A Shadowed Evil Read online

  The images faded. Faint sounds seemed to come from a long way away. Helewise, falling into a deep sleep, heard no more.

  The body fell a long, long way. Emerging from the little window in the north wall of the solar, it looked for a few seconds as if it would go on flying through the air for ever.

  Of course, it didn’t.

  Southfire was built upon a height, and the north side of the house stood over a long, deep drop. Down, down it went, off the edge of the escarpment and into the valley below where the stream ran, bubbling its way along to add its waters to the River Ouse in Lewes. From the other, west-facing windows of the solar, the drop wouldn’t have been nearly so great. With the vestiges of snow still lying on the ground to soften a fall, tumbling out of one of those windows would have been a survivable accident.

  Nobody, though, could long survive that fall from the little north window.

  For some time the body did not move. Then the eyes slowly opened. Looked about. Unease came into them, then fear.

  ‘Where am I? What’s happened?’ a whimpering voice asked.

  ‘I’m lying on the slope beneath the solar,’ the voice answered itself. ‘I – I fell, out through the north window.’

  Presently, the thought came to her that she should try to move. The grass beneath her was wet with melting snow, and she knew she must be very, very cold. ‘But I don’t feel cold,’ she whispered.

  With dawning horror, she realized that she couldn’t in fact feel at all. From the chest down, it seemed as if her body just wasn’t there. She couldn’t feel the cold, wet ground beneath her. She felt no pain, although after such a fall, pain there must surely be.

  ‘I am paralysed,’ she said aloud. Screwing up her face with effort, she tried to move her left foot. Her right foot. Her legs. Tried to lift herself off the grass.

  Nothing.

  She had a little movement in her right arm. Aware, somehow – perhaps from some deep and unconscious survival instinct – she knew she should try to move up the slope.

  Away from the rising waters of the stream.

  But then suddenly, looking down, a wonderful thought stuck her and she was filled with relief: the water was lapping over her feet and her legs, pushing now against her backside, and it would be – surely it had to be! – very, very cold, for the stream was flooding with snow melt. ‘It’s not paralysis, it’s the numbing effect of the chill!’ she cried joyfully. ‘I’m all right! I’m going to be all right!’

  With new determination, she stretched out her right arm, grasped a clump of grass tightly in her fingers and pulled with all her might. Her body stayed exactly where it was. Some of the grass stems broke off in her hand.

  She tried again. And again. And again.

  She thought she should try with her left hand, but for some reason, although it wasn’t under water yet, that hand did not respond.

  She lay back on the cold ground. It didn’t feel quite so cold now.

  She thought quite a lot of time had passed. It was growing dark. Had she slept? Oh, oh, how could that be? Panicking, she raised her head, looking down the length of her useless body.

  The water now reached her waist.

  Opening her mouth wide, she let out a scream of fury, frustration and terror.

  Time passed.

  Someone was standing over her. She managed to move her head a little, but not enough to see who it was. It occurred to her that, whoever he or she was, the person was deliberately keeping out of her sight.

  ‘Help me,’ she snapped. ‘I can’t move my legs, and I need you to pull me clear of the water.’ There was no response. ‘Hurry up!’ she commanded. ‘What in God’s name are you waiting for?’

  ‘Please,’ whispered a very soft, husky voice. Man or woman?

  She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. ‘What?’

  ‘Say please. You’re so rude,’ the voice murmured conversationally. ‘You expect such high standards in others, yet you do not deem it necessary to observe them yourself.’

  She spluttered in fury. ‘Do as you’re told!’ she screeched, craning round, trying again to see who was there.

  She heard a quiet movement; the person had stepped further away.

  ‘No,’ came the soft whisper.

  A shiver of dread ran through her. Frantically she tried once more to move; to wriggle up the steep bank a little and get herself out of the icy water.

  Then there came the terrible sound of a quiet laugh. ‘So the fall didn’t kill you,’ the low voice said. ‘A pity, really.’ A gentle sigh, as if this soft-spoken man or woman were rueing nothing worse than a morning without sunshine. ‘We shall just have to see what the flood waters can do.’

