Whiter than the Lily (9 page)

‘Aebba?’

Helewise indicated the dour woman standing a few paces off, staring down at Ambrose with an unreadable expression on her face. ‘Galiena’s serving woman.’

‘Ah.’ The infirmarer made no further comment.

‘Can he walk?’ Helewise asked.

‘I reckon so, my lady, with help. Saul! Gus!’ she called, and immediately the two brothers hurried towards her. ‘Help the lord Ambrose to his feet, if you will, and get him up to the infirmary. I’ll go on ahead and prepare a bed for him.’

As Saul rushed to obey, Helewise caught at his sleeve. ‘Saul?’ she said quietly. ‘Why did you look so startled when the woman, Aebba, said she had been in the church?’

‘Oh, I’m sure I was mistaken, my lady, and that’s exactly where she was,’ he said instantly.

‘You thought you saw her elsewhere?’

‘Aye.’ Again, the puzzled frown. ‘I could have sworn I saw her hurrying away towards the forest.’

Where Galiena went, Helewise thought, thanking Saul and sending him on to help Ambrose. And, since
several people seem to have known that’s where she ran off to, then it is quite possible that Aebba went to look for her.

And, frowning just as Saul had done, she wondered why.

It was some time before Helewise could go over to the infirmary to see how Ambrose was. A delegation of the Abbey’s marshland tenants had arrived while she was in the Vale and she had to see to the receipt and the recording of the money they brought with them as their contribution towards King Richard’s ransom. So preoccupied did she become with the visitors, their questions (‘Will we have to pay more, my lady? Only it’s hard, very hard, on us as are family men to meet these ’ere demands’) and their need to gossip (‘They do say as how ’e won’t be back and that Prince John’ll have to be king!) that she all but forgot about the infirmarer’s new patient.

Her heart went out to the marshmen. They were the Abbey’s tenants and she, as Abbess, had a fair idea of the circumstances of their lives. In common with everyone else in England, they had already had to give more than they could afford to finance the Lionheart’s crusade. Although Helewise understood why such an expensive campaign had been necessary, a part of her could not help wondering whether knights, lords and kings with the passion and the thrill of holy war filling their heads and hearts ought not to pause just for a moment to wonder if it was all worth it.

And now King Richard’s dreams of glory had come down to this: he was ignominiously imprisoned and his poor struggling people were going to have to reach into all but empty pockets to ransom him. Looking at the faces of the men standing nervously before her now, she pitied them deeply and would have helped them if she could.

But she could not.

She wanted to be able to say that the sum they had delivered today would undoubtedly suffice. She wanted to tell them to go home and work as hard as they could in an attempt to make up what they had been forced to give away. She wanted to reassure them that what they now could put by, from their own increased efforts, would be theirs alone.

But if she gave those reassurances – which were not hers to give – then what if some further calamity occurred? What if King Richard again called upon his people?

It was almost unthinkable, but then the unthinkable did sometimes happen.

When at last she had seen the marshmen on their way, the afternoon was over and it was time for Vespers. As soon as the office was over, she went straight across to the infirmary.

A harassed young nun in a bloodstained apron bowed to her and, in answer to her query, led her along to the small curtained recess where Ambrose lay. Dismissing the nun – Helewise could see she was desperate to get back to whichever patient’s blood had flowed out so freely all over her stiff linen apron –
Helewise drew back the curtain slightly and went into the dimly lit recess.

There was a delicious, sweet smell on the air – sniffing, Helewise tried to identify it. Then she looked down at the bed. Ambrose lay with his eyes half-closed, an expression of peace on his face.

For one dreadful heartbeat, Helewise thought he was dead.

But he must have sensed her presence; opening his eyes, he peered up at her and said, ‘Galiena?’

She moved quickly forward and took the hand that he held out. It was bony, knotted and misshapen, but the skin felt smooth, almost as if it had been oiled. ‘No, my lord, it is Helewise, Abbess of Hawkenlye,’ she said softly.

