The Song of the Nightingale (6 page)

‘Don't you think we all feel that way?' he demanded.

‘About Ninian, yes, of course,' she said hurriedly. ‘But, Father, you, Geoffroi, Will and Gus are busy from dawn to dusk, as are Ella and Tilly, for the work you all do is right here. What is there left for me? I cannot do what I excel at, and everyone else is so efficient that there is very little left for me to do!'

Her words echoed faithfully Helewise's of a short while earlier. Had he not known both women better, he might have suspected them of collusion.

He raked through his mind, trying desperately to come up with something with which he might appeal to her, even though he was all but certain it was useless. Then he had an idea. ‘What about Little Helewise?' he demanded. ‘She's come here to stay with us, undoubtedly because she wants to be with her grandmother and with you, a young woman close to her own age who also loves Ninian dearly, and yet here you are, you and Helewise, planning to run out on her the moment she's arrived. Is that kind, Meggie?'

Meggie's face filled with such love and tenderness that he gasped. ‘Oh, dearest Father, I'm so sorry, but that is no reason to stay!' she cried, and he saw tears in her eyes. ‘You see, Helewise had the same thought. She's talked it over with Little Helewise, and she's coming with us.' Again, he started to protest, and again she didn't let him. ‘I know, I know, the little cell by the chapel is hardly suitable for a girl like her, used to considerable luxury, but we've thought of that. She can stay down at the abbey if she'd rather, where without doubt the nuns will find her plenty to do to take her mind off worrying about Ninian.'

Josse felt the passion and the anger flow out of him. Suddenly feeling very tired, he sank down on a straw bale and dropped his head in his hands. ‘You seem to have it all worked out,' he said from behind them. ‘If you won't listen to me when I express fears for your safety, if you won't pause to consider that I might worry about you, miss you, then who am I to stand in your way?' His voice had risen, and he made himself stop and draw a deep breath. ‘Go and pack a bag,' he said wearily. ‘I despair of you all.'

He heard a sound break from her – perhaps a sob? – and then her hurrying footsteps running out across the yard. When he looked up, she had disappeared round the corner.

The journey through the forest from the House in the Woods to Hawkenlye Abbey was usually a pleasant one, whatever the season or the weather. Today, despite what he knew awaited him, Josse couldn't wait for it to be over. He had asked Gus to come with them, fearing that he was in no state to protect three women if his worst fears were realized and they were attacked, and Gus was the only one who had a smile. Even his did not survive the first couple of miles, by which time the prevailing mood seemed to have affected him too.

They reached the chapel, and Helewise turned to him. ‘Perhaps Little Helewise and Meggie might ride down with you while you ask Abbess Caliste if we may take up residence in the cell,' she suggested. ‘They could then return here to give me the reply, leaving you free to proceed with your own business at the abbey.'

It made sense. ‘Very well,' he said curtly. ‘Gus, will you stay with Helewise?'

‘Aye, Sir Josse,' Gus agreed. He was looking around him, interested, and Helewise, apparently noticing, dismounted.

‘Come, Gus, I'll show you inside the chapel, and then we might have a look inside the cell and see what sort of a state it's in,' she said.

Josse could bear to watch no more. He put his heels to his horse's sides, and Alfred set off at a canter down the long slope to the abbey. There was no need to turn round to see if Meggie and Little Helewise were following; he could hear them.

If he had been holding out secret hopes that Abbess Caliste would refuse even to think of her predecessor and the two young women taking up residence in the cell by the chapel, Josse was doomed to disappointment. She pounced on the idea with delight, saying she'd been thinking along the same lines herself but, unable to spare any of the Hawkenlye nuns, monks or lay brethren, had let the matter rest.

‘But how perfect to have Helewise back!' she exclaimed. ‘Oh, Sir Josse, word will soon spread, and everyone will remember how very much they depended on her presence when she was there before. And she'll have Meggie and her own granddaughter with her, so she won't be alone, and we shall make quite sure that the cell is guarded at night. I'll get some of our handier brethren to put up a shelter,' she went on, apparently thinking aloud, ‘and finding volunteers to watch over three such courageous and good women will not present a problem.' Suddenly, she looked up at Josse. ‘Do they need anything from us?' she asked. ‘We have very little, but I would not like to think of them cold or hungry.'

