Ashes of the Elements Read online

  But even Sister Beata had to admit that the girl hardly seemed to hear. ‘In fact, Abbess,’ Sister Beata went on, ‘sometimes it’s quite hard to make her hear anything! It’s as if—’ Sister Beata’s face crumpled into an uncharacteristic frown as she sought the words. ‘As if she’s listening to inner voices. Or music, perhaps, since, quite often, she starts to hum softly, as if she’s joining in.’

  ‘I see.’ Helewise did see, all too clearly; it was that strange humming of Caliste’s that had so disturbed the Abbess, the night she had found the girl sleepwalking.

  Caliste might appear settled in her new work. But Helewise was very afraid that there were currents moving beneath the smooth surface. Currents that would, she feared, bring trouble.

  * * *

  Josse had discovered, in the first few days of his homecoming, that his impression of work on New Winnowlands being all but finished had been an illusion.

  The builders were still busy on the kitchen, and there was a problem with the solar, which, apparently, only the master builder himself could put right. It was entirely Josse’s fault, was the implication, for being so daft as to want a solar in the first place.

  Josse tried to help, making suggestions, rolling up his sleeves and offering his strong arms and back.

  But it was made quite obvious that he was not wanted; the builders, who never actually said so, managed to imply that, by hanging around where they were working, Josse was offending against some unwritten but unbreakable rule.

  So he retired to his hall.

  But there was nothing to do!

  The long summer days drew him outside, yet, once there, he had to keep dodging workmen. In desperation, he remembered the Hawkenlye murder.

  And thought, damnation and hellfire, I’ll see if I can do better than that sheriff fellow!

  * * *

  He arrived in Tonbridge, where, enquiring for Sheriff Harry Pelham – bless the Abbess, for informing Josse what the man’s name was – he learned that, it being the midday hour, the sheriff would likely be taking his dinner.

  Fortunately for Josse, the sheriff’s preferred inn was the one where Josse had himself once put up; leading his horse into the yard, he met the innkeeper, Goody Anne, hurrying across from one of her storehouses with a side of ham under one strong arm.

  ‘Well! Good day to you, stranger!’ she cried, giving him a broad smile. ‘And just where have you been all this time?’

  Grinning back, Josse said, ‘Here and there, Anne. How are you?’

  ‘I’m well. We’re very busy, but that’s how I like it. Are you eating? I’ve a side of beef just broached, and this here ham’s in its prime.’ She gave the haunch a friendly slap.

  ‘I’m ravenous,’ Josse said. ‘And I’ve a thirst on me like a man lost in the desert.’

  Anne batted her eyelids at him. ‘You’ve come to the right place to see to your appetites,’ she said. With a seductive swing of her ample bottom, she disappeared through the door into the kitchen. Faintly her voice reached him: ‘All your appetites!’

  In the taproom, Josse ordered beer and food. Then, casting his eyes round the company, he tried to guess which man might be Sheriff Pelham.

  He was in luck. A newcomer entering the room shouted out, ‘Sheriff? I’ve a message for you!’ and a stout, strongly built man in a battered leather tunic stood up and said, ‘Here!’

  Josse waited until the newcomer had given his message and left. Then, casually, he sauntered across to where the sheriff was tucking into his meal and said, ‘May I sit beside you?’

  The sheriff waved a knife on whose point was speared a leg of chicken. ‘S’a free country,’ he said, spitting out small pieces of pale meat which landed, like minute snow flakes, on the front of the already stained tunic.

  Josse tucked into his own dinner. Observing the sheriff’s progress as he did so, he waited until the man had finished, wiped his greasy mouth with an even greasier sleeve, burped, taken a draught of beer, said, ‘Ah! That’s better!’ and relaxed, leaning back against the wall.

  Only then did Josse say, ‘I was visiting Hawkenlye Abbey recently. They tell me a man was killed, and that you, Sheriff, went to investigate?’

  ‘Aye?’ the sheriff said warily. Josse could almost hear the silent, and what’s it to you, stranger?

  ‘I’m known to the good people of the Hawkenlye community,’ Josse went on. ‘I hear there’s a suggestion of some weird forest tribe being involved in this death? They say that someone cleverly put two and two together, and virtually solved the crime there and then.’

