Whiter than the Lily

18

She stood in the entrance to the shelter, still regarding him with that cool expression. After a moment — a highly awkward one for Josse — she said, ‘Brice tells me that you have interpreted the situation slightly erroneously.’

Bowing briefly, he said, ‘So it would seem, my lady, and I am sorry to have caused you distress.’

‘It is not I who am distressed,’ she corrected him gently. Glancing across at Brice by her side — Josse noticed that they were hand in hand — she went on, ‘Brice has never quite managed to convince himself that he was not responsible for the death of his wife, Dillian, despite what he says.’ She turned to give Brice a loving smile. ‘It is not kind, Sir Josse, to have disturbed old hurts by accusing him of poisoning Galiena Ryemarsh, whom he cared for deeply as a friend.’ She emphasised the last three words. Then, her expression grave, she said, ‘As did I, for she was always kind to me and offered her strength for me to lean on when I was in sore need.’ The shadow of some past sorrow crossed her face. ‘And she was our messenger,’ she added softly. ‘She knew of our love and she understood why we cannot yet declare it openly. She offered to relay our communications to each other and that, Sir Josse, is why Brice seemed excited and eager when he took you to Ryemarsh: he was expecting Galiena to pass on to him the place and time of our next meeting.’

Now both of them were looking at Josse and he felt himself to be standing before his accusers and judges. ‘I am sorry,’ he said humbly.

‘And that day when you went to visit Brice when you were bound for Hawkenlye Abbey,’ Isabella went on relentlessly, ‘Brice was away from home, yes, but he was not chasing after Galiena. With our beloved messenger’s absence, we had nobody to relay word from one to the other and so, knowing my habit of hunting in the early mornings, he had gone to look for me, although without success.’

Once more, feeling even worse, Josse mumbled his apologies.

Brice began to speak but, with a gentle touch of her hand to his cheek, Isabella stopped him. ‘Perhaps you are wishing to know the answer to the obvious question, Sir Josse? Why it is that we have need of secrecy and private, unobserved assignations?’

‘Well, aye, I am,’ he said haltingly, ‘although in truth, my lady, there is no call for you to explain yourselves to me.’

‘No, there isn’t,’ she agreed. She paused, then smiled and said, ‘But I see no reason why we should not satisfy your curiosity. What do you think, my love?’ She turned to Brice.

‘I would like Josse to know,’ Brice said firmly. ‘If only to convince him that I have not acted in the dishonourable way that he accuses me of doing.’

‘I have already apologised!’ Josse cried, stung.

But Isabella’s calm voice murmuring words in Brice’s ear was clearly more persuasive than Josse’s outburst, for, with a curt nod, Brice said, ‘Very well. I accept your apology, Josse.’

Isabella looked from one to the other and, with a faint sigh of exasperation, muttered something under her breath. Then, facing Josse, she said, ‘When I was seventeen, I was married to a fine man named Nicholas de Burghay. It was an arranged marriage and I had little say in the matter, but fate was kind and gave me a husband whom I could honour, care for and, over the months and years, come deeply to love. In time our union was blessed with children; first a son, Roger, who is now nine years old, and then, two years later, a daughter, Marthe.’ She paused, then drew a shaky breath. Brice disengaged his hand from hers and put his arm around her, pulling her close to him. She flashed him a brief smile and then said, ‘Nicholas and I loved to hunt together. Nicholas was permitted to hunt with the falcon and he passed on his skills to me, teaching me to raise the eyas from the nest and train her to fly from my wrist. It was ever our habit to ride out early in the morning, when the field and the woodland were quiet, and fly our hawks together. We believed that few were aware of our regular outings but-’

Again she paused. Then, apparently altering what she had been about to say, she went on quietly, ‘One morning there was an accident. Nicholas was badly hurt and, although he lived on for three days, in great pain, he died.’ Tears formed in her eyes, making the green colour suddenly as vivid as emeralds, and, quickly blinking them away, she whispered, ‘Marthe was but a month old. She does not remember her father at all.’

