Helewise was not sure what he was trying to imply. ‘Your ways?’ she said. ‘Surely there is only one way for a godly man, Sir Gervase? Does not your Father Henry appreciate this?’
De Gifford gave her a charming smile. ‘Naturally so, my lady Abbess, and reminds us all of our duty at every possible opportunity. I merely meant to make the point that priests may vary in the methods that they employ to keep their flock within the fold.’
‘Hmm.’ She was not convinced. She had observed an occasional exchange of glances between de Gifford and Josse — or rather, she corrected herself, glances from de Gifford directed at Josse — as if the Sheriff were trying to recruit Josse as an ally. Two laymen together facing a woman of the Church.
Josse said, ‘Who else did the Father order to be flogged?’
‘He did not merely order,’ de Gifford corrected. ‘He made it a rule to carry out himself any sentence that he imposed. A variant, I suppose, on the good commander’s maxim: never order your troops to do something you are not also prepared to do. In answer to your question, Sir Josse, Father Micah flogged another woman, somewhat younger than Aurelia. She had been convicted of a crime by a Church court and she was to be handed over to the secular arm for punishment. However, Father Micah overruled that and said he would do it himself, which he duly did. Then he allowed her to be hauled away by a couple of guards and thrown into some filthy prison cell.’
‘What became of her?’ Helewise, to her distress, heard her own voice emerge as little more than a whisper. But she did not think there was anything that she could have done about it; de Gifford told his affecting tale simply but with quiet force, so that, for an instant, it had almost seemed that the poor beaten woman, dragged away to prison, was there in the room with them.
De Gifford was gazing at her, cool eyes briefly filled with pity. ‘She died, my lady. Her gaoler decided to compound her various agonies by raping her. In doing so, it appears she hit her head on the stone floor of her cell, and it was a hard enough blow to kill her.’
‘And what of the gaoler?’ Now her voice was shaking.
De Gifford shrugged. ‘What of him? Still a gaoler.’
‘But he assaulted his prisoner!’
‘She was to die in any case, my lady,’ de Gifford said gently. ‘They did not believe that her repentance was sincere, for they said she intended to revert to her wickedness as soon as she was able.’
Helewise was about to ask what form the woman’s wickedness had taken — another adulteress? Surely not! — when Josse interrupted.
‘I investigated the case of two men who escaped from a gaol,’ he said. ‘My own involvement began but three days ago, although I believe that the men fled some days earlier. A pilgrim family who came here for the Holy Water cure told us how someone had attacked the guard. He only appeared to have been hit once, or perhaps twice, in the face, yet he died. When one of the Abbey’s brothers and I went to look at the body, we discovered marks on his throat that suggested he had been throttled.’
‘Yes, I heard about him,’ de Gifford said.
‘And what about the men who escaped? Do you know anything of them?’ Josse, Helewise noticed, looked eager, straining towards de Gifford as if he expected answers to all his questions suddenly to materialise.
De Gifford studied him for a moment. Then he said, ‘No.’
I am almost certain, Helewise told herself, that his last statement was a lie. Josse met her eyes briefly, and she saw that he had had the same thought.
‘I asked around in the village where the gaol was,’ Josse said casually, as if it were a mere aside. ‘Nobody there knew anything of the men, either. Or they said not, anyway.’ He eyed de Gifford. ‘Which I thought strange, since I was almost certain that they did. They were afraid, you see, de Gifford. To a man — and to a woman — they scarcely waited to hear me ask my question before they began shaking their heads and denying all knowledge. One old woman started to tremble, repeating over and over again that she didn’t want any trouble and that she hadn’t seen anything, didn’t know anything, may God strike her down if she told a lie. I thought her statement was quite foolhardy, since she had undoubtedly just done exactly that. And a little child who was with her — he was a boy, no more than about five, too young to know how to keep a secret — said that he was frightened that the black man would come back and get him while he lay in his bed at night.’
De Gifford looked as if he were about to speak. Then, seeming to change his mind, shook his head slightly.
‘I’ll tell you another thing,’ Josse went on. ‘The prison guards reckoned that the men who escaped were foreign. One of their number had complained that he didn’t understand a word the prisoners said. Now it’s possible that the prisoners were well-educated men whose speech was not comprehended by the ruffians we employ in our gaols, or that the guard was singularly hard of hearing or dull of wit. But I believe it’s much more likely that the guard didn’t understand because the men cried out to him in another tongue. What d’you think, de Gifford? Do I reason rightly?’
Again, de Gifford appeared to go through the same process of deciding whether or not to confide his thoughts. But this time he made a different decision. With a gesture of squaring his shoulders, he said, ‘My lady Abbess, Sir Josse, there is a limit to what I may tell you. But you are right — I do know something about these prisoners and of the woman who died in gaol. And, indeed, of the one now lying in your infirmary. Or so I believe.’
‘You can’t have her!’ Helewise cried. ‘She is under our protection and if you try to arrest her I will have her taken into the Abbey church where she may claim sanctuary!’
De Gifford turned his clear eyes on to her. ‘My lady, you misunderstand, and I cannot blame you for that when I have perforce been so very reticent.’ He frowned. ‘On my honour, I am glad that Aurelia is here. What was done to her was vilely cruel and I would have brought her to Hawkenlye myself had I known where to find her. As it is, I shall ensure that nobody who wishes her ill shall learn from me where she is. Keep her here, help her to heal. When she is ready to go, then — but no. It is not yet time to speak of that.’
Feeling weak as the high emotion drained from her, Helewise leaned against the back of her chair.
Josse said, ‘You were saying, de Gifford, that you know the identities of the two escaped prisoners.’
‘I cannot be sure, for the tally of people we refer to here is but four — the woman who died in gaol, Aurelia and the two men who fled — whereas the group of which I heard tell numbered seven.’
Not four but five, Helewise thought. The two men, Aurelia, the poor woman who died, and Benedetto. But if de Gifford did not know about Benedetto, then she was not yet ready to tell him. Nor, from the glance he sent her, was Josse. De Gifford, it seemed, had assumed that Aurelia had been brought to Hawkenlye by some Good Samaritan who came across her on the road.
‘Four people?’ Josse now said. ‘Foreigners?’
‘Er — yes. Some from the Low Countries, some from the far south. So I believe.’
‘And why are they in England?’ Josse demanded. ‘Were they making for Hawkenlye?’
‘No, not as far as I know.’ De Gifford twisted his face in mock anguish. ‘Sir Josse, please do not push me so hard. I am telling you all that I may, and even this much is more than I should. I can reveal nothing else about the travellers and I shall not do so, no matter how much you scowl at me. What I will say is that I am aware that Father Micah was on their trail. As I have told you, he was responsible for beating and imprisoning Frieda.’
‘Frieda,’ Helewise repeated softly. ‘The woman who was raped and killed.’
‘Yes, my lady.’ De Gifford looked at her. ‘It is better, is it not, to have a name for her? So that we may remember her as a real woman and not merely a faceless, unidentifiable prisoner?’