Alys Clare - Whiter than the Lily

And, watching her anxious face, he wondered why, as she spoke the name, he should feel as if a cold hand had closed sharp-nailed fingers around his throat.

Helewise had not expected that Josse would return from his journey to Galiena’s kin the next day; even for one who travelled as quickly as Josse did when need pressed, it would have been asking too much. She would, however, have welcomed his presence at Hawkenlye that day for it was the day they buried Galiena.

It was the third day since the girl’s death. The weather continued hot but now there was humidity in the air that spoke of a possibility of storms ahead. Small black biting flies had appeared — clouds of them — and it was not the time of year to leave a dead body unburied.

They interred her in the Abbey’s burial ground and, joined by the grieving husband, the servant lad and the woman, Aebba, the Hawkenlye community prayed all together for her soul.

Later, Helewise was sitting alone in her room when there was a knock at the door and, in answer to her quiet ‘Come in’, Sister Euphemia appeared.

‘I hope I am not disturbing you, my lady?’ the infirmarer asked.

Since Helewise sat before a table quite empty of ledgers, documents, parchments or anything else, the question was courteous but superfluous. ‘Not at all, Sister. I was thinking about Galiena.’

‘I have been, too.’ Sister Euphemia paused, then, as if only after reflection, went on, ‘I’ve had an idea.’

‘Oh, yes?’ Helewise looked up into the infirmarer’s lined face.

‘About how it came to be that she came to us to help her conceive when she was already pregnant.’

‘Yes, that’s rather what I thought you meant,’ Helewise murmured.

‘See,’ Sister Euphemia said, eagerness creeping into her voice, ‘I’ve been looking at it logically. If a couple that consists of an old man and a young wife have a job getting her with child, then you’d probably jump to the conclusion that the fault lay with the old man. Wouldn’t you?’

‘Well, you might,’ Helewise allowed. ‘It would seem the more likely explanation.’

‘Exactly! Well, supposing that’s what Galiena thought too? She knew a bit about herbs, so we’re told, so maybe she also understood the workings of her own body rather better than many young women. She might have known herself to be fit, healthy and regular in her courses and, that being the case, she’d have reckoned that the problem was with her old husband’s seed.’ Leaning forward confidentially, she said in a whisper, ‘They do say the vigour goes out of it when a man comes towards the end of a long, active life, if you take my meaning, my lady.’

From the way the infirmarer stressed active , Helewise was all too afraid that she did. Banishing firmly from her mind the picture of Ambrose in a succession of beds with a succession of women, bouncing away as if his very life depended on it, she said, ‘Indeed, Sister. Do go on.’

‘Well, what if this young wife truly wants to have a child, both to please her husband and for her own sake, and decides to take matters into her own hands? She was a comely girl, Galiena, and I would judge also a bright one. I don’t imagine she’d have found it too difficult to find someone suitable. Then all she has to do is admit the young man discreetly into her arms — swearing him to secrecy, naturally — and go on doing so until he’s done the trick for her and she knows herself to be pregnant. Then comes the really clever bit!’

Helewise, who had already guessed, did not want to spoil the infirmarer’s moment and so she said encouragingly, ‘Yes? And what is that?’

‘The lass begs to come here, to Hawkenlye, she takes the waters, prays a bit and goes off armed with a couple of Sister Tiphaine’s concoctions. She hurries back home, where she encourages old Ambrose into her bed as often as he’s willing to be persuaded, then, before a month’s passed, says, oh! How wonderful! I’ve missed my courses, my breasts are swelling like ripe fruit, I must be pregnant! Thank the Lord for Hawkenlye!’

Helewise nodded slowly. ‘And if the baby were to arrive a few weeks early she would merely say, as doubtless many a woman does, that the child was a little premature.’

‘Exactly!’ The infirmarer folded her arms, her face triumphant. ‘What do you think, my lady?’

‘I think it is entirely possible and quite likely,’ Helewise said. ‘But tell me, Sister, do you have anything to support this interpretation of events?’

‘Nothing whatsoever,’ Sister Euphemia replied cheerfully. ‘Other than two decades of experience of human beings.’

Helewise gave her a warm smile. She both admired and loved the infirmarer; for her skill, her tender care of her patients, for her wisdom. Most of all for the fact that, although she had seen the depths to which people could sink and the terrible harm they were capable of doing to one another, she did not condemn. She was happy to leave that to God and, even so, Helewise thought, Sister Euphemia would always expect God to understand that sometimes men and women just couldn’t help themselves and hope that He would not deal with them too harshly.

‘I never underestimate your experience, Sister,’ she said. ‘But I do not know how we should set about proving this theory of yours, though.’

‘I’m not sure we should try,’ the infirmarer replied. ‘The poor girl’s dead. Perhaps we ought to let her secrets die with her.’

‘Yes,’ Helewise said slowly. ‘It is only that I am thinking of whoever it is whose child she carried. If we are right and there was a lover, what will he be thinking now? Will he be waiting for her, expecting her return, worrying that, having got her pregnant, he is now to be dismissed totally from her life?’

‘He may not have wanted anything but to bed her,’ the infirmarer said shrewdly.

‘That is, of course, possible. Still, I cannot but help picturing him.’

‘You’ve a kind heart, my lady,’ Sister Euphemia said. ‘If you’re right, news will spread to the young lad soon enough, I would guess. Anyway, how on earth would we set about finding him to tell him?’

‘You are quite right, Sister, it would be impossible. And, indeed, we may have imagined it all wrong; Galiena may have been innocently pregnant by her husband and just not realised.’

‘Hmm. It’s always possible, as I said at the time.’ Disbelief was written all over the infirmarer’s face but she managed not to express it.

‘Thank you for bringing your thoughts to me,’ Helewise said. ‘As always, you reason soundly.’

‘That’s kind of you, my lady. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must return to my patients.’

‘Of course.’

Helewise sat deep in thought for some time after Sister Euphemia had gone. Then, making up her mind, she went to seek out three people.

First she found Ambrose. After burying Galiena, he had gone down to the Vale with Brother Firmin; he seemed to find comfort in the old monk’s kindly and undemanding company. Ambrose had announced that, together with his two servants who were attending him, he would like to stay on at Hawkenlye for a few days and he was welcomed as a guest with nobody asking him for an explanation. He had been offered the comfort of a bed up in the Abbey guest quarters, but he preferred, he said, to put up in the simpler accommodation down in the Vale with the monks and the pilgrims who had come to take the waters. A space had been found for him with the lay brothers, while Aebba and the young manservant were lodged in the pilgrims’ shelter.

When Helewise went to see Ambrose, he was sitting beside Brother Firmin and the carpenter, Brother Urse, while Brother Urse mended a rickety bench and Brother Firmin helped by handing him the tools. Seeing her approach, Ambrose got up and came to meet her.