  His vanity thus appealed to, the sheriff became voluble. ‘Well, stands to reason,’ he said, leaning confidingly towards Josse. ‘See, the dead man was a poacher, a no-good fellow, I’ve had my problems with him before. Anyway, how I see it is that he goes into the forest after game, he comes across this group of Forest People, they don’t like him trespassing into what they see as their preserve, so they chuck a spear at him. Kill him stone dead.’

  ‘Very likely, very likely,’ Josse agreed. ‘Clever deduction, Sheriff! The only solution, really, isn’t it? Especially when you knew these Forest People were in the vicinity that night.’

  ‘Well…’ the sheriff began. Then, more aggressively, ‘That uppity Abbess woman, she didn’t believe me! Me, who’s lived round here man and boy, who’s known about the comings and goings of those wild folk all my life! Why, my old father used to talk of them, and his father before that!’ He picked a piece of meat out of a back tooth, spat it on the floor and said, ‘Women! Eh? Think they know it all!’

  ‘I am actually rather impressed with the Abbess Helewise,’ Josse remarked.

  It was a mistake. The sheriff, anger darkening his face, said suspiciously, ‘She sent you here, didn’t she? Sent you to talk to me, try to trip me up!’ He put his face right against Josse’s. ‘Well, let me tell you, Sir Knight, whoever you are, that Harry Pelham doesn’t take kindly to folk making a fool of him!’

  ‘I’m not trying to do that, Sheriff Pelham.’ Josse got to his feet. ‘There’s no need,’ he added, ‘for anyone to make a fool of you.’

  Harry Pelham, who seemed to be working out whether or not that last remark came to a compliment, sat with his mouth open as Josse shouldered his way out of the room.

  * * *

  Riding up the ridge towards Hawkenlye, Josse thought about the death of Hamm Robinson.

  Not that it took him long; the facts were brief enough to be summed up in a single sentence. And, as Abbess Helewise had said, nobody seemed to have investigated the matter. Not at all.

  I shall, Josse thought. I shall visit his family, his friends, if he had any. Visit the spot where he was found.

  I shall think about this strange slaying. And, only when I have done so, shall I know if to accept this all-too-obvious, all-too-convenient conclusion.

  * * *

  Arriving at the Abbey, he was informed that the Abbess was in the infirmary, speaking with a man dying of the wasting sickness, whose last hours were being made even more agonising by his fear over what would become of his wife and his many children.

  Josse went over to the infirmary. Standing just inside the door, left slightly ajar to let in the sweet-smelling air, he looked around him.

  Yes. There was the Abbess, kneeling beside a poor, feeble-looking man who was clutching her hands tightly in his. So the man had a large family? Yes. Josse had observed before how often men suffering from the terrible blood-spitting were yet potent enough to father a whole tribe of offspring. Josse studied the Abbess’s intent face. She was speaking earnestly to the man, nodding as if in emphasis, every part of her clearly determined to get her message across.

  Josse, unable to hear what she was saying, couldn’t tell what that message was. Assurance of God’s mercy? Hope for the afterlife? It occurred to him that, if he himself were dying and desperate, there was nobody he would rather have, both at his side and on it, than the Abbess Helewise.

  A soft voice said, ‘Ma
y I help you, sir?’

  Turning, he saw a young girl in nun’s black, over which she wore the white veil of the novice. She was quite tall, slimly built, and carried herself like a queen. The skin of her finely boned face was cream and smooth, and her eyes were deep blue. Despite the stark habit, despite the fact that her sacking apron was stained with something Josse didn’t want to dwell on, the girl was beautiful.

  He knew who she was, or was almost sure that he did. ‘Sister Caliste?’

  She nodded. ‘And you, I think, are Sir Josse d’Acquin.’

  He returned her smile. No man still able to see could have done anything else. ‘Aye. I have come to speak to the Abbess, but I see she is busy.’

  Caliste looked over to where Abbess Helewise was smoothing the brow of the dying man. ‘She is. She gives him such comfort, sir. She is telling him what will be done for his wife and his little ones.’

