Ashes of the Elements Read online

  He put his arm aroud her. ‘Right about what, my dear child?’

  ‘He’s dead. Isn’t he?’

  As kindly as he could, Josse said, ‘Aye, Esyllt. I’m afraid he is.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘By sheer accident. A hound tripped him, and he fell and hit his head.’

  She gave a soft laugh. ‘Those hounds! I used to tell him he should train them better, they were always…’

  But, as if she realised it didn’t matter any more, she stopped.

  Then she said, ‘I knew. When he didn’t come last night, I knew.’

  ‘You were that close?’ Josse asked wonderingly.

  ‘Yes. And, you see, nothing would have kept him away. Nothing ever did.’

  ‘Except death,’ he said.

  ‘Except death.’

  He waited, knowing what would happen. And sure enough, after a while, as the ill tidings sank in and she began to realise that, from now on, she would have to face life without him, gradually the strength went out of her. Crumpling, she sagged against Josse and cried as if she would never stop.

  * * *

  But, as people always do, she did.

  And, later, when talking of Tobias was all she wanted to do – all she could do – she told Josse.

  Told him much that he already knew, but, in addition, something he hadn’t even guessed.

  It was the one thing, Josse surmised, listening to her, which would allow her to derive some faint comfort from her lover’s death. Because, now that he was beyond harm, beyond the reach of all earthly justice and retribution, Esyllt could reveal that Tobias Durand had killed Ewen Asher.

  And that, on the full moon night when she had come running out of the forest straight into Josse and the Abbess, bloodstained, naked from the waist down, she had been running from the trysting place which Tobias had found for them.

  ‘We were making love,’ she told Josse with a reminiscent glow of joy. ‘He was deep inside me, we were so enthralled in one another that we never even heard Ewen racing and crashing through the undergrowth until he was almost on top of us. Then Tobias leapt up, all bare, his manhood still stiff and proud, and that Ewen, he said, Tobias Durant, by my faith! What are you doing here?’

  ‘How did they know one another?’ Josse asked.

  Again, a brief smile. ‘Ewen sold Tobias a hawk once, but it took sick and died.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Then Tobias picked up his dagger and killed him,’ her quiet voice went on. ‘He had to kill him, you see,’ she said earnestly, ‘because otherwise he’d have told her. Told Petronilla. And Tobias didn’t want that.’

  ‘It’s hardly surprising,’ Josse said wryly. ‘Clever people like Tobias don’t slay the goose that lays the golden egg.’

  Esyllt took a moment to work that out, then, turning to him, said, ‘No, Sir Josse. You’re wrong. Oh, Tobias liked being a rich woman’s husband, of course he did. So would any man, brought up in miserable poverty like he was. But the reason he didn’t want Ewen Asher telling Petronilla was because he didn’t want to hurt her.’

  ‘You’re telling me,’ Josse said slowly, ‘that Tobias cared for his wife?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Esyllt said easily. ‘He had a loving heart, did Tobias. There was room for us both in it, her and me, only she didn’t see it that way.’

  ‘No, she wouldn’t,’ Josse murmured.

  ‘Hm?’

  But the remark hadn’t really been intended for her ears. He said, ‘Nothing.’

  * * *

  He sat on with her for some time, still with his arm around her. She seemed calmer now, and it encouraged him to ask her what she would do now.

  ‘Now? Now, I’m going down to Tonbridge to tell that Sheriff Pelham. he can let Seth Miller go. There’s no reason for me to keep my secret, now Tobias is beyond the reach of the law.’ Briefly her face fell, but then, rallying, she gave a fleeting smile. ‘Not that folks will thank me for getting Seth set free, it’s been nicer hereabouts since the three of them, Ramm, Ewen and Seth, were out of the way. Still,’ she sighed, ‘you can’t execute a man just for being a rascal and a nuisance, can you?’

  ‘No,’ Josse agreed. ‘Just as well, there’d be bodies hanging from every gibbet in the land if we could.’

  It was a feeble joke, but she gave an obliging chuckle.

  He said, after a while, ‘I didn’t actually mean now, this minute, Esyllt. I meant, what will you do with your life?’

  She sighed. ‘What a question, sir knight. I have no idea.’

