Again the herbalist nodded. ‘Aye, my lady. I am aware of that.’ She paused, deep eyes looking away down the Vale and back towards the small collection of buildings. After some time she returned her gaze to Helewise. ‘Have I your leave to go into the forest, my lady Abbess?’ she asked.
Why ask me this time? You do not usually bother, Helewise thought, but she bit back the remark. ‘You have,’ she replied.
Sister Tiphaine gave her a low reverence. ‘Thank you. I will return as soon as I can.’
With that she was off, pacing away along the track, her very movements suggesting that, had she not been a nun clad in the habit of obedience and decorum, she might well have broken into a run.
Helewise watched her go. With you, Tiphaine, she said silently, goes our hope.
Then she sighed and, slowly and reluctantly, followed in the herbalist’s footsteps back to the infirmary in the Vale.
Josse rode hard for a few miles and then, drawing rein at the top of a low hill to the north-west of the Abbey, sat for some time looking out at the view. Before him the valley of the Weald stretched from west to east; behind him to the south rose the vast, mysterious forest. After a while, becoming slightly uneasy at having the dark woods at his back, he turned Horace and stared out over the trees.
He was thinking, so hard that his head ached, about what had caused a secret killer to cross to England, and what could be so sensitive about his mission that the two men who might have witnessed him boarding or leaving the ship that brought him across the Channel had had to be silenced.
It had to be connected to King Richard’s release and his imminent return to England! But just how, Josse was at a loss to see.
He realised that he was growing cold; it would do neither him nor Horace any good for the sweat of exertion to chill them so, with an explosive oath that did a little to express his frustration, he turned the big horse and set out back to Hawkenlye.
He reached the Abbey in the mid-afternoon and Sister Martha greeted him at the gate. ‘You’ve had a hard ride, Sir Josse,’ she observed, looking at Horace with a critical eye, ‘and the old boy’s all lathered.’ She patted Horace’s neck and he whinnied in recognition. ‘Leave him to me and I’ll give him a good rub-down.’ Glancing up and meeting Josse’s eyes, she added quietly, ‘I’ll be glad of something to do. Evil times, Sir Josse; evil times.’
Josse slid off Horace’s back and handed the reins to Sister Martha. ‘Aye, that they are,’ he agreed heavily. ‘Thank you, Sister.’
He was on the point of setting out back down to the Vale when he heard a voice calling his name. Turning, he saw the porteress, Sister Ursel, hurrying towards him. It was only then that he realised she had not been at her usual post, in the little lodge by the gate, when he rode in.
He walked back to meet her; she was coming from the direction of the Abbess’s room at the far end of the cloister. ‘I thought you might have been with the Abbess Helewise,’ Sister Ursel panted, ‘but you weren’t and she’s not in her room either. She’s probably down in the Vale’ — Sister Ursel nodded as if in confirmation of her own deduction — ‘although I pray to the dear God above that she keeps herself out of harm’s way. There’s poor old Brother Firmin sick, and now poor Sister Beata’s got the fever, they say, and Sister Euphemia’s got her hands full even with the two extra who have gone down to help.’
‘Aye, it’s a bad time all right,’ Josse agreed. Before Sister Ursel could continue her recitation of woes, he put in gently, ‘You were looking for me, Sister. How may I help?’
She smiled at him. ‘Ah, there’s the kind soul that you are, Sir Josse. I always say so. It’s never a surprise to me that so many folks come here after you, wanting some of your precious time!’
‘Has someone been here today asking for me?’ It sounded like it.
‘Oh, yes!’ She paused and then, amending the affirmation, added, ‘Well, not asking for you exactly, although you came to mind the moment she said why she was here.’
‘I see.’ He was not at all sure that he did.
But Sister Ursel was hurrying ahead with her tale. ‘It was — oh, let me see, was it after Sext or after Nones? Nones, I’m sure of it; it wasn’t all that long ago. Anyway, I was returning to my post at the gate — one of the lay brothers relieves me when I go into church for the Offices, Sir Josse, although of course not always the same one, and then he, whoever he is, returns to his duties when I get back.’ She stopped. ‘Where was I?’
‘Returning to the gate after Nones,’ he prompted.
‘Aye, aye, that’s right. There was someone waiting with the lay brother — it was young Brother Paul; you probably don’t know him, he’s new, see — and Paul had told them to wait till I got back from church. He didn’t really know the usual form so really he did the right thing, telling her to wait for me.’
‘The visitor was a woman?’
‘Aye, a young woman, maybe twenty-two, twenty-three. Pretty as a picture.’
For a moment Josse’s heart leapt.
‘She was fair,’ the porteress continued, dashing his hopes, for the woman he had in mind was dark, ‘with neatly braided hair under a close-fitting cap. She had blue eyes and a worried expression and her garments were good quality, not cheap. Nice gloves, fur-lined at the wrist — squirrel, I think — and she wore a deeply hooded cloak which she only drew back when she was safe inside the gate. It’s my belief’ — Sister Ursel dropped her voice and leaned close to Josse — ‘that she was afraid. That she knew someone was after her and didn’t want to be identified.’
Josse reflected that Sister Ursel, for all her verbosity, had a sharp pair of eyes. ‘And this young woman was asking for me?’
‘Not by name. She said she had been given to understand that people came here to the Abbey with all sorts of problems and difficulties that get sorted out for them here and she hoped someone might do the same for her, and so of course I thought that you, Sir Josse, might be able to help her.’
‘Is she still here?’ Josse asked urgently; he had the sudden irrational but very strong feeling that this mystery woman, whoever she was, could be important. .
‘No, she’s gone,’ Sister Ursel said. ‘I told her to warm herself in my little room while I tried to find you; I keep a bit of a fire in there, Sir Josse, and the Abbess Helewise turns a blind eye because it’s cold as the tomb in the winter. Anyway, she accepted right gladly and I left her warming her cold hands. I looked for you in the Vale and I was gone longer that I intended because, what with them working so hard to keep the healthy away from the sick, it wasn’t easy finding someone to ask whether you were about. When I got back here she’d gone. I went to the Abbess’s room to see if she knew where you were so I could tell you about the woman, but she wasn’t there. Still, you’re here now and I’ve told you!’ Sister Ursel beamed her relief.
‘Was the young woman riding or walking?’ Josse asked; if the latter, then, provided he guessed right as to in which direction the young woman had set off, he might be able to fetch Horace and catch her up.
But: ‘She was riding, on a pretty grey mare,’ Sister Ursel said. ‘Tied her up to the post there.’ She nodded to a small pile of horse droppings.
‘I see.’ Josse frowned. ‘You say that the young woman seemed afraid, Sister; is it possible, do you think, that while she waited in your little room, something happened that made her feel threatened?’
‘Like whoever’s following her turning up outside on the road?’ Sister Ursel said. ‘I can’t say, Sir Josse. I didn’t see anybody, but then,’ she added shrewdly, ‘a man who sets himself to trail someone isn’t going to make a song and a dance about it, is he?’
‘No,’ Josse agreed. But, he thought, if the woman thought she had spotted her pursuer, then surely the last thing she would do was to mount her mare and leave the safety of the Abbey.