Whiter than the Lily

11

‘I think,’ he said, ‘that I should go there.’

‘To Deadfall.’ She wanted to be sure that she understood. ‘Even though the very name holds dread for you?’ That it really did was clear to her; he had appeared to be genuinely affected by the tale he told her. It was often the way, she thought; as children, we are very ready to be frightened out of our wits and sometimes the things that scared us then still hold power over us when we have grown up, despite our adult comprehension and rationalisation.

‘Aye.’ He sighed and, she reflected, did not look any too eager for his mission.

‘Would you like someone to accompany you?’ she asked. ‘You have ridden out with Brother Saul and Brother Augustus before now and I am sure that either would be more than willing to go with you again.’

He gave her a sketchy smile. ‘A kind offer, my lady, but I feel I should conquer my demons on my own. The good brothers rode with me when there was a possibility that we went into danger, but I cannot see that there is any peril in visiting Galiena’s original home to inform her blood kin of her death.’

As he spoke the words blood kin, she felt a frisson of fear run down her back. But why? It was just a phrase and, for someone like Galiena who had been adopted, an accurate and surely innocent one? ‘I hope that they will be grateful for your trouble,’ she said, the mundane remark helping to put that strange moment behind her. ‘Your reminding them of the daughter they gave up may not be tactful, Sir Josse.’

‘Aye, I know.’ He met her eyes, and the expression in his was candid. ‘But, as you and I both realise, my lady, my purpose is not simply to tell them that she is dead.’

She smiled. ‘I cannot make any accusations, since I am as guilty as you, having sent Saul and Augustus on a similar mission to Ryemarsh. If there is truly a need to excuse our actions, then it is that by our subterfuge we hope to discover why Galiena died.’

‘And who killed her,’ he added.

His face, she noticed, had darkened angrily. ‘Sir Josse?’ she said enquiringly. ‘You have a theory as to who that might be?’

Approaching her table once again, he said quietly, ‘Aye, but it is for your ears only, my lady, since, if I am wide of the mark, I shall be accusing the very last person on whom suspicion should fall.’

‘Go on.’

‘Well, the evidence is slight, and that’s probably an exaggeration, but it is this. When I was with Galiena’s parents — her adoptive parents, that is, Raelf and Audra de Readingbrooke — I mentioned that we had thought it possible Galiena had gathered berries or mushrooms in the forest and that eating one or the other had poisoned her. But instantly Raelf refuted the suggestion because, apart from the fact that it is not the season for berries and too warm and dry for fungi, Galiena was a skilled herbalist and would never have made such a mistake.’

She nodded. ‘As we ought to have thought out for ourselves and — oh!’ Suddenly she understood. ‘You are saying that Ambrose, who on his own admission has good reason to know of his wife’s skills, should also have remarked upon that?’

‘Aye.’

‘And the fact that he did not makes you wonder if he welcomed these putative berries and such like as a convenient scapegoat for the poison that he himself administered to her, and- Oh, no, Sir Josse! I cannot accept that!’

He did not speak, merely stood watching her. And, as her instinctive protests — Ambrose loved her! He was grief-stricken when he knew she was dead! — slowly faded, she wondered if he could be right.

‘Why would he want her dead?’ she whispered.

‘She was carrying another man’s child,’ he replied.

‘But Ambrose did not know! Why, he arranged for her to come here to be treated so that she could become pregnant! He even consulted you first to see if you thought we could help!’

‘I know,’ said Josse. ‘Moreover-’

She felt tension in him, as if he wanted to tell her something but was reluctant. ‘What?’

Not meeting her eyes, he said, ‘Something Ambrose said. When he was confiding in me about her — er, her problem, he said, my lassie goes on bleeding.’ Raising his head, he muttered, ‘I remember particularly because the phrase struck me as moving. And now-’ He broke off.

She stared at him. ‘You are saying that all that was an act? That he deliberately spoke to you in the intimate way that he did to persuade you that what he said was the truth? That he planned the whole sequence of events with the deliberate purpose of deceiving us?’

Josse shrugged.

‘And all the while he planned to kill her for her infidelity?’

After a short pause he said, ‘It is possible.’

And she had to admit that he was right.

He announced that he would set out for Deadfall that afternoon. He did not expect to reach his destination that day but, as he said, it was ideal weather for sleeping out under the stars and he looked forward to doing so. Helewise, watching him, wondered if the decision was so as to ensure that he reached Deadfall in the bright light of morning rather than late at night. Well, if the very name of the place truly held dread for him, then he was, she decided stoutly, brave to go there at all, never mind by night.

