The prioress waved him to a seat, and herself sat down apart, where she could watch his face. “May I know your own name, sir?”
“My name is Nicholas Harnage. I was squire to Godfrid Marescot until he took the cowl in Hyde Mead. He was formerly betrothed to this lady, and he is anxious now to know that she is safe and well.”
She nodded at that very natural desire, but nevertheless her brows had drawn together in a thoughtful and somewhat puzzled frown. “That name I know, Hyde was proud of having gained him. But I never recall hearing… What is the name of this sister you seek?”
“In the world she was Julian Cruce, of a Shropshire family. The sister I spoke with in Wherwell had never heard the name, but it may well be that she chose a very different name when she took the veil. But you will know of her both before and after.”
“Julian Cruce?” she repeated, erect and intent now, her sharp eyes narrowing. “Young sir, are you not in some mistake? You are sure it was Wherwell she entered? Not some other house?”
“No, certainly, madam, Wherwell,” he said earnestly. “I had it from her brother himself, he could not be mistaken.”
There was a moment of taut silence, while she considered and shook her head over him, frowning. “When was it that she entered the Order? It cannot be long ago.”
“Three years, madam. The date I cannot tell, but it was about a month after my lord took the cowl, and that was in the middle of July.” He was frightened now by the strangeness of her reception. She was shaking her head dubiously, and regarding him with mingled sympathy and bewilderment. “It may be that this was before you held office…”
“Son,” she said ruefully, “I have been prioress for more than seven years now, there is not a name among our sisters that I don’t know, whether the world’s name or the cloistered, not an entry I have not witnessed. And sorry as I am to say it, and little as I myself understand it, I cannot choose but tell you, past any doubt, that no Julian Cruce ever asked for, or received the veil at Wherwell. It is a name I never heard, and belongs to a woman of whom I know nothing.”
He could not believe it. He sat staring and passing a dazed hand once and again over his forehead. “But…this is impossible! She set out from home with an escort, and a dowry intended for her convent. She declared her intent to come to Wherwell, all her household knew it, her father knew it and sanctioned it. About this, I swear to you, madam, there is no possible mistake. She set out to ride to Wherwell.”
“Then,” said the prioress gravely, “I fear you have questions to ask elsewhere, and very serious questions. For believe me, if you are certain she set out to come to us, I am no less certain that she never reached us.”
“But what could prevent?” he asked urgently, wrenching at impossibilities. “Between her home and Wherwell…”
“Between her home and Wherwell were many miles,” said the prioress. “And many things can prevent the fulfilment of the plans of men and women in this world. The disorders of war, the accidents of travel, the malice of other men.”
“But she had an escort to bring her to her journey’s end!”
“Then it’s of them you should be making enquiries,” she said gently, “for they signally failed to do so.”
No point whatever in pressing her further. He sat stunned into silence, utterly lost. She knew what she was saying, and at least she had pointed him towards the only lead that remained to him. What was the use of hunting any further in these parts, until he had caught at the clue she offered him, and begun to trace that ride of Julian’s from Lai, where it had begun. Three men-at-arms, Reginald had said, went with her, under a huntsman who had an affection for her from her childhood. They must still be there in Reginald’s service, there to be questioned, there to be made to account for the mission that had never been completed.
The prioress had yet one more point to make, even as she rose to indicate that the interview was over, and the late visitor dismissed.
“She was carrying, you say, the dowry she intended to bring to Wherwell? I know nothing of its value, of course, but… The roads are not entirely free of evil customs…”
“She had four men to guard her,” cried Nicholas, one last flare in desperation, “And they knew what she carried? God knows,” said the prioress, “I should be loth to cast suspicion on any upright man, but we live in a world, alas, where of any four men, one at least may be corruptible.”
He went away into the town still dazed, unable to think or reason, unable to grasp and understand what with all his heavy heart he believed. It was growing dark, and he was too weary to continue now without sleep, besides the care he must have for his horse. He found an alehouse that could provide him a rough bed, and stabling and fodder for his beast, and lay wakeful a long time before his own exhaustion of body and mind overcame him.
He had an answer, but what to make of it he did not know. Certain it was that she had never passed through the gates of Wherwell, and therefore had not died there in the fire. But-three years, and never a word or a sign! Her brother had not troubled himself with a half-sister he scarcely knew, believing her to be settled in life according to her own choice. And never a word had come from her. Who was there to wonder or question? Cloistered women are secure in their own community, have all their sisterhood about them, what need have they of the world, and what should the world expect from them? Three years of silence from those vowed to the cultivation of silence is natural enough; but three years without a word now became an abyss, into which Julian Cruce had fallen as into the ocean, and sunk without trace.
Now there was nothing to be done but hasten back to Shrewsbury, confess his shattering failure in his mission, and go on to Lai to tell the same dismal story to Reginald Cruce. Only there could he again hope to find a thread to follow. He set off early in the morning to ride back into Winchester.
It was mid-morning when he drew near to the city. He had left it, prudently, not by the direct way through the west gate, since the royal castle with its hostile and by this time surely desperate garrison lay so close and had complete command of the gate. But some time before he reached the spot where he should, in the name of caution, turn eastward from the Romsey road and circle round the south of the city to a safer approach, he began to be aware of a constant chaotic murmur of sound ahead, that grew from a murmur to a throbbing clamour, to a steely din of clashing and screaming that could mean nothing but battle, and a close and tangled and desperate battle at that. It seemed to centre to his left front, at some distance from the town, and the air in that direction hung hazy with the glittering dust of struggle and flight.
Nicholas abandoned all thought of turning aside towards the bishop’s hospital of Saint Cross or the east gate, and rode on full tilt towards the west gate. And there before him he saw the townsfolk of Winchester boiling out
