Whiter than the Lily (30 page)

For the third time, Josse rode down the track and across the marshland to Saltwych.

This time they knew who he was and they were waiting for him. Two of the guards who had apprehended him on his first visit rode out to meet him and, grim faced and silent, fell in on either side of him and rode with him into the settlement. There were few people about; the place appeared almost deserted. One of the guards took charge of the horses; the other man took him to the long hall. Josse expected to be faced with Aelle, but it was not the clan chieftain who waited for him across the hearth.

The strange silver eyes contemplated him for some moments before the man spoke. Then, in a neutral voice, he said, ‘You have returned, Josse d’Acquin. By day now and not sneaking through the dark on your belly like a whipped hound.’

Josse straightened his shoulders. ‘I was told quite definitely that the woman of whom I spoke, Galiena Ryemarsh, came from this community. I came back because I wish to establish the truth.’

‘The truth,’ mused the man with the silver eyes. ‘A dangerous commodity, Josse d’Acquin. Are you
quite sure you wish to know it?’

‘I am,’ Josse replied.

‘Even more dangerous,’ went on the man, still in the same quiet, contemplative tone, ‘is your implication that the clan chief lied to you. Aelle does not care to have his word doubted.’

‘But I was told by Galiena’s family that this was where she was born!’ Josse said forcefully. ‘I believe that they spoke true.’

The man said nothing. He stood on the far side of the bright fire in the hearth, and Josse could not see him clearly. He wore a long robe of some light colour and its outline seemed to shimmer in the flickering light. Unaccountably, Josse felt heavy-eyed as he tried to focus on his adversary.

The man held up a long hand and beckoned. Josse stepped around the hearth and went over to stand beside him. ‘Aelle is away hunting,’ the man said softly. ‘He has taken the strong men of the clan. They will not be pleased to see you back here, asking your questions. Oh, no.’

‘Then tell me what I need to know and let me leave before they return!’ Josse urged. ‘I have come in peace, it is not right to threaten me in this way.’

‘You perceive a threat?’ The man’s eyes opened wide with false innocence. Or was it false? Josse could not decide. ‘Well then, we shall have to reassure you.’ He glanced around and, seeing that he and Josse were alone in the far section of the hall, stepped back to the far wall and, lifting the corner of a ragged hanging, revealed a small door. ‘Come,’ he ordered. ‘We shall
sit in my own private chamber and I shall attempt to tell you what you wish to know.’

Josse hesitated. The guards had not relieved him of his weapons – perhaps because their chieftain was not in the hall – and he felt the weight of his sword at his side. The silver-eyed man gave a soft laugh. ‘You will not need your sword,’ he said. ‘You would not attack an unarmed man, and I, as you see, carry no knife or broadsword.’ He opened his arms wide and the long, full sleeves opened out gracefully. But he was right; as far as Josse could see, he bore no blade.

‘Will you come?’ he asked.

‘Aye,’ said Josse.

The man carefully closed the door after them and led Josse to a small building that he had not noticed before. It consisted of a shallow cave in the cliff face, out from which walls had been built so as to increase the space within. The man opened a low door in the outer wall and ushered Josse inside.

The chamber was in near-darkness, the only light coming from glowing embers in a small iron brazier. The man put some small pieces of wood on to the embers, blew up a flame and then added a bundle of what looked like dry, twiggy sticks and dead leaves. Then, having drawn up a simple stool for Josse to sit on, he said without preamble, ‘Galiena did come from here. She was known by a different name and she was of high birth among our people.’ Watching Josse closely, he murmured, ‘Iduna was her given name. She was called for the goddess who guarded the golden apples of youth, for it was hoped that her birth was
an omen and that she would put new vigour into the chieftain.’

Goddess. Apples of youth. Good God above, Josse thought, these are pagan things.

‘She was the chieftain’s daughter,’ the silver-eyed man was saying, ‘begotten by him upon a woman of the bloodline and born to him in his dotage. We hoped she would heal him, for he was sick at heart and in despair.’

