A Dark Night Hidden (16 page)

‘Really,’ de Gifford echoed. ‘I am not certain where the boundaries of the Father’s influence were set; he was a replacement for your Father Gilbert, I am aware, and Father Gilbert made but rare visits down to us in the Medway valley. He had his own concerns up here and, besides, our souls are adequately catered for by our own Father Henry. But, whether or not Father Micah
should
have been carrying out his mission of salvation in our vicinity, the fact remains that he was.’ He studied Helewise for a moment, as if deciding whether he should proceed with what he was about to say. Apparently deciding that he would, he added, ‘Father Henry understands our – er, our ways. Father Micah did not. We did not welcome him and Father Henry, I believe, resented him. Neither reaction had the least effect in keeping Father Micah away.’

Helewise was not sure what he was trying to imply. ‘Your ways?’ she said. ‘Surely there is only one way for a godly man, Sir Gervase? Does not your Father Henry appreciate this?’

De Gifford gave her a charming smile. ‘Naturally so, my lady Abbess, and reminds us all of our duty at every possible opportunity. I merely meant to make the point that priests may vary in the methods that they employ to keep their flock within the fold.’

‘Hmm.’ She was not convinced. She had observed an occasional exchange of glances between de Gifford and Josse – or rather, she corrected herself, glances from de Gifford directed at Josse – as if the Sheriff were trying to recruit Josse as an ally. Two laymen together facing a woman of the Church.

Josse said, ‘Who else did the Father order to be flogged?’

‘He did not merely order,’ de Gifford corrected. ‘He made it a rule to carry out himself any sentence that he imposed. A variant, I suppose, on the good commander’s maxim: never order your troops to do something you are not also prepared to do. In answer to your question, Sir Josse, Father Micah flogged another woman, somewhat younger than Aurelia. She had been convicted of a crime by a Church court and she was to be handed over to the secular arm for punishment. However, Father Micah overruled that and said he would do it himself, which he duly did. Then he allowed her to be hauled away by a couple of guards and thrown into some filthy prison cell.’

‘What became of her?’ Helewise, to her distress, heard her own voice emerge as little more than a whisper. But she did not think there was anything that she could have done about it; de Gifford told his affecting tale simply but with quiet force, so that, for an instant, it had almost seemed that the poor beaten woman, dragged away to prison, was there in the room with them.

De Gifford was gazing at her, cool eyes briefly filled with pity. ‘She died, my lady. Her gaoler decided to compound her various agonies by raping her. In doing so, it appears she hit her head on the stone floor of her cell, and it was a hard enough blow to kill her.’

‘And what of the gaoler?’ Now her voice was shaking.

De Gifford shrugged. ‘What of him? Still a gaoler.’

‘But he assaulted his prisoner!’

‘She was to die in any case, my lady,’ de Gifford said gently. ‘They did not believe that her repentance was sincere, for they said she intended to revert to her wickedness as soon as she was able.’

Helewise was about to ask what form the woman’s wickedness had taken – another adulteress? Surely not! – when Josse interrupted.

‘I investigated the case of two men who escaped from a gaol,’ he said. ‘My own involvement began but three days ago, although I believe that the men fled some days earlier. A pilgrim family who came here for the Holy Water cure told us how someone had attacked the guard. He only appeared to have been hit once, or perhaps twice, in the face, yet he died. When one of the Abbey’s brothers and I went to look at the body, we discovered marks on his throat that suggested he had been throttled.’

‘Yes, I heard about him,’ de Gifford said.

‘And what about the men who escaped? Do you know anything of them?’ Josse, Helewise noticed, looked eager, straining towards de Gifford as if he expected answers to all his questions suddenly to materialise.

De Gifford studied him for a moment. Then he said, ‘No.’

I am almost certain, Helewise told herself, that his last statement was a lie. Josse met her eyes briefly, and she saw that he had had the same thought.

