Girl In A Red Tunic Read online

  ‘But threatens you with what, Lady Rohaise?’

  He wondered afterwards if he had spoken too urgently, for she seemed to flinch, then her eyes closed and two huge tears rolled down her sallow cheeks. Then she bent her head over her sewing and began to weep.

  With the horrible sensation of having done more harm than good, Josse got up, summoned one of the nursing nuns – it was Sister Beata, who might not have had the cleverest brain but certainly had the most generous heart – and asked her to look after Rohaise. With a worried little frown, Sister Beata wiped her hands and hurried into the recess, where she crouched down beside the weeping young woman and enveloped her in soft, loving arms, muttering kindly as the girl turned her wet face into the nun’s bosom.

  Feeling utterly redundant, Josse slunk away.

  With nothing better to do, he remembered his resolve to exercise Horace and he fetched the horse from the stable. Trying to allow the bracing autumnal air to take his mind off his failure with Rohaise, he kicked Horace into a canter and then a gallop and they pounded along the track that led around the forest, the horse’s big feet sending up flying divots of frosty earth. After a while they slowed to a canter, then a brisk trot, until finally Josse drew the horse to a halt and they turned back towards the Abbey.

  They were not far from the gates when Josse spotted the figures of a man and a small child. The man was crouched down beside the small and well-wrapped figure of the boy and as Josse drew closer he saw that Leofgar was showing his son how to make a skeleton leaf.

  ‘...gently, now, don’t damage the veins of the leaf – there!’ Leofgar was saying as he held up the child’s clumsy attempt. ‘That’s very good, Timus, we’ll take it home as a present for your mother.’

  The child caught sight of Josse before his father did. With a smile of welcome that went some way towards making up for Josse’s failure with the boy’s mother, Timus pointed and said, ‘Man!’

  Spinning round, Leofgar’s wary expression instantly relaxed into an ironic grin as he saw who it was. ‘I should have guessed,’ he called, ‘you being the only person who inspires my son to speech.’

  Hurrying to cover the remaining paces between them, Josse slid off Horace’s back, keeping tight hold of the reins in case the horse should frighten the child by a bit of innocent curiosity; the disparity in their sizes suggested this might be unwise. Then he went to greet them. With a nod to Leofgar – Josse could not for the moment think of any suitable reply to the young man’s comment – he knelt down beside the child and opened his arms for a hug. Timus rushed straight up to him and snuggled against his chest, grasping a fold of Josse’s cloak and pulling it over his head. Josse, thinking it was a game, began to laugh but Timus turned a solemn face up to him and whispered something that he did not understand.

  ‘What was that, Timus?’ Josse asked. The little boy repeated the word, which sounded like hide, but still Josse did not quite catch it. Leofgar made as if to remove his son from the nest he had made of the cloak against Josse’s broad chest but, to Josse’s surprise and faint dismay, the child cowered against him and would not be budged.

  ‘If you will lead my horse, I’ll carry the lad back to the Abbey,’ Josse said, trying to make light of the strange occurrence.

  Leofgar was not fooled. ‘It is not as it seems, Sir Josse,’ he said softly.

  ‘I was not making a judgement,’ Josse protested.

  Leofgar smiled thinly. ‘No? The smallest part of you was not saying, see how this silent child pulls away from his father into the protecting arms of a near-stranger! Does this not suggest that the child fears the father?’

  ‘I do not believe that.’ It is true! Josse told himself. But whether he believed it because of Leofgar himself or because he was Helewise’s son, he did not dare think about.

  They walked slowly along the track towards the Abbey gates. Horace walked obediently behind Leofgar, and Timus, still snuggled in Josse’s arms, put his thumb in his mouth and with the other hand reached out and delicately took hold of a strand of Josse’s dark hair, which he twiddled with small, deft fingers.

  The silence between the two men was hardly companionable and Josse was relieved when Leofgar broke it. ‘May I risk a confidence, Sir Josse?’

  ‘A—?’ Josse played for time while he thought rapidly. Then he said, ‘I would be honoured to hear anything you would wish to say to me privately. But I cannot give my word that I would not repeat it to – to another.’

