The Song of the Nightingale (33 page)

Ninian opened his eyes.

Beyond Meggie was a man on a horse. The horse was golden-coloured, its luxuriant mane and tail dark. The man was broad-shouldered, and in his hand he held a sword. He was bareheaded, his dark hair thick. His eyes, full of anger, were brown, and in them there seemed to be bright highlights, like sunshine on water.

The big man shouted a furious oath and, as the man on the horse swung down his sword, he let go of Meggie. The man turned, broke instantly into a wild, loping, stumbling run . . .

. . . on to the point of Ninian's sword.

He crumpled and fell, a look of astonishment in his eyes. Then he gave a low moan, and his mouth filled with blood. His eyes lost their expression, and Ninian realized he was dead.

He withdrew his sword.

He looked up. The man on the horse had dismounted and was cradling Meggie to his deep chest, gently touching her wounded shoulder, murmuring gentle words. Meggie seemed incapable of speech, other than the one word, constantly repeated.

Ninian stumbled up to the man, who put out his free arm and clutched him close.

Jehan!
Ninian struggled free and, turning, ran back down the alley. He met Jehan coming towards him. ‘Is she safe?' he demanded.

‘Wounded but safe,' Ninian replied. He raised his eyebrows in query.

‘Dead,' Jehan said shortly.

‘Then that's all three of them,' Ninian muttered.

He caught the swift smile of satisfaction on Jehan's face.

Another wave of nausea took him, and he bent over, hands on his knees. With the danger passed, he was beginning to recognize how hard he had been hit.

Jehan put a concerned hand on his shoulder. ‘You are hurt?'

‘Not badly,' he replied. ‘Hit on the head.'

Jehan nodded gravely. ‘You must take care,' he said, ‘for—'

But there were far more important issues to discuss. Such as, how best to explain to this surprising stranger – with whom, from the look of both of them, his sister had intricately and possibly intimately involved herself – that Meggie's father was standing at the far end of the alley.

It was late in the evening, and Josse had at last found a moment to slip away and go down into the cathedral crypt. He felt he had very good reason to, and he would have gone before had there not been so much to see to.

Meggie seemed to have found herself a man; the Brown Man, in fact, who, on first impressions, did not seem too bad. Josse was cautiously prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt, at least, while he got to know him better. It was a definite mark in his favour that he was not the man who had assaulted and killed the Hawkenlye victims, even if his true purpose in coming to England had been to join in with those who were preparing to stand against the king as he forced his way into Wales. Sometimes, Josse reflected wryly as he strode across the square towards the cathedral, he felt he could understand all too well why a man might take up arms against the king. That, however, was a thought that would have to remain very firmly shut up inside his own head.

And fancy finding both Meggie and Ninian like that! It was quite extraordinary, for Josse and Helewise had only just arrived in Chartres, and, indeed, Josse had been about to seek out stabling for Alfred and for Helewise's mare when they'd heard the commotion. A young woman, people were saying, had affronted the clerics and the high-up officials within the cathedral by racing in and shouting out that she needed help, urgently, and before they could decide how best to deal with her bad behaviour, a young man had raced off with her and the two of them had disappeared down that alleyway over there.

Josse, fear stabbing at his heart and turning his blood cold, had thrown the mare's reins to Helewise, put spurs to Alfred and followed the pointing fingers. To find his daughter in the grip of a fat thug who held a knife to her throat and seemed to be about to kill her.

Josse still could not bear to think about that moment. She had not died, thank the dear, good, merciful God. The man who had been about to kill her had died, however. He and his two companions now lay in the burial ground attached to the town's gaol, borne there by the forces of law and order who, belatedly arriving on the scene, had been convinced by Josse that no crime had been committed other than that three unsavoury strangers – English strangers, to boot – had managed to put paid to each other in a bad-tempered fight.

The town's law enforcers had better things to do than waste time investigating the deaths of Englishmen. Their leader pocketed the generous donation that Josse gave him, and no more was said. Just in case anybody changed their mind and began asking difficult questions, Josse had ordered Ninian and Jehan to leave the town. He described to them the location of a suitable campsite that he remembered and promised to meet them there the next day.

