The Winter King (8 page)

Helewise stared out into the darkness of the woods all around the little clearing. She strained her ears as she listened to the silence: had there been some sound that should not be there, so that now she was alert and fearful?

She heard a faint rustling, as if some creature was moving through the litter of dead leaves. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise up.
It’s just a fox, or a hare
, she told herself.

The sound came again. And again; this time, it was accompanied by a low groan of agony.

Helewise picked up a lamp, shot out of the door and hurried in the direction of the moan. ‘I am here!’ she cried. ‘I will help you!’

She did not know which way to go. She stopped abruptly, listening again. Nothing.

‘Do not be afraid,’ she said into the darkness. ‘I am Helewise, and I tend the sanctuary on the edge of the forest. If you can, call out, and I will find you.’

She waited for what seemed a long time. Then, very faintly, she heard a voice say, ‘Help me.’

It was over to her right, in the direction of the narrow path that wound through the trees to meet the road. Gathering up her skirts, she hurried along it, almost tripping several times on the roots that twined like raised veins just beneath the ground.

She almost fell over him.

He was lying on his right side, and the front of his tunic was dark with blood. Holding the light over him, she saw that there was a cut on the left side of his brow, deep and pouring blood. His eyes were huge in his deathly pale face. He opened his mouth and said again, ‘Help me.’ But this time, had Helewise not been standing right over him, she would not have heard.

‘I must get you to the sanctuary,’ she said, as much to herself as to him, for his eyes had closed and she thought perhaps he had slipped into unconsciousness. ‘Although I do not know quite how …’

She prayed for help.
Please, dear Lord, you must know that one or other of the good people at the House in the Woods usually sets out at dark fall to find me if I am not home. Inspire them now, please, Lord, and send them to help me with this poor man.

She knew she could not lift a grown man on her own. To drag him over rough ground would undoubtedly make his terrible injuries worse. There was little she could do but wait.

Putting down the lamp, she crouched down beside the man, wishing she had paused to snatch up her cloak, or even a shawl. All she had to warm him was her own body. She stretched out on the cold ground, her chest to his back, her legs bent up behind his. She wrapped her arms round him, clasping him to her.

Eventually, after what seemed an age, she heard footsteps: two people, at least. A voice called out her name.
Josse!
She sent up a prayer of thanks.

‘I’m here,’ she shouted. ‘On the path leading up to the road. There’s a man, gravely wounded. Come quickly!’

The footsteps began to run. In a moment, Josse and Ninian were upon her.

The man was young, slender and – before agony, despair and the marks of someone’s fists had distorted his features – had clearly been handsome. In the light within the sanctuary, Helewise could see his glossy fair hair, fashionably cut, and the costly garments that must once have looked so fine. Josse helped her to cut away the blood-soaked emerald green tunic, while Ninian added cleansing herbs to the pot of simmering water that always hung suspended over the hearth. The smell of lavender filled the little room.

The young man’s wounds were grievous. Apart from his battered face, a deep, wide cut had opened up his throat, nicking the great vessel that rose under the skin beneath the ear. His torso was bruised and beaten. Both hands were bloody across the knuckles, and a long slash ran down his right forearm.

‘He fought hard,’ Josse whispered.

Helewise pointed to the cut in the throat. ‘If that had been only a little deeper, he would have been in no position to fight at all.’

Josse did not reply, except to go, ‘Mmm.’ He was, she realized, thinking very hard.

Ninian brought the water, and she squeezed out a cloth and began to bathe the wounds. Blood was still flowing from the young man’s throat, so, not knowing what else to do, she padded up the cloth and pressed it hard against the wound.

This cut should be stitched
, she thought. Aloud, she asked, ‘Is Meggie home?’

‘Not when we left,’ Josse replied. ‘She went off with Sabin, and she said they’d probably be gone all day. They were going to see that mystery patient, no doubt.’

Suddenly the young man’s eyes opened. He looked up, first at Helewise, then at Josse. His face filled with terror.

‘I didn’t tell!’ he cried, starting to thrash around on the narrow cot. ‘I swear I didn’t! We were lost, and did not know how to find our way to you, but we didn’t say anything! Oh, you must believe me!’

