Whiter than the Lily (31 page)

Slowly the boy nodded. ‘But Master don’t know ’oo I am, not really,’ he said, looking at Helewise with childlike eyes.

‘He will remember that you rode here with him,’ she said.

‘Don’t reckon ’e will,’ Arthus said. ‘’E’s normally pretty sharp, if you take my meaning, specially for one as don’t see too well. Ain’t comfortable, sometimes, and that’s the truth. But ’e were proper poorly when we came ’ere.’

His naïve comment set off a vague alarm in Helewise’s mind. It recalled something that someone else had said, someone with a more enquiring, acute brain than poor young Arthus …

She thought about it. Then she remembered. Clear as day, she saw Josse, face wearing a deep frown, saying,
I do not understand this talk of Ambrose as a doddering dotard
.

Josse had perceived him quite differently when the two men had met previously. And now here was Arthus, implying that, when he came to Hawkenlye, Ambrose had temporarily lost his usual keen perception. They were right, both of them, she realised. Ambrose had been deeply affected by his young wife’s death, yes, but, despite his grief, he had never again reverted to being the dazed, uncomprehending, vague old man that he had been when he had arrived.

So
why
had he been like that?

Her next mission might well provide a clue. Thanking Arthus, reassuring him once more that he would not be either forgotten or homeless, she set off down to the Vale to look for Ambrose.

He was sitting on a low bank that jutted out over the lake that filled the Vale’s lower reaches. He had a small pile of stones beside him and he was skimming them across the flat surface of the water.

She sat down beside him. ‘Seven,’ she remarked, counting the bounces. Reaching for a stone, she had a try.

‘Eight,’ Ambrose said. ‘I cannot in truth see that well, but if I listen intently I can count the splashes. You win, my lady Abbess.’

Helewise returned his smile. ‘My sons taught me,’ she said. Then, addressing the matter uppermost in her mind, she said tentatively, ‘Ambrose, you are a different man from the one you were when you rode into the Abbey. You have lost your wife, but that is not what I mean. I refer to your own health and, I
confess, I am at a loss to understand how it was that you were so weak when you arrived and yet now you are strong.’ She looked at him, willing him not to take offence at her enquiry.

He did not. Instead he frowned, as if the question puzzled him, too, and said, ‘My lady, I have thought long and hard about the same thing. I conclude that probably I had picked up one of those brief summer fevers that are there and gone swiftly but, while they rage in the blood, can turn a strong man into a mumbling fool.’

‘I do not believe,’ she said carefully, ‘that you were febrile.’

‘Well, then, the only other explanation is that my late wife’s serving woman, who was then attending to my food and drink, had drugged me,’ he said lightly.

Helewise was uncertain whether he spoke in jest. ‘Why should she do that?’ she asked.

And, with a shrug and an unreadable look in his face, he answered, ‘You tell me.’

There seemed little more to say. In the silence that followed she studied him. Ambrose’s face wore clear signs of his grief, but behind them she sensed that the man was returning to himself. ‘Ambrose, would you like to go home?’ she asked gently. ‘I will ride there with you, if it is that you dread returning to an empty house. I will stay for a time, if it would help.’

Ambrose looked down at his hands; he was flipping a stone from one to the other, catching it deftly each time. Then, raising a hand to rub at his nearsighted, slightly watering eyes, he said, ‘It is a kind
thought, my lady, and it is true that I long to go home. But—’

She waited, but he did not go on. So she said, ‘You are welcome to stay with us here as long as you wish. Many folk do, when they lose the person they love best in the world. Sometimes by staying here, where they perceive themselves to be watched over by God who loves them, they believe they have found a heavenly replacement for the one they have lost.’ Thinking of one monk in particular – Brother Erse, the carpenter – she added, ‘Some even hear the call of God and decide to spend the rest of their lives in His service as monks or nuns.’

Ambrose was looking at her, an intelligent interest in his eyes. It struck her that he was a powerful man and, despite his years, still a handsome one; Galiena, she thought, had been a young woman with a mature and a discerning eye.

