Whiter than the Lily (18 page)

‘I think,’ he said, ‘that I should go there.’

‘To Deadfall.’ She wanted to be sure that she understood. ‘Even though the very name holds dread for you?’ That it really did was clear to her; he had appeared to be genuinely affected by the tale he told her. It was often the way, she thought; as children, we are very ready to be frightened out of our wits and sometimes the things that scared us then still hold power over us when we have grown up, despite our adult comprehension and rationalisation.

‘Aye.’ He sighed and, she reflected, did not look any too eager for his mission.

‘Would you like someone to accompany you?’ she asked. ‘You have ridden out with Brother Saul and Brother Augustus before now and I am sure that either would be more than willing to go with you again.’

He gave her a sketchy smile. ‘A kind offer, my lady, but I feel I should conquer my demons on my own. The good brothers rode with me when there was a possibility that we went into danger, but I cannot see that there is any peril in visiting Galiena’s original home to inform her blood kin of her death.’

As he spoke the words
blood kin
, she felt a frisson
of fear run down her back. But why? It was just a phrase and, for someone like Galiena who had been adopted, an accurate and surely innocent one? ‘I hope that they will be grateful for your trouble,’ she said, the mundane remark helping to put that strange moment behind her. ‘Your reminding them of the daughter they gave up may not be tactful, Sir Josse.’

‘Aye, I know.’ He met her eyes, and the expression in his was candid. ‘But, as you and I both realise, my lady, my purpose is not simply to tell them that she is dead.’

She smiled. ‘I cannot make any accusations, since I am as guilty as you, having sent Saul and Augustus on a similar mission to Ryemarsh. If there is truly a need to excuse our actions, then it is that by our subterfuge we hope to discover why Galiena died.’

‘And who killed her,’ he added.

His face, she noticed, had darkened angrily. ‘Sir Josse?’ she said enquiringly. ‘You have a theory as to who that might be?’

Approaching her table once again, he said quietly, ‘Aye, but it is for your ears only, my lady, since, if I am wide of the mark, I shall be accusing the very last person on whom suspicion should fall.’

‘Go on.’

‘Well, the evidence is slight, and that’s probably an exaggeration, but it is this. When I was with Galiena’s parents – her adoptive parents, that is, Raelf and Audra de Readingbrooke – I mentioned that we had thought it possible Galiena had gathered berries or mushrooms in the forest and that eating one or the
other had poisoned her. But instantly Raelf refuted the suggestion because, apart from the fact that it is not the season for berries and too warm and dry for fungi, Galiena was a skilled herbalist and would never have made such a mistake.’

She nodded. ‘As we ought to have thought out for ourselves and – oh!’ Suddenly she understood. ‘You are saying that Ambrose, who on his own admission has good reason to know of his wife’s skills, should also have remarked upon that?’

‘Aye.’

‘And the fact that he did not makes you wonder if he welcomed these putative berries and such like as a convenient scapegoat for the poison that he himself administered to her, and— Oh, no, Sir Josse! I cannot accept that!’

He did not speak, merely stood watching her. And, as her instinctive protests – Ambrose loved her! He was grief-stricken when he knew she was dead! – slowly faded, she wondered if he could be right.

‘Why would he want her dead?’ she whispered.

‘She was carrying another man’s child,’ he replied.

‘But Ambrose did not know! Why, he arranged for her to come here to be treated so that she could
become
pregnant! He even consulted you first to see if you thought we could help!’

‘I know,’ said Josse. ‘Moreover—’

She felt tension in him, as if he wanted to tell her something but was reluctant. ‘What?’

Not meeting her eyes, he said, ‘Something Ambrose said. When he was confiding in me about her – er, her
problem, he said,
my lassie goes on bleeding
.’ Raising his head, he muttered, ‘I remember particularly because the phrase struck me as moving. And now—’ He broke off.

She stared at him. ‘You are saying that all that was an act? That he deliberately spoke to you in the intimate way that he did to persuade you that what he said was the truth? That he planned the whole sequence of events with the deliberate purpose of deceiving us?’

