and over it a short cloak with a hood.
She stared at him. Seeing him now, she understood exactly why she had let Rosamund run after him in the woods near to Josse’s house. He really did look very like Ninian.
She dug her elbow into her brother’s ribs. ‘See?’ she hissed. ‘Do you wonder that Rosamund and I both mistook him for you? Especially when he was where we were expecting to see you, near to the House in the Woods.’
Ninian was watching the man. ‘He’s younger than me,’ he said.
‘Yes, but not by more than three or four years.’ The man was now helping Rosamund up on to the black horse. Once she was secure, he sprang up behind her. ‘He even moves like you,’ Meggie added.
Ninian turned and grinned at her. ‘I never blamed you anyway for Rosamund’s disappearance, but if I did, I wouldn’t any more. All right?’
She grinned back. ‘All right.’ Then, her eyes on Rosamund: ‘Ninian, can’t we just ride over to them and take her back?’
‘I’ve been wondering the same thing.’ He frowned. ‘I’ve no idea why the man who looks like me abducted her, but for some reason he’s now joined up with all those others, and I can’t believe that they’re all in it. It seems most likely that the — that their leader would see by Rosamund’s reaction that she knows us and would readily let her go with us. But, Meggie, what if that didn’t happen? What if they were determined to hold on to her?’
‘We’d fight!’ she hissed. ‘I have my sword, and so have you, and we’ve got our knives!’
He sighed. ‘I appreciate how you feel, but there are just too many of them. We can’t fight ten well-armed men, and that’s not counting however many servants there are milling around over there.’
The hot blood was racing through her, and for an instant she wanted to ignore him and rush out to rescue Rosamund all by herself. She took a deep breath and then another, deliberately calming herself. He was right. Tempting as it was to act right now, the risk was too great.
‘Very well,’ she said. ‘We’ll follow at a safe distance and see where they go.’
He did not speak, but the sudden hard hug he gave her was answer enough.
Josse was down in his habitual place with the Hawkenlye monks in the vale. When Gervase had so abruptly hurried away from the House in the Woods earlier, he had felt guilty about remaining there doing nothing but working his way through a platter of Tilly’s excellent cooking, so without pausing for food he had fetched a disgruntled Alfred and ridden back to the abbey. His stomach growling with hunger — for the day was now well advanced and he had eaten nothing since early morning — he had sought out Brother Saul and asked if he could spare something to eat.
As if he, too, were recalling so many previous occasions, Brother Saul appeared with a hot drink and a bowl of thin, watery gruel and commented, ‘Just like old times, eh, Sir Josse?’
Josse took the wooden bowl, setting the mug carefully down beside him on the ground. He smiled at the old lay brother. ‘Thank you, Saul. Aye, it is. There’s many a morning I’ve scrounged a meal from the monks.’
He did not say so, but he could not recall a time when the gruel had contained quite so little oatmeal. Nevertheless, he still felt guilty about eating it, when there were so many far needier than he.
Brother Saul watched as he ate and drank. ‘Anything more I can do for you?’ he asked.
Josse shook his head. ‘No, Saul, thank you.’ Realizing that Saul was undoubtedly hovering for another reason than tending to Josse’s needs, he said, ‘No news yet, I’m afraid.’
Saul’s face fell. ‘The dead man’s kin were not able to provide any clue in the little girl’s disappearance?’
‘No. We still do not know that there’s any connection between Hugh de Brionne’s death and Rosamund’s disappearance.’
He had finished his meagre meal, and Saul took the empty vessels from him. ‘I’ll go and pray for the lass,’ he said. He smiled briefly. ‘If dear old Brother Firmin was still with us, he’d be doing the rounds with his precious holy water to keep our hopes up. Set a store by that water, did Brother Firmin.’
