wrong. He was going to go straight to Crac des Chevaliers — it’s about a hundred miles from Antioch — and offer his services to the Knights Hospitaller. That would have been in the late summer of’87.’
‘So he joined the Order before King Richard took up the fight,’ Josse remarked.
‘Yes. They taught him much and turned him into a first-rate fighter with many skills.’
‘Could he use the crossbow?’ Josse thought he knew the answer, having already asked Thibault.
‘The crossbow? No, no; he was a mounted knight and he used the lance and the sword. He might have been able to use the longbow, I suppose.’
‘You saw him in action?’
‘Yes. King Richard arrived and won the great victory at Acre, and his successes alongside the French fellow’ — Josse was amused that Gerome did not even dignify King Philip with a name — ‘put new heart in us all. I marched my men south from Antioch to Acre and we joined King Richard’s great push from Acre to Jaffa. I heard word of my knight again on that long road, although they told me that he now wore the habit of a Knight Hospitaller and was known as Brother Ralf. We met up and prayed together on the eve of Arsuf. Oh, Sir Josse,’ he exclaimed, ‘what a time that was! We’d been marching through the Forest of Arsuf and we were all spooked by the rumour that the enemy was going to fire the trees and burn us all to death. Then we came out into the open and saw them there, great long rows of them, and I was frankly terrified. We set up our camp that night and they were so close that we could see the flames of their cooking fires under that vast, dark sky.’ Slowly he shook his head. ‘We all knew what would happen the next day. I was so glad to see Brother Ralf’s familiar face; he was four years older and infinitely more mature than when I’d last seen him, and his quiet confidence and firm resolve did me more good than all the prayers and exhortations of the priests.
‘Next day we rode into battle. It was a joyful victory, as of course you know.’
‘Yet you were unwell,’ Josse said.
‘Yes, I was. I had dysentery and I thought I would die. I do not recall much, being barely conscious during the worst of it. They said I was too weak to go on with the army and I was sent back to Acre, then on to Antioch to rest and recuperate with my kinfolk. They treated me very well, Sir Josse, in return for having been generous with them. They undertook to make sure I reached Aurelie’s home safely. To my surprise — I imagined he’d want to forge ahead with King Richard — one of my escorts was Brother Ralf.’ Gerome smiled. ‘He was not best pleased to exchange the nursemaid’s role for the warrior’s, but it was an order and he had no choice. He carried it out with a smiling face, caring for me as if I’d been his own father.’ He sighed. ‘And I who have no male children of my own loved him like a son. I always did and I always will.’
There was a contradiction here, Josse thought, for Thibault had given a very different picture. Brother Jeremiah and I spoke to Gerome de Villieres, Thibault had said. The man whom we seek is not there and there is no likelihood that he will visit in the future… the runaway caused grave offence to Gerome’s kin in Antioch… the lady Aurelie had cause to report back in the most gravely reproachful terms to her English kinsman.
He stared at Gerome. ‘I have been told that you and Brother Ralf had fallen out because he had offended your kinswoman Aurelie,’ he said flatly. ‘How can you love him like a son if this is true?’
‘One does not stop loving a son because of one rebellious act,’ Gerome said quietly. There was a long pause. Then he said, ‘I am not sure whether I should confide in you, Sir Josse, but I have been on this earth for a good many years and I flatter myself that I am a fair judge of men. I warm to you and I am inclined to tell you the truth. I hope, however, that by doing so I shall not endanger someone I care for.’
‘I cannot give you my word to act solely in your interests,’ Josse said quickly. ‘I am entrusted by the Abbess of Hawkenlye to take up the task of Thibault of Margat, Knight Hospitaller, and that is my prime concern.’
‘I understand,’ Gerome said, giving Josse a calculating look. ‘Well then, I shall say but this: Thibault of Margat has his own reasons for catching up with Brother Ralf and these reasons are not necessarily — to use your phrase — in Ralf’s best interests.’