He was squeezing her hand, nodding slightly. ‘Aye, I can tell it’s not Galiena. I greet you, my lady, and I thank you for your care.’

‘Galiena is—’ she began, thinking that the best way of telling him that his wife was missing was to come right out with it.

But he said, ‘She was here, my lady. Did you see her, my lovely lassie?’

Helewise held back the question that rose to her lips. ‘I – er, no.’

Ambrose sighed with pleasure. ‘I may not see as well as I did, especially in this dim light, and it was almost as if I saw her in a dream. But I do not need the keen sight of youth to recognise my wife’s gentle touch. And I know the smell of the special ointment with which she rubs my sore hands.’ Freeing his hand
from Helewise’s grasp, he held it up side by side with his other hand, as if for her inspection. ‘Such pain I had in my joints, my lady, and my Galiena took note and made me a wonderful remedy. She’s so clever, such a wise herbalist, and still so young. She knows when I am in pain without my needing to tell her and there she is, by my side, rubbing the precious stuff into my old bones until all the pain is gone! My lady, I have been cared for adequately well by her woman Aebba during Galiena’s absence, but it wasn’t the same.’ He sighed. ‘Oh, no. Not the same at all. But the touch of my lovely lassie, ah, that is something to cherish!’

‘She has been to tend you? Here?’ Helewise asked in surprise.

‘Aye, my lady, just now. Why, the ointment is still on my skin! Does it not smell delicious? Good enough to eat!’ With a small chuckle, he licked the back of one hand.

‘It does indeed,’ she agreed.

‘I always know my lassie by the sweet smell she carries about her,’ Ambrose said, a loving expression on his face. ‘She was here, my lady, oh, yes!’

Had he been dreaming? Helewise thought it quite likely. But then it did look as if someone had recently been massaging his hands.

The curtain parted and the infirmarer stepped into the recess. ‘My lord Ambrose, how do you feel?’ she said, but it seemed that the old man had slipped into a doze.

‘He says Galiena was here,’ Helewise whispered.
‘That she came to massage his hands with her special remedy.’

‘Did she?’ Sister Euphemia looked doubtful. ‘Can’t say as I saw her, but then we’re rushed off our feet today. And it could have been while most of us were over in the church just now for Vespers.’

‘His hands certainly feel as if they have received some sort of treatment,’ Helewise said. The infirmarer took up one of the old man’s hands and ran a finger over its back, nodding her agreement as she did so. ‘But it need not necessarily have been Galiena who administered it,’ Helewise concluded.

‘My lady, I couldn’t say.’ The infirmarer looked flustered. ‘He’s not well, that’s for sure.’

‘What is the matter with him?’

‘He’s an old man and his mind’s wandering,’ Sister Euphemia said baldly. ‘In addition he’s short of breath, virtually blind and very sleepy.’ She shook her head. ‘If that young wife of his is serious about conceiving his child, then all I can say is she’d be well advised to hurry up about it.’

‘You think …’ Helewise hesitated. Then, in a barely audible whisper, ‘You think he may be dying?’

‘He doesn’t look any too perky, my lady. But it’s always possible that—’

Whatever possibility the infirmarer had in mind was to remain unexpressed. For, interrupting her even as she spoke, there came a terrifying sound from the main body of the infirmary behind them.

It was not a moment for protocol. A nurse before she was a nun, Sister Euphemia responded to the
dreadful choking noise by pushing past her superior and setting off at a dash between the curtains and into the infirmary.

Helewise, a pace behind, saw a horrible sight.

Galiena had come bursting into the infirmary and had sunk to her knees on the floor. Her heavy veil was awry – her hair, Helewise noticed distractedly, was beautiful: palest blonde and twined into two thick plaits – and she had torn at the neck of her silk gown, exposing the white flesh of her chest and her rounded upper breasts.

There was a look of extreme terror on her pale face. Her lips were swollen and, as Helewise stared in fascinated horror, a red rash seemed to spread across the girl’s throat.

Galiena, it was quite obvious, could not breathe. The rasping, choking noises as she tried to take air into her lungs were quieter now, even as the girl’s panic increased. She leaned forward briefly and some liquid came out of her mouth and dribbled on to the floor.

