Alys Clare - Girl In A Red Tunic

‘Aye, that’s true,’ he agreed reluctantly.

‘And when your brother Yves came here that time, you and he spoke with such love of your late father that I knew full well you had all been close.’

He had forgotten her prodigious memory. And the fact that, in pursuit of the truth, she was relentless. Even when — perhaps especially when — the truth was to do with some accusation she was making against herself.

‘The past is the past,’ he said eventually. ‘Maybe you will have to live with your regrets about what was done long ago, my lady. But must they be allowed to affect what you do in the present and what you plan for the future?’

Slowly she looked up. Then, her grey eyes full of tears, she said huskily, ‘I keep seeing him as a child. Both of them, and I see Ivo too. All this time, ever since I had those dreams when Leofgar was calling out to me, I’ve been unable to control my thoughts. The pictures from my own past flood into my mind and I can’t shut them out. And I still dream so vividly, about — well, about things that a nun should not be dreaming of.’

‘We cannot help what breaks out into our dreams,’ he said reasonably, ‘or, if there is a way, I do not know what it could be.’

‘I dream of Ivo and me when we were young,’ she murmured. ‘It is wrong , Sir Josse!’

‘You were his lawful wedded wife,’ Josse said. ‘Surely there is no shame attached to that?’ He thought she was about to speak but she seemed to change her mind. ‘And it is not as if you kept your past a secret when you presented yourself here and took the veil, is it?’

‘I …’ She hesitated and he thought he saw a faint blush rise in her pale face. ‘They knew I had been married, had borne two sons and was widowed, yes,’ she said. ‘As you say, nobody protested that any of that made me unfit to be a nun. The Abbess at the time questioned me carefully over the provision I had made for my children, but everything had been meticulously arranged and she found no fault.’

‘What provision had you made?’ He asked the question despite himself; he was very curious to know the answer.

She paused for some time. Then said, ‘Leofgar went to a great friend of Ivo’s. He was to stay there and receive his training as a page and then a squire until he came of age, upon which he would take up residence at the Old Manor. That was Ivo’s family home,’ she added, ‘and it was, of course, Leofgar’s inheritance as the elder son.’

‘And your other son?’

‘Dominic was not all that much younger than Leofgar but he was-’ She swallowed. ‘He was closer to me, the one who always wanted to be with me. He was less of an adventurer than his brother, although ironically it is he who has grown up to be a soldier who fights in faraway lands. He — I sent him to live with my brother and his wife and Dominic quickly became like another child in their happy home.’

‘You did what was best for them.’ He believed it; knowing her as he did, she could not have done otherwise.

But she said only ‘Perhaps.’

After another lengthy silence she wiped the last traces of tears from her eyes, mopped her face with her sleeve and stood up. Taken by surprise, Josse said, ‘My lady? You are going somewhere?’

‘Of course I am.’ Determination written all over her, she strode round her table and made for the door. ‘I would love it if you were to accompany me, Sir Josse, provided you think you can be spared from the search for Walter Bell.’

‘Saul and Augustus can start without me,’ he assured her. ‘But where are we going?’

The expression that she gave him suggested that she thought he should have known without asking and, when she spoke, he realised that he should have done. ‘To look for Leofgar and Rohaise,’ she said. ‘We’ll search for them in their home, that used to be mine. We’re going to the Old Manor.’

Helewise sent word to Sister Martha and both Horace and the golden mare named Honey were saddled and waiting by the time she and Josse had collected what few belongings they were taking with them and were ready to leave. Helewise had dressed herself in an extra layer of warm underclothes — a fine woollen shift and petticoat — and she had found her heavy travelling cloak. Josse, she noticed, was also well wrapped up against the cold.

Sister Martha, eyes betraying her curiosity, saw them to the gate and watched them set off. Helewise turned Honey’s head to the right, instinctively knowing which way to go; Josse, catching her up, said, ‘How far away is this Old Manor, my lady?’

I should have told him, she thought. It is discourteous to have virtually ordered him to accompany me without telling him exactly where we were going. ‘It lies in a small hamlet in the shadow of the North Downs,’ she said, turning round in the saddle. ‘As to how far … a morning’s ride, perhaps a little more. I will take us along lesser-frequented tracks, Sir Josse, if you do not mind, for I prefer not to ride down through Tonbridge and possibly have people speculate and guess at our purpose.’

‘No, I don’t mind,’ he called back. ‘Lead on, my lady.’

They had been riding for some time when something occurred to her. ‘Sir Josse!’

‘My lady?’ He kicked the big horse and trotted up to ride beside her.

‘You speculated that perhaps Leofgar left as he did because he did not want to be a part of your search party.’

‘I was wrong, I am sure of it,’ he said quickly.

‘Never mind. What I wanted to say is this: I found my son in the stables last night and I realise now that he was probably getting everything ready for the family’s secret night-time departure. Did you tell him yesterday about the search party?’

‘No.’

‘I thought not because I did tell him, as we left the stables, and to judge from his reaction I would have said that he had not known of the plan before.’

‘Therefore he did not leave because he feared helping us search for a violent man,’ Josse concluded. ‘There, my lady. I said he was no coward.’

For some time the happy thought cheered her. But then she recalled all her other worries and the fleeting lightening of her burdens was gone again.

Although she had once covered the journey in the opposite direction, Helewise had never travelled the route from Hawkenlye Abbey to the Old Manor; nuns did not habitually leave the convent for visits back to their former homes for, once within the order, that was considered to be their life and reminders from the past were not encouraged. Returning to your previous existence to care for a sick parent, for example, turned your mind from where it belonged, with God and in His service, perpetually His to command.

So it was strange, she mused as they rode along in the feeble sunshine, that she knew the way without hesitation. They left the main route down Castle Hill towards Tonbridge soon after leaving the Abbey, branching off to the right and descending into the wide Medway Valley down a track that was mostly used by drovers trying to get their herds up on to higher — and therefore drier — ground. They crossed the river some distance to the east of Tonbridge. It was as well, she thought, that the weather had not been wet recently because the marshy areas either side of the river would have been impassable if the ground were anything but bone dry and hard with frost. She turned north-west on the far side of the Medway and soon the long ridge of the North Downs rose up before them.

I must, she decided as once again she made a slight change of direction with barely a thought, have made this journey many times in my mind …

But she was not sure that she wanted to dwell on that. The idea that she had mentally and unconsciously made her way back to her old home, perhaps with regular frequency, suggested that her detachment from her former life was not as complete as she had always believed.