  ‘I would have thought she’d be praying with him.’

  The great blue eyes turned to him. ‘That too. But I think that he will not concentrate on his prayers until his anxieties are assuaged.’

  Such perception, Josse thought. And the girl had a way with words that suggested some education. ‘I will wait outside,’ he said.

  ‘I will keep you company, if you wish,’ the girl offered politely. ‘The Abbess likes our visitors to feel welcome.’

  ‘Most kind,’ Josse said. ‘If you’re sure I’m not keeping you from your work?’

  Caliste smiled again, removing her dirty apron. ‘I have just finished one of my less agreeable duties. I was about to visit Sister Tiphaine, to request some herbs for Sister Euphemia’s medicines. If you would care to accompany me, sir?’

  Outside, he fell into step beside the girl. Observing her covertly, he noticed that she had adopted the upright glide of a nun, that her hands, temporarily unoccupied, were automatically tucked into the opposite sleeves. Yes, she looks like a nun all right, he thought. But …

  But?

  He couldn’t define exactly what there was about Caliste. But, as Helewise had discovered before him, in truth, there was something …

  ‘It is more usual to go to Sister Tiphaine’s workroom the other way, passing the front gate,’ Caliste said, breaking the silence, ‘but I like to go this way. For one thing, I can have a passing look at the tympanum, over the door of the church – she withdrew a hand and pointed up at the great carving, depicting the Last Judgement – and, for another, this way you go through the herb garden.’

  They walked on, past the door of the Lady Chapel, past the virgin sisters’ house, past the windowless, doorless walls of the sinister little building which, Josse knew, was the Abbey’s leper house. Sister Caliste, he noticed, crossed herself as they passed. He did the same.

  Then, around the corner, sheltered against the south wall of the Abbey, they came to the herb garden.

  The month was June, and many of the plants were in full leaf. Stopping, Josse took a deep breath, and the combined aromas of rosemary, sage, mint, lavender, and a dozen other plants whose names he did not know, filled his head. He breathed deeply again, and again, then, feeling dizzy, abruptly he stopped.

  Beside him, Caliste giggled. ‘It’s not really very wise to do that, Sir Josse,’ she said. ‘The herbs are powerful just now. You have to treat them with respect.’

  ‘I see what you mean,’ Josse said. Gingerly, he stepped forward; the dizziness seemed to have gone.

  ‘This way,’ Caliste said, stepping out along a narrow path bordered neatly with box hedging. ‘Sister Tiphaine’s workroom is just ahead.’

  He waited outside the little shed while Caliste went in to fetch whatever it was she had been sent for. She was not gone long, but, even so, her absence gave sufficient time for a warm exchange of words between her and the herbalist. And a soft outburst of laughter.

  ‘You used to work with Sister Tiphaine, I believe,’ he said as he and Caliste made their way back to the infirmary. ‘Do you regret being moved to nursing duties?’

  ‘I—’ Caliste hesitated, shooting a quick, assessing glance at him. ‘I will tell you the truth, Sir Knight,’ she said, obviously deciding in his favour. ‘I loved working with Sister Tiphaine, who was kind to me and generous with the sharing of her wide knowledge. When I was told of my new duties, I was sad. But I am a nun, and I must do what I am told.’

  Moved to pity, he said, ‘I am sorry for you, child. I know what it is to have to obey, when the dictates of one’s heart say differently.’

  ‘Do you?’ She stopped, staring at him. ‘Yes,’ she murmured, ‘I believe you do.’ As if recognising in him a kindred spirit, she smiled. But this time, the expression seemed to include all of her soul.

  Quite shaken, he smiled back.

  After a pause, he said, ‘Have you settled down in your new work? Are you happy, Sister Caliste?’

  She replied, ‘I have, and I am. I tell myself that, if I am to make a good nun, then I must learn not to have – what was it you said? Dictates of the heart? Yes. Not to have those. And I am happy.’

  There seemed nothing else to say. They walked, in silence, side by side back to the infirmary.

  But, as she stood back to let him go in first, Caliste said, ‘Thank you for asking, Sir Knight. It was kindly done.’

