Cowering right at the back of his pitiful shelter, shaking, sick with fear, Milon had watched as the man, chanting in a soft, hypnotic monotone, circled the clearing.
As, at last, the man approached the huddle of huts, Milon had closed his eyes and, terror turning his bowels liquid, covered his head with his arms.
When, after what seemed like an eternity, he gathered what little remained of his courage and looked up, the man had gone.
It was a dream, he told himself, then and on many occasions since. Nothing but a dream.
But, sometimes when he was very tired and very low, when the moonlight came filtering down through the branches black against the night sky, he thought he saw the man again.
And, each time, the terrors took a little longer to overcome.
So far, he was winning. By concentrating his mind on the past, where it was sunny and people were kind to him, he could make the horror go away. And, after a while, the door to the pleasant land would open again.
Sometimes he would sit up with a start and ask himself what he was doing there. It was quite nice, yes, a bit of an adventure to be off on his own in his camp, but why not go home? Why not return to Elanor, waiting in their bed for him with her white breasts and her smooth rounded hips, as ready for lovemaking as he was, wetting her lips, legs languidly apart, arms out to …
But, of course, she wasn’t waiting. Not in bed, not anywhere.
And he couldn’t go home. There was something he had to do, something important.
By concentrating very hard, he could make himself remember what it was.
But it was getting more and more difficult each time. Today, lying by his stream, the few rays of sunshine that managed to penetrate the trees warm on his back, he could hardly concentrate at all. The water was so cool, so pretty, rushing along over the stream-bed and …
Think!
No.
Yes! THINK!
Reluctantly, moaning aloud, he thought. And, when he did manage to remember, wished that he had not.
But act he must, before the whispering darkness, and the magical, dream-like pleasant place that was his escape from it, became his only reality.
He must do it now.
Tonight.
Then he could go home, and Elanor would let him back into her bed.
* * *
Josse and Brother Saul had been hiding in the undergrowth for what seemed like most of the night when Milon came.
It was Josse’s turn on watch. Seeing the slight figure coming carefully along the path by the pond, at first Josse had thought he was seeing things. It wouldn’t have been the first time, in those long hours. But this was no trick of the light: it was Milon.
He moved well, Josse thought detachedly, smoothly, silently, using all available cover, keeping to the deepest shadows. And he had chosen a cloudy night. Josse was surprised by the young man’s skill; he looked such a shallow, feckless fool, with his pointed shoes and his fancy clothes. With a part of his mind, Josse wondered what sort of desperate need had led to the development of these survival skills. Skills that included the dreadful final resort of murder, when someone had got in his way.
He stepped silently back to the little clearing and beckoned to Saul, who had been lying on the ground. Not sleeping, or he wasn’t when Josse summoned him. He got to his feet, eyebrows raised. Josse nodded, pointing in the direction of the path. He moved back to the edge of the undergrowth, and sensed Saul quietly following after him.
They stood side by side on the edge of the path, in the deep shade of a vast oak tree.
And Milon, using that same tree to provide his next patch of shadow, walked right into them.
As Josse’s arms closed around him, he let out a shriek of terror. Struggling with him — he was trying to reach down to his belt, where, no doubt, he had a knife — Josse spared him a moment’s pity. To be creeping along like that, already afraid, and have someone grab you! No wonder the youth’s heart was hammering so hard, hard enough for Josse to detect it.
Saul must have been able to see Milon’s weapon, for, with a sudden gasp, he shot out his hand. Josse was aware of the two of them, Milon and Saul, wrestling grimly, grunting with effort, and then Saul was holding something up in the air.
It was a knife.
The blade was long and quite broad, tapering to an evil point. It was double-sided, and — as Saul tested it on the hairs of his forearm — quite obviously honed to a vicious sharpness.
Josse was in no doubt that he was staring at the weapon that had slit Gunnora’s throat. His moment of pity for the youth vanished as if it had never been.
‘Milon d’Arcy, if I’m not mistaken,’ he said grimly, twisting the youth’s arms behind his back and taking a firm grip on his wrists. ‘And just what are you up to, creeping along here in the dead of night?’
‘You’ve no right to apprehend me in this way!’ Milon cried, his voice thin with fear. ‘I’m on my way back to my camp, I’ve done no harm!’
‘Done no harm?’ Josse was momentarily so angry that he gave the boy’s wrists a savage jerk, causing him to cry out. Brother Saul muttered, ‘Easy, now!’ and Josse relaxed his hold slightly. ‘Where is this camp?’ he demanded.
‘Up in the forest,’ Milon said. ‘Where the charcoal burners go.’
‘Aye, I know it. And what are you doing there?’
‘I have come to these parts to see a friend,’ Milon said with surprising dignity. He had clearly recovered some of his courage. ‘And you, whoever you are’ — he tried to twist round to look at Josse — ‘have no right to prevent me!’
‘I have every right,’ Josse said. ‘Brother Saul and I are here at the express wishes of the Abbess of Hawkenlye Abbey. Another quarter of a mile, my fine young man, and you’ll be climbing up to her convent walls.’
‘I will?’ The attempt at innocence did not convince.
‘Aye. As well you know.’ Josse hesitated, but only for an instant. Then said, ‘Hard, was it, seeing a beautiful young bride go inside those walls pretending she wanted to take the veil?’
Still clutching at Milon, he was close enough to feel the momentary tension. But Milon was a better actor than Josse would have given him credit for; he said mildly, ‘A bride — my bride — taking the veil? I think you are mistaken, sir. My bride would not do anything so foolish, certainly not now that she is my bride.’ The sexual innuendo was unmissable. Gaining confidence, Milon added, ‘And if, sir, you are aware of who I am, then it is possible you have been looking for me in my own home, where, I am perfectly sure, you will have been told that my wife stays with kin of mine, near-’
‘Near Hastings. Aye, that’s what they said.’
Milon gave an exaggerated sigh, as if to say, well, then! ‘In that case, might I be allowed to continue on my way?’
‘I went to your kin at Hastings,’ Josse said tonelessly. ‘They knew of no visit. Elanor d’Arcy was neither with them nor expected there.’
‘You went to the wrong place!’ Milon cried. ‘Fool!’ He had begun to struggle again. ‘Go back, sir! I’ll tell you the right place, then you can go and check! She’ll be there, my little Elanor, sitting in the sun of the courtyard, waiting on my return, lovely as a summer day, she is, you know, a fairer bride no man ever had.’ Twisting round, he put his face closer to Josse’s. ‘And in our bed when the lamps are blown out, sir, well, if I say I’ve had not a full night’s sleep since the day my Elanor and I were wed, I’m sure you won’t need any further detail to make your own pictures!’
Was the man raving? Josse felt strangely uneasy, as if he were in the presence of madness as well as evil. ‘Stop that, Milon,’ he ordered. ‘It will do you no good. Your wife Elanor d’Arcy came to the convent as a postulant, assuming a false identity and calling herself Elvera. She met up with her cousin Gunnora, who, once Dillian was dead, stood between her and the inheritance of Alard of Winnowland’s fortune.’