‘They anticipated your agreement to the suggestion, my lady abbess,' Josse said wryly. ‘They have brought with them from Hawkenlye Manor all that could be spared of food supplies, medicaments and blankets, as well as a small bag each of personal belongings. They will be as comfortable as the small space allows, I believe.'

Abbess Caliste nodded. ‘Very well, Sir Josse. I shall go and see them myself once they have had a chance to settle in.'

‘I'll go outside and tell the young women what you've said, my lady—' Josse went over to the door of the abbess's room – ‘and then I will proceed with my own mission here today.'

‘The dead men, yes.' She came round from behind her table to join him. ‘I will summon our infirmarer, and we will take you to where they have been laid out.'

It amounted to something, Josse thought a little later as Abbess Caliste and Sister Liese led the way down to the rooms below the nuns' dormitory, when a man actually looked forward to inspecting dead, putrid bodies. But such was his present mood that anything which took his mind off his own pressing sadness was welcome just then.

Sister Liese opened the door of a dark, windowless little room, pausing to light a lamp with the candle she held in her hand. Inside, she moved calmly around what lay on the trestle tables to light three further lamps. Then she turned to Josse and said, ‘Come and look, Sir Josse. We did brush off the earth that clung to them from their interment, but their clothing has not been disturbed by us, and so you see them much as they were when they were in the ground.'

Josse was grateful for the forethought of whoever had directed the recovery of the bodies. It was always useful if you could view your victims as their murderer left them. He was even more grateful to whoever had been burning incense; the smell from the bodies was still very much in evidence, but at least the incense masked it a little.

Then, putting all else aside, he stepped forward and began his inspection of the three dead men.

T
hey lay side by side on rough trestle tables, each body covered with a strip of worn, patched but clean linen. Sister Liese met Josse's eyes and, at his quick nod, folded back the sheet covering the first body.

It was that of a man in early middle age. He had been small and wiry, narrow in the chest and shoulders; the sort of body a man developed when he had been hungry most of his life. He was dressed in a ragged tunic over a thin shirt; patched and darned hose; worn, down-at-heel boots that had not been cleaned for a very long time; a heavy, hooded cloak, very soiled. Standing out amid this dowdy collection, like a gaudy finch in a flock of sparrows, was a very fine belt made of soft, supple leather, rich dark-red in colour. It had a buckle that appeared, to Josse's eyes, to be gold. He pointed to it, then looked at the abbess and the infirmarer.

‘Gold?' whispered Sister Liese.

Abbess Caliste leaned closer, gently scraping the buckle with a fingernail. ‘Solid gold, I do believe.' Straightening, she said, ‘I do not wish to make false accusations, especially when this poor man cannot defend himself, yet I do wonder how he came by such a treasure.'

Josse didn't wonder; he was pretty sure he knew.

He looked at the face of the corpse. Narrow, eyes close together, the mouth open and what flesh there was on the scrawny cheeks already falling in, giving him a rat-like expression.

How had he died? As if Sister Liese read Josse's thought, silently she indicated a darker patch on the man's rusty brown tunic. Carefully loosening the strings that closed the garment and drawing the fabric aside, he saw a small patch of dried blood, right over the heart.

He studied the wound, gently pulling the flesh this way and that. ‘It's a deep, straight cut, made with a slim blade,' he said quietly. He pressed the chest on both sides of the wound, and a little clotted blood appeared. ‘He did not bleed much, to judge by the body and the clothes that he wore. I would say the stab went straight into the heart, killing him instantly.'

‘He would not have suffered, then,' Sister Liese observed.

‘Very little,' Josse agreed.

He moved to the next table. Sister Liese, having deftly covered the first man once more, now folded back the sheet that was spread over the second body.

This man was bigger, taller, broader and far more muscular than the first. He was clothed in similarly worn and dirty garments, and, in his case, the one outstanding item was a soft woollen muffler wound round his neck. It was, incongruously on such a masculine body, soft pink. In a well-used scabbard on his belt, he carried a sword. Josse drew it out and inspected the blade, which was stained with what looked like blood.