  ‘To my mother,’ Leofgar said calmly. ‘Yes, I know. I think, though, that I must speak anyway.’ Not giving himself further time for consideration, he plunged on, ‘Sir Josse, there are several reasons why I have brought my wife and son here to Hawkenlye. The first you know, for it is no secret that I wished to consult the excellent infirmarer and her nuns not only about my mute son’ – he shot a swift and loving smile at the sleepy Timus – ‘about my hitherto mute son but also about my sick wife. This we have done. The other – no, if I am to be honest with you, as indeed I wish to be, another reason is because my wife feels threatened at home.’

  ‘Aye, so I am beginning to understand,’ Josse said. ‘She seems—’

  But, with an apologetic smile, Leofgar interrupted him. ‘Forgive me, Sir Josse, but I must explain before we— Well, hear as much as I feel able to say, if you will.’

  More mystified than ever, Josse said, ‘Gladly.’

  Again the smile, and this time Leofgar’s expression was grateful. ‘Thank you. Sir Josse, I am the son of a nun, an Abbess, a woman who stands high in the esteem of the Church, and what I must tell you may displease her when she comes to be told of it. Part of my reason for speaking initially to you is that I would be pleased to have your advice on how my formidable mother is told.’

  He paused, apparently waiting for a response, and Josse said, ‘I usually find that the direct approach is best. But I will listen and if I can make any helpful suggestions, I will.’

  Leofgar nodded. ‘I am grateful.’ He took a breath, then said quickly, ‘Sir Josse, back at home the clergy have come to know of my wife’s state of mind. Our parish priest has prayed for her and with her and still there is no improvement. He has decided, in his wisdom, that my beloved Rohaise has suffered the misfortune of having a changeling put in the cradle. You understand what that is?’

  Memories of half-forgotten folk tales were surfacing slowly in Josse’s astonished mind. A changeling, he recalled, was the name given to a fairy child substituted for a human baby. Hardly crediting that a priest should believe such superstitious nonsense, he said grimly, ‘I understand, aye.’

  ‘Father Luke tells Rohaise that it is not her fault she cannot be a proper mother – which, as you will imagine, does further damage to her desperate lack of confidence – because the child she tries to care for is not the product of her own womb but an evil spirit, planted in our baby’s cradle for some malicious and secret purpose of the dark world of the spirits.’

  Josse, stunned, noticed that in this alarming Father Luke’s version, the innocent ‘fairy’ had become ‘evil spirit’. Dear God alive! ‘Go on,’ he said.

  ‘He tells us – tells Rohaise especially, for it is she who constantly turns to him for help – that the real Timus is now the captive of the spirits and that only our true and deep penance will make Father Luke’s stern God relent and send our little boy home.’

  There was a silence as Leofgar finished speaking. Then Josse burst out, ‘You cannot believe this rubbish!’

  ‘I, no. I grew up with my mother’s version of what a loving God does and does not do and, besides, I’m too old for fairy stories. But I’m afraid to say that Rohaise, despite her intelligence, is inclined to half-believe what her priest tells her.’ He shot a dark look at Josse. ‘As you will understand, I am sure, the Church and I are not friends at present.’

  Josse put a hand on the young man’s arm. ‘Do not judge them all by this one misguided man,’ he urged. ‘And do not hesitate in telling your mother, who will, I�
��ve no doubt, share your disgust at your Father Luke’s tactics.’

  Leofgar sighed. ‘I’m afraid that’s not all,’ he said. ‘Father Luke eventually lost patience with us and commanded us to remain in our own home while he made the necessary arrangements. He does not feel we’re trying hard enough in our prayers, by which he means, I guess, that he suspects that I for one disbelieve everything he has told us and am on the point of encouraging Rohaise in rebellion against him.’

  With a chill feeling around his heart, Josse said, ‘For what was he making arrangements?’

  ‘Not what, who. For him,’ Leofgar mouthed, jerking his head at his sleepy son. ‘Father Luke was coming for him. He was going to take our boy and lodge him with the monks, in the hope that their chilly hearts and strict discipline would frighten the changeling into fleeing back to his own kind and allowing the human child to return in his place. We left to come here just in time, shortly before Father Luke was due to arrive to carry out his threat.’

