The Tavern in the Morning

Chapter Eight

‘… and I can’t help but think that it was Mag Hobson whom Joanna de Courtenay — Joanna de Lehon — came here to find,’ Josse concluded, having detailed his theory to Abbess Helewise for the last half hour.

‘She being the woman friend of whom Denys de Courtenay spoke? But — ’ Helewise had her doubts, although, at first, she could not put a finger on them.

‘But?’

She thought back to that interview with de Courtenay. What had he said about the woman Joanna might be seeking? Precious little, now she came to think about it. She has a friend hereabouts. A woman. I’m not sure where she lives.

Was there anything in those few words to imply the woman must be a noblewoman, someone from the same station of life as Joanna de Courtenay? No. There wasn’t. The description could equally well apply to a wise woman living out in the forest, although quite how Joanna would have come to know such a person was less easy to fathom …

Josse, she realised, was waiting. ‘There isn’t a but. You are right, Sir Josse. Poor Mag Hobson could well be Joanna’s friend.’

‘The Sheriff’s man, Hugh, told me Mag used to work for an elderly couple in some modest manor house,’ Josse said eagerly, ‘so it seems to me that-’

‘That they — the old people — were kin to Joanna, and that she met Mag, who was their servant, while staying with them. Yes, yes, it does appear to fit. Yet why did de Courtenay not mention the old couple?’

‘Hm.’ Josse’s heavy brows descended into a scowl. ‘Her mother’s kin, do you think? Distantly related, so that de Courtenay has never come to hear of their existence?’

‘No, no,’ Helewise protested, ‘he knows — or so we presume — of her connection with Mag Hobson. Surely he must also be aware of how she came to know her.’ A thought occurred to her. ‘Sir Josse, what do you think of this?’ She paused, putting her thoughts in order.

Yes.

‘It is significant,’ she said carefully, ‘that, during my interview with Denys de Courtenay, he did his best not to reveal anything he could avoid telling me. For instance, he made only the briefest mention of Joanna’s woman friend, revealing neither her name and her whereabouts, nor her occupation. Looking back, it seems to me that he only mentioned a friend in the area at all as a reason for his looking for Joanna around here.’

‘Ye-es,’ Josse said slowly.

Helewise leaned forward eagerly. ‘Don’t you see? He didn’t mention the elderly couple because he didn’t need to! Having told me about the woman friend, that was enough! So the fact that he didn’t mention the old people doesn’t for one moment mean he didn’t know about them, even though his knowledge did not extend to the details of where they lived!’ She sat back, elated.

‘You reason well, Abbess Helewise,’ Josse said.

‘Ah, but I do have the advantage of having spoken to Denys de Courtenay face to face,’ Helewise said modestly. ‘Not that it is an experience I would commend to you.’

‘No, indeed.’ The deep frown had descended again. ‘Especially now that we know what he’s capable of.’

Helewise felt a chill creeping over her flesh. ‘You really believe it was he who attacked and murdered that poor old woman?’

‘I do.’

‘But, Sir Josse, should we be accusing him, even in the privacy of this room, before he has had a chance to speak up for himself? For us to accuse, judge and condemn is surely going too far!’

‘Abbess, think it through!’ Josse protested. ‘De Courtenay learns that his niece has fled her marital home, has come over the Channel to England, where, instead of seeking out her sole male relative and putting herself under his protection, she heads off into the wilderness of the great forest to try to find some old wise woman she once knew, when she used to stay with her mother’s family. In a house whose whereabouts de Courtnay doesn’t know. Now doesn’t that alone make you suspect that de Courtenay had something planned for Joanna that she knew she wouldn’t like?’

‘Not necessarily!’ Helewise protested.

‘Well, at least would you agree that it suggests Joanna had very good reason to dislike her uncle?’

‘He’s not her uncle, he’s her second cousin. Well, actually, she is his cousin’s child.’

‘He’s what?’

‘Her second cousin. De Courtenay explained that he and her father were cousins, so she and Denys are cousins distanced by a degree.’

‘Don’t you see the relevance of that?’ Josse demanded. ‘Abbess, I do wish you’d told me this before!’

‘I thought I had,’ she said feebly. ‘And, yes, of course I see the relevance. It means-’

‘It surely means that, having acquired his dispensation, he can marry her!’ Josse exploded. ‘Great God above, Abbess, isn’t that motive enough for a man to torture an old woman for information, and kill her when she won’t oblige?’

‘You mean, if Joanna were an heiress, or something?’