‘Hush,’ Helewise soothed. ‘You must rest, and we will …’
We will what?
she wondered. She did not know what to do. Tentatively she raised the edge of the linen pad to check on the bleeding. She thought the flow might have lessened a little.

The young man closed his eyes again.

Josse leaned over him and, speaking softly, said, ‘What is your name, and what’s your business here? Who did this to you?’

The man’s eyes flew open again. He did not seem to have registered Josse’s urgent questions. ‘I didn’t tell, before God, I didn’t!’ he cried, his anguish painful to watch. ‘He – they – he came for us, for Symon and me, although I do not know how he found us, and they fell on us, with their terrible, sharp weapons, and he … he … he
slew
Symon, my own cousin, right there before my eyes, and as he wielded the knife, he said, “You are not to be trusted”, but he was
wrong
, my lord, for Symon and I are resolved, and we have sworn to – we have sworn …’ He swallowed, the Adam’s apple rising visibly beneath the padded linen that Helewise still pressed to his throat. Then, his voice weak and barely audible, he said, ‘Accept my sword, my lord.
Please
.’

There was scarcely a sound in the little room except for the young man’s gasping breaths.

Ninian crouched beside Josse. ‘He’s dying,’ he said very quietly. Helewise met his eyes, frowning, and shook her head. It was surely not right to let a man know he was about to die. Besides, all the time the heart beat and the mouth drew breath, death had not yet won.

She looked down at the young man. His lips were as pale as his face, and the flesh of his cheeks seemed already to be shrinking.

As if he felt her eyes on him, his opened. ‘I’m so cold,’ he said. ‘Are there no blankets here? No furs?’

There were no costly furs in the sanctuary, but Helewise had made sure of a good supply of fine woollen blankets, all of which were now piled on the wounded man.

‘Father, we have it in our hands to let him die content,’ Ninian said, right into Josse’s ear: Helewise could only just make out the words. She was moved, for Ninian only referred to Josse as Father in moments of extreme emotion.

She did not know what Ninian had in mind, but it didn’t matter, because Josse did. He looked up at his adopted son with a brief smile, then, bending once more right over the dying man, he said, clearly and firmly, ‘I accept your sword.’

A look of huge relief eased the young man’s tense features. With a great effort, he moved his right hand, the fingers opening and closing as if trying to grasp something.

Now Helewise understood. ‘His sword, I think,’ she murmured.

Ninian shot her a swift look, blue eyes bright in the firelight, and drew the young man’s sword from its scabbard. The blade was filthy, coated with mud and blood. Ninian put the leather-bound handle in the dying man’s hand, and, shaking with effort, the youth held it up to Josse. ‘My sword, my allegiance, my life,’ he said. His voice was suddenly strong again.

Helewise was watching Josse. He was scowling deeply, and she guessed he was seeking for the right words with which to send the young man through the gates of death.

Josse’s expression cleared. He held out his hand to Helewise, pointing to something – the simple wooden cross she wore around her neck. Swiftly she lifted its leather cord over her head and handed it to him.

With his left hand on the young man’s sword, Josse pressed his right to the young man’s chest. He drew a breath, then said gravely, ‘We place this cross on your breast that you may love it with all your heart, and may your right hand ever fight in its defence and for its preservation.’ He paused. ‘May God have mercy on your soul.’

The young man’s hands closed over Josse’s, still holding the sword, and his deadly pale, gaunt face stretched into a smile. He whispered, ‘Thank you, my lord. Symon and I will not fail you.’

They crouched around him, Helewise, Josse and Ninian, and Helewise hoped that their vigil gave him comfort. Presently, he drew a deep, ragged breath, letting it out on a soft sigh.

Helewise put her hand over his heart. Then she leaned down so that her cheek was against his mouth. She waited, just to be sure.

Straightening up, tears falling from her eyes, she said, ‘He’s dead.’

They covered the face with a linen sheet. Ninian made to remove the blankets, but Helewise grasped his hand. ‘Please, leave them,’ she said. Ninian raised his eyebrows. ‘He was so cold,’ she muttered.

It made no sense, and she felt foolish, but Ninian seemed to understand. Bending down, he tucked the soft wool more closely around the still body, as tenderly as if he were comforting his own little daughter.

They would return to him in the morning.

