The Tavern in the Morning (6 page)

Josse folded his arms across his broad chest, tapping the fingers of one hand against the opposite upper arm. ‘Yes, I suppose so. But it doesn’t sound very likely, does it? A nobleman – if we may surmise that from descriptions of his dress and his manner – comes to visit friends, leaves them to take his supper at the local inn, which, for all that it’s a decent one, is still an inn, then, having tucked away his meal, goes back to beg a bed from his hosts.’ He shook his head. ‘Doesn’t accord with anything
I’ve
ever heard.’

‘Nor I, I have to agree.’ Helewise struggled to sit up.

‘Where do you think
you’re
going?’ Josse demanded instantly.

‘Nowhere!’ she protested. ‘I merely need a change of position.’

‘Hmm.’ He eyed her suspiciously, as if half expecting her to filch the ledger off the table and return to her accounts. Then: ‘We
are
right, aren’t we, Abbess, in assuming the handsome stranger must have been the intended victim?’

‘Yes,’ she said firmly. ‘I’m sure we are.’ It was pleasant, she thought, to be
we
again. A satisfying challenge, once more to unite her wits with his over this new conundrum. ‘And I do think that there is only one logical next step, Sir Josse. To find out the identity of the stranger, and what he was doing in Tonbridge that someone else didn’t want him to do.’

‘Aye,’ Josse said heavily. ‘I agree. For all that I don’t relish the task, I agree.’

‘Can there have been so many handsome strangers in town recently?’ she asked. ‘You do, after all, have a good description.’

He grinned at her. ‘Abbess, do you ever visit Tonbridge?’ She shook her head. ‘Well, I fear you have a somewhat inaccurate picture of the place.’

‘It used to be a quiet little town,’ she mused, ‘the castle guarding the river crossing, and—’

‘Aye. The river crossing,’ he interrupted. ‘And what crosses the river?’

‘The road, of course.’

‘Aye. The road from London to the coast. Abbess, traffic has increased, I imagine, since last you were there. To our present disadvantage, since that traffic includes, in with the merchants, the pilgrims and the local travellers, any number of richly-dressed strangers, handsome or otherwise.’

‘Oh.’

‘Don’t sound so woebegone!’ He seemed to rally, unfolding his arms and straightening up. ‘It’s a starting point, at least. Better than nothing. And I shall set off immediately and begin making enquiries.’

‘Such fervour,’ she murmured.

He was looking at her, his expression softening. ‘May I report progress to you in a day or two?’

‘I should be most upset if you didn’t.’

‘And you’ll promise to rest? Get someone else to see to those accounts?’

‘I will.’ Someone, she thought tiredly, who could add up a column of figures better than she could at the moment.

He opened the door. ‘Do you wish me to send anyone in to see to you? Fetch you a drink, or something to eat?’

The thought of food made her feel slightly sick. ‘No, nothing, thank you.’

‘Then I’ll tell Sister Euphemia you’re resting,’ he said, easing his way out. ‘Sleep well!’

‘Farewell, Sir Josse, and good luck.’

She listened to his heavy footsteps marching away along the cloister. Then, giving in to her fatigue, she turned on her side and was very soon asleep.

Chapter Four

As he rode away from the Abbey, Josse wondered if his last action before leaving would be deemed by Helewise to be uncalled-for interference. If, when she learned of it, she would be angry with him.

He hoped not. But if she were, it was a price he’d have to pay.

He’d been to see Sister Euphemia, and told her he’d been horrified at the Abbess’s appearance.

‘You’ve no need to tell
me
!’ Euphemia had protested angrily. ‘I’ve got eyes in my head! And you should have seen her last week! Dear merciful Lord, I feared for her life one night, her fever rose that high!’

‘What ails her?’

Euphemia shrugged. ‘There’s any number of fevers about, folks say. It’s a harsh winter we’re having. This particular sickness was brought by pilgrims to the shrine. There was four of them, two old people, two young ’uns. The old folk died – there wasn’t anything we could do for them, and the holy water doesn’t always work its miracle if a body’s too far gone.’

‘Did many of your nuns and monks fall sick?’

