The very act of riding out on the old mule in the clear morning air did a lot to restore Ella’s spirits. Twisting round to look at her, Josse observed that she was staring around with interested eyes as they rode along the track he knew so well. He realized that this was probably the furthest she had been in the years since she had come to the manor, and that must be… He did not know, for Will had been there in the days of the previous tenant and, for all Josse knew, so had she.
What a narrow world she inhabited.
They reached Hawkenlye Abbey in the early afternoon. Josse instructed Will to take the horses and the mule to Sister Martha in the stables. Taking Ella’s arm and giving her what he hoped was a reassuring smile, he led her across the wide courtyard.
He was very aware of her fear. As he opened the door and ushered her inside the infirmary, he tried to observe it with eyes that had never seen it before.
He saw a long room with windows set high in the walls. On either side were low beds, many of them occupied, and at each end were curtained-off recesses where treatments were carried out and where patients could be isolated. There were several nuns: all wore black habits, with white wimples that covered neck and throat and were drawn up around the face and across the brow. Some wore white veils and some black. Each wore a simple wooden cross around her neck. There must have been perhaps thirty-five or forty people yet the impression was of serenity. The nuns walked soft-footed, their pace unhurried so that they seemed to glide over the scrubbed flagstones. The patients — comforted, cared for, loved, perhaps — did not moan, cry out or complain, but instead lay passive and quiet, apparently well aware that the nuns were doing their best for them.
It was, thought Josse, a haven.
Beside him he sensed Ella relax. Then a big nun in a black veil, a crisp white apron tied over her habit, came towards him, a smile on her face and her arms open in welcome.
‘Sir Josse, how good to see you again so soon!’ she said, embracing him. ‘I am sure we can find some more leaves for you to sweep up!’
He returned her smile. ‘And right willingly I’ll do it,’ he said. ‘But I have come on a different mission. Sister Euphemia, this is Ella, who is in charge of my kitchen at New Winnowlands.’ Ella was staring up at the infirmarer, awestruck, and now she gave a bob curtsey. ‘Ella, Sister Euphemia here and her nursing nuns will be able to help you.’
‘What ails you, Ella?’ Sister Euphemia asked gently; she must, Josse noted, have picked up Ella’s fear and chronic shyness and she had turned from a large, confident and sometimes overbearing woman into a soft-spoken soul whose only wish was to soothe and to comfort.
To be able to change one’s very essence so swiftly and seamlessly was, he reflected, quite a talent.
‘Ella has-’ he began.
But with a smile Sister Euphemia shook her head. ‘Thank you, Sir Josse, but I would prefer it if she told me herself,’ she said.
Then, without a backward glance from either of them, the infirmarer and her shy companion walked away to one of the curtained recesses and disappeared from sight. Josse stared after them and wondered just what to do next.
He found Will waiting for him outside the infirmary.
‘Ella’s being cared for,’ Josse said. ‘By the infirmarer herself, who is very good at reassuring those who are disturbed. Don’t worry, Will, we’ll soon have our Ella back again and restored to her usual self.’ Will muttered something under his breath. ‘Go and get yourself something to eat,’ Josse ordered. ‘Over there — ’ he pointed — ‘you’ll find the refectory, and they serve food to those who ask. Tell them you’re with me,’ he added, unable to prevent the instant of pride.
Will suppressed a grin. ‘Right you are, sir,’ he said. Then, turning to go: ‘You’ll be off to see the lady Abbess, no doubt.’
‘I-’ But the protest never came. It was exactly where Josse was going.
Will’s smile was wider now. ‘See you later, sir.’ With what might well have been a wink, he turned and was gone.
Slowly Josse walked across the open space to the cloister, at the end of which Abbess Helewise had her little room. Tapping on the door, he heard her low ‘Come in’ and opened the door.
She looked as delighted to see him as she always did.
‘Sir Josse,’ she exclaimed, getting up and striding around her wide oak table, ‘you have come back! What can we do for you?’
‘It’s not me, it’s my servant Ella,’ he said hastily. ‘She’s given herself a bad fright and we just can’t get her out of her terror.’
‘How dreadful for her! What on earth happened?’
‘We had a stranger staying with us at New Winnowlands. He came to us asking for work, although he looked so sickly and weak that I didn’t reckon there was much he could have done. Anyway, we offered him an outbuilding to sleep in and we fed him up a bit.’ He was aware of her nod of approval and it warmed him. ‘It was odd, because for all he ate everything put before him, still he did not seem to grow any stronger. Instead of getting up in the mornings, he kept to his bed and slept for most of each day.’
‘What was the matter with him?’ asked the Abbess. ‘Oh, Sir Josse, it wasn’t some frightful sickness…?’
‘No, my lady, I am sure, for no sick man ever ate like our stranger.’
‘Go on,’ she commanded. ‘What happened to scare Ella so badly?’
‘She was intrigued as to why he slept all day,’ Josse explained, ‘and I guess she imagined he might be up to some secret nocturnal task. Anyway, she got up one night and went to see for herself and she discovered he wasn’t there.’
‘Did that not serve only to confirm her suspicions?’
‘So you’d have thought,’ Josse agreed ruefully, ‘but unfortunately she made up her mind that our stranger was some sort of malevolent spirit who hid from the light and emerged by night to do whatever such entities do.’
‘Had she any reason to believe the man was malevolent?’ asked the Abbess.
Josse shrugged. ‘If so, she has not revealed it.’
The Abbess was studying him closely. ‘Have you?’
Josse considered the question. ‘I don’t know,’ he said slowly. ‘He’s a mystery, that’s for sure — I’m pretty certain he’s been brought back from Outremer and abandoned, for he looks, acts and for the most part speaks like a foreigner. That’s really what prompted me to take him in, my lady — too many returning crusaders use a man they’ve engaged out East for as long as it pleases them, only to kick him out once they’re home with their own servants again.’
‘I see,’ she said. Then: ‘And this strange guest of yours has definitely gone?’
‘Aye. Vanished into the night, taking everything he owns with him.’
‘If it is indeed true that he is engaged upon some clandestine mission,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘then could it be that Ella’s sudden interest caused him to flee?’
‘Just what I thought,’ Josse agreed. ‘I visualized him on the point of setting out, then spotting Ella tiptoeing across the yard to spy on him. Fearful that she’d report back to me, he ran.’
‘Yet you say he took all his belongings with him,’ she pointed out. ‘Does that not suggest to you that he was planning to leave anyway, even before he saw Ella going out to check up on him?’
He rubbed a hand across his jaw. ‘Aye,’ he acknowledged gruffly. ‘Aye, it does.’
She smiled suddenly. ‘Sir Josse, does it matter? You did what you could for him, and it appears you helped him recover his strength. The important thing now is to make Ella see that her fears were unfounded; that this mystery man was no more than a stranger whom you took in and saw on his way. If we here at Hawkenlye can achieve that, we can call the matter closed.’ He did not answer. ‘Yes?’
He looked up and met her eyes. There was, he detected, the beginnings of amusement in her expression. ‘Suppose so,’ he muttered.
‘Excellent!’ she cried. ‘Now, you have had a long ride in the cold — let me order some refreshments.’
Ella remained closeted with the infirmarer for most of the afternoon and by the time she emerged — smiling shyly up at Will, who was waiting for her — it was too late to set out for New Winnowlands. Josse and Will were offered accommodation with the monks down in the Vale and one of the nursing nuns said she would prepare a shakedown bed for Ella in the infirmary.