By Sylvian Hamilton (8 page)

'I
must reward you, Sir Richard, for all your aid and trouble.'

'Prioress
Rohese deserves your thanks, Lady. As for me, I ask only one thing.'

'What?'

'Tell
me about the icon.'

It
was said to be a portrait of Christ's mother, she told him. It had
been found in an ancient monastery in Egypt by an infidel king, the
Emir Bahadur al-Munir, who gave it –in gratitude for the
sparing of his life –to the Lionheart, King Richard. Richard,
who valued nothing unless he could turn it to money to finance his
crusade, sold it to the Grand Master of the Sovereign Order of
Knights Templar. How it passed from his hands into those of his
great-nephew was not dwelt on, but the lord of Skelrig wanted his
sister to sell it for him; and she had a ready eager buyer.

'I
might outbid your buyer myself,' said Straccan, eating dates, 'if you
would name your price.'

'Are
you so rash, Sir, as to outbid the king?'

'Which
king?'

'The
Lord John, of course.'

'In
that case, probably not. It would be a reckless man who tried to
outdo His Grace in any matter.'

She
smiled and said nothing.

'The
Prioress of Holystone however is a formidable lady, and his
kinswoman. She might reck to outbid His Grace,' said Straccan. 'Would
you name a price for her?'

'I
would not. / am not his kinswoman, nor willing to incur his
displeasure,' she said. She leaned to pour him more wine and the
scent of her was heady indeed.

'I
doubt if even a king could be displeased with you, Lady,' Straccan
heard himself say, dazzled.

Riding
away again, with a letter from the lady in his saddlebag for the
prioress, he could not forget Julitta's face. It shone in his memory
all day, and when he stopped for the night he realised that the whole
day's long riding had passed unnoticed like a mere hour. He had left
his pouch on the table in her solar and she had come after him with
it herself, catching up with him at the gate; she took both his hands
in hers, surely she didn't farewell every messenger like that? Her
hands were cool and light, and at their touch he felt a little static
shock and a sudden rush of uncomfortably sharp desire.

In
the morning, after an explicit sensual dream which he found hard to
clear from his mind, he touched spurs lightly to his big bay's sides,
eventually shaking off the dream's sticky memory in the leaping
delight of hard riding. At Holystone before noon, he gave Julitta's
letter to Mother Rohese.

'A
proper gratitude,' she said. 'Properly expressed. She has made over
the revenues of her vineyard at Edgeley to the priory for a year.'

'I
hope that will comfort you for the loss of the portrait,' Straccan
said. 'I did my best for you but it's to go to the king.'

'Oh,
him,' said she, dismissing her brother with a shrug. 'I might have
guessed. It's said the lady is his very good friend.'

For
a moment Straccan didn't take her meaning, and then he did and was
conscious of a decided pang.

Chapter
10

The
first thing Gilla could remember was her mother holding her, walking
up and down and singing softly. She'd been plucked up from her cot,
screaming from a bad dream. Even now, years and years later, she
could still remember bits of the dream: running along narrow stone
passages, closing door after door behind her but knowing some awful
Thing was on her heels until in a tiny room behind the last door of
all she could go no further. Long bony brown fingers poked impossibly
through the keyhole, picking the wood of the door away like bread,
until a dreadful bark-skinned face leered through at her while the
gnarled and twiggy fingers crumbled more and more door away to make a
hole big enough for the witch to clamber through ...

Her
mother smelled of flowers and held her so safely nothing could hurt
her, nothing could ever get her as long as Mama was there. But then
Mama wasn't there any more, and Cilia's next memory was of a plump
soft kindly woman in black and white robes, who took her hand and led
her to a small covered cart full of cushions and drawn by two white
mules. The swaying sleepy motion of the cart seemed to go on for days
while the black and white woman and another in exactly the same
clothes sat with her on the cushions in the tented space.
Occasionally they got out to walk and stretch their legs a while and
to pee behind the bushes, but at last they reached this house, the
Priory of Saint Catherine at Holystone, the only place Gilla could
remember living in at all, for of her first home with her mother she
had no memory, being only three years old when her mother died.

Time
passed, and the child laid down more memories as life took on shape
and pattern, ordered by bells and peopled entirely by women in black
and white, save for Sir Bernard, the nuns' priest, and Ambrose the
bailiff, who was frequently glimpsed stumping along the passage to
report to Prioress Hermengarde. Prioress Hermengarde was Gilla's
great-aunt, sister to her mother's mother, and to her surprise Gilla
learned that somewhere far away, over the sea--'Outremer' they called
it –she had a father! No, pet, not like Sir Bernard, and no,
certainly not like Bailiff Ambrose. Your father's a knight, a brave
warrior fighting the Infidel. The Infidel are wicked heathens who
captured God's Holy City, Jerusalem, and make slaves and prisoners
of poor Christian pilgrims.

Knights
and heathens took their place in Gilla's mind-world, along with
saints and angels, dragons and wizards, nuns, priests, peasants,
horses and dogs. She longed for her father's return, but by now her
mother's face was fading from her memory, overlaid by Aunt Prioress,
dear Dame Domitia who told such splendid stories, and Dame Perdita
who tucked Gilla into bed and fussed over her when she had the cough,
or the spotted fever, or the earache.

She
was seven when her father came back. Sent for to the guest parlour,
she saw the man waiting –a face almost blackened by sun but
with blazingly blue eyes and a smile that broke over the little girl
like a glorious sunrise as he swept her up into his embrace and held
her close. His chin was scratchy, and when she pulled her face back
she was horrified to see tears in his eyes and spilling down his
cheeks.

