Ashes of the Elements (25 page)

Sister Emanuel’s murmured reply was inaudible. Catching sight of Helewise, she made an excuse to the old nun and approached the Abbess.

‘Good afternoon, Abbess.’ She made a deep reverence.

‘Good afternoon, Sister Emanuel.’ Helewise paused. Then, since it was her policy to leave her nuns in no doubt that she understood the various crosses they had to bear, she said softly, ‘The Abbess Mary is a great perfectionist, is she not? And, as such, not your easiest patient.’

‘She is quite right to complain,’ Sister Emanuel replied. ‘Her porridge was spilled, and the mess was not properly cleaned up until I returned from Tierce.’

‘That, I should have thought, scarcely constitutes all morning,’ Helewise observed.

Sister Emanuel shot her a brief look of gratitude, swiftly supplanted by her usual expression of lofty calm.

‘You wished to speak to me, Sister?’ Helewise said.

‘I did, Abbess.’ Sister Emanuel looked down the ward, and, spotting another of the nuns who worked in the home, made a small gesture and then pointed to the door. The nun nodded her comprehension. Sister Emanuel said, ‘The Sister will take charge. Shall we go and sit outside, Abbess?’

‘As you wish.’

Sister Emanuel led the way out to the bench where she and Helewise had sat before. Then, when they had settled themselves, she said, ‘The girl Esyllt has been absenting herself.’ She paused, as if still uncertain how much of Esyllt’s aberrant behaviour she must reveal to her Abbess. Then she went on, ‘I realise that I – we – do not have control over her comings and goings out of working hours, but…’ She trailed off.

‘But she has been absent when she should be working,’ Helewise finished for her. Yes. That probably explained the dirty pillow that wasn’t changed quickly enough.

Sister Emanuel gave a brief nod. ‘Yes.’

‘Is she here now?’ Helewise asked.

Sister Emanuel’s face showed her inner struggle. ‘Well … Abbess, I am quite certain she has been delayed somehow, and that very soon she will return. I’m sure that, once she is here, she will work twice as hard and make up for the lost time.’

‘I see.’ Helewise thought briefly. Esyllt, she was well aware, was a godsend to the devoted and hard-pressed Sister Emanuel, and the Abbess understood the Sister’s conflict. Reporting Esyllt’s absence might mean some sort of disciplinary action that would rob Sister Emanuel of her best assistant, but, on the other hand, Sister Emanuel really couldn’t go on allowing Esyllt’s flouting of the rules, which actually meant that the retirement home often had to do without her anyway.

Helewise said carefully, ‘Sister, when Esyllt returns, would you please send her straight to me? I do not wish to usurp your authority within your own area of responsibility, but will you let me deal with this matter?’

‘Gladly!’ Sister Emanuel said. ‘But, Abbess, do you—’ She broke off. The most disciplined of nuns, it was alien to her training to ask a question of her superior.

Understanding, Helewise said quietly, ‘I do have an inkling of what this may be about, Sister Emanuel.’

‘She is deeply troubled, poor girl,’ Sister Emanuel said, shaking her head. ‘If she can be helped, Abbess…’ Again, she left the sentence unfinished.

‘I pray that she can be,’ Helewise said. She glanced at Sister Emanuel. ‘
If
that is the case, Sister, and there is a way out of her troubles for Esyllt, am I right in assuming that you would wish her to continue working here with you and your old people?’

‘Oh,
yes
!’ Sister Emanuel said, with uncharacteristic fervour. ‘Abbess, she is the best worker I have ever had.’

*   *   *

The afternoon was lazy with midsummer heat. Small blue butterflies flittered about the rosemary bushes that formed a hedge on the southern side of the cloister, and Helewise, reluctant to shut herself away in her room, sat down instead on the stone bench that ran along against the wall.

Esyllt, she thought sadly, is in torment. And, unable to come to me with her trouble, she appears to be trying to sort it out by herself. Oh, but she is so young! And, for all the happy confidence she used to possess, she is in truth but an inexperienced girl.

Helewise’s late husband had been wont to say, ‘Don’t go out looking for trouble, nor waste time worrying about things that might never happen.’ However, the Abbess, not being quite such an optimist, had always been a great believer in facing up to the worst that could happen, and planning what to do if it did. Usually, she had found, it didn’t. Nevertheless, having decided what to do if it did meant that those terrible four-in-the-morning anxieties, that ate at one’s peace of mind and took away any chance of sleep, could more readily be dismissed.