  ‘You are valued here in the Abbey,’ he said.

  ‘You think I should become a nun?’

  ‘No, Esyllt, heaven forbid! I certainly do not!’ he exclaimed. This time, her laugh sounded more like the Esyllt of old. ‘I meant that I think you might consider staying right where you are, working with your old dears.’

  She drew a sharp breath. ‘Stay here! Without him! Oh, but I don’t think I could do that.’

  ‘My lovely girl,’ Josse said gently, ‘you will miss him wherever you are. But here, although the memories will be more poignant, at least you will be engaged in valuable work, and work, moreover, for which you appear to have a singular aptitude. Would not that be a consolation, to be needed?’ He hugged her to him. ‘And, too, at least here you would be surrounded by familiar faces – friendly faces – to help you when you grieve.’

  ‘They’ll still be my friends?’ she asked, astonished, pulling away slightly and staring at him in disbelief. ‘Even when they know what I’ve done?’

  ‘Aye, child.’ He gave her a little shake. ‘Many of the good nuns, despite what you may think, probably have hidden memories of long-ago love, passion, even. Some of them may understand. And I don’t believe they would condemn you, not when Our Lord Himself, whom they worship and serve, taught us that we should love one another. And, although I know that the Abbess looks and, on occasions, sounds like a lion, I can assure you that she’s got a kind heart and a forgiving nature.’

  Esyllt shot him a shrewd look. ‘And you speak as one who knows,’ she murmured.

  ‘Eh? What was that?’

  At last, she gave a wholehearted smile that actually put a dimple back in her cheek. Laughing, she said, ‘Never you mind.’

  Chapter Twenty-two

  It was many weeks before Josse went back to Hawkenlye Abbey.

  With the solutions to both murders now found, there had been no excuse for a visit. And Josse found that the prospect of calling on the Abbess purely for a friendly chat was, since that night in the forest, distinctly embarrassing.

  We were not ourselves, he repeatedly told himself. We had been drugged, although nobody had intended it to happen. And anything we did or said under the influence of whatever that powerful potion was, we can scarcely be held responsible.

  But, reason as he might, he found it hard to banish from his mind the image of a suddenly young-looking woman with reddish curly hair, whose throat was unexpectedly smooth and who nestled her bottom into his crotch as if she had been wed to him for a decade or more …

  He took himself off to France, and paid his family in Acquin a prolonged visit. He stayed with them well into October, long enough to celebrate bringing home the last of the apple harvest and to enjoy with them the few days of leisure they allowed themselves after all the hard toil.

  Sitting next to his sister-in-law Marie one evening, after a prolonged meal at which rather too much cider had been served, he found himself telling her all about Hawkenlye Abbey. And its Abbess.

  ‘A formidable woman,’ Marie commented, when, his lengthy reminiscences at last over, she could get a word in.

  ‘Formidable? No!’ he began, the protest instinctive. But, on reflection, that was probably how the Abbess would seem, to someone hearing about her at second hand. ‘Well, maybe,’ he amended. ‘But a good person to have at your side in a crisis.’

  ‘Evidently,’ remarked Marie. The baby at her breast ceased its suckling and gave a strangely adult-soundi
ng little sigh. Marie looked down, her face full of love. ‘Had enough, ma petite?’ she asked softly.

  ‘She’s a beautiful child,’ Josse said, smoothing his smallest niece’s soft baby hair with his fingertips. ‘I’m glad I was here to attend her christening.’

  ‘As a good uncle should,’ Marie said. She shifted the baby on to her shoulder, rubbing the little back, and the child emitted a belch. ‘Ah, there’s a clever girl! Well done, my Madoline.’

  The christening had taken place over a month ago. Thinking back, it made Josse realise how long he had been staying with his family.

  ‘I think I shall return to England soon,’ he said. ‘If I delay much longer, travelling will become steadily more uncomfortable.’ Wet roads that became like quagmires, and the ever present threat of autumnal gales in the Channel, were not an attractive prospect.

  ‘You won’t stay for Christmas?’ Marie asked.

  Christmas! Good Lord, that was two months away! ‘No,’ Josse said vehemently. Then, since that was hardly courteous, added, ‘Tempted though I am, Marie ma chèrie, I really want to be back in my own home well before that.’

