A Dark Night Hidden (12 page)

The man said in a strong voice, ‘I am the Lord of the High Weald and this is my dwelling place. What do you want of me, Josse d’Acquin?’

Josse had slipped from Horace’s back. Standing on this giant’s land, it seemed prudent to remember his manners, so he made a low bow. ‘Thank you for receiving me,’ he said.

‘I am told that your mission concerns Father Micah.’ The tone was neutral.

‘Aye.’ Deciding that here was a situation when the only option was the truth, Josse said, ‘The Father is dead. He was found on the track above Castle Hill early this morning with a broken neck. I am in the service of the Abbess of Hawkenlye, who has charged me with discovering what I can of the Father’s recent movements, and I am told that he may have visited you.’

There was what seemed to Josse to be a very long silence while the bright blue eyes of the Lord of the High Weald considered him. Then the giant said, ‘Come inside. I’ll have someone see to your horse while we take refreshments together and I tell you exactly what Father Micah wanted with me.’

Then he turned and led the way up a shallow flight of stone steps into the largest of the dwellings. Josse, following, looked around him with interest; the long, low room was timber-built, its line of sturdy posts filled in with wattle and daub. At the far end there was a stone hearth in which a fire was blazing. Several people were sitting round the fire; two middle-aged men, a youth and a quartet of young women. Quite a lot of them seemed to be red-haired. With a wave of his hand, the Lord shooed them away.

‘My family are well trained,’ he remarked to Josse. ‘Although they have their own firesides, they prefer to congregate around mine. However, they know when I want to be left in peace.’

‘Your family,’ Josse repeated.

‘Aye. My sons and daughters live here with their spouses and their children, and their children marry and bring their new husbands and wives to Saxonbury in their turn. I am the patriarch.’ He flung out his impressive chest. ‘Now, ale.’ He reached down for a large pewter jug that stood on a bench and poured some of the contents into two mugs, handing one to Josse. He tasted, smacked his lips appreciatively – the ale was malty and slightly sweet – and drank down several mouthfuls, at which the Lord quickly refilled his mug.

Waving Josse to a bench pulled up in front of the hearth, the Lord settled himself opposite and said, ‘We are instructed not to speak ill of the dead, and so you must excuse me, Sir Josse, because I am about to do just that.’ He paused. Then, surprisingly, he asked, ‘Are you pressed for time?’

‘No, not really.’ It was not far back to the Abbey and there must remain several hours of daylight.

‘Then, if you will hear it, I shall tell you my story.’

‘I shall be glad to hear it.’

The Lord poured out more ale and then, cutting off a hunk of bread and a thick slice of venison, thrust them at Josse and began his tale. ‘I was a soldier of the Crusade,’ he announced, ‘and I went to Jerusalem with my brother, who was of the company of the Templar Knights. In the assault on the Turks of Damascus many lives were lost, including that of my brother.’

‘I am sorry for your loss,’ Josse said quietly. ‘My own maternal grandfather died at Damascus and my father too was there in the midst of the fighting.’

‘Was he, indeed?’ The Lord looked with interest at Josse. ‘It seems I was right to trust to my instincts and allow you admission,’ he murmured. ‘I was gravely wounded,’ – he picked up his narrative – ‘and believed that my hour had come. But I was rescued from the field of battle and nursed back to health by a young and very beautiful woman, to whom I gave my heart. When I was fully recovered, we were wed and she consented to leave her home and return with me to mine. She bore me three sons and two daughters and has been, in every respect, the most satisfactory wife a man could wish for.’

‘She lives still?’ If she became a wife more than forty-five years ago, Josse was calculating, then she must be sixty, surely, at the least. As must this man who sat in front of him, even though he did not look it.

‘Indeed she does, but sadly she is frail,’ the Lord said. ‘In body, at least, although not in mind, for it is her indomitable will that rules here at Saxonbury, Sir Josse. She lies most of the day snug and comfortable in her chamber, yet her word is law.’ He smiled affectionately.

‘A woman to admire,’ Josse murmured.

