‘The Knights Hospitaller,’ Helewise said. ‘My dear, I know something of this tale and, although I have not met him, I believe I know the identity of your man.’
‘Do you?’ breathed the young woman. Then she shook her head quickly and in a different tone said, ‘Yes, he offered his services to the Hospitallers and they were grateful to accept him. But later he encountered his lord again and the lord was very sick, so he escorted him back to the home of his kin. That was my home, my lady, in Antioch. My mother is a cousin of this sick lord and she and her ladies nursed him back to health. While this was going on, I had met my knight and we had fallen in love.’
‘He was a vowed monk!’ Helewise was shocked. ‘He had no business falling in love with anyone, especially the delicate young daughter of his lord’s kinswoman!’
‘He was not,’ the young woman said levelly.
‘Not what?’
‘He fought with the Knights Hospitaller and he took a name in religion; he was known as Brother Ralf. But he was not of them. He did not take his vows.’
Helewise wondered whether this was the truth. Was it not all rather convenient, that she should fall in love with a man she believed to be a monk, only to discover that he wasn’t?
The woman seemed to read her thoughts. ‘I am telling the truth, my lady. I give you my word.’
But I do not know you, Helewise thought. Your word may be worthless. ‘So you and this Brother Ralf ran away together?’
‘Not then. For three years we were mostly apart and we tried to live our own lives. He was fighting with his warrior monks; I was desperately trying to create new reasons why I should not yet proceed with my marriage to Leo Rubenid. He — my knight — visited me quite frequently, for his lord was still living in my house and he was permitted to attend him. We used to wonder if the magic would fade away during the long periods when we had to be apart but it never did; in fact our love grew. Then we learned that King Richard was sailing for home and our kinsman announced he would go too. There was no more reason for my lover to come to my home and we did not know what to do.’
Helewise had a dozen questions buzzing in her head but she said nothing. The narrative was compelling and she did not want to interrupt.
‘Then,’ the young woman went on, ‘the man known as Brother Ralf was selected for a secret mission. There was a young prisoner of the Hospitallers called Fadil who was to be ransomed back to his master. Only the payment for him was not gold or coin; it was something far more valuable and potentially very dangerous. The prisoner’s family had no intention of parting with this precious thing and the Hospitallers were planning to keep both prisoner and payment. Of the monks, Brother Ralf alone survived. He fled across the desert with Fadil and he had the ransom in his satchel. He knew he had to keep it out of the hands of all of those who so badly wanted it; he must take it so far away that they would never find it. He came for me, my lady, for he had to leave Outremer and go back to England, never to return. He could not go without me and one night he was there in the little courtyard below my window, and he said I must put on travelling clothes and steal a pair of stout boots, then pack up just a small bag for we had to travel fast and far.’
‘And that is what you did?’ Helewise was incredulous. ‘You abandoned your home and your family and you left?’
‘I loved him; I love him now,’ she said, her face softened by emotion. ‘Yes. I packed, dressed in my riding clothes and my travelling cloak, took my horse, my knife and my weapon and, before anyone even knew he was there, I joined him and off we went.
‘We rode by night and hid by day and in about a month we reached Constantinople, where as I told you we said farewell to Fadil. Lord, what a relief — I’ve never known anyone complain like Fadil! Brother Ralf and I had everything to lose if we were caught but so did Fadil, for he would have been returned to Hisham and Hisham would have found exquisitely awful ways of punishing him for running away. Yet, despite that, he constantly moaned that he was hungry, he was tired, it was uncomfortable to ride for such long hours at a stretch and why did we have to ride at night in the dark?’ She smiled. ‘The three of us shared a farewell meal in Constantinople, which Fadil paid for, and what a feast it was! After a month on short rations, it was wonderful to eat such delicacies and we wolfed them down. I paid for my greed, though. I was sick as a poisoned dog all night.’
Helewise liked the young woman’s frankness. ‘So then it was just you and Brother Ralf on the long road home?’
‘Yes. A month to get from Antioch to Constantinople; two years to travel from there to our eventual destination. It has been a hard journey, my lady.’
That, thought Helewise, was an understatement if ever she had heard one. ‘You must have been frightened sometimes,’ she said. ‘You knew you were being followed.’
‘We did and I was,’ the young woman agreed. ‘Brother Ralf was incredible. He developed an instinct for danger — perhaps it is common among fighting men; I do not know — and for the most part he led us safely. By the time we reached Greece we had identified the three groups who were on our trail and Ralf thought our best bet was to take ship across to the kingdom of Naples and then make our way up through the Papal States to Lombardy and north across the mountains. We found a ship but we were caught in a storm and blown ashore on the island of Sicily. We had to stay there for almost three months because, of all the evil luck, one of the groups pursuing us had also ended up on Sicily and we had to hide till they left.’
‘I am amazed that these separate parties who pursued you did not lose you on the road,’ Helewise said.
‘They frequently did,’ the young woman replied. ‘We didn’t reach England via the same route. But it wouldn’t have worried any of them if they did lose us because they knew where we were going. They were all aware of Brother Ralf’s English origins and they knew where he was bound.’
‘Then why did you not make for a different destination? You could surely have evaded your pursuers and settled in some foreign land, safe from capture?’
‘We could have done, except that there was an imperative reason why Brother Ralf had to come here.’
‘Because he-’
But with an apologetic smile the young woman interrupted. ‘I cannot tell you, my lady. I am sorry.’
Helewise wondered why not. She thought for a few moments and then said, ‘There were the two Saracens sent by Hisham after Fadil and the ransom, the trio of Knights Hospitaller hunting their runaway monk, and who else?’ She thought she already knew the answer.
‘Leo Rubenid is not a man to suffer an insult in meek silence. As soon as he discovered his betrothed had fled with her lover, he selected two of his most ruthless and efficient Frankish mercenaries — their names are William and Tancred — and a Turkish bowman called Touros to go with them. It was this trio who landed on Sicily and, for me anyway, they presented the worst threat.’
‘Naturally so, for they would have taken you back to Leo and to a marriage you did not want.’
The young woman was watching her, one eyebrow slightly raised. ‘It would not have been marriage that awaited me, my lady,’ she said. ‘Leo would only accept a virgin bride, and the moment he discovered I’d had a lover he would not have wanted me any more. He would, however, have been determined to punish me. He would have made sure nobody knew he’d captured me and then he would have offered me to his men and watched as one by one they raped me. Then he would have had what was left of me sent down to one of the brothels on the coast and ordered some whoremaster to chain me up in a very small cupboard for the exclusive use of those men who were too diseased and too repulsive for the other prostitutes.’
‘You — how can you know this?’ Helewise whispered.
‘Because that is what he did to the girl he wished to marry before me when he found out that she had taken a lover.’
‘And still, knowing this, your parents were keen for you to marry him?’ she asked incredulously.
‘They did not know it, my lady. Please do not think worse of them than you probably do already.’
‘How did you find out?’
‘It was I who was being forced to marry him; it was up to me to discover all that I could about him and so I found people who, for a price, would root out such things. As I told you just now, I kept hoping that I would come up with something that would change my mother’s mind, and indeed I suppose I did, only it became irrelevant because I fled with — with Brother Ralf.’
A look of intense sadness crossed her face. Helewise believed she knew its cause and she got up and stood by over the young woman, putting out her hand. After a moment, it was grasped and tightly held.