He was asking her a question: ‘Was it that way for you, my lady? You spoke just now of your sons; did you lose your husband and seek solace with the Lord?’

It was a very long time since anyone had asked Helewise that. Pausing to gather her thoughts, she said, ‘Not exactly. Ivo and I – I loved my husband dearly, Ambrose, and grieved when I lost him. But—’ Should she say what was in her heart? She had never done so before, not in this matter, but somehow she felt it was not only right but also actually quite important to do so now, with this sympathetic and generous-hearted man beside her.

‘I had grown used to a position of authority in my marriage,’ she said quietly. ‘My husband was a man of some influence and he delegated many of his concerns to me.’

‘A man is lucky indeed if he has an accomplished and educated wife,’ Ambrose observed.

She shot him a grateful glance for the implied compliment. ‘When I was widowed, the options were few and little to my liking,’ she went on. ‘I had not thought to take the veil, for I had no desire for the limited life that I believed would be my lot behind convent walls. But then I heard of Hawkenlye Abbey, and I learned about the principles upon which it was founded, and I thought that it was where I wanted to be. I was admitted to the congregation, I grew to love the place, I learned the meaning of a truly satisfying day’s work.’ She smiled suddenly, a wide, happy smile that seemed to well up straight from the joy in her heart. ‘I discovered that God had had a plan for me all along,’ she finished, ‘and ever since I have done my utmost to follow it.’

‘With no small success,’ he remarked, and she smiled again at his lightly ironic tone.

‘I never expected this,’ she said softly. ‘To become abbess.’

‘No. I understand that.’ Then: ‘You are not the first to speak in this manner to me. But I do not wish to become a monk, my lady. Although I am grateful for the kind thought behind the suggestion.’

‘I did not in truth believe that you would see your future with us,’ she agreed. ‘That was, in fact, what I
was leading up to. I wanted to say that I do not think, Ambrose, that you are destined for this life; I think you are, and must remain, a man of and in the world.’

He sighed heavily. ‘I cannot but agree, since what prompts me to go home is the thought of the promise I made to our sovereign lady, Queen Eleanor, concerning the King’s ransom. I have already given what I could immediately give, but I must do more. We must all work without cease until we obtain his release.’

Helewise, who did not quite share his fervour, nevertheless was not surprised to hear him express it. ‘Then will we ride to Ryemarsh together, you and I?’ she asked. ‘Your wife’s serving woman appears to have left us, but up behind the Abbey stables there is a forlorn and forgotten lad named Arthus who is homesick and longing to be of service to you again. Shall we ask him to ride back with us?’

Ambrose studied her. ‘You are subtle, my lady, so to remind me of my obligations,’ he murmured.

‘I meant no reproof,’ she said quickly.

‘I did not detect one,’ he replied. Then, with a surprisingly boyish grin, ‘And had I done, it probably would have been justified.’

In the sudden closeness between them, she ventured to say something that she might otherwise have kept back. Putting aside the vague dislike that she had felt for Galiena, she reminded herself that it was Ambrose whom she now must comfort. She reached out to touch his arm lightly and said, ‘The house will be empty without her, Ambrose, but you will learn to
deal with your loss, of that I am certain, for you are a strong man.’

He put a hand on hers and gave it a squeeze. ‘I am grateful for your confidence, my lady, for I confess that mine is at a low ebb. She – she—’ But whatever image of his wife he held in his heart was too much for him and without warning he began to weep.

‘She was so young, too young to die!’ he sobbed. ‘And still we do not know how it happened! That in itself would be a comfort, of sorts, and yet the matter appears insoluble.’

She took his hand in both of hers. ‘It may be that we shall never know,’ she said gently. ‘If that is the case, you will have to find a way to accept it.’

‘I know.’ He wiped his eyes with his free hand and took a deep breath. ‘I know. I shall try, my lady.’

