Alys Clare: The Tavern in the Morning

‘Farewell, Sir Josse, and good luck.’

She listened to his heavy footsteps marching away along the cloister. Then, giving in to her fatigue, she turned on her side and was very soon asleep.

As he rode away from the Abbey, Josse wondered if his last action before leaving would be deemed by Helewise to be uncalled-for interference. If, when she learned of it, she would be angry with him.

He hoped not. But if she were, it was a price he’d have to pay.

He’d been to see Sister Euphemia, and told her he’d been horrified at the Abbess’s appearance.

‘You’ve no need to tell me !’ Euphemia had protested angrily. ‘I’ve got eyes in my head! And you should have seen her last week! Dear merciful Lord, I feared for her life one night, her fever rose that high!’

‘What ails her?’

Euphemia shrugged. ‘There’s any number of fevers about, folks say. It’s a harsh winter we’re having. This particular sickness was brought by pilgrims to the shrine. There was four of them, two old people, two young ’uns. The old folk died — there wasn’t anything we could do for them, and the holy water doesn’t always work its miracle if a body’s too far gone.’

‘Did many of your nuns and monks fall sick?’

Euphemia gave a ‘huh!’ of indignation. ‘Most of our nuns and monks kept their distance, I’m ashamed to say. The Abbess herself took a turn at nursing, with me and Sister Caliste, and Brother Saul relieved us all when we went to our devotions. I reckon we escape most infections, Caliste and Saul and me, because the good Lord above gives us His protection, us being in permanent contact with the sick. But the Abbess, now, she’s different. She was worn out even when she came to help us, Sir Josse, and it does seem to be the way of it, that fevers more readily strike at those whose energies are running low.’ Euphemia shook her head sadly. ‘She takes on too much, I’m always telling her. Fat lot of good it does, though, I might as well save my breath to cool my porridge.’

‘Sister Euphemia, she must do less,’ Josse said. ‘She was busy writing in her ledger when I went to see her just now. Can you send some capable nun in to relieve her of that, at least? Just till she’s better? There must be someone suitable.’

‘Course there is,’ Euphemia agreed. ‘Leave it with me, Sir Josse.’

‘Could it be arranged for all her duties to be taken over by others? And it might be wise to have someone sitting with her,’ he said, aware as he did so that he was robbing Helewise of her precious and, as well he knew, limited solitude. ‘To make sure she rests.’

Euphemia shot him a look, as if she knew exactly what he was thinking. ‘Aye,’ she said. ‘As I say, leave it with me.’

He was, he reflected as he kicked Horace to a canter, quite fortunate to be making his escape. At least it wouldn’t be he who had to endure Helewise’s reaction when she learned what Josse and Euphemia had arranged for her …

* * *

He reached Tonbridge in the early evening, glad to be within its outskirts. It was now fully dark, and the temperature had dropped again. Despite his fur-lined hood, Josse’s ears were aching with cold.

He ordered a generous supper. Not, he thought, that he had earned it; his day’s labours had got him virtually nowhere. And now there was the Abbess to worry about, in addition to everything else.

Ah, well. At last she was in good hands.

Not wanting to face either Mistress Anne’s questions or Tilly’s anxious eyes when he had nothing to tell them, Josse finished his supper, drained his mug of ale and retired early to bed.

* * *

Mid-morning the next day, he set out for the castle.

It became clear, even as he approached up the steep track that led from the ford, that there were few, if any, members of the family about. The frosted ground bore little evidence of having recently been trodden, and the drawbridge had been raised halfway up. Only a thin trickle of smoke rose up from within the stout walls, and looked, Josse thought, more likely to be from an outdoor brazier than from the huge fire in some great hall’s hearth.

In answer to Josse’s call, a man appeared at the opposite end of the drawbridge. Making no move to lower it and allow Josse to cross, he shouted out, ‘Yes?’

‘Is the family in residence?’ Josse shouted back.

‘No.’

The man went to return inside, but Josse stopped him. ‘A moment!’

Reluctantly the man turned round again. ‘What do you want?’

‘I am looking for a stranger, a nobleman, possibly a friend of the family,’ he said. ‘I believe he may be lodging with them, or at least come to visit.’

‘We’ve had no visitors,’ the man replied. ‘Like I says, the family’s away.’

Where were they? Josse wondered. And what on earth had persuaded them to leave the comforts of home, in this freezing weather?

‘You’d be best advised to get away an’ all,’ the man was saying. ‘If you value your health, that is.’

‘Why?’ Josse felt a shiver of alarm run up his spine.

‘Sickness,’ the man said, with the self-satisfied air of one imparting news of some danger from which he feels himself immune. ‘There’s fever, down in the new Priory. Never should have built it, they shouldn’t, not down there beyond the ford, so close to where all them streams flow together. Marshy, it is, down there. There’s bad air, spreads all manner of pestilence. Family’s gone away to Suffolk, and I have my orders to keep this here drawbridge up.’ He gave the stout planks a reassuring slap with the flat of one hand. ‘You can’t come in, whoever you are, and I ain’t coming out.’

You could, Josse thought, see his point.

‘And you’ve had no callers? No visiting nobleman?’

The man gave a chuckle. ‘He’d have had to swim across,’ he said, pointing down into the sludgy waters of the moat, dark with unimaginably foul detritus and half-frozen over. ‘And that I wouldn’t recommend.’

Josse raised an arm. ‘I thank you for your time,’ he called, wheeling Horace and preparing to leave.

‘Time I have,’ the man replied, turning back into the deep shadow of the gatehouse. ‘Good day to you!’

Looking back over his shoulder to give an answering good day, Josse thought he saw a movement. Up high, on the battlements … a head, peeping over the sturdy wall, quickly withdrawn…?

He stared, holding Horace still. But there was nothing to see.

Probably a bird, he told himself. Nothing more sinister than that. After all, as that fellow said, any uninvited guest would have had to swim across.

Inattentive, he didn’t notice that his horse had picked a different track for the descent. About to pull him up and return to the track they’d gone up by, suddenly Josse noticed something.

Hoof prints.

Someone had gone up that smaller, half-concealed track. Quite recently, too.

The man, whoever he was, returning from having gone out for supplies?

No. He’d made it quite plain he intended to stay shut away safely inside the castle until the danger was past.

Then who?

Telling himself he shouldn’t jump to conclusions didn’t seem to be working. Resigning himself to the prospect of several hours in the cold, Josse dismounted, led Horace into a grove of hazel trees which, full in the weak rays of the February sun and protected from the wind, provided at least a small amount of shelter, and prepared to endure a long wait.

* * *

He should, he thought late in the afternoon, have brought food with him. And he’d have to give up soon, if nothing happened, for Horace’s sake if not for his own. The sun was low on the horizon, its light and its paltry warmth even weaker now. It wouldn’t be long till darkness.