Helewise prepared hot drinks for the three of them, adding herbs from what they all referred to as ‘Meggie’s heartening brew’. Whatever was in it – and Helewise still was not sure – it always worked. Apart from anything else, as soon as the mixture met the hot water, a warming, calming aroma issued from the ingredients, stilling the mind even in the most trying of circumstances. Looking round at her companions, Helewise observed that their tense expressions had eased.

‘It was a fine gesture, to accept his service and speak so fittingly,’ she said to Josse. ‘It comforted him, just as Ninian said it would.’ Josse grunted a response. ‘I watched you as you sought in your memory for the right words. From where in your life did you recollect them?’

‘I don’t know,’ Josse admitted. ‘They just came into my head.’

Ninian looked up. ‘
I
know,’ he said quietly.

‘Then I wish you’d tell me,’ Josse replied gruffly.

Helewise studied his face, illuminated by the soft lamplight. His expression was profoundly solemn.

‘It is the oath taken by a Knight Hospitaller when first he is given his cross,’ Ninian said. ‘You chose well, Josse, for a man on the point of death.’

E
arly that same morning, Meggie and Sabin had set out from the House in the Woods, bound for the manor of Medley, perhaps an hour, two hours’ ride away. Meggie had borrowed Helewise’s mare, Daisy, not having a mount of her own, and she was looking forward to a decent ride in the crisp sunshine. As to what would happen when they reached their destination, that was another matter.

Although Sabin had begun to protest, Meggie had insisted on giving at least some explanation to her father of Sabin’s presence, and, indeed, of where the two of them were off to that morning. Aware of Sabin furiously shaking her head out of Josse’s line of sight, Meggie had taken his hand and said quietly, ‘Sabin is concerned about a matter of some delicacy, and I have undertaken to give her my opinion.’ It was the truth, more or less. Josse, bless him, had not asked any awkward questions, but simply bent to kiss her on the top of the head and then wished her well.

‘Do you always have to account to your father for your comings and goings?’ Sabin said quite sharply as they left the courtyard. ‘This is meant to be secret, Meggie!’

‘It
is
secret,’ she had replied. ‘I told him nothing that would give us away. As to accounting for myself to him, I do it not because he orders me to, but because I love him and he worries. All right?’ She kicked her heels into Daisy’s sides and trotted on.

She had spoken rather more sharply than she had intended. However, it had the benefit of shutting Sabin up, for which she was quite grateful.

Her offer of help the previous night had been instinctive, given almost before she’d had a chance to think it through. Now, although there was no question of withdrawing the offer, she was well on the way to regretting it.

She drew rein slightly, allowing Sabin to come up beside her. ‘Go through it again,’ she said. ‘The body is in a cellar, but you think we might be able to get down there without anyone seeing us?’

‘Oh, they’ll
see
us,’ Sabin relied, ‘and there is no way we can avoid it, for the manor is heavily guarded. My hope is that our arrival will not arouse curiosity. They will recognize me,’ she muttered, as if reasoning with herself, ‘but that is probably to the good.’

Meggie waited. When Sabin did not elucidate, she said, quite sharply, ‘Well? What do you plan to do?’

‘I’ll just have to tell them I’ve become uneasy about my diagnosis of the cause of death,’ Sabin replied, frowning, ‘and wanted to consult you.’

‘So now that’s two canons from the Augustinian house in Tonbridge, the town apothecary and a forest healer,’ Meggie remarked, not without irony. ‘Won’t Lord Benedict’s household start to be suspicious?’

‘Oh, I think they already are,’ Sabin said grimly. ‘That’s why … why …’

‘Why you want to be absolutely sure that suspicion can’t fall on you.’ It was, Meggie thought, high time for some blunt words.

Sabin hung her head. ‘Yes.’

Meggie sighed. ‘Very well. Come on. The sooner we’re done, the sooner you – and I – can relax.’

They rode up to Medley Hall to find the place eerily silent. It stood alone on its low rise; the surrounding land was marshy, dotted here and there with watery areas of bog, for they were deep in the valley here. Whoever had sited Medley up on its mound had chosen well.

As Sabin had predicted, the men on guard duty at the gates recognized her, and accepted without question her explanation that Meggie was a fellow healer. They were permitted to pass through the gates with nothing worse than a few ribald comments.