Meggie's shoulder wound was deep and dirty. Helewise had made the very sensible suggestion that they take her to the convent where Helewise had stayed the previous time she had visited Chartres, and now Meggie was being cared for there. Helewise had stayed with her. Apart from some slight embarrassment over explaining to the mother superior that she was no longer an abbess, or even a nun, all had been accomplished smoothly. The convent's healers had washed and stitched the cut, and already Meggie was sufficiently recovered to ask questions about her treatment and offer her own suggestions.

Amid all that had been going on, Josse had kept a part of himself back; a part that, recognizing this busy, crowded town as the last place where Joanna had been in her earthly existence, was already communing with her spirit.

So it was that, now, he was quietly letting himself into the soaring, silent cathedral and making for the steps down to the crypt.

He had a very strong sense that he would never come here again. Before he left for ever, he wanted to take the opportunity of trying to say a last goodbye.

Goodbye and thank you
, he reflected as he made his way down the stone steps. Ninian had told him – tried to tell him, although indeed the lad's explanation had been all but incomprehensible – that he'd detected Joanna's hand in everything that had happened concerning his return from the Languedoc, from first promptings right up to the moment in the crypt, when for an instant he had thought himself in another realm. The realm, perhaps, that Joanna now inhabited.

Ninian. Josse thought with love of the young man. They hadn't yet told him exactly why it had been so imperative to summon him home. Ninian had asked about Little Helewise, of course he had, as soon as there had been a moment and they weren't trying to save each other's lives, and Josse had overheard Meggie say, ‘She's very well. She sends her best love.' Josse was content to leave it to Meggie to tell him, when the time was right. Women seemed to understand about such things better than men. Better than Josse, anyway.

He was in the crypt. Slowly he walked forward, across the central area where everyone went, and on into the shadows further in its cavernous depths. There had been a sacred spring here years ago, thousands of years, perhaps, long before the building of the great edifices to Christianity had begun. Joanna had always said it was a very special spot . . .

He knew he was no longer in the crypt beneath the new cathedral. He was in the same place, yet it was different. He heard chanting and smelt incense. It was a pungent smell, and it made him slightly dizzy. He seemed to see shapes, lights, floating before his eyes.

He did not know if she was there. But she might be, so he said softly, ‘Thank you, Joanna. You brought him back to us, and I reckon you had a hand in today's events too.'

Silence.

‘You're going to be a grandmother,' he went on, smiling. ‘How do you feel about that?'

He wondered how she would look now. Would the years have changed her, as they did ordinary mortals? Would the long, dark hair now be grey; the dark, shining eyes dimmed? Or did people in whatever spirit world she now inhabited remain as they were when they left their earthly existence? She might be—

She was beside him.

He sensed her; he thought he saw her, although it was hard to distinguish between his vivid memories and what was actually before his eyes.

He certainly heard her. ‘Hello, Josse,' she said quietly. ‘How do
you
feel, Grandad?'

He grinned. ‘Not quite yet. The baby isn't due until—' But he had forgotten.

‘July,' she supplied. ‘It's a girl, and she's going to be as bonny as her mother. Don't tell them I told you,' she added.

‘I won't,' he said.

There was a silence; quite awkward, on his part, for there was so much that he wanted to ask her and he did not know how. But, as she had so often done in life, she picked up his thoughts.

‘I am fine, dear Josse,' she said. ‘I would say I am very well, but such things aren't really relevant in the place where I am.'

‘You're not – alone, are you?' Somehow it would have hurt very much, to think of her all by herself.

She laughed softly. ‘Oh, no. There are many of us. We watch, you see; sometimes, at places such as here, we can get through to those we love. At other times, we can view you as from a far shore, where very often there is a sort of mist.'

‘Was it you who called Ninian home?'

She laughed again. ‘Of course.'

There was another, longer, silence. He had the sense that he was drinking her in, this woman he had loved so much, taking in every last moment of her to store up and keep in his heart for ever.

