The Rose of the World

ONE

Abbess Caliste of Hawkenlye Abbey paced to and fro across her room behind a firmly-closed door, doing her utmost to control her fury. Her heart was hammering so hard that she felt light-headed, and her fists were clenched so fiercely that her fingernails had cut into her palms.

How dare they! she thought, clamping her lips together to prevent the anguished cry roaring out of her. As if the abbey and the people we serve were not suffering enough already!

She indulged her anger for a while longer. Then she drew a couple of deep breaths, walked slowly around behind the wide table where she worked and sat down in the throne-like chair. She drew a piece of scrap parchment towards her and dipped her quill into the ink horn. Then she began to write down the details of the information that had just been issued to her.

Even as she wrote the terrible words, part of her mind was busy trying to work out what she was going to do…

It was the eleventh year of King John’s reign and the second of the interdict imposed on England by Pope Innocent because of the king’s refusal to accept Innocent’s choice, Stephen Langton, as archbishop of Canterbury. Since then, church services had been suspended. Some of the clergy, braver — or, perhaps, like the Cistercians, more arrogant — than their fellow churchmen, had defied the interdict and were continuing their habitual daily rounds. The majority were not, and most of the bishops of England had fled to France. The interdict had not made the king submit to the pope and, a year ago, King John had been excommunicated. Now, if any good Christian helped or supported the king, that man stood in peril of losing his immortal soul.

Not that any of the king’s subjects much wanted to help him. His record was not impressive. He had lost most of England’s continental possessions, he had failed in his duel with the pope, and the country was poorly governed. Failure, however, cost as much — or more — than success, for taxes were extortionate already and constantly there were further demands. In addition, John was cruel, he had a reputation for avarice and everyone knew he was no true lover of God. Learned as he was in theology — hadn’t he after all spent the formative years of his life with the monks at Fontevrault? — he only studied the great texts of the church so that he could argue points of doctrine with the clergy. Or so people said.

If the pope had hoped that expelling King John from the faith would encourage those with a grievance against him to rise up in rebellion, he was disappointed. The barons had their own reasons for muttering against the king, and these had little to do with the church. As for the mass of the population, they were far from falling into fear and despair at being deprived of the comfort of their church, as the pope had no doubt expected they would. In fact, to the dismay of the clergy, the people of England gave every impression of managing perfectly well. The clergy were beginning to fear that religion would lose its grip, and, indeed, many people were heard grumbling that they didn’t see why they should go on having to pay tithes to a church that did absolutely nothing for them.

Nobody could bring their child to be christened, nobody could marry his or her sweetheart, nobody could bring their dead for Christian burial. Far from appearing horrified, the population just shrugged their shoulders and got on with their lives. It was said that people performed secret baptisms according to the old rights, buried their dead in ditches and under hedgerows, and — much as they had always done and always would — bedded each other regardless.

King John’s response to the pope’s drastic move was, initially, incandescent rage. Those who witnessed it said the king almost went mad, blaspheming against the pope and swearing by God’s teeth to banish every last churchman from the realm. If any spy sent to England by the pope were to be discovered, the king would personally tear out the man’s eyes, split his nose and pack him off back to Rome as a warning to the rest.

Once he was over his fury, however, John turned the pope’s action against him to his own advantage. If the clergy were going to obey their master and cease to do their work, then John would seize their property. There was, after all, little point in a monastery or an abbey if those within were not permitted to support and succour the people. John’s officials were dispatched all over England to act in his name, and sheriffs were appointed to administer the properties and, of course, to ensure that the revenues made their way to the king. Those in power in the church were summarily deposed, permitted to return to their posts only if they paid for it; the going rate for a prior was sixty marks.

The king was making a fortune…

Now, a year after the excommunication, King John’s men had come to Hawkenlye Abbey. Abbess Caliste reflected that, had the abbey not been one of the favourite places of the king’s late mother, Queen Eleanor, they’d have come a lot sooner. In the two and a half years since the interdict, Hawkenlye had been kept under observation — a very unsubtle observation at that — and Caliste had been forced to obey the instruction to close up the church and discontinue all services. Nothing specific had been said regarding the shelter down in the Vale, where Hawkenlye’s monks and lay brothers administered the holy water from the miracle spring and looked after visiting pilgrims. Abbess Caliste, unshakeable in her conviction that in a time of such hardship people needed the comforts offered in the Vale even more urgently, had taken the decision that the brethren would continue as normal.

