Whiter than the Lily (14 page)

‘Aye,’ he said, to both statements.

‘The master and the mistress are in the solar,’ she said, ‘together with the girls. Wait here. I’ll tell them you wish to see them and I’ll send someone out to tend to your horse.’

‘Thank you.’

He slipped off Horace’s back and, a short time later, a lad of about thirteen came out and shyly took the big horse’s reins, leading him off into a shaded corner of the yard where there were tethering rings set in the wall and a large tub of water.

‘Give him a drink, if you would,’ Josse called after the lad, who nodded.

Then the woman was back and, beckoning to him, she led him up the steps and into the hall, which they crossed to reach another, narrower flight of stairs that circled up to a smaller room on a higher level. The room had wide windows facing south, whose leather hangings were at present fastened back, allowing the sunshine to stream in.

There was a long, narrow table placed in the middle of the room and along each side was a bench. At each end of the table were chairs, beautifully made of pale oak. In the larger chair sat a ruddy-faced, broad-shouldered man aged, Josse thought on first impression, about forty. In the other sat a woman, petite, brown-eyed, perhaps five or six years younger. On the benches sat their four daughters, two to a bench. All four girls were dark-haired like their father and had their mother’s round face and ready smile. They were aged, Josse guessed, from about sixteen down to a toddler of three or four. The woman and two of the girls were stitching at fine embroidery; the littlest child was being helped in a simpler piece of work by one of her sisters. The man appeared to be doing nothing except watch his women folk.

At Josse’s approach, the man got to his feet – he was quite short in stature – and said, ‘I am Raelf de Readingbrooke. We welcome you, Sir Josse d’Acquin, and wonder to what we should ascribe your visit?’

Oh, it was difficult! Turning from the courteously
spoken Raelf to his smiling wife, Josse regretted more than ever the task he had to do. But do it he must; he had made a promise.

He said, ‘Sir Raelf, I am afraid that I bring bad news. Perhaps you and I should speak privately … ?’

Hurrying forward and grabbing hold of Josse’s arm, Raelf said, ‘Bad news?’

‘It concerns your daughter Galiena,’ Josse murmured in his ear.

Raelf muttered something – it might have been, ‘Oh, dear God.’ Then he said, ‘Tell me. What has happened?’

‘She is dead,’ Josse whispered. ‘I am so sorry.’

‘Dead.’ The colour blanched from Raelf’s face. ‘Oh, but I cannot believe it. She is young, healthy! You are quite certain that it is she, my Galiena, who has died?’ His voice broke on the word.

‘Aye,’ Josse said. ‘I saw her with my own eyes.’ He pictured the beautiful face, grossly swollen and distorted in death.

Raelf coughed and cleared his throat. ‘How did this happen? How do you, Sir Josse, come to be the bearer of this ill news?’

‘She had gone to Hawkenlye Abbey to consult the nuns who tend the sick there. She – it appears that somehow she took poison.’

‘Poison! Was this some remedy that she was given?’

Josse could understand the poor man’s puzzlement but he knew he must deny that suggestion instantly. ‘No, it cannot have been the remedy that affected her for someone else drank of the same substance and she’
– the Abbess’s rosy face swam before his mind’s eye – ‘she is quite well.’

‘Then what was it?’ Raelf asked plaintively.

‘We do not yet know.’ Josse spoke gently. ‘But we will find out, Sir Raelf, be sure of that.’

Tears were forming in Raelf’s dark eyes. Finding it impossible to witness such silent agony, Josse dropped his own eyes. Then Raelf said, ‘You say she went for treatment. Do you know for what?’

Josse looked up. ‘She – her husband, the lord Ambrose, and she were unable to – er, she found that she could not conceive the child that they both wanted so much. She had tried certain simples that she made herself, I understand, but to no avail. She hoped that the skills of the Hawkenlye infirmarer and herbalist might be more extensive.’

‘So she was barren?’ Raelf said.

Shrinking from the harsh word, Josse nodded.

