The Enchanter's Forest (25 page)

     The man looked her up and down, only belatedly according her, in an awkward and grudging bow, the respect that as a habited nun was her due. Then, with a sniff, he rubbed at his broken nose with the back of his hand and said, ‘Reckon that’s me. What d’you want?’

     ‘I am not prepared to discuss the matter out here in the open where we may be overheard,’ she said quietly. ‘Is there somewhere more private where we might go?’

     He glanced around. Then, evidently spotting whatever he was looking for, he called out, ‘Jack! Oi, Jack, come over here.’

     A man in a stained leather jerkin walked unhurriedly across to them. ‘What?’

     ‘Watch the gate here for me. I’ve got to talk to the nun here. She wants a word in private.’

     The man in the jerkin gave Helewise an assessing look. Then, turning to his companion: ‘All right, Hal, but don’t be long about it. I’m meant to be off duty and I’m about to get myself something to eat.’

     ‘I’ll take what time I want,’ the first guard said, swiftly rising anger turning his fleshy, deeply scarred face an unhealthy shade of purplish-red. ‘You answer to me, Jack, and don’t you go forgetting it!’

     Then, puffing out his chest like a cock in the barnyard, he said grandly to Helewise, ‘Follow me, if you will, Sister.’

     He led the way back along the track for a short distance before taking a narrower path off to the left. There was just about room for Helewise and her companions to ride, although she felt the undergrowth scratch against the fabric of her habit and once a branch of hazel pushed quite hard into her leg.

     The path opened out into a clearing where cut widths of tree trunk had been set out, presumably to serve as seats. The litter of hard crusts of bread, rinds of cheese and one or two coarse, cracked earthenware mugs lying around on the trampled grass suggested that it was the place where the guards went to take their refreshment breaks.

     ‘Now,’ the guard said, looking up at her through calculating, narrowed eyes, ‘will you dismount, Sister, so that we may speak?’

     Brother Augustus slipped off the mule’s back and, keeping hold of the reins, said, ‘Friend, this is the Abbess of Hawkenlye. You must address her as my lady Abbess.’

     The guard looked quite impressed and his thin lips twisted in a gap-toothed grin. ‘Sorry, my lady Abbess, didn’t know who you were.’

     ‘It’s quite all right,’ Helewise said.

     ‘Right. Now, then. What can I do for you?’

     ‘A body has been brought to the Abbey,’ she said without preamble. ‘It is that of a well-dressed and handsome young man and it was found in a bramble thicket some four or five miles from here. A party of merchants found it, locating its place of concealment by the smell; the victim had been dead for some days. Since the body was found quite close to Merlin’s Tomb, I must ask you if anyone corresponding to this description has recently visited the tomb.’

     The guard had heard her out in silence, his face unreadable. When she finished speaking he said, ‘What was he wearing and what did he look like?’ Helewise told him. ‘Did he have a horse?’

     ‘No mention was made of a horse.’ She had been careful not to say how the man had died, just as now she made sure not to offer the suggestion that any horse the dead man might have been riding would surely have eventually made for home when its owner failed to remount and kick it on again.

     The man was frowning. Then he said neutrally, ‘Our master is missing. Hasn’t been seen for four days now.’

     ‘You mean Florian of Southfrith?’ Helewise tried to keep the shock out of her voice. Was the body at Hawkenlye that of Florian? Unbidden she heard in her mind the Domina’s voice:
There are things that could be done
. But the guard was speaking; stamping down the whirling thoughts, she made herself listen.

     ‘The very same,’ the guard said. Now he sounded like a gossip avid to impart news. ‘He was busy in the afternoon and early evening four days back counting his takings. He was going to bag up the money and take it home after the last visitors had gone. Well, other than the few who stopped over. If we had any that night, that is. I could check,’ he offered. He was, Helewise noted, being considerably more co-operative now that he knew who she was. Rank does indeed have its uses, she thought wryly.

     ‘Was it generally known that he was to ride home with the money?’ she asked. ‘If indeed he rode?’

     ‘He rode all right. Had a fast-paced bay gelding that must have set him back a tidy sum,’ the guard said. ‘And as to it being known, aye, I reckon it was. It’s no secret how much he’s taking here, my lady Abbess, nor, I reckon, that he usually takes the money home two or even three times a week. People have eyes to see the coins changing hands and brains to do the adding-up.’

     ‘He was in the habit of taking the money away with him unescorted?’ she asked. It seemed very foolhardy.

     The guard shook his head. ‘No. It was more usual for one of us guards to go with him, and he picked us special like, on account of we all know how to handle ourselves in a fight and have no qualms over bearing arms and using them if we have to. But that night, nobody could be spared. I remember now’ – he nodded enthusiastically – ‘we’d been busy and there were a party of seven staying over. Florian, he said we had to help out. He didn’t want folk going away and saying they hadn’t got their money’s worth, see, so Jack and me and the others, off we went to the accommodation huts to dole out food and shake up mattresses.’ His look of disdain told her what he thought about that.

     ‘So quite a lot of people would have known that he was to take a large sum of money home with him but with no bodyguard,’ she mused.

     ‘I can guess what you’re thinking, my lady, but it weren’t as risky as it sounds on account of that bay of his,’ the guard said. ‘It went like the wind and Florian said he could outrun anyone as tried to apprehend him and rob him.’

     ‘I see.’ What, Helewise wondered, became of the horse? Had it indeed returned to Florian’s home? But if so, then why had nobody raised the alarm? A riderless horse coming in late at night must surely have sent Florian’s wife and her mother into a veritable panic of alarm.