They were doing their best. Like the rest of the abbey, they were on short rations, for the new regulations meant that everything from corn to clothing had been seized and locked away in the king’s name, doled out with a mean hand at intervals that came far too infrequently. The brethren had tightened their belts and were managing to live on virtually nothing, for this was the only way they could keep food back to give to those who crawled to them on the brink of starvation.

Caliste’s disturbing thoughts got the better of her and, putting down her quill, she pictured Brother Saul. He was getting old now, but he still worked as hard as he had always done. He would, Caliste knew, be far too modest to realize it, but the other monks saw him as their unofficial leader, a link to the days when Abbess Helewise had sat in the chair now occupied by Caliste. Brother Saul had been one of Hawkenlye’s rocks back then, and he still was.

Caliste’s stomach gave a sudden growl. She was hungry, so hungry…

Resolutely, she put aside her poignant thoughts on old Saul and her own discomfort. Dipping her quill in the ink, she picked up the thread of what she had been writing.

The king’s agents had just left the abbey. Their leader had issued his orders to her as she stood at the gates looking up at them. Since the nuns and monks of Hawkenlye were not called upon to do any work, he’d said, they could not rely on the king’s generosity to maintain them in idleness.

The abbey’s income was considerable, since Hawkenlye owned large tracts of good land as far afield as the north side of the Weald and the marshlands to the south east. Most importantly, it also had plenty of grazing land suitable for sheep. Sheep provided so much: parchment from their skins, cheese from their milk and, of course, their wool. English wool was in great demand, and Hawkenlye was earning its fair share of the new wealth. Under the current conditions, this wealth now belonged to the king. As his agents had just told the abbess, she was now commanded to record every penny that came in and went out — as if she had not been doing so already! — and keep her accounts ready for inspection at any time. A small amount — of our own money! she thought, fuming — would be paid out to the abbey each month.

Standing there, refusing to allow those haughty men on their fine horses to intimidate her, Caliste had raised her chin, looked their leader firmly in the eye and said, ‘How, pray, am I to feed my nuns, my monks and those who come to us for help?’

The man had glared at her, and then his face had twisted into an unpleasant sneer. ‘Your church is closed, Abbess Caliste,’ he said. ‘Nobody will come here any more. As to you and your community…’ He had looked round at the assembled monks and nuns, all of them thin, clad in broken sandals and patched, threadbare habits, and shivering in the chilly October air.

Leaving his sentence unfinished, he had turned back to Caliste and shrugged. Then he and his men had ridden away.

She looked down at her notes, trying yet again to reconcile the tiny allowance with the minimum she knew she needed to keep the abbey alive. It could not be done. Resisting the overriding urge to drop her head on her hands and howl — a waste of time that would be — she closed her eyes, folded her hands together and forced her weary, desperate mind to think.

So many people depended on her, one way or another. She had to find a way to help them. She sat up straight, squared her shoulders and went back to her calculations.

The House in the Woods had a new name: it was officially called Hawkenlye Manor. Few people referred to it in that way. The country people had long memories, and they did not like change. The House in the Woods had been good enough for their parents and their grandparents — probably their great-grandparents too — so why go altering it?

On that late October day, Josse was returning home after a long ride. His old horse Horace had finally died, at an age so advanced that Josse could no longer calculate it, and now he rode a lighter horse that his young son Geoffroi had insisted be called Alfred. Josse and his family had known Alfred from when he was newborn, for he was descended from a golden mare called Honey who had once belonged to Geoffroi’s mother, Joanna. Alfred had inherited his grand-dam’s golden coat, but his dark mane and the luxuriously long tail were all his own.

As was his intractable temperament; Josse had been riding him for two years now, but his manners still left quite a lot to be desired. Today’s excursion had been to remind Alfred who was in control, and Josse was feeling sore and tired. He was also feeling maudlin, for almost without his volition he had found himself riding past the track in the forest that led off to the hut where Joanna had lived.

