The Tavern in the Morning

Chapter Fourteen

The first sign of imminent trouble came after Sext.

Helewise, who had gone to check on Ninian on her way back to her room, had found him only a little embarrassed and annoyed at what she and Caliste had devised for him.

‘Yes, I do understand how you must feel,’ Helewise had said soothingly. ‘And I know that, because you are sensible, you can understand why we are doing this. Yes?’

The boy had given a grudging nod.

‘Good!’ Helewise said briskly. ‘Now, here’s Sister Caliste, back from her devotions, so I shall leave you in her care.’

* * *

She was in the act of opening her door when she heard pounding footsteps.

‘Abbess Helewise! Oh, Abbess! Stop!’

Helewise froze. Oh, dear God, no! I can’t do this, I’m not prepared to-

Then she remembered her promise. Straightening her shoulders, offering a swift, silent prayer asking for the sense to act quickly and wisely, and the strength to carry out whatever might be demanded of her, she turned round.

And greeted the red-faced, panicking Sister Ursel with a calm, ‘Sister? What is it?’

‘Denys de Courtenay is approaching. He’s just ridden into sight on the track up from Tonbridge. He’s got three men with him, mean-looking ruffians they are. The gates are barred, as you ordered, Abbess, but what am I to do when they request admittance?’

Helewise paused. If what I plan is not right, oh, Lord, she prayed, then please send me a sign. Please, of thy mercy, do not let me commit a folly …

She emptied her mind.

Nothing.

Taking a steadying breath, she said to Sister Ursel, ‘Go and open the gates. Sister. We must show Denys de Courtenay that we have nothing to hide.’ She fixed her eyes to Sister Ursel’s, trying to give her some of her own certainty, and was gratified to see a response. Sister Ursel squared her jaw, hitched up her robe and said, ‘Right. I’ll let the b — the wretches in.’

Helewise watched her hurry off, then followed her, at a more leisurely pace, out of the inner courtyard and towards the main gates.

There were three men at the gates — Sister Ursel must have miscounted — and they had dismounted. The two companions Denys de Courtenay had chosen were both big and ugly. The sort of men, Helewise imagined, likely to be found at the root of a tavern brawl. Not that she knew anything about tavern brawls. One had a scar from his ear to the side of his nose. The other seemed to be suffering from an unpleasant skin condition. Both were armed with staves, and bore knives thrust into their belts.

‘… can’t bring your weapons into the House of God,’ Sister Ursel was saying, bravely standing her ground, hands on hips, not quite managing to fill the gap left between the partially-opened gates.

De Courtenay muttered something, and the men put their sticks and knives against the wall. ‘You and all,’ Sister Ursel commanded, waving a hand at the sword by de Courtenay’s side.

With a faint smile, as if the whole scene privately amused him, he did as she said.

Helewise stepped forward, and de Courtenay noticed her. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘the very lady I have come to see.’ With a wide smile that exposed his white, even teeth, he nodded to his men, who shuffled in through the gates and stood, in poses of varying degrees of aggression, just inside the walls. Then he strode up to Helewise, made her a brief bow — little more than a nod of the head — and said, ‘A word, Abbess, if I may.’

Then he took her by the elbow and marched her off towards her room.

Her instinct was to shrug him off, but something told her to wait, to act in a thoroughly nun-like way, submissive, obedient. She bowed her head and suffered herself to be led away.

She opened the door of her room, and gestured for de Courtenay to precede her inside. Then, carefully closing the door behind him, she turned and said meekly, ‘How may I be of service?’

He was staring round the room as if searching for something, and did not appear to notice her humble tone. Then, spinning round to face her, he said brusquely, ‘You know a knight called Josse d’Acquin. Don’t try to deny it, any number of good folk hereabouts have told me he is a frequent visitor to Hawkenlye Abbey, and, moreover, on excellent terms with its Abbess.’

‘I should not dream of denying it,’ she said calmly. ‘Sir Josse is a good friend to Hawkenlye, and has given us his help and support on more than one occasion.’

‘Hmph.’ De Courtenay looked slightly put out, as if he had expected an argument. ‘Well, is he here?’

‘He is not.’

‘Where is he?’

She hesitated. ‘He spoke of a visit to Winchester.’ That was no lie; Josse had described to her his mission to Queen Eleanor over the matter of his rent demand. ‘I believe he may be there.’

That was a lie. But, Helewise told herself, in a very good cause.

‘Winchester?’

She nodded. Sometimes the nun’s well-known discipline of not speaking unnecessarily came in very useful.

De Courtenay strode to the door and flung it open. ‘I’m going to fetch my men. I want to search the Abbey.’