     Perhaps it did, Helewise thought. Perhaps they sent for help and even now a search party is out looking for Florian. A search party that for some reason has not yet got as far as Hawkenlye Abbey. Which, considering the Abbey’s fame hereabouts, must be a very odd search party indeed.

     Her next move was now clear. ‘Thank you for your help,’ she said to the guard. ‘Now one last request: tell me, if you please, how I may find Florian of Southfrith’s dwelling place.’

The directions were easy to follow and presently Helewise was leading her companions through the gate and into the courtyard of Florian’s Hadfeld manor house. There was a row of tethering rings set in the wall and, dismounting, Helewise tied her mount’s reins. Brother Augustus and Sister Caliste did the same. Then, turning slowly to look about her, Helewise took in the scene.

     There was a new extension under construction and the half-built walls were keeping a team of men busy. She could hear them talking; occasionally someone would call out a request for some tool or item of building material, to which there would be a cheerful response. A happy work force, she thought, doing a skilful job in fine weather for good wages.

     She crossed the courtyard to the steps leading up to the main building, sensing Augustus and Caliste falling in behind her. Mounting the steps while her companions waited at their foot, she knocked on the stout door. After quite a long wait – she was just about to knock again – the door opened.

     The woman who stood on the step staring out at Helewise with hostile eyes and an arrogant tilt to her chin was dressed entirely in black. Her hair was drawn off her face and covered with a little close-fitting black silk cap, over which was pinned a long, dark, semi-translucent veil which fell forward over her forehead almost as far as her eyes. In a voice that had the harsh timbre of a cawing crow, she said in heavily accented English, ‘Yes? Who are you?’

     Helewise announced herself. Then, feeling her way cautiously, she said, ‘I wish to speak to the wife of Florian of Southfrith, whom I understand to be master here.’

     The woman made a sound that sounded as if she did not think much of this understanding. ‘He’s – not here,’ she said.

     ‘As I say, it is his wife to whom I wish to speak,’ Helewise repeated politely.

     The woman studied her, dark eyebrows drawn down. Then: ‘You can’t. She has taken to her bed.’

     ‘Is she sick?’

     ‘She is . . .’ The formidable woman hesitated. ‘Sick,
oui
.’

     ‘I am sorry to hear that,’ Helewise said. ‘Perhaps we can help? Sister Caliste here is a nursing nun and skilled in the healing arts.’

     ‘My daughter can see nobody,’ the woman said firmly. ‘She is . . .’ Again, she seemed to be searching for the right words. It could be, Helewise thought, because she was unaccustomed to speaking English. Alternatively, it could be because she was weighing what she said extremely carefully so as not to give too much away  . . .

     I am not going to stand here on the doorstep like some pedlar trying to sell his wares, she decided. She drew in a breath and then said quietly, ‘The body of a young man has been brought to Hawkenlye Abbey. I have just come from Merlin’s Tomb, where I was told that Florian of Southfrith has not been seen for four days. The description that I gave to the guard there at the tomb appears to match that of your son-in-law and so I am very reluctantly forced to inform you that I believe the young man lying in our infirmary awaiting burial is indeed Florian.’

     The woman’s face might have been carved from marble for all the reaction the features displayed to this terrible news. After a moment, the thin mouth opened and, lapsing into her mother tongue, she said, ‘It is as I feared, then. Primevère keeps saying that I am foolish to worry, that it is merely that he stays for more days out at the tomb in the forest – he is in the habit of remaining there for several days at a time, so eager is he to ensure that everything runs well – but me, I say we should send men to look for him. Now, alas, it seems I was right to be concerned.’

     Helewise, trying to follow the rapid French – a language that nowadays she spoke infrequently – silently gave her brain a sharp nudge and replied in the same tongue. ‘Perhaps it would be wise for someone from your household to view the body to make quite sure it is that of Florian,’ she suggested. ‘If your daughter is already sick, then it would be unkind to risk upsetting her for nothing if the dead man proves to be someone else.’

     The woman in black considered this for some time and then gave a curt nod. ‘It is sensible,’ she conceded. She thought further, frowning. Then: ‘I shall come myself. Wait here.’ Then she closed the door.

     Helewise turned and slowly descended the steps. ‘That is Florian’s mother-in-law,’ she muttered to Augustus and Caliste. ‘She is going to return to Hawkenlye with us to view the body. She seems certain it’s Florian but we will wait for proof before she breaks the news to his wife.’ Dropping her voice still lower, she added, ‘The girl’s name is Primevère.’

     ‘Primrose,’ Sister Caliste breathed. ‘How pretty.’ Her face fell into dismay. ‘Oh, the poor girl! It’s dreadful for her, isn’t it, my lady? And she doesn’t even know yet that he’s dead!’

     ‘Indeed not,’ Helewise agreed, ‘for the mother says her daughter is still making herself believe that nothing is amiss; that Florian is merely staying on for a few more days at the tomb in the forest. And already Primevère lies sick in her bed, although what ails her I do not know. Perhaps it is anxiety about her husband. That would be readily understandable, for all that she may profess not to be concerned.’

     ‘Did you ask about the horse, my lady?’ Augustus asked softly.

     ‘No, Gus, I didn’t. Do you think I should?’

     ‘Oh!’ The young man seemed surprised and embarrassed to have his opinion sought. Then, sensibly, he put the reaction aside and answered the question. ‘Well, seems to me as if the horse can’t have turned up, else the alarm would have been raised.’

     ‘Quite so,’ she said.

     ‘If on the other hand the horse came home alone and nobody thought to wonder what had become of the rider,’ Augustus went on, ‘then that might very well be something we ought to investigate. Why, I mean, did nobody go out looking for him?’

     ‘How would we know if the horse
did
come home?’ whispered Helewise.