a swift movement beside her, and Josse’s arm went round her shoulders. She heard his words as from a great distance — he was saying it was not her fault, it was the result of mistaken identity, and that Dominic should take back his harsh comment — but she did not take them in.
He blames me, she thought. He blames me and he hates me.
A tear slid down her cheek.
She was ushered to a chair, Josse holding her as if he feared she would fall, Sabin disentangling herself from her children and rushing to take Helewise’s hand. Then Dominic was before her, his face stiff as he said curtly, ‘I apologize, Mother. Apparently, I was wrong to put the blame on you.’
She met his eyes. ‘She was, as you say, in my care,’ she said. ‘I will do my utmost to help you find her.’
He studied her for a moment longer. Then he turned away.
THREE
Josse sat with Dominic and Gervase as they worked on how best to hunt for Rosamund. Helewise, still looking so stunned that Josse longed to comfort her, sat alone and silent at the end of Gervase’s long table. Gervase had already summoned a group of his most reliable men and, when Dominic had asked if somebody could ride over to the Old Manor to ask his brother Leofgar to come to help, Gervase had readily agreed. Now, as they waited for the others to assemble, the three of them divided up the terrain and decided who should lead the hunt in which sector.
‘We should each concentrate on the areas we know best,’ Gervase said. ‘This means you, Josse, concentrate on the forest between Hawkenlye Manor and the abbey.’
‘We have searched the ground there all night!’ Josse exclaimed impatiently. Although he knew it was sensible to sit here and organize the search so as to make best use of the available men, in his heart he felt they were wasting time and he longed to be out looking for Rosamund.
Gervase looked at him, sympathy in his light eyes. ‘I know, old friend,’ he said, ‘but it was dark. You may well have missed something important.’
‘I’ll take the area east of the forest, centred on New Winnowlands and covering the roads and tracks to the coast,’ Dominic said. Josse glanced at him. His face was pale, and a muscle worked constantly at the point of his jaw. His pain and his anger were palpable. I would not, Josse thought, like to be the man who has taken Rosamund when her father finds him.
‘Good,’ Gervase was saying. ‘You are confident that your brother will join us, Dominic?’
‘I am.’
‘Very well. We will assign to him the area to the north and north-east of the town. I propose to put my most able deputy in charge of Tonbridge, and I will concentrate on the lands to the west, taking a band of men out towards Saxonbury, Hartfield and the Ashdown Forest.’
‘The forest is a royal preserve,’ Dominic said, frowning. ‘Is it not a waste of time to search there?’
‘Indeed, the king often rides there and would like to make it his own private hunting ground,’ Gervase replied, ‘but as yet there is nothing to prevent access.’
‘Providing you don’t hunt the deer,’ Josse muttered.
‘Yes, but where does that not apply?’ Gervase countered. ‘They say there are plans to fence in the whole forest, but for now it is as good a place to hide as any.’
‘I do not know it,’ Dominic said. ‘It is a forest, yet you speak of good hunting?’ He shook his head. ‘I cannot reconcile the two.’
‘You are thinking, perhaps, of the Wealden Forest that surrounds Hawkenlye,’ Josse said. ‘Aye, you’d be hard put to chase and fell a deer there, for the trees and the undergrowth grow so densely that the very tracks disappear in the spring. The Ashdown Forest is in truth a heath,’ he went on, ‘and quite different in nature from the woodland around Hawkenlye. You-’
But Dominic put up a hand to silence him. The question answered, Dominic had more pressing matters on his mind. ‘My mother should go to the abbey,’ he said decisively, sending a glance in the direction of the silent figure at the end of the table. ‘People come and go there all the time. Basing herself there, she will be in a good position to keep her ears open for any whispered rumour of — of where my daughter may be.’
Josse felt the onset of an agonizing conflict. Dominic’s suggestion was astute, for Hawkenlye was the closest sizeable community to the place where Rosamund had last been seen and, as Dominic had implied, had always been a centre for gossip and rumour. But he did not know, as Josse did, Helewise’s attitude to the place where she had lived and ruled for so long.
She avoided it. She had explained to Josse that she did not wish her presence to undermine the new regime led by Abbess Caliste. Josse suspected there was more to it than that: he feared that part of her regretted her decision to leave and wished she was still Hawkenlye’s abbess.
Either way, she would not take kindly to a curt order from her son that she should go and stay there…
Helewise had bowed her head, and she had not uttered a word. It was up to Josse to say so.
‘Your mother will not return to the abbey,’ he said quietly. ‘Abbess Caliste is in charge now, and Helewise does not wish to remind the community that once they were led by someone else.’
Dominic’s face twisted into a grimace. ‘She will surely not allow such a consideration to outweigh the present emergency?’
‘I think she will,’ Josse said.
There was a brief, tense silence. Then, turning to Helewise, Dominic broke it with a single, icy word: ‘Mother?’
Josse watched as slowly she raised her head and met her son’s eyes. ‘I will not return to the abbey,’ she said.
‘But you-’ Dominic began furiously.
Now it was his turn to be silenced. Helewise said, quietly but with infinite authority, ‘Dominic, I will not be persuaded. What you suggest is not possible.’
Dominic opened his mouth to protest again but, eyes fixed to his mother’s grim face, he subsided.
‘Thank you,’ she said calmly. ‘I will not go to the abbey, but I do agree that what you suggest is sensible. I will lodge close by, and I will send someone to be my eyes and ears within the community. That will serve as well.’
Dominic snorted. ‘It rather depends who you send.’
‘Leave me to worry about that,’ Helewise flashed back. Then, regret filling her face as if suddenly she had recalled why they were all there, she added gently, ‘I promised to do my best to help, son, and I will.’
He looked at her for a long moment. Then he nodded.
There was a sudden commotion in the courtyard outside, and a group of a dozen men erupted into the hall. While they were still settling down to hear the sheriff’s instructions, there was the sound of a horse’s hooves clattering across the yard, swiftly followed by the arrival of Leofgar Warin.
He went to greet his mother. Then he spotted his younger brother and, without a word, went across to take him in his arms in a tight embrace. Breaking away, he turned to Gervase and said, ‘What do you want me to do?’
Josse was heading for the House in the Woods. He planned to gather his household around him and tell them that they were to search every track, path and animal trail until they found some trace of Rosamund. She had stood in the place that Meggie had pointed out, he reflected, and someone had taken her away. Unless they flew, Josse thought, they must have left a mark of their passage and, however small it is, we must find it.
He was riding as hard as he could, given that he was leading a second horse. Where Helewise was bound, she had no need of Daisy, and Josse was taking the mare back to the House in the Woods. He and Helewise had ridden back up the hill from Tonbridge, and he had left her at the point where the track to Hawkenlye Abbey branched off the main road that circled the forest. She had not told him what she planned to do. When they had parted, she had done her best to reassure him, but she had failed.
‘I shall be perfectly safe, Josse dear,’ she had said, looking up at him as he struggled to control both Alfred and her mare, the horses excited from the hard ride and restless to be moving again.
