Alys Clare - The Chatter of the Maidens

The old man shrank before him. ‘All right, all right!’ he cried. ‘No need to take on! Meriel, she was planning to leave even before Alba came hurrying back from her convent all in a pother. Planning to take her little sister, too, I shouldn’t wonder, they were always close, them young ’uns. But, like I says, up pops Alba, upsets whatever plans Meriel had made’ — a distinctly shifty expression crossed his face just then, Helewise noticed, so that she wondered what it was he wasn’t telling them — ‘and whisks both the girls up and away, without so much as a farewell or a backward glance.’

‘And you don’t know where they went?’ Helewise said.

‘I do now!’ He gave a catarrhal laugh. ‘They went to Hawkenlye !’ Convulsed with laughter at his own wit, he wiped tears from his eyes.

‘You have been most helpful,’ Helewise said when he had stopped laughing. Best to flatter him, she thought, it might predispose him in our favour. ‘I wonder, though, if you could further aid us by indicating where the family used to live?’

‘That I could.’ He stepped outside and, raising his arm, waved it towards one of the ways leading out of the village. ‘Follow the road for a while, then it’ll become a track. It’s muddy normally, but it’s been dry recently — well, that’s to say, up till the night afore last — so you’ll probably do all right. Go on down the track, across the stream, up the bank the other side, and the farm’s at the top.’

Helewise thanked him, and she and the brothers set off in the direction he had indicated. He called out after them, ‘You won’t find anybody there, you know!’

Brother Saul waved a hand in acknowledgement. Whatever else the old man said — they could still hear him shouting — was obscured by distance.

The track was winding, and led through woodland. The trees were rapidly coming into leaf, and there were bluebells on the drier parts of the wood’s floor. Birdsong filled the air.

It should have been a pleasant ride, but Helewise could not rid herself of her apprehension. It was gloomy under the trees, for one thing.

And for another, no matter how hard she tried, she could not rid herself of the irrational, unlikely and fear-induced suspicion that they were being followed. Trying not to let the others see, once or twice she spun round quickly, in a vain attempt to spot whoever — or whatever — it might be before it, or they, could slip into the shadows. But she didn’t see anything.

Which, she told herself with rigid firmness, was because there was nothing whatsoever to see .

They found the farm — the old man’s directions had been very accurate — and, just as he had said, it was deserted. Saul dismounted and went to peer inside one of the two tiny windows set either side of the door of the main building, returning to report that what he could see of the interior had been stripped bare.

‘A dead place,’ Helewise murmured.

Augustine looked at her enquiringly. ‘Do you feel it, too, Abbess?’

‘Feel what?’ she asked anxiously.

‘Death,’ he replied simply. ‘Wasn’t that what you said? A dead place?’

‘Yes, but I-’ How could she explain it? ‘Never mind.’

They rode back in silence, in single file along the track through the woods.

Then, suddenly, Augustine pulled Horace to a sharp stop, jerking the horse’s head. Dread overwhelming her, Helewise edged the mare close to him, glad to have Saul’s guardian presence behind her. ‘What is it?’ she asked, battling to keep her dread out of her voice. ‘Augustine, what have you seen?’

He pointed.

And, deep in the woods, down in a dell surrounded by trees and thick underbrush, was a burnt-out cottage.

‘I’m going to look,’ Augustine announced, sliding off Horace’s back and looping the reins round a branch.

‘ No , Augustine, it might be dangerous!’ The protest was out before she could stop it.

But Augustine took no notice. Neither did Saul, who, even as she spoke, was jumping off the cob and following Augustine into the woods.

It was surely better to be with them than left by herself on the track, so Helewise dismounted too and, making her way more carefully because of her long skirts, went into the still, dim interior of the woodland.

The dwelling could only have been very small, hardly worthy of the name cottage. The remains of four smoke-blackened walls stood up from a tangle of brush, and the new growth of rose-bay willow-herb — the country folk’s ‘fireweed’ — was busy trying to cover the great black scar in the land. Anything that might once have been within the little house had been crushed to the ground by the beams from the roof, which had obliterated all beneath them as they fell.

Helewise shuddered. ‘Come away,’ she said, wishing her voice sounded more authoritative. ‘This is an awful place, we-’

But, with an exclamation, Saul hurried forward into the dwelling. Her cry of ‘Be careful!’ was arrested in her throat as Saul bent down and, swinging up his arm, held aloft a human skull.

Augustine put his hand on her arm, and she was vastly comforted to feel his warm, firm touch. ‘Abbess, stay here,’ he said gently. ‘I will help Saul.’

She should have gone with him. She was both men’s superior, after all. But her legs had started to shake; she was afraid that, if she moved, she would fall.

Saul had carefully replaced the skull on the ash-soft floor of the dwelling. Now he and Augustine were crouching down, rummaging among the charred remains of beams and wooden wall supports. Saul murmured something — his tone sounded questioning — and Augustine replied. They were both picking up pieces of what looked like wood, holding them up to each other and then putting them back.

Suddenly Augustine let out a sharp breath, nudged Saul and pointed to what looked like a spike, sticking up out of the ground. His fingers were busy trying to pull something offit. .

Then Saul stood up, ashen-faced, and swiftly crossed himself. Helewise heard him say, ‘Dear God above, the poor wretch!’ Then, bowing his head, he came out of the dwelling and returned to her side. Augustine stood quite still in the centre of the cottage, gazing down at whatever it was he held between his fingers as if he could hardly believe his eyes.

Helewise said, ‘It was a human skull, wasn’t it, Saul?’

He sighed. ‘Aye, Abbess. I’m afraid it was.’

‘And the rest of the body. .?’

‘Aye, he’s there, what’s left of him. Only his bones, mind, and some charred remnants of his clothing and that. Leg bones, ribs, arms.’ An expression of deep disgust crossed his face.

‘It is a terrible thing to have seen, Saul,’ she said gently.

He glanced at her. ‘Oh, it’s not that, Abbess, bless you. I’ve seen my share of dead bodies; they don’t normally disturb me, beyond feelings of sorrow for the death. No, it’s — he was-’ But, shaking his head, he did not seem to be able to go on.

Augustine had joined them; silent and soft-footed, he had made no sound. He stared at Helewise, and his face, too, was pale.

‘That was no accidental death,’ he said. ‘Not a case of a man falling asleep while his supper cooks and, in his slumber, not noticing the fire spreading from the hearth and setting the house on fire. No. That’s not what it was.’

‘What, then?’ She could hardly speak.

Augustine held up what he had been holding so carefully in his hand. It looked like. . it looked like the frayed remains of a piece of rope.

‘He was tied to a stake in the ground,’ Augustine said quietly and, instantly, the sense of dread that Helewise had been feeling grew till it all but floored her. Evil was there, right there, in that place where a poor man had been tied up inside a cottage and left to burn to death.