She had been gone for more than ten years now, but he still missed her. She was the mother of his two children, Meggie and Geoffroi, and also of his adopted son, Ninian. Her death — if, indeed, she really was dead — had left a hole in his life that had never been filled. That line of thought, too, made him sad.

Helewise had come to live at the House in the Woods. After waiting for her for so many years, finally she was there, under his very roof. She had arrived back in June — Good Lord, he thought, was it only four months ago? — and to begin with he had been so overjoyed that he had not noticed that all was not as he had hoped. She might have left the abbey, renounced her vows and become an ordinary woman, but the problem was — or so he saw it — that in her heart she was still a nun.

It’s only to be expected, he told himself as he rode along. She wasn’t just a nun, she was an abbess, and of a great foundation at that. Nobody can be expected to leave the religious life and all that it entailed behind in a few months!

It was some five years since Helewise had actually lived within the abbey. Soon after the death of Queen Eleanor back in 1202, Helewise had begun to implement the plans which had long been in her mind. She had quit Hawkenlye in stages, the first one being to stand down as abbess, witness the election and the installation of Caliste as her successor, and then go to live in the tiny little cell adjoining the new chapel on the edge of the forest. The chapel was dedicated to St Edmund and had been built on the orders of Eleanor in memory of Richard, the late king and her favourite son.

The pope’s action against King John had effectively closed the abbey to outsiders, and although Josse knew full well that Hawkenlye had done its best to go on being a place of refuge, help and succour, the task had been all but impossible. The attention of the king and his agents had always hovered over the abbey — it was just too important a foundation to be overlooked — and many were of the opinion that John would have robbed the abbey of all its treasures had he not feared the wrath of his formidable mother. Dead she might be, but apparently it made no difference.

The keen glance of the king, however, had slid over St Edmund’s Chapel and its little cell without pausing to look properly. Had he done so, he would have seen something quite surprising. The people, finding the church inside the abbey locked and barred, had quietly transferred their devotion to the chapel. Its door was always open, and there was usually a candle burning on its simple altar. Down in its hidden crypt it concealed a treasure known to very few, and it was perhaps the power of this secret that kept the chapel safe from those who wished it ill.

Whatever the truth of it, the people had a place where they could pray. Not only that, for the chapel had its own guardian, and she was a woman whose reputation went before her. She was always there for those in need, providing a smile, a kind word, a simple but nourishing plate of food, a warming drink; even, on occasions, a blanket on the floor for those too tired to make the journey home until morning. As the years passed, she also began to give remedies for the more common ailments, taught and helped in her work by both Tiphaine, the abbey’s former herbalist, and Josse’s daughter, Meggie.

In the summer, however, Helewise had implemented the second stage of her withdrawal from the abbey. The House in the Woods had grown in the decade since Josse had gone with his household to live in it, and there had been plenty of room for another resident. However, the sweet hopes that Josse had cherished of Helewise living in any sort of intimacy with him had been swiftly shattered. Quietly, she had explained what she needed: a small room readily accessible to visitors where she could receive and help those who came seeking her, with a little sleeping space leading off it. In effect, he had realized miserably, her desire was to reproduce her cell beside the chapel.

The trouble was, as Josse saw it, that the rest of the world still thought she was an abbess. Or, at least, the whole of the suffering, needy community in and around Hawkenlye did, which, as far as Josse was concerned, was the only part of the world that mattered.

It was all to do with the wretched interdict. Out in the forest, alone except for Alfred and unlikely to be overheard, Josse gave vent to his feelings and cursed the pope, the king, the interdict, the excommunication and everything else that was presently caused him distress.

The echoes of his angry shouts died away. Alfred twitched his ears sympathetically — he was growing on Josse, despite his stubborn nature — and Josse resumed his musings.

To cheer himself up he thought about the beloved people who would be waiting for him at home. His daughter Meggie, he knew, wasn’t there. He had actually been quite close to her earlier that day, when he had ridden past the track leading to Joanna’s hut. Meggie went over there quite often, and she kept both the tiny dwelling and its herb garden tidy and cared for. Sometimes she would not return for several days. Over the years, Josse had learned to curb his anxiety. She was, he knew, more than capable of taking care of herself and, just like her mother, she seemed to cherish the quiet, secret hut and its almost magical setting.

