Alys Clare - Whiter than the Lily

‘Yes,’ he said slowly, following her line of thought, ‘except that Galiena was not barren.’

‘Yes, I know ,’ she began, ‘I just meant …’ But, apparently deciding that line of discussion was not worth the bother, she said instead, lowering her voice, ‘Sister Euphemia postulates the existence of a young lover, who was engaged to do Ambrose’s work for him.’

‘Does she?’ Josse raised his eyebrows. The infirmarer’s suggestion was uncomfortably close to suspicions he had entertained himself and, after a moment’s thought, he decided to share them with the Abbess.

Getting up, he went to the door, opened it and looked outside, then closed it again. Then, stepping up to her table and leaning across it so that he could speak in a whisper, he said, ‘My lady, as I believe I told you, it was my neighbour, Brice of Rotherbridge, who took me to Ryemarsh.’

‘Yes, you did tell me. I thought I recognised the name and later I recalled from where. He, too, lost a young wife, did he not?’

‘Aye. When first I came to this region, his young wife Dillian had recently been killed by being thrown from a horse. They were involved, if you remember, in that business of the nun who died in the Vale.’

‘I remember,’ she said shortly. ‘So, Sir Josse, you were saying, this Brice introduced you to Ambrose and his wife?’

‘Aye. We dined at Rotherbridge and afterwards I was quite surprised when Brice said there were some friends he wanted me to meet. It was they who wanted to meet me, if I may say so without seeming to brag, because of my knowledge of Hawkenlye, but whatever the reason, I noticed that Brice was acting strangely.’

‘Strangely?’

‘Aye. He was tense, excited, as if he were expecting some thrilling event.’

‘And was he?’

He wondered if she were being deliberately obtuse; for sure, she was not helping him to put his vague suspicions into words. ‘Well, I’m probably guilty of accusing the innocent — and one of them is dead, so I’m speaking ill of the dead as well — but I did think that Brice might be behaving like a young lad in love because he was going to see Galiena.’

‘I see.’ Her expression gave away nothing of what she was thinking. ‘And when they were together, what did you think then?’

He shook his head. ‘I really don’t know. They seemed totally at ease with each other and, as far as I could tell, they spoke of everyday matters. Still, they might have been acting. After all, Ambrose was present, as well as me.’

‘I always thought,’ said the Abbess in a small voice, ‘that Galiena Ryemarsh was a woman quite capable of dissimulation.’

‘Did you?’ He was surprised at her words. ‘I can’t say that I did.’ But, as he spoke, he remembered — she had said something once before to the effect that men and women reacted differently to Galiena.

Now she was looking down at her hands as if she did not want to meet his eyes. ‘I have sent Brother Saul and young Augustus over to Ryemarsh,’ she said, ‘to-’

‘Aye, I know,’ he interrupted. ‘I have been to see Ambrose and he told me.’ He hesitated, then said, ‘I felt, my lady, that possibly you had some ulterior purpose in sending them?’

‘I did,’ she admitted. ‘Having had my discussion with Sister Euphemia, I wanted to see if they could discover what sort of a life went on at Ryemarsh.’

‘And whether anyone happened to notice the clandestine presence of a virile man such as Brice of Rotherbridge?’ he suggested.

She looked shamefaced. ‘I should not be suspecting such a thing, I suppose, but somehow we have to account for her pregnancy. I am sure that she knew she carried a child,’ she said with sudden vehemence. ‘She was, as we all keep saying, a skilled herbalist and an intelligent woman. And we must not forget that she utterly refused to have a physical examination.’ There was a short pause. Then she went on more quietly, ‘I hope by sending Saul and Augustus off on this enquiry — and it is with this that I justify my actions to myself — to discover who could possibly have wanted her dead.’

Her words reminded him of Sister Tiphaine’s potion. ‘My lady, I quite forgot to ask, and I deeply apologise. You are well?’ He peered anxiously at her. ‘You have suffered no ill effects from the remedy?’

She laughed, quickly suppressing it. ‘Sir Josse, I am fine,’ she assured him. ‘As I was quite sure I would be.’

‘It was a rash act,’ he grumbled.

‘I disagree,’ she replied, and he thought her tone was slightly frosty.

‘But-’ he began. Then he made himself stop. He did not want to argue with her. Anyway, she was Abbess here. He reminded himself that she was not accountable to him. ‘I am sorry,’ he said again.

And, more kindly now, she replied, ‘You are forgiven.’

‘So,’ he said after a slightly awkward pause, ‘we wait for Saul and Gussie to report on what they may find at Ryemarsh.’

‘Indeed.’

He moved away from her table and resumed his seat on the stool. ‘There is one final thing to tell you of my visit to Readingbrooke,’ he said. Strange, he thought, how the very thought of what he was about to say sent a faint shiver of dread through him.

‘What is it?’ She was staring at him curiously. ‘Sir Josse, you look quite worried! Whatever is it that you would tell me?’

‘Oh — my lady, I can’t say why it affects me so, but they told me the place where Galiena originally came from.’

‘And?’

‘It’s some small settlement over to the east of the Marsh and it’s called Deadfall.’

‘Deadfall?’

The name, he observed, did not seem to hold any fears for her. ‘Aye.’

‘And for some reason this disturbs you?’

‘Aye. The trouble is, I can’t understand why.’ He frowned deeply. ‘I have puzzled at it constantly and I know that, at some time, somebody told me something about the place. Something terrible.’

Her tone brisk, she said, ‘You have kin in Lewes, have you not?’ He nodded. ‘And I believe you told me that you spent some of your childhood there?’

‘Aye.’

‘Could it be that you heard tell of Deadfall then? Since the name appears to frighten you, perhaps somebody told a tale by the fireside on a winter’s night, a tale of ghosts and demons?’

He began to smile at her somewhat simplistic explanation but then, out of the shadows of the past, suddenly he remembered.

Had she not been an Abbess, he might have kissed her for having jogged his memory.

‘My lady, how clever!’ he exclaimed. ‘But it was not exactly as you suggest.’

‘It was only a flippant guess,’ she muttered.

‘It was my aunt’s maid,’ he said, hardly hearing her. ‘Or, in fact, the maid’s young man. He’d been at sea and he had stories of all sorts of places. He told of Breton kings and drowned cities, of Welsh dragons and wizards who could tell the future, of heroes battling for the hand of beautiful maidens. He told of raids on England’s east coast and of the ancient people who were here before the Romans came. He came from one of the ports on the edge of the Great Marsh and he knew of the old, deserted salt workings there. He’d picked up some colourful local tales, some of which I think, with hindsight, were based on much older legends. There was one about a Roman soldier-’ He broke off. ‘But no. It is Deadfall in which we are interested.’

‘Well?’ She was, understandably, beginning to sound impatient.

But still he was reticent. He’d been a child back then and the sailor’s over-graphic tale had turned his stomach. No wonder he had reacted to the mention of the name; he’d lost his dinner the last time he heard it.

The Abbess was waiting.