The Song of the Nightingale (3 page)

Not that such considerations had held Little Helewise back when her grandmother and Josse had returned alone. She remembered now, deeply ashamed of herself, how she had railed at the pair of them for their failure, not seeing until it was too late the shame in Josse's brown eyes and the pain in her grandmother's face.

‘
You should have tried harder and ridden further!
' Little Helewise had screeched, beside herself with bitter disappointment and the agony of her loss. ‘How could you let him go?' Then she had rounded on Josse. ‘You claim you look on him as a son!' she shouted. ‘How could you just give up?
I thought you loved him!
'

Even in her distress, she had seen the tenderness of the deeply sympathetic glance her grandmother bestowed on Josse. ‘There are reasons, Granddaughter,' Helewise said quietly. Josse made as if to stop her, but she shook her head. Then she said, ‘Little Helewise, you must be very brave.'

And she told her where Ninian had gone.

Of course, Little Helewise had understood then, or at least she had begun to, once the storm of fierce, furious, angry, helpless tears had passed and she was herself again. Ninian, her beloved man, her one true love whom she had loved as long as she could remember, appeared to have wandered into the middle of a vicious, terrible war; one in which – according to Josse, who had patiently and lovingly tried to explain – the pope and the king of France had joined forces in order, each for their own reasons, to eradicate a heretical sect who lived somewhere far to the south in a land called Languedoc. Ninian had been making for a specific address – that of an elderly woman who was the sheriff of Tonbridge's mother – but apparently this distant land was in uproar, and the town where the old woman lived had been razed to the ground by the crusading knights and their armies. Nobody had any idea where Ninian might now be.

If, indeed, he was still alive.

Nobody had said that out loud, but Little Helewise had been quite sure they were all thinking it. She had vowed then and there not to give in to such negativity, replacing it with her constant silent assurance to herself:
he is alive, and he will return to me.

She had quickly made her peace with her grandmother and Josse, offering a sincere and heartfelt apology even before her mother had time to order her to. Both the older people had understood. She thought she had seen tears in Josse's eyes, and her grandmother had given her a hard, bracing hug and murmured, ‘Chin up. Have courage, dear heart, and we shall pray that all will be well.'

Over the slow winter months, Little Helewise had discovered painfully that having courage and keeping one's chin up were easier said than done. Praying might be all right for her grandmother, who had after all long been a nun, but, as far as Little Helewise was concerned, it made a poor substitute for a real-life, handsome young man whose brilliant blue eyes danced with laughter and who loved her as fervently as she loved him.

Enough
, she now told herself firmly. She could feel tears pricking behind her eyelids, and all of a sudden she despised herself for being so weak. Yes, she was faced with an ongoing, miserable anxiety which nothing she could do would lessen, but she was not improving matters by lying alone in her chamber weeping about it. She sat up, threw back the covers and stood up, automatically reaching down to straighten the bed and leave it tidy; her mother was fussy about things like that.

Her mother . . .

Suddenly, Little Helewise knew what she wanted to do. Living under her parents' roof was not helping her. On the contrary, Rohaise's attitude – that Little Helewise should count her blessings and start doing a great deal more to help the management of the household, and that it would probably be better for everyone concerned if she put all thoughts of Ninian behind her and got on with her life – was, Little Helewise now realized, one of the most disturbing and hurtful elements of the whole situation. It would, she reflected ruefully, have been so nice to curl up beside her mother on the bench beside the hearth, open her heart and reveal all her worries and anxieties. She pictured her mother's face, the expression tight, anxious; the sharp eyes on the lookout for any behaviour requiring a reprimand. Slowly, Little Helewise shook her head. There wasn't going to be a tender fireside scene, because her mother just wasn't the type you went to for comfort.

But,
Little Helewise thought,
I know someone who is
.