Euphemia gave a ‘huh!’ of indignation. ‘Most of our nuns and monks kept their distance, I’m ashamed to say. The Abbess herself took a turn at nursing, with me and Sister Caliste, and Brother Saul relieved us all when we went to our devotions. I reckon we escape most infections, Caliste and Saul and me, because the good Lord above gives us His protection, us being in permanent contact with the sick. But the Abbess, now, she’s different. She was worn out even when she came to help us, Sir Josse, and it does seem to be the way of it, that fevers more readily strike at those whose energies are running low.’ Euphemia shook her head sadly. ‘She takes on too much, I’m always telling her. Fat lot of good it does, though, I might as well save my breath to cool my porridge.’

‘Sister Euphemia, she must do less,’ Josse said. ‘She was busy writing in her ledger when I went to see her just now. Can you send some capable nun in to relieve her of that, at least? Just till she’s better? There must be someone suitable.’

‘Course there is,’ Euphemia agreed. ‘Leave it with me, Sir Josse.’

‘Could it be arranged for all her duties to be taken over by others? And it might be wise to have someone sitting with her,’ he said, aware as he did so that he was robbing Helewise of her precious and, as well he knew, limited solitude. ‘To make sure she rests.’

Euphemia shot him a look, as if she knew exactly what he was thinking. ‘Aye,’ she said. ‘As I say, leave it with me.’

He was, he reflected as he kicked Horace to a canter, quite fortunate to be making his escape. At least it wouldn’t be he who had to endure Helewise’s reaction when she learned what Josse and Euphemia had arranged for her …

*   *   *

He reached Tonbridge in the early evening, glad to be within its outskirts. It was now fully dark, and the temperature had dropped again. Despite his fur-lined hood, Josse’s ears were aching with cold.

He ordered a generous supper. Not, he thought, that he had earned it; his day’s labours had got him virtually nowhere. And now there was the Abbess to worry about, in addition to everything else.

Ah, well. At last she was in good hands.

Not wanting to face either Mistress Anne’s questions or Tilly’s anxious eyes when he had nothing to tell them, Josse finished his supper, drained his mug of ale and retired early to bed.

*   *   *

Mid-morning the next day, he set out for the castle.

It became clear, even as he approached up the steep track that led from the ford, that there were few, if any, members of the family about. The frosted ground bore little evidence of having recently been trodden, and the drawbridge had been raised halfway up. Only a thin trickle of smoke rose up from within the stout walls, and looked, Josse thought, more likely to be from an outdoor brazier than from the huge fire in some great hall’s hearth.

In answer to Josse’s call, a man appeared at the opposite end of the drawbridge. Making no move to lower it and allow Josse to cross, he shouted out, ‘Yes?’

‘Is the family in residence?’ Josse shouted back.

‘No.’

The man went to return inside, but Josse stopped him. ‘A moment!’

Reluctantly the man turned round again. ‘What do you want?’

‘I am looking for a stranger, a nobleman, possibly a friend of the family,’ he said. ‘I believe he may be lodging with them, or at least come to visit.’

‘We’ve had no visitors,’ the man replied. ‘Like I says, the family’s away.’

Where were they? Josse wondered. And what on earth had persuaded them to leave the comforts of home, in this freezing weather?

‘You’d be best advised to get away an’ all,’ the man was saying. ‘If you value your health, that is.’

‘Why?’ Josse felt a shiver of alarm run up his spine.

‘Sickness,’ the man said, with the self-satisfied air of one imparting news of some danger from which he feels himself immune. ‘There’s fever, down in the new Priory. Never should have built it, they shouldn’t, not down there beyond the ford, so close to where all them streams flow together. Marshy, it is, down there. There’s bad air, spreads all manner of pestilence. Family’s gone away to Suffolk, and I have my orders to keep this here drawbridge up.’ He gave the stout planks a reassuring slap with the flat of one hand. ‘You can’t come in, whoever you are, and I ain’t coming out.’

You could, Josse thought, see his point.

‘And you’ve had no callers? No visiting nobleman?’

The man gave a chuckle. ‘He’d have had to swim across,’ he said, pointing down into the sludgy waters of the moat, dark with unimaginably foul detritus and half-frozen over. ‘And
that
I wouldn’t recommend.’

Josse raised an arm. ‘I thank you for your time,’ he called, wheeling Horace and preparing to leave.

