Alys Clare - The Chatter of the Maidens

A shiver went up Helewise’s spine. Oh, but she remembered the women of the Forest People! Well, she remembered one of them, and one was quite enough. Trying to sound calm, she said, ‘And who was this woman? Did she have a name?’

‘She said she was called Lora.’ Jerome was still looking uncomfortable, as if having spoken with one of the Forest Folk were somehow a disloyalty to Hawkenlye and its Abbess. ‘She seemed to know all about us, and she was kind. She fed us, gave us a drink. And told us where to find a dry shelter.’

‘She’d gone away,’ Meriel went on, ‘but, this afternoon, she came and sought us out. She said there had been a death. We asked who it was, and she said, “It is the one who carries a murderer’s guilt. The Great Oak has answered her call.” Well, we realised she must mean Alba, but we had no idea what all that about the oak meant. She said we must go. That we could not turn away from those who needed us. Then Jerome-’

‘Then I said that I was being hunted by one who wanted to take me away from my wife,’ Jerome said, picking up the story. ‘And she — Lora — laughed. She laughed quite a lot, Abbess, which we thought was weird considering she’d come to report a death. Then when she stopped, she looked at Meriel and back at me, and she said, “It is not in the gift of any human being to take an honest, loving husband from his cherished wife. Fear not, he will not succeed.” Then she told us where to go, and she disappeared!’

His voice had risen dramatically on the last few words; with a giggle, Meriel dug him in the ribs and said, ‘She didn’t disappear , Jerome, she slipped away through the trees.’

Helewise’s head was spinning. These two young people had been so lucky! she was thinking. Their love and their honesty seemed to have impressed this Lora of the Forest Folk, and she had looked out for them.

She wondered how the woman had known about the death. Oh, dear Lord, had she been watching?

‘Er — Jerome?’

‘Abbess?’

‘This place where you were, the shelter Lora found for you, was it nearby?’

‘No, no, it was miles away. That’s why we’ve only just got here — we’ve been walking through the forest for ages.’

‘Then how did the Forest woman know about Alba?’ she whispered. ‘There cannot surely have been time for her to witness the death, come to find you, and for you to get back here!’

‘She didn’t see Alba fall, Abbess,’ Meriel said, her voice low. ‘But she said they always know when somebody dies in the Great Forest. She said-’ She broke off, her face going quite white. Then, in a whisper, she finished, ‘She said the trees tell them.’

The trees. Yes, Helewise reflected, I expect they do.

Then, realising what she had just thought — how readily she had accepted a pagan superstition — she shook herself, and offered a swift, sincere prayer for God’s forgiveness.

Really, she thought, still angry with herself, I’ve lived too long near this Great Forest!

Meriel and Jerome were looking at her in silence, clearly waiting for her to say something. Bringing herself back to the present moment — which was quite difficult — she said briskly, ‘Now you must both get some rest. You have had an anxious time, these many days and weeks. You must put it all behind you, and think about the future.’

In a hollow voice, Jerome said, ‘I cannot, Abbess. I have to go back to Denney and-’

But she was already shaking her head, smiling as she did so. ‘No, Jerome. You do not. Bastian was not searching for you to drag you back to Denney. He needed to find you to tell you that you are free.’

‘Free?’ Jerome and Meriel spoke in chorus.

‘Yes. You had taken no official vows, so there was no need for you to ask for release from them.’

‘But I had my hair cropped!’ Jerome cried. ‘And I’d grown a beard! I only shaved it off to marry Meriel!’

Ah, but he’s so young! Helewise thought, her heart melting. ‘Those things are but the outer signs,’ she said gently. ‘They do not alone make a man a monk.’

‘Thank the Lord!’ Meriel said fervently.

Jerome turned to her and, with a whoop of delight, took his wife in his arms.

Thinking it was time to leave them alone, Helewise slipped away.

The Abbey was host to its young guests for almost a fortnight. During this time Alba was buried, and the first desperate grief of her shocked youngest sister began to abate.

Berthe spent much time with Josse. He did not turn the conversation round to Alba, and Berthe rarely mentioned her; for much of the time, they spoke of everyday matters. The weather. The burgeoning spring. The work Berthe was doing in the infirmary.

But once, the girl said, ‘Is it for the best, Sir Josse, that she died?’

His mind flying across several possible answers, eventually he just said, ‘Aye, child.’

She nodded. As if his word were all she had lacked, straightaway she seemed to be calmer.

And she never spoke of her dead sister again.

Bastian, too, stayed on for a while.

He had asked the Abbess to show him where Brother Bartholomew was buried, which she did. They had put him in the little area, beneath three of the Vale’s chestnut trees, that was reserved for pilgrims who died while at Hawkenlye. The graves there were plain and simple, but the grass was kept clipped and sometimes the monks planted flowers.

She stood by his side as he prayed.

‘I had thought to take him home to Denney,’ Bastian said as they walked back up to the Abbey. ‘But I think now that I will not.’

‘The decision is, of course, yours,’ she murmured.

Bastian was silent for a moment, as if hunting for the right words. Then: ‘He is very peaceful where he is, Abbess.’

More peaceful than he would be buried at Denney? he wondered.

But she did not ask.

Before Meriel and Jerome left Hawkenlye, taking the fast-recovering Berthe with them, Helewise asked the two of them to come to see her.

They stood before her in her room. They were, she noted, holding hands.

It was now ten days since Alba’s death, and the Abbey was still alive with a constant buzz of excited talk. It was understandable, Helewise realised, and probably inevitable.

Still, the sooner they could get back to normal, the better. And a good first step would be to see these two, and the little sister, on their way.

‘Thank you for coming to see me,’ she said, smiling at Meriel and then at Jerome.

‘The thanks are ours,’ Meriel said. ‘I don’t know how we’d have got through this terrible time without you, Abbess.’

‘It is my nuns you must thank,’ she said gently. ‘They have been praying for the three of you. And, with them, prayer also has a practical side — it was a stroke of genius on Sister Euphemia’s part, to ask Berthe to help her with the two new babies in the maternity room.’

‘I don’t suppose for a moment that she really needed Berthe’s help,’ Jerome said.

‘Neither do I,’ Helewise agreed. ‘How do you think she is? Berthe, I mean?’

Meriel gazed at her for a moment before replying. ‘She truly is beginning to get over it, I believe,’ she said. ‘It was a frightful shock to see Alba fall. It will recur in her dreams for a while, I dare say.’

‘Yes, I expect it will,’ Helewise agreed.

‘But she is beginning to see that there was really no escape for Alba,’ Meriel went on. ‘Even if you had refused to let Bastian take her back to Denney to answer for the murder of poor Felix — and there was no reason why you should refuse, Abbess, we quite understand that — then it was really only postponing the inevitable. Sooner or later, Alba would have had to face up to judgement for her sins.’ She paused. Then: ‘Is it fairly certain that she killed the monk in the Vale, too?’