  The ground echoed to the gentle vibration of light footfalls as the speaker walked away.

  The water continued its inexorable rise.

  Half an hour later – the longest, most terrible half-hour in all the world – her face was under water.

  And she was dead.

  Then something quite strange happened. The sky was overcast, and, with the rise in temperature and the melting of the snow, a thick, white blanket of mist flowed over the ground, rolling down the hillside and pooling in the valley. Cloud and mist, it would seem, would have their way with the day, smothering the world in white.

  But, at the precise moment of death, as if the very heavens were celebrating, a gap appeared in the enfolding white above and the sun poured through. It radiated the scene with light and warmth and, to anyone with the ears to hear, it seemed as if a brief, beautiful chord of deep joy rang out.

  Then the clouds massed together once more and the ray of golden light went out.

  FIFTEEN

  Josse was roused from profound sleep by a kind-faced little nun gently shaking his shoulder. Sister Liese had found a bed for him in a disused recess in the infirmary; she had said it would be best if he did not go far away.

  Remembering, Josse shot up, grabbed the little nun’s hand and said hoarsely, ‘Is she dead?’

  ‘No, Sir Josse,’ the little nun whispered, ‘but she is awake and wishes to talk to you.’ She was, he noticed, surreptitiously rubbing her hand.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said gruffly. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you.’

  She smiled gamely. ‘I’m sure you didn’t. Go along to her room, and I will bring you a hot drink.’

  He nodded his thanks, then struggled into his boots.

  Aeleis looked wide awake, her blue-green eyes watching the doorway as he went into the room. A faint yellowish light could be seen through the small window set high in the wall: morning had come.

  He went up to the bed, and she made room for him to sit down. He took her hand. ‘So, what have you got to say to me that’s so important you have to have me woken up in the middle of a beautiful dream?’ he asked with a grin.

  She smiled back. ‘Food or women?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The dream.’ She made an impatient sound. ‘Come on, Josse! You used to be quicker than this!’

  ‘Oh, food. There’s—’ He had been about to say, There’s only one woman for me, but that wasn’t strictly true. There was Helewise, and there always had been, ever since he’d first set eyes on her, but there was also Joanna. And the cousin who now lay on the bed beside him.

  She was watching him closely, but made no comment. Nor, he noticed, did she answer his question. Perhaps she felt there was no need.

  ‘What’s the matter with you, Aeleis?’ he asked gently.

  ‘I can’t breathe, Josse,’ she replied. ‘When I try to take air inside me, it’s as if the space where it ought to go is already full, of thick liquid that I swear I can feel moving in my chest.’

  He was horrified. It sounded truly awful. He tightened his grip on her hand. ‘Can’t they do anything?’

  ‘They do. They bring bowls of steaming water with special herbs and distillations in it, and when I inhale the steam, it helps a lot.’

  ‘Can they cure you?’ He had to ask, but he alread
y knew what she would say.

  ‘No, dear heart, they can’t.’

  They sat in silence for a while. Then – perhaps she had waited until she could speak without her voice breaking – she said, ‘Parsifal found a moppet, you see.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A moppet. A wax doll, made to look like me, with dark yellow wool hair, blue-green beads for eyes and, according to Parsifal, a patch pocket on its skirt made out of a scrap from one of my handkerchiefs, although I always thought he added that bit for verisimilitude.’ She smiled faintly.

  ‘What was it for?’ he whispered.

  ‘Oh, you know that as well as I do, Josse!’ she exclaimed. ‘You may say firmly that it’s all nonsense, and nobody can harm someone else by such methods, but it does feel a little different when it’s done to you, and you realize you’re the focus of such extreme malice.’

  ‘And Parsifal found this doll?’

  ‘Yes. He found it out in the stables, head-down in a water trough.’

  ‘He—’ But then Josse was struck with the awful relevance of that. The doll made in Aeleis’s image had been put into water. Now, Aeleis was dying because her lungs were filling up with liquid. A shiver of atavistic dread ran through him, and he shuddered.

