The Enchanter's Forest Read online

  ‘Eh? Well – er – I—’

  ‘Don’t tease, Brice,’ Isabella admonished. ‘Dear Josse, your affection for the Hawkenlye community is well known and we merely surmise that you would wish to support them in their time of trouble.’

  Josse turned worried eyes to her. ‘That is so, my lady. Any help that I can offer is hers – is theirs to command.’

  ‘The new shrine may be but a passing attraction,’ Isabella said.

  ‘Especially if the supply of miracles starts to run out,’ Brice added cynically.

  Isabella frowned at him. ‘If the discovery is true, such will not be the case.’

  Her remark recalled to Josse something that had been worrying him and he spoke it aloud. ‘Tell me one thing: just how can these bones be those of Arthur when we are told that Arthur and Guinevere are buried at Glastonbury?’

  Again, the exchange of glances between Brice and Isabella. Then, at a faint nod from his wife, Brice took Josse’s arm. ‘Florian is not claiming to have found Arthur’s bones,’ he murmured.

  Despite the heat, a shiver seemed to run through Josse. Fearing that he already knew the answer, he whispered, ‘Whose, then?’

  Brice’s eyes were oddly sympathetic. Softly he replied, ‘It is said that they belong to Merlin.’

  Chapter 2

  Josse rode in through the gates of Hawkenlye Abbey in the middle of the morning of the next day, having covered the familiar road from New Winnowlands in what was probably record time. He had been awake early, anxious to speak to the Abbess. He had dreamt of her; she had been floating on a moonlit expanse of lake and she had held up a hand to him, pleading for his help. Reaching down, he had found her surprisingly strong and had been helpless to save himself as she pulled him down into the bright water. He had woken shaken and sweating and offered a brief, panicky prayer that the dream was not an omen.

  Now the hot June sunshine had dispelled night fears and as he handed Horace’s reins to Sister Ursel, the Abbey porteress, he was more than ready to exchange the usual mildly flirtatious remarks with the stout old nun. She, however, was not; he could tell from her very demeanour that something was wrong.

  ‘What’s the matter, Sister?’ As if he did not know. He put a hand out to touch hers.

  But she shook her head. ‘Better talk to the Abbess, Sir Josse. She’ll tell you.’ And before he could ask again, she had clicked her tongue to Horace and was leading the big horse off in the direction of Sister Martha’s stables.

  Leaving Josse to wonder where the Abbess was and how quickly he could find her.

  He spotted her quite soon. She was coming out of the Abbey church and what looked like the entire contingent of Vale monks followed behind her. As he watched, she turned to exchange a few words with them, giving them all what from long experience he recognised as her best, bracing, chins-up smile. The monks bowed to their superior and headed off for the rear gate and the path that led down to the Vale.

  The Abbess turned, saw Josse and, her face now beaming in a genuinely happy smile, hurried to greet him.

  ‘What luck that you should arrive, just when I have been praying for your company!’ she said, reaching out to take both his hands in hers. ‘Sir Josse, rarely have you been more welcome!’

  Flattered that she should have been praying he would turn up, nevertheless he thought it only right to explain that, as far as he knew, it was not divine intervention that had brought him. Hastily he said, ‘My lady Abbess, right pleased I am to see you, too, but I know what it is that troubles you and that makes you glad of my presence.’

  Her face fell. ‘You do?’

  ‘Aye. I was with Brice and Isabella – she’s expecting another child, by the way – and they told me.’

  ‘I am so happy for Isabella, and for Brice.’ Even in her anxiety, the Abbess appeared genuinely delighted at that part of his news. Josse, recalling that she too was aware of the couple’s history, felt sure she would include Isabella in her prayers until a healthy baby was safely delivered. ‘But, oh, what are we to do about Merlin’s Tomb?’

  They had begun to walk away from the gate and off in the direction of the Abbess’s private room at the far end of the cloister. But, before they reached it, she took hold of his sleeve and indicated a bench, half in sunlight and half in shade, that ran along the wall. ‘Let us settle here,’ she suggested. ‘The morning is too lovely to waste it sitting inside.’

