Alys Clare - Whiter than the Lily

He put a hand on hers and gave it a squeeze. ‘I am grateful for your confidence, my lady, for I confess that mine is at a low ebb. She — she-’ But whatever image of his wife he held in his heart was too much for him and without warning he began to weep.

‘She was so young, too young to die!’ he sobbed. ‘And still we do not know how it happened! That in itself would be a comfort, of sorts, and yet the matter appears insoluble.’

She took his hand in both of hers. ‘It may be that we shall never know,’ she said gently. ‘If that is the case, you will have to find a way to accept it.’

‘I know.’ He wiped his eyes with his free hand and took a deep breath. ‘I know. I shall try, my lady.’

They went on sitting there on the bank, side by side, hand in hand. Helewise, open to the message that all her senses seemed to be sending her, was thinking that, if it transpired that Galiena had indeed been killed by another’s hand, then there was one person who Helewise was quite certain was innocent.

Josse, she remembered, had wondered if Ambrose, the cuckolded husband, might have poisoned his young wife. Josse had been suspicious because Ambrose had failed to mention the objection that Raelf had made to the possible explanation that Galiena had accidentally poisoned herself by eating berries or fungi in the forest, yet the girl’s husband must have known as well as her father of her skill with herbs and plants.

Well, Josse was an astute man but in this case he was wrong. Helewise knew that Ambrose Ryemarsh had not killed his wife; he had not been himself at the time of Galiena’s death, which would explain why he had not challenged the poisonous berry theory, and his sadness was genuine, she was quite sure of it. So, thank the kind Lord, was his ignorance that she had been pregnant.

Tomorrow, she thought, we shall set out for Ryemarsh and Ambrose will take the first steps in resuming his life at home. I will help him if I can, and I will ask God in His mercy to support him as he learns to live without her.

With a sort of peace descending on her which she prayed that Ambrose felt too, she stared out at the setting sun’s reflections in the quiet water.

The silver-eyed man led an unprotesting Josse out of the rock chamber and along to the outbuildings behind the long hall. When they came to the middle of the three round huts, the one in which Josse had noticed a workbench and some tools, the man opened the door and beckoned to Josse to go inside, relieving him of his sword as he passed.

‘Are you going to render me senseless, as you have done that poor child who sleeps so deeply in the next hut?’ Josse demanded. He had intended his voice to sound strong and threatening, but to his consternation, he sounded as feeble as if he had been abed with a fever for a week.

‘No,’ said the man. ‘I have already done enough. And she lies sleeping until we manage to reach agreement upon her fate.’ He frowned briefly, as if that disagreement were a continuing and pressing anxiety. ‘This is to be your prison, Josse d’Acquin.’

‘Why do you have to imprison me?’ That was better — he thought he sounded a little more menacing now. Perhaps the effects of that foul smoke lessened as soon as you stopped breathing it in. He fervently hoped so.

‘You have far too much curiosity,’ the man answered with a faint grin. ‘We are a private people. We obey our chieftain’s dictates and keep to ourselves.’

‘But you are so few!’ Josse protested. ‘How do you breed? Do you take wives from your own kin?’

It was a devastating accusation and Josse half expected that the man would find some way to punish him for his audacity in having made it. But instead he merely said mildly, ‘We have enough people to avoid incest. In the past it has sometimes occurred that half-brothers and sisters have mated, but that has not happened in many years.’

‘You broke the church’s strict prohibition when you did that!’ Josse cried, horrified.

The man murmured, ‘Not our church. The gods we serve are wider minded and comprehend that sometimes necessity makes demands that cannot be ignored.’

The gods we serve. Aye, thought Josse, it seems I was right. ‘You are pagan,’ he said. He did not frame it as a question.

‘Of course,’ said the man. ‘We came to these shores with the religion of our forefathers and we have held fast to our gods.’ With a weird light in his strange eyes, he added softly, ‘We shall be rewarded for our loyalty.’

‘This is why you choose a life of isolation?’ Josse asked. ‘So that you may continue to worship as you see fit?’

‘In part, yes.’

‘But-’ Josse was not sure how the law of the land — or indeed of the church — stood on the subject of paganism. There were, of course, the persistent legends that spoke of the Norman kings maintaining a foot in the Old Religion, but what kings did was, in Josse’s experience, their own business and had little to do with what they permitted in their subjects. ‘Does your parish priest not condemn your practices?’ he finished lamely.

It was no great surprise when the man burst out laughing. ‘Oh, Josse, I had not expected such a naive question!’ he said, still chuckling. ‘In answer, yes, probably he does. But his condemnation is his own affair and has little bearing upon us.’

I am to be left here a prisoner, Josse thought. I must keep this man talking as long as I can.

He was not sure what purpose that would serve, but suddenly another question occurred to him.

‘You have a woman here, Aebba,’ he said. ‘She was serving woman to Galiena Ryemarsh — your Iduna — and was with her mistress and her master Ambrose at Hawkenlye Abbey. But I saw her in your hall.’

‘It was careless of her to allow herself to be seen,’ the man observed. ‘She was told not to go anywhere near you but I suppose that, like you, her curiosity overcame her. What of her?’

‘She is one of your people,’ Josse said. ‘Is she not?’

‘Yes. She was related to Iduna’s mother.’

‘And sent to Ryemarsh to watch over Galiena.’

‘Yes.’

‘But why did Galiena allow her to be a member of the Ryemarsh household?’ Josse demanded. ‘It was apparent that she did not like the woman!’

‘Iduna understood her obligations to her blood kin,’ the man said. ‘We sent Aebba to her with a tale of dire need — Aebba, we said, had lost her man and had young children depending on her, and so needed the small wage that Ambrose Ryemarsh paid her to send back to Saltwych for her family’s keep.’

‘So she knew that she came from here!’ Josse cried. ‘Galiena was aware of the identity of her true family.’

The man said slowly, ‘At first, no. But once she was wed to the lord Ambrose, it was necessary to inform her who she was and to tell her what she must do.’

‘To share Ambrose’s wealth with her family, you mean!’ Josse shouted. ‘But, as I said before, her family gave her away! Why was she obliged to do anything for your people?’

The man shrugged. ‘It was always a possibility that she would refuse to recognise the obligations that she owed to her blood kin,’ he said. ‘It has happened before,’ he added in a murmur.

Aye, Josse thought, the other woman he spoke of. But, his mind still firmly on Galiena, he said, ‘And what did she think of these plans that you had for her child? Did she agree to her and Ambrose’s son being pushed into a position of influence?’

‘She appeared to accept it, yes,’ the man replied calmly. ‘But, all the time that she did not conceive, it was a plan that remained hypothetical.’

Josse wondered suddenly if that was why Galiena had not become pregnant. She was a herbalist, they all said so, and so perhaps, knowing what her child’s destiny would be if her blood kin had their way, she had made sure he would never be born …