  He watched Josse closely, as if trying to gauge a reaction. Josse, caught off guard, realised that he was scowling ferociously and hurriedly he smoothed out the expression, at the same time clutching Timus more closely as if afraid some lunatic, wild-eyed priest would spring up and try to wrest the child from his arms there and then.

  Observant eyes missing neither response, Leofgar said with a grim smile, ‘I have the feeling, Sir Josse, that I’ve found an ally.’

  ‘You have, lad, you have,’ Josse said fervently.

  Leofgar laughed suddenly, a happy, relieved sound. ‘Then will you please do me one more favour and help me explain to my mother that the holy church is after us and we’re on the run?’

  Chapter 5

  Time passed.

  To the casual glance, Hawkenlye Abbey maintained its air of calm, each day slowly unfolding to revolve around the seven offices that punctuated the hours from dawn until dusk. But the calm was an illusion and maintained entirely by the discreet and silent hard work that went on without ceasing beneath the surface.

  The cold took a grip like a wolf’s teeth on the bones of a carcass. Helewise, observing the additional burden which this imposed on both her nuns and monks and on the wider community centred around the Abbey, ordered that fires be lit wherever there was – or could be contrived – a safe hearth in which to set them. The Abbey had a vast store of wood, gleaned by the industrious lay brothers over successive seasons from natural wastage in the huge forest right on their doorstep. Vowed as they were to poverty, the devout souls of Hawkenlye accepted shivering through the winter as part of the gift they offered to God. However, their Abbess was sensible as well as devout and appreciated that her nuns and monks would be little use to those they were there to help if they were all so cold that they could not function.

  Word spread, as word always does, that there was comfort to be had at Hawkenlye for those who went asking and there was an abrupt increase in the numbers who came to seek the various sorts of solace that the Abbey offered. Pilgrims arrived at the shrine in the Vale and at times the mood down there was more like a holiday than a self-denying and arduous experience for the sake of the visitors’ souls, with excited children slithering across the frozen pond and adults collecting around the braziers swapping tales of hardship as they drank their hot, thin soup. But Helewise turned a blind eye and suggested to Brother Firmin that he do the same. Her sanction was more than enough for the soft-hearted old monk, whose instinct all along had been to welcome the cold and the hungry in the true spirit of his master Jesus, even if it was patently obvious that, at this time anyway, the cold and the hungry had come for food and warmth rather than for the precious holy water so dear to Brother Firmin’s heart.

  Up at the Abbey, people began arriving at the infirmary with a variety of complaints ranging from coughs, colds and chills to damaged limbs caused by falls on icy paths. But the biggest problem was bellies that ached because there was nothing in them and hadn’t been for days. Hungry people, as the infirmarer observed with compassionate anger, all too readily fell victim to any ailment that tried to seek them out.

  Josse gave up his comfortable berth in the infirmary and moved to his usual lodgings down with the monks in the Vale, where he was welcomed like a long-lost brother and enjoyed a morning of informative gossip with several of his particular friends there. Brother Saul, working like three men to make room for all the visitors, was heard to mutter that God must have had His holy ear cocked Saul’s way because hadn’t Saul been praying as hard as he knew how for an extra pair of hands, particularly ones that belonged to someone as strong, capable and willing as Sir Josse?

  Rohaise seemed to be responding to Sister Euphemia’s dedicated attempts to help her, although whether it was the herbal remedies or the infirmarer’s store of wisdom and loving-kindness that was making her better it was impossible to say. But, away from one, at least, of the dark spectres that she had believed were stalking her back home at the Old Manor, her spirits lifted considerably and, as her terrors receded, her intelligence and practical good sense were able to come to the fore. Like Josse, she did not need prompting to realise that there were no beds now in the infirmary for the undeserving; she vacated her little recess, moved her few belongings to the guest room where Leofgar and Timus had been put up and announced to Sister Euphemia that she would really like to help and what could she do for her? Sister Euphemia was not one to refuse such an offer and soon Rohaise could be seen, her russet gown covered by a white apron, busy on the many basic nursing tasks within her admittedly limited ability. But someone had to do them, Rohaise reasoned, and if she was that someone, then it left the skilled nurses free to get on with more exacting tasks.

