Ashes of the Elements Read online

  Greeting him, she said, ‘Will you eat, sir? I have a pot of stew simmering, duck, it is, and Will’s pulled some lovely young onions, white and smooth, they are.’

  Josse’s mouth was watering. ‘That sounds wonderful. Yes please, Ella.’

  * * *

  He was relaxing in the mid-afternoon heat – not asleep, he told himself firmly, merely resting with his eyes closed – when he heard someone ride into the yard. Getting up, he crossed the hall to the open doorway and looked down the steps into the courtyard. Will was in conversation with a mounted messenger.

  Josse thought immediately of the Abbess, but, since he didn’t recognise the messenger, it was not likely that the man came from Hawkenlye. He watched as Will came hurrying up the steps towards him.

  ‘Sir Josse, this man brings word from someone calling himself Tobias Durand,’ Will reported. ‘He says you know his master, and that he – the master – invites you to visit him and his lady.’

  ‘Does he indeed,’ Josse said softly.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Thank you, Will, I shall speak to the man myself.’

  He went down the steps and across to the mounted man, who, well-schooled in manners, slipped off his horse’s back and made Josse a courteous bow.

  ‘Tell your master and his good lady that I accept their invitation,’ Josse said.

  The man – he was actually little more than a boy – raised his head. ‘When shall I say, sir?’

  ‘Say—’ Josse thought. ‘Say the end of the week.’

  ‘The end of the week,’ the boy echoed. Then he said, ‘I’d better tell you the way.’

  * * *

  Josse set out mid-morning of the following Friday; the ride to the house of Tobias Durand would, the boy had said, take well over the hour.

  As he rode, he distracted his main train of thought – why Tobias should suddenly have expressed a desire for Josse’s company – by recalling what the Abbess had told him of the man. Which was, in fact, precious little.

  Ah well, he would just have to see for himself.

  * * *

  The house was a grand one. Not all that big, but expensively built and, as Josse discovered when a tall and dignified manservant ushered him inside, beautifully furnished in the latest style.

  No expense had been spared, it was clear.

  What was not quite so clear was where Tobias had come by the money to pay for it all …

  Tobias came bounding across the hall to greet his guest.

  ‘Sir Josse, how wonderful to see you!’ he gushed. ‘We’re in the solar, enjoying the sunshine. Won’t you join us? Paul!’ he called to the manservant. ‘Bring wine – draw a jug of that new barrel we broached last night.’

  Josse followed Tobias back across the hall and up a spiral stair that led off it. At the top, the stair opened out into a sunny room with, Josse noticed in faint surprise, glass in its modest window.

  Glass!

  In front of which, stitching at a framed piece of embroidery with every appearance of calm, sat a woman.

  Straight away, as the woman turned her head, Tobias said, ‘Dearest, may I present Sir Josse d’Acquin, King’s knight and lord of the manor of New Winnowlands?’ And, to Josse, ‘Sir Josse, my wife, Petronilla.’

  It was just as well, Josse reflected swiftly as, moving forward, he bent to kiss the woman’s outstretched hand, that Tobias had introduced her immediately, and so clearly.

  Because, otherwise, Josse might have taken the woman for Tobias’s mother rather than his wife.

  ‘Please, Sir Josse, sit down,’ Petronilla was saying, indicating a leather-seated chair. ‘In the sunshine, by me.’

  ‘Thank you, lady.’

  Tobias busied himself with pouring the wine that the manservant had just brought, and Josse, listening to the light-hearted comments he was exchanging with his wife, took the chance to study Petronilla Durand.

  She had a thin face, and had a bony look about her, so that she appeared to be all angles. She must, he thought, trying to be charitable, be at least forty-five. At least. And the greying hair visible at the temples, under the smoothly starched linen of her barbette, made her look older, as did the thin lips surrounded by a network of tiny lines. Lines which, Josse observed, all seemed to run downwards. If she could manage a less severe look, put a little flesh on those bones, he thought, then it might take a few years off her. As it was …

  If he had been right in his estimate of Tobias’s age, then Petronilla was about fifteen years his senior. Perhaps not quite old enough to be his mother, but it was a close-run thing.