‘I asked around in the village where the gaol was,’ Josse said casually, as if it were a mere aside. ‘Nobody there knew anything of the men, either. Or they
said
not, anyway.’ He eyed de Gifford. ‘Which I thought strange, since I was almost certain that they did. They were afraid, you see, de Gifford. To a man – and to a woman – they scarcely waited to hear me ask my question before they began shaking their heads and denying all knowledge. One old woman started to tremble, repeating over and over again that she didn’t want any trouble and that she hadn’t seen anything, didn’t know anything, may God strike her down if she told a lie. I thought her statement was quite foolhardy, since she had undoubtedly just done exactly that. And a little child who was with her – he was a boy, no more than about five, too young to know how to keep a secret – said that he was frightened that the black man would come back and get him while he lay in his bed at night.’

De Gifford looked as if he were about to speak. Then, seeming to change his mind, shook his head slightly.

‘I’ll tell you another thing,’ Josse went on. ‘The prison guards reckoned that the men who escaped were foreign. One of their number had complained that he didn’t understand a word the prisoners said. Now it’s possible that the prisoners were well-educated men whose speech was not comprehended by the ruffians we employ in our gaols, or that the guard was singularly hard of hearing or dull of wit. But I believe it’s much more likely that the guard didn’t understand because the men cried out to him in another tongue. What d’you think, de Gifford? Do I reason rightly?’

Again, de Gifford appeared to go through the same process of deciding whether or not to confide his thoughts. But this time he made a different decision. With a gesture of squaring his shoulders, he said, ‘My lady Abbess, Sir Josse, there is a limit to what I may tell you. But you are right – I do know something about these prisoners and of the woman who died in gaol. And, indeed, of the one now lying in your infirmary. Or so I believe.’

‘You can’t have her!’ Helewise cried. ‘She is under our protection and if you try to arrest her I will have her taken into the Abbey church where she may claim sanctuary!’

De Gifford turned his clear eyes on to her. ‘My lady, you misunderstand, and I cannot blame you for that when I have perforce been so very reticent.’ He frowned. ‘On my honour, I am glad that Aurelia is here. What was done to her was vilely cruel and I would have brought her to Hawkenlye myself had I known where to find her. As it is, I shall ensure that nobody who wishes her ill shall learn from me where she is. Keep her here, help her to heal. When she is ready to go, then – but no. It is not yet time to speak of that.’

Feeling weak as the high emotion drained from her, Helewise leaned against the back of her chair.

Josse said, ‘You were saying, de Gifford, that you know the identities of the two escaped prisoners.’

‘I cannot be sure, for the tally of people we refer to here is but four – the woman who died in gaol, Aurelia and the two men who fled – whereas the group of which I heard tell numbered seven.’

Not four but five, Helewise thought. The two men, Aurelia, the poor woman who died, and Benedetto. But if de Gifford did not know about Benedetto, then she was not yet ready to tell him. Nor, from the glance he sent her, was Josse. De Gifford, it seemed, had assumed that Aurelia had been brought to Hawkenlye by some Good Samaritan who came across her on the road.

‘Four people?’ Josse now said. ‘Foreigners?’

‘Er – yes. Some from the Low Countries, some from the far south. So I believe.’

‘And why are they in England?’ Josse demanded. ‘Were they making for Hawkenlye?’

‘No, not as far as I know.’ De Gifford twisted his face in mock anguish. ‘Sir Josse, please do not push me so hard. I am telling you all that I may, and even this much is more than I should. I can reveal nothing else about the travellers and I shall not do so, no matter how much you scowl at me. What I will say is that I am aware that Father Micah was on their trail. As I have told you, he was responsible for beating and imprisoning Frieda.’

‘Frieda,’ Helewise repeated softly. ‘The woman who was raped and killed.’

‘Yes, my lady.’ De Gifford looked at her. ‘It is better, is it not, to have a name for her? So that we may remember her as a real woman and not merely a faceless, unidentifiable prisoner?’

‘It is,’ Helewise agreed. ‘We shall say a mass for her soul.’

‘I do not think—’ de Gifford began. Then, abruptly breaking off, he bowed briefly and murmured, ‘A charitable thought.’

‘Go on, now,’ Josse urged. ‘Father Micah brought about this Frieda’s downfall. What else?’