  They sat down side by side on the bench. Then he said, ‘You notice an effect already, then?’

  ‘Oh, yes!’ She turned to face him, distress evident in her expression. ‘From towards the end of last month, we began to see a diminution in our visitors. Brother Firmin mentioned it to me – he prepares the Holy Water, as you know, and he was wondering why he did not seem to be as busy as usual. Then Brothers Saul and Augustus began to check on the daily tally of pilgrims and they brought me the results. Usually our numbers are anything from half a dozen to as many as twenty a day – it’s the season, Sir Josse; people save their travelling up for fine summer weather and long hours of daylight whenever they can. But now, well, the average was at first closer to three per day. Then two, then, last week, only four people for the entire week. This week’ – she gave a pathetic little shrug – ‘so far, nobody.’

  ‘Nobody? No pilgrims at all?’ He was amazed that the rival attraction should have had such a devastating effect so soon.

  ‘Not a one. Here we all sit, ready and eager to fulfil our purpose in life by giving aid to all who come seeking it, yet nobody comes. And oh, Sir Josse, I am so afraid that when word gets round that the people now go elsewhere for succour, as no doubt it already has, then all those who support us so generously will think again.’ Lowering her voice to a whisper, as if she could not bear the thought of anyone else hearing the humiliating words, she said, ‘We need the funds, you see. We cannot charge for the care that we give; that would be unthinkable, for we do the Lord’s work. Yet we must have money to survive and one of our main sources of income is the gifts that the wealthy bestow in exchange for Hawkenlye’s prayers and its beneficial, healing presence within the wider community. If our benefactors choose to support a rival foundation, then with a huge and unfillable hole in our income and, far more crucially, without the needy, the lost, the sick and the desperate to care for, we shall no longer have a reason to exist and we are lost.’ She looked down at her hands, folded in her lap, and her coif cut off his view of her face. Leaning forward, he saw that she had her eyes tightly shut, as if trying to blot out the dismal prospect before her.

  ‘What shall we do?’ he said. ‘What can we do?’

  She turned to him, a smile spreading over her face. ‘Dear Josse. Thank you for the we.’

  He waved away her gratitude, embarrassed, as he always was, when she accredited him with altruistic motives when what he was really doing was to ensure that, for the foreseeable future anyway, he would be near— No. He made himself arrest that thought. ‘I know the name of the man behind this tawdry scheme,’ he said gruffly.

  ‘Do you?’ She seemed amazed. ‘Sir Josse, you are well-informed – I have asked whomsoever I can for details of this dreadful business but they appear to be scant. Who is he?’

  ‘He’s a young man named Florian of Southfrith.’

  ‘Southfrith. He is a local man, then, for the Southfrith lands are close by. Yet he made his discovery on the far side of the forest, where the woodland peters out and the heathland begins.’

  ‘So I’m told. Giant bones, apparently, and this Florian seems to have sufficient evidence to prove that they belong to Merlin. My lady,’ he turned to her with a frown, ‘what puzzles me is how it is that all the people who now divert like brainless sheep after the bellwether to this new shrine know the name of Merlin!’

  She looked surprised. ‘But Sir Josse, everyone has heard of Merlin. I would warrant a small wager that if we assembled my nuns and monks and asked for a show of hands, all but those with their heads permanently in the clouds – and
I own that we do have a few of those – would raise their arms and say, Merlin? Oh, yes, I know of Merlin. He was King Arthur’s magician.’

  Greatly taken aback – was he in truth the only person in England not to be fascinated by this Arthur and his companions? – Josse shook his head wonderingly. ‘I see.’ His voice sounded dejected, even to himself. Then: ‘My lady, I do not believe for one moment that these vast bones belong to Merlin. Do you?’

  She hesitated. ‘I would like to be as sure as you, Sir Josse, but I do not think that I can. For one thing, it seems that miracles have already been reported and attributed directly to Merlin’s intervention.’

