The Song of the Nightingale (20 page)

Yet when she had come across Jehan Leferronier sitting so calmly in her hut, and he had told her he was about to leave and where he was bound, she knew as if it had been planned out for her that she would go with him. She was still not ready to think about that; about why it was she did not even pause to question whether he was a threat to her or whether he would keep her safe.

She already knew.

The one thought hammering through her mind as she'd raced back to the cell beside St Edmund's Chapel to stuff her few belongings into her bag and gather up her heavy cloak had been:
oh, please, please, make him wait for me! Let him still be there when I get back!

He had, and he was. The reddish-chestnut horse stood ready, bridled and with a simple saddle on his broad back, attached to which were two worn leather saddlebags. Jehan, it appeared, travelled light. The man himself was busy with the knot that fastened the door. Not turning round – he had known without looking the very moment she stepped into the glade – he'd said, ‘I believe I now can do it precisely as you do.'

Approaching, she had checked. He could.

They had set out straight away, and by the time dawn had begun to light the sky in the east, they were already out on the south side of the great forest and in the valleys and small, wooded ridges between the Weald and the South Downs. Now it was mid-morning, and, as the big horse trod carefully along a narrow little track that wound and twisted along the high ground behind a small village, Meggie wondered what was happening back at home.

It had been quite easy to persuade Little Helewise not to come with her, desperate as the girl was for news of Ninian. With the pregnant woman's instinct to protect her child, she had readily accepted that the journey Meggie was about to undertake was too risky for her and her baby girl. That, Meggie reflected, was her one regret: she had let it slip that Little Helewise was carrying a girl.

My one regret?
she thought now.
What about making my father suffer agonies of anxiety and pain because I've ridden off without saying goodbye?

She wasn't going to turn back; she couldn't. She could only appeal to the kindly spirits, imploring them to soothe Josse's sore heart and tell him she would be all right.

As the sun reached the zenith, Jehan turned his head and said over his shoulder, ‘Are you hungry?'

‘Yes,' she said instantly. She was surprised he hadn't heard her empty stomach grumbling. Perhaps he had.

‘We are sufficiently distant from any house or road to make a small camp,' he said, looking around, ‘provided we keep well hidden.' He pointed to a steep bank to the right of the path, behind which was a patch of woodland, the mixed deciduous and evergreen trees growing close together. He slipped off Auban's back. ‘Wait while I look?'

It was a question, not an order, and she nodded her agreement. Auban shifted his large, feathered feet as Jehan dismounted, and, moving forward into the saddle, Meggie took up the reins and spoke some quiet words. The horse flicked his ears, and she sensed his interest. She patted his neck, urging him forward a few paces and then back again. He responded readily, and she felt she was making a friend.

Jehan's head and shoulders appeared above the bank. ‘It is a good place,' he pronounced. ‘Will you bring Auban? The bank is lower along there—' he indicated – ‘and I think you will be able to enter the woods.'

He was testing her, she thought. Seeing if she was ready to ride the big horse and guide him in what was quite a difficult manoeuvre. ‘Yes,' she said.

Auban moved easily beneath her, negotiating the gap in the bank and then picking his way back to where Jehan waited. The dark man smiled. ‘I thought you might get off and lead him,' he said. ‘But you rode.'

Slipping down now, she put her face close to Auban's and breathed gently against his nose. ‘I like him,' she said.

‘He, I think, likes you too. Now—' he was already reaching for one of the saddlebags – ‘food for Auban, and food for us.'

She was collecting hearth stones, kindling and firewood. ‘And I will prepare a hot infusion to refresh us.'

Sometime later, with welcome food in their bellies, they sat finishing Meggie's brew. She had included some herbs to stimulate, for there were still many hours of daylight and they would no doubt ride on as long as they could. She wondered which port they were making for.

He was watching her, his dark eyes thoughtful. Meeting them, she said, ‘We'll have to break out of cover at some point, won't we?'

He frowned slightly. ‘Cover?'