  ‘… making an embroidery to celebrate our first three months in this gracious house,’ Tobias was saying. ‘See, Sir Josse, how fine is her work?’ He pointed to the stitched linen in Petronilla’s hands; she appeared to be working on a design of pansies, the purple and the egg-yolk yellow making a dramatic but pleasing contrast.

  ‘Fine indeed, my lady.’ Josse looked up into the pale face, noticing the maze of small wrinkles around the deep-set eyes. ‘Such stitching! This must have taken you hours.’

  ‘I like to sew,’ she said. Her voice was pleasantly low-pitched. Her lips made a gesture which, Josse was to realise, was typical of her, a sort of folding-together which made them all but disappear. It was not, he thought with some pity, a mannerism that did anything for her appearance. ‘It is a pastime I have always enjoyed.’

  ‘I see. I—’

  ‘Petronilla was lady-in-waiting to Queen Eleanor,’ Tobias butted in. ‘They are old friends, my wife and the Queen.’ Possibly old had been tactless, Josse thought, as had the implication that Petronilla and the Queen were contemporaries. ‘Petronilla was a member of the Queen’s court, both here in England and in France.’

  A faint blush had stained Petronilla’s white and slightly greasy-looking cheeks. ‘I hardly think—’ she began.

  ‘Oh, dearest, don’t be modest!’ Again, her husband interrupted. ‘Sir Josse would love to hear of your days in court circles, him being King Richard’s man! Wouldn’t you, Sir Josse?’

  ‘Aye, that I would,’ Josse said, with as much enthusiasm as he could muster.

  ‘Why, you’ll probably discover you have a friend or two in common,’ Tobias went on. ‘Don’t let me stand in the way of some enjoyable reminiscences!’

  Was he, Josse wondered, testing? To see if Josse was really what he had claimed to be? Had Tobias primed his wife to pose some searching questions?

  If so, then Josse was more than ready to field them.

  Petronilla had turned towards him, and was saying politely, ‘Sir Josse, my husband exaggerates. I did indeed have the honour to serve the Queen, and I like to believe that we became friends. However, my time in her court was but brief, and amounted to the relatively short years between Queen Eleanor’s emergence from her residence at Winchester and the death of my father.’

  ‘I am sorry for your loss,’ Josse said sincerely. ‘A recent one, I take it?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said quietly. ‘Some six months ago.’

  There was a brief and, Josse thought, awkward silence. Perhaps, he thought, it’s just my guilty conscience that makes it seem awkward.

  He did indeed feel slightly guilty. Because he couldn’t suppress the possibly unworthy thought that he now knew exactly why a young, lively and very handsome man like Tobias Durand had married a tight-lipped woman fifteen years older than himself.

  It was – it had to be – because she had inherited richly from her late father.

  As if Tobias knew very well what Josse was thinking, he said smoothly, ‘It was to me that, I am humbly happy to say, Petronilla looked for comfort in her loss.’ He gave his wife a warm smile. ‘And, since we became man and wife, together we have set about turning her father’s house into our own home.’

  Nice for you, Josse thought. But, despite himself, his cynicism was being undermined. Covertly observing Petronilla, he watched as her face lit up in response to her husband’s smile. And, flicking a glance ba
ck at Tobias, he could see nothing but affection. And was there the briefest suspicion of moisture in the young man’s eyes? Could it really be that his emotions regarding his elderly wife were that strong?

  Perhaps it was true, then. Perhaps he really loved his bride, despite her years.

  Josse decided he would reserve his judgement.

  But, whether Tobias had married his wife for love of herself or of her wealth, it still undermined Josse’s case against the man. Because, if Tobias had access to the sort of money that had so clearly been spent on this house, then he hardly had need to risk his freedom – risk his life, even – involving himself with the shady thieving of the likes of Hamm, Ewen and Seth.

  Unless some sense of chivalry aroused in Tobias the desire to acquire his own wealth, that was.

  Was it likely? Josse couldn’t be sure.

  He was still pondering that, while at the same time engaging in superficial conversation with Petronilla concerning various mutual acquaintances in the Plantagenet court, when, shortly afterwards, the manservant returned to summon them to table.