  In a barely audible whisper, she added, ‘And I do not forget a kindness.’

  Chapter Six

  When Helewise finally emerged from the infirmary and spared a few moments to greet Josse, he realised without her having to tell him that she was both preoccupied and very busy. In addition to the dying man, a woman in the nuns’ care had just given birth to twins, one of whom was sickly. So sickly that the Abbess was anxious to fetch the priest and arrange for immediate baptism. ‘Just in case,’ she added, with a sad little smile.

  Also, one of the monks from the vale was being treated for a septic foot, and Brother Firmin had asked the Abbess to send down an extra pair of hands to help deal with the sudden rush of pilgrims, encouraged by the fine weather to come and take of the holy waters.

  ‘Does Brother Firmin not appreciate how busy you are, you and the sisters, with your own concerns?’ Josse asked her mildly.

  A flash of anger briefly lit the Abbess’s grey eyes, there and gone in an instant. After taking a rather audible deep breath, she said, ‘Brother Firmin’s duty is to his pilgrims, Sir Josse. If he feels that he is short-staffed and cannot fulfil his duties properly, then he is right to ask for help.’

  ‘Ah,’ Josse said quietly. And folded his lips over what he would have liked to say next.

  ‘I’m sorry that I can’t help you in this matter of the murdered man,’ the Abbess said, looking around her as she did so. ‘Now, where is Brother Saul? I want him to act as my messenger, and go to find Father Gilbert…’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of imposing,’ Josse said. ‘I shall proceed on my own, Abbess, and, in due course, report my findings. If I may?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ she said, still looking for Brother Saul. ‘Ah! I see him.’ She hurried off towards the distant figure of Brother Saul, raising a hand and hailing him as she did so. Then abruptly she stopped, turned, and called back to Josse, ‘He lived in a tiny hovel down by the ford. His woman is called Matty, and he has two fellow-poachers named Ewen and Seth. Seth, I believe, is Hamm’s cousin.’

  As Josse thanked her, he wondered how, in the midst of all she had on her mind, she had, first, discovered that information, and, second, stored it away and remembered it to pass on to him.

  A remarkable woman, the Abbess of Hawkenlye.

  * * *

  Hovel, he reflected as he rode down the track to the ford, had been about right.

  The track petered out into a muddy slipway as it neared the water. The stream issuing out of the forest was quite wide just there, fast-running over a good, firm base, the water slightly brown from the peat, and from the centuries upon centuries of fallen leaves that had gone into the making of the stream’s banks and bed.

 
It would have been a lovely spot, had it not been for the row of dwellings straggling up the track on the far side.

  Two were deserted; even the most desperate of people, surely, could not live in a house with no roof and half its walls gone. The middle three were reasonably sound, and the last in the row was no more than a lean-to built against its neighbour, now being used to house livestock. A scrawny pig and a handful of miserable-looking chickens raised their heads as Josse splashed through the water, and a dog on a short length of fraying rope dashed out, gave a token few barks, then ran back into the lean-to with its tail curving tightly over its backside, as if in anticipation of a good hard kick.

  Somewhere within one of the dwellings a baby cried, until it was silenced by a woman’s harsh voice.

  Dismounting, Josse put his head into the doorway of the first hovel. The baby was sitting on the mud floor, naked but for a tattered shirt several sizes too big. It had its fist in its mouth, streaks of greenish snot ran from its nostrils, and the filth on its cheeks was lined by the tracks of tears. Close to its small right buttock was a turd, its end smeared from where the child had sat on it. There was no sign of the woman with the harsh voice.

  He went on to the next doorway. The door was closed, and through a gap at the top, he peered inside. There was nobody there.

  In the third house, a woman sat on the step, just inside the door. From the chipped pot on the floor beside her and the meagre pile of earth-covered turnips and carrots in her lap, it seemed she was meant to be preparing vegetables. In fact, she was staring listlessly in front of her, face cast down into lines of dejection. If she had heard Josse’s approach, she was not sufficiently interested to peer out and see who it was come a-visiting.

  Josse said, ‘Are you the widow of the late Hamm Robinson?’