She came to the gates to see him on his way and, as she had done so many times before, wished him God’s speed and safe return.

Watching Horace’s dust slowly circling in the warm, still air, she had the sudden rebellious thought: I should be the one to ride out! The girl died here, in the Abbey over which I have charge. It should be I who informs the relatives and who uses my eyes and my wits to discover the truth. But yet I stay here, and I send others to act for me.

For a wild moment she thought of calling out, Wait, Sir Josse! Wait while I have the golden mare saddled, because I’m coming with you!

But time passed, and she did not.

When the dust had settled and there remained no sign to tell of Josse’s passing, she turned and walked slowly back to her room.

In the late afternoon, Sister Ursel tapped on the door to tell her that Brother Saul and Brother Augustus had returned. They had ridden hard, she reported, and were washing off the dust and sweat of their journey before presenting themselves to their Abbess.

‘They have indeed ridden hard!’ Helewise exclaimed, ‘for they have been to Ryemarsh, carried out their mission there, presumably, and returned, all in little over a day!’

She did not say so to Sister Ursel — who had been known to speculate quite wildly enough without anyone actually encouraging her to do so — but it occurred straight away to Helewise that Saul and Augustus must have something important to tell her to have made such haste to come back to Hawkenlye …

She dismissed the porteress and then sat with outward serenity while she waited. Inside, however, her mind seethed with questions and possibilities. Disciplining her thoughts was difficult but not, she discovered, impossible; by the time the two brothers arrived — both wearing clean robes and with wet hair — her outward poise was reflected by inner silence.

She accepted their reverences with a brief inclination of her head and then said calmly, ‘What did you find at Ryemarsh?’

Saul and Augustus exchanged a glance and then Saul said, ‘We rode up at dusk, my lady. We feared we were too late to seek admission and were planning to find a sheltered spot to camp out till morning but there was a manservant out in the courtyard doing me locking-up round and he heard us.’

‘Suspicious sort, he was,’ Augustus put in. ‘Picked up a pitchfork when he caught sight of us and brandished it in our direction while he challenged us.’

‘He did,’ Saul agreed, ‘but he calmed down when we told him who we were.’

‘By then he’d caught sight of the habit we wear,’ Augustus put in. ‘He reckoned he’d less to fear from his visitors than he’d thought.’

Helewise smiled. Augustus was probably right; the habit of religion did tend to disarm people. ‘Then he invited you inside?’ she prompted.

‘Aye,’ Saul said. ‘We said we were from the Abbey with news from their master, the lord Ambrose, and that it was bad tidings.’ He exchanged a look with Augustus and went on, ‘It was strange, my lady, because the old servant and the woman who was in the kitchen both seemed very worried even before we told them about the poor young lady.’

‘I see.’ She would, she decided, return to that remark in a moment. First she asked, ‘How did they react to the news of Galiena’s death?’

‘They were most distressed,’ Augustus said. ‘No doubt about it, was there, Saul?’ Saul shook his head sadly. ‘They loved her, my lady, that’s for sure, and they were genuinely heartbroken to know she was dead.’

‘Did you-’ She paused, thinking how to phrase her question tactfully. ‘Were you able to gain any impression of how the household servants viewed their master and mistress? Did they, would you say, think that Ambrose and his wife were happy?’

‘Without a doubt,’ Saul assured her. ‘They said she made the sun shine for him, which I imagine you’d readily understand, what with her being so young and pretty. But they insisted that she cared for him deeply too, even though he was so much older.’ He turned to the younger man. ‘Wouldn’t you say so, Gussie?’

Augustus nodded enthusiastically. ‘Aye. The old kitchen woman said she — Galiena — had been a shy girl when she came to Ryemarsh as the lord Ambrose’s wife, and they all jumped to the conclusion that she was an unwilling bride. But they had to accept they’d been wrong because she blossomed, according to the manservant, and turned from someone who was reserved with them and hardly spoke into a happy and outgoing young girl who made the sap rise in old Ambrose and only needed a baby or two to complete her happiness.’ Saul dug him in the ribs and he said, with some indignation, ‘Saul, I’m only repeating what they said!’

