more death; more families torn apart; more helpless, hopeless, lost souls.
She wondered if this Crusade had already begun. The Domina must have picked up the thought: ‘Not yet,’ she said. ‘But within a decade, it will come to pass.’
It will come to pass, Helewise repeated silently, bowing her head as the intolerable images filled her mind. My Church will do this. In the name of the vast body to which I have given my life and my soul, people will be hunted down and killed because they refuse to acknowledge any man’s right, even that of a priest, to tell them what to believe. What am I to do, I who, if I were put to the test and somehow found the courage to answer honestly, might be cast out with the heretics?
She did not know.
She looked up to speak to the Domina but she had gone. Helewise stood alone in the clearing enduring the agony of her thoughts.
Seventeen
Josse and Ninian made their way up to the coast by the network of paths and tracks that spread out from the meandering Seine as the river made its stately way westwards to the sea. Josse felt strongly that they must remain out of sight, and keeping off the main roads ensured that few people would remember, if asked, a big man and a lad riding good horses and leading a distinctive grey.
He told himself his caution was in case any of the surviving Knights of Arcturus were on their trail, determined to take back the black figure, but he knew in the depths of his mind that this was not true.
He was not sure what he feared. Sometimes when he was very tired he thought he heard a baby; sometimes it cried; sometimes it made gurgling sounds of contentment.
It just went to show, he thought, how grief, anxiety and fatigue could play tricks.
They left the river and headed off north towards Fecamp. Josse knew the little place and had decided it was a better option than the bigger ports such as Le Havre or Dieppe. As they approached the sea, calm and silvery- grey under the bright afternoon sun, he saw that he and Ninian need not even advertise their presence in Fecamp for, ahead of them on the shore, he spotted a small fishing hamlet where a cluster of wooden-framed dwellings made a semicircle round a jetty stretching out into the sea. Tied to the jetty was a small fleet of fishing boats and some larger craft. He drew rein, signalling to Ninian, and, wheeling Horace round, headed back into the shade of a small copse through which they had just passed.
‘Stay here with the horses,’ Josse said, ‘while I go down to the shore and ask about passage over to England.’
Ninian nodded, already jumping down to take Horace’s reins. ‘Be careful, Josse,’ he said. He looked worried. Josse nodded an acknowledgement.
He trotted over the short, wiry grass, pleased to be using different muscles after so long in the saddle. In the hamlet he quickly found a seaman happy to take two people and three horses over to Pevensey. The price was steep — with no competition, for his boat was the only one available that could transport horses, the seaman could ask what he liked — but Josse agreed. They would sail on the evening tide.
Josse bought a flagon of cider, some fresh bread, a large creamy cheese and two small onions from the seaman’s wife and hurried back to the hiding place in the trees. He and Ninian consumed the food and most of the cider, and then Ninian curled up in the shade and went to sleep.
Josse sat with his back to a birch tree, staring out over the distant sea and listening to the natural sounds all around. Birds sang; a soft breeze stirred the leaves. The three horses, their tack removed and hobbled to prevent them straying far, tore at the grass. Ninian snored gently. No baby sounds now, Josse reflected.
I imagined those little cries, he thought. My half-aware mind heard an animal or a bird and, because I am tired and grieving, translated it into a human sound. I must not give way to such fancies.
Firmly he turned his mind to Philippe de Loup and the Knights of Arcturus. He had not liked leaving the dead man out there in his lonely grave; it went against everything he believed in. No prayers were said over de Loup; no marker told others where he rested. Even thinking about it now gave Josse a shudder of abhorrence and he vowed that he would have prayers said for de Loup’s soul as soon as he was back at Hawkenlye.
But what else could I have done? Josse asked himself. Aye, I could have returned to Chartres and found a law officer to tell him there was a dead man out on the road beside the river, and that would have brought down on my head such a barrage of suspicious questions that I should have been driven to my knees. Moreover, it would not take a genius to connect de Loup with however many of the knights were found in the cathedral crypt, dead or too badly injured to escape. I would probably have been accused of laying out the night watchmen too.
Even if Josse had been prepared to risk his freedom, going back to Chartres would have involved Ninian. Josse could have tried to make the lad go on alone, but he knew Ninian would not have left him. The boy had a loyal heart.
Ninian. Josse took another mouthful of cider and thought back to the eager boy he had met seven years ago. They had liked each other straight away, he and Ninian; even before Josse fell in love with the lad’s mother, he had taken to Ninian for his own sake. When Josse did what Joanna asked and found a place for the boy, in his fellow knight Sir Walter Asham’s household, he had swallowed the pain of leaving the lad with no expectation of ever seeing him again. Unlike Joanna, Josse had no scrying glass. But then — it was funny how life worked out — their paths had crossed once more. Now Ninian seemed to have attached himself firmly to Josse’s side, as if, with Piers dead, he had turned into Josse’s squire.
What should I do with him? Josse wondered, the question instantly answered with a slightly mocking echo. Do with him? He will not be done to; he will decide for himself.
Ninian had said he did not wish to return to Sir Walter. Had he not been happy there? Josse did not know. What else would the boy do? Once he had returned the black goddess to Hawkenlye, then what?
Josse had not yet found the right moment to tell Ninian about Meggie. He glanced across at the sleeping boy. I will do so this night, he vowed. Before we set foot on English soil, I will tell him. Joanna would be happy, he thought, to think of her son and her daughter meeting at last.
Joanna… There was something that had been nagging at him ever since the night in the cathedral. Now, at last, he let himself think about it. She had been saying goodbye; until now, even approaching that aching moment had threatened to undermine him totally. Even now, tears filled his eyes as he pictured her. He had asked if she wanted to go and she had said it was the only way, whatever that meant. She had told him she loved him and her children, and that she could only bear to leave them because she knew Josse would care for them. She must have known Ninian was there, he thought — of course she did! — for then she had said something about Meggie being able to see her and speak to her and added that she hoped this was the gift she left to any of her blood. Ninian too, she seemed to be saying, would be able to commune with her in whatever form she now took.
He saw but could scarcely take in the obvious conclusion: Joanna wanted Josse to take care of Ninian as well as Meggie. Why else, he asked himself, with a sudden lift of the heart, why else say, it is only because I know you will look after them so well that I can leave them? She said ‘them’, not ‘her’; she meant both her children.
I must not force this on to Ninian, Josse thought. For my part, I am overjoyed at the prospect of becoming Ninian’s guardian, but I must make quite sure he feels the same.
He drank some more cider. The fierce, sharp pain of thinking about Joanna and picturing her pale, tired face was already lessening, softened by the images of a life with Joanna’s children. My children, he thought drowsily, living in my household; Meggie because she is of my blood and Ninian because all of us wish it so.
The empty mug fell from his hand as he slipped into sleep.
Josse woke up to be faced by dazzling orange as the sun went down in the west and the shining sea reflected the brilliant sky. He stretched and yawned, watching Ninian as the boy packed their gear with neat, economic movements. His face was set, and his eyelids were pink and puffy, as if he had been crying.
‘Ninian?’ Josse asked tentatively.
The boy looked up swiftly, then bent once more to his task. ‘I’m all right.’
But you’re not, lad, Josse thought, any more than I am. Still, if a stern facade was the boy’s way of keeping his emotions under control, it was not Josse’s place to attempt to get beneath it.
Ninian ran out of jobs to do and, after a brief hesitation, came to sit beside Josse. ‘How long till we go?’ he