  ‘Parsifal believed he knew who had made the moppet, who had put it in the trough, and why,’ Aeleis said, her breath wheezing in her chest. She coughed several times, then spat into a piece of rag.

  ‘Don’t try to talk!’ Josse implored, watching her with deep anxiety. ‘You should rest, Aeleis.’

  She shook her head violently. ‘I have all eternity for resting,’ she said shortly. ‘Listen, Josse, and don’t interrupt. I must tell you this.’

  She started to speak, but the coughing would not let her. Communicating mainly with signs, she got Josse to summon the infirmarer, and Sister Liese, understanding, brought a bowl of hot water. Aeleis was helped into a sitting position, a cloth was draped over both her and the bowl, and for some time she simply breathed in the fragrant steam. The coughing stopped.

  For the moment.

  Sister Liese took the bowl away. She caught Josse’s eye as she left the room. She mouthed, ‘Not long, now.’

  I have to be brave for Aeleis, Josse told himself. There was something she very much wanted him to know, and so he must put aside his own instinct – to take her in his arms, tell her he loved her and hold her against him until she fell into the final sleep – and somehow help her achieve her desire.

  But, whatever she needed to tell him, she wasn’t going to be able to confide in him today. Aeleis’s attack, far from subsiding, steadily became worse, and soon she was gasping for every tiny breath. Sister Liese asked Josse to step outside while she and her nuns treated their patient, and he waited in the passage, terrified that the infirmarer would emerge with tears on her cheeks to tell him Aeleis was dead.

  He waited for what seemed hours. Then, finally, Sister Liese came to find him. ‘She is still alive,’ she said, her eyes, full of compassion, on his. ‘She is asleep, for we have given her a powerful soporific. When she can’t breathe, she begins to panic, you see, which of course merely exacerbates the problem.’ She sighed, shaking her head.

  ‘Will she—’ Josse began, but he couldn’t go on.

  ‘She will die quite soon now, Sir Josse,’ Sister Liese said calmly. ‘She will sleep for the remainder of today, and I shall give her more of the sleeping draught tonight. After such a long rest, she may be sufficiently recovered to talk to you in the morning.’ She smiled. ‘I shall pray that it is so, for I understand she has something she wishes to tell you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he managed. Then, clearing his throat, he said, ‘What should I do? Would it help if I sat beside her?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ the infirmarer said, ‘although, of course, you would be welcome to do so.’

  He stood staring down at her, undecided.

  ‘If I were you,’ she said kindly, ‘I would take myself off for a walk in the vale, breathe in its healing air, think, pray, perhaps, for the fortitude to help your cousin out of this life when the time comes, and then, when you are restored, return to her bedside.’

  It was, he discovered, exactly what he most wanted to do. ‘I will,’ he said. ‘Would you please tell Abbess Caliste where I am, if she should ask? I wouldn’t want her to think I’d just walked away.’

  Sister Liese smiled. ‘She wouldn’t think that, Sir Josse, but I will tell her, anyway.’

  He didn’t go down to the vale. He set off in the opposite direction, up the long slope behind the abbey, past St Edmund’s Chapel and into the forest. He didn’t think too much about where he was heading, simply letting one foot fall in front of the other, keeping up a good rhythm which, quite soon, soothed his turbulent thoughts and brought him some peace. Presently he came to the little clearing where Joanna had lived, in her little hut. He stood for a long time, staring at the simple wooden structure, its door fastened with the same knot – very likely the same piece of rope – which Joanna had always used.

  He allowed his memories of her to fill his mind. They were bitter-sweet. She had loved him, and he knew it, but even more than him she had loved the strange life she had chosen, out in the wild with her herbs, her animals, her magic. Sometimes – and it still hurt to remember – she had not been there when he had needed her badly and gone to find her. She hadn’t been physically absent at those times, he now knew. It was just that she wanted to be alone, eschewing even the company of those who loved her.

  But at other times she had generously and wholeheartedly given herself to him, and she was the mother of his two beloved children, Meggie and Geoffroi, and also of his adopted son, Ninian.