Moreover, if only she could get herself to that welcoming household where suddenly she so longed to be, maybe there might be some way of organizing another search party to go and look for him. The people there missed Ninian almost as much as she did; of that she was convinced. And, when all was said and done, if there
was
going to be another attempt to find him and bring him home – and how urgently she wanted him! – then it certainly wasn't going to set out from her parents' home.

She rearranged her hair, drew on a clean coif and straightened her gown. She was going to seek out her father and ask quite a big favour; one, moreover, about which her mother would undoubtedly have a lot to say. It would be as well to present herself looking neat and tidy, and it would certainly help if she volunteered to do a few useful tasks to help out during what remained of the hours of thin daylight.

Feeling considerably better, as even sad and anxious people usually do if they can find a purpose, Little Helewise left the chamber and, stitching on a smile, went to find her father.

I
n the House in the Woods, Josse d'Acquin was finding it increasingly impossible to cope with the varying degrees of depression, irritation, resentment and flashes of fierce, hot temper displayed on a daily basis by almost every one of his household.

I am a reasonable man
, he reminded himself one morning as, frustrated and hurt, he strode away from Hawkenlye Manor and off down his favourite track into the forest. Still fuming, he went over the recent scene: his son hadn't appeared for breakfast, so his portion had gone cold and stale, and you just shouldn't waste food, especially now when times were so tough; his daughter had leapt to her absent brother's defence, using the incident to issue a not very subtle reminder to her father that she, too, might like to have a similar freedom to absent herself from the house; his faithful young servant's elder boy had timidly edged the bowl of porridge towards him and dipped the end of his spoon into it, upon which his mother, face flushing in embarrassment, had lost her temper and screeched at her son that he should count his blessings, go on his knees to thank God that he and his family had a safe home with Sir Josse, and shouldn't even
dream
of stealing food put out for someone else, even if that someone was not actually eating it himself.

At that point Josse had pushed his chair away from the table – rather roughly, for him – and strode out of the hall, not pausing even to pick up his warm cloak, something he was now regretting, as it was colder out of doors than he had anticipated.

As he paced along, his bad temper cooling as swiftly as his hands and feet, his mind filled with images of his household, of those dear people – kin, loved ones, faithful servants – who made up his world. He had known loneliness before they all came here to the House in the Woods. It was the fulfilment of a deeply personal dream, to live here with the people he loved; to need them and, more crucially, to be needed by them.

Restored to good humour – even if not quite ready to go home – Josse thought about them all in turn, bringing each to mind in the way a devout man might handle the beads of his rosary, pausing at each one to think, to pray, to wish them well. To tell them silently, perhaps, what they meant to him.

His longest association was with his servant Will; with a smile, Josse thought back to the day Will and his withdrawn and silent woman, Ella, had first come into his life. They had proved their worth so many times over the years, and Josse didn't know what he would do without them. Will, in particular, he regarded as a friend rather than a servant, and would have said as much to Will had he not been very aware that such sentiments would be all but incomprehensible to Will and hence deeply upsetting. Will had a firm and unshakeable belief in a man knowing his place; moreover, Josse was aware that Will was content with his lot. It was not every man who could say that.

Will and Ella were not Josse's only servants, for in addition there was Gus, formerly a lay brother at Hawkenlye and now happily married to Tilly, who had begun life as the lowest, lowliest kitchen maid in a Tonbridge inn. Gus, the child of gypsies, had filled out from the skinny boy he used to be and was in his prime, broad shouldered and starting to look a little stout; although of late he, like everyone else, often left the table hungry and had drawn his belt in a few notches. Tilly had developed into an excellent cook, managing small daily miracles by turning meagre amounts of unappetizing food into meals that the household fell on; it was only rarely now that Josse caught a glimpse of the shy little tavern girl of old.

Both Gus and Tilly had bloomed in their new life at the House in the Woods, and the three lively children Tilly had borne her cheerful, amiable husband were the living proof. The eldest boy was quiet, like his mother, but capable; with a grin, Josse reflected that in truth he did not begrudge the lad a bowl of unwanted porridge. The younger pair – a girl and a boy – tended to quarrel rather more than Josse would have liked, but he hoped it was just a phase.