Josse muttered something under his breath; he seemed to be appealing for divine patience. ‘Yes, Abbess dear, I do mean if she were an heiress or something.’ He shook his head, grinning at her. ‘I suppose I must make allowances,’ he said kindly, ‘you have, after all, recently been sick.’

‘I am perfectly well now, thank you very much!’ she said, stung. ‘And there is nothing whatsoever wrong with my reasoning powers. It is only your own imagination that makes Joanna a rich heiress. There is nothing to prove it!’

Josse looked downcast. ‘Aye, I hate to admit it but you’re right.’ He sighed. ‘The woman I met certainly shows no evidence of wealth. The house was pretty comfortless and Joanna herself was dressed more like a peasant than a noblewoman. But that could be to disguise herself!’

Helewise laughed. ‘You never give up, do you?’

‘No,’ he said, getting to his feet.

‘Where are you going?’

He stared down at her. ‘Abbess, we’re forgetting about the first murder. Somebody put poison in the pie meant for Denys de Courtenay and that somebody must have been inconspicuous enough to slip into Goody Anne’s tap room, hear de Courtenay give his order, then somehow get to the pie before the serving girl did and lace it with poison.’

‘Inconspicuous,’ Helewise repeated. ‘Which appears to rule out Joanna, since, even disguised as a peasant, her cousin would recognise her. Yes?’

‘Aye,’ Josse confirmed. Helewise noticed a slight softening of his expression as he added, ‘She’s a striking woman.’

‘Ah.’ Putting that aside to consider later, Helewise said, ‘So you’re thinking it must have been Mag Hobson who was the poisoner?’

‘She was a wise woman,’ Josse said, making for the door. ‘We know that she was skilled, that people spoke highly of her.’ He gave Helewise a courteous bow. ‘There’s an hour or two of daylight left — I’m going back to have a look in her herb garden. I know it’s February and nothing much is growing above ground, and I’ll probably fail miserably, but I’m going to see if I can find any sign of wolf’s bane.’

Instinctively she called out, ‘Be careful!’

But he had already gone.

* * *

He found the way back to the pond and Mag Hobson’s little hut quite easily; the track had been well marked by the boots of the Sheriff’s men, and here and there he saw snapped-off twigs and leafless branches where the hurdle-bearers had caught their burden against the trees.

The clearing was deserted now. Tying Horace’s rein to a tree trunk, Josse looked around him. The hole in the ice which he had made to extract the corpse had already frozen over again, but now the ice stood up in sharp little peaks, like a miniature mountain range. The many muddy footprints at the pond’s edge had also frozen hard.

With the body gone, the clearing felt different. Josse stood still, letting his senses absorb information. After a while, he thought: yes. That’s it. It feels — good now. Earlier, the horror of that brutal death had overlaid the normal atmosphere of this place, but now she’s been taken away, the positive mood is returning.

It felt, he thought, a nice place. The very air seemed to have a quality that promised to make a man feel well …

But he was not, he reminded himself firmly, there to take the air.

He strode over to the shack. The door was neatly tied shut by means of a length of twine passed through two iron eyes, one on the door, one on the door post. The Sheriff, Josse concluded, couldn’t have bothered to look inside Mag’s home; Sheriff Pelham wouldn’t have wasted his time tying the twine into that intricate and attractive knot.

Untying it, saying a silent apology to the dead woman for his violation of her handiwork, Josse unthreaded the twine and opened the door.

The interior was as neat, tidy and clean as he had expected. There was a small hearth in the centre of the beaten earth floor, stones laid in a circle, with kindling and small logs laid ready. Over the hearth, hanging from a simple tripod, was an ancient blackened pot. Empty.

On the far wall were several wooden planks serving as shelves, each bearing a load of containers of various sizes. There were also some implements: a knife, a mortar and pestle, some small pottery bowls, a row of flasks. All appeared scrupulously clean.

There was a three-legged stool beside the hearth, and, hanging on the wall behind it, a heavy cloak.

A short ladder led to an upper platform; standing on the second rung, Josse found his eyes came level with the platform. On it were a straw-stuffed palliasse and some covers.

Making a mental note to come back and inspect the shelves if he had no luck in the herb garden, Josse went outside again, looping the twine back through its eyes and re-tying it to secure the door. His knot, he noticed, was nowhere near as elegant as Mag’s.

He ignored the vegetable patch, on the grounds that even the most junior wise woman would know better than to grow her wolfs bane in with her cabbages. Squaring his shoulders — he was feeling distinctly uneasy about his quest — he walked over to the carefully-tended rectangle where Mag Hobson had cultivated her herbs.