She flew ahead of him and, repeating Sister Ursel’s action at the gates, stood between him and the cloister outside. ‘I do not permit that,’ she said icily. She met his eyes unwaveringly. ‘This is God’s holy place, not some felon’s hideaway. Visitors enter at my discretion, and, once inside, are expected to behave with reverence and decorum. Your companions, sir, do not look capable of either.’

‘What you think of my men is irrelevant,’ he retorted. ‘Search I will!’

‘What do you imagine you will find?’ she cried. ‘I have told you that Sir Josse is not here!’

His eyes narrowed. ‘I asked you before if you had seen my kinswoman, Joanna de Lehon,’ he said, menace in his tone.

‘And I said no!’ Helewise replied. ‘I undertook to inform you if I had word of her!’

‘But you haven’t, have you?’ He put his face close to hers.

‘No, because she, too, is not here!’

He said, with a cold detachment that was worse than anger, ‘I don’t believe you.’

‘You should,’ she insisted. ‘I speak the truth!’

He raised his hand and for an instant she thought he was going to push her out of the way. She put all the authority she could muster into her face — not difficult, since she was boiling with suppressed rage — and slowly he put his hand down again.

‘I do need to look round your Abbey,’ he repeated, softly now. ‘Will you act as escort, Abbess, if I leave my men where they are and come with you alone?’

Stalemate. She could hardly refuse and it would surely arouse direct action from him if she did.

Wouldn’t it be better to do as he asked? Then perhaps he would believe that they had nothing to hide, and leave them alone.

Perhaps.

Again, she waited for a sign that she was taking a wrong path. Again, none came.

Lowering her head — if she were going to take on once more the persona of humble nun, it was best he couldn’t see her expression — she said, ‘I am perfectly willing to show you the Abbey. If you would care to follow me, I shall introduce you to my community and show you something of our work here at Hawkenlye.’

* * *

After that, it was easy, for she had shown off the Abbey to interested visitors on many previous occasions.

It was relatively easy, at least; two major anxieties gnawed at her, and she had to exercise every bit of self-control she could muster to stop them from edging their way into her manner and her voice.

She began with the storage buildings and the stables.

‘… these are the stables, where, as you see, Sister Martha keeps everything spotless.’

Sister Martha, who had obviously heard what was happening, stood with her pitchfork in her hand, looking as if she would just love an excuse to ram it into de Courtenay’s belly.

De Courtenay glanced briefly into each of the four stalls. ‘No horses?’

Sister Martha, having looked at her Abbess for approval, spoke. ‘We keep a cob and a pony,’ she said gruffly. ‘Plain-looking animals, but sturdy. They’re turned out today, in the sunshine.’

‘Where?’ he demanded.

Giving him the sort of look more usually directed at a pile of ordure, she led him outside, took him to the gates and pointed down the road. Helewise, watching from a distance, saw him give a brief nod.

If he had been expecting to see Josse’s horse, or the sort of fine animals owned by a lady and her son, he was disappointed.

De Courtenay strode back to Helewise. ‘Carry on,’ he commanded.

Meekly she obeyed, leading him on towards the herb garden. ‘In front of you you’ll see where we grow our vegetables and our herbs,’ she began, then proceeded to lecture him for some time on the various herbs and their uses. Half of it she made up as she went along. ‘And up on your left — ’ she detached a hand from the opposite sleeve and waved it in the air — ‘is the dormitory where all but the Virgin Sisters sleep.’

‘I want to look.’

She hesitated, then nodded. Retracing her steps, she led him back to the entrance to the dormitory. She waited in the doorway while he strode the length of the long room and back again. Was it her imagination, or did his handsome face show a faint flush of embarrassment?

She led him back to the herb garden, walked past it, then stopped. She was beginning almost to enjoy herself. ‘Ahead,’ she said, lowering her voice dramatically, ‘is the leper house.’

She felt him move involuntarily backwards — people always did that — and he muttered something under his breath.

‘Do you wish to go inside?’ she asked sweetly. ‘I would not accompany you but, naturally, you are free to go in if you choose.’

‘Wh — who lives in there?’

‘Three of my sisters live there permanently. They have elected to give their lives to serve God in this way. The leper population fluctuates. At present, there are seven within.’

‘Seven,’ he repeated in a hushed whisper.

She did not, as she usually did at that point, make her little speech about the visitor being perfectly safe, in no more danger of contagion than when out in the world outside, since the lepers and their three attendant nuns lived quite apart from the community.

Let de Courtenay worry!

