The Paths of the Air (10 page)

Josse watched Gervase de Gifford ride through the Abbey gates early the next morning.

Gervase had married Sabin de Retz in the spring and Josse had danced at the wedding. It had been a joyful day, for Sabin and Gervase were deeply in love and, having taken the decision to stay in Tonbridge rather than return to her native Brittany, Sabin appeared to have every intention of throwing herself wholeheartedly into her new life. Her old grandfather had come to England with her. Like Sabin, he was an apothecary and he was going to continue to teach her as she set about practising her skill in Tonbridge.

Josse had heard that Sabin was pregnant. He would have liked to congratulate the prospective father but now was hardly the time. It seemed wrong to celebrate the conception of a new life when one had just been so savagely brought to an end.

He stepped forward to greet Gervase as he dismounted. The two men embraced and Josse muttered, ‘It is good to see you, Gervase. A dreadful thing has happened and—'

‘Josse, I am sorry but I bring more bad tidings. Shall we find the Abbess?' He glanced at Sister Ursel, hovering close by, and at Sister Martha, holding out her hand for the reins.

Understanding, Josse led the way to the Abbess's private room. She was seated at her big table and she got up to greet the sheriff. ‘Gervase, thank you for coming. We—'

‘Something else has happened, my lady,' Josse said. He glanced at Gervase, whose handsome face wore a sombre expression. ‘Gervase?'

‘In the early hours of this morning there was a fire in the new guest quarters of the priory at Tonbridge,' he said baldly. ‘They are still busy with building work and it is suggested that the fire may have started in a brazier left smouldering when the workmen left the site last night.'

Josse thought that it sounded unlikely, since for one thing, braziers did a good job of containing fires, even fierce ones, and for another, workmen were fully aware of the risk of fire to timber-framed buildings and were extremely careful with it. He heard the Abbess ask the question which he too should have thought of first: she said, ‘Was anyone hurt?'

‘One man killed, my lady. Two injured, one very badly. There were but the three of them in the guest accommodation last night.'

‘Are the wounded men well enough to be brought here? My infirmarer has great skill and undoubtedly she could help them, unless transporting them is impossible?'

‘I was hoping that perhaps Sister Euphemia might come down to Tonbridge,' Gervase replied. ‘My initial thought was indeed that the survivors would be best off here at Hawkenlye, but I would prefer to have a healer look at them before they are moved.'

‘Sister Euphemia is skilled in the use of analgesics,' the Abbess said. ‘It would be best to dull their pain before attempting to move them.'

The ghost of a tender smile crossed Gervase's face. ‘Sabin has already administered one of her concoctions,' he said. ‘Both men are now sleeping.'

‘Thank God for your Sabin,' the Abbess exclaimed warmly.

‘Amen,' murmured Gervase.

‘I will ask Sister Euphemia to accompany you back to Tonbridge,' the Abbess announced, walking towards the door. ‘Do you need me to send some lay brothers to help bring the men back here?'

‘No, my lady, thank you. One of my men is already organizing a cart.' Gervase opened the door and then turned to Josse, standing silent by his side. ‘Will you come with me, Josse? I am disturbed by this fire, which so neatly destroyed only the guest accommodation.'

‘You don't suspect it was started deliberately?'

‘It is a convenient way of killing someone,' Gervase answered. ‘And we both know of another fire, in another land, where the motive was murder, although that time the murderer did not succeed.'

‘Aye,' Josse said. He knew that Gervase referred to an episode in Sabin's past. ‘It is a grave accusation.'

Gervase shrugged. ‘I will say no more now. Come and see for yourself, Josse.'

They turned to hurry away but the Abbess called them back. ‘I do not wish to detain you, Gervase,' she said, ‘but is the identity of these three men known?'

‘Yes, my lady. Neither survivor is in a condition to speak, but I asked the canon in charge of the guest quarters. He told me they are Knights Hospitaller and their leader's name is Thibault of Margat.'

‘Then they are the trio who came here!' she cried. ‘They arrived a couple of days ago and were going on to Tonbridge and then to their Order's headquarters at Clerkenwell. Why did they not ask to stay here with us? We have excellent facilities in our guest quarters or, if they preferred something simpler, they could have put up with the brethren down in the Vale. Either way, we would have made them welcome! Oh, if they had done so, this tragedy would have been avoided!'