‘He was also responsible for the imprisonment of the two men, and he was beside himself in his rage when he learned that they had escaped. He went through that village with the force of an attack of the pestilence, cursing them for their evil ways, telling them that they were Satan’s own and in league with the Evil One, that they should have kept their accursed eyes open and prevented two of the devil’s minions from escaping.’

‘If the villagers were Satan’s own and the prisoners were his minions, then they were on the same side and it’s no wonder the men were allowed to escape,’ Josse observed.

‘Quite so,’ de Gifford agreed. ‘But then Father Micah was never strong on logical thought, especially when he was in a thundering rage and about God’s work.’

‘You speak of a priest,’ Helewise said coldly. ‘Whatever his faults, Father Micah did his duty to God as he saw it. His methods should not be open to the criticism of ordinary people.’

‘No?’ De Gifford’s tone was soft. ‘Well, my lady, if you will excuse me, I must disagree. The Father’s methods included burning down the houses of those he suspected of contravening the Church’s edicts, and he did not care whether the inhabitants were inside or not. He also confiscated the meagre food of the poor in order to ensure that they fasted when he ordered them to, and he had been known to beat a man so badly that the poor fellow never worked again. That man had five children.’

Helewise opened her mouth, found she had nothing to say and closed it again.

De Gifford turned to Josse. ‘You spoke just now of a little boy in the village who was terrified of the black man, Sir Josse,’ he said. ‘Did you have any idea who he meant?’

‘I wondered if some friend of the prisoners had got them out,’ Josse said, ‘and I thought that he might have been foreign, like them, perhaps from the lands of the distant south and with a black skin.’

De Gifford smiled, shaking his head. ‘Fanciful but inaccurate,’ he said. ‘The Black Man has become known to quite a lot of folk around here by now. He was feared wherever he went because he had a violent temper and he descended on the poor and the weak like a fury against which they were powerless.’

He looked from Josse to Helewise, making sure he had her full attention. Then, once more addressing Josse, he said, ‘The Black Man is what they called Father Micah.’

While the Abbess, de Gifford and Josse were preoccupied with the drama of the Sheriff ’s account, Sister Phillipa sat by herself in the small, peaceful room that housed the manuscripts. She had been steadily working through the precious documents on and off for the last three days, slipping away to her pleasant and undemanding task whenever she was not required for other duties. To begin with, Sister Bernadine had helped her, but the two women had found that checking each script off against the inventory and inspecting it for damage was a job that one person could perform quite well alone. Sister Bernadine appeared to find the task stressful; Sister Phillipa guessed that she went in constant fear of discovering that something valuable had been stolen and of the punishment she might receive for her carelessness if this were so. The younger nun had kindly offered to proceed with the inventory alone, and Sister Bernadine gratefully accepted.

‘But I must know if you find – if you find—’ She had been unable to put the cause of her distress into words.

‘If I discover that anything at all is missing or damaged, then I shall report first to you,’ Sister Phillipa promised.

To her surprise, tears had welled up in Sister Bernadine’s eyes. She had muttered something about Sister Phillipa being a good, kind girl, then hurried away.

Now, the only slight drawback to the work was that it kept Sister Phillipa from her herbal. At first she had itched to return to her painting and her lettering; they were deeply absorbing in themselves but, in addition, there was the thrill of the new knowledge of herbs and their uses that she was learning from Sister Tiphaine and Sister Euphemia. Both nuns were natural and gifted teachers and, even when very busy in their own departments, always strove diligently to make quite sure that Sister Phillipa understood exactly what they were telling her and would not make a mistake. However, regret for time lost for her herbal had gradually faded; as she had thrown herself into her careful examination of the Abbey’s precious manuscripts, she had soon realised that this task in fact provided a lucky and perfectly timed opportunity for her to study the work of some of England’s greatest artists and craftsmen.

This morning she was so happy that she hummed softly as she worked.

She found it just before the summons to Sext called her away.

She had been staring intently at a page in a glossed Bible; the page had an extract from the Book of Leviticus and the writing hand was so beautiful, so even, that it quite took Sister Phillipa’s breath away. Putting it carefully back – I have a job to do, she reminded herself, and I ought not to waste time in rapture over another’s fine penmanship – she noticed something bright lying on the base of the book chest.