‘Aye. To use it well takes long training and the development of specific muscles. It’s a cavalry weapon and both its penetration and range exceed the longbow.’
‘You mean they fire these things from horseback?’
‘Aye.’
‘Then they are skilled fighters indeed,’ Gervase whispered. Meeting Josse’s eyes, he said, ‘I would not be in the boots of whoever killed that Turk. If his companions ever find him, his fate does not bear thinking about.’
Josse straightened up. ‘Then, my friend, we had better make sure we find him before they do.’
Seven
Helewise was awake early the next morning. Very quietly she dressed and left her bed in the long dormitory, treading softly so as not to disturb her sleeping sisters. In the silent church she knelt before the altar and prayed for help in unravelling the many strands of the trouble that had fallen into the community’s lap.
A man tortured and killed; a fire started deliberately in an attempt to disguise the murder of a Knight Hospitaller. Josse and Gervase had stayed in her room for a long time the previous evening and she was aghast to learn of the manner of Brother Jeremiah’s death. When they told her about their discovery in the forest and of the warning shots that had sent them running for safety, she was horrified at the peril in which they had placed themselves.
The three of them talked for hours but they came nowhere near any sort of conclusion. The dead Turk had known something, or perhaps possessed something, that his killers had tried to extract from him. A man named John Damianos was on the run and had taken shelter with Josse. Three Knights Hospitaller had come all the way from Outremer after a runaway English monk. One of the trio was now dead and the others badly hurt; I knew that Thibault of Margat would return here to Hawkenlye, she thought now, but I did not anticipate the dreadful circumstances under which it would happen. Two Saracen warriors, searching for a man who answered the description of John Damianos, had followed him all the way to New Winnowlands; they had known without having seen the body that the dead man at Hawkenlye was not the one they sought. Their quarry had been involved in some fatal incident in Outremer. Josse proposed that the runaway monk and the Saracen sought by the warriors Kathnir and Akhbir — whether or not this man was John Damianos, although they all felt it most likely that he was — must surely be connected. Perhaps they had travelled together on the long road from Outremer? Perhaps they had in some way both been involved in that mysterious incident?
Helewise frowned in concentration, all but oblivious to the ache in her knees on the cold, hard stone. If Josse is right, then perhaps one or other of the surviving Hospitallers — Thibault probably, for he is the senior — will know something of whatever it was that happened. Oh, but I do hope that Thibault She arrested the thought. She had been about to pray for Thibault of Margat not for the poor man’s own sake but because of her own desperate need to find answers. Humbly she bowed her head over her clasped hands and asked to be forgiven. Only then did she compose the suitable words that prayed for Thibault and Brother Otto’s swift recovery and release from their pain.
She made herself wait until after tierce before going to the infirmary. She knew that Sister Euphemia would have sent for her had either of the Hospitallers been ready to speak, but nevertheless she burned with impatience to go and see for herself. She offered up the suppression of her intense desire as penance for her earlier fault.
The morning sun was shining on the frosty ground as she walked to the infirmary. Sister Euphemia came to greet her. ‘The older monk is stirring,’ she said. ‘He has slept well and his colour is a little better. I am going to try to get him to drink, perhaps even to accept a mouthful of broth if his throat can take it. Then I think that if he is agreeable you may speak to him. Should I, my lady, send word down to the Vale to summon Sir Josse and the sheriff?’
‘Yes, Sister,’ Helewise said. ‘They should be here if poor Thibault can manage a few words.’
Sister Euphemia nodded and, catching the eye of one of her young nursing novices, whispered to the girl and sent her off. Then the infirmarer disappeared inside the recess where the two monks lay, Sister Caliste following her and bearing a laden tray.
Helewise stood quite still and waited.
A few moments after Josse and Gervase had arrived in the infirmary, Sister Caliste put her head around the curtain and beckoned all three of them over.
‘Can they talk?’ Josse hissed urgently.
‘One can,’ Sister Caliste replied. ‘The senior monk has been asking repeatedly to speak to you. Sister Euphemia is occupied with her duties and she has left the care of both monks in my charge. My lady, Sir Josse, my lord sheriff, please come in.’ Bowing, she held the curtain back.
Helewise stared at the two monks. The younger one still lay motionless beneath the crisp sheet, its slow and steady rise and fall the only sign that he was still alive. Thibault, however, was propped up on pillows and his eyes glittered with pain and anxiety in his burned face.
It was Josse who spoke first. ‘We are here to help,’ he said. ‘Abbess Helewise, Gervase de Gifford and I will do whatever we can.’
Helewise, watching closely, saw the monk’s eyes go first to Josse, then to Gervase and finally to her. The antipathy — even the disapproval — that she had sensed at their earlier meeting seemed to have vanished. Now he looked like a man who was suffering deeply and who despaired because he could not continue his appointed task.
To her faint surprise, he first addressed her. ‘My lady, you see me here punished for my arrogance in my treatment of you and your community,’ he said. ‘I thought to hunt for that which I seek within the walls of this Abbey; yet I skulked like a thief instead of coming openly to you and asking for your help. Well, I have been set low for my sins, and I beg you to forgive me and to listen to what I must tell you.’
‘Of course I forgive you,’ she said, ‘although I do not fully understand what there is to forgive.’ Nor, she thought, how anything could be so bad that the loving God I worship would punish a man so dreadfully. Thibault might have been under the influence of one of Sister Euphemia’s analgesic concoctions but it was plain to see that even so he was in severe pain. With burns like those, Helewise thought, her eyes moving involuntarily over the extensive red and blistered patches on the monk’s face, chest and upper arms, how could he not be?
‘You are charitable, my lady, and I am unworthy,’ murmured Thibault. ‘I must ask your indulgence, for still I am not able to — well, never mind.’ He frowned, as if he were having difficulty arranging his thoughts.
‘Tell us about the fire,’ Gervase said gently. ‘Can you remember anything?’
Thibault turned his pain-darkened eyes to the sheriff. ‘Oh, yes,’ he whispered.
There was a pause. Sister Caliste helped the monk to take a few sips from a cup she held to his lips. He thanked her and after a few moments the taut lines in his face relaxed a little.
Then he began to speak.
‘My tale does not start with the fire,’ he said. ‘It begins a long time before that and in another land.’ He coughed and Sister Caliste gave him another sip of the drink. ‘Originally I was based at our Order’s great fortress of Crac des Chevaliers, in Syria. I had served there for many years, a member of the garrison which held out against the great advance of the enemy following the defeat of the Frankish armies at the Battle of Hattin, in the summer of’86.’ His eyes met Josse’s. ‘Hattin broke the spirit of many who had seen themselves as invincible,’ he went on. ‘Groups of knights and their attendants who had come out to Outremer with such confidence and high hopes watched their dreams trickle away into the sand with the blood of the dead and the wounded. The Western forces gravely underestimated Saladin. It became evident very quickly that we just did not have sufficient manpower.’ He sighed. ‘After the defeat, most men with interests in Outremer scurried away to protect their own borders, and I suppose one cannot blame them. But the result was that our side was pushed back to the coast. Even northern states such as Antioch and Tripoli, which were well away from Saladin’s main thrust, lost lands on their eastern borders.’
‘Saladin took the Holy City,’ Josse said glumly. ‘And that led to the launch of King Richard’s crusade to recover it.’
Thibault grimaced, an expression which, Helewise thought, stemmed more from remembering that disastrous episode than from any sudden stab of pain. ‘Indeed it did,’ he agreed. ‘For those of us still battling with the