‘Dear Lord, what irony!’ Raelf said with sudden harshness. Then his face crumpled. A sob broke from him as, covering his eyes with his hands, his shoulders began to shake. His wife, who had, Josse now saw, been steadily approaching so that now she stood just behind Raelf, gently touched his arm, at which he turned and bent to bury his face on her shoulder.

Her arms going round him, one hand smoothing and soothing his back as if he were a small, distressed child, Audra de Readingbrooke said softly, ‘He will take this hard, Sir Josse, for Galiena was his eldest daughter and he loved her dearly.’

‘Aye. I am so sorry,’ Josse said inadequately.

Audra smiled faintly. ‘Thank you. And thank you, too, for your willingness to bring us such terrible news.’

‘Ambrose would have come to tell you himself and indeed he very much wanted to,’ Josse said hastily, ‘only he remains at Hawkenlye Abbey, where he must make – er, make certain arrangements with the priest and the Abbess concerning – er, concerning her burial.’

‘Of course,’ said Audra, her eyes bright with tears. ‘A dreadful task, for an old man to see his young wife into the ground before him.’

‘Aye.’

Sensing his awkwardness, Audra wiped her eyes and said, ‘Sir Josse, may I suggest that you leave us for a while? There is much that we would ask you but first we must break the news to the girls’ – she gestured behind her to the four daughters sitting with anxious faces at the table – ‘and take what comfort we may in one another. Would you be so kind as to wait for us down in the hall? Ask Tilde to fetch you some refreshments. We shall not keep you waiting for long.’

Already stepping gratefully back towards the stair, Josse said, too loudly and too eagerly, ‘Take your time, lady, please, take as long as you need!’ Catching her understanding glance, he smiled back at her and, more softly, added, ‘I’ll be waiting when you are ready to talk to me.’

Then, hurrying down the stairs so fast that he all but slipped, he emerged into the cool hall and left the family to their grief.

He did not want anything to eat or to drink, although a pretty young maidservant in clean white cap and apron came out from another door in the wide hall and asked him if she could fetch anything for him.

When she had gone, as quietly as she had arrived, he wandered across to the doorway and stood looking out over the woodland and pasture that made up Raelf de Readingbrooke’s lands. There was so much to think about – was Galiena poisoned? What could have been the motive? Was there any substance at all to Josse’s vague suspicions? – but somehow, here in the house where she had lived, he could not bear to think of her dead. Instead he pictured her happy face that day at Ryemarsh.

And, in time, the tears that he had not yet shed for her formed in his own eyes too.

It was quite a long time later that the family came down from the solar to join him in the hall. It was clear that they had all been weeping and, indeed, the smallest child was still sobbing quietly around the thumb that she had stuck in her mouth for comfort. She stood close to her mother, who from time to time put down a
gentle hand to stroke her youngest daughter’s smooth brown hair.

Audra summoned the servant girl and spoke in low tones. The girl nodded and disappeared, to return a short time later with a tray laden with bread, cold meats, sauces, a jug of wine and some cups. While this was being set out on the long table at the back of the hall, Josse had a moment to study Galiena’s family.

Raelf appeared to be more affected by his eldest daughter’s death than any of them, for he made no attempt to help his wife organise the cups and the platters and find benches to sit on. He merely stood to one side frowning in perplexity as if saying to himself, what on earth is all this fuss about? Or, Josse thought, perhaps he always left it to his clearly capable wife to see to everything that occurred within the house. If so, he was not the first man to do so.

His ruddy face was pale now and the short man’s stance – shoulders back, chest thrown out, as if proclaiming to the world that, although lacking in inches, he was as good if not better than the next man – had gone. Now Raelf stood slumped, his grief written all over him.

The eldest girl – well, virtually a woman now, Josse conceded, and probably about to follow in her sister’s footsteps and find herself a husband – had hurried to help her mother, gently taking the heavier objects from Audra’s hands with a smile and a quick word. She was graceful in her movements and modest in her dress and hairstyle; the neck of her gown was cut high and its skirt was widely flaring. Her hair – brown and
thick – was coiled at the back of her head and covered with a neat square of snowy-white linen, starched to an impressive stiffness. However, neither cap nor gown could disguise the girl’s figure: she was, Josse thought, one of the most voluptuous young women he had had the pleasure of meeting. It would be a lucky man who took her to bed as his wife.

