Whiter than the Lily (33 page)

Josse reached the track a bare nose ahead and Brice reined in to let him set off up it first. He urged Horace into the shade of the trees and up the dark tunnel that their branches formed over the path, hearing the sounds of Brice starting out on the ascent behind him.
Horace plunged valiantly up the track, moving quickly until he reached the very steep section right at the top, where he checked, then went on at a slower and more careful pace. Now Josse could see Isabella, who had gone on ahead up the path and was waiting for them on the road above. Her hawk was on her wrist.

Turning hastily, Josse had time to register that Brice was just riding out from the concealing trees when a stumble from Horace drew his attention back to more crucial matters. Steadying the horse, he leaned his weight forward across the inert girl, encouraged Horace on and very soon they were safe on the road.

He was saying something to Isabella – he could not later recall what it was – when he saw her face change. A look of horrified recognition twisted her features and with a quick, decisive gesture she flung her fist in the air and her hawk took off in swift, graceful flight. The bird gained height and then, falling like a dead weight from the summer sky, dived down on Brice.

Watching helplessly, Josse called out a warning …

But it was not Brice who rode after them up the track. It was Aelle.

He was on the steepest part of the slope now. The hawk shot down straight at his face, her talons outstretched for the kill, and there was a sudden flash of scarlet as she opened up deep cuts through his eyes and down his cheeks. Then she flew up again and fell on the horse, and a sudden shrill whinny of pain and terror made a discord with Aelle’s screaming.

Aelle’s horse reared and then shied so that its forefeet came down slewed over at an angle and missed
the track. In alarm it tried to find firm ground but, panicking now, it failed. Overbalancing, it fell off the path and dropped down over the almost sheer cliff. Aelle, blood pouring down his face and frantically trying to get his feet out of the stirrups, did not release himself in time. The horse fell on its side straight on to the rock-strewn ground at the foot of the cliff with its master beneath it.

Aelle was dead. He had to be; no man could survive when his head had been burst open and the white and red matter of his brains was already mingling on the short grass.

Now Brice came thundering up the track, eyes only for Isabella. She sat on her horse, the hawk once more on the heavy gauntlet. Meeting Brice’s anxious look, she nodded and said, ‘I am unhurt. So, I believe, is Josse, and he has the girl with him. But what of you?’

‘Aelle outmanoeuvred me at the foot of the track,’ Brice said grimly. There was a vivid mark on the side of his head that would soon turn into a spectacular bruise. ‘I could not stop him – he was possessed.’

Brice nudged his horse with his knees and the animal stepped off the track and on to the level ground of the road. Josse, still feeling the shock, said, ‘What of his men?’

‘The mist has closed in again,’ Brice said shortly. His eyes had followed the direction in which Isabella was staring and he, too, took in the sight of the chieftain’s dead body. Then he looked from that grisly spectacle to Isabella, and Josse did too.

To his amazement, she was smiling. ‘It was necessary,’ she said. ‘I will explain, but not now.’ Then, her smile widening as if at some secret joy that was spreading like sun’s warmth through her whole body, she cried, ‘Oh, Brice, my dearest love, at long last all shall now be well!’

Then, without another word, she put her heels to her mare and led the way off along the road into the west. She did not stop – and neither did Josse, burdened with the unconscious girl, nor Brice – until they reached Rotherbridge.

At Rotherbridge, Josse, Brice and Isabella hardly spoke as they saw to the horses and then went inside. The girl seemed to be recovering a little. She had been muttering during the ride from Saltwych and Josse had moved her so that, for the latter stages of the journey, she had sat astride in front of him, leaning back against him. He hoped that perhaps the fresh air, and being outside in the beautiful day after her long confinement in the hut, had helped her. She had suffered bouts of shivering, and Josse had contrived to fasten the old blanket more securely around her.