‘Do you wish to enter?’ She moved forward, going as if to open the little door in the wall; it was a gamble, and she was calling his bluff, because she knew full well the door was locked and barred from the inside, and had rarely been opened since the Abbey had been built.

‘No!’ he said. Then, more calmly, ‘No. I would not wish to disturb the sick.’

‘Very laudable,’ she remarked. He shot her a quick look but her face was hidden by her coif.

She led him on past the leper house and stopped by the entrance to the Virgin Sisters’ house. Opening the door, she said, ‘This is where the Virgin Sisters sleep. You may go in and look, but please move quietly, some of the sisters have been in attendance on the sick throughout the night and are presently sleeping.’

She thought he would refuse the offer. But, after a pause, he went in. After a very few moments, he was out again. This time, there was no mistaking the flush on his lean cheeks.

She led him inside the Abbey Church, waiting just inside the great west door while he made his way all around the quiet, empty building. He found the door at the top of the stairs down into the crypt — of course he would, it was not concealed — and she waited a little longer while he went down, had a search and came back up again.

He rejoined her at the door. ‘What next?’

‘Next I will show you our home for aged nuns and monks,’ she said, leading him past the end of the infirmary and on to the building forming the east side of the cloisters. ‘Many of our brothers and sisters in God come to end their days here with us, when, after a life in God’s service, they…’

She gave him the longest ever version of that part of her speech.

He wanted to go inside the aged monks’ and nuns’ home. Sister Emanuel, serene and distant as ever, appeared not to be put out in the least by a brusque stranger poking his nose into every cubicle. Helewise, trying but failing to conquer the unworthy impulse, was quietly delighted when de Courtenay chose quite the wrong moment to speak to Esyllt, Sister Emanuel’s assistant; the radiant young woman, on being asked what she was doing, held out to de Courtenay a used urine bottle, full of dark-golden, steaming liquid.

‘My own room you have already inspected,’ she said, resuming the tour, ‘and this is our Chapter House.’ They both peered inside: it was empty. ‘Next, the refectory and recreation rooms,’ — again, empty — ‘and finally, the reformatory.’

‘Reformatory?’ he asked, quickening his pace and hurrying forward.

‘Yes.’ She lengthened her stride to keep up with him. ‘We offer help to women who have fallen into sinful ways.’

He stared at her. ‘You mean whores?’ There was infinite disdain in the way he said the word.

‘I mean exactly what I said.’ She kept her voice even. ‘Only God knows what drives any of us to the actions we take. We are encouraged to hate the sin, not the sinner, and we take in those who repent of their ways and wish to make a new start in life.’

‘Whores,’ he muttered.

An angry retort rose to her lips, but she held it back. Why bother to argue with one such as he? He wasn’t worth it.

He poked around the reformatory in a desultory way — she thought he might be beginning to believe that they really did have nothing to hide — then, emerging, said, ‘What’s that big building straight in front of us?’

‘It is the infirmary.’ Her voice, she was glad to notice, was calm. Unconcerned.

‘I want to go inside.’

She hurried to follow as he strode towards the infirmary’s main door. ‘Of course,’ she murmured.

He shot her a look. ‘Many patients at present?’

She pretended to pause and count, although there was no need; she knew every patient by name, what was wrong with them, whether they were expected to recover, and, if so, how soon they were likely to be well enough to leave and release a bed for somebody else.

‘We have about forty patients at the moment,’ she said as they entered the infirmary. In fact there were thirty-seven.

He stopped dead, looking startled. And also slightly anxious. ‘So many? What’s wrong with them?’

‘They suffer from a variety of maladies. Some have broken bones, some are having painful teeth removed, we have two women awaiting imminent childbirth, and one whose baby was born the day before yesterday. We also have many who have contracted the sweating sickness — they are in a separate ward — and two youths suffering from the bloody flux.’ She pretended to frown. ‘One of our fever patients is causing particular anxiety. The sickness struck so suddenly — whilst he was attending a service at our Holy Water shrine, down in the Vale, and his descent into delirium occurred within the hour.’ It was a slight exaggeration, and she was deliberately giving the impression that the man was more ill than he actually was. But it had the desired effect.

Denys de Courtenay now looked as if the infirmary was — after the leper house — the last place on earth he wanted to visit.

She edged past him, and, from within, said, ‘Come along. We should keep our disturbance of the sick as brief as we can.’

Relentlessly she led him all round the infirmary. Sister Euphemia came bustling up to attend her visitors, and needed no encouragement from Helewise to expound on the symptoms of her patients.

While she was doing so, Helewise caught sight of Brother Saul, who had come in to bring a message to a man lying in a cot next to the door, a broken right thighbone strapped between splints. Murmuring an excuse, she glided over to him.

