Alys Clare - The Enchanter's Forest

In no hurry to answer, largely because he could tell she found it irritating, Josse studied her. She was not tall — petite would be the word, he decided — and the slim-fitting silk gown showed a narrow waist and hips but surprisingly generous breasts; the bodice looked as if it had been designed for a woman even better-endowed. The gown was of a pale pearly grey and the colour must have been chosen with care, for it complemented the woman’s skin tone perfectly. Her eyes, he now saw, were not black but very dark blue. What he could see of her hair, which was drawn back off her face and covered by a circle of fine silvery net held in place with a silver circlet, was glossy, smooth and black as midnight.

She would have been one of the loveliest women he had ever set eyes on. But beauty, in Josse’s opinion, needed a smile: the scowl that the woman wore drew her brows together, etched downward-sloping lines in the beautiful face and soured the wide mouth; in short, she had the look of a malevolent child thwarted of its latest unreasonable demand.

‘I am Josse d’Acquin,’ he said eventually.

‘I see.’ The frown eased a little. ‘And you say that you are wanting to build a solar?’ She sounded as if she found the suggestion faintly risible.

‘Er — it has been suggested.’ That was the truth; Josse’s servant Will had been dropping hints these five years past at least and more than once a local mason had just happened to pass by — undoubtedly summoned by Will — to propose to Josse the same idea.

‘New buildings don’t come cheap,’ the woman said rudely. She eyed his garments minutely, from the feather in his favourite and well-worn broad-brimmed hat to his comfy old riding boots.

Refusing to be drawn, Josse merely said, ‘So I imagine.’

She took hold of a fold of her skirt, swishing the gorgeous silk to and fro so that it made a soft, rustling sound. He caught a glimpse of an underskirt in a deeper shade of silver grey and saw a flash of exquisite, pure white lace, stiff and costly. She tapped her slim foot in its soft leather slipper. ‘Of course,’ she said languidly when she had evidently reassured herself that Josse had noticed every item of the display, ‘my husband is a very wealthy man.’

‘Indeed,’ Josse said mildly.

‘Oh, yes.’

‘That must be quite delightful for you, my lady.’ He wondered if she would detect the irony.

‘Naturally, it is.’ Apparently not. ‘My husband claims that it is his privilege to give me pleasure by buying me whatever I desire.’ She gave an artificial little sigh, as if she could not quite believe her generosity in allowing her husband the huge favour of allowing him to spend his money on her.

‘Perhaps he is fresh to marriage?’ Josse asked. ‘It is well known that a new bridegroom often indulges his bride.’

‘We are two years wed,’ she said sharply. Then, forcing a smile that went no further than her lips: ‘Florian likes to ensure my favour, sir knight. I had many suitors and he does well not to forget that he had to face much competition for my hand.’

Watching her, Josse thought but did not point out that her former popularity was hardly relevant now that she had made her choice and was married to Florian. It seemed highly likely that she used the reminder of it as a stick with which to beat the unfortunate Florian whenever his attention slipped from his decorative, spoiled wife and his purse-strings began to draw closed.

Josse was beginning to feel very sorry for Florian of Southfrith.

It was hot in the courtyard. The sun was beating off the flagstones and the walls of the house and the air was dry and full of dust. The woman on her mounting block, predictably, had taken the only patch of shade. A better-mannered person would, Josse thought, by now have invited him inside the house and offered him something cool to drink. Florian’s wife contented herself with staring at him impatiently and making it perfectly apparent that she wished he would go away.

‘I am grateful for your kindness and your time, lady,’ he said, increasing the irony. Bowing, he added, ‘I will leave you to your overseer’s duties.’ And that, he decided as he straightened up, was verging on plain rude; to suggest to a rich man’s wife that she was forced to labour like a workman was an insult.

Colour flew swiftly into her face. She seemed about to make some vitriolic reply but, with an effort, she controlled herself. Then she turned her back.

Josse walked back across the courtyard and out through the gate, freeing Horace’s reins from the hitching ring and swinging up into the saddle. Looking back, he saw the door to the house suddenly open from within. A woman dressed in black emerged on to the steps; she wore a long veil whose edge came down low over her eyes so that Josse could not see her face clearly. However, her figure, her posture and the harsh voice which called out in French suggested strongly that she was the young woman’s mother.

‘ Primevere, que fais-tu la au plein soleil? ’ demanded the older woman. Primevere, Josse thought. Primrose. A singularly unfitting name for Florian’s haughty wife, whose looks and nature were far removed from the simple prettiness of a primrose. ‘ Tu seras bronzee comme une rustre! ’ The older woman spat out the pejorative word like an oath.

‘I am not in the sun, Maman ,’ the younger woman called back. ‘There is no danger whatsoever that I shall start to look like some rustic lout, so there is no need to make such a fuss.’

The older woman had just noticed Josse.

‘ C’est qui, lui? ’ she demanded of her daughter, jerking her chin in Josse’s direction.

Primevere turned to stare at Josse. ‘His identity is not important,’ she said dismissively. ‘He is just leaving.’ Then she climbed down gracefully from her mounting block, took her mother’s outstretched hand and went with her back into the house, slamming the door behind her with a loud and eloquent bang.

The second part of Josse’s mission was less straightforward: there did not seem to be any obvious way of discovering where Florian had found the bones that he had transported to the clearing in the forest. Where, Josse wondered as he rode along in the sun, trying to distract himself from his growing thirst, would a man go to find bones? A burial ground? Some grave sunk beneath the aisle of a church? A wealthy family’s private vault? He had no idea which suggestion, if any, might be the right one.

He caught sight of a small church ahead, set beneath trees to one side of the track. He saw as he drew nearer that someone was sitting on the step of the open door; the priest was taking his ease in the cool shade with a mug of beer and a thick hunk of dark and dryish-looking bread.

‘Greetings!’ the priest called out as Josse rode up. He waved the mug. ‘Will you take a drop? It’s as cold as my subterranean cellar can make it! There’s water in the trough for your handsome horse, too.’

Deciding that this was probably not the happy priest’s first mugful, Josse willingly dismounted, tethered Horace in the shade beside the trough and went to seat himself on the doorstep.

‘A-a-ah!’ he said with deep pleasure as his buttocks encountered the cool stone.

‘Good, eh?’ the priest said with a smile. ‘Here.’ He handed over a second mug and Josse drank gratefully.

‘That’s worth a long, hot ride,’ Josse said when he had taken the edge off his thirst.

‘You’ve come far?’ asked the priest.

‘From Hawkenlye Abbey.’

‘I see.’ The priest eyed him shrewdly. ‘Come to have a look at the rival attraction?’

‘Aye.’ There seemed no point in denying it.

‘Do you believe what is being claimed for those particularly large bones?’