Alys Clare - Girl In A Red Tunic

They came into a small settlement with a wide green and a pond — there was nobody about and Helewise concluded that the inhabitants were wisely tucked up in their homes, sheltering from the cold — and rode on up a long, gentle rise towards the Downs.

Then the great line of oak and chestnut trees that sheltered the Old Manor from the east wind came into view. Helewise kicked the golden mare into a smart trot and then a canter and, with her veil flying in the breeze and the sound in her ears of Horace’s big hooves pounding the hard ground as Josse raced to keep up with her, at last she was approaching her former home.

And unbidden into her mind — impatient, as if it had been lying in wait for this moment — came a powerful vision of the first time she had set eyes on the place …

She is a bride — a very young although fully mature bride — and she wears rustling scarlet silk; her new father-in-law’s wedding gift. She rides a neat bay mare whose name is Willow. She is excited and her blood races lustily through her body. It is a morning of high summer and her husband of slightly less than two days rides beside her.

She turns to look at him and the invitation in her laughing grey eyes is all that it takes. He kicks his chestnut gelding and comes up alongside the bay mare. Without a word he reaches out with strong arms and catches his bride around her waist, easily lifting her from her saddle and swinging her across so that she sits in front of him astride the chestnut horse. She leans back against his broad chest and a sigh of desire slips from her open mouth. He puts a hand on her jaw and turns her head so that he can reach her lips with his own. He kisses her hungrily and she responds. She wonders, as the kiss goes on and she feels their excitement mount, whether they might pause a while and, in the shelter of those big trees over there, make love …

But he eases his mouth from hers and, opening her eyes, she sees that he is looking not at her but ahead. There is a light in his face that she has not seen before. Then he says, ‘Sweetheart, let’s wait until we’re home.’ Nodding towards whatever it is that he stares at with such deep pleasure, he says, ‘Look. We’re nearly there.’

She looks.

And sees a stone house perfectly sited; a gentle fold of the Downs rises up behind it and there is dense woodland screening it from the track that goes on up the hill. To the right — the east, and therefore the direction of the most spiteful winds — there is a copse of oak and chestnut; these are the very trees under which she has just been contemplating a short session of passion which, she now appreciates with a chuckle, would hardly have been suitable since the trees are actually rather close to the house.

The dwelling consists of a long building which she guesses is the great hall; it is a good size and it sits over an undercroft with a stout wooden door and one or two tiny windows. A stone stair leads up to the main entrance of the hall. To the right of this long, low construction is what she assumes to be a solar block. This too has an under storey, whose door, she will soon discover, gives on to a stone-walled room built half into the ground and off which a winding stair leads to the rooms above. The Old Manor, she can already see as she rides up to it, promises to be a magnificent home …

‘My lady?’

It was not Ivo calling; it was Josse. Shaking her head and dismissing her reverie, Helewise turned to him. ‘Yes?’

He was, she noted, looking slightly anxious. ‘Oh — you stopped and looked for so long that I wondered if you had mistaken your way and brought us to the wrong place.’

She smiled at him. ‘No, Sir Josse. I am sorry but I was remembering the first time I came here.’

‘Ah. Oh.’

He’s embarrassed! she realised. He thinks I’ve forgotten our present purpose and am lost in my past! Dear Lord, but he is not far wrong. Gathering Honey’s reins in firm hands, she said decisively, ‘Let us go up to the house and see if we can find Leofgar. The sooner we can speak to him and find out why he left in such a manner, the sooner we can be on our way back to Hawkenlye.’

Now Josse looked simply surprised, presumably at her lightning change of mood. ‘Very well, my lady,’ he said. But she noticed that he continued to eye her with a certain amount of suspicion, as if — the whimsical thought quite surprised her — he feared that she might suddenly change into somebody quite different.

She rode the short distance up to where the gates of the Old Manor stood open and, with Josse beside her, went on into the courtyard. Josse called out, ‘Halloa! Halloa the Old Manor!’

At first there was no response. The main door to the hall was firmly closed and remained so. Helewise turned to look towards the solar block, but the door into the undercroft was similarly shut fast. Josse called again, but still there came no reply.

‘My lady,’ Josse said softly, ‘I am beginning to think that either your son does not wish to see us or else he is not here.’

‘There must be someone about!’ she said, copying him and keeping her voice low. ‘Leofgar and Rohaise may only have a small staff but they certainly do not live in this place all by themselves. There must surely be house servants and grooms and such like.’

Josse dismounted and handed her Horace’s reins. Then he paced away to the end of the long building that housed the hall and disappeared round behind it. He must have seen the smoke from the kitchen fire, she decided — she too had spotted it — and he has guessed what I know. That, if there are indeed servants here, they’ll be round the back.

Presently Josse returned. With him was a slim young man aged somewhere in the mid-twenties. He had smooth dark hair and was dressed in a cheap-looking but clean tunic and neatly darned hose. His sturdy boots were well-made and had been recently buffed to a shine.

Josse, walking a pace ahead of the young man, said, ‘My lady, may I present Wilfrid, who is in charge here in his master’s absence. Wilfrid, this is the Abbess of Hawkenlye, your master’s mother.’

Wilfrid went down on one knee on the hard-packed earth of the courtyard and said, ‘You are most welcome, my lady Abbess, and what hospitality I can offer you is yours to command.’

‘Thank you, Wilfrid.’ She took the hand that he held out to her — it was clean, even down to the fingernails — and dismounted; Josse silently took Horace’s reins from her and collected Honey’s as well.

Face to face with her son’s man, Helewise studied the pleasant, open expression and the regular features. He reminded her of someone and, bearing in mind where they were, it did not take her long to decide who; his father had been manservant here before him. But she must get on with the matter in hand; deciding that there was no use in prevaricating, she said, ‘I had hoped to find Leofgar and the lady Rohaise at home.’

Clearly puzzled, Wilfrid said, ‘They have gone to Hawkenlye Abbey, my lady. Did you not receive them there?’

She glanced at Josse, who gave a faint nod of encouragement; he too, it seemed, had formed a good opinion of Wilfrid and was, she thought, urging her not to hold back from telling the whole strange story. Or, at least, telling as much of it as she knew. ‘We did,’ she said after a moment. ‘But then they departed and we had assumed they were heading for home.’

‘They have not arrived, as you see, my lady.’ Now Wilfrid was looking worried. ‘When did they set out?’

She hesitated. Then, with a rueful smile, said, ‘In the middle of the night.’

Silently she applauded Wilfrid’s discretion. Instead of asking the question that he must have been longing to ask — why on earth did they do that? — instead he said quietly, ‘Perhaps they are even now on their way and it is merely that you have overtaken them.’