Josse watched him walk away. He was, Josse mused, far too thin…
It was no good sitting here lamenting everything that was wrong with the world. Standing up, he brushed the worst of the dust and the creases out of his tunic, tightened his belt over his hungry stomach and strode out of the monks’ quarters. Gervase had promised to return later, he recalled, once he had seen his deputies to hear their reports and issue the day’s orders. Josse decided he would suggest they resume the search for Rosamund by heading off to the north-west. It would save time if Josse was ready for Gervase when he arrived. Leaving the vale behind, he strode off up the path to the abbey.
In the hut in the forest, Helewise could not settle. She moved restlessly about, first inside, then out in the glade, striding to and fro, always straining to hear the slightest sound that might indicate Meggie was coming back. Despite Tiphaine’s calm reassurances of the night before, she was increasingly worried about her.
Tiphaine made a simple noon meal for them. Helewise found it hard to eat. The food was not very appetizing, and anxiety had taken away her appetite. She wondered how she was going to endure another day and, when Tiphaine put on her cloak and announced she was off down to the abbey, Helewise went with her as far as the edge of the woodland.
‘Will you come down with me, my lady?’ Tiphaine asked.
‘No, Tiphaine,’ she replied. ‘I think, however, that I shall stay here, by St Edmund’s Chapel. I-’ She shrugged. There was no need to explain.
‘Your prayers will be heard,’ Tiphaine said. Very quietly, she added something else, which sounded like the Lady will hear you. Then she turned and headed on down to the abbey.
The group from the hunting lodge set off along a track going roughly north-east. Meggie and Ninian found it easy to follow them, for the men were understandably confident of their safety, riding as they did in a large group, and nobody bothered about keeping a watch on the road behind.
On the road to the west and above Hawkenlye Vale, the party drew rein and halted. Meggie and Ninian swiftly left the track and, dismounting, lead their horses into the trees and hurried back to the road to observe.
‘They’re separating,’ Ninian said. ‘Look, one lot are heading off north, and the others seem to be going down towards the abbey.’
‘The young man who has Rosamund is in the second group.’ Meggie was watching closely. ‘The man in the russet tunic is going with them, and a couple of others too. They’ve stuck close by him all the way,’ she added. ‘They look like his bodyguards.’
Ninian did not comment. She turned to him, a question framed, but he leapt up and hurried back to their horses. Soon they had remounted and were following the smaller group on the road to the vale. After a couple of miles, it became clear they were not going down into the vale, for they had taken a narrow track that swung round to skirt it to the south.
‘I think,’ Ninian said, ‘they intend to go round to the east of the abbey and enter through the main gates.’
‘Too grand to trot up the path that leads to the little west gate?’ Meggie suggested.
‘More likely because the main gate’s more suitable for horsemen. Come on — ’ he kicked his horse to a canter — ‘they’re getting too far ahead. Even if we’re fairly sure where they are bound, we don’t want to lose them.’
They hurried on. Meggie could make out the members of the group quite clearly now. The leader, in his russet tunic. The man who looked like Ninian, Rosamund sitting in front of him on the black horse. The two burly men who she thought were bodyguards. What were they going to do? Would they ride into the abbey and say that they had found Rosamund wandering and so had brought her to that place of safety so that the nuns could look after her until she could be reunited with her family? It seemed likely. Perhaps the man in the russet tunic had been angry with the young man who’d taken Rosamund — Meggie recalled the furious, shouting voice last evening — and wanted to put a wrong to rights as quickly as he could. If he was the young man’s lord, as he seemed to be, then it would be up to him to inflict punishment and The group had split again. The bodyguards were riding away northwards along the track to the abbey gates. The man in the tunic and the man who looked like Ninian, with Rosamund still sitting in front of him, were heading off to the east.
They were not heading for the abbey at all.
Meggie felt sick with dread. A loud warning alarm was ringing inside her head. Something was about to happen, something terrible. She knew it was, and she did not know how to prevent it.
The two horses were cantering up the gentle slope towards the dense woodland. Just up there, directly ahead of them, was St Edmund’s Chapel. Filled with horror, Meggie looked at Ninian.