The worst that could have happened to Esyllt, Helewise was more and more convinced, was that, in the forest for some as yet unknown purpose on the last full-moon night, she had come across Ewen Asher, fleeing from his treasure-seeking activities in the fallen oak grove. And that he, full of the various thrills of finding valuables and being scared out of his wits, had been unable to resist the armful of well-developed womanhood that had literally tumbled against him. He had stripped Esyllt of her undergarments, been on the point of raping her – perhaps even succeeded, poor lass – when, in her horrified disgust and her terror, she had drawn the man’s own knife and stuck it into him.

As if that were not enough, Helewise thought miserably, now the poor child has to sit up here knowing that another is in jail awaiting trial for the murder.

What would happen if, as seemed highly likely, Seth Miller were found guilty and sent for execution? Would Esyllt let him hang, or would she come forward?

Helewise already knew the answer to that. Not that it was in the least consoling.

Trying to banish from her mind the dreadful images of a well-developed female body jerking and twisting on the end of a rope, while the face blackened and the swollen tongue began to protrude, abruptly she got up, went into her room and firmly closed the door.

*   *   *

She was on the point of going across to the Abbey church for some quiet moments of prayer before Nones when, from somewhere outside, she heard raised voices, followed by the thump of running feet. She was actually moving across to the door when someone’s fist began banging on it; opening up, she was met by the face of a stranger.

‘Abbess Helewise?’ the man gasped.

‘Yes?’

‘Abbess, do you have Sir Josse d’Acquin, King’s knight, putting up here?’ he demanded urgently.

‘Indeed. He is resting at present, down in the vale. Where the monks tend the pilgrims who—’

‘Abbess, forgive me, but please will you send for him?’ The man’s distress was evident. ‘We need his help!’

‘Of course,’ Helewise said, already leading the man back outside and looking round for someone who could take a message to Josse. ‘Ah! Brother Michael!’ she called. ‘Will you come here, please?’ Turning back to the man, she said, ‘Now, where do you come from, and what is the trouble?’

The man watched Brother Michael come hurrying across from the infirmary. His face intent, at first he didn’t answer.

‘Who sent you?’ Helewise repeated, rather more firmly.

‘Eh? Oh, yes. I’m Tobias Durand’s man, I serve him and the Lady Petronilla. And, oh, God!’ Momentarily his face crumpled, as if overcome all over again by whatever dire happening it was that required Josse’s help. ‘Abbess, we shall need your prayers, yours and all the sisters’,’ he said.

‘Why?’ she demanded.

He swallowed, and, making a very evident effort to control himself, said, ‘There’s been a death at the hall.’

Chapter Twenty

Helewise, watching Josse as he waited with ill-concealed impatience for his horse to be brought, thought that he did not seem any more fit for a fairly long ride with, at journey’s end, a serious problem to face, than she was herself.

‘Will you not rest for this night, and set out in the morning?’ she suggested, knowing he would say no but unable to let that prevent her from asking. ‘You and I both inhaled that wretched smoke, we are both, I am quite certain, still suffering from the after effects of whatever narcotic was in it.’

He looked down at her. ‘I am grateful for your consideration. Helewise, but—’ He looked away. Then, as if he had remembered where they were, and that, back in the Abbey, the informality which had relaxed their relationship out in the wild forest must be forgotten as if it had never been, he said, ‘I am perfectly well, thank you, Abbess. And it is my duty to go when I am summoned.’

‘Very well.’ She stood back, feeling the twin emotions of being grateful for his courtesy and his consideration, while, at the same time, missing his warm friendliness.

Sister Martha at last led Horace out of the stables; the horse’s coat shone as if she had spent all afternoon grooming him. She handed the reins to Josse, and he swung up into the saddle.

Helewise went to stand at his stirrup. ‘Send me word,’ she said softly.

His eyes met hers, and, as if he understood her anxiety, smiled. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘That I will. That, or I’ll return and tell you myself.’

Then, kicking Horace into a trot he set off out through the Abbey gates.

*   *   *

The messenger had gone on ahead to say that Josse was on his way. Riding swiftly, his mind busy with conjecture, the long miles of the journey passed by scarcely noticed.