Josse pitied her anguish. He knew why the Hospitallers had elected to stay with the canons at Tonbridge rather than the Hawkenlye community: because at the priory there were no women. Thibault of Margat, Josse had observed, was a misogynist whose revulsion for the female sex appeared to extend to nuns.

But he wasn't going to say so.

Gervase's brow had creased in a frown. ‘I do not know, my lady. Apparently the trio were trying to find a runaway monk and they had based themselves there in the priory while they pursued their search. The canon who told me this added something odd: he said, “They were like hounds after the quarry, but it seems their quarry has turned round and bitten the hounds.”'

‘Then this canon too suspects that the fire was started deliberately?' Josse asked.

And Gervase said simply, ‘Yes.'

Part Two
The Warrior Monks

Six

T
he fire had been very particular in what it had consumed. The priory's guest wing had been completely destroyed, leaving no more than one or two charred uprights and a strong smell of burning. The remaining buildings of the new foundation, for all that they were but a short distance away, had scarcely been singed; the wattle-and-daub walls and the reed thatching were intact.

As Josse and Gervase approached the smouldering ruin, Sister Euphemia and Sister Caliste riding behind them, Josse reflected that for once the priory's proximity to the river had worked in its favour. When work had commenced on the foundation, locals had remarked pessimistically that it was nothing but folly to build on low-lying ground so close to the water, where the heavy clay was soggy for most of the year and where the yellowish mists brought a man nothing but colds, catarrh, coughs and consumption. When the rumours had spread that the canons had trouble singing the daily round of offices because at any time at least half of them were suffering from sore throats, the locals had nodded wisely and said, told you so.

Well, Josse thought, that might be the case. But before dawn this morning, the river that made the canons' existence a permanently damp and rheumy one saved not only most of their new foundation but also their lives. If, that was, the fire had been an accident and not intended to burn down no more than the guest wing . . .

A short, stocky man dressed in a hooded black cloak over a white surplice was striding to meet them. Raising a hand to Gervase, he addressed Josse. ‘I am Canon Mark,' he said. ‘Are you Sir Josse d'Acquin?' Josse nodded. ‘Then glad I am to see you, for your reputation has gone ahead of you.'

‘Oh – er, thank you,' Josse said.

‘And you have brought the nursing sisters!' Canon Mark exclaimed, beaming up at the nuns.

‘Two of Hawkenlye's finest,' Josse confirmed. ‘This is Sister Euphemia, the infirmarer, and this is Sister Caliste.'

‘Ladies, gentlemen, please dismount and I will call someone to see to your horses.' Mark looked around, spotted a brother apparently doing nothing but staring at the new arrivals and called him over. As the young canon led the horses away, Mark said, ‘Now, first let me take the two nuns to see their patients. Mistress Gifford is tending them with great skill but they are a sorry sight and I am sure she would welcome some support.' Turning on his heel, he led the way to a low building only a few paces from the burned-out guest quarters. ‘We've put them in here because it was closest,' he said over his shoulder. Then, ushering his visitors through the open door: ‘There they are.'

Josse saw a body lying on the ground, covered from head to toe with a muddy length of darned linen. Two other men lay on low cots. They were filthy, the remnants of their garments charred and sticking to their skin. Their faces were badly burned, swollen and unrecognizable. Both were asleep or unconscious.

Between them stood Sabin de Gifford.

Her eyes flew first to Josse and she murmured, ‘Josse, I am glad to see you.' Then she moved to greet the two nuns, and Josse saw that Sister Euphemia put a concerned arm around the young woman's waist as she muttered some urgent question. ‘I am quite all right,' he heard Sabin reply. ‘Thank you for your concern, but I am neither overtaxed nor overtired.'

Word of her condition must have spread, Josse thought. With a surreptitious glance, he observed that any bump she might be showing would not be visible beneath her cloak and her voluminous white apron.

‘We hope to take the wounded men up to Hawkenlye,' Josse said. ‘Are they fit to make the journey?'