Some plants he recognised straight away. Evergreen ivy, juniper and the tough, spineless stems of broom. Others he was less sure about: some tiny green shoots poking out from the ground could be saffron and these woody stems, sharp-edged where the dead growth of last year’s flowering had been cut back, might they be dill? He grinned to himself. They might. But, given the paucity of his herbal knowledge, they might be virtually anything.

Divisions had been made in the garden by means of low hedges of box. There was a small bed, roughly square, which was entirely hedged in; wondering if this were a method which Meg had employed to keep the most deadly plants separate, Josse went to have a closer look.

Hunching into his cloak, putting up the hood — he was rapidly becoming colder and colder — he crouched down over the sleeping ground.

The earth had recently been disturbed, that he could see. But it looked more as if someone had been planting things than digging them up. Would that be right? Would a herbalist be planting, in the middle of an icy February? He had no idea. This, he realised, was hopeless; unless he dug over the entire bed and just happened to find the radish-shaped tubers of wolf’s bane — and was he going to be able to distinguish them from similar tubers, without the grave risk to himself of putting them to the tasting test? — then he might as well give up.

Wearily, he rubbed his hands over his face. It had seemed such a good idea, but-

‘Don’t move,’ a voice said softly right in his ear. He gave a great instinctive start — he had heard nothing! no footfall, no sinuous approach — which wasn’t very sensible since someone was holding a blade to his throat.

He said, equally softly, ‘I won’t. Not until you move that knife.’

As soon as he spoke, he felt his assailant relax.

And Joanna said, ‘Sir Josse! I thought you were-’ She stopped.

‘Denys de Courtenay?’

She stood a pace off, eyeing him. In the dim light of the clearing, it was difficult to read her face, shaded as it was by a fold of her woollen shawl. To her credit, she didn’t even try saying innocently, ‘Denys who?’ Instead, sheathing her knife, she remarked, ‘You’ve met him, then.’

‘Not I. But while I was being cared for by the sisters at Hawkenlye Abbey — for the after-effects of my concussion — he paid a visit to its Abbess.’

‘Abbess Helewise.’ She nodded. ‘I have heard tell of her.’

‘Do I sense approval?’

‘You do. They — my informant held her in high regard. She — they only knew of the Abbess by repute, but that was enough for the formation of a good opinion.’

‘Rightly founded. Abbess Helewise is a fine woman. Who, I might add, shares your opinion of Denys de Courtenay.’

‘I was not aware of having ventured an opinion,’ Joanna said frostily.

‘You don’t deny that you know him?’

She hesitated. ‘No. There seems little point. He and my late father were cousins.’

‘And he is searching for you,’ Josse said. ‘According to him, you are half out of your wits with grief, unhinged from the pain of losing your husband in a hunting accident and you-’

‘I’m what?’ She burst out laughing, a musical peal that rang through the silent glade. ‘Is that the best he could do? Anxious cousin, sole strong, protective male relation, searching for grief-stricken and feeble young widow? Great heavens, I’d have thought Denys could have come up with something a little more original.’

‘Neither Abbess Helewise nor I believed him,’ Josse said.

‘Why not?’ she demanded instantly.

‘Me, because I had met you. Seen your fear, observed your desperate need to hide from someone, whom I guessed to be Denys. The Abbess because, as I said, she has met him.’

‘And she didn’t take to him.’ It was a statement, not a question.

Josse laughed briefly. ‘You could say that.’ His knees were beginning to ache from contact with the cold ground. ‘May I get up?’

‘Oh, yes, yes. Of course.’

They faced each other from two paces apart. He could see her face more clearly now; the dark eyes were watchful, and the slight frown suggested she was thinking hard.

Thinking that it might not be such a bad idea after all to confide in him?

He said tentatively, ‘I have a great will to help you, Joanna. I believe I know more about you than you think and, if you will accept my word, I swear to you that I will protect you from-’

‘I don’t need protection!’ she cried.

He took a step closer to her. ‘No?’ he shouted. ‘Perhaps not, although I wouldn’t back your small blade against the man who damned nearly smashed my head in, for no greater provocation than that he didn’t want me following him!’

‘You let him take you unawares,’ she shouted back, ‘as you did just now with me! I know him better, sir knight, and I take more care!’

‘He will find you, Joanna!’ Josse insisted. ‘You know now what methods he uses — you must agree!’

She had gone very still. ‘Methods?’ she repeated, her voice a whisper.

Good God, didn’t she know? ‘Mag Hobson is dead,’ he said gently.

‘Yes, so I heard.’

‘You have contact with the world, then? You speak to people, now and again?’

She shrugged that off. ‘I go in for provisions sometimes. My face well covered, you’ll be relieved to hear. News of Mag’s death was still fresh, the last time I visited Tonbridge.’

