Chapter Four
In the few days since the murder of Hamm Robinson, and Sheriff Harry Pelham’s dismissal of it, Abbess Helewise had found scant moments in which to dwell on the matter.
Life as abbess to a community of nigh on a hundred nuns, plus the fifteen monks and the lay brothers who tended the holy spring down in the Vale and cared for the pilgrims who came to visit it, was demanding at the best of times. Helewise’s everyday duties, on top of the hours spent each day in the Abbey’s round of devotions, meant that there was little, if any, time to spare. So that when, as now, a problem seemed to be looming, it was no easy matter for Helewise to find the occasion to give it due thought.
It was her custom, when there was something important demanding her attention, to slip into the awe-inspiring Abbey church on her own. And that — having the church to oneself — was not easily achieved, either.
Today, she was in luck; re-entering the church after the noon office, she found there was nobody else there.
She made her way towards the altar, then, moving into the shadow of one of the great pillars, fell to her knees. Praying quietly for some moments, soon she found she was sufficiently calm to put her troubled thoughts in order.
But the words, when they came, were not to do with poor dead Hamm Robinson and the problem of finding out who killed him. Another matter, perhaps less dramatic but, certainly, closer to Helewise’s heart, had taken precedence.
‘Dear Lord,’ she said softly out loud, ‘what am I to do about Caliste?’
* * *
Caliste, now a member of the Abbey community, had spent the first fourteen years of her life answering to another name. As a tiny infant, no more than a few days old, she had been found on the doorstep of a small and already overcrowded household, in the little hamlet of Hawkenlye. Wrapped in a piece of fine wool which had been dyed the dark purply-black of sloes, the baby was naked but for a beautifully worked wooden pendant, tied around her neck on a slim leather thong. On three sides of the wood — a long, narrow sliver of ash — there were strange, carefully incised marks. If they had a meaning and were not mere random patterning, then nobody in the Hawkenlye community either knew or could guess at what that meaning was.
Whoever had deposited the baby on that particular doorstep had known what he, or she, was doing. For the family who lived within, although equally as poor as their neighbours, equally as ignorant and equally as dirty, were loving people. Matt Hurst and his sons kept pigs, his wife Alison and her daughters tended their hens. Between them, the family also worked their strips of land, more diligently than did many of their neighbours, so that, although there was never an abundance of food on the table, the Hursts rarely went hungry.
The Hursts were God-fearing people. When, one summer’s night, a mysterious female infant was left at their door, they accepted that this was a duty put on them by the Almighty. Not only did they take the child in, they cared for her as if she were one of their own. They named her Peg.
If there had ever been any idea in Matt and Alison’s minds of keeping Peg’s strange provenance from her, then they had to abandon it, because Peg herself seemed to know. Knew, at least, that she was not their child, although, in truth, that would not have taken any particular psychic powers. The Hursts, both the women and the men, were short and dumpy, with reddish or lightbrown hair, pinkish, freckled skin, and pale eyes fringed with almost colourless lashes. Peg was slim and willowy, with a smooth, cream complexion, dark hair, and eyes like the midsummer sky at dusk.
Peg was, in short, quite exceptionally beautiful.
But, despite her awareness of all that separated her from her adoptive family, she was an obedient and hard-working child, doing what was asked of her without complaint, ever grateful to the kind-hearted people who had taken her in. Throughout her early childhood she fed chickens, mucked out their smelly runs, collected their eggs and went to market to sell what the family would not use. She also learned to cook and clean. But it was only when Alison Hurst began to teach her garden lore that Peg seemed to come alive; from that time on, from the exciting spring when the Hursts discovered that Peg had a green thumb, she was excused all other duties and put solely to cultivation.
But even that was not enough.
When Peg was fourteen, she presented herself at Hawkenlye Abbey and asked to be admitted as a postulant.
Helewise, who made it her policy to try not to turn anyone away, had grave misgivings about Peg. For one thing, the girl was very young. For another, she had seen nothing of life outside the small confines of Hawkenlye: how could the child be sure that convent life was for her?
The Abbess’s most important doubt, however, was that she could detect little of a religious vocation in Peg.
She did her best to discover it — sometimes, she had found, a woman kept her love for God very close to her heart, so that it was not readily apparent to an outsider — and she spent many an afternoon walking and talking with Peg. She also visited Alison Hurst, who, when asked a direct question, replied, after considerable thought, ‘The lassie’s what you might call spiritual, and no mistake, Abbess. That I’ll swear to right willingly. But as to whether she worships the same Holy Spirit as you and me…’
She had left the sentence unfinished.
Helewise, after much thought, had decided that it would do no harm to accept Peg for a trial period, but with the condition that her postulancy should continue for a year instead of the usual six months. She gave as her reason Peg’s youth.
But Helewise had accepted postulants of fourteen before, many of whom had grown up to be good nuns. The true reason for her decision regarding Peg was that a full year would give Helewise more time to assess this strange spirituality of the girl’s. To decide either that it was truly Christian in inspiration — or Christianity in some other similar guise — or whether it was something else.
That something else Helewise did not define, even to herself.
Thus, right from the start, there was a difference about Peg.
* * *
Within a few weeks of being in the convent, Peg’s talents in the garden were being put to work. She was apprenticed to the elderly Sister Tiphaine, who grew the herbs which Sister Euphemia used in her tonics, medicines and ointments. Sister Tiphaine took a shine to the girl, and reported favourably on her to the Abbess; but Helewise took Sister Tiphaine’s enthusiasm with a pinch of salt, since the old woman herself had always verged on unorthodoxy.
Then, one morning in late autumn, when there was little to occupy her outdoors, Peg knocked on the Abbess’s door and asked to be taught to read.
Amazed — for few of the sisters either read or had the least desire to — Helewise demurred. Thought about it for a couple of days, saw no earthly reason to refuse. Finally agreed, and took on the task herself.
Peg was an apt pupil, and was reading simple words within a few months; she would have reached that milestone earlier, had her Abbess had more time to spare for lessons. By the following spring, Peg was begging to be allowed to read the precious manuscripts kept in the Abbey’s scriptorium; despite the vehement objections of the young, aesthetic and highly intellectual Sister Bernadine, who had the care of the valuable books, Helewise gave permission.
From then on, Peg could be found most mornings, seated on a bench in a corner of the Chapter House, poring over one of Sister Bernadine’s manuscripts, with Sister Bernadine tutting and sighing close by. Peg would, Helewise thought, have read all day, had she been allowed to; but, both for Sister Bernadine’s peace of mind and because no nun, especially a postulant, could be permitted such a luxury, Helewise limited Peg’s study time to the short period between Sext and the midday meal.