He rode into the walled and well-tended courtyard of Tobias and Petronilla Durand’s fine house. This time, it was not the master who greeted him, but the manservant, Paul.

Solemn-faced, eyes dulled with some wearying emotion, he said in a low voice, ‘This way, Sir Josse. The body lies where it fell.’

The messenger, appearing from the stables, rushed over to take Josse’s horse. Josse, straightening his tunic with a determined tug, followed Paul up the steps and into the house.

After the sunshine, the light within seemed very dim, and it took Josse a moment or two to make out clearly the scene that awaited him.

Then, as his eyes adjusted, he saw what they had called him to see.

Stretched out at the foot of the short flight of steps that led from the dais, where the dining table stood, down into the main area of the hall, lay a body.

A long body, dressed in the best, the rich colours of the fabrics glowing in the soft light. The corpse lay face down, and, from the blood staining the stone slabs beneath, it appeared that death had come as a result of some catastrophic injury to the front of the head.

Josse said quietly, ‘When did it happen?’

‘This morning,’ Paul replied mournfully. ‘Just this morning,’ he repeated, as if he could hardly believe his own words. ‘They hadn’t even sat down to breakfast.’

As Paul crossed himself and muttered a prayer, Josse knelt down and put his hand on the already-cold temple of Tobias Durand.

Moving his hand so that his palm cupped the forehead, gently he raised up the head. The abundant hair, glossy with health, fell forward over the dead face, and Josse had to push it aside before he could see the wound.

The damage was terrible. The wound, deep, and shaped almost like a pyramid, must, Josse thought, have been caused by a hard point of some sort … Looking down at where Tobias’s face had lain, he saw the edge of the bottom step. Newly constructed, presumably as part of the renovations which had been carried out following Petronilla and Tobias’s marriage, the step was sharp-edged and unworn, and the riser, tread and side came together to form the corner of a perfect right-angled cube.

‘The lady Petronilla said he tripped over his hound,’ Paul said, his voice breaking. ‘He – the master – was larking about, she said, jumping down from the dais to take her hand and lead her to table, and the hound, excited by all the fun and games, started barking, then it bounded up and tangled itself in the master’s legs.’ He sniffed, wiping his nose with his sleeve. ‘I heard voices, I heard the barking, then there was the sound of something heavy falling. Then there was this terrible silence.’ He sniffed again.

‘And you came hurrying into the hall and found him lying here?’ Josse asked gently.

‘Aye.’ Weeping openly now, Paul said, ‘My lady is heartbroken, sir. She sets such a store by him, I don’t know how she’ll manage without him, truly I don’t.’

And what of you? Josse thought. Whatever she decides to do, will the lady Petronilla still have need of her faithful manservant? Or will she, like so many widows above a certain age, decide that she has had enough of the world and retire behind the walls of some tranquil, welcoming convent?

Now was definitely not the time for such questions, even in the privacy of his thoughts. Judging that it was probably a good idea for Paul to have something to do, Josse began, ‘Paul, this death comes as the most dire shock, to you and the household, indeed, to us all.’ His eyes returned to the long, elegantly clad body, which, death having so recently come, still bore the outward semblance of life.

Death. So final. So terribly final.

Josse recovered himself, not without effort, and turned back to the grieving manservant. ‘The rest of the staff must be almost as upset as you,’ he said gently. ‘Could you, do you think, organise them into doing some sort of work?’ He cast round in his mind for a suitable task. ‘What does Tobias usually do in the afternoons?’

Paul scratched his head. ‘I don’t rightly know, sir. He’s often from home. He does take his hounds out sometimes, that I can tell you.’

‘Well, that’s one thing, then.’ Josse tried an encouraging smile. ‘And there’s his horse, presumably, needing exercise and then a good rub-down. And, even in this grief-stricken house, there will be need of food. Could you ask the household servants to prepare a meal?’

Paul drew himself up, as if, regretting his lapse, he was concerned to show that he had now resumed the mantle of his authority. ‘I shall do all that you ask, sir.’ With a formal little bow that briefly wrung Josse’s heart, Paul walked stiffly away.

Alone with the dead man, Josse felt all round the head for any sign of further injury. No. There was nothing.

But wait! What—

‘You have come, Sir Josse,’ said a quiet voice behind him. ‘I thank you for answering my summons.’