He might have directed the question at Sabin but it was the infirmarer, bending down and studying the two men in turn, who answered. ‘Sabin has done a fine job,' she announced. ‘What did you give them?' she asked, and Sabin replied with a string of ingredients out of which Josse understood only poppy and monkshood. Lord, I thought monkshood was a deadly poison, he thought in alarm. But the infirmarer was nodding her approval; presumably Sabin knew what she was doing and whatever she had given the two Hospitallers had succeeded in sending them into a deep and hopefully pain-free sleep.

‘I think,' Sister Euphemia was saying, ‘we may safely take them up to the infirmary and I suggest we make haste about it before the drugs wear off and they begin to feel their hurts once more.'

Canon Mark needed no further instruction. Already he was hurrying out and Josse heard him shouting to his brethren, issuing orders for the sheriff's man and his cart to be brought up and for straw palliasses, pillows and blankets to be loaded onto it. Very shortly afterwards, the two unconscious men were tenderly carried out to the cart. The nuns volunteered to accompany them and a sister sat beside each of the patients to watch closely over them during the slow journey up to the Abbey. The man driving the horses was given final instructions to go as gently as road conditions allowed, and then they set off.

Gervase went to see Sabin home and Josse watched as he gave his wife a kiss and took her leather bag from her. Josse was about to go over to where the horses were tethered and organize leading reins for the two sisters' mounts when Canon Mark caught his sleeve.

‘A word, Sir Josse, if I may,' he said. ‘I wanted to speak to de Gifford as well, but he has gone . . .'

‘He is escorting his wife home,' Josse said.

‘Ah, yes, of course.'

‘I will pass on to him anything that you tell me.'

Josse guessed that the canon was going to voice his suspicions about the fire and he was correct. ‘I am worried about how this blaze was started,' he said quietly, lowering his voice and leaning close to Josse. ‘There is a suggestion being bandied about that it was caused by carelessness with a brazier, but this simply cannot be so because I take it upon myself to check that all the workmen's braziers are dead at the end of each day.' No wonder the poor man is so agitated, Josse thought; he senses that his own reputation is at stake. ‘I know the dangers of fire,' the canon added, ‘as do we all, and as soon as the alarm went up, the fire drill that I myself devised was set in motion. All of us were ready with our buckets, forming a chain from the river bank. Canon John and I soaked our garments, covered our noses and mouths with wet cloths and dashed into the guest wing, where we were able to grab the two Hospitallers nearest to the door and drag them outside. But, Sir Josse – and this is what both puzzles and disturbs me – the fire showed no inclination to spread to neighbouring buildings! There we all stood, water at the ready, yet once it was done with the guest wing, the fire went out!'

‘
Went out?
' Josse could not believe it. ‘Was it not rather that you and your men had already soaked the walls and roofs of the neighbouring buildings so that the fire could not take hold?'

‘No, no,
no
, there was no time for that!' Mark insisted, agitated. ‘I was at the head of the chain and I
swear
to you that only I and perhaps a dozen others had thrown the contents of our pails before the flames died. What do you make of that, Sir Josse?'

‘I am not yet prepared to say,' Josse replied cautiously.

Mark tutted impatiently. ‘Then come and look at this,' he said, grabbing Josse's arm and dragging him back to the small room where the patients had been put. Striding across the floor, he drew back the linen that covered the dead man. ‘This one was Brother Jeremiah. God rest his soul,' Mark said, and so great was his urgency that Josse decided the last four words were an afterthought. ‘Look, Sir Josse.' Mark was turning the dead head on the muddy ground. ‘What do you say to this?'

Josse crouched beside him, staring down at the left side of the dead monk's head where Mark was pointing.

‘I see nothing,' he began, ‘and I—'

Mark tutted again. ‘Don't look,
feel
.' Grabbing Josse's hand, he pushed the fingers down into the smooth, dark blond hair. ‘There!'

Under Josse's fingers he felt a huge swelling.

Something – or someone – had struck Brother Jeremiah very hard behind his left ear. And that was not all: as Josse continued to probe, he felt a deep depression right in the middle of the back of the skull. Sickeningly, he detected sharp splinters of bone.