Josse studied the monk’s face. He wore a bland smile but there was a certain avidity in the round eyes, as if he were hungry for a good gossip and a few gory details. ‘Nicol Romley was suffering from a pestilence that we believe was brought across from the continent,’ he said, speaking more curtly than was polite. ‘But he didn’t die of the sickness; someone struck him over the head and rolled his body into the lake in Hawkenlye Vale.’
Stephen had gone white.
Josse said, after a moment, ‘Do not fear contagion from Augustus and me, for the nuns and monks of Hawkenlye have arranged matters so that the sick and the healthy are kept well apart.’
Again, Stephen seemed to weigh his words before speaking. Then he said, ‘I thank you, Sir Josse, for the reassurance.’
Eyes on those of the monk’s, Josse had the sudden quaint thought that Stephen’s intent stare meant he was trying to convey something about which he would not speak. Perhaps he wants to know more about the foreign pestilence, Josse thought, but fears to ask in case Gus and I condemn him for his morbid curiosity. ‘The disease takes the form of a high fever with a deadly looseness of the bowels that leaches every drop of fluid from the body,’ he began, but Stephen put up a silencing hand.
‘I pray to the merciful one above that I shall not need to know the symptoms,’ he said. ‘We shall include the sick of Hawkenlye in our prayers.’
‘Thank you,’ Josse said gruffly.
‘Well,’ Stephen said after a moment, ‘if there’s nothing else, I will send Bruno for your horses and see you on your way.’ With a beaming smile, he edged Josse towards the door. ‘We live a life of hard work, you know, and these lands that we wrested back from the wild need our constant vigilance to keep them productive.’
‘We would not keep you from your work,’ Josse said. ‘It was good of you to spare the time to see us and I apologise for troubling you.’
‘Oh, think nothing of it!’ said the monk brightly. ‘Bruno! Bruno! Leave your digging and fetch the horses — our visitors are going now.’
‘Now why,’ Josse said to Augustus as they emerged from the track on to the main road up from Hastings and could ride side by side, ‘do I have the impression that Brother Stephen was eager to see the back of us? Can he have truly been in that much of a hurry to return to whatever he was doing when we arrived?’
Augustus frowned. ‘It’s odd he should speak of working hard on the land,’ he said slowly.
‘Why? I understood that to be the way of the Cistercians, to carve out a clearing deep in the forest and cultivate it? I thought their rule involved less hours praying in chapel and more out working the land.’
‘It does,’ Augustus agreed. ‘Or, rather, it did, until the White Monks discovered that, as any farmer could have told them, working the land thoroughly and well doesn’t really leave any time for saying your prayers, at least not when the prayers are of any length.’
‘So how do they manage?’
‘They invented the system of lay brethren,’ Augustus said. ‘That boy Bruno, he was dressed in brown instead of the white that Stephen wears. Well, he’ll be a lay brother.’
Josse frowned. ‘But we have lay brothers at Hawkenlye, although you wear black like the monks.’
‘Aye, but the Cistercians had them first,’ Augustus said with a grin. ‘Reckon whoever set about making sure that the system at Hawkenlye Abbey worked all right wasn’t above pinching a good idea from another order.’
Josse smiled in response. Then, recalling where the conversation had begun, he said, ‘So what you’re saying is that it’s odd for Stephen to say he’s got to get back to manual work because it won’t be the likes of him who carries out the farming and forestry tasks?’
‘Aye,’ Gus agreed. ‘If he wanted an excuse to see us on our way, it seems to me he ought to have come up with something more convincing.’
An excuse to see us on our way. Aye, Josse thought as, the road smoothing out in front of them, they kicked their horses to a canter. Aye, that’s just how I saw it.
And as they covered the miles back to Hawkenlye, he tried — with a singular lack of success — to work out why Stephen had wanted them gone. By the time the Abbey came into view, all that he had managed to come up with was that Stephen had not been as convinced by Josse’s reassurances concerning the sickness as he claimed to be.
Back at Robertsbridge, as soon as Josse and Augustus had ridden off down the track, Stephen had raced to climb the hill behind the Abbey. He knew from long experience that, on a clear day, it allowed someone standing at its summit a good view of the place where the track to Robertsbridge Abbey joined the main road coming up from the coast; he wanted to make quite sure that his visitors had gone.
He waited for some time, stamping his bare feet in their rough sandals against the cold, hard ground and, as the sweat of exertion cooled, wrapping his arms round himself in a vain attempt to stop the shivering. Then at last the two horsemen came into view; the young monk was leading, the big knight following. As Stephen watched, a smile of relief on his face, the pair emerged on to the road and their pace increased. He watched until they were out of sight and then turned and hurried back down to the Abbey.
He turned left instead of right at the foot of the hill and ran along the track to the buildings hidden in the forest.
She was waiting for him.
‘Have they gone?’ Her accent was strong but he could understand her if she spoke slowly.
‘Aye. I waited until they broke into a canter to be sure. They’re hurrying back to Hawkenlye now.’
‘They will not return here?’
‘I do not think so.’
‘What did they say about Nicol?’ she demanded urgently. Her face was pale and her wide blue eyes showed her fear but she was still beautiful, even to an avowed monk who ought not to notice such things.
Stephen took a step closer to her and placed a gentle hand on her arm. ‘He did not die of the sickness,’ he said. ‘That knight — he is Sir Josse d’Acquin — says he was struck down by an unknown assailant.’
Sabin gasped. ‘It is just as I feared!’ she cried. ‘They tried before in Troyes and now they have followed us to England. Nicol would not accept that we were in danger and so would not agree to take care, and now he has paid the price for his — his insouciance and he is dead. Oh, dear God, he’s been murdered!’ She gave a sob that seemed to come up from the very heart of her.
‘You are safe here,’ Stephen reassured her, ‘we are so deeply buried in the forest that nobody can find us unless they know the way.’
‘That Sir Josse found you,’ she pointed out coldly.
‘Aye, but he had a lad with him who’s a monk and probably knows all about us,’ Stephen replied.
She drew her heavy cloak more firmly round her, pulling the hood up over the neat white cap that covered her fair hair. Turning to Stephen, she gave a very small smile and said, ‘I apologise for my rudeness. It is not right to speak in this manner when you and the other monks have been so kind to us during the week and more that we have imposed ourselves upon you.’
Stephen spread his hands, palms upwards. ‘It is what we are here for, to help those in need,’ he said simply. Then: ‘How is he?’
Sabin shrugged. ‘Restless. He was not in his room when I went to find him earlier and I was worried that he had somehow found out that the knight and the young monk from Hawkenlye had come here.’
‘He was not in the Abbey buildings when they arrived,’ Stephen said quickly.
Sabin smiled again, more generously now, and a dimple winked in her pale cheek. ‘He was,’ she corrected him. ‘He’d gone to beg some ingredients from your herbalist and he heard the horses. He hid in that little room just inside the gate and watched.’