  ‘For better or worse, lass, you were a part of me, and I of you,’ he said softly. He patted the hut’s stout wooden wall – he had no wish to go in – and turned away.

  Sometimes Meggie stayed in the hut. Probably, he reflected, his feet had led him straight to the hut because unconsciously he had hoped to find her there. Now, thinking about it, he realized she was much more likely to be over in the old charcoal-burners’ camp, where, with the Abbess Caliste’s permission and encouragement, she and her young man were restoring the old forge and building themselves a modest dwelling. Jehan le Ferronier was a blacksmith, and, as he had pointed out winningly to the abbess, the Hawkenlye area really needed someone on the doorstep to shoe horses, mend ploughshares, make a pair of door hinges, and, in general, provide all the services for which local people normally had to trudge down to the big forge in Tonbridge.

  Josse was tempted to seek out Meggie and Jehan. He could remove his tunic, roll up his sleeves and get to work alongside them. But then he wondered if he would be welcome. They were building their future along with the forge and the little house, and maybe Jehan, anyway, would rather do it without Meggie’s father butting in. No, he decided, I’ll leave them be.

  He walked on, following paths and tracks at random, letting the deep peace of the sleeping winter forest penetrate right into his soul. Much later – and promoted almost entirely by hunger – he looked up into the sky, realized the day was almost over, and set out on the long walk back to the abbey, supper, some time sitting with Aeleis, if it were permitted, and then his bed.

  Abbess Caliste, on hearing from Sister Liese that Josse had gone walking, knew where he would be. She knew, too, that before too long he would be facing a great sorrow, and that such things were easier when you had the company and the support of someone you loved.

  After nones, she slipped out of the abbey’s gates and set off into the forest. She was back in time to finish her day’s tasks before vespers and when, after the usual meagre supper and the final office of the day she at last went to bed, it was with the comforting thought that Josse would not be alone in his sorrow. Her final thought before sleep took her was a prayer, imploring the Lord to make Aeleis’s passing as easy as it could be.

  Next day, a damp, misty morning broke over Southfire Hall. Warmer air
had encountered land still cold from the recent snow, and dense fog lay in the valley on the north side of the house. Peering out through the small window of her room, Helewise thought it looked like clouds.

  She had been awake for a long time, watching since daybreak for the first sign of Josse’s return. She hadn’t slept in her own bed. Instead, she had tucked Olivar up, waited until he was asleep, then lain down across the foot of his bed and covered herself as best she could with blankets and pelts. She knew she couldn’t leave him, for he was subdued and plainly distressed, reluctant to talk to her, and she guessed his fear and apprehension were increasing as the night advanced. She had slept only fitfully, quite sure that at any moment the thing would come slinking and creeping along the passage and into Olivar’s room. She wished she’d had the foresight to arm herself with Jenna’s cudgel.

  There had been no sign of it, all night long.

  There was no sign, now, of Josse, either. She prayed that he was all right. Even more fervently, she prayed he would come back today.

  ‘And how is Cyrille this morning?’ Isabelle asked her son as the household assembled in the Old Hall. ‘I take it she requires a tray in her room again?’

  Herbert flushed. ‘Er – I don’t know,’ he confessed.

  Isabelle stared at him. ‘Didn’t she issue her orders as you left to come for your breakfast?’ she demanded.

  He looked down. ‘She – we – er, she prefers to sleep alone,’ he said quietly. ‘She says she gets a better night that way, so I’ve moved into the small room next door.’ He raised his head and met his mother’s eyes. ‘I haven’t seen her this morning,’ he confessed. ‘She shut herself in late yesterday and told me she wanted to get on with her sewing and didn’t want to be disturbed.’

  ‘And got one of the servants to take her supper in, I suppose,’ Isabelle retorted.

  ‘She does like to be alone sometimes,’ Herbert said apologetically. ‘And she gets awfully tired.’

  ‘I really can’t think why,’ Isabelle said tetchily. ‘It’s not as if she overworks herself.’