  She shot him an understanding look. She could, he was well aware, have made a far fuller response, but all she said was, ‘Very well.’

  * * *

  The country to which Josse returned, in a rare spell of warm, fine weather in the late autumn of 1191, was a land which had already begun to suffer from having an absentee king.

  A land whose people were starting to feel uneasy. Or, at least, those of its inhabitants whose daily round took them to places where they heard the gossip that filtered down from the country’s centres of power.

  Josse met a merchant on the boat that took him from France to England, and, within minutes of striking up a conversation, the man was complaining.

  ‘Mixed news from Outremer, so they’re saying in high places,’ the merchant remarked. ‘And we’ll all have to pay for it, I shouldn’t wonder, in the end. Victories and setbacks, so I was told.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’ Josse responded neutrally.

  ‘Aye.’ The merchant, leaning against the deck rail, shifted his position and made himself more comfortable. There was a brisk wind blowing from the south-west, right up the Channel, and the ship was bouncing like a lively horse. ‘Our King Richard, God bless him, thought to make a bigger difference than he actually managed, so I’ve been led to believe.’ He sniffed, hawked and spat over the rail. ‘Seems Acre’s still holding out tight against our Holy Christian army.’

  Josse wondered where the man had acquired his information. Even a merchant with contacts throughout court circles surely had no magical way of divining what was going on half a world away. Did he? Yet, Josse had to admit, what the man said sounded unpleasantly likely.

  ‘King Richard is a great soldier and a fine leader of men,’ he replied, trying not to sound as if he were disapproving; the voyage across the Channel would be long and probably uncomfortable, and a decent bit of gossip would certainly help to pass the time. It wouldn’t do to give his sole fellow passenger the brush-off so soon after setting sail.

  ‘Aye, aye, I’m not saying he isn’t,’ the merchant said impatiently. ‘Still, there’s other things for a king to do, isn’t there?’ He gave Josse a sly look. ‘Other duties, if you take my meaning.’

  Josse was quite sure he did. ‘You speak of the King’s marriage?’

  ‘Aye, I do that. Some exotic beauty, they say, from a hot southern land where oranges fall off the tree into your hand, where the sun burns a man’s skin to black, and where the women are wild-blooded and passionate.’ He swallowed, recovered himself and said more calmly, ‘Least, that’s what I heard. Lucky old King Richard, I say.’

  Josse decided it was unlikely the man had ever travelled to Navarre. The lurid description of that country’s people didn’t accord at all with what Josse knew of them. ‘Queen Berengaria is said to be one of the beauties of the age,’ he observed.

  ‘Well, they say that about every lass ever crowned queen,’ the merchant said. ‘Still let’s hope for our good King Richard’s sake that they’re right this time, eh?’

  ‘Indeed,’ Josse mumured.

  There was a brief and fairly companionable silence. Then the merchant reached down into a large pack at his feet, drew out a flask and, removing its stopper, offered it to Josse. He accepted gratefully – it was getting cold out on deck, and the wind was carrying spiteful drifts of hard, icy raindrops – drank, and felt the pleasant warmth of spirits flow down his throat.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, returning it to the merchant, who took a rather larger sip.

  ‘To the King and the Queen,’ the merchant said, raising his flask. He shot Josse a look. ‘And to the fruit of their marriage bed.’

  Josse said, with deep sincerity, ‘Amen.’

  ‘Been out of England long?’ the merchant asked presently.

  ‘Hm? Oh, a few weeks.’

  ‘You’ll not know what the King’s brother’s up to, then,’ the merchant said, the sudden glint in his eyes suggesting he was looking forward to enlightening this innocent stranger.

  ‘You speak of Prince John?’

  ‘Aye, I do.’

  ‘What has he done?’

  The merchant chuckled. ‘Seems he’s made up his mind the King’s never coming back,’ he said. ‘Thick as thieves with that half-brother of his, Geoffrey, the one they made Archbishop of York, although for the life of me I never knew a man less suited to high church office, that I didn’t.’

  ‘They’re plotting, Prince John and the Archbishop?’ This was worrying news. ‘I understood that the King had banished his half-brother Geoffrey, banned him from ever setting foot in England again?’