  * * *

  The food was excellent, and the manservant Paul remained at hand, answering Petronilla’s quiet orders and frequently replenishing Josse’s and Tobias’s goblets with more of the sweet wine. Petronilla, Josse observed, drank but little.

  When they had eaten the last of the small, round honey cakes that followed the fish and the game, Petronilla stood up and announced she was going to her chamber to have a short rest. The manservant also having disappeared, it was left to Tobias to share what was left in the wine jug between Josse and himself.

  ‘A superb meal, Tobias,’ Josse said, stretching his full stomach. ‘You and your lady keep a fine table.’

  ‘We live well,’ Tobias agreed.

  Josse was trying to kick his somewhat fuddled wits into order and come up with a diplomatic way of asking some more penetrating questions about Tobias’s household when, as if suddenly impatient with sitting still, the young man tossed back the dregs of wine in his goblet, leapt up and said, ‘Come, Sir Josse! Let us take a turn outside in the sunshine!’

  Josse managed the necessary admiring comments as, with an almost childlike pride, Tobias showed off his estate, from barns and paddocks to hunting birds and fine horses. As the two of them were about to go back into the hall, someone called out to Tobias – to judge by his clothing and by the mud on his feet and lower legs, he was an outdoor worker – and, with a brief apology, Tobias went back across the yard to speak to him.

  Josse went into the empty hall alone.

  He glanced around. There was a tapestry hanging on one wall, its colours too fresh and vibrant for it to have hung there long. And, on a long wooden table that stood against the opposite wall, there were several decorative objects … a carved ivory statue of the Madonna, a wooden triptych depicting the Crucifixion on its central panel, with angels and cherubs on the two outer panels. The paintwork, to Josse’s fairly experienced eye, looked well executed and, considering the strong, rich blues and golds, had probably been expensive.

  He glanced over his shoulder. Tobias was still in conversation with the labourer. He had a few moments in hand …

  He opened the first of the wooden chests ranged beneath the table; it contained a quantity of white cloth, which he thought might be household linen. No incriminating Roman treasure there. Moving on to the next chest, he was in the very act of raising the lid when a quiet voice said, ‘What are you doing, Sir Josse?’

  He spun round. Petronilla stood a few feet behind him.

  There was nothing he could say, no possible excuse he could offer; he bowed his head and said, ‘Lady, forgive me.’

  For some moments she did not speak. Then, when finally she broke her silence, it was not to say the accusing words that Josse had both expected and deserved.

  Instead, she said, ‘We made a bargain, my Tobias and I.’ She had moved to the doorway, from where she could look down at her young husband as he stood in the courtyard. ‘I know, Sir Josse, what you think. What they all think. That it can only be my wealth that attracted a fine man like Tobias.’

  She turned to meet Josse’s eyes; the expression in her own was surprisingly calm. ‘It is true that his marriage to me gives him riches he had never hoped to possess. He was orphaned young, you see, and raised by an elderly aunt, the sister of his mother, who kept a meagre household with no aspirations either to style or to comfort.’ With sudden passion, she said, ‘Is it any surprise that Tobias should have fallen into dishonourable ways? For pity, Sir Josse, a young man must have some excitement!’

  ‘I—’ Josse began.

  But Petronilla hadn’t finished. ‘No, Sir Knight, let me speak. It was the truth when, earlier, Tobias told you that it was he who comforted me in the loss of my dear father, and, not being the fool you and the world take me for, naturally I suspected his motives. However, while he admitted freely that it would gladden him immeasurably to help me manage my fortune, he promised that he would, in return, make me an affectionate, if not a passionately loving, husband.’ She moved a step or two nearer to Josse, so that he could see the fervour in her dark eyes. ‘He promised me, promised, Sir Josse, that, if I agreed to marry him, with all that such an undertaking involved, then he would forsake his – forsake the ways of his misspent youth.’ A faint smile briefly twisted the narrow lips. ‘And I accepted.’

  Josse opened his mouth to speak, but, unable to think what to say that could in any way express his feelings, he shut it again.

