‘How will I know?’ he asked. He heard the pleading tone in his voice.
She smiled. ‘You will have to trust to God and the good spirits of this place to make sure that I am.’
‘But-’
‘Josse, what else would you have me do?’ she demanded. ‘Dominic blames me for Rosamund’s disappearance, and he is right to do so for she was left in my care. Do you think I could wait back at home, helping Tilly prepare endless soup, while everyone else searches? Do you?’ she insisted, when he did not answer.
‘No,’ he said gruffly.
‘Well, then.’ She reached up and took his hand. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll be all right. I’ll keep in touch.’
Then she had slapped Alfred hard on the rump and, before Josse was aware, he found himself cantering away.
The only tiny spot of comfort in the whole exchange, he now thought as he slowed his pace for the final approach to the house, was that she had referred to his house as home.
That, in this terrible day, was something…
As soon as Josse was out of sight, Helewise stepped off the road and entered the forest. She knew the tracks well, and it was worth the risk, for she was in a hurry. Furthermore, if she stayed on the road there was always the possibility that Josse would double back and come after her. He was, she knew, deeply unhappy about leaving her.
She walked fast, stopping now and again to get her bearings. She did not habitually cross the forest from north to south, but she knew where she was heading and at this time of year the trees were all but bare, allowing her to be guided by the sun. It was faint today, obscured by high, thin cloud, but she could tell where it was. The air was cold; she huddled deeper inside her thick cloak and tightened the strings of her hood.
She had not enjoyed parting from Josse when he was so very anxious about her. She knew what he felt for her, and her love for him was equally strong, even if she had no idea how to express it. But it was not the time to dwell on her failings there, she reprimanded herself. Not when there was another, far greater, failure to deal with.
Dominic’s coldness towards her had been perfectly understandable but, oh, how it had hurt! She turned her mind from that, too. Nothing short of returning Rosamund to him would alter his dark mood, and she would just have to suffer. She did not even dare to think what Paradisa was going through.
It was heartening that Leofgar had raced to offer his support. Helewise knew, however, that her elder son would not be able to go on helping indefinitely. Leofgar was a man of importance now, with connections to the fringe of court society. Whatever he might privately think about the king — he was careful not to say, but Helewise did not need to hear it in words — he gave every appearance of being a loyal, responsible subject. The king had announced he was going to pay a visit to Leofgar and Rohaise in the very near future, and Helewise was sure that, much as Leofgar would like to go on searching for his young niece, his brother would understood that he had to put his own family first.
It helped her, a little, to be doing something positive to help the search. What she had said to Josse was the truth: she could not have borne returning to the House in the Woods to sit waiting for news. In her old life, she reflected, her conscience would have made her do just that, since it was the hardest thing. Now, once more a woman in control of her own comings and goings, she was free to do what she chose.
She strode on, ignoring her fatigue and the ache in her legs. She was used to walking — they all were — but now the demands she was making on herself were extreme. To take her mind off the pain, she thought about where she was going.
The abbey was out of bounds to her, for the reasons that dear Josse had so eloquently given. It was not that the community would not have welcomed her, and that included Abbess Caliste, for there was a great depth of understanding and love between the former abbess and the present one. It was that the abbey would not be best served by Helewise’s return, since, despite their best efforts not to do so, the nuns and the monks would not be able to help a very understandable tendency to remember — and undoubtedly talk at length about — how life used to be in Helewise’s day. Were there to be some emergency, there could very well be a few of the older ones who turned to Helewise and not Abbess Caliste for guidance. That would not do.
Helewise did not feel that she could take up her abode in the little cell next to St Edmund’s Chapel, no matter how much she longed to, for much the same reasons. The chapel and its attendant accommodation were outside the abbey walls but, all the same, everyone would know she was there. You just couldn’t help that sort of news spreading in a place like the abbey.
No. What she had in mind was somewhere a great deal more remote from the Hawkenlye community. It depended on two things: whether she succeeded in finding it, and whether the person who had very recently been living there would permit her to stay.
She found the place quite easily, only missing her way once. The question of whether or not she would be allowed to stay did not arise, for there was nobody there.
As Helewise unfastened the intricately-twisted knot of rope that fastened the door of the little hut, she wondered where Meggie was and when she would be back. Then she put aside her speculation and set about the tasks she had to do. She collected water from the stream and several loads of kindling and dead wood from the surrounding woodland. She got a fire going in the hearth inside the hut, for it would be cold that night. She checked on Meggie’s food supplies, relieved to discover that, although she would very soon be hungry unless she foraged for more, she would not starve. Once she had seen to the practicalities, she went outside into the little clearing and turned her mind to the reason that she had come.
Being much closer to the abbey than the House in the Woods, the hut made a more convenient base for her task. But there was more to her choice than that; much more. She needed an intermediary who could slip in and out of the abbey without arousing interested comment, someone who did it all the time and who people were used to seeing coming and going, and this was the best place to find her. The person she had in mind had once lived mostly within the abbey walls as a nun, although it had been common knowledge that she had close allegiances with the strange forest people who had once frequented the area. Now they were gone, or so it was said, or perhaps they had become better at remaining hidden. The wildwood was steadily shrinking as the population grew and men nibbled away at its fringes, bringing more and more land under cultivation. In addition, the old tolerance of those who lived a different life and worshipped God in another guise was fast becoming nothing but a memory. In lands far away to the south, the church had taken up arms against those it accused of heresy, and it was only a matter of time before the same harsh and narrow rule was applied everywhere.
It was no wonder they had gone, Helewise mused.
Yet she was one of the few people who suspected that they had not all deserted the Hawkenlye wildwood. She knew for certain of two who remained. One stayed out of love for Hawkenlye’s abbess, for she was her sister. The other had her own unfathomable reasons, and it was she whom Helewise was waiting for.
She stood quite still in the centre of the clearing. The little stream sang its bubbling song away to her right, and somewhere a blackbird protested at her presence. She wondered if she should venture out into the forest and start looking for the woman she sought, but quickly she dismissed the thought. They always knew when an outsider was in their domain. If Helewise was patient, by some mysterious method word would be passed and the one she was mentally summoning would come.
‘Helewise.’
She had no warning, and when the quiet voice spoke right in her ear, Helewise jerked round so violently that she felt a stab of pain in her neck.
‘That’ll need a rub with some oil and some warming herbs,’ the voice went on. ‘You never have taken enough care of yourself, have you?’
Helewise stared into the watchful eyes and studied the weather-beaten, deeply lined face. The newcomer opened her arms, and Helewise walked into her firm embrace. Then she took a step back, and she and Tiphaine, former herbalist of Hawkenlye Abbey, exchanged a warm and loving smile.
It was neither woman’s habit to waste time, for years spent in an abbey had cured them of that. Tiphaine was first to speak. ‘I know why you are here,’ she said. ‘The little girl.’
‘Yes, my granddaughter,’ Helewise agreed. ‘Her name is Rosamund and she’s-’
‘I know,’ Tiphaine interrupted gently.
Helewise wondered how she knew, but almost instantly answered her own unspoken question. ‘Meggie,’ she breathed.