‘I've noticed that so far you've been very careful to keep to the most remote places and the little-used tracks.' He began to speak, but she stopped him. ‘Not that I'm complaining – with Lord Benedict and his men after you, it makes very good sense not to leave a trail, nor to allow us to be seen by people in hamlets and villages who might remember and report having noticed us when asked.'

‘Very good sense,' he echoed. ‘
Oui
.'

‘But, although I don't know the land around here very well,' she went on, ‘I
do
know that there are open stretches where it'll be hard to hide. The great forest ends to the north of us, and, from what I've seen, it looks as if the patches of woodland are starting to thin out.'

He did not answer for a while. She guessed he was thinking about what she had said. ‘When I came to England,' he said eventually, ‘the ship on which I sailed arrived at a port to the south-west of here, on the eastern side of the great inlet that cuts into the south coast.' He smiled ruefully. ‘It was a small ship, and the winter winds blew hard, so we were very glad to reach dry land. The port was big and bustling, with many ships sailing in and out, and many people to see who passed through.'

‘Yes, but I don't think we need worry about Lord Benedict's men finding us so far away,' she began, ‘because they won't know—'

‘We should look for a much smaller place from which to set sail,' he went on, as if he hadn't heard. ‘I propose that we carry on along this ridge – which bends southwards as it goes west – and, when we emerge into open country, make for the coast with all speed.'

It made sense, she supposed. Having been so careful up to now, it probably was better to seek an out-of-the-way place to look for a ship. ‘Very well,' she said. ‘It is wise, after all, not to assume that danger is behind us.'

He looked at her gravely. ‘Danger is all around,' he said. ‘We must be watchful.'

They packed up, and Meggie cut turves to cover the mark of their little fire, tossing the stones back into the undergrowth. Jehan led Auban down on to the track, and soon Meggie was once more mounted behind him.

They rode on for some miles, with an ever-thinning line of woodland on their right and open downland to the left. Something was niggling at Meggie; something he had said. She worried at it, and presently it came to her. ‘Jehan?'

‘
Oui
?'

‘You said you crossed to England in the winter?'

‘
Oui.
'

‘Not – not
this
winter, just passed?' He couldn't have meant that, could he?

A shiver went through her.

He had done those dark deeds out of revenge, because all his victims had been cruel, violent bullies who had preyed on the weak. If he had only been in England a matter of weeks – at most, a couple of months, she reasoned, if he'd arrived as early as December – then how had he known? How had he identified so quickly the men he had killed and punished?

From Jehan, there came no answer. After a moment, he reached an arm behind him and his warm hand clasped her knee. ‘Meggie,' he said, ‘I am not the man you believe me to be.'

Whatever he had been about to tell her – and she barely dared think what it could be – he did not utter the words. Because just then there was a sound from within the line of trees that ran along perhaps a hundred paces away to their right; it sounded like a large animal, suddenly moving where it had been still. There was a muttered curse, and then a cry, and four horsemen burst out of the trees.

Jehan yelled, ‘
Hold on!
' and then they were flying, Auban's big feet pounding on the turf, racing over the ground with a speed she could never have imagined. She risked a quick look behind.

The horsemen were on the track behind them.

They seemed to be gaining on them.

In a small house standing alone on the lip of a valley beneath the great forest, Tiphaine was hard at work. In the house were two women. Neither of them, for very different reasons, was capable of doing much for herself. The older woman was lost in a world of her own; a world which, to judge by her perpetual tears and frequent outbursts of bewildered grief, was not a happy one. The younger woman had lost a lot of blood and was barely strong enough to sit up.

On arrival, Tiphaine had briefly surveyed the interior of the house, frowned, then rolled up her sleeves and set to work. She had lit a fire, built it up to a good, cheering blaze, and put pot after pot of water on to boil. Most of the room needed to be cleaned, but, before that, what was most urgently required was a heartening infusion. Tiphaine mixed valerian, chamomile and linden flowers, and, as the sweet smell of the dried linden blossoms permeated the room, she sensed a very slight lifting of the prevailing mood. When both mother and daughter had finished their drinks, Tiphaine made a further medicine for Melania, now including herbs to slow the blood flow.