It was hardly surprising that even someone whose big feet were as firmly planted on the good earth as Josse’s should sense the magic, even if he did not understand it. Joanna had been one of the Great Ones of the strange forest people, as had her mother Mag before her. Both Mag and Joanna had left much of their power within the hut and its little clearing, and now Meggie — who, according to her people’s predictions, would be the greatest of them all — was adding to what they had so freely bestowed.

Meggie had been absent now for a couple of days. Josse hoped she would soon return. He never dared tell her how much he missed her when she was away but, being the woman she was, he probably didn’t need to.

With a happy smile, Josse remembered that Geoffroi would be waiting for him, eager to hear how Alfred had behaved. Geoffroi was now eleven, a strong, robust boy who was tall for his age and already showing the broad shoulders and sturdy build that he had inherited from Josse. Geoffroi loved all living things, and his knowledge of the natural world was wide and profound. For all that there were plenty of people considerably older than Geoffroi living at Hawkenlye Manor and working with its sundry livestock, it was Geoffroi who was the ultimate authority when it came to animal husbandry. Which was quite surprising, his father reflected, considering the boy could barely read or write. Still, as Geoffroi always said, you didn’t need book learning to understand why a ewe was limping or to judge which combination of mare and stallion would produce the finest offspring.

Geoffroi himself rode a dark-brown mare called Bruna, the offspring of Horace. It was nice, Josse often thought, that in this way the old horse lived on.

Josse’s thoughts rambled on. Everyone else would be home, too. He smiled as he pictured them. Ninian — half-brother to Geoffroi and Meggie, and Josse’s adopted son — would be there, his presence all the more treasured because he was so often away. Ninian was in love with Helewise’s granddaughter, Little Helewise. She adored him too, and were it not for the interdict, they undoubtedly would have been wed a year or more ago. Little Helewise lived with her family at the Old Manor, the ancestral home of the Warins, which her father Leofgar, being the elder of Helewise’s two sons, had inherited. Ninian spent as much of his time as he could with her and, privately, Josse reckoned the young people had already become everything to each other.

Aye, Ninian. Josse smiled as he contemplated the lad. Others, too, awaited Josse — Gus, Tilly and their children, Will and Ella too, servants in name but more like family to Josse — and their faces flashed one by one across his mind. It would be good to get back.

He realized he was hungry. The household at the House in the Woods ate well, even given the current circumstances, for virtually everything that went on their table came from their own land. Over the year, Josse and his small workforce had gradually cut back the trees surrounding the house, and now several acres were under cultivation. Their sheep grazed on the pastures of New Winnowlands, Josse’s former home, with the flock belonging to the manor’s present occupants. Given the constant, greedy demands of the king, they were fortunate, Josse well knew, to live in such an out-of-the-way spot. Outside those who lived in the immediate vicinity, only a handful of people knew the House in the Woods even existed.

What would Tilly have prepared for the evening meal? He was almost home now, and he kicked Alfred to a canter. He would soon be finding out.

Helewise was having a lovely day. The autumn weather was pleasantly warm, and she had spent most of the time out of doors, reason enough to make her happy. In addition, for much of it she had had the company of her youngest grandchild, whose father had left her that morning in Helewise’s care while he rode on to Tonbridge. He had business with Gervase de Gifford, who was the sheriff.

Helewise didn’t enquire, as once she would have done, what that business was. It wasn’t that she did not care; it was more that her priorities had changed. The outside world was less important to her now than her family and her loved ones.

When asked by her fond grandmother what she would like to do with their day together, Rosamund promptly said that she wanted to see the Dark Lady. Smiling to herself, Helewise readily agreed and, after the noon meal, the two of them set off through the forest towards the abbey. There was no hurry, so they took their time, chatting as they walked. It was no surprise when, a quarter of a mile or so from their destination, Meggie materialized beside them.

‘You’re going to see the Lady?’ she asked with a smile.