The two other daughters were aged about thirteen and eight and, other than obeying meekly when ordered by their mother to put the benches up to the table, said and did little. Like their sisters, they too were dark-haired, although one had a tinge of auburn in her long plaits.

Audra, Josse realised now, was pregnant. The high waist of her gown and her decorative linen apron concealed her condition to a degree and contrived to make it not apparent when she was standing still. However, in organising the refreshments she had occasionally to stretch across the table, and then the tightening of the garments across her body made the bump plain to see.

Audra was, Josse reckoned, in her early to mid thirties. Her family certainly stretched across a wide age range, for the next child was not yet born and the first had been eighteen years old. So Galiena would have been born when Audra was about fifteen.

It was quite possible. On the other hand, Audra might be older than she looked. Ah well, Josse concluded, it was hardly a concern of his. Watching the round, capable little woman as she issued quiet orders that were instantly obeyed – which earned her Josse’s
admiration all over again – something, however, was nagging at him …

Before he had time to work out what it was, he was summoned to the table and invited to eat. He had not thought himself hungry but, on seeing the spread, he realised that he was. The family served him with impeccable manners, one daughter filling his cup, another breaking bread for him, a third piling his platter with meats and piquant, highly spiced sauces. When everyone had been served, Raelf cleared his throat, closed his eyes and said a simple prayer. Besides giving thanks for the food, he prayed for Galiena and, when he had finished, they all said softly, ‘Amen’.

Now that the family were at table, Raelf seemed to take command once more. He said firmly, ‘There is a time for grieving, and it will be long and sorrowful for us. But we must also remember the living, especially Sir Josse, who has ridden so far to bring us this dread news, and also my wife, who is in particular need of nourishment.’ He met Audra’s eyes and they exchanged a smile. ‘So, one and all, put aside your sadness and let us eat.’

He picked up his knife, cut himself a good-sized chunk of ham, put it on a piece of bread and, pushing it into his mouth, began to chew. One by one the girls, Audra and Josse followed his example and, for a time, there was silence in the hall other than the normal domestic sounds of a family at their meal.

When the food and drink had been cleared away, Audra told her eldest girl to take her sisters off outside.
‘Take them on a wild flower hunt,’ she suggested, ‘a new ribbon for the one who finds the most.’ Then, when the girls had gone, Raelf came to sit beside Josse, and Audra resumed her place at the end of the table.

‘Now, if you please, tell us how she died,’ Raelf said.

Josse drew breath and said, ‘I regret that there is little I can add to what I have already told you. I was taken to meet the lord Ambrose and Galiena by—’ No. Perhaps it was better not to mention Brice. ‘I was invited to Ryemarsh, I think, because Ambrose knew of my connection with Hawkenlye Abbey and wished to ask my advice. He and Galiena were, as I said, anxious that she should conceive a child and Galiena’s own remedies had been ineffective.’

‘She was skilled in the use of herbs,’ Audra put in. ‘It was one of the things we most missed when she wed Ambrose and left us. Although in truth she did not ignore us when she became a wife but was always ready to hurry back to give advice and make up simples for us when we fell sick.’

Raelf nodded. ‘Aye, she remained a daughter of the house even though she was mistress of her own,’ he said sadly. ‘But please, Sir Josse, continue.’

‘Er – I told Ambrose that the nuns of Hawkenlye were rightly famed for their care and their skill, and that there was also the precious holy water, renowned for effecting miracles. He decided that he and Galiena should visit the Abbey and she was keen to set out straight away. Ambrose had matters to attend to at Ryemarsh but, because Galiena was so eager, it was arranged that she should ride on ahead with her
woman servant and a lad. She was cared for well at Hawkenlye and two preparations were made up for her. She expressed the desire to return home as soon as she could but had to wait because one remedy was not quite ready. While she waited, she passed the time by going for a long walk on the fringes of the forest and, while she was absent, Ambrose arrived. The journey seemed to have affected him and a bed was found for him in the infirmary.’