It was Euphemia’s opinion that only Joanna’s neat stitches and cleansing, healing salves had saved the arm, let alone Josse’s use of it.
Another legacy of Joanna de Courtenay, Helewise thought, walking with Josse to the stables. He will always bear that scar, to the end of his days. As will he also always carry his love for her.
She stood by Horace’s side as Josse swung up into the saddle. Looking up, she met his eyes. There was so much she wanted to say, about love never being wasted, about what he had shared with Joanna being of precious value, even though it was over.
But we do not have that sort of talk between us, she told herself. So she just said, ‘Farewell, Sir Josse. Come and see us again soon.’
He gave her a vague wave, and turned Horace’s head towards the gates. ‘Aye, I will,’ he said. ‘Farewell, Abbess Helewise.’
She watched until he had ridden away and out of sight.
Then, with a sigh, she returned to her duties.
Postscript
Joanna was approaching the beginning of her first autumn of living in Mag Hobson’s shack. It was October, still mild, but she had reluctantly to admit that summer was over. The midday sun was no longer as powerful, the leaves were starting to turn and, in some cases, to drop, and once or twice she had been tempted to stoke up the fire in her hearth to warm her through the night.
Since quitting Hawkenlye Abbey — and the precious person it then had contained — back in February, she had spent virtually all her time in the hut in the clearing. She went up to the manor house now and then, to make sure all was well and that doors and gates were secure. But the house was too full of the presence of people she had loved and lost. Ninian. Mag. And Josse. She far preferred life in the shack.
There had been little need to clean it or tidy it, for Mag had cared for it well. But Joanna had felt a certain impulse to add something of her own personality to the small dwelling and its surroundings; she brought from the manor house a few carefully-chosen items, each of which was important to her in some way.
She brought the willow basket which Ninian had made, under Mag’s tuition. She also brought his long-discarded hobby horse; she had painted its face herself, an age ago, and had given the horsy features a look of Ninian. It was comforting, to have standing in the corner of her little shack an object which radiated her son’s elemental self.
She also brought the furs and the rugs which had lain before the fire in the hall, on which she and Josse had first made love. If she buried her face in them and breathed in deeply, she could conjure up Josse’s presence. That, too, was a comfort.
There had been little need to bring clothing, for she always wore the same garments, washing them when they needed it and, while they dried by the fire, spending the time naked, making her tender flesh become accustomed to the air, the rain, the sunshine, the frost and the snow. She possessed only a loose linen shift, a hooded cloak, a white head-cloth and a generously-sized, dark-coloured veil. And she habitually wore her heavy woollen robe, stuck into the belt of which she carried her black-handled knife.
Lora had shown her how to purify it.
‘It needs no purification from the sin of slaying Denys,’ Joanna had protested, ‘because that was no sin.’
‘Nay, nay, child!’ Lora had cried, scolding and laughing at the same time. ‘More an act of charity, as far as the rest of the world’s concerned, I’d say. Like putting down a malformed calf. But it has been stained with his blood, and that’s why you cleanse it. See? It’s precious, is your knife. Take good care of it.’
They had performed the ceremony together, their two right hands holding the blade in the flame of a specially built, small fire out in the woods. Joanna had burned her fingers quite badly, and Lora had said that was all a part of the cleansing.
* * *
The shack now had hangings at its tiny window, and over the door. Mag had been hardier than Joanna was, and, although Joanna was working diligently at toughening herself, she still keenly felt the draughts which whistled and wheezed their way through the many gaps. Joanna also felt a residual need to wash herself, a hangover from her old life, and, while Mag had been content with the cold water of the stream that ran along nearby, Joanna preferred to heat water over her fire and wash inside the hut.
It made Lora laugh uproariously to see her go through what Lora referred to as ‘all that fussing and fretting’, carrying and heating water when there was a perfectly good stream not twenty paces away.
But Joanna knew that Lora, wisest of teachers, equivalent to Mag herself, was well aware how hard Joanna was finding her new life. And how earnestly she was trying to adapt to it. If warming water and washing indoors helped, Lora’s attitude seemed to say, then what of it?
* * *
Sitting outside her shack now, watching the last of the sunlight fade from the clearing, Joanna reflected on how much she had learned in the seven months she had been there.
I can look after myself, she thought wonderingly. Just about. I have vegetables growing in my little patch next to the herb garden. I know which woodland plants I can safely eat, and I am beginning — just beginning — to understand their medicinal uses. I keep chickens, and I know how to snare rabbits and tickle trout. When I have to, that is, for Lora has taught me that all of life is to be respected, and that we only take another creature’s life when it is truly necessary.
But then Lora had also said it was wrong to hesitate, when other factors indicated that there was a real need in the diet for the meat of a fellow creature.
Joanna stretched, putting a hand to her belly. I’m well, she thought. Thanks to Lora, I think I’ve got the balance about right.
Lora had taught Joanna much else besides how to attend to her physical needs. Sometimes, looking back over the months of intensive instruction, Joanna’s head reeled at all the new information she had acquired. Some of the secrets Lora had revealed to her had been, quite literally, breathtaking — Joanna had never even dreamed there were such things in the world.
And Lora, to Joanna’s delight, had pronounced her an apt pupil. ‘Carry on this way, my girl,’ she had said recently, ‘and, come Imbolc, I’ll take you with me to the Great Festival. You’d be ready come Samain, I reckon, but, by the look of you, you and I will have other things on our minds round about then. Aye. Samain night, I reckon.’
Then she had gone, leaving, as she always did, with neither a farewell nor any indication of when she might be back. But she always came back. And that was all that mattered.
‘Come Imbolc,’ Joanna murmured aloud. ‘The Great Festival.’
It was a thrilling thought. Imbolc would be next February, and everyone would get together to celebrate the very first stirrings of the new year’s life, deep under the ground. They would give praise for the coming into milk of the ewes, Lora had said, rejoicing in the distinct swelling of the udders that betokened new life within. They would make a huge fire, and prepare small bunches of the first flowers — snowdrops, crocuses — to wear in their hair. It was only right and proper, Lora said, to dress up to celebrate the Goddess’s return.
And, most important for Joanna, Imbolc would be when she would meet the others.
She was very anxious about that.
‘Don’t you fret,’ Lora had said. ‘Stands to reason you’ll be nervous, and that’s as it should be, being as you’ll be presented to the great and the good of our world. But they won’t turn you away. That I do promise you. You will come to them with honest heart and pure intent, and, besides, you were Mag’s special girl, you were. And Mag’s memory is honoured. Now you’re my pupil, and I will speak for you.’