‘We are,’ Helewise agreed.

‘Can I come too?’

‘Of course.’

St Edmund’s Chapel had been deserted, Helewise’s little cell empty. Then there was still no replacement, she observed sadly. Brushing the thought aside, she followed Meggie and Rosamund into the chapel, and together she and Meggie raised the trapdoor cleverly disguised as a flagstone. The three of them descended into the crypt, and Meggie struck a spark, lighting the torch that was set in the wall sconce.

The Black Goddess sat in her niche and, as always, Helewise felt her power. She gave herself up to it for a few moments, then, with a smile to Meggie, slipped away and went back to the chapel above. She went to stand before the simple altar with its plain wooden cross. Without thinking, she dropped to her knees. Soon she was so deep in prayer that she did not notice Meggie and Rosamund come up from the crypt, gently lower the flagstone and leave the chapel.

When finally she emerged into the bright afternoon, it was to discover that the others had found a sunny spot on the slope that led down to the abbey and were crouched on the grass, deep in conversation.

‘You’ll get cold, sitting on the wet grass!’ she scolded, hurrying down to them.

Rosamund turned and gave her a sweet smile. ‘We are sitting on our thick cloaks, and mine is lined with fur! Besides, the grass is not wet,’ she said. ‘Feel! The sun is warm today and has dried it.’

Helewise was about to insist — the child was her responsibility just then — but there was no need. Both of them were already getting up. ‘I have just been telling Rosamund about the little bridge I’ve been trying to build across the stream beside the hut,’ Meggie said. ‘She’d really like to-’

Rosamund didn’t allow others to speak for her. ‘I’d love to see it,’ she said pleadingly, taking Helewise’s hand and giving it a squeeze. ‘Can we go with Meggie to the hut, Grandmother?’

Helewise looked from one to the other. This was meant to be my day with my granddaughter! she thought, and then instantly regretted it. Others loved Rosamund too, for the girl was generous with her affections. Why should Meggie not enjoy the child’s company as well? She glanced at Meggie and saw understanding in Meggie’s brown eyes.

‘Perhaps you should go back with your grandmother,’ Meggie said gently, ‘and we’ll go to the hut another time, when-’

‘No, go now!’ Helewise interrupted her with a smile. ‘Just the two of you. I’ll see you later, back at the House in the Woods,’ she said, giving Rosamund a hug. ‘I don’t mind,’ she added softly to Meggie.

Meggie looked at her intently, the bright golden lights in her eyes that were so like her father’s catching the lowering sun. Then she nodded.

The three of them walked together as far as the place where the track to the hut branched off from the main path. There, with a cheerful, ‘Goodbye, Meggie! See you later, Rosamund!’, Helewise went on alone.

The inhabitants of the House in the Woods knew where Rosamund was, and so nobody thought to worry about her. She was with Meggie, and Meggie was more at home in the forest than anyone else in the family.

Darkness began to fall. First Josse and then Helewise slipped outside to look anxiously down the track that led away under the trees.

‘She’ll be here soon,’ Josse said.

Helewise thought his voice sounded uncertain. ‘Yes, I’m sure she will.’ She noticed that hers did too.

They waited.

Presently, footsteps sounded, crossing the courtyard behind them. Ninian came to stand beside them, closely followed by Geoffroi. Half-brothers they might be, but there was little resemblance between them, other than an indefinable but unmistakable air of confidence and power. Ninian was tall, slim and dark, like his mother. His brilliant blue eyes he had inherited from his father.

Geoffroi looked worriedly at Josse. ‘Maybe Meggie got lost,’ he said. ‘It’s getting dark.’

They all agreed that it was. Nobody said what they were all thinking: that Meggie knew her way through the trees blindfold.

Gussie and Will came out of the house. ‘Tilly’s making hot soup,’ Gussie volunteered. ‘They’ll be cold when they get here.’

Helewise felt a stab of fear dart into her heart. She put a hand to her chest. ‘Josse?’ she whispered.

He put his arm around her shoulders. He hugged her very tightly for an instant, then let her go. ‘Saddle the horses, Will,’ he said firmly. ‘Ninian, Gus and I will go and look for them.’