'Oh
there, there,' comforted the child. 'Don't, don't cry! Everything
will be all right!' And loved him with all her being. The little
girls played in the priory orchard on fine afternoons, watched by a
lay sister or one of the nuns. Dame Matilda would sometimes teach
them a new game; Hoodman Blind had been such a success that their
immoderate mirth brought sharp rebuke. Dame Margaret would sit under
a tree and doze while they played. Dame Hawise had produced from her
capacious pocket knucklebones from the priory's own mutton, which
occupied them for days and could be played with in the cloister when
it was too wet to go into the garden.

Today
it was Dame Margaret, nodding under a pear tree, more than half
asleep, only just aware of their light voices and laughter on the
edge of consciousness ... until there was silence, which the nun
realised had lasted some time. She sat up and stared about, seeing
the children standing by the orchard wall. Why so quiet? No one hurt,
no one crying, but something not as it should be ... What? Yes!

Only
three little girls. Not four.

'Where
is Devorgilla?' she called.

Three
little faces turned to her, pale and worried, and three voices
answered all together, mixed and muddled.

'We
were playing hide-and-seek ...'

'Gilla
climbed the tree.'

'This
one, here, by the wall.'

'Someone
sat on top of the wall and called her.'

'He
called Gilla's name, and she climbed higher ...'

'And
he pulled her up ..."

'There
were horses, we could hear them'

'And
she's gone, Dame.'

“
I
shall go myself,' said the prioress. 'Dame Januaria will go with me,
and Sir Bernard, and Ambrose. A message will not do. I must go'

She
sat in Chapter with her nuns, the officers of the community, the
morning after Gilla's disappearance. They were all shocked and very
distressed, but even more upset by the notion of Mother leaving to
ride twenty-five miles to some petty farm at the edge of beyond,
quite out in the wilds, and in this appalling weather. It had begun
to rain in the night and blow hard, and looked as if it intended to
rain and blow for ever.

'The
child was in our care,' said the prioress. 'I must tell her father
myself and lose no more time about it.'

Voices
were raised in protest but the prioress stood and raised her hand,
silencing them. 'I am going. There's no more to be said. Sub-Prioress
Domitilla will take my place while I'm away. It will only be
overnight; I shall be back tomorrow. Dame Januaria, get Sister Hawise
to pack our bags, tell Sir Bernard to ready himself you'll find him
in the mews with his mangy sparrowhawk--and tell Ambrose to put
pillion-saddles on Sorrell and Roland.'

Dame
Januaria, who had no cushion of flesh on her bones and detested
riding, whispered 'Yes, Mother,' and fled unhappily out of the room.
The others crowded round the prioress, still protesting, several even
weeping, but she shook them off as a mother cat shakes off her
kittens, blessed them in total and marched to her room. There she
took silver from a small coffer and put it in a worn leather purse
buckled to her belt. She kicked off her sandals and rummaged in a
chest for a pair of sturdy boots. A great hooded cloak over all, and
she was ready.

Presently
the two horses clattered out of the priory gates, Sir Bernard with
the Prioress behind him and the bailiff with Dame Januaria on a
thick-legged mare. Rohese dreaded the meeting ahead and as they rode
prayed non-stop for Gilla's safety. Business having taken Straccan to
Nottingham, he called at Eleazar's narrow unobtrusive house to
collect a sum due from a client, and found his money-man unhappy and
worried. 'Haven't you heard? No, I see you haven't. News just came.
That Pluvis, Master Gregory's man, he met with a dreadful accident.
He's dead, Sir Richard.'

'How?
What happened?'

'They
found him, well, just bits really, not all of him, by the crossroads
at a place called Shawl. Torn to pieces by wild beasts, so they say.'

'What
of his escort? He had two men-at-arms.'

'Asleep
in their beds, as he should have been too. They saw him to his room,
and slept by the fire downstairs. How he came to be wandering about
alone in the forest in the middle of the night, no one knows.'

'Anyway,'
said Straccan, 'what wild beasts? Wolves are no trouble at this time
of year. Did he fall foul of a boar?' 'Wolves, boars, whatever it was
it tore him to pieces. And in truth, they may say wolves, but they
don't believe it. They think some evil spirit got him, they really
do, they believe it! You Christians have some very odd notions.'

'We
do indeed,' said Straccan, tucking his money into the breast of his
coat and fastening it. It had been a long day. He'd be glad to get
home to Stirrup.

By
the time he reached home he was tired and hungry, and none too
pleased to be dragged from his supper by the watchbell's clank,
announcing the approach of strangers.

'Who's
coming?'

'Looks
like nuns,' said the watchman, frowning against the sun.

'Nuns?'
Straccan ran up the steps to look out. The three riders were close
enough now to recognise. 'Open the gate,' he said, feeling sudden
dread clamp round his heart as he went down to greet Prioress Rohese.

Straccan
shut his eyes, his mind crying, No, no! He clenched his fist and
struck the wall, and again, bursting the skin and leaving blood on
the stone. No, no! He leaned, shaking, on the table edge until the
shocked stiffness of throat and tongue abated and he could speak, at
first with his back to her, but then able to turn and look at her.

'A
monastery is not a prison, after all,' he said harshly. 'Nuns are not
jailers. Why should little girls in a garden need warders?' 'That is
generous,' the prioress said. She too was shaking, partly from
weariness after the long fast ride and partly with relief, because he
had, in the instant of knowledge, looked as if he might kill her.

'Why
Gilla?' he asked, as if to himself. 'Why was there a man on the wall?
To steal fruit? But took a child instead, the nearest within hand's
reach? There are children everywhere, far easier to steal than from
behind a monastery wall. I'll ride to Holystone with you. I want to
see for myself just where it happened, and how. Bane! Bane!'