Ashes of the Elements (19 page)

Even more than the dagger hidden in the pack, the sight of it gave her a shudder of fear.

*   *   *

He seemed to know the way.

Following close behind him – a good place to be, since, apart from anything else, it meant that, with his back to her, she was free to hitch up her skirts and still retain her modesty – she was quickly impressed by how familiar he was with the tracks and the paths of the Great Forest.

The moon was now well risen, and gave sufficient light for the journey to be fairly comfortable; this expedition would, she thought as she carefully took from Josse’s hand a wicked length of bramble whose thorns could have sliced open a cheek, have been an impossibility on a dark or cloudy night. It was wonderful how one’s eyes adjusted, she reflected, because, whereas on first leaving the Abbey, she had been able to make out only vague shapes, now she was seeing details. That little animal run going off into the undergrowth, for example, and that huge beech tree with its tangle of roots half-exposed on the bank, and—

Josse had stopped without warning, and she walked into him.

‘Sorry!’ she said, ‘But—’

‘Hush!’ He glanced at her, looking slightly apologetic for having silenced her so unceremoniously.

‘It’s all right.’ She, too, pitched her voice low. ‘What is it?’

He was standing quite still, turning his head slowly first this way, then that. She waited. After some moments, he shrugged faintly and said, ‘I don’t know. Probably nothing. Shall we go on?’

‘Yes.’

It was apparent to her that he was moving more cautiously now, although he had hardly been reckless or noisy before. He paused frequently, repeating his head-turning, and she realised he was listening.

For what?

Oh, dear Lord, not for that singing! Please, no!

She clutched at the wooden cross that hung around her neck, momentarily terrified.

But then a calm voice inside her head said, and what did you expect? You have heard the chanting, and you know it came from this forest. Is it not more than likely that you are about to hear it again?

She took a deep breath, then another.

It worked. She was still terrified, but at least she felt in control of herself.

Fleetingly she wondered, as she set off once more after Josse, if he was wearing his talisman. Somehow, she thought he probably was.

*   *   *

They were now deep in the forest. They had come, she reckoned, some two miles or more. Probably more; it was hard to tell, with the frequent stopping, but when they had been moving, they had walked swiftly. Despite everything, a part of her had been revelling in the sheer pleasure of hard physical exercise. It must, she thought, be years since she’d marched along like this, breathing deeply, arms swinging, legs striding out. Nuns in a convent just didn’t walk like that.

It reminds me, she reflected happily, of outings with dear old Ivo.

Her late husband had liked to walk hard, too. Often, when the demands of their busy life had relented for a few hours, the two of them had set out and—

‘Listen!’ said Josse’s soft voice, right beside her.

‘What?’

He had stopped again, at what appeared to be the end of a long and winding little path deep within the trees; they had been following its rather well-concealed course for some time. He drew her back into the moon shadow of a great oak, and, mouth to her ear, said, ‘Can you hear it too, or am I imagining it?’

She held her breath, and, trying to shut out the sounds of Josse beside her, listened.

At first, nothing. The wind in the treetops, high overhead, and a faint distant rustling, quickly curtailed, as if some small animal had been running for safety and had made it to its burrow.

She was just beginning to shake her head in denial when she heard it.

Just a short snatch, which could have been the dancing leaves up above. But then it came again. The same phrase was repeated, again and then once more, each time with a fraction more volume.

And then, in some macabre and premature parody of the dawn chorus, still many hours away, other throats took up the sound. The original phrase echoed again, but extended now, elaborate, involved, turning back on itself and going higher, higher, so high as almost to leave the range of human hearing, only to dive down into a deep, thrumming baritone that throbbed like a distant drum.

Then it stopped.

Helewise felt the sweat of fear run down her back, accompanied by a great shudder that seemed to make her hair crawl on her scalp. In atavistic dread, she wanted to crouch on the ground, curl herself up small, creep away into some dark little niche where she would be safe, where
they
could not find her. But, just as the urge to hide became all but irresistible, Josse leaned close and said quietly, ‘Abbess, it seems you were right after all, and the answers to all our questions may be just ahead of us.’