Soon there was no sound from either woman except for steady, soft breathing; both slept. Tiphaine nodded in silent satisfaction. She had made the sedative deliberately powerful, knowing that what her patients needed more than anything else was sleep.

Presently, she realized that she was going to run out of fuel for the fire. The trauma that had hit this household in January had thrown the inhabitants far out of the usual pattern of their lives, and such tasks as collecting firewood and swabbing the floor had been largely ignored. Casting a quick eye on her patients – both were still fast asleep – Tiphaine went outside and strode off into the forest.

When she returned a little later, she was carrying enough fuel to last until dusk. Nevertheless, she was smiling, for her mission had not been solely to collect wood. The other, more important part of it had been accomplished, and Tiphaine was satisfied. All she could do now was wait.

Tiphaine had found some vegetables, some grain and a hard rind of bacon, and, with the addition of some fragrant culinary herbs, she had made a big pot of stew. There was much more than was necessary for the appetites of three women, two of them invalids. Tiphaine, however, fully expected that more than the three of them would eat that evening.

Melania was first to wake. Tiphaine examined her, gave her the good news that she was now barely bleeding and reassured her that, with enough to eat and drink, plenty of rest and the relief of knowing she could now put her dreadful experience behind her, she should soon recover her health.

Melania nodded briefly. ‘Thank you,' she said quietly. Then, her face creasing in distress, ‘I don't think I could have borne it if—' She did not finish.

‘I know, lass,' Tiphaine replied. ‘A child of that foul trio would have reminded you for the rest of your life. Best to have sent it on its way.'

‘It's a sin,' Melania said. ‘A priest would tell me I had taken life.'

‘A priest wouldn't have had to deal with the consequence of a brutal rape every day,' Tiphaine said shortly. ‘Easy enough for a man to stand up there on his high horse and talk about sinning.'

Melania smiled; it was a thin smile, soon gone, but the first Tiphaine had seen since the catastrophe that had ruined her life. ‘To think,' Melania said, ‘you used to be a nun.'

Tiphaine snorted. There really was no answer to that. She stood up and went to look at the older woman, still sleeping. Returning to Melania, she sat down again and said, ‘While Marta's asleep, we must talk about her and what you're going to do.'

Melania sighed. ‘What
can
I do? She's lost her mind, but she's my mother, so I'll look after her.'

Tiphaine studied her. Melania was strong – or she had been before the rape – and, to the best of Tiphaine's knowledge, had always been a good and dutiful daughter. But now she was facing an unknowable length of time in which she would have to care for a mother turned into a feeble, querulous and totally dependent child.

Tiphaine did not think that Marta would live very long, although she would not say so to Melania. The old woman's steep decline was yet another crime to lay at the feet of the men now buried at Hawkenlye; whoever had killed them, Tiphaine reflected, had rid the world of three people it would not miss. Nevertheless, help was needed, no matter how long or short a time remained to Marta. Tiphaine looked towards the door. If her plan was going to work, help might even now be on its way.

They came after dark, their arrival announced by a soft tap on the door of the lonely house. Marta lay on her bed with her eyes open, gazing out at visions none but she could see. From time to time, she gave a shudder that shook her thin body like an ague. Melania was sitting cross-legged by the fire, arms folded tight against her belly, staring into the flames. Tiphaine, who had been expecting the visitors, got to her feet and went to the door, removing the chest that she and Melania had propped against it to hold it closed.

Nobody had repaired it after Wat had broken it down.

Tiphaine studied the newcomers. There were two of them: one was a boy in early adolescence, the childish plumpness of his face just beginning to harden into its adult shape; he carried a large bag that clanked as he moved. The other was an older man: short, lean, clad in soft brown and green shades, and with watchful hazel eyes. Tiphaine nodded her satisfaction. Of all men, she would have selected him had she had a choice.