Joanna had left her beautiful horse at Hawkenlye Abbey where, in exchange for the mare’s keep, the nuns were permitted to use her when they needed to. As, today, the Abbess was doing. Josse had loved Joanna, and he was not entirely sure but thought possibly he still did.
Which made it painful to see the Abbess riding Joanna’s horse.
He wanted very much to speak to her of Joanna. But, despite their closeness, Joanna remained one subject that was never discussed between them.
Perhaps it was just as well.
Breaking into his poignant thoughts, the Abbess suddenly said, ‘I forgot to tell you, Sir Josse, in the flurry of everything else that has happened today, but yesterday I had a visit from one Gervase de Gifford, who describes himself as Sheriff and who is apparently a de Clare man.’
‘Oh?’ Quite relieved to be jerked out of his reverie, Josse said, ‘What happened to Harry Pelham?’
‘That’s what I asked. De Gifford did not really answer, save to imply that Pelham had been promoted above his capabilities.’
‘We already knew that.’
‘Quite.’
‘What did he want?’ Josse was intrigued.
‘He said he had come because of Father Micah. He intends to visit again so that he can speak to you.’
‘To be told what I have discovered.’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
Josse snorted. ‘The answer to that is nothing. Nothing that was not known from the first.’
‘Come, Sir Josse!’ she encouraged him. ‘You have a strong instinct that Father Micah was somehow involved in the punishment of that poor woman in the infirmary!’
‘Instinct, my lady! You use the word well, for there is no proof of the Father’s hand in that.’
‘But what of the Lord of the High Weald’s tale?’ She seemed quite determined to rid him of his pessimism. ‘It is surely more than coincidence that you hear of a priest’s threat to a woman he believes to be a sinner and the very next day you come across a woman who has been punished in exactly the way that was described.’
She was right, he supposed. But, all the same, it was not something he would have liked to put before this de Gifford. ‘When does he intend to return?’ he asked.
‘He did not say.’
‘Well, I’ll just have to make sure I have something more definite to report when he does.’ Filled with purpose, he gave the ambling Horace a kick and said, ‘Come on! Let’s get on to Father Gilbert and see what he has to tell us!’
He thought he saw her smile briefly. Satisfaction at an end achieved? It looked remarkably like it.
Inside the priest’s house, Josse noticed immediately that the temperature was considerably warmer than on his previous visit. There was a large stack of neatly split logs piled up a safe distance from the hearth and Father Gilbert, sitting up in bed and looking quite perky, was now covered with a thick, handsome fur rug and had consequently shed a few layers of clothing.
‘My lady Abbess!’ he cried as she preceded Josse into the little room. ‘And Sir Josse! What a pleasure to see you both.’
‘You’ve had another visitor,’ Josse said, pointing to the logs and to the rug. ‘One who, I would say, spent some time with you.’
‘Yes indeed. Lord Saxonbury’s son Morcar arrived this morning saying that he had heard I was in need of firewood. He also brought me this splendid fur, a dish of stew, which he heated up for me on the trivet, and a jug of ale.’
No wonder, Josse though, the priest’s pale face was flooded with colour.
‘Those were kindly deeds,’ the Abbess was saying. ‘They are good, Christian people up at Saxonbury, then, Father?’
‘Christian, perhaps. Good, undoubtedly,’ Father Gilbert said.
‘You know about his wife, I believe?’ Josse asked. ‘When I was last here you said something about the woman whom Father Micah referred to as the Lord’s mistress.’
‘Yes, yes, I know.’ Father Gilbert’s hands were fretting with his blankets, tangled beneath the fur rug. ‘Father Micah did not recognise any marriage to be lawful in the eyes of God other than one conducted by a priest. A priest of the Christian faith,’ he added firmly. ‘Since the Lord’s wife is a Muslim woman and their marriage was celebrated in her faith, Father Micah considered them to be fornicators.’
‘He was planning to flog her,’ Josse said neutrally.
Father Gilbert’s alcoholic flush faded. ‘Was he?’ he whispered.
‘Aye.’
Josse and the Abbess stood side by side looking down at the priest in his bed. After a moment, Father Gilbert broke the accusatory silence.
‘He would have been within his rights,’ he said. ‘The Church says that-’
‘That an elderly, frail woman can be dragged from her sickbed and whipped?’ Josse interrupted. He felt the Abbess’s cautionary touch on his sleeve but ignored it. ‘The Lord asked me, Father, what I would have done had it been my mother about to be flogged.’
Father Gilbert looked miserable. ‘I understand your emotion, Sir Josse. Father Micah was — that is, sometimes he-’ He shrugged. ‘We each serve God in our own way,’ he finished weakly.
‘Father, may I ask a question?’ the Abbess said, respect in her tone.
He turned gratefully to her. ‘Of course, my lady.’
‘Do you think that Father Micah was capable of flogging someone? Of, say, giving a delicate, slender woman twenty-five lashes?’
There was a long pause while the priest considered the question. It appeared to Josse that he was struggling with whether to save his late fellow-priest’s reputation or to tell the truth. Finally he said, so quietly that Josse barely heard, ‘Yes. I know he was. I know he did.’
The Abbess said, ‘We have such a woman in our care at Hawkenlye. Was she, do you think, Father Micah’s victim?’
Father Gilbert raised moist eyes to her. ‘I cannot say, my lady, but I fear it may be so.’
‘In God’s merciful name,’ Josse burst out, ‘what had she done? She’s also got a brand on her brow, Father, which looks like the letter A. Was she another woman whose marriage Father Micah refused to recognise, who slept with a man without the Church’s sanction?’
Father Gilbert rubbed at his eyes with his hands. ‘Father Micah believed he was doing God’s work by such means,’ he said wearily. ‘Sinners are doomed to the eternal fires, Sir Josse.’ He removed his hands and stared fiercely up at Josse, the priest taking over from the guilt-ridden, compassionate man. ‘Do not forget that! Is it not better to suffer a little temporary pain here on Earth while the sin is burned away than to be condemned to damnation for the rest of time?’
‘A little temporary pain!’ Josse began, his voice strident with anger.
But the Abbess had hold of his sleeve again. More firmly now; her fist was clenched in the fabric like an iron clamp. She pulled him back towards the door. ‘Sir Josse will wait for me outside,’ she announced. Turning to him, he saw understanding in her eyes; she said under her breath, ‘He is sick and in pain, Sir Josse. Do not shout at him because of something that is not his fault.’
‘But-’
‘Josse!’
Not for nothing was she Abbess of one of the largest communities in the south of England; the habit of command was strong in her, and meekly he did as she ordered.
Outside, the icy air hit him as if someone had thrown a bucket of cold water over him. As his fast breathing slowed and grew quiet, he strained to hear what was being said within. But, except for the low, soothing tones of the Abbess and the occasional deeper rumble of the priest’s interjections, he could hear nothing.
After some time she came out, carefully fastening the door behind her. Immediately she came to stand beside him and said, ‘Sir Josse, forgive me for ordering you from the room. I have no more right to command you than you to command me. But I did genuinely fear for him, in pain as he is, and in addition I thought that perhaps he would speak more openly to me.’