‘Brother Saul!’ she called.

He turned from the cot. ‘Abbess Helewise?’

She beckoned him close, then, speaking softly, said, ‘Saul, de Courtenay is asking for Sir Josse. I did wonder, might it be an idea to-’

‘To forewarn him?’ Saul, too, seemed blessedly informed of exactly what was going on. ‘Of course, Abbess. My business here is done — I’ll go straight away.’

‘You will find him at home at New Winnowlands, or so I believe,’ she said. ‘But I’m afraid you’ll have to round up the horse. Sister Martha’s turned him out.’

Brother Saul grinned. ‘She’s just been to fetch him,’ he said. ‘I saw her bringing him in.’

‘Oh, well done, Sister Martha!’ Helewise breathed. ‘God’s speed, Saul.’

He bowed his head while she gave him a swift blessing, then hurried away.

Helewise returned to de Courtenay and Sister Euphemia, who had the young man by the sleeve and was making him look at an elderly woman whose face was covered with red pustules, some of which had burst to emit yellow matter. Euphemia seemed to be asking him if he’d ever seen anything like it before.

‘Just a few more patients to see,’ Helewise said — de Courtenay, she noticed, appeared very relieved at her interruption — ‘so let’s hurry on, shall we?’

They finished the tour of the infirmary’s patients and went back outside. Helewise led him on without speaking; she was praying.

‘And the last place to visit,’ she said, after her silent and fervent Amen, ‘is the little sewing room.’ She opened the door and stood back to let him look inside.

Sister Caliste’s black-veiled head was bent over her mending, and, beside her, a small white-veiled figure copied her actions.

‘Sister Caliste is our youngest fully-professed nun,’ Helewise said conversationally, ‘and I often ask her to work with our novices, she being nearest to them in age. Here, she is mending torn bedding, and Sister Felice is learning the skill.’

She watched him watching the two nuns. Then, her own eyes moving to the sisters, suddenly her heart gave a great leap of alarm. She willed Caliste to look up, and, to her huge relief, she did. Helewise very deliberately folded her arms, tucking her hands in the opposite sleeves. With a faint nod, she indicated for Caliste to do the same. Caliste glanced at her companion, and her eyes widened briefly; she gave her a nudge, and the young novice put down her needlework and also folded away her hands.

De Courtenay stood staring down at the two bowed heads.

The moment lengthened till Helewise wanted to scream.

Then he said, ‘Why have they stopped sewing?’

She said quietly, ‘They are respecting the presence of a visitor. They will not resume until we leave.’

He spun round and strode out of the room. Waving his arm, he said, ‘Oh, let them get on with it.’

Helewise felt for a moment that she might faint. But that would have been plain stupid, so she pulled herself together and set off after de Courtenay, who, with his angry disappointment evident in the way he was striding along, was heading for the gates.

As she walked, Helewise sent up a prayer of deep gratitude for Caliste’s observant eyes and quick wits.

She reached the gates to find de Courtenay yelling for his men; they had grown tired of lounging against the Abbey walls poking fun at Sister Ursel, and had wandered off along the track, leading their horses and aiming punches at them when they tried to put their heads down to rake up mouthfuls of the thin winter grass.

‘Get mounted!’ de Courtenay bellowed. ‘You there, bring me my horse!’

Sister Ursel came to stand beside Helewise. They watched de Courtenay’s men inelegantly mounting up, and stared openly at de Courtenay himself, whose horse, still tempted by the delights of the vegetation beside the track, was reluctant to stand still for him.

‘Oh, dear,’ Helewise said with pretend concern, ‘are you going to manage? Or should one of us come and hold his head for you?’

He shot her a thunderous look. One final effort got him into the saddle, and, putting harsh spurs to his horse’s sides, he led his men off at a canter.

Sister Ursel muttered something: Helewise thought she heard one or two words not in common use among nuns.

‘I shall pretend, Sister Ursel, that I didn’t hear that,’ she said.

‘Thank you, Abbess.’ Sister Ursel blew her cheeks out. ‘Phew, I’m glad to see their dust. Lord, but what a rotten bunch!’

‘They are, and their leader the rottenest.’

‘Aye, aye.’ Sister Ursel grinned briefly. ‘Just as well for you, Abbess dear, that looks can’t kill. That last stare he gave you would have had you breathing your last.’

‘Quite,’ agreed Helewise. ‘Now, Sister Ursel, would you please refasten the gates? I must go and speak to Sister Euphemia.’

And, she thought, refraining from saying so aloud, convey to that wonderful, quick-thinking Sister Caliste my heartfelt thanks …