Inside Brice’s hall, it was cool and shady. Brice headed straight for the door to the kitchens and hollered for wine and, as soon as it was brought, poured out deep mugs of it for himself and for Josse. Isabella had declined; she insisted on first attending to the girl and so, helped by Josse, the two of them took her through into a smaller room that led off the hall. Brice was sent to fetch warm water, washing cloths and towels; Josse was commanded to collect Isabella’s saddlebag, in which she said she had spare clothes. The sacking garment and the blanket, Isabella said firmly, she would throw out to be burned.

Josse and Brice were on their second mugs of the cool wine when a sudden cry shot them both to their feet. Brice in his alarm threw his mug on to the flagstones and rushed for the door of the little side room.

He yelled, ‘Isabella!
Isabella!
’ And, with a shout of alarm, flung his weight against the door.

On the journey to Ryemarsh and in the course of the day and a half that she had spent there with Ambrose, Helewise felt that she had learned a great deal about him. He was, as she might have predicted, unfailingly courteous and considerate and, as soon as they were ensconced in his house, he was revealed as a man of authority who knew exactly what he wanted and usually got it instantly. His household seemed to be both deeply in awe of and genuinely fond of him which, in Helewise’s experience, was rare enough to be noteworthy.

She had not known how wealthy he was. His house spoke loudly of his means, from the finely carved wooden furniture in his hall and the richly worked tapestries on the walls to the high standards of his board.

But all the money in the world could not help him in the moment when he first set foot into the home that no longer included his wife. Helewise, walking beside him, felt him falter and she heard him mutter something under his breath. He dropped his head and put a hand up to his face, as if to conceal his emotions from the servants who stood in the hall to welcome their master home.

She waited, uncertain whether or not he would want her to intervene. But in the end she was glad she did not for, from the front rank of the household staff, an elderly man stepped forward and said gently, ‘We are glad to have you home, my lord. We too mourn her and it is good that you are here with the folk who loved her best.’

It was perhaps over-familiar, but Helewise realised that the little speech was just right. Raising his head, Ambrose gave the old man a sketchy smile and said simply, ‘Thank you, Julian.’ Then, turning to Helewise, he said, ‘My lady, may I present Julian, who is the head of my household staff. Julian, this is Abbess Helewise of Hawkenlye. Please give orders for the best guest chamber to be prepared.’

Then, squaring his shoulders in a gesture that went straight to Helewise’s heart, he went into his hall.

In the morning following their arrival, visitors were announced. Helewise, who had been outside strolling in Galiena’s garden, heard the call go up from the courtyard and soon afterwards there came the sounds of a group of horsemen. It is none of my business, she told herself, and resumed her quiet walking. Later Ambrose sought her out and said, with a wry expression, ‘My lady, you have just missed the Queen’s couriers.’

‘Indeed?’ Momentarily having forgotten about King Richard’s humiliating captivity and the huge ransom demand – which she guessed must be the sole preoccupation of the court and its members just now, if
not indeed that of the entire country – she wondered what message Queen Eleanor should wish to send to Ambrose Ryemarsh. ‘All goes well with the Queen, I trust,’ she said.

‘I believe so.’ Ambrose paused and then said delicately, ‘I have sent a certain sum already towards the King’s ransom and I am engaged in raising more. The Queen has sent me a letter expressing her thanks for my generosity.’

Still the odd smile remained on his face. Curious, Helewise said, ‘Why, my lord Ambrose, does that amuse you?’

Ambrose’s smile widened. ‘They tell me, my lady, that you are personally acquainted with the Queen?’

‘I have that honour and pleasure, yes,’ Helewise said, a little stiffly.

‘Oh, I share your high opinion of the lady,’ Ambrose assured her. ‘I think, however, that you too will understand why I smile when you read her note.’

He handed to Helewise a roll of parchment bearing the Queen’s distinctive handwriting. Swiftly scanning the note – it was not long – Helewise did indeed smile. The Queen, so clever in her use of words, managed in five short lines to convey her gratitude, her admiration for the speed with which Ambrose had rushed to contribute to the appeal and her heartfelt delight that this was to be but the first of his donations. ‘With the continuing generosity of his most loyal subjects such as you,’ she finished, ‘it surely cannot be long before my precious son our King is once more free.’