‘Precisely!’ The Lord’s eyes lit up. ‘I am glad that you perceive this, for that damnable priest did not.’ He leaned forward, his face earnest, and, speaking urgently as if it were imperative that his guest fully understand him, said, ‘You see, my wife is a Muslim woman. She is of Turkish blood and, naturally, of foreign appearance and habits. A strange creature indeed to one such as Father Micah, and he made no attempt to disguise his distaste for what he could not understand. The problem, of course, for such a man was that my wife is not a Christian and, for all that we were wed according to her faith, I would not force her to make vows according to mine. You see, Sir Josse,’ – he put a hand like a shallow basket on to Josse’s leg – ‘I felt that I had already asked enough of my beloved in bringing her here and commanding her to make her home so far from her own people. If she chose to keep her own faith and not convert to mine, what did it matter?’

Treating the question as rhetorical, Josse merely nodded.

‘And shall I tell you what that evil man said when he discovered that I live with a Muslim woman in a marriage that, to his blinkered eyes, does not exist?’

‘What?’

The Lord paused for dramatic effect and then said softly, ‘He said that my wife – my frail, ageing, devoted wife – must be whipped. That this was the only way to drive the Devil from her and make her ready to receive the blessing of Jesus Christ.’

It was shocking in its savagery. But to Josse, for whom each new fact learned about the late priest merely served to enhance the impression he had received from the first, it came as no surprise. Meeting the hurt and furious eyes of the giant sitting before him, he said, ‘The man was twisted, mad. It must be so, for what other explanation can there be for a priest who had devoted his life to the service of a loving God to advocate such cruelty?’

‘Mad?’ The Lord raised his massive shoulders. ‘I cannot say.’ The blue eyes turned away from Josse and then, slyly, looked back. ‘But I am glad that Father Micah is dead for, when last he visited us here, he swore that he would be back. And for the life of me, Sir Josse, I do not know how I would have received him.’

Then as Josse watched, the slyness left the brilliant eyes to be replaced with a look of such menace, such palpable violence, that Josse could not prevent himself from pulling back.

‘What would
you
have done?’ the giant asked softly. ‘Ask yourself this, before you rush to judge me. Suppose that it was your own elderly mother, let us say, who was threatened with this extreme measure. Would you allow it?’

Josse’s mother was dead. He had loved her dearly and knew that he could not have stood back to see her abused. No, he would have defended her, whatever the cost to himself. Meeting the Lord’s eyes, he said, ‘No. I would not.’

‘Thank you for your honesty,’ the Lord said. Then he gave a short and, it seemed to Josse, rueful laugh, cutting through the tension in the hall. ‘More ale?’ He offered the jug.

Josse, whose head was already feeling muzzy, said, ‘Thank you, but no.’ He was wondering how on earth he was to go about ascertaining where the men of the Lord’s household had been last night – even knowing how many of them there were would be a good start – and intoxication was not going to help.

Possibly the Lord had also realised that, because he leaned down and refilled Josse’s mug anyway.

Absently sipping from it, Josse said, ‘Father Gilbert told me where to find you. He said that your community here numbered some fifteen people.’

‘Did he?’ The Lord, it appeared, was neither going to confirm nor deny the priest’s information. Instead he said, ‘Not a bad fellow, Father Gilbert. Wider-minded than Father Micah, but then that, I would say, applies to almost everybody. How is he? Father Gilbert, I mean?’

‘I have just come from him. He is mending, I believe, although slowly. The cold weather works against him. His house was ice-cold when I arrived.’

‘I see.’ The blue eyes watched Josse steadily and he had the impression he was being assessed. Then: ‘No doubt you cut wood for him and built up his fire.’

‘Er – aye.’ For some reason Josse felt embarrassed, as if he had performed the act of kindness purely to make people think well of him. From some distant past conversation he seemed to hear the Abbess’s voice:
True charity is that which is known only to God
.

‘It’s what I would have expected from what I hear tell of you, Josse d’Acquin.’ The Lord was still staring at him.

Who had spoken to this man of him? Josse could not imagine. Father Gilbert, perhaps? It did not seem likely, for the Father barely knew Josse. But who else could it be?

‘And I hear good things of Hawkenlye Abbey,’ the Lord was saying. ‘Do not think that, because I dislike one man of the Church, it follows that I feel the same about every other man and woman in holy orders. That Abbess, now, they say she is a fine, fierce woman.’