‘It cannot be that you speak of Aelle?’ Josse said.

‘No. Of Aethelfrith, the father of Aelle, who was chieftain before him.’ The man sighed. ‘Aelle saw the responsibilities of a chieftain differently. His father had encouraged us to look outwards, to mix with our neighbours and to end our long self-imposed and inward-looking isolation. He did not think it healthy for us to preserve our secret ways and to keep others away by the fostering and the propagation of frightening legends. That, he considered, was the old way. The unenlightened way.’

‘The old ways worked efficiently,’ Josse murmured, remembering the tale that had so distressed him as a child.

‘Yes, they did, didn’t they?’ The silver-eyed man looked pleased. ‘But then it is very easy to frighten uneducated and superstitious folk out of their wits.’

It was nothing to be proud of, Josse thought. But he did not say it aloud.

‘The baby girl whom we knew as Iduna was healthy and she thrived.’ The man picked up his tale. ‘But the name that we hoped would bring good fortune failed
us, and her father died when she was but a few weeks old. With his death there was no choice but to hail Aelle as chieftain. He turned his back on the outside world, shutting out the light just as it had begun to penetrate our life here. And his first act as our chief was to send his little sister away.’

‘Why?’ Josse asked.

‘Why? For two reasons. One, because she too was the daughter of a chief and when she grew to adulthood, she might have thought as her father did and so challenged her brother’s rule of secrecy. For another—’ He paused. Then: ‘Josse, what did you think of Aelle? A clever man, would you say? A wise and worldly one?’

‘I cannot say,’ Josse admitted. ‘I did not study him sufficiently well to judge.’

‘A fair answer.’ The man gave him a nod of approval. ‘Aelle is wise, and also worldly, for all that he lives isolated out here on the marsh and has little contact with the world. But he understands power, you see. He wants power, as it is understood in the wide world. Therefore he placed his baby sister in a place where he believed power was to be found.’

‘But Raelf of Readingbrooke is but a country lord!’ Josse protested. Smoke from the newly stoked brazier was floating through the chamber and prickling his eyes. It had quite a strong smell; somehow it caught at the back of the throat. He coughed, then said, ‘He lives comfortably, aye, but his prime concern is for his family!’

‘Yes,’ the silver-eyed man said patiently. ‘But I
do not speak of Raelf de Readingbrooke. I speak of Ambrose Ryemarsh. Wealthy, indeed, very wealthy, would you not agree? And of a certain influence with those who rule over us?’

‘Aye,’ Josse agreed, remembering Ambrose’s swift and generous response to Queen Eleanor’s ransom appeal and the implied closeness to Plantagenet power circles, ‘but—’ He was struggling with what he was being told. ‘But she was not placed with Ambrose, she was adopted by the family at Readingbrooke!’

‘Yes, but she was married to Ambrose Ryemarsh.’

Again, Josse felt incredulity. ‘You are telling me that Aelle
knew
she would marry Ambrose if she were to be adopted by Raelf?’

‘Aelle did not know. But I did. I saw it.’

Josse slowly shook his head. ‘I can scarce believe it.’ It was more than that; he actively
dis
believed it, but it did not seem prudent to say so.

‘She married him, did she not?’ the man enquired. ‘You will have to take my word for it, Josse d’Acquin.’

Abruptly Josse stood up and began to pace up and down in the small space. His head was swimming and he was finding it hard to concentrate. The other man watched him, and his unusual light eyes following the restless movement held a hint of amusement.

‘I don’t know for sure that Ambrose has influence, not with the King,’ Josse said after a time.

‘He has already given a very large sum towards the Lionheart’s ransom,’ the man said. ‘He plans to give a great deal more. He is a stout supporter of the King and when Richard returns, those who gave
most generously to his cause will not be forgotten.’

‘So King Richard will return?’ Josse demanded.

‘Yes.’

‘I suppose you’ve seen
that
, too?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said the man with silver eyes.

Josse threw up his arms in exasperated confusion. ‘I believe I must be dreaming!’ he cried. ‘I see nothing but confusion!’