  ‘But—’ He had been on the point of saying that miracles always happened at shrines; in his own view, he had a vague and barely formed notion that when people genuinely believed they were going to become well again, quite often they did. The healing water, or the saint’s finger bone, or the splinter of the True Cross, or the phial of the Blessed Virgin’s milk, might be the impetus that brought about that belief, but the cure itself was merely the body doing what it was best at.

  However, recognising that his own ideas were quite irrational and probably blasphemous as well, Josse firmly closed his mouth on his objection.

  ‘But?’ the Abbess prompted.

  He shook his head. ‘Nothing, my lady.’

  After a while, she spoke again. ‘Brother Firmin said something comforting,’ she said slowly.

  ‘Aye? And what was that?’

  ‘He is remarkably sanguine about the whole thing. I was relieved – I had thought that he would be deeply distressed at this apparent shunning of the precious Holy Water that has become almost his life’s blood. And he is still weak, you know, after the sickness last year.’

  ‘Aye.’ Privately Josse was amazed that the old monk was still alive.

  ‘I asked him why he seemed so unconcerned,’ the Abbess went on, ‘and he replied that as soon as the pilgrims realise that the new shrine doesn’t work, they’ll be back.

  ‘But it does work,’ Josse protested. ‘You have just been telling me of the recent miracles.’

  ‘Brother Firmin maintains that they are false. He was very apologetic about what he saw as wishing disappointment on those who think they’ve been cured, but he says that what appear to be miracles are just the excitement of the new attraction.’

  ‘Does he, now?’ Good for Firmin, Josse thought, quite surprised that the old boy should demonstrate such clear-eyed objectivity. ‘Well, my lady, that is an encouraging thought. But since we can have no idea of how long it will be before people discover their mistake, and since the Abbey which you and I both love is suffering in the meantime—’

  ‘And people are being seduced away from the true source of help,’ she put in. ‘If it is true that these are the bones of Merlin, then I am a little surprised that they should have brought about healing, for Merlin was a sage and a magician but not specifically a man who was renowned for the working of miracle cures. Whereas our Holy Water spring was discovered via the direct intercession of the Blessed Virgin herself who, as you will recall, Sir Josse, appeared to a party of French merchants dying of fever and told them that the water would cure them, as indeed it did.’

  ‘Aye, I remember, and indeed there’s that too . . . Where was I? Oh, yes. We can’t just sit back and wait. We must do something.’

  ‘Yes,’ she cried, as fervent as he. Then: ‘What?’

  He thought for a moment. Then he said slowly, ‘My lady, you keep in your mind room for doubt, I think; you will not say definitely that these bones are not what they are claimed to be.’

  ‘No-o,’ she agreed tentatively.

  ‘I am less charitable and I am all but certain that this is nothing but a scheme cooked up by a clever man to rob the credulous of their money.’

  ‘But you can’t be sure!’ she protested. ‘What if the bones are genuine and are really capable of doing good and helping those in need?’

  Thinking that he’d eat his cap if they were, Josse said, ‘I will try to keep an open mind, my lady. What I propose to do is to present myself at Merlin’s Tomb as a pilgrim. That way I shall experience exactly what the ordinary man or woman experiences. I shall listen when I am spoken to, kneel before whatever sort of display has been set up, express my awe at being in the presence of such a wonder and proclaim myself cured of whatever I have stated ails me.’

  ‘What good will that do?’ she demanded. From her faintly aggrieved tone, he guessed she was reluctant to dismiss Merlin’s bones as a total sham. He made a mental note to bear this attitude of hers in mind; he did not want to risk hurting her feelings by speaking too bluntly.

  Yet.

  ‘Well, for one thing I’m not in fact suffering from any ailment, God be thanked’ – the exclamation was in response to the swift glance she shot him, as if warning him against taking his sound health for granted and not giving credit where it was due – ‘and so I will not have the sense of desperation that may blind other visitors to what is really going on.’

  ‘Many will be there purely because they are curious,’ she said. ‘They may not be desperate either.’

  ‘Aye, you’re right, but I’ll warrant I’m probably the only man there who is out to prove the whole thing is false.’

  She studied him intently. ‘You have no faith at all in these being the bones of Merlin, have you?’ she murmured.