‘It’s all right, Brother Saul,’ Helewise said. ‘After all, I did ask you to report anything that struck you as relevant.’ There was something else that she was very keen to know; again taking a moment to word her question, she said, ‘And what of visitors? Did they entertain family or friends? Were there any that came regularly?’

‘The lord Ambrose doesn’t have kin, they’re all dead.’ Augustus spoke matter-of-factly. ‘The lady went visiting her folks at Readingbrooke from time to time, often with the lord Ambrose, and the family there would return the visits. She had several sisters, they told us, and an aunt to whom she was devoted who has young children of her own. The family’s a close one, it seems.’

‘I see.’ No need, Helewise decided, to reveal the details of Galiena’s adoption by the family at Readingbrooke. ‘Anyone else?’

‘Well, that neighbour of theirs, from Rotherbridge,’ Saul said. ‘He’s a friend of the lord Ambrose and calls by when he’s passing.’

‘I see,’ she said again, trying hard not to let her sudden excitement show in her voice. ‘And the household — er — they liked all these visitors?’

She knew even as she spoke that the question was absurd. Both Saul and Augustus looked surprised and Augustus, more forthright than Saul, said, ‘I don’t see as how it was for them to have likes or dislikes, my lady, since they’re servants and do as they’re told.’ His comment — possibly a little forthright for a young lay brother addressing his Abbess, but entirely justified, Helewise thought — earned him another dig in the ribs and, casting down his eyes, he muttered, ‘Sorry, my lady.’

‘It’s all right,’ she said. She could not see a way to find out what she needed to know other than a direct question so, after a moment, she asked it. ‘Did you receive the impression,’ she said carefully, ‘that there was any gossip concerning Sir Brice and Galiena? Oh, I know what you said about Galiena being so devoted to her husband, but you both know how servants love to chatter!’ She gave what even to her sounded a totally unconvincing little laugh.

Saul and Augustus looked at each other, then back at her. Then, in unison, they shook their heads and said firmly, ‘Oh, no.’ Augustus added, as if for emphasis, ‘There wasn’t anything like that. Was there, Saul?’

And Saul said, ‘No.’

Well, she thought, that was not necessarily relevant. After all, if Josse had been right and Brice had been Galiena’s lover, he’d hardly have ridden up to the door proclaiming it to the world.

The more she dwelled on it, the more it seemed to her that the very strong denials of ‘anything like that’ were in themselves suspicious. Wouldn’t it have been more natural for Brice and the beautiful Galiena to have engaged in a little harmless flirtation?

But her train of thought was interrupted; Saul was addressing her. ‘My lady,’ he said, ‘there is something else.’

‘Indeed? Go on, Brother Saul.’

‘You remember that we said they seemed upset even before we told them the news?’

‘I do.’

‘Well, it seems there was a young stable lad called Dickon. He was sent to escort the lady Galiena over to Hawkenlye, together with the woman Aebba.’

‘But he didn’t arrive here!’ she exclaimed. ‘Neither did Aebba, not until she rode in with the lord Ambrose. Galiena arrived alone.’

‘Aye, my lady. It seems that Aebba returned from the trip with her young mistress by herself and when the lord Ambrose asked what had happened to the groom, she said he had gone on with the young lady.’

‘Here to Hawkenlye?’

‘That’s what Aebba said.’

If that were so, Helewise thought, then Galiena had been lying, because she had said that she had dismissed both Aebba and the groom just before reaching the Abbey gates. ‘So, according to the servants at Ryemarsh,’ she said slowly, ‘Aebba and this Dickon set out to escort Galiena to Hawkenlye, only Aebba turned for home some time before they reached here’ — something occurred to her and she amended her words — ‘some time between setting off from New Winnowlands, where Sir Josse left the three of them, and here. Leaving Dickon to bring Galiena on to Hawkenlye, after which he was meant to return to Ryemarsh. Yes?’

‘Yes,’ Saul agreed, and Augustus nodded.

‘Whereas, according to Galiena, both Aebba and Dickon saw her almost to the Abbey before she sent them both home.’ She would have to speak to Aebba. Now that Galiena was dead and Dickon missing, she was the only one left of the party. Which, Helewise realised, meant that Aebba could say whatever she liked and nobody could contradict her.

‘There has been no news of the lad?’ she asked.

