Alys Clare - The Enchanter's Forest

‘My home, it is backed by low hills and overlooks the Loire.’ Now her voice was dreamy, as if she were speaking of some beautiful place that she had loved very greatly, had lost and might not find again. ‘It is comfortable and the weather is usually mild, the food is first rate and the wines of the Loire are without equal. It is a place of great serenity and beauty and now’ — the dark eyes did a quick sweep of the courtyard, the modest house and the new building work and Melusine’s down-turned lips seemed to sum up her opinion of what she was looking at — ‘now that it is all over, I am impatient to return there.’

Angers, Josse was thinking, was not very far from Le Mans; these people had worked it all out. Now that it is all over , she had just said. Did she know, then, exactly what her own daughter and her lover had planned between them; what perhaps Ranulf himself had done? If so, then her attitude, he reflected, was more than a little callous. .

‘Have you no pity for Florian?’ he asked quietly.

She considered the question, turning her head on one side. Then, dark eyes on Josse’s, she said, ‘No, not really.’ Then: ‘You see, I never really liked him.’

‘What will you do now?’ Josse asked the sheriff as they rode back to Hawkenlye.

‘I am very tempted,’ the sheriff said testily, ‘to take a force of men and sail across to France, locate Ranulf’s estate near Le Mans and demand that he accompanies me back to England to face an accusation of murder and robbery.’

‘But how would you prove it, even if you could force him to come?’

Gervase frowned. ‘There must be proof, Josse, did I only know where to look.’

‘I very much doubt it,’ Josse replied. ‘Someone steps out of the darkness and kills a man on the forest fringes at dead of night. The man is robbed of his money bags and his horse and his body hidden in the bushes. Who on earth is to say who did the deed?’

‘I might find the proof I need if I could locate Florian’s horse,’ Gervase said.

‘Aye, now well on its way to some place where it’ll be lost among dozens that look exactly like it,’ Josse countered. ‘Would you take Florian’s groom with you and ask him to point out his late master’s bay? And even if you could prove without a shadow of doubt that Florian’s horse is now in Ranulf’s paddock, then there’s nothing to stop either Ranulf or Primevere saying, oh, yes, the horse did turn up, minus the money bags, and we forgot to tell you, and since nobody here has any use for it we decided to send it out to join the rest of the stock out in France.’

‘So, like hiding a tree in a forest, the animal is for ever lost among its fellows and will end its days happily breeding and making a rich man even more money.’ There was a tinge of bitterness in Gervase’s voice.

Josse grinned suddenly, remembering something the Abbess told him. ‘Correct in all but one respect, Gervase,’ he said. ‘The horse was a gelding.’

There was silence between them for some time. Then Gervase said passionately, ‘Dear God, but how I hate to see someone commit a crime and walk away a free man!’

Josse considered several replies. Then he said, ‘I know, my friend. In this case, however, I think you’re going to have to put up with it.’

Back at the Abbey, they both went to see the Abbess.

She was not alone in her little room: before her stood Ranulf of Crowbergh, and Primevere sat on the small wooden stool kept for visitors.

Josse, astounded, instinctively banged the door shut behind him and stood against it. Forgetting that he had left his weapons at the gate, as he and other armed visitors always did, his hand had flown to the place where his sword usually hung.

Gervase, face tense, squared up to Ranulf.

Who, with a smile, put up his hands and said calmly, ‘Please, gentlemen, there’s no need for violence.’ Turning round to exchange a glance with the Abbess — who, Josse noticed, was sitting straight-backed and regal in her throne-like chair with a slight frown but no other sign of unease — he went on, ‘Primevere and I have been experiencing the most agonisingly divided loyalties. I was all for our setting sail last night for France, where I had planned that we would lie low until — until matters had taken their course, with or without our intervention. Primevere’ — he gave her a loving smile — ‘has persuaded me otherwise and, since the decision really has to be hers, I have bowed to her wisdom.’ He stood back, one hand to his heart, head lowered as if to say, I have said my piece and now it is up to others to explain.

Which, after a short moment of silence in which the mood was so full of tension that the very air seemed to crackle, Primevere did.

Gracefully she got to her feet, the luscious silk of her gown hissing as she moved and settling in generous folds around her feet.

‘My lady Abbess, Sir Josse, and-?’ She looked enquiringly at Gervase, who introduced himself.

Primevere smiled. ‘Of course,’ she murmured. ‘Patient listeners, stand easy for I am going to tell you a story.’ Briefly her dark blue eyes went around the group, a certain arrogance in her stance commanding their attention, then she began. ‘It is of someone who was born to discontent; someone who, despite being brought up the pampered favourite in a comfortably wealthy family, still could not be happy, for their nature had a peevish streak of self-preservation that always said, I am worth more than this! This person grew to adulthood and became arrogant, adopting the attitude that they were so special that others ought to recognise this and treat them accordingly.’

She speaks of Florian, Josse guessed; she must indeed retain some love for him, for speaking of him in this way makes her look so very sad.

‘This person became manipulative and cunning,’ Primevere went on, ‘and, with time and desperation, cunning turned to dishonesty and then, as the last vestige of conscience was lost, to evil. In pursuance of their own wicked aim, they no longer recognised right from wrong and did not know where to stop.’

The tomb, Josse realised; she refers to his heartless manipulation of gullible people by pretending to have discovered Merlin’s bones.

‘Now I will tell you the tale of someone else,’ she was saying, ‘a woman whose tragedy was that she fell out of love with the man she had married and could no longer accept him as a wife should, turning him out of her bed and, as time went by, shunning his conversation, even his very company.’ She paused, eyes bright with tears, and Josse observed her pain as she spoke of her own experience. She must have felt the stab of empathy for, turning to him, she said softly, ‘It was miserable for her, Sir Josse; how much worse it was for the man to whom she was wed.’

Gervase seemed to shake himself free from the spell of her words; stepping towards her, he said roughly, ‘Madam, murder has been done and yet you would engage our sympathy for the perpetrators! Remember that-’

Surprisingly it was the Abbess who, raising her hand, said quietly, ‘Please, Gervase. Hear her out.’

For an instant Gervase stood his ground. Then, with a faint bow towards the throne-like chair, he subsided.

‘Thank you,’ Primevere murmured. She had been slowly pacing the small room and now she stopped right in front of Gervase. ‘The perpetrators,’ she said, repeating his words. ‘You refer, I think, to Ranulf and me, believing that I was the woman who tired of her husband and that I persuaded my lover to help me rid myself of him? I do not deny that Ranulf and I are lovers and have been since last winter. Ranulf lost his wife, you see, and although she did not love him, he still loved her and his grief at her death was compounded by the cruel rumour that instead of trying to save her life he had left her to die.’ Now the deep blue eyes were hard as they stared up into Gervase’s, as if Primevere were silently saying, you may not have started the rumours but you most certainly have passed them on.