Again, she picked up what was in his mind. ‘It's goodbye, my lovely Josse,' she whispered. ‘I'll still be with you – I'll always be with you, even beyond death – but I don't think this – us being together – will happen again.'

He knew in his heart that she was right. He nodded, unable to speak.

He felt a warm touch against the flesh of his cheek, as if she had leaned close to him and brushed him with her soft hair. ‘Do not waste the time that remains to you,' she said.

‘What do you mean?'

‘Oh, dearest Josse, you know what I mean! There is another who loves you as much as I do. You love her too, as you have always done, and it's high time you both acknowledged it.'

‘I thought we had a chance,' he admitted. ‘But I don't think she can ever leave the abbey behind her. She went back, you know, and she has been living in the little cell by the chapel.'

‘Yes,' Joanna said softly. ‘She
has
been.'

The emphasis was unmistakable. ‘Might she come back home?' he asked. The moment the words were out, he understood how much he wanted the answer to be yes.

Joanna laughed again. ‘If I were you, I'd ask her.'

He knew she was going. There wasn't very long. ‘Joanna?'

‘I'm still here.' He thought her voice was fainter now.

‘Thank you,' he said. ‘For your love; for the two children you bore me, and for your son, who feels equally my own.'

‘Thank
you
,' she replied. ‘No children could have a finer father.'

He stood there for some time. His left side – the side where she had stood; his heart side – felt cold. He knew she had gone.

Eventually, he turned, crossed the crypt, slowly ascended the steps and emerged into the cathedral. It was all but deserted. He made his way to the great north door, ducking down under some falsework holding up the roof. As he stepped out into the night, someone came out of the shadows and fell into step beside him.

‘You must be cold,' he said gruffly.

‘I didn't want you to be alone.'

He stopped, turning to look at her. Her face was anxious; did she think he wasn't pleased to see her?

He didn't want there to be any doubt.

‘Thank you for being here,' he said. ‘I – she was—' He didn't know how to explain. ‘It's the last time I'll be able to reach her, I think,' he went on in a rush. ‘She's done what she wanted to do, and the family is together again, or soon will be. I told her she's going to be a grandmother, but, naturally, she already knew.'

There was a short silence. He knew she had heard, and he guessed she was taking in everything that his remarks implied.

He turned and looked down at her. He smiled. ‘Shall we set out for home tomorrow, if those nuns think Meggie is all right to travel?'

‘I'd like that,' she replied. ‘Tomorrow or in a few days; it doesn't really matter.'

She was right; it didn't. What mattered was that they went home together. ‘I'll send word to Yves first thing in the morning,' he said, thinking ahead. ‘We'll have something to celebrate, when we call in this time.'

She smiled. ‘We will.'

He set off across the square, and Helewise walked beside him. After a few paces, he took her hand.

M
eggie lay in her bed in the convent infirmary, wishing she could leap up and set out for home, yet recognizing that the nuns who had her in their care were quite right not to let her leave yet. The knife wound in her shoulder had turned red and angry, and it was only now – four days since the fight – that it was starting to heal. She had no fault to find with the nuns' nursing; on the contrary, they had used one or two methods which were new to her and undoubtedly efficacious. Such as putting maggots into the cut to eat out the pus and putrefaction; a tip which, according to Sister Marie-Joseph, they had learned from returning crusaders, who in turn had learned it from the Arab medicine men.

Efficacious or not, it had taken all her courage, not to mention her will to get well again, to tolerate the strange sensation of living creatures busy in her flesh. With a certain amount of pleasure, she imagined how it would be when she made a patient of her own endure the treatment.

The maggots had been removed now; the cut was clean and the flesh around it no longer hot to the touch. Meggie's brief bout of fever had also gone; in some ways a pity, she thought, because, in her delirium, her mother had come to tend her. Meggie had felt Joanna's cool, gentle hand on her fiery forehead, heard her soft voice murmuring the healing incantation, and even caught a glimpse of the familiar figure bending over her.