Then, overcome, she turned to Brice and for a while he hugged her to him. Looking at Josse over her blonde head, he said quietly, ‘It is an unhealed hurt, Josse. And she-’

But at that Isabella raised her head, wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and said, ‘Let us speak of happier times. Sir Josse, you have met Audra de Readingbrooke and Raelf, her husband.’

‘Aye.’

‘Audra is Nicholas’s younger sister. She and Raelf met in our house, soon after Raelf lost his wife. He and Audra had been wed for some ten years when Nicholas died and they already had three little girls of their own who are my nieces by marriage, since they are the daughters of my husband’s sister. Also, of course, there was Galiena, whom Raelf and his first wife had adopted as a baby, Matilda being barren.’

‘Aye, so the lady Audra told me.’

‘Did she indeed?’ Isabella raised a narrow, dark eyebrow. ‘She must have taken to you, Sir Josse, for normally she is reticent over divulging private family matters to strangers.’

He sensed a rebuff and felt unreasonably guilty. ‘I did not force the words out of her, my lady,’ he said stiffly.

Isabella smiled. She was, Josse could not help noticing, a very lovely woman. ‘I am sure that you did not,’ she said smoothly. Then, picking up her tale: ‘They took me in, me and my two little children, and we found comfort in that kind, open-hearted and affectionate family. Galiena and I became particular friends. She was thirteen years my junior but the gap always seemed less than that, for she was a mature girl. She was but fifteen when she made up her mind that she wanted to marry Ambrose and, although there was some consternation because of the age difference, Galiena insisted that he was the only man she would have and that was that.’ She smiled again, this time a soft, reminiscent expression as though her mind was on some happy occasion in the misty past. ‘She had been used to kindness from the family who had adopted her and she recognised its importance in a marriage. She always said that she could look all her life and never find a kinder husband than Ambrose. They were wed in the early spring of 1191 and, as I believe you know, Sir Josse, she then spent the next two years trying to conceive a child.’

Something was tapping insistently at Josse’s mind and he knew he should stop and isolate what it was; it was something important, something he should not ignore. But Isabella was still speaking and he was entranced by her storytelling. She had the gift of keeping the attention of her audience, that was for sure.

‘It was in Ambrose’s hall that I first met Brice,’ she was saying. ‘I had gone to stay with Galiena and Ambrose at Ryemarsh and Brice, being Ambrose’s friend and neighbour, had been invited to join us. We fell in love very swiftly.’ Again, the brief look at Brice, who still had his arm around her slim waist. She contrived to look very feminine, Josse thought, even dressed as she was in man’s clothing.

‘But I do not understand why you could not declare your love,’ he said, trying to turn his attention from Isabella and her femininity. ‘Will you now tell me at last?’

Isabella dropped her head and did not speak. Instead Brice said quietly, ‘It is on account of young Roger, Isabella’s son.’ He hesitated, as if speaking of this ongoing hurt pained him. ‘Roger does not like me.’ It was flat, bald, and clearly hurt Isabella as much as it did Brice, for she seemed to wince and looked at the ground. But Brice went on, ‘It is, as you will appreciate, a delicate matter because Roger’s poor father died when the boy was only two years old and in his imagination he has made up a detailed and, I am sure, accurate picture of the father he lost. Naturally he does not welcome the idea of another taking Nicholas’s place, usurping his position as Isabella’s husband and father of her children.’

Josse wanted to ask why not, or, at least, why Isabella could not persuade her son to adopt a more reasonable stance. He opened his mouth to speak but Isabella shot him a look and, almost imperceptibly, shook her head.

‘That is our sorry position, Josse,’ Brice concluded with an unconvincing attempt at a carefree laugh. Then, looking suddenly puzzled, he began, ‘It is strange, all this, because-’ But then he stopped himself. ‘Ah well, there it is. Until Roger’s hostility lessens a little, we are stuck with being secret lovers.’ He hugged Isabella and added quickly, ‘Do not think that I am complaining, Josse, for I would have Isabella’s love in any way that I could, so precious is she to me.’