Again, Augustus and Saul exchanged a look. This time it was Augustus who spoke. ‘There hadn’t been, no, my lady. But we-’ He stopped, drew a breath and resumed. ‘Saul and I left early in the morning. We passed the turning up to New Winnowlands, then thought we’d stop for a bite to eat. It was hot by then and we sought some shade, which meant we had to ride some way up a sheep track leading up into a copse of willows. We’d just dismounted when the horses started acting spooked and we noticed this terrible smell.’ His eyes wide, he said quietly, ‘We looked around and we found a body, wrapped in a bit of sacking and lying in a shallow ditch with leaves and branches and that over it. Over him, I should say.’ He looked at Saul who, with a brief touch on the younger brother’s sleeve as if to say, it’s all right, lad, I’ll tell the rest, took up the narrative.

‘We weren’t much more than a mile or so past New Winnowlands so we rode back there for help. I know Sir Josse’s man Will, he’s a sound fellow. Anyway, he finds a cart and comes back with us to where we found the body and he says straight away, soon as he sees the face, that’s the groom as rode by with the master and the company, just a few days back.’

She was struggling to take it in. ‘You mean that Will recognised the dead man as poor Dickon?’

‘Aye,’ Saul said heavily.

She said quietly, ‘Could you tell how he died?’

‘Blow to the back of the head,’ Saul said shortly. ‘Looks as if someone crept up on him and took him unawares.’

‘Could it have been an accident?’ she asked.

Saul gave a faint shrug. ‘Possibly, my lady, I suppose. Only if so, would someone not have gone for help, just as we did when we found him? Innocent people don’t see a man take a mortal blow then leave him to fend for himself.’

‘Indeed not,’ she agreed. ‘But could he not have been thrown from his horse? You did not find his horse, I take it?’

‘No we didn’t,’ Augustus said. ‘But, my lady, if it happened like that, who put him in the sack and buried him?’

‘No, no, of course, it would have been impossible.’ Impatient with herself, she could not think why she was being so slow; shock, perhaps. ‘So for some reason Aebba turned for home first,’ she said slowly, trying to make sense of events. ‘Dickon rode on with Galiena, although we do not know how much further; she lied about Aebba coming to the gates with her so she may also have lied about Dickon. Anyway, he set off back to Ryemarsh by himself and was attacked about a mile this side of New Winnowlands. The blow killed him and he was put in the ditch.’

‘That about sums it up,’ Saul agreed.

Helewise put her hands to her head as if pressure from her palms could somehow stop the whirl of thoughts and impressions flying wildly around in her mind. ‘I do not understand!’ she exclaimed.

Then a portion of the picture suddenly became clear. She saw a young woman riding with her servants, in the middle of acting out a plan that had to be made to work if her undeclared pregnancy were to be attributed to her elderly husband. But the young woman’s thoughts were not with her husband at all but with her handsome lover. Whom she just had to meet once more before riding on to Hawkenlye where, in time, she would dutifully be reunited with her husband and present the conception to him as the fruits of his lovemaking.

So perhaps, just perhaps, thought Helewise, she dismisses both of the servants so that she can enjoy a final idyll in her lover’s arms. The woman Aebba does as she is told and rides home to Ryemarsh. But perhaps the young groom, anxious for his mistress’s safety, turns back to check that she is all right. He sees the lovers together and, in order to ensure his silence, the man — Brice of Rotherbridge, according to Josse — strikes out and the lad is killed. Perhaps Brice only means to render him unconscious but, in the heat of the moment with Galiena sobbing and crying beside him, he panics and hits too hard.

The poor young groom is dead and Brice bundles him up, covers him with leaves and the lovers run away. Galiena hastens on to Hawkenlye, Brice goes … where?

Where was Brice?

She would have to ask Josse.

Josse.

Somebody was speaking his name; pulling her attention back to the present, she listened.

‘… ought to know about this,’ Saul was saying.

‘Sir Josse?’ she asked.

‘Aye, my lady.’ Saul, she thought, was eyeing her curiously. ‘Are you quite well?’ he asked quietly.

‘I am, thank you, Brother Saul. You were saying?’

‘Oh. Aye.’ He frowned. ‘Merely that, what with Will being involved and the poor dead lad’s body now at New Winnowlands awaiting burial, me and Gus thought we ought to inform Sir Josse as soon as we could, after telling you, that is.’ He gave her a brief bow.

‘Quite right, Brother Saul,’ she agreed. ‘I wish I could help you, but I’m afraid that telling Sir Josse will have to wait. You see, he’s just this afternoon set off for the north-eastern reaches of the Great Marsh.’