  He tried to decide between tact and honesty. Honesty won. ‘No.’

  He thought she was about to reprimand him for his cynicism. But then she began to laugh. ‘Dear Josse. What would I do without you?’

  Full of confusion, he felt the hot blood flush his face. ‘My lady, I—’

  She waved a hand. ‘Sir Josse, no need for explanations. We must agree to differ, but I must admit in fairness that I am more than grateful for your disbelief. You are the very person to do what you propose and pay a visit to the tomb.’

  ‘Thank you. I—’

  But she was not in the mood for small talk and polite remarks. Interrupting him, she demanded, ‘How soon can you set off?’

  They decided that Josse’s pretence of being a simple pilgrim with a bad back would be made to look more credible if he rode the Abbey’s old cob instead of the magnificent Horace and exchanged his fine tunic for something less distinguished. The monks in the Vale and the nuns in the infirmary were conscientious in their vow of poverty and did not waste anything: whenever someone died in their care they would, in the absence of any other claimant, remove the clothing and inspect it carefully. If the garments were capable of salvage – often people died in rags – the nuns would launder, darn and mend until the clothes were once more fit for wear. Then they would be folded away in a large chest in which small linen bags of lavender were scattered as a deterrent to moths. Accordingly, Josse’s present need was easily met by a visit to Sister Emanuel, who ran the retirement home for aged nuns and monks and who, among her other duties, was in charge of the clothing chest.

  Josse, in common with just about everybody else in the Hawkenlye community – including its Abbess – was a little in awe of Sister Emanuel. She was highly intelligent, educated and reserved; the pale skin of her face had a strangely smooth and unlined quality, as if the woman had seldom been affected by the sort of emotions that make normal people frown in anger, screw up their eyes in distress or crease every part of their faces in hearty laughter. As he entered the retirement home, Josse noticed that she was instantly alert to his presence; she got up from where she had been seated at the bedside of a very old and incredibly tiny woman and, her step steady and unhurried, glided over to the door to greet him.

  ‘Good morning, Sir Josse.’ Her voice was low-pitched but clearly audible; she would, Josse thought, be used to dealing with the deafness of the very old. ‘How may I help you?’

  ‘Good morning, Sister Emanuel,’ he returned. He explained his request and she gave a brief nod, turning on her heel and, beckoning to him, stepping over to the left of
the door where, in a recess, stood a large wooden chest.

  Opening it, she knelt and carefully checked through the folded garments. A sweet scent of lavender rose to Josse’s nostrils and he breathed in deeply, reflecting in passing that such an impulse was not one you would normally wish to indulge in an old people’s home. But Sister Emanuel, he knew, would not permit the stench of urine and unwashed flesh in her domain; what luck, he reflected, to be cared for by one such as her at the end of a long life.

  She stood up, a bundle of soft, moss-green woollen cloth in her arms. Shaking it out, she held the garment against Josse: it was a tunic, generously cut if a little short. ‘I think this will do,’ she said, bending down to see just where the hem fell. ‘It was once a fine garment, but has been worn for rather too long.’ She pointed to several neat darns.

  ‘It is just what I want,’ Josse assured her. ‘A decent fellow fallen on hard times, that’s me.’

  She risked a very small smile. Delving back into the chest, she extracted a leather cap. ‘And what about this to cover your head?’

  He tried it on. It fitted perfectly. ‘Thank you, Sister. I am grateful.’

  She bowed. Then, as if eager to return to her charges, she courteously showed him to the door.

  Josse and the Abbey cob were old friends. Being in no great hurry, for his destination was probably only eight or ten miles distant, Josse did not press the aged animal but was content to jog along at a pace that was mostly an ambling trot. His path curved round to the east and then turned southwards, then south-westwards, following the outer perimeter of the Great Forest. It would have been more direct to ride straight through the thick woodland but Josse, like everyone else in the area, avoided going into the forest unless he really had to.

  Sister Basilia in the refectory kitchens had packed up some food for him and after an hour or so he stopped in the deep shade of an oak tree and, leaning against its trunk while the cob grazed nearby, ate his bread and cheese and drank the flagon of small beer.