Josse shrugged.

‘And all the while he planned to kill her for her infidelity?’

After a short pause he said, ‘It is possible.’

And she had to admit that he was right.

He announced that he would set out for Deadfall that afternoon. He did not expect to reach his destination that day but, as he said, it was ideal weather for sleeping out under the stars and he looked forward to doing so. Helewise, watching him, wondered if the decision was so as to ensure that he reached Deadfall in the bright light of morning rather than late at night. Well, if the very name of the place truly held dread for him, then he was, she decided stoutly, brave to go there at all, never mind by night.

She came to the gates to see him on his way and, as she had done so many times before, wished him God’s speed and safe return.

Watching Horace’s dust slowly circling in the warm, still air, she had the sudden rebellious thought:
I
should be the one to ride out! The girl died here, in the Abbey
over which I have charge. It should be I who informs the relatives and who uses my eyes and my wits to discover the truth. But yet I stay here, and I send others to act for me.

For a wild moment she thought of calling out, Wait, Sir Josse! Wait while I have the golden mare saddled, because I’m coming with you!

But time passed, and she did not.

When the dust had settled and there remained no sign to tell of Josse’s passing, she turned and walked slowly back to her room.

In the late afternoon, Sister Ursel tapped on the door to tell her that Brother Saul and Brother Augustus had returned. They had ridden hard, she reported, and were washing off the dust and sweat of their journey before presenting themselves to their Abbess.

‘They have indeed ridden hard!’ Helewise exclaimed, ‘for they have been to Ryemarsh, carried out their mission there, presumably, and returned, all in little over a day!’

She did not say so to Sister Ursel – who had been known to speculate quite wildly enough without anyone actually encouraging her to do so – but it occurred straight away to Helewise that Saul and Augustus must have something important to tell her to have made such haste to come back to Hawkenlye …

She dismissed the porteress and then sat with outward serenity while she waited. Inside, however, her mind seethed with questions and possibilities. Disciplining her thoughts was difficult but not, she
discovered, impossible; by the time the two brothers arrived – both wearing clean robes and with wet hair – her outward poise was reflected by inner silence.

She accepted their reverences with a brief inclination of her head and then said calmly, ‘What did you find at Ryemarsh?’

Saul and Augustus exchanged a glance and then Saul said, ‘We rode up at dusk, my lady. We feared we were too late to seek admission and were planning to find a sheltered spot to camp out till morning but there was a manservant out in the courtyard doing me locking-up round and he heard us.’

‘Suspicious sort, he was,’ Augustus put in. ‘Picked up a pitchfork when he caught sight of us and brandished it in our direction while he challenged us.’

‘He did,’ Saul agreed, ‘but he calmed down when we told him who we were.’

‘By then he’d caught sight of the habit we wear,’ Augustus put in. ‘He reckoned he’d less to fear from his visitors than he’d thought.’

Helewise smiled. Augustus was probably right; the habit of religion did tend to disarm people. ‘Then he invited you inside?’ she prompted.

‘Aye,’ Saul said. ‘We said we were from the Abbey with news from their master, the lord Ambrose, and that it was bad tidings.’ He exchanged a look with Augustus and went on, ‘It was strange, my lady, because the old servant and the woman who was in the kitchen both seemed very worried even
before
we told them about the poor young lady.’

‘I see.’ She would, she decided, return to that remark
in a moment. First she asked, ‘How did they react to the news of Galiena’s death?’

‘They were most distressed,’ Augustus said. ‘No doubt about it, was there, Saul?’ Saul shook his head sadly. ‘They loved her, my lady, that’s for sure, and they were genuinely heartbroken to know she was dead.’

‘Did you—’ She paused, thinking how to phrase her question tactfully. ‘Were you able to gain any impression of how the household servants viewed their master and mistress? Did they, would you say, think that Ambrose and his wife were happy?’