  ‘You may search my house if you wish,’ Petronilla went on, her voice distant now. ‘You will find many rich objects, and all are gifts from me to my husband. Or, since naturally he is free to spend as he sees fit, gifts from him to me.’

  His shame beginning to abate, Josse found that he was now filled with a different emotion: the stirrings of anger. Petronilla might be prepared to take Tobias’s word that he had mended his ways, but Josse had too clear a mind-picture of the elated young man who emerged from the forest the morning after Ewen Asher was killed. Was it really to be believed, that Tobias had left his thieving ways behind him?

  ‘My lady,’ Josse said, making his voice as mild as he could ‘you have your husband’s word that he is now a model of respectability. But—’

  ‘But how do I know I can believe him?’ she finished for him. To Josse’s surprise, she laughed. Only a short laugh, with more than a touch of irony in it, but a laugh nevertheless. ‘Sir Knight, I had him followed. When first he would announce he was off on some early hawking expedition, I asked my faithful Paul to follow him.’ She put her face close to Josse’s. ‘To spy on him. Not pretty, is it, for a new wife to resort to such tactics?’

  ‘Perhaps not pretty,’ Jose replied tersely. ‘But necessary.’

  ‘Not necessary!’ she cried. ‘Those expeditions, every one – even when he was from home for a day and a night together – were as innocent as if I had been there to accompany him! He was, just as he said, hawking.’

  ‘You no longer have him followed?’ Josse asked, although he thought he already knew the answer.

  She studied him for a long moment. Then said: ‘Rarely.’

  Was that the truth? Or had she made that reply merely to make Josse think she was not the infatuated, blinkered wife he took her for?

  There was, he realised, no way of knowing.

  He watched as, Tobias having finished his conversation, he turned back towards the house. Catching sight of Petronilla at the top of the steps, he gave her a wave and then blew her a kiss. With a sharp intake of breath, Petronilla responded.

  Then she picked up her long skirts in one hand and, a beaming smile spreading over the pallid, lined face, she ran down the steps and went to meet him.

  It is time I left, Josse thought.

  Following Petronilla down into the courtyard, he began his speech of thanks and farewell.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Helewise did not forget her undertaking to notify Josse
if any developments occurred. But, other than Seth Miller being charged with the murder of Ewen Asher and the trial set for some six weeks hence, there were no developments.

  She tried again to get Esyllt to talk. Tried to persuade her to go to Mass, but the girl’s eyes had widened with horror at the thought. ‘I can’t!’ she whispered.

  Can’t because you are in a state of mortal sin? Helewise wondered, worried to her very depths. ‘Make your confession, child!’ she had urged. ‘Whatever you have done, the Lord will understand!’

  But Esyllt, with an expression that had wrung the Abbess’s heart, had shaken her head and turned away.

  * * *

  Helewise went to see Seth Miller, in the stinking cell where the sheriff had locked him away. Sheriff Pelham, apparently surprised to see a nun in his gaol, tried to deter her – ‘In there’s not fit for a lady nor a nun, Sis— I mean, Abbess!’ he said – but she insisted.

  ‘We are enjoined by Our Lord, are we not, Sheriff,’ she pointed out, ‘to visit the sick and imprisoned? Did not Jesus Himself say that for as much as it is done for one of His children, it is done for Him?’

  ‘Yes, but – Oh, very well, Abbess, but only for a few moments.’ He leaned confidingly towards her. ‘He’s dangerous, see. Done a man in.’

  But Helewise, allowed to go as far as the wooden door set with stout bars that kept Seth penned in his cell, apart from the rest of humanity, didn’t think he looked dangerous. He sat crumpled against a stone wall that ran with moisture and with unknown slimy matter, and the fetters around his ankles had raised angry red welts. The mouldering straw that covered the stone floor smelled rank with decay. And with other, more malodorous stenches; it was apparent that Seth must relieve himself where he sat.

  ‘Seth?’ she called.

  He raised his head. ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Abbess Helewise of Hawkenlye,’ she said. ‘Will you pray with me?’

  ‘Aye, lady.’ He struggled on to his knees, and followed her in her prayers, responding, when required, with a heartfelt fervour.