They went on sitting there on the bank, side by side, hand in hand. Helewise, open to the message that all her senses seemed to be sending her, was thinking that, if it transpired that Galiena had indeed been killed by another’s hand, then there was one person who Helewise was quite certain was innocent.

Josse, she remembered, had wondered if Ambrose, the cuckolded husband, might have poisoned his young wife. Josse had been suspicious because Ambrose had failed to mention the objection that Raelf had made to the possible explanation that Galiena had accidentally poisoned herself by eating berries or fungi in the forest, yet the girl’s husband must have known as well as her father of her skill with herbs and plants.

Well, Josse was an astute man but in this case he
was wrong. Helewise knew that Ambrose Ryemarsh had not killed his wife; he had not been himself at the time of Galiena’s death, which would explain why he had not challenged the poisonous berry theory, and his sadness was genuine, she was quite sure of it. So, thank the kind Lord, was his ignorance that she had been pregnant.

Tomorrow, she thought, we shall set out for Ryemarsh and Ambrose will take the first steps in resuming his life at home. I will help him if I can, and I will ask God in His mercy to support him as he learns to live without her.

With a sort of peace descending on her which she prayed that Ambrose felt too, she stared out at the setting sun’s reflections in the quiet water.

The silver-eyed man led an unprotesting Josse out of the rock chamber and along to the outbuildings behind the long hall. When they came to the middle of the three round huts, the one in which Josse had noticed a workbench and some tools, the man opened the door and beckoned to Josse to go inside, relieving him of his sword as he passed.

‘Are you going to render me senseless, as you have done that poor child who sleeps so deeply in the next hut?’ Josse demanded. He had intended his voice to sound strong and threatening, but to his consternation, he sounded as feeble as if he had been abed with a fever for a week.

‘No,’ said the man. ‘I have already done enough. And she lies sleeping until we manage to reach agreement upon her fate.’ He frowned briefly, as if that disagreement were a continuing and pressing anxiety. ‘This is to be your prison, Josse d’Acquin.’

‘Why do you have to imprison me?’ That was better – he thought he sounded a little more menacing now. Perhaps the effects of that foul smoke lessened as soon as you stopped breathing it in. He fervently hoped so.

‘You have far too much curiosity,’ the man answered with a faint grin. ‘We are a private people. We obey our chieftain’s dictates and keep to ourselves.’

‘But you are so few!’ Josse protested. ‘How do you breed? Do you take wives from your own kin?’

It was a devastating accusation and Josse half expected that the man would find some way to punish him for his audacity in having made it. But instead he merely said mildly, ‘We have enough people to avoid incest. In the past it has sometimes occurred that half-brothers and sisters have mated, but that has not happened in many years.’

‘You broke the church’s strict prohibition when you did that!’ Josse cried, horrified.

The man murmured, ‘Not
our
church. The gods we serve are wider minded and comprehend that sometimes necessity makes demands that cannot be ignored.’

The gods we serve. Aye, thought Josse, it seems I was right. ‘You are pagan,’ he said. He did not frame it as a question.

‘Of course,’ said the man. ‘We came to these shores with the religion of our forefathers and we have held fast to our gods.’ With a weird light in his strange eyes, he added softly, ‘We shall be rewarded for our loyalty.’

‘This is why you choose a life of isolation?’ Josse asked. ‘So that you may continue to worship as you see fit?’

‘In part, yes.’

‘But—’ Josse was not sure how the law of the land
– or indeed of the church – stood on the subject of paganism. There were, of course, the persistent legends that spoke of the Norman kings maintaining a foot in the Old Religion, but what kings did was, in Josse’s experience, their own business and had little to do with what they permitted in their subjects. ‘Does your parish priest not condemn your practices?’ he finished lamely.

It was no great surprise when the man burst out laughing. ‘Oh, Josse, I had not expected such a naïve question!’ he said, still chuckling. ‘In answer, yes, probably he does. But his condemnation is his own affair and has little bearing upon us.’

I am to be left here a prisoner, Josse thought. I must keep this man talking as long as I can.