‘It is quite simple,’ the man said. ‘Aelle wanted rid of a sister who might grow up to encourage the people in the old chieftain’s ways, with which Aelle strongly disagrees. But if he had to give her away, why not ensure that she found a place where she could influence the tides of men? If she bore Ambrose a child, what might not be that child’s future as the son of a man who stood high in a king’s favour?’

‘But in giving her away, surely all her ties with her people here were severed!’ Josse argued.

‘You forget one thing: she carries our blood, and so would her son. You overlook the bloodline.’

The bloodline. Stunned, Josse sank down once more on to the stool.

Was the man telling the truth, or was it all an elaborate story told by a master whose words convinced even as he spoke them? Josse could not decide. There was a certain logic to it, he had to admit, assuming that Galiena would have been open to an appeal by her blood kin for assistance of some sort in this future time when she and Ambrose – and their son – were to ride high in Plantagenet favour. Ambrose had indeed given generously towards the ransom, or so he had told
Josse, and apparently intended to go on doing so. Was he close to the King? If he were, Josse was not aware of it, which was not to say that it was untrue …

But Galiena is dead, he thought suddenly. So all this careful planning, all this miraculously accurate foresight, has been for nothing.

He was about to say as much to the silver-eyed man when the man spoke. Very softly, he said, ‘It will not help to make you believe what I tell you, Josse, but Iduna was not the first child to be given away. The same thing was attempted before, when Aelle gave away his dead sister’s daughter.’

‘And what became of her?’

‘She married … unwisely. Her husband turned out to be a man who did not care much for those circles of power which rule our destinies, preferring the quiet life of the country.’

‘So you failed there, too.’ It was a provocative comment and, as Josse had expected, it was met with a shaft of anger.

‘Failure is not a term I like to use,’ the man said, the cool tone denying the sudden heat in his eyes. ‘The matter was dealt with.’

Dealt with. There was a sinister quality to that. ‘There is a girl chained in one of your outbuildings,’ Josse said. ‘Is she too to be given to a powerful husband?’

‘She?’ The anger was gone and the man was smiling. ‘Oh, no.’

‘Will you let me see her? She has been drugged, I believe.’

‘Yes, she has. No, I will not let you see her.’

The man was staring at Josse. His fascination for the tale that had been woven for his benefit wavered for an instant and for the first time Josse felt fear.

He put a hand down to his sword but with a snort of laughter the silver-eyed man raised his arms. Josse’s sword hand suddenly felt as heavy as if it were tied to a solid block of iron and it fell uselessly to his side.

Still holding Josse’s eyes with his, the man said, ‘The smoke that you have been inhaling has, I believe you will find, robbed you of your resistance. It used to have the same effect upon me, but long usage has inured me to its powers.’ Gripping Josse’s wrist with a firm hand, he added, ‘Come with me.’

And, hypnotised, unable to stop himself, Josse followed him out of the hut.

In Hawkenlye Abbey, the sunny day was nearing its end.

As Helewise emerged from the Abbey church after the penultimate office of the day, she set out on the first of the two missions she knew she must complete by the end of the day. It concerned Galiena’s serving woman, Aebba, and they had told Helewise three days ago that she was missing. Nobody had reported whether or not she had turned up and Helewise, preoccupied by so many other matters, had forgotten to ask.

She asked now. Aebba was still missing.

The only person who seemed the least concerned was the young lad who had arrived at Hawkenlye with Ambrose and Aebba. When Helewise ran him
to ground – behind the stables, where apparently he spent most of his time – he said Aebba hadn’t even said goodbye and he was worried about her, even more worried that nobody had given him any orders for ages and perhaps it meant he had been dismissed from the lord Ambrose’s service and so didn’t have a home any more.

‘What is your name?’ Helewise asked him gently; he seemed a pathetic boy and none too bright.

‘Arthus,’ the boy replied.

‘Well, Arthus, I will remind your master that you are still here and I will ask him if he would care for you to attend him. Would you like that?’