‘Without a doubt,’ Saul assured her. ‘They said she made the sun shine for him, which I imagine you’d readily understand, what with her being so young and pretty. But they insisted that she cared for him deeply too, even though he was so much older.’ He turned to the younger man. ‘Wouldn’t you say so, Gussie?’

Augustus nodded enthusiastically. ‘Aye. The old kitchen woman said she – Galiena – had been a shy girl when she came to Ryemarsh as the lord Ambrose’s wife, and they all jumped to the conclusion that she was an unwilling bride. But they had to accept they’d been wrong because she blossomed, according to the manservant, and turned from someone who was reserved with them and hardly spoke into a happy and outgoing young girl who made the sap rise in old Ambrose and only needed a baby or two to complete her happiness.’ Saul dug him in the ribs and he said, with some indignation, ‘Saul, I’m only repeating what they said!’

‘It’s all right, Brother Saul,’ Helewise said. ‘After all, I did ask you to report anything that struck you as relevant.’ There was something else that she was very keen to know; again taking a moment to word her question, she said, ‘And what of visitors? Did they entertain family or friends? Were there any that came regularly?’

‘The lord Ambrose doesn’t have kin, they’re all dead.’ Augustus spoke matter-of-factly. ‘The lady went visiting her folks at Readingbrooke from time to time, often with the lord Ambrose, and the family there would return the visits. She had several sisters, they told us, and an aunt to whom she was devoted who has young children of her own. The family’s a close one, it seems.’

‘I see.’ No need, Helewise decided, to reveal the details of Galiena’s adoption by the family at Readingbrooke. ‘Anyone else?’

‘Well, that neighbour of theirs, from Rotherbridge,’ Saul said. ‘He’s a friend of the lord Ambrose and calls by when he’s passing.’

‘I see,’ she said again, trying hard not to let her sudden excitement show in her voice. ‘And the household – er – they liked all these visitors?’

She knew even as she spoke that the question was absurd. Both Saul and Augustus looked surprised and Augustus, more forthright than Saul, said, ‘I don’t see as how it was for them to have likes or dislikes, my lady, since they’re servants and do as they’re told.’ His comment – possibly a little forthright for a young lay brother addressing his Abbess, but entirely justified, Helewise thought – earned him another dig in the
ribs and, casting down his eyes, he muttered, ‘Sorry, my lady.’

‘It’s all right,’ she said. She could not see a way to find out what she needed to know other than a direct question so, after a moment, she asked it. ‘Did you receive the impression,’ she said carefully, ‘that there was any gossip concerning Sir Brice and Galiena? Oh, I know what you said about Galiena being so devoted to her husband, but you both know how servants love to chatter!’ She gave what even to her sounded a totally unconvincing little laugh.

Saul and Augustus looked at each other, then back at her. Then, in unison, they shook their heads and said firmly, ‘Oh, no.’ Augustus added, as if for emphasis, ‘There wasn’t anything like that. Was there, Saul?’

And Saul said, ‘No.’

Well, she thought, that was not necessarily relevant. After all, if Josse had been right and Brice had been Galiena’s lover, he’d hardly have ridden up to the door proclaiming it to the world.

The more she dwelled on it, the more it seemed to her that the very strong denials of ‘anything like that’ were in themselves suspicious. Wouldn’t it have been more natural for Brice and the beautiful Galiena to have engaged in a little harmless flirtation?

But her train of thought was interrupted; Saul was addressing her. ‘My lady,’ he said, ‘there is something else.’

‘Indeed? Go on, Brother Saul.’

‘You remember that we said they seemed upset even before we told them the news?’

‘I do.’

‘Well, it seems there was a young stable lad called Dickon. He was sent to escort the lady Galiena over to Hawkenlye, together with the woman Aebba.’

‘But he didn’t arrive here!’ she exclaimed. ‘Neither did Aebba, not until she rode in with the lord Ambrose. Galiena arrived alone.’

‘Aye, my lady. It seems that Aebba returned from the trip with her young mistress by herself and when the lord Ambrose asked what had happened to the groom, she said he had gone on with the young lady.’