It was a fine weapon. He looked around for something with which to wipe it and the infirmarer, correctly guessing, reached inside her sleeve and handed him a square of linen. ‘There is water in the bucket by the door,' she murmured.

Josse nodded his thanks, then dipped the cloth in the water, saturating it, and proceeded to clean the sword. As the layers of dried mud, blood and general dirt slowly came away –
this was no way to treat such a blade
, he thought as he worked – he could make out a compelling design of intertwined curves and circles etched into the bright metal. He held the sword up for the two nuns' inspection. They looked at it, then back at him, their expressions enquiring.

Josse smiled to himself; it had been foolish to expect nuns to know about swords. ‘This is a fine weapon,' he said. ‘It is, if I'm not mistaken, Toledo steel, and it was made by a man who excelled at his craft.'

‘Indeed?' said Abbess Caliste politely. Her glance then slid away to the dead man, and Josse took the hint. He returned the sword to its scabbard and resumed his inspection.

The man's face was brutal, even given the unflattering effects of violent death. The lips were coarse, and barely covered the misshapen, discoloured teeth. The nose was broad and fleshy, and the eyes gave an impression of having secrets to keep, set deep as they were beneath heavy brows.

Abbess Caliste, sensing Josse's first careful study was complete, said, ‘This is the man whom we believed was tortured. Shall I bare his chest to show you, Sir Josse?'

Josse drew a steadying breath. If the two nuns were prepared to look on whatever terrible wounds had been inflicted on the man, then he must not flinch. ‘Aye.'

The abbess leaned over the corpse and unfastened the tunic and the chemise, from the neck to the navel, folding them back on themselves and leaving the throat, chest and abdomen bare. Sister Liese and Josse both leaned forward together, bumping heads.

‘I am sorry, Sir Josse.' Sister Liese instantly stepped back. ‘It is the first time I have seen the wounds.'

Professional curiosity, Josse assumed. ‘Let us look together, Sister,' he said.

As well as the same small mark right over the heart, the chest had been carved with what looked like a big letter H. Josse was not very familiar with letters, but it seemed, even to him, that this one had rather too many extra lines, as if someone had been doodling and adding embellishments; vaguely, he pictured an illuminated initial letter in a big Bible. He might not have been much good with letters but he was, however, very used to wounds; he looked up, met Sister Liese's blue-green eyes and raised his brows in query. She gave a quick nod.

Turning to the abbess, Josse said, ‘My lady, you may set your mind at rest regarding this man's suffering. His death would have been as swift as that of the first man, caused by one deft stab into the heart. The cuts to the chest were done after death.'

‘After—' Abbess Caliste put a hand to her mouth. ‘How can you be so sure, Sir Josse?'

‘Sister Liese, I believe, agrees,' he said. The infirmarer muttered her affirmation. ‘Had the cuts been made into living flesh, there would have been massive loss of blood. The heart had ceased to beat before the damage was done.'

‘I see,' said the abbess. Leaning close to Josse the better to see, she shook her head in puzzlement. ‘I feel I ought to know what those marks are, for in some way they seem familiar to me . . .'

It was easy to forget, Josse reflected, that Abbess Caliste had quite an unusual past: left, as a child, on the doorstep of poor but kind and decent people, she had entered Hawkenlye as a girl and become one of its youngest ever fully professed nuns. Her origins, it had gradually emerged, were with the strange, mysterious folk who from time to time spent a few weeks or months in the Hawkenlye forest. Was it possible, Josse now wondered, that she was remembering some arcane symbol that she had once known in another life?

‘Perhaps we should show the marks to others who might recognize them?' Sister Liese suggested. ‘My lady, should I fetch parchment and writing materials, so that we might copy them?'

‘Yes, please do that,' the abbess said. ‘You will find pieces of scrap vellum on my table, Sister, and also a quill; and my ink horn.'

Sister Liese hurried away, leaving Josse to uncover the third corpse. Apart from the fact that this man had been considerably younger than his two companions in death, other elements of his clothing and appearance were similar. All three looked as if they hadn't eaten a decent meal in weeks.