect me now. Even if you say you almost gave me up for lost, it’s over now. And here I am, still alive!’

‘It’s not that, not exactly.’ Again she hesitated. Then she said, ‘The wound was not healing. In fact, the infection was getting worse, and everything that I tried seemed to make no difference. Then Sister Tiphaine came up with something, and it worked.’

‘So I must thank Sister Tiphaine as well,’ he said quietly. ‘Which indeed I shall do.’

But Sister Euphemia clearly hadn’t finished. ‘Sir Josse, whatever it was — and I’ve certainly never seen the like before — she got it from the forest.’

Her eyes fixed to him, she repeated, ‘The forest.’

And then he understood.

He found Sister Tiphaine in her herb garden.

‘She told you, then,’ she said, hardly looking up from her weeding.

‘She did.’

‘I’ve nothing much to add,’ Sister Tiphaine said, sitting back on her heels. ‘It wasn’t Joanna herself that I saw, it was Lora.’

‘Lora?’

‘One of their elders. Much respected, wise, very skilled in the healing arts. And all the others arts,’ she added under her breath. ‘Anyhow, it seems Lora’s taken a shine to her. To Joanna. Because of old loyalties, so she says. Don’t worry about the lassie, she’s doing all right.’

‘But — does she-’

‘No more!’ Sister Tiphaine put up a mud-stained hand. ‘I can’t tell you any more, Sir Knight, because I don’t know any more. That was the message, and you’re lucky to get even that. They don’t like to communicate with Outworlders, them Forest Folk.’

I know, Josse thought. But his heart was singing.

‘Thank you, Sister.’ He bent down and planted a kiss on her cheek. She gave him a surprised smile, then returned to her weeding.

He had obtained the Abbess’s permission to send Brother Saul over to New Winnowlands to fetch his horse. As soon as Horace had been rested and watered, Josse set out for home.

‘Take care of yourself,’ the Abbess said as she saw him off. ‘Come and see us soon.’

‘I will,’ he promised.

‘Which are you answering?’ she asked with a laugh.

‘Both,’ he replied.

Then, with a wave, he kicked Horace into a canter and set off for home.

On a dull evening a few weeks later, Helewise slipped out of the Abbey and went into the forest.

She could not rationalise what she was doing. She felt restless, uneasy, and had done so on and off since Alba had died. It ought to have got better as time passed, but it had not.

And, thought the Abbess, I believe I know why.

What she was about to do would, or so she fervently hoped, put an end to her strange feelings once and for all.

She had been informed that Jerome and Meriel were now actually making plans to come back to the area. Which meant that, even though it was unlikely that Helewise and her nuns would see very much of them, one or two visits were not only likely but highly probable.

So this one thing that remained to be done must be done now.

Helewise went in under the shadow of the trees. She took the track that she remembered so clearly and, glancing around, followed it. It felt different, walking there alone. She was apprehensive — of course she was — but, she realised, she was not afraid. The forest and its folk would understand, she thought, and probably approve what she was doing.

They would actually understand a lot better than anybody within Hawkenlye Abbey. Not that it was relevant, since nobody at Hawkenlye Abbey was going to know.

She hurried on.

The trees were now wearing their full summer foliage, and it was quite dark on the narrow path. But Helewise’s footsteps were sound and sure; it felt almost as if somebody were guiding her.

She reached the clearing.

There was the oak tree, and the branch where Alba had sat. And there, beneath it, was the place where she had died.

Helewise knelt down and placed the package she had been carrying down on the grass in front of her. She undid the wrapping, which was an old and brittle piece of sacking.

Looking about her, she reached out for some pieces of dry grass, dead leaves, a few twigs. She arranged them carefully around the sacking.

In the midst of the makeshift hearth lay a coil of rope. Knotted at one end, fraying at the other, it was grubby and worn.

This, Helewise thought, this was the rope with which a sad and disturbed woman hanged herself. Her life was a tragedy, and her final sin of despair was to be pitied; even though she probably never asked forgiveness for what she intended to do, we should remember that wrong was done to her. And I shall ask forgiveness for her.

And this rope was also the terrible souvenir left to the woman’s only child. She wore it all the time, and, in the end, she tried to use it as her mother had done. In her failure, she threw herself from her branch and broke her neck.

Helewise closed her eyes and prayed for some time.

Then, taking a flint from her pocket, she struck a spark against the tinder-dry fuel around the rope. She repeated the action several times, until at last she had a small flame. Bending down to blow it gently, soon the kindling caught hold. The fire was alight.

It took quite a long time for the rope to burn to nothing; Helewise had to get up two or three times to fetch more fuel. But at last it was done.

Helewise sat and watched the last small tendrils of smoke spiral up into the dusk.

And as she watched, she seemed to see figures in the smoke. A woman with wild hair and desperate eyes, clawing at bars in a stout door. Then a young man, laughing as he played his part in a trick that had such dire and unexpected consequences. Then a pilgrim, crop-haired and bearded, rather like Bastian.

And, finally, Alba.

Only this phantom Alba had a smile on her face. Arms up towards the spectral figure of the wild-haired woman, the two shapes seemed to flow together.

Then a sudden puff of wind blew the smoke away.

With a sigh, Helewise stood up, carefully covered the small, dying bonfire with earth, and left the glade.