  Sister Euphemia watched and took note. As Rohaise’s colour and mood improved with the more she had to occupy her mind and her hands, the infirmarer observed to the Abbess that possibly a part of the young woman’s problem all along had been too much time in which to think up fanciful notions. Had Helewise not recently had a certain conversation with her son, she might have agreed; as it was, she took Sister Euph emia aside and quietly told her what had happened back at the Old Manor.

  ‘The priest did what?’ the infirmarer hissed, scarlet with indignation.

  ‘He suggested to Rohaise that poor little Timus is a change ling and that her real son has been spirited away.’

  Sister Euphemia was shaking her head in disbelief. ‘And we’re told to obey these priests and any nonsense they cook up without question,’ she muttered, not quite far enough under her breath for her superior not to hear.

  Helewise, however, decided to let it pass. It would have been difficult, she realised, to criticise dear Euphemia for expressing a sentiment which she herself was fighting so hard not to let take root in her mind.

  ‘You really think that Rohaise improves?’ she asked instead.

  Distracted from her muttering, Sister Euphemia stared along the infirmary to where Rohaise was crouching down beside a very old woman and, with infinite patience, encouraging her to take sips of broth from a small wooden spoon. The sips were so tiny, and the woman’s rate of drinking so slow, that it looked as if Rohaise would be there for some time, but that did not dim the encouraging smile on her face.

  ‘Aye,’ Sister Euphemia said, ‘she’s improving all right. Next test’ll be to see how she is with that lovely little grandson of yours, my lady.’

  The little grandson was having a wonderful time.

  Fourteen months was too young for him to have any understanding of the things that had happened back at home; all he knew was that his mother had cried a lot and his father had looked angry. Or worried. Or very upset. Or all three at once. Nobody had had much time for Timus and he had been sad and lonely even before—

  He did not think of that. He couldn’t even if he wanted to, because something in his mind had blocked it off. He remembered that there was something that had been very, very frightening but he did not know what it was. He had been afraid to utter the chattering s
ounds that he used to make in case ... In case what? He couldn’t remember that, either. And he had really been afraid to laugh because not only was there nothing to laugh at, but also someone might hear him. He could not quite think why, but he knew that must not be allowed to happen. His mother and his father had been so strange that he hadn’t wanted to be with them and no funny things had happened like they usually did, such as his father making silly faces and pretending to be a horse. Then they had come here, to this big place with all the women dressed alike in black and white, and the big man in the bed had done that funny thing with his thumb and Timus had giggled. Nobody had been cross with him; in fact the big man had done another trick and Timus had been so entranced that he’d said the one word he could say: More! That had been all right, too, and the big man was now just about Timus’s favourite person and he sought him out whenever he could so that the big man would pick him up – Timus wasn’t very good at walking yet and could only manage a few tottering paces at a time – and the man would cuddle him in those strong arms. Timus felt really, really safe with the big man. The big man was nice.

  Today it was very cold and Timus’s father had wrapped him up in lots of bulky clothes before letting him leave the room where they were staying. Then they had gone out into a long alley with pillars along one side and his father and the big man had helped him with his walking. His father put Timus on the ground and told him to walk to the big man, which he did. The big man picked him up and said ‘Well done, Timus!’, then put him down again and told him to walk back to his father. Timus did this several times and realised that he was taking a few more steps each time. Then he missed his footing and sat down quite hard on his bottom, which didn’t hurt at all because of all the clothes he was wearing, but his father said it was enough for now and he and the big man took Timus off to the place where they served the food and he had a hot drink and a sweet cake with currants in it. The cake was so delicious that he would have liked another and so he tried out his word again: ‘More?’ But the fat lady with the black veil and the white cloth round her red-cheeked face looked very sad and she shook her head and said sorry but one was all she could spare. Timus felt sad that she was sorry and he gave her a big smile and reached up to take her hand, at which two big tears welled up in the fat lady’s eyes and she said, ‘Oh, the little love! And to think that anyone could say he—’ But the big man gave her a nudge and she stopped what she was saying.