Alys Clare - The Enchanter's Forest

Caliste and Augustus were now also mounted; with a nod, Helewise kicked the cob’s sides and led her little party through the gate and off on the road that led around the forest.

There was no need to ride in silence and Helewise let her two younger companions chatter away to each other, although in the main she did not join in. She was very aware that she had an important role to play today and she was trying her best to convince herself that she was up to it.

They reached the track that branched off into the forest glade where Merlin’s Tomb was to be found and joined the queue of people waiting to file past it. But only until they reached the first of the barriers; here Helewise, suppressing her surprisingly intense desire to go on and catch a glimpse of those bones, addressed the heavily built man on guard duty and asked to speak to whoever was in charge.

The man looked her up and down, only belatedly according her, in an awkward and grudging bow, the respect that as a habited nun was her due. Then, with a sniff, he rubbed at his broken nose with the back of his hand and said, ‘Reckon that’s me. What d’you want?’

‘I am not prepared to discuss the matter out here in the open where we may be overheard,’ she said quietly. ‘Is there somewhere more private where we might go?’

He glanced around. Then, evidently spotting whatever he was looking for, he called out, ‘Jack! Oi, Jack, come over here.’

A man in a stained leather jerkin walked unhurriedly across to them. ‘What?’

‘Watch the gate here for me. I’ve got to talk to the nun here. She wants a word in private.’

The man in the jerkin gave Helewise an assessing look. Then, turning to his companion: ‘All right, Hal, but don’t be long about it. I’m meant to be off duty and I’m about to get myself something to eat.’

‘I’ll take what time I want,’ the first guard said, swiftly rising anger turning his fleshy, deeply scarred face an unhealthy shade of purplish-red. ‘You answer to me, Jack, and don’t you go forgetting it!’

Then, puffing out his chest like a cock in the barnyard, he said grandly to Helewise, ‘Follow me, if you will, Sister.’

He led the way back along the track for a short distance before taking a narrower path off to the left. There was just about room for Helewise and her companions to ride, although she felt the undergrowth scratch against the fabric of her habit and once a branch of hazel pushed quite hard into her leg.

The path opened out into a clearing where cut widths of tree trunk had been set out, presumably to serve as seats. The litter of hard crusts of bread, rinds of cheese and one or two coarse, cracked earthenware mugs lying around on the trampled grass suggested that it was the place where the guards went to take their refreshment breaks.

‘Now,’ the guard said, looking up at her through calculating, narrowed eyes, ‘will you dismount, Sister, so that we may speak?’

Brother Augustus slipped off the mule’s back and, keeping hold of the reins, said, ‘Friend, this is the Abbess of Hawkenlye. You must address her as my lady Abbess.’

The guard looked quite impressed and his thin lips twisted in a gap-toothed grin. ‘Sorry, my lady Abbess, didn’t know who you were.’

‘It’s quite all right,’ Helewise said.

‘Right. Now, then. What can I do for you?’

‘A body has been brought to the Abbey,’ she said without preamble. ‘It is that of a well-dressed and handsome young man and it was found in a bramble thicket some four or five miles from here. A party of merchants found it, locating its place of concealment by the smell; the victim had been dead for some days. Since the body was found quite close to Merlin’s Tomb, I must ask you if anyone corresponding to this description has recently visited the tomb.’

The guard had heard her out in silence, his face unreadable. When she finished speaking he said, ‘What was he wearing and what did he look like?’ Helewise told him. ‘Did he have a horse?’

‘No mention was made of a horse.’ She had been careful not to say how the man had died, just as now she made sure not to offer the suggestion that any horse the dead man might have been riding would surely have eventually made for home when its owner failed to remount and kick it on again.

The man was frowning. Then he said neutrally, ‘Our master is missing. Hasn’t been seen for four days now.’

‘You mean Florian of Southfrith?’ Helewise tried to keep the shock out of her voice. Was the body at Hawkenlye that of Florian? Unbidden she heard in her mind the Domina’s voice: There are things that could be done . But the guard was speaking; stamping down the whirling thoughts, she made herself listen.

‘The very same,’ the guard said. Now he sounded like a gossip avid to impart news. ‘He was busy in the afternoon and early evening four days back counting his takings. He was going to bag up the money and take it home after the last visitors had gone. Well, other than the few who stopped over. If we had any that night, that is. I could check,’ he offered. He was, Helewise noted, being considerably more co-operative now that he knew who she was. Rank does indeed have its uses, she thought wryly.

‘Was it generally known that he was to ride home with the money?’ she asked. ‘If indeed he rode?’

‘He rode all right. Had a fast-paced bay gelding that must have set him back a tidy sum,’ the guard said. ‘And as to it being known, aye, I reckon it was. It’s no secret how much he’s taking here, my lady Abbess, nor, I reckon, that he usually takes the money home two or even three times a week. People have eyes to see the coins changing hands and brains to do the adding-up.’

‘He was in the habit of taking the money away with him unescorted?’ she asked. It seemed very foolhardy.

The guard shook his head. ‘No. It was more usual for one of us guards to go with him, and he picked us special like, on account of we all know how to handle ourselves in a fight and have no qualms over bearing arms and using them if we have to. But that night, nobody could be spared. I remember now’ — he nodded enthusiastically — ‘we’d been busy and there were a party of seven staying over. Florian, he said we had to help out. He didn’t want folk going away and saying they hadn’t got their money’s worth, see, so Jack and me and the others, off we went to the accommodation huts to dole out food and shake up mattresses.’ His look of disdain told her what he thought about that.

‘So quite a lot of people would have known that he was to take a large sum of money home with him but with no bodyguard,’ she mused.

‘I can guess what you’re thinking, my lady, but it weren’t as risky as it sounds on account of that bay of his,’ the guard said. ‘It went like the wind and Florian said he could outrun anyone as tried to apprehend him and rob him.’

‘I see.’ What, Helewise wondered, became of the horse? Had it indeed returned to Florian’s home? But if so, then why had nobody raised the alarm? A riderless horse coming in late at night must surely have sent Florian’s wife and her mother into a veritable panic of alarm.

Perhaps it did, Helewise thought. Perhaps they sent for help and even now a search party is out looking for Florian. A search party that for some reason has not yet got as far as Hawkenlye Abbey. Which, considering the Abbey’s fame hereabouts, must be a very odd search party indeed.

Her next move was now clear. ‘Thank you for your help,’ she said to the guard. ‘Now one last request: tell me, if you please, how I may find Florian of Southfrith’s dwelling place.’

The directions were easy to follow and presently Helewise was leading her companions through the gate and into the courtyard of Florian’s Hadfeld manor house. There was a row of tethering rings set in the wall and, dismounting, Helewise tied her mount’s reins. Brother Augustus and Sister Caliste did the same. Then, turning slowly to look about her, Helewise took in the scene.