‘Where has he gone?’ Augustus asked.

‘He is looking for somewhere called Deadfall,’ she said.

Yet again, she watched the two of them exchange a look. But this time, both men looked more than anxious; they looked fearful.

Thinking that perhaps Josse’s aunt’s maid’s young man was not the only one to have known dreadful tales of this strange place that had the power to strike fear into the hearts of grown men, she rested her chin in her hands and said, not without a tinge of resignation, ‘Very well, then. You had better tell me what you have heard about Deadfall.’

‘It’s not really either of us, although the name was already familiar to you, Gussie, wasn’t it?’ Saul said.

‘Aye,’ Augustus said heavily.

‘Already familiar?’ said Helewise.

‘Aye, when old Brother Firmin told us the tale,’ Saul replied. ‘A party of pilgrims came from the Marsh and talking to them seemed to remind Brother Firmin of legends he had long forgotten. Or so he said. It was last winter, wasn’t it, Gussie?’

‘Aye,’ Augustus agreed again.

If the younger man were to be asked for confirmation at every turn, thought Helewise, then this story would take the rest of the day to tell. ‘So Brother Firmin scared you all with an old ghost story at the fireside?’ she prompted.

‘Aye, my lady.’ Now Saul was frowning, as if trying to decide whether the story were fit for a lady’s ears.

‘I need to know it, Brother Saul,’ she said gently. ‘As you say, Sir Josse has ridden off to Deadfall and if there is danger there, then we must send help.’

‘Oh, I don’t reckon as how it’ll be dangerous, not to a man of Sir Josse’s quality,’ Saul said. ‘I don’t see him as someone who is afraid of the dark!’ He laughed nervously.

‘I am sure you are right.’ Then, putting her full authority into her tone, ‘Now, the story, please.’

But Saul glanced at Augustus, who, picking up his cue, told her what she had to know.

‘Brother Firmin knows those parts where the sea and the land merge,’ he began. ‘Seems he grew up thereabouts. He said there were such tales told as to keep children safe in their beds at night, else they might have wandered off and been drowned in a creek that wasn’t there yesterday, or put their feet on to boggy ground that would suck them down easy as a stone falling in a pond.’

‘Cautionary tales,’ murmured Helewise. ‘Go on, Augustus.’

‘Then there was another reason to keep safe indoors, because the heathen men came from over the seas and killed any who stood in their path. They took their long boats up the creeks and the inlets looking for fertile fields and pastures, because their own lands had been drowned.’

‘But that was hundreds of years ago!’ Helewise protested. ‘The Northmen do not come now.’

‘No, my lady, but it seems-’ Augustus paused. Then, in a rush, went on, ‘They left a presence, so Brother Firmin says. They did terrible deeds and the Marsh holds memories.’

The story was, she thought, beginning to sound very like Josse’s account. Fear of the ferocious fighting men of the past seemed to be a long time dying.

‘They attacked the monasteries,’ Augustus was saying. ‘Stole the treasures, killed the monks and ra- er, did harm to the nuns.’

‘I know what they did to the nuns,’ Helewise said softly. ‘I, too, have learned of the east coast’s violent past.’

‘When they launched a new boat, they took a virgin to sacrifice,’ Saul said, eyes round with wonder. Entranced by the tale, he seemed to have forgotten about whether or not his Abbess ought to hear it. ‘Seems their god of the sea and the storm needed a blood sacrifice in payment for keeping the craft and her crew safe from the waves.’

‘And when they were betrayed, they took the traitor and tore his lungs out of his living chest,’ Augustus whispered. ‘They called it the blood eagle.’

As if all three of them were picturing that horror, there was silence in Helewise’s room.

Breaking it — with difficulty, since she knew she must speak normally and was not sure she could — she said, ‘We speak, my brothers, of tales told by the hearth, of ancient legends rooted in folk memory. Oh, yes, I am sure they tell of things which really happened, but these things are past.’ She fixed both men with a direct glance, Saul first, then Augustus. ‘It will, I am sure, reassure you when I tell you that Sir Josse is not ignorant of Deadfall’s fearful reputation. However, when offered company on his visit there, he declined and said he did not see that he would be in any danger.’ Forcing a smile, she said, ‘We must, I think, abide by Sir Josse’s decision and agree with him.’

Then, before either brother could protest, she thanked them and dismissed them.