‘I know that he has with him something of very great value,’ Josse said. I suspect would have been more accurate, but by assuming a certainty he did not have he was hoping to flush out information.
But Gerome was too experienced to fall for the ruse. ‘Do you, now?’ he said with a grin. ‘Well, that’s as maybe; perhaps you do, perhaps you don’t. This Hospitaller of yours has his orders, Sir Josse. Things are not always as they seem, and there is very much more at stake here than meets the eye.’ Abruptly he stood up. ‘Now we will return inside, for the sun is sinking and we shall soon be in shadow. We will draw a jug of the best wine and presently you will eat the evening meal with us and sleep in our best guest room. My sister and my daughter receive too few visitors in this chilly weather, when folk prefer their own firesides, and they will blossom in the company of a handsome and courteous knight such as yourself. What do you say?’
Facing the full force of Gerome de Villieres’s open-hearted, generous and hospitable nature, there was only one response. Josse said, ‘Thank you. I’d be delighted to accept.’
As he walked back to the house beside Gerome — who was now explaining in his customary detailed way just where the inspiration for his garden had come from and how they had made it — Josse reflected on the man. He was affectionate, gossipy and, on the face of it, a sybarite who lacked backbone. But that was only half of it. Beneath that amiable exterior there was steel, for here was a man who did not hesitate to take his knights and his men on a hazardous journey of well over a thousand miles to go to the aid of his beleaguered kinswoman. He might not have liked the experience of fighting, but then that applied to a great many men and Gerome had not been raised as a soldier.
Aye, there’s strength there all right, Josse decided.
Which for his present purpose was not the best conclusion. He was quite sure that Gerome de Villieres had not revealed everything. But he was in no doubt that, having made up his mind not to divulge any more about what happened between himself, his kinswoman, the Knights Hospitaller and Brother Ralf out in Outremer, Gerome would not be persuaded to say another word.
Fifteen
As soon as Josse set out from the Abbey, Helewise shut herself decisively in her room. She had been preoccupied with all that had been happening and her regular duties had suffered. She worked swiftly through the many fat ledgers for several hours, breaking off only for the office. By the time she set off to the church for vespers — with the exception of compline, with its satisfying sense of completing the daily round, her favourite office of the day — she felt that she had just about caught up.
She returned to her room after the evening meal, intending to work until every task was finished. She thought it would not be long; however, she became engrossed in studying a proposed scheme to market wool from sheep on the Abbey’s lands to the north of Romney Marsh and several hours passed.
One of the candles on her table flickered and went out. Looking up in surprise, she saw from the little that remained of the second just how long she had sat there. She leaned back in her chair, stretching luxuriously and feeling the taut muscles at the base of her neck crack in protest. She looked down at the manuscripts that she had been studying and at her own notes, written in her tidy and space-saving hand on a piece of scrap vellum. Confident that she now knew enough about the proposal, she tidied away manuscripts and writing materials and, lighting her little lantern from the dying candle, left her room, closing the door quietly behind her.
There was still a light in the infirmary but it was dim; it would be the shaded lamp of whichever sister dozed at her post on night duty. Elsewhere the Abbey was dark and silent. Helewise looked up at the night sky. There were wisps and tatters of cloud beginning to paint their soft veil over the stars. The wind had changed, bringing warmer air up from the south-west. In the south-east, Orion was still unobscured; Helewise stared up at him and then followed the line of his belt down to the horizon and found the brilliant Dog Star.
It was a long time since she had contemplated the glory of the heavens. Aware that her preoccupation with the recent dreadful events and, this afternoon, with catching up on her work had left her little time for her devotions, she decided to spend a quiet, precious interlude alone with the dear Lord and then slip up the night stairs to the dormitory.
She strode past the end of the infirmary and on to the church. The great west door was locked but the access to the side of it was open, as it always was. The gates were fastened and bolted; there was no need to put a lock on God’s dwelling place. She pushed the small door open just a crack, slipped inside and quietly closed it.