Josse did not know what to say. The boy was nine, he thought, so presumably would soon be sent for training to some other household. Could not Isabella and Brice quietly be married then? But no, she surely would not agree to that; he had the feeling that Isabella de Burghay would not take Brice as her husband until such time as her son was fully reconciled to the match.

‘I am sorry for you,’ he said eventually. ‘It is, or so it would appear, an insoluble problem.’

‘It is,’ Brice said with sudden bitterness. Then, as if he regretted the upsurge of emotions that he could not control, he stepped away from Isabella, gave both her and Josse a brief bow and, hurrying out of the shelter, went across to the corral.

Into the tense silence that he left behind him, Isabella said, ‘There is more to this, Sir Josse. I have had to be-’ She paused as she thought. ‘I have had to be less than truthful with Brice, for what I entreat you to believe are very good reasons. But my sorrow is that, in making up this tale of Roger’s dislike, I harm and misrepresent both my lover and my son. Brice adores Roger and cannot understand why I keep telling him that Roger resents him, for Roger is also very fond of Brice and, as a child will, he shows it.’

‘Now I understand Brice’s comment about the strangeness of it all,’ Josse said. ‘You are telling him that Roger dislikes him, whereas his own senses tell him that the opposite is true.’

‘Yes!’ she agreed eagerly. ‘Brice asks me why Roger does not display the enmity that he really feels and I have to lie and say oh, because he is too well-mannered.’ Her face full of self-disgust, she added vehemently, ‘I hate myself, Josse.’

His sympathies engaged by her frankness, he said, ‘You cannot go on like this, my lady. If there is no true impediment to your marriage to Brice, then surely it should be celebrated as soon as possible.’

But she whispered, ‘Oh, Josse, there is an impediment.’

‘Can we not remove it?’ he whispered back.

She looked at him, affection in her face. ‘Thank you for the we,’ she said. ‘It heartens me to have such a man as Sir Josse d’Acquin offering me his help. If that is what you are doing?’

The look in her greenish eyes — comprised of anxiety in case he wasn’t and a touch of prickly pride, as if to say, I don’t need you anyway! — was hard to bear. So he just said, a little gruffly, ‘Aye, lady. What aid I can give you is yours to command.’

And she said quietly, ‘Thank you.’

But Brice was coming back, and she said no more. Whatever this problem — this impediment — was, Josse decided, it was to be kept from Isabella’s lover.

Well, that decision was hers alone to make. Josse could only wait.

As the three of them settled down to sleep in the small shelter — the men lay a discreet distance from Isabella and Josse could not help but wonder if this observance of the proprieties were merely for his benefit — he tried to put a halt to the seething thoughts running wild in his mind.

He closed his eyes. No good — all he saw was Isabella’s face.

Think of Saltwych. Oh, hell’s fire, he remembered, he’d meant to ask Brice why the people from the settlement should have been out hunting for him. And he also must honour his promise to that poor girl imprisoned in the outhouse and try to find a way of helping her. Well, it would all have to wait until morning since Brice appeared to be asleep.

There was something else bothering him. Something that he had been worrying about when Isabella had told him about her friendship with Galiena.

Aye! That was it! Now that he had called it to mind, he could not see how he could have possibly forgotten.

Lying on his side, shoulder hunched into the folded cloak that he was using for a pillow, he thought about it again and still he could see no answer.

Aye, it was a poser all right. He yawned, feeling his eyelids grow heavy. Perhaps inspiration might come if he went to sleep on the problem …

Which was this: if Brice and Galiena had not been lovers, then who had fathered her baby?

In the morning, Josse awoke to find that the others were up and about before him. A small fire was burning in the lee of the shelter and Isabella had made some sort of hot drink. Brice stood looking out at the day and eating a heel of bread, which he had softened by dunking it in his drink.

