Thirteen
There was nothing more that Josse could do for Piers, but Ninian was out in the forest and Josse certainly could — must — help him. First he had to speak to the abbess.
‘Where is Abbess Helewise?’ he demanded of Sister Caliste.
‘Oh, she and Sister Euphemia have gone to the church with Piers’s body. They’ll be in the crypt.’
He hurried away, slowing to a decorous walk as he crossed the floor of the church but then descending the stone steps into the crypt so quickly that he slipped and almost fell. Bursting into the low chamber with the huge pillars holding up the vaulted roof, he saw the two black-clad figures standing either side of the dead man.
He approached the abbess. ‘Sister Caliste tells me that he was smothered,’ he said, keeping his voice low.
‘He was,’ Sister Euphemia said grimly. Then, tears welling in her eyes, she muttered, ‘And he was on the mend! We’d have had him on his feet inside a week.’
The abbess looked at him. ‘You will no doubt be able to identify the hand of his murderer, Sir Josse?’
‘Aye. Philippe de Loup.’
‘Why should anyone want to kill a man like Piers?’ the infirmarer asked sadly. ‘There was no harm in him — he bore his suffering bravely and we all liked him so much.’
‘Aye, he was a good man and he is dead because of it,’ Josse said slowly, the realization firming in his mind as he spoke. ‘Sister,’ he said to the infirmarer, ‘he was invited to join in an activity that was both a crime and a sin, and he refused. He took away something that was precious from the hands of men who were no longer worthy of it, and for that he had to die.’
The infirmarer was staring at him. ‘He was a hero, then?’
Josse hesitated briefly and then said, ‘Aye. He was.’
And Sister Euphemia said, with the ghost of a smile, ‘I knew it all the time.’
He nodded to the abbess and, picking up his signal, they left the infirmarer praying over the body of Sir Piers of Essendon. Once outside the church, he turned to the abbess and said, ‘My lady, now I must-’
‘Go and find the boy. Yes, Sir Josse, I know. You fear that… You believe de Loup will now hunt for him?’
‘I know it.’
He turned to leave her but she called him back. ‘Oh, Sir Josse?’ She must have read the impatience in his expression for, with an apologetic smile, she said, ‘I won’t keep you long. Two things: first, I have given orders to my master mason that he may begin work on the chapel.’
Despite his urgency, her momentous announcement stopped him dead. ‘Where is it to be?’
It seemed to him that there was an instant of perfect stillness. Then, with a broad smile, she said, ‘On the forest fringe.’
‘That is the right place,’ he said.
Her eyes were suddenly glistening with tears. ‘I know,’ she said softly.
‘The — ’ he cleared his throat — ‘the other thing?’
‘Oh… Yes. I think young Ninian has been in my room again, for the statue is gone. No doubt you’ll find her returned to her tree. Would you bring her back, please? Until she has a secure and fitting place in the new chapel, I really think she is safer in my cupboard.’
‘I agree, my lady.’ He did not entirely understand Ninian’s insistence that the figure must be in the oak tree. If, indeed, it was the lad who kept putting her there. It was the only explanation although, Josse realized now, Ninian hadn’t actually admitted that he was responsible. ‘I’ll have a word with him,’ he said, deliberately turning his mind from that worrying thought. Then, as he hurried off, he looked back at her and said, ‘Good luck with your chapel.’
He thought he heard her gentle protest — ‘It is not my chapel!’ — and, smiling, he headed out through the gates and off towards the forest.
He had arranged to meet Ninian today, although the lad had not said when. As Josse hurried up the slope to the forest, he prayed silently that Ninian would be waiting for him. It was still early and the boy might not expect Josse to be there yet. He stopped to stand for a moment on the apron of flat ground projecting out from the trees where, soon now, a chapel would stand. Slowly he turned in a circle, envisaging the walls of the little building stretching and extending up into a roof that soared over his head. A plain altar, he thought, a beautiful cloth and a simple wooden cross. Aye, it ought to be simple, for although he had been a king, St Edmund was no cosseted weakling but a fighting man who had died leading his troops against the invading Danes. He would not have wanted luxury and pomp any more than King Richard. Well, both of them, saint and sinner, would have their wish.
Sinner.
Amid all his other concerns, Josse remembered his mission for Queen Eleanor. When he had found his answers, he would seek her out and tell her in person. Standing there on the site of the new chapel, silently he made a vow that he would not call this matter closed until he had summoned the courage to tell her to her face the truth about her son and the March night in the tower at World’s End.
He crossed the space that would soon be the chapel’s nave and ducked down beneath the branches of the oak tree. Recalling his undertaking to the abbess, he looked up, fully expecting to see the statue back in her usual place.
There was nothing there.
He bit down the flare of panic. Ninian’s taken her to the house in the woods, he thought. Perhaps he sensed danger — he might even have seen de Loup lurking while he waited for the right moment to climb over the abbey wall and slip into the infirmary — and he’s hidden her somewhere more secure. Perhaps she’s safe with him at the house.
Fighting the fear that scorched through him, Josse briefly put his hand on his sword hilt and then set off towards the forest house. He had not gone far when he saw Ninian coming towards him. The boy looked worried.
‘Josse, I did not expect to see you here yet,’ he greeted him. Relief was plain to see on the young face.
‘What’s wrong?’ Josse demanded, clutching the boy by the upper arms.
‘I saw a horseman on the track that runs close by the house,’ Ninian said in a rush. ‘I can’t swear to it but I believe it was Philippe de Loup. The horse was a beautiful long-maned grey, and he rides such a mount.’
‘When was this?’
‘Very early — the sun wasn’t up. I was awake and I’d gone out to watch a stoat with her young. She’s worried because I’m living in the house and I’m too close to where she was bringing up her offspring. She moved her kits to a place under a hollow tree not far from the road that runs round the forest. I wanted to make sure they’re all right.’ Josse suppressed a smile; Ninian had inherited his mother’s love of wild creatures. ‘I heard a horse, hard-ridden, and crept close to the track to look.’ He was studying Josse’s face intently. ‘What’s wrong?’ His tone had changed and now he sounded deeply anxious.
‘Ninian, I have bad news. Sir Piers was found dead this morning.’
Ninian’s face crumpled and Josse was sharply reminded that he was still little more than a boy. ‘But… Oh, Josse, I thought he was getting better.’ Then, in a cry of grief, ‘I thought I’d saved him!’
‘You did, lad! He did not die of his wounds. He was smothered.’
‘De Loup.’ Ninian’s voice was cold and biting.
‘Aye. So it seems.’
‘Who else would murder him?’ Ninian demanded, blue eyes alight, his grief spilling out as furious anger. ‘He was decent and good, and nobody but a wicked, evil-hearted devil like de Loup would wish to see him dead!’ He paused, panting, then said more quietly, ‘It’s because of what happened on Oleron, Josse. He wouldn’t join in and because what they were doing was so foul, he took the statue. He said they were not worthy of her.’
‘You mean the two of you had the figure with you all the way from the island?’
Ninian smiled faintly. ‘Yes.’
‘But I thought… Piers implied the knights had the statue then. He said they had considered putting her in a place of honour at Chartres, only the proposal was outvoted and de Loup was to commission a new carving instead.’
‘Did he? Well, don’t be offended, Josse — Sir Piers would not have told you a lie without very good reason.’ He paused briefly to think and said, ‘The figure is what’s important. Sir Piers would have been careful, I think, to