‘Time I have,’ the man replied, turning back into the deep shadow of the gatehouse. ‘Good day to you!’

Looking back over his shoulder to give an answering good day, Josse thought he saw a movement. Up high, on the battlements … a head, peeping over the sturdy wall, quickly withdrawn…?

He stared, holding Horace still. But there was nothing to see.

Probably a bird, he told himself. Nothing more sinister than that. After all, as that fellow said, any uninvited guest would have had to swim across.

Inattentive, he didn’t notice that his horse had picked a different track for the descent. About to pull him up and return to the track they’d gone up by, suddenly Josse noticed something.

Hoof prints.

Someone had gone up that smaller, half-concealed track. Quite recently, too.

The man, whoever he was, returning from having gone out for supplies?

No. He’d made it quite plain he intended to stay shut away safely inside the castle until the danger was past.

Then who?

Telling himself he shouldn’t jump to conclusions didn’t seem to be working. Resigning himself to the prospect of several hours in the cold, Josse dismounted, led Horace into a grove of hazel trees which, full in the weak rays of the February sun and protected from the wind, provided at least a small amount of shelter, and prepared to endure a long wait.

*   *   *

He should, he thought late in the afternoon, have brought food with him. And he’d have to give up soon, if nothing happened, for Horace’s sake if not for his own. The sun was low on the horizon, its light and its paltry warmth even weaker now. It wouldn’t be long till darkness.

He made himself wait a little longer.

As the light faded, there was a noise from above, from the direction of the castle. A mutter of voices, quickly cut off, and a long, low rumbling sound, terminating in a heavy thud. After the briefest of pauses, the rumbling noise was repeated.

And there was the faint sound of a horse’s hooves – unnaturally faint, surely? Could they have been muffled somehow? – coming down the narrower of the two tracks.

The one that passed right by Josse’s hiding place.

Pulling back deeper into the hazel grove, he put a quieting hand on Horace’s nose. The horse from the castle came closer, closer … Josse could hear a tiny jingle of harness.

He held his breath.

The horseman rode straight past.

It
was
a man, Josse was certain, even from the brief glimpse he’d had through the hazel trees. Heavily muffled in a voluminous cloak.

Waiting until the man was out of earshot, Josse then led Horace out from beneath the hazel trees, mounted, and rode off in pursuit.

*   *   *

It was difficult to judge a safe distance, where Josse would be able to keep his quarry in view yet not be detected. The poor light was both help and hindrance.

Josse followed the rider for a few miles, then, as he suddenly drew his horse to a halt, quickly pulled Horace into the shadow of an oak tree. The rider had dismounted and, as Josse watched, he bent down to remove covers of some sort – they looked like pieces of sacking – from his horse’s feet.

A departure at twilight, Josse thought, and one whose very sound is minimised.

Now
who was going about – what had the Abbess’s word been? – nefarious business?

The rider entered a thick band of woodland, a part, Josse thought, of the great Wealden Forest, although, in this cloudy and starless night, he had lost his bearings. Riding on, he realised quite soon that he had also lost sight of the horseman.

Hellfire and damnation!

He urged Horace on, peering through the trees, trying to make out any movement among the winter-bare branches.

Impossible! He just couldn’t see anything.

Pulling Horace up, he sat and listened.

Not a sound.

After a while, he dismounted. The hard ground might yield a hoof print, you never knew. Crouching down, he took off one of his gloves and, fingers spread, felt around the forest floor for any sharp indentations indicative of recent passage.

It was hopeless. He couldn’t see anything now, and any vague thoughts he’d had of following the track, it being the most likely route taken by the horseman, faded. He couldn’t make out the track anymore.

He took a desultory pace or two forward, bending down to have one last try at seeking out a hoof print. Then suddenly Horace gave a whinny of alarm and, jerking his head back, pulled the rein out of Josse’s free hand. Just as Josse began to straighten up, he heard a thin whistling sound by his right ear.

In the same instant as alarm began to surge through him, the blow fell.

Intense pain, concentrated on a point in the middle of the back of his head. A vague awareness of the cold smell of the forest floor, and shards of ice from some small puddle pressing against his cheek.

Then nothing.

*   *   *

He woke to feel something tickling his nose. Something soft, but which smelt very strongly. What was that smell? Goat? No, sheep.