‘So fresh, I would judge, that they didn’t know how she died.’

‘She drowned! Slipped on the icy bank and fell into the pond!’ He made no answer. ‘Didn’t she?’

He was reluctant to tell her. But perhaps, if he did, it would serve to persuade her of her vulnerability.

No woman, he was sure, not even Joanna, was a match for Denys de Courtenay.

‘Mag was attacked,’ he said neutrally. ‘She was beaten, some of her fingers were broken, then her head was held down under the water till she was dead.’

Joanna’s hands flew to her mouth, half muffling her cry. ‘Oh, no! Oh, Mag, no!’

Pursuing the advantage of having breached her defences, he said, ‘To make her tell him where you were, do you think? To make her reveal the whereabouts of that old manor house she took you to? Where she hid you away, so that he couldn’t find you? Where she-’

‘Stop!’ she shouted. Then, her shoulders beginning to heave as her sobs took hold, she said shakily, ‘Please, please, stop!’

And the gloved hands now entirely covered her face as Joanna gave herself to her grief.

It was more than he could stand. He stepped forward and took her in his arms, cradling her face against his chest, stroking the back of her head. The rough shawl fell back, and he felt her smooth hair, slipping easily beneath the leather of his gloved palm. ‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured, ‘so sorry, Joanna. But you have to know the truth, you must be aware of the lengths he will go to in order to find you.’

She went on sobbing. He closed his arms around her, bending to kiss the top of her head. His gestures were instinctive, intended to comfort her, as he might comfort a child or a frightened animal. To let her know she wasn’t entirely alone, that someone …

Whatever he intended, it was not what she understood. Leaning back in his arms, face turned up to his, suddenly she put her hands behind his head and, pulling him down towards her, kissed him hard full on the mouth.

With her strong, lithe body pressed against him, he began instantly to respond. His mouth opening, he eased her lips further apart with his tongue, caressing hers, feeling the violent sexual excitement flood through him. He could feel her breasts pushed up against his chest, feel her muscular legs firm against his thighs. Feel his erection, hard and full.

Breaking away, she stepped back a pace. Wiping the tears from her cheeks, she said, ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.’

Lost for words, he said the first thing that entered his head. ‘Isn’t that what I’m supposed to say?’

Amazingly, she chuckled. ‘Not when it was so plainly I who started it.’ Then, remembering, she said, ‘Oh, sweet Lord. What am I to do?’

‘Let me help!’ he said quickly. ‘Let me come with you!’ She shot him a quick glance. ‘Oh, Joanna, not for that!’ He grinned. ‘Remember, I offered my aid before you flung yourself into my arms.’

‘You did,’ she agreed.

‘Well, then! Can you not trust me?’

She went on staring at him, as if her very life depended on her decision.

Which, Josse thought, perhaps it did.

‘I-’ she began. Then, more firmly, ‘Let me think about it.’

‘What is there to think about?’

‘You don’t know!’ she shouted, angry suddenly. ‘It’s not as simple as you seem to think, sir knight! There are many things to weigh up and only I can do so.’

‘Can’t I help?’

‘No, you can’t.’ Anger gone, she gave him a sudden sweet smile. ‘Yes, I dare say you could in fact be very helpful and I can’t say I’m not tempted. But I need some time on my own. To think it all through, without you going and confusing me by kissing me again.’ Now the smile was wide and free, and he could see just how beautiful a woman she was.

‘Me kissing you?’ he murmured.

‘I’m going now,’ she announced, tightening the cord around her waist. ‘You mustn’t follow me. If you do, you’ll never see me again.’

It sounded overdramatic, but he had a good idea she spoke the truth. Just how would he set about finding that ancient manor deep in the forest, unless she gave him a clue? ‘Very well. You have my word.’

She nodded. ‘Thank you. Stay here by Mag’s house for a slow count of a hundred, then you may go.’

Mag’s house. Belatedly he remembered why he had come. ‘Joanna!’

She had turned away, but now spun round to face him again. ‘Yes?’

‘Who dug up the wolf’s bane and smuggled it into the pie? It was Mag, wasn’t it?’

But, her face shadowed suddenly, she didn’t answer except to remark, ‘You have been busy.’ Then, running out of the clearing, she shouted, ‘Start counting!’

He counted to a hundred extremely slowly. She might be counting, too — in fact, undoubtedly she would be — and he didn’t want her to think he was cheating. It mattered terribly that she trust him.

When the hundred had long been reached, he untied Horace and, leading him along in the deepening gloom of approaching night, headed back towards the Abbey.