As Josse emerged from the shelter, Isabella handed him a mug and another hunk of bread. ‘It is dry, I fear, and the drink not as tasty as I would like, but better than nothing.’

‘Aye, lady, and I am grateful even for this.’ Josse toasted her with his mug; the drink, on trying it, had a reviving, slightly medicinal taste and he thought he detected rosemary.

Brice said, ‘We should get on the road and be away from here as soon as we can. They do not usually pursue trespassers by day but it is always possible.’

‘Why do they deem us trespassers?’ Josse asked. ‘And why were you so insistent last night that I was in danger?’

Brice frowned, then, after a quick look at Isabella, said, ‘The people of the Saltwych community do not like strangers. They keep themselves to themselves and they foster their own isolation by spreading fearful rumours of ghosts and hauntings that threaten any who wander down there under the inland cliff.’

‘I cannot believe they threaten armed men!’ Josse protested. ‘They have a few gold treasures but I saw nothing to persuade me that they can command a fighting force.’

‘Oh, but they can,’ Brice said. His hand was on his sword hilt as he spoke. ‘They have lived in poverty since the salt workings failed — and that wasn’t a recent calamity, I can tell you — but they retain a sense of their own worth. In full measure.’

‘It is often the way where wealth has evaporated,’ Josse observed. ‘Nothing left but stiff-necked pride.’

‘Exactly,’ Brice said.

A thought occurred to Josse and without thinking he voiced it. ‘Think you that it was for that reason — their poverty — that they gave Galiena up for adoption? Because a baby girl was one more mouth to feed and she would likely enjoy a better life elsewhere?’

‘No,’ Isabella breathed quietly. Both men turned to look at her and, in some confusion, she said, ‘I mean, I don’t think that’s the way Galiena looked at it. She — er — she did not know where she came from but I think she imagined that she was the child of some young girl whose chances of marriage would be badly affected were it known she had borne an illegitimate baby.’

Passing over that — Josse wondered if Brice had also noticed that Isabella’s explanation was given with such a lack of conviction that it seemed she couldn’t make herself believe it either — Josse asked her, ‘How did Raelf know that there was a baby up for adoption at Saltwych? If the people there are so secretive, why should anyone come to know of their business?’

‘I believe it was done through the mediation of a priest,’ Isabella said. ‘Someone of importance among the Saltwych folk put out word and the priest undertook to try to find a family of wealth and influence who would welcome a child and treat her as their own.’

‘A family of wealth and influence?’ Josse repeated. ‘The wealth I can readily understand, for to send her to a poor family would not provide any advantage over staying with her own kin. But why did they specify influence? And influence with whom?’

‘Oh, I don’t know!’ Abruptly Isabella seemed to tire of the discussion. ‘We waste time here. Let us pack up and be on our way.’ And, not waiting for the men to agree or disagree, she ducked back inside the shelter and began packing her few belongings into a soft leather satchel. Josse noticed her pick up her thick gauntlet and he wondered what had become of Isabella’s hawk.

Josse looked at Brice. ‘You have found out much about these strange people,’ he said.

Brice smiled wryly. ‘I have found out nothing. I merely pass on what Isabella told me.’

‘Oh! But I thought she said Galiena knew nothing of her own background, so where has Isabella gained her knowledge?’

Brice looked bemused. ‘I couldn’t say.’ His eyebrows went down in a worried frown. Then, his expression clearing, he said encouragingly, ‘But let us pursue the question when we are safe.’

Josse stood where he was. ‘You, of course, must go if you so wish,’ he said. ‘For my own part, I must return to Saltwych.’

Isabella, overhearing, shot out of the shelter again. ‘You can’t!’ she cried, just as Brice was asking, ‘Why?’

