Alys Clare - The Enchanter's Forest

He turned to go but, at the door, stopped and looked back at her. ‘What ought we to do next? About young Florian, I mean?’

‘Sir Josse, you need do nothing, for you have done more than enough already to help me in my concerns. Anyway’ — she tried to speak lightly — ‘you have earned a good rest!’

‘I don’t want a rest,’ he snapped back. Then, quietly, ‘Forgive me, my lady. You meant well, I know. But I would rather keep busy, if you don’t mind.’

Her heart ached for him. Trying to sound brisk — for surely now he really would break down if she offered him kindness and sympathy — she said, ‘Well, I plan to make another visit to Florian’s widow, Primevere. She is grieving, of course, and in addition there seems to be some suggestion that she might be unwell. I thought to take either Sister Euphemia or Sister Caliste with me, then, if the young woman would agree to being examined, help might be offered to heal whatever ails her.’

He nodded. ‘I see.’

‘In addition, I feel that somehow it is important to discover, if we can, just who is in charge of the Merlin’s Tomb site now that Florian is dead. Who, for example, gave the order to close it? Who posted the guard at the entrance to turn would-be visitors away?’

‘Quite,’ he said neutrally.

‘I had been thinking of going this afternoon,’ she went on, ‘but it can just as well be tomorrow. Then, well rested after a night’s sleep, if you really want to you might accompany us?’

‘Aye, I’ll do that,’ he said. Then, with a nod, he was gone.

She waited but he did not return. Presently Brother Micah tapped at her door, bringing Sir Josse’s apologies but he was going to eat with the brethren down in the Vale, being too weary to be very good company. He would present himself tomorrow morning, Brother Micah went on, for the trip down to Hadfeld.

He doesn’t want to take the risk that I might question him about Joanna, she thought. Poor Josse; I would not have spoken of her until and unless he raised the subject, but he was not necessarily to know that.

A part of her felt terribly sad that he did not know her better than to realise it.

‘Thank you, Brother Micah,’ she said with a calmness she did not feel. ‘Please send Sir Josse my best wishes and say I shall expect him early in the morning.’

Micah bowed his way out of her room.

Leaving Helewise — heart-sore and anxious for her old friend, deeply hurt that he chose not to be with her but to suffer alone — right back in the claustrophobic circle of her own thoughts.

Down in the Vale, Josse retired early to his usual place in the corner of the shelter but sleep was a long time coming.

He missed Joanna badly. He had spent so many nights with her curled up by his side and on most of them had slept the profoundly heavy and peaceful sleep that follows lovemaking. But it was not just her physical presence that he missed, important though that was; he also missed her lively mind, her sense of fun and, perhaps most of all, her mystery and her strong sense of power.

What a woman. .

They had got into New Shoreham in good time the previous day, early enough to travel a fair distance before stopping to make camp for the night on the north face of the South Downs, in a shallow depression just below the summit of a line of hills overlooking the vale between the Downs and the ridges where the Great Forest began.

They had made a fire, eaten supper and then settled Meggie to sleep. Then, neither of them feeling ready for sleep themselves, Joanna had fuelled up the fire and they had sat there beside it, hand in hand, gazing out into the warm night.

‘We are close to the Caburn,’ Joanna said eventually, breaking a long silence.

‘The Caburn. .’ He was sure he had heard the name but, preoccupied as he was, could not remember in what context he had heard it.

‘Men built a fort there a long time ago,’ she said dreamily. ‘But it was used by humankind long before that. It’s a place of power.’

‘A place of power,’ he repeated. ‘Your people’s sort of power?’

She shrugged. ‘I don’t know, but it all stems from the same source, and that is the Earth herself.’ She leaned closer to him. ‘In fact it’s more your people,’ she added.

He considered that for a moment and then, wonder dawning, began to think he might know what she was referring to.

It had been over a year ago, the previous February, when the Abbey had been stricken with the pestilence. Josse had been persuaded to use the Eye of Jerusalem, his late father’s precious heirloom, and, reluctant to credit that there was any magical power in his bloodline, had been gently corrected by Joanna. There had been a woman, a forebear of his mother’s, she had told him, who was recognised by her people as one of their Great Ones. He had not known exactly what that meant — still did not know now — but it sounded impressive.

‘You refer, I believe, to this magical grand-dam of mine,’ he said lightly.

‘I do, and she was considerably further back in your ancestry than that.’ There was no levity in Joanna’s tone, he noted.

‘Tell me?’ he asked.

‘Not much to tell,’ she admitted. ‘I only know that she was an ancestress on your mother’s side, a native Briton, and that she lived close to here and tended the sacred fires on Mount Caburn.’

Josse tried to think what that might mean and failed. ‘She was — she was pagan?’

‘Of course. Six generations back, the new religion was by no means universally accepted in Britain.’

The new religion. She must mean Christianity. So she was telling him that, not all that long ago, a woman of his blood had stood on the summit of a hill, very close to where he now sat, chanting incantations and feeding the sacred flame in the service of her gods.

For a moment an image appeared before him out of the darkness and the low flames of their own small fire suddenly seemed to grow immensely, searing up into the night sky in vivid hues of violet, purple and gold, while a tall woman in a pale robe, a circlet of silver around her head, cried aloud in a voice that sounded like singing.

He blinked and both woman and fire were gone.

Beside him Joanna laughed softly. ‘If I’m right and you saw it too,’ she murmured, ‘then we just witnessed your grandmother’s great-great-grandmother going about her holy work.’

Slowly he shook his head, but more in wonder than in denial. Once, not so very long ago, he might have shied away from thinking about Joanna’s strange power in his daughter’s blood, never mind some equivalent force that came from his own forebears. But that was before he had spent this precious time in her company and grown to understand a little — just a little — of what she and her people truly were.

Now, far from being ashamed to think that his own blood contained elements of the same power, he was proud. Staring out in the darkness, silently he called out to that woman from so long ago, sending her his recognition, his blessings and his love. As if a warm arm had been slipped around him, he felt all three sentiments returned.

Soon after that they had made love — she, he was sure, also trying not to think that it might be for the last time — and settled down to sleep.

In the morning they had ridden back to Hawkenlye. She had slipped off the golden mare’s back and silently handed the reins to him, for there was no place for a fine animal such as Honey in Joanna’s forest life and the mare was better off being useful at Hawkenlye. They had made their farewells brief — for Meggie’s sake, they solemnly told each other — and he had watched as, with Meggie holding her mother’s hand and twisting round so as to go on waving to him till the last possible moment, Joanna had set off along the track that led into the forest.