‘I am at your command, mistress,’ Ned said simply.
‘Because my father ordered it, and like him, you are a man of honour? I told you, Ned, I don’t want your pity.’
‘I would never desert you, mistress. It’s very simple, I love you.’
Touched by the simplicity of Ned’s declaration, Gwenn put her hand on his knee. ‘You are a good man, too. What would I do without you?’
‘Mistress–’
‘Hush!’ Gwenn caught his hand. ‘Someone’s entered the chapel!’
Scrambling to his feet, Ned put an eye to the squint. ‘It’s Malait,’ he hissed. ‘I’d know that tone anywhere.’
‘Not a word, Katarin,’ Gwenn mouthed in her sister’s ear. ‘Understand?’
Veiled by half-light, Katarin nodded.
The gentle Prior Hubert, having received a garbled and to his mind inadequate briefing from one of his novices, gripped his walking staff and roused himself to stand up to Captain Malait. On sight, he pigeon-holed the Viking as one of the damned – an excommunicate mercenary. He had been reluctant to allow such a heathen to defile the saint’s chapel, but Malait’s sword won the argument. The prior was not prepared to die to defend that particular tenet of the faith; Saint Félix would understand and forgive him. The wretch had entered, not even bothering to remove his helmet.
Otto Malait saw a plain, pathetic barn of a chapel. But it was the only solid building in the monastery; and save for a couple of wall paintings which put the rest in the shade, it was completely unadorned. These monks did not have so much as a brass crucifix, theirs was of varnished beech. One scornful glance told Otto that the chapel could not house his quarry.
‘What’s behind the altar stone?’ he demanded. He was beginning to regret having listened to that local trooper. He should have known better than to heed the advice of a man with an eye like that. Trooper Bernard probably couldn’t see past his own nose. Otto pictured Fletcher and the concubine’s daughter racing deep into the forest while he rattled about in this place. His feet itched to continue the chase.
‘Why nothing, Captain,’ Prior Hubert replied, blandly. The prior was of a retiring nature, but he could, if pressed, set his shyness aside. He misliked the burly, martial looks of the Norseman, who was of a breed the prior despised. He was a just man, and he did not want to betray the people who had claimed sanctuary in their hermit’s cell before he had had a chance to judge the merits of the case for himself. He looked into the mercenary’s light eyes; the pupils were mere pinpricks. This blond Goliath was full of hate. St Félix would approve of a mild deception in a good cause.
‘You have no hidden entrance? No vaults?’ Otto swung on his heels, impatient with the churchman’s unctuous manner.
The prior’s grey, tonsured head shook. ‘This is no cathedral, my son.’
‘No silver plate tidied away?’ In the matted, sweaty nest of a beard, greedy red lips curved.
‘As you have doubtless observed, my son, our community prides itself on the simplicity of its rule. But I suggest you look for yourself, and then you will have no doubts.’ Prior Hubert sucked in a breath, wondering whether it might be in the refugees’ best interests to make mention of the anchorite’s cell. If he omitted to do so, then the Norseman’s trooper, who clearly knew the area, would be bound to say something. The prior came to the conclusion that if he drew the Viking’s attention to the cell, he would dismiss the information on the grounds that anything freely given was worthless. ‘The only item worthy of interest in our chapel is the anchorite’s cell,’ he said.
‘Anchorite’s cell? Where?’
Prior Hubert pointed with the staff he used as a walking stick. It was curved at the top so it resembled a bishop’s crozier, and the prior fooled no one with his assertion that he needed the staff to hobble about, for he was a slender, sprightly man with a spring in his step.
Following the direction of the prior’s staff, Otto found himself scowling at the only plain, undecorated wall in the building. He could see why the other walls had been whitewashed, ready for painting, for the mortar was appallingly botched. ‘All I can see is an ordinary wall you’ve neglected to limewash. Where’s the door?’
‘My son,’ the prior was astonished that even a faithless mercenary should be so ignorant. ‘An anchorite abjures everything this world offers. He makes an oath never to leave the cell while he has breath in his body. There is no door.’
‘No door?’ Otto was fascinated, despite himself. ‘I had heard of anchorites, but I never thought a living man would prison himself freely.’
‘Not all anchorites attain the same levels of self-denial,’ Prior Hubert informed him. ‘Our Brother Biel, who went to God last Christmas, was renowned for his asceticism.’
‘Careful, Father,’ Otto grinned, ‘lest the Tempter sows pride in your heart.’
The prior flushed.
‘It’s a tomb for the living.’ Otto was revolted.
‘A pathway to Heaven, my son.’
‘Don’t pontificate. Is anyone in it now?’
‘Aye. A young man has taken Brother Biel’s place,’ Prior Hubert said, trusting that God would forgive him for misleading the mercenary. He was not lying, there was a young man in there...
Otto stalked to the quatrefoil. ‘Can’t see a damn thing through this. You’ve been penny-pinching with your mason. The mortar’s done very ill, and he’s chiselled this askew.’
Prior Hubert ran a thin finger over the curve of his crook. ‘You’re not meant to see in,’ he explained pleasantly, ‘if you could, it follows the hermit would be able to see out. He might be distracted by the world he has forsworn. He might be tempted–’
‘To break out?’ Shifting to the squint, Otto tried to peer through it, but he could see only shadows. ‘I can hear breathing.’
‘It’s God’s will that the young man lives. I pray he lives longer than Brother Biel.’ Prior Hubert lifted his hand and drew a blessing in the air.
‘Christ on the Cross, you’re insane!’ Otto strained his eyes at the squint. ‘It’s black as sin in there. We laymen treat prisoners better than this!’ He wrenched his head back and strode for the door.
‘Won’t you stay and pray with me, my son?’
Otto paused, his ox-like frame filling the doorway. He turned his face to the sun and his shadow spread like a dark stain over the church floor. ‘Not I.’
‘My son, you have a soul. It needs care.’
‘You’re the man of prayer, Father. Say one for me. I prefer action.’ Otto saluted indifferently, and was gone.
In the cell, Ned unclenched his fingers from his sword hilt. He had been holding it so hard he had driven the blood from his fingers. ‘Not that there would have been room for me to wield it in this oubliette of a place,’ he muttered.
‘Ned, has he gone?’
‘He’s gone.’
Gwenn sighed. ‘We’ll have to wait before they release us. The brothers will want to make sure he’s not coming back.’
‘Aye.’
Time dragged in the dismal cell until it seemed they had been immured for hours. In reality, less than an hour later the shutter on the north wall rattled, and a pale smudge of light appeared. It dimmed almost at once as one of the brethren pressed a fleshy, rotund face to the opening. ‘Here. Dominig mentioned you needed water,’ the monk said, withdrawing to thrust a goatskin flask through the aperture. ‘And here’s linen for your hurts, and for the infant.’
Ned knelt on the stone ledge to take them. ‘My thanks.’ He stared at the soft contours of the countenance framed by the wall. There was something familiar about the monk’s eyes. They were light brown and brimming with dreams, and he was sure he had seen them before. ‘What’s your name, Brother?’