  ‘Aye, he did, and a sensible move it was. Mind, he made the same ruling about Prince John, only his lady mother, the Queen Eleanor, persuaded him to relent.’ He gave a faint sigh. ‘Far be it for me to question the great and the good, but I do wonder what the dear Queen had in mind, bless her heart. Still, mother love knows no reason, does it, sir?’ Josse agreed that it probably didn’t. ‘Archbishop Geoffrey now, he came back even without being told he could – seems he put it about that it was ridiculous, him being archbishop of a city in a country he wasn’t allowed to live in!’

  Yes, Josse thought, it was absurd. But, in the light of this new and disturbing information, how right King Richard had been, to try to keep his meddlesome, dangerous brothers out of his kingdom. Especially when he was so far away.

  He was just about to ask the merchant to elaborate on what Geoffrey and John were up to when the merchant said, ‘Mind you, the King himself slipped up over that weasel Longchamp.’

  ‘His regent? Why, what’s he been doing?’

  ‘Pride’s gone to his head and lodged there, tight as a boot in a muddy ditch. Walks about with a sneer on his face, he does, like there’s a constant bad smell under his nose. Probably is, come to think of it.’ The merchant laughed briefly, and Josse joined in. ‘Our dear Prince John’s not the only one as finds him pompous and stuffed up with airs and graces.’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ Josse said lamely.

  The merchant laughed again, a short bark that caused an answering squawk in a seagull hovering nearby. ‘You’ll not have heard what happened between them, Longchamp and Archbishop Geoffrey, when Geoffrey sneaked back into England? Stop me if you have, but it makes a good tale.’

  ‘I haven’t,’ Josse agreed. ‘Go ahead.’

  The merchant shifted his position again, bracing one foot against the ship’s increasing motion. ‘Well, it was like this. When the Archbishop arrived at Dover, Longchamp’s men were waiting for him, and, being good and faithful King’s men, they didn’t hesitate in applying their absent King’s ruling.’ He grinned. ‘With more zeal than King Richard might have wished, I dare say, they seized Archbishop Geoffrey and flung him into Dover jail.’

  ‘A fine way to treat an archbishop,’ Josse said, with mock disapproval.

  ‘Aye, yo
u’re right there! And Prince John, he didn’t hesitate to use it for his own advantage. Pretending to be outraged, he summoned all them bishops and justices and what-have-you to Reading, and persuaded them that Longchamp had no business being so high-handed with the half-brother of the King, and should be called to account straight away, and kicked out of office as soon as possible.’

  ‘He’s gone? Longchamp has gone?’ Josse demanded.

  The merchant held up a finger. He was, it seemed, going to tell his tale his way. ‘Just you wait,’ he said, ‘and I’ll tell you. Longchamp, see, he isn’t anybody’s fool. He has his spies, everyone knows that, and he got advanced warning which way the wind blew. He told all them high-ups at Reading that he were too sick to travel, then he hid himself in the Tower of London. The bishops and that decided they didn’t need him present to deal with him, so they did. Deal with him, I mean. He’s out, out on his ear, and there’s not a man regrets it. And guess what Longchamp did then! Go on, guess! Bet you can’t!’

  ‘I’m not even going to try,’ Josse said, grinning. ‘You tell me.’

  The merchant guffawed. ‘He only flees off out of England dressed as a woman!’ he said. ‘Him that hates the whole female sex! He’s a tiddly little fellow, and they say he made a fine woman, all done up in a green gown!’

  Josse found himself joining in the laughter. He had met William Longchamp, briefly, and could imagine him dressed in woman’s clothes. Almost.

  The merchant’s mirth was growing. Chuckling again, he said, ‘Just let me tell you what happened next, friend, then I’ll give you a chance to do a bit of the talking.’

  ‘I doubt if I could match you,’ Josse remarked, but the merchant didn’t seem to hear.

  ‘He gets to Dover, our Lady Longchamp, see, and starts looking round sharpish for a ship to take him across to France,’ the merchant said, interrupting himself with renewed laughter. ‘He’s standing there on the quay, looking this way and that, and up comes a sailor fresh from a long voyage, desperate for a woman to warm his bed, and the sailor puts his arm round Longchamp and says, good day, my pretty, fancy a bit of fun?’