‘I can and I must.’ Josse gave them both what he hoped was a reassuring smile, the look of an old soldier for whom riding alone into a community of hostile strangers holds no fears. ‘You ask why, Brice, and indeed, since you both demonstrate such concern for my safety, you are owed an explanation.’ He paused, searching for the words to deliver his message so that they would understand the urgent need. ‘For one thing, Galiena’s serving woman, Aebba, is down at Saltwych and I believe she may have important information concerning the events leading up to Galiena’s death. For another, there is a girl chained in an outbuilding and I have promised myself that I will help her.’

Neither Isabella nor Brice spoke for some moments. Then Brice said, ‘But I thought that Aebba rode with Galiena to Hawkenlye. Did she not remain there to care for Ambrose?’

‘She cared for him at first, aye,’ Josse agreed. ‘But she is not there now. She is at Saltwych.’

‘You are sure?’

‘Quite sure.’

Again, silence. Then Isabella said, ‘There may be a good reason for the child to be locked up. Perhaps she is being punished, or perhaps being kept apart from the community because she has a fever.’

‘She has no fever,’ Josse said evenly, ‘and, for my part, I can see no crime that a young girl could commit that would deserve being chained in a filthy hut with no light, no warmth at night and nothing to lie on or with which to cover herself.’

But Isabella was not satisfied. ‘Josse,’ she said, her face urgent, ‘we should leave this to the Saltwych kin. It is not for us to say how they should treat their own!’

Josse stared at her, eye to eye, and, after a short time, her glance fell. ‘Isabella,’ he said gently, ‘how do you know so much about them? Why do you defend their deeds?’

‘I’m not defending them! They are cruel, and-’ she began hotly. Then, breathing hard, she said more calmly, ‘I do not think we should risk our own lives to save a child who may not even need saving. That is all.’ And, as if she knew how weak her argument was, she hung her head.

‘We will go down on to the marsh,’ Brice said eventually. ‘We will wait for cover of darkness or, if the mist descends during the day, we will descend under its blanket. I do not see how we can seek out Aebba, Josse, without everyone else seeing us. But we can at least try to release the girl and take her away with us.’

‘She may not want to go!’ Isabella shouted. ‘Even if they are punishing her harshly, the Saltwych folk are her kin! What do you propose that we do with her, Brice?’

He looked at her, and the love in his face softened her harsh, angry expression. ‘I do not know, my sweeting. Perhaps we should ask her what she wants.’

‘She’s drugged,’ Josse said baldly. ‘Or anyway she was last night.’

He was uncertain what they should do. Isabella’s protest was a valid one — what, indeed, would they do with the girl once they had managed to rescue her? — and he was troubled too at the prospect of leading Brice, and possibly Isabella too, into danger.

‘I’m going alone,’ he announced firmly. ‘I do not believe that they will harm me if I go openly by day. I will ask to speak to Aebba and I will find a way to help the poor chained girl.’

‘You can’t. We must all go in together,’ Brice said, equally firmly. ‘We-’

But Josse held up a hand. ‘Let me finish,’ he said. ‘It is unwise for us to move as one for, should we encounter difficulties, there would be none of us left to bring help. I would like you, Brice, to act as my reserve force. Watch for me from a safe distance. If I do not return by a certain prearranged time — by nightfall — then perhaps you will ride down in the dark and see what has become of me.’ He said it with a laugh, as if to suggest he was joking, but it was no joke.

Brice looked at Isabella, who shrugged and then nodded.

‘And if Isabella will agree to wait for us up here on the cliff top,’ Josse went on, ‘then she could go to Readingbrooke for help should-’ No. He stopped himself from saying should neither of us return because it was far too pessimistic. ‘Well, in case it proves necessary,’ he finished instead.

There was a pause. Then: ‘It makes good sense,’ Brice said. With a wry grin, he added, ‘And I do not think that Isabella and I will change your mind, Josse, if we argue for the rest of the day. Very well. So be it. When will you go?’

And Josse replied, ‘I shall not wait for cover of mist or darkness. I shall go right now.’