Eyes wide, she stared up at Sister Euphemia, Helewise and the circle of nursing nuns who now stood around her. Sister Euphemia held out her hands to the girl and said something – it might have been an encouragement to sit up straight, so as to let the breath flow more readily into her poor body – but Galiena did not appear to hear.

Then her whole frame convulsed once, twice. She slipped over sideways against Sister Euphemia, who was kneeling down and trying to support her, and then she was still.

After a few moments of absolute silence – the infirmary’s patients were too shocked to move, let alone speak – Sister Euphemia said very quietly, ‘I’m afraid she’s dead.’

At New Winnowlands, Josse was engaged in the same sort of task that had been absorbing the Abbess of Hawkenlye. A quarter of his annual income. He had heard the phrase bandied about, had said it himself, but, until this moment when he was actually facing what it meant in the harsh light of day, he had not quite appreciated just what it was going to entail.

Josse was not a wealthy man and his modest estate of New Winnowlands, although well managed and reasonably profitable, was not going to make him one. But he was and always had been a true King’s man and, if asked, would have said he’d willingly give all that he had to release Richard from his dishonourable, humiliating captivity and bring him safely home again. However, now that he was having to turn words into action and come up with the money, he was discovering that his feelings were not quite as wholehearted as he had believed them to be. A niggling little thought kept saying, well, the King’s got himself into this mess so why should his loyal people have to pay so heavily to get him out of it? Is it really right that we shoulder the burden in this way?

He sat for some time, a deep frown on his rugged
face, allowing rein to this traitorous thought. Then, with a sigh, he picked up his quill and laboriously began to write out figures; writing was not a skill that came readily to him, any more than reading was, which made the task even more unwelcome. But his innermost sentiments would have to remain secret. After all, it was not a question of giving only if you felt you would like to. However you looked at the matter, Josse concluded, paying up was horribly inevitable. There was no point in moaning so he had better get on with it.

When at last he had finished, he felt that he deserved a reward and the first thing that sprang to mind was a visit to Hawkenlye. He had a ready-made excuse – not that he truly felt he needed one – in that he had recommended the nuns’ care and skill to Ambrose and Galiena Ryemarsh. And, indeed, he had proposed that they renew their pleasant new acquaintance over at Hawkenlye, hadn’t he? The young woman would be there now, he thought, and probably the old husband would have ridden over to join her. Deciding that he would like to see the business through to whatever conclusion it might reach, Josse summoned Ella and asked her to prepare a small pack for him as he was planning a few days’ absence from home.

With a brief nod, she turned and put her foot on the first of the short flight of steps leading up to Josse’s sleeping chamber. Then, almost as an afterthought, she said, ‘Give my respects to the Abbess, sir.’

Josse, wondering how and when he had come to be
so predictable, got up and went to tell Will to fetch Horace from the paddock.

It occurred to him as he set off that Brice of Rotherbridge might like to join the party at Hawkenlye, especially since Brice appeared to be a good friend of the Ryemarshes and to have their interests at heart; had it not after all been he who had introduced Josse to Ambrose and his young wife as one who knew Hawkenlye and its good works? It was only a short detour to Brice’s manor and so Josse turned Horace’s head and set off to find his neighbour.

Brice was not at home. His stable lad, Ossie, said that the master had set out at first light two days ago and that he was not expected home before nightfall of that day at the earliest. ‘Like as not ’e won’t be back afore tomorrow, ’e said,’ Ossie added. In response to Josse’s enquiry about where Brice had gone, Ossie shrugged. ‘’E didn’t say.’

Wondering why Brice’s journey to some undisclosed destination should seem sinister, Josse nodded to the lad, set off down the track and told himself not to be fanciful. But against his will he saw again Brice’s air of tense expectancy when they sat in Ambrose Ryemarsh’s hall. Saw in his mind’s eye the suppressed excitement in Brice’s handsome face. And, although he tried to stop himself, Josse recalled what he had thought then.