He stared up at her. ‘How long have I been here?’
‘You were found outside the gates this morning. You were wounded but the infirmarer and her nurse have tended you and they believe you will live.’ She smiled.
‘My throat hurts,’ he said. Raising a hand, his fingers encountered the soft dressing. His face crumpled and he whispered, ‘I thought I was going to die!’
Sister Caliste gave him a few sips of a greenish-coloured drink and after a moment or two his eyes closed.
‘I will leave him to sleep,’ Helewise whispered, ‘and not bother him with questions until-’
The man’s hand shot out and he grasped her sleeve. ‘No!’ he croaked. ‘I must tell you, my lady abbess, for there is such danger and I am so afraid!’ He struggled as if trying to get up, but as soon as his head was off the flat pillow his face paled and he moaned, ‘Oh, but I’m so dizzy!’
Sister Euphemia gently but firmly pushed him down again. ‘You have lost a lot of blood,’ she said. ‘Lie flat and still, and let us heal you.’
He gave her an ironic smile. ‘It seems I have little choice,’ he said. ‘But there are things I must tell you, my lady — ’ he turned his eyes to Helewise — ‘terrible things, and the evil is right here…’ His eyes closed.
Helewise looked enquiringly at the infirmarer. ‘He’s rambling,’ Sister Euphemia whispered, ‘probably doesn’t know what he’s saying. I dare say there’s a bit of fever in his blood and he’ll-’
The man’s eyes were open once more. ‘It is a secret, my lady,’ he whispered, ‘a black, dark secret that was discovered by the Thirteen Knights long ago and far away. They knew its vast importance and they swore an oath to protect it. Thirteen, you see — the magic number that is the sum of moons in the year. There must always be thirteen and each one nominates his successor, so that as one dies the next takes his place and the company of the Knights of Arcturus is always complete.’ He stopped, for the effort of speaking had made him gasp for breath. Sister Caliste offered more of the drink but he pushed her hand away; perhaps, Helewise thought, he realizes that it is a sedative and will take no more until his tale is told, although the great effort hardly seemed worth it when he was talking such incomprehensible nonsense.
‘I was summoned in my turn, my lady,’ he went on, grasping her hand in a painful grip, ‘but it was odd, for the call came not from my old uncle, to whom I was close, but from another of the thirteen. My uncle did send me a message, but it was not the summons I expected when I learned he was dying. I could not understand it — I do not understand it even now — for my uncle sent me a note that was encrypted in a code only he and I knew, and he told me to stay away. Now what, dear lady, am I to make of that?’
Perhaps nothing, Helewise thought compassionately, for you are sick and probably have no idea what you are saying. In the morning, all this will seem like a bad dream and we shall find out what really happened to you. ‘Try not to distress yourself,’ she said soothingly. ‘Drink the medicine that Sister Caliste has prepared, for it will help you to sleep and ease your pain. Tomorrow we shall speak again and I-’
‘Tomorrow may be too late!’ the man cried, his voice breaking. ‘I cannot… I cannot…’
The strong herbs were having their effect at last. As the infirmarer, Sister Caliste and Helewise watched, his eyelids drooped, the desperate tension in his face relaxed, and he seemed to slump down in his bed.
Sister Euphemia said softly, ‘That’s more like it. He’s stopped fighting now and he’ll sleep till morning, which will give his body time to start healing itself.’ She smoothed the crisp linen sheet over the man’s chest, now rising and falling with the long, steady breaths of deep sleep. ‘We’ll look after him, my lady,’ she added, ‘and I’ll send word when he’s ready to talk to you.’
‘Thank you, Sister Euphemia. Well done — ’ she addressed Sister Caliste — ‘you have provided the rest that he so badly needed.’
Then she turned her back on the infirmary’s worrying but intriguing new patient and went back to her room to return to the vexing question of the new chapel.
Nine
I n te mid-morning something else happened to push the problem of the chapel from her attention: Josse arrived and before him on the big horse sat his daughter.
Helewise, who had been on her way to the infirmary to see if the new patient was awake, saw them ride in and hurried over.
‘May I leave Horace here?’ Josse said after the most perfunctory of greetings.
‘Of course, but-’
Josse had slipped down from the saddle and was lowering Meggie to the ground. ‘Meggie, take Horace over there to the stables,’ he said to her, pointing. ‘He knows the way and he won’t be naughty.’
Meggie, Helewise observed, did not need that assurance. She seemed to have no fear of the big horse but, on the contrary, treated him with such easy familiarity that he might have been a pet puppy, though her head, with its brown curls, barely reached Horace’s broad chest.
Josse was whispering urgently and Helewise turned to listen. ‘She turned up all by herself at New Winnowlands yesterday afternoon,’ he said, ‘and I need to find out who brought her and where her mother is.’
‘Joanna is not in the forest?’
He hesitated. Then, ‘No. I last saw her in Chartres.’
In Chartres! Oh, why had he not mentioned it? Watching his face, in which the profound anxiety was all too readable, she realized that now was not the time to ask. ‘You’re going to speak to the Domina?’
‘I need to speak to one of them, but the Domina may be in Chartres too — they’re up to something there, something to do with the new cathedral. I can’t fathom it.’ He sounded both distressed and angry.
‘The important thing is that Meggie is safe with you,’ she said, and instantly saw from the sudden lightening of his expression that it was exactly the right thing.
‘Aye, so she is,’ he murmured. Then, with a quick smile, he held out his hand to Meggie, trotting back from the stables, and the two of them set off for the forest.
Watching them, Helewise realized that she hadn’t had a chance to tell him about the wounded man in the infirmary. She would make sure to do so when they came back.
Josse and Meggie walked slowly down the forest tracks until they reached the clearing between the ancient, majestic oaks where Josse had encountered the forest people before. In the middle, standing quite still in a pool of sunlight as if she was waiting for him, was the Domina.
Meggie gave a cry of delight and ran up to her and the old woman’s severe expression relaxed into a smile. She bent down, hugged Meggie and whispered something. Meggie nodded vigorously and said, ‘Yes, yes, I am, thank you, lady.’
‘I asked her,’ the Domina said, straightening up as Josse approached, ‘if she is well and happy, and you heard the answer.’ She stared down at the child. ‘Indeed, I did not need to ask,’ she murmured, ‘for it is plain to see.’
Angry at what he read as a suggestion that his child might not be properly cared for by her own father, Josse said coldly, ‘She is my daughter and I love her. I would not leave her unattended in a courtyard and trust that no harm would come to her.’
‘We knew she was safe,’ the Domina replied mildly. ‘The abbess’s daughter-in-law was within; her own child was playing with Meggie.’
‘Why is she here?’ Josse demanded, in no way mollified by the Domina’s reasonable answer. ‘Why did Joanna send her home to me? I was in Chartres — I saw Joanna — ’ or at least, he thought, I believe I did — ‘and she could have handed Meggie over to me then!’
The Domina regarded him steadily for some moments, Meggie, bored by the grown-up talk, had wandered away and was struggling to get up on to the branch of a birch tree. When the Domina finally spoke, it was not in answer to Josse’s question. ‘The spirit that has nurtured the world since its creation is retreating, Josse,’ she said. ‘Have you not perceived this? Men think with their heads and not their hearts, and they value material things to the exclusion of almost everything else. They build higher and more magnificently and say it is to the glory of God, but is it not rather to the glory of those who pay? Their great constructions shout out, “We have wealth,” not, “We believe,” and such a sentiment is not prompted by true faith.’