‘She didn’t like Father Micah either.’ The admission was out before Josse could ask himself if it was truly wise to make it. ‘That is, of course she’s terribly upset that he’s dead—’

‘Oh, terribly.’ There was clear irony in the Lord’s voice.

‘—and there will be prayers for his soul at the Abbey, I know, and a deal of grieving.’

‘Come, now, Sir Josse, that really is an unlikely exaggeration.’ Again, the Lord gave his short laugh.

Josse gave a half-hearted grin. ‘Very well. Not very much grieving. Just the natural shocked reaction to sudden death.’

‘Sudden
accidental
death, think you?’ The question was put so subtly that Josse, increasingly fuddled, did not immediately understand its importance.

‘I cannot yet say.’ He went to take another sip of ale but found to his vague surprise that he had once more emptied his mug. ‘He could have slipped on the icy track and slammed his face hard against something that did not give but, on the other hand, someone could have forced his head backwards.’ Absently he upturned his mug. ‘I do not know.’

There was silence in the hall. A log settled in the hearth, giving out a soft sound like a sigh. From somewhere quite near at hand Josse heard voices; a woman’s voice and, in one short, terse sentence, a man’s. He tried to make out the words but could not, which was surprising because they were clearly audible. Then through the fog in his head he realised. The woman was speaking in an unknown language. There was a sudden cry of distress, of pain, and a high, strained voice cried out briefly, abruptly silenced. Of course, Josse thought, the Lord of the High Weald’s wife was foreign. What did he say? Turkish? Aye. Something like that. And, poor soul, some quality of the frailty and sickness that kept her in her bed must give her pain. Poor woman.

Unreasonably pleased to have solved the little mystery of those overheard words in a foreign tongue, Josse beamed at the Lord. ‘It is good to have met you,’ he exclaimed.

‘And you.’ The Lord’s expression was amused.

With some effort, Josse stood up. ‘I must go,’ he announced. ‘It is not far to Hawkenlye, where I lodge tonight, but I would like to be back before dark.’

‘You are welcome to stay here. We eat well in my hall.’

I am sure you do, Josse thought, if the quality of your ale and your venison is anything to go by. Venison. The thought suddenly struck him. The deer could only have been shot in the Great Forest, which made it poaching. And the penalty for that was almost as bad as that for living outside Christian wedlock with someone of a different faith.

About to make some remark to that effect, Josse opened his mouth. Then the Lord also rose to his feet. He towered over Josse who, having taken into consideration that this huge man had a house hold of sons and grandsons who were probably equally huge, decided that the wise option was to keep quiet. If anybody asks me, he told himself sternly, I shall say, venison? What venison?

‘Thank you for your hospitality.’ He made a bow to the Lord, who returned it.

‘Thank you for coming to see me,’ he replied. Then, as if granting a great favour, he added, ‘You may come again. I shall inform those who guard my land that you are welcome here.’

Josse was helped out to the courtyard, where the guard who had admitted him stood holding Horace. The Lord tried to get him into the saddle but it proved too much of a challenge, even for such a big man. The guard was fully occupied in holding on to a frisky Horace and so the Lord called out to someone else – whose name, Josse thought, was Morcar – to come and help.

Another man quickly emerged from one of the dwellings. He resembled the Lord too much to be other than his son and he was nearly his father’s equal in size. Josse, at last safely mounted, touched his cap in thanks.

Then the gates were dragged open and he rode away.

He realised how drunk he was as he left the deep track leading down from Saxonbury and turned on to the path that skirted the forest. I was a fool, he thought; I allowed my host to refill my mug far too frequently. I should have stayed alert. I was there on official business, and what have I to report? Very little, other than that the Lord of the High Weald had good reason to loathe Father Micah and that he has a family of men quite capable of killing a man by breaking his neck.

But somehow – and the reasoning entirely escaped him – Josse did not believe that Father Micah’s murderer was of the Saxonbury household. If indeed there
was
a murderer.

‘Accident or murder?’ Josse wondered aloud as he jogged along.

And he knew that, even had he not been suffering the after-effects of the Lord’s ale, there was not going to be an easy answer.