Alys Clare - Girl In A Red Tunic

Josse brought the man to mind. ‘His age is perhaps in the mid-thirties; he is well dressed, greying dark hair, dark eyes and a thin, discontented sort of a face.’

‘No,’ Leofgar said. ‘No, I do not believe I know him.’

Why, then, Josse wondered, staring hard at Leofgar, should he know you?

It seemed that Leofgar was thinking much the same thing. ‘It must seem strange to you, Josse, that this man who makes up such fictions about me is unknown to me?’

‘Aye, it does,’ Josse agreed. ‘I would guess that Fitzurse is behind the activities of the Bell brothers. It is his hand, I am certain, that directed Walter Bell to search your house.’

Leofgar sighed. ‘We come back to our starting point,’ he said. ‘We must find out what Walter Bell was looking for.’

Josse glanced up at the darkening sky, in which the first stars were appearing. ‘It grows late,’ he observed, ‘and high time you and I were making our way to the safety of our lodgings.’ He glanced at Leofgar, who gave a faint twist of a smile, as if to say, no, I’m still not going to tell you where we’re hiding. ‘I will return to the Abbey,’ Josse continued, ‘and tomorrow I will speak to Gervase de Gifford.’ He hesitated. ‘Have I your permission to reveal what you have just told me?’ he asked gently.

‘I have been asking myself the same question,’ Leofgar said. ‘To my mother, yes. For one thing’ — he shot Josse a pen etrating look — ‘I would guess that you and she have few secrets; for another, I did not feel easy when we were to- gether at the Abbey for I was all too aware that she knew I was hiding something from her, something very grave. So, to have her know the truth would be a relief to me.’

‘Very well. I shall tell her exactly what you have told me.’

‘Thank you. As for de Gifford — Josse, what do you think? You know the man far better than I, I imagine?’

‘Aye, and I judge him to be decent, incorruptible and fair.’ He paused — for in truth this young man’s life or, worse, his wife’s, might well hang in the balance and Josse did not want to be responsible for delivering either of them to a judgement that they did not deserve — then he said, ‘I believe that it is safe also to tell Gervase de Gifford. He will not rush to accuse you of deeds that you have not done and will, I think, view with compassion and understanding the events that took place in your hall.’

‘You believe,’ Leofgar murmured. ‘You think. Josse, can we take the risk?’

‘Aye,’ Josse said firmly. ‘Although I will not speak to him if you ask me not to.’

Leofgar thought for some time. Then he said, ‘I put myself in your hands, Josse. Do what you think best.’

Then, leaving Josse staggering under the weight of that awesome responsibility, Leofgar gave him a graceful bow and, turning, hurried away down the track. In next to no time he had vanished from view.

Slowly, thoughtfully, Josse made his way back to the Abbey.

Although it was fully dark and quite late by the time he was safely within the walls, Josse went to find the Abbess. She was sitting in her room, working as usual on the big ledgers and now by the light of a pair of candles. As she looked up with a welcoming smile, the soft light threw shadows on to her face and he read the worry and tension in her as easily — more easily, for he was an inept reader at best — than words on a page.

‘I have not found Walter Bell,’ he said as soon as the door was shut fast and their greetings exchanged, ‘but’ — he dropped his voice to a whisper — ‘I did meet your son.’

Her eyes widened and a hand flew to her mouth. ‘Is he all right?’

‘He is well, my lady. He has taken Rohaise and the child to some safe place whose whereabouts he would not tell me but he assured me they are safe and are being well looked after.’

‘He — but what if Walter Bell finds him? With Teb dead and the distinct possibility that he was coming here searching for Leofgar, it is surely-’

‘There is no danger from Walter Bell,’ Josse interrupted quietly. ‘He’s dead.’

Then, as succinctly as he could, he told the Abbess what had happened that awful day in the hall of the Old Manor.

When he had finished — it did not take long, mainly because she heard him out without one single interruption — she said, looking uncannily like her son and using exactly the same words, ‘We must find out what Walter Bell was looking for.’

‘Aye. It seems certain that his purpose in sneaking into the Old Manor was to hunt for something.’

‘And that Arthur Fitzurse gave the order to search and told him what to look for,’ she added.

‘We cannot be certain,’ he protested. ‘Walter Bell might have been a thief who, once Leofgar and the servants had all gone out, spotted an opportunity and took it.’

‘No.’ She shook her head firmly. ‘If that were true, why should Arthur Fitzurse have made up this story of the Bell brothers’ dispute with Leofgar? No, Sir Josse. Fitzurse has a purpose at which, as yet, we may only guess. He sent Walter Bell to search in the Old Manor and, when he did not return, guessed that something had happened to him, quite possibly while he was carrying out his search. We know that this is what he thought because of the pressure that he has been putting upon Gervase de Gifford to search the Old Manor; he is quite certain that Walter Bell went there and probably believes he died there too.’

A memory stirred in Josse’s mind. ‘My lady, when I was at the Old Manor with Gervase and Fitzurse, I noticed that Fitzurse seemed preoccupied with searching the hall. He raked through the ashes in the hearth — maybe he was looking for evidence that Walter’s clothes had been burned there, as indeed they were — and then he started peering closely at the furnishings in the hall. Gervase demanded to know what he was doing and he said something about looking for evidence of this imaginary quarrel between Leofgar and the Bells. But’ — eagerly he leaned towards her, hands on her table and face close to hers — ‘what if in truth he was searching for whatever it was he had sent Walter Bell to seek out?’

She nodded slowly. ‘It seems highly likely,’ she agreed. ‘So, Fitzurse and Teb Bell discuss what might have happened at the Old Manor and Teb, believing that Leofgar must surely know something about Walter’s disappearance, is all for racing up to the Abbey to confront him.’

‘How did Teb know that Leofgar had left the Old Manor to come here?’ Josse asked. ‘Could someone have told him?’ It was something that had been puzzling him on his walk back to the Abbey.

He watched her face. Her frown gradually clearing, she said eventually, ‘I don’t know how he knew when Leofgar left,’ she said, ‘unless somehow he heard it from Wilfrid, but I can guess how he knew Leofgar had come here.’ Her eyes on Josse’s, she said quietly, ‘Because Teb knew that Leofgar is my son.’

‘More likely Fitzurse knew,’ Josse suggested. ‘I do not think, my lady, that the wide gap between your son and the likes of the Bell brothers would allow them to have any knowledge of your son’s lineage.’

‘Very well,’ she agreed, ‘let us say instead that Fitzurse, on finding that Leofgar had left his home, said, ah, I bet I know where he’s gone, he’ll have taken his family to Hawkenlye Abbey where his mother is Abbess!’

Josse accepted that. ‘Aye, it’s possible,’ he said. ‘Teb Bell sets out for the Abbey, perhaps with murder in his heart because he thinks Leofgar killed his brother. But he never gets here because someone apprehends him and hangs him.’ Before she could speak, he said, ‘My lady, please be assured that I do not believe your son murdered Teb Bell. I am convinced that he is as ignorant as he claims to be of these two men and whatever business they said they had with him.’