She managed to say, in something like her usual tones, ‘Indeed.’

Had he known? Had he picked up her huge fear, and, wanting to help her master it, spoken thus to her?

It was his having called her by her title that did it, she thought, feeling strength returning with each second. It had, in that moment of weakness, reminded her of who and what she was. Of her responsibilities. And, even more important, reminded her what she was doing there in the middle of the forest when she ought to be safe in her bed.

Answers must be found, she told herself firmly. And Sir Josse and I shall find them.

She whispered, ‘What should we do now?’

Turning from his intense concentration on the open space that lay ahead, he whispered back, ‘We are close to the grove where the two fallen oak trees lie, where Hamm discovered the treasure. It is, I believe, of some importance in the forest, and I think we should try to get closer.’

‘Very well. I was going to tell you, I—’ But now was not the moment, and in answer to his eyebrows raised in enquiry, she shook her head.

He hitched the pack higher on his back, and was about to set forth when he hesitated. With a quick look back to her, he said, ‘They – whoever they may be – could be in the oak grove. We must be absolutely silent.’

She smiled in the darkness, and said, ‘I realise that. I’ll be as quiet as the grave.’

Only as she began to creep after him did she wish she had used any other word but ‘grave’.

*   *   *

The next mile seemed terribly slow. Copying him, she trod carefully, trying each footstep before committing herself to it, making sure no cracking twig gave them away. It was nerve-racking.

At last, he stopped once more. Again, they were on the edge of an open space, but this time it was a much wider one. And, peering round the comforting bulk of Josse’s shoulder, Helewise could see two vast felled oak trees lying across the short turf.

But, apart from the trees, the grove was empty.

Josse was moving forward, peering into the shadows that encircled the moonlit space. Suddenly he gave a soft exclamation, and, as he came back to her, she saw that he was grinning.

‘They’re ahead of us,’ he said softly, when he was right beside her again. ‘In another clearing, through there.’ He pointed.

She looked, but could see nothing. ‘Where?’

He took hold of her shoulders and pushed her gently towards the open space. ‘Go to where the trees thin out, and look to your left,’ he ordered.

She did as he said. And, staring into the darkness of an apparently impenetrable thicket of old trees, younger trees and dense, scrubby undergrowth, she saw what he had seen.

A light.

Faint, as if a single candle had been lit, or perhaps a small and carefully contained fire. But, in the deserted blackness, a strange sight.

She was about to return to him, ask what he thought should be their next move, when something caught her eye.

That light … It was as if, just for a split-second, it had been extinguished, then, just as quickly, relit. Watching, straining her eyes, it happened again.

What was it? Could it be—

Then she knew.

The blinking-out effect had an obvious cause, when you stopped to think about it. A cause that explained, too, why it went on happening.

Somebody was moving between Helewise and the source of the light.

Out in that hidden grove, there were other beings abroad in the forest.

For all that she had known they must be out there – what else, indeed, was the purpose of this whole enterprise but to find them? – still, the sight of human movement, so close by, set her heart thumping.

The fear came flooding back, with the speed and the unremitting force of the tide over flat sands. And Helewise, forgetting all about being quiet, raced the few paces back to Josse’s side as if she herself were in danger of inundation.

Chapter Fifteen

Silent as wraiths, they moved around the fringes of the oak grove, keeping to the shadows, pressing close to the surrounding trees.

As they passed the place where he had found the ancient ruined temple, Josse thought, I have never yet been further into the forest than this.

Amid all the other causes for concern, this was a new one. And, illogical though it was, somehow it was the most frightening.

The Abbess, he thought, more to take his mind off his apprehension than for any other reason, was obeying his command to move even more quietly. Had he not been perfectly well aware that she was behind him, he would never have guessed. Moving as if she had been specially trained for silent night operations, she made not a sound. Once or twice he had to fight the temptation to turn round and make sure she was still with him.