‘Had you in fact promised her that you would send
more?’ Helewise asked, returning the parchment to Ambrose.

‘Not exactly,’ he replied. ‘Our beloved Queen, it appears, is adept at reading between the lines.’

Helewise studied him. The Queen’s message had come at a good time, she thought, for it gave Ambrose both a pleasant distraction and also reminded him that he had an important job to do. Giving him a brief bow, she said, ‘With such a summons, my lord, you had better get on with your task.’

Returning her bow, he turned and hurried away back to the house, leaving her to reflect on the implications of having discovered quite how high her host rode in Plantagenet favour …

They had finished supper – a light but delicious meal taken at a small table in a cosy corner of the great hall – when, once again, there came the sound of horsemen. Julian appeared from the doorway leading through to the kitchens and, at a nod from Ambrose, went out to see who had arrived.

There was some excited talk, a cry, then nothing.

Ambrose, listening intently, shot to his feet. There was an expression of strain on his face that made it appear that he was suffering in some way.

Helewise, suddenly anxious for him, said calmingly, ‘Ambrose, I am sure it is nothing; will you not sit and finish your meal?’

But he did not appear to hear. Moving slowly, as if sleepwalking, he walked across the hall to the wide doorway. It was a mild evening and the sky was still
light, so the door had been propped open to let a soft and sweet-smelling breeze flow through the house.

She got up and followed him.

Standing beside him at the top of the steps leading up from the courtyard, she saw that three horses were being received by the Ryemarsh stable lads. Dismounting from the horses were three – no, four – people.

One was Brice of Rotherbridge, standing beside a woman whom Helewise did not know and who was dressed in a man’s tunic and hose. She wore a wide-brimmed hat pushed back from her face. Another was Josse, and he was supporting the slim frame of a young girl. She too wore man’s clothing and the garments were too big for her. Her face was concealed by the deep hood of a light travelling cloak.

Ambrose was trembling.

Helewise put a hand on his arm and said softly, ‘Ambrose, I am sure that—’

But he shook her off.

He ran down the steps and, to her amazement, threw his arms around the girl in the cloak who, at his approach, stepped away from Josse’s supporting arms and threw herself at Ambrose. There came the sounds of muffled sobs, but Helewise did not know from whom.

Amazed, shocked, she did not know what was happening. Josse must have read her confusion in her face for, hastening across the yard and bounding up the steps, he said, with a huge smile, ‘My lady, we have found her! We have brought her home to
him and, other than a weakness which will pass as soon as she begins to eat again, she is fine! Quite unhurt!’

Not daring to believe the sudden hope that flared up in her, Helewise whispered, ‘Who is it?’

And Josse said, ‘It’s Galiena.’

They took her inside and the woman with Brice – presented to Helewise as somebody called Isabella de Burghay – led her away to be washed and dressed in her own clothes. The maids of Galiena’s own household all offered their help but Galiena seemed to prefer Isabella. Judging by the brief impression that she received as the girl was helped across the hall, still in her hooded cloak, Helewise thought that this Isabella must have been important to Galiena in the first moments after whatever ordeal she had been through. For the time being, the younger girl appeared to depend on the woman.

Well, thought Helewise, it is good that she has someone she can turn to.

Ambrose, both bemused and at the same time so happy that he kept throwing his arms around them all, ordered fresh food and drink. Then, while they waited for Galiena to reappear, he pressed them all to eat and drink.

Helewise sought out Josse. ‘You too are unharmed, my friend?’ she asked quietly.

‘Aye.’ He gave her a grin. ‘What joy to find you here, my lady Abbess, the one person with whom I wished to share this triumph! I had envisaged having to wait
to give you the good news until I reached Hawkenlye, but here you are!’