Thinking about Gus and Tilly's children turned Josse's mind to his own. Meggie, oh, Meggie! She was suffering badly because of being penned up at home; very obviously, she missed the freedom of going to the little hut in the woods – where once she had lived with her mother, Joanna – whenever and for as long as she liked. But Josse had made a rule: nobody was to leave the house alone, especially the womenfolk. Meggie, bless her loving heart, abided by the dictate, although sometimes she looked so sad, and he wished he knew how to take the frown away from between her delicate brows. It was, he realized, weeks – months – since he'd heard her laugh, and nowadays she rarely even smiled.

But I have no choice!
he thought bitterly. The countryside was full of brigands, robbers, and vagabonds, homeless men who preyed on others not quite so unfortunate, who did not hesitate to attack the vulnerable for little more than a piece of bread. Rumours flew around all the time of travellers robbed and beaten; of lonely households broken into, the occupants terrorized, raped, beaten, even killed. Josse had no fears for such an assault on the House in the Woods; several strong men lived there, and their leader – Josse himself – was a former soldier. He had drilled his household in what they should do if ever anyone tried to break down the stout door; the women, too, had their own roles to play. Josse, smiling, reflected that, had he been an outlaw, he would rather have faced one or two weedy men than Meggie when her blood was up.

He was aware that he was reluctant to think about the other woman who lived under his roof; the one he loved as much, in a different way, as he loved his daughter. But then thinking about Helewise had never been easy . . .

His mind wandered back to how the two of them had hurried over the narrow seas last autumn, intent on finding Ninian. He had felt then that the argument she used to make him give up the search – that his loved ones were suffering enough with one of the family gone without losing Josse too – had been underhand. He still believed it now, although he knew in his heart that she was right. But then, just because what she said was true, it didn't mean she'd been justified in saying it. He hadn't forgiven her. Sometimes, glancing at her and catching her unawares, he thought that she hadn't forgiven herself.

Josse's anger flared anew, and he kicked out viciously at a dead tree stump. Families always had their problems and upsets, he was sure of that, but, for all of them, even small matters were exaggerated by the conditions under which they were at present forced to live. Alone out there in the dense woodland, unseen, unheard, Josse drew a deep breath and, in words that would have made a nun blush, told King John exactly what he thought of him.

It was the king's fault; the king whose intransigence had led to the interdict placed on his poor suffering country. The man had showed so much promise, Josse mused. He had met the king a few times, had known him as a bright, shining boy. Where had it all turned sour, so that an intelligent, capable man should have reduced his realm to hunger, poverty, uncertainty and danger?

Josse still kept his eyes and ears open to what was happening in the wider world, and he was also deeply worried at what he had heard concerning the serious rift between King John and Llewelyn ap Iorwerth, prince of North Wales. John had married his illegitimate daughter, Joan, to Llewelyn back in 1206, which brought about a truce for a time, but the two powerful men were now in open conflict again. Llewelyn had supported John's favourite-turned-enemy, William de Braose, who, uncomfortably for the king, was one of the few people rumoured to know the truth about what happened between John and his nephew, Arthur of Brittany, vanished these seven years and believed by all but the most innocent and gullible to have been done away with by his Uncle John because he stood between John and the throne. Now, they were saying, the king was planning a spring expedition into Wales. On the basis that
my enemy's enemies are my friends
, the word among the wise was that the king intended to summon the many prominent men who had a grudge against the powerful Llewelyn and make an alliance with them. Campaigns needed money; once again, the relentless, cruel demands were being sent out.

Hawkenlye Manor, tucked away as it was deep in the forest, often missed the random attentions of the king's more lowly officers, since few outside the immediate vicinity knew the house even existed, and those who did know tended to keep their mouths shut. Josse was a generous neighbour and was well known for being free with a handout for those in grave need who came asking for it.