He would never have guessed, either, that a nun would be so well adapted for hard exercise; the pace he had set had made no concession to having a woman with him, less out of deliberate consideration for her and more because it had not entered his mind. Fear and intense concentration, he had found, tended to drive courtesy and pretty manners right out of the head.

Was she afraid? He would think no less of her if she were. How could he, when he was fearful himself? If she was afraid, she didn’t show it, which was in itself brave. As a commanding officer had once said long ago to Josse, there is no courage where there is no fear.

They had almost reached the far side of the oak grove. Entering the thick undergrowth, Josse strained his eyes for a sign of a path, however insignificant. If there were no break at all in the trees, then how were they going to proceed?

But there was a break. Hardly worthy of the name of path, a thin trickle of a track led away into the thicket. Pushing at tall, abundant bracken, which, Josse soon discovered, concealed an equal density of bramble, he led the way on towards the light.

After an unpleasant time of thrusting and edging forward, whilst keeping in mind the imperative need for silence, at last the undergrowth began to thin out. Staring ahead, Josse could see clear moonlight; they were approaching another grove.

The trees that led up to and encircled it were ancient and tall, and spaced far enough apart to allow for considerable new growth beneath them. There was, Josse thought in wonder, almost a sense of pattern about them, as if, aeons ago, someone had planted them with the intention of making an avenue. As if, wishing to honour this pathway that led to the holy grove, someone had marked it with a double row of the most sacred of trees …

For the trees that set the grove apart from the rest of the forest were, without exception, oaks.

Selecting one with a broader trunk than its fellows, Josse crept up to it, and the Abbess followed. Pressing themselves against the gnarled bark, they stared out into the moonlit space before them.

For what seemed like a long time, nothing happened.

The fire – built on a stone hearth right in the centre of the clearing – burned on brightly, sending out the occasional crackle which made them both jump. Beside it was a thick, heavy section of wood, a man’s height in length, remnant, perhaps, of a long-ago fallen tree. Staring at it, Josse was struck with the bizarre notion that it did not in fact lie there from any natural event, but that it had been
placed
there, after having been cut and shaped according to the dictates of some age-old ritual.

Unbidden, he recalled Sheriff Pelham’s words.
They do things, when it’s full moon.
And, even more worrying,
the forest folk don’t like trespassers, specially not at full moon.

Was that what they were, he and the Abbess? Trespassers, about to witness some terrible rite? About to commit the forbidden infringement for which another man had been killed?

The folly of what they were doing – of what he had allowed the Abbess to persuade him to do – struck Josse like a poleaxe to the forehead. Turning, he said in a whisper, ‘Abbess, we shouldn’t be here, it’s—’

But, whatever it was, it was too late.

Someone had entered the grove.

*   *   *

At some time during their witnessing of what happened then, Abbess Helewise must have taken hold of his arm. He couldn’t have said exactly when; all he thought, both at the time and afterwards, was how very glad he was that she had done so. Had he not had that small human contact, he might have lost even the small amount of wits necessary to stop him doing something stupid.

Something such as responding to the blood thundering through his body and, in answer to the potent summons of all that he saw, rushing out into the moonlit clearing and begging to be allowed to join in.

Sheriff Pelham, absurd though it was, had been quite right.

Before Josse and the Abbess’s astounded eyes, just as he had said, things were indeed done under the full moon …

*   *   *

It began with a lone robed figure making a complete circuit of the grove. It was a woman, undoubtedly, for, apart from the long grey-white hair that hung down her back as far as her waist, she had a woman’s slight build. She held in her hand a bunch of some sort of herbs or seed-heavy grasses, and she had set light to the dried, twig-like fronds by dipping them into the fire. Waving the smouldering bunch to and fro in front of her as she slowly paced, she set clouds of smoke wafting out into the night air. Scented smoke – strongly, pungently scented.