Alys Clare - The Tavern in the Morning

‘Strange,’ Josse mused. ‘And, Abbess, I’ll tell you what else is strange. Your friend Denys didn’t seem to know that Joanna had a son. Did he?’

‘He didn’t mention any child,’ Helewise agreed.

There was a reflective silence. Josse finished his meal, wiped his hands, and, taking a long drink, lay back on his pillows. ‘I’ll tell you one thing,’ he offered. ‘Well, I’ll tell you two.’

‘Yes?’

‘First, if he’s the man responsible for my sore head, then it’s just as well we didn’t come face to face just now. I should not want blood spilled in the sacred confines of Hawkenlye Abbey.’ He smiled at her, but she wasn’t at all sure that he wasn’t deadly serious.

‘And the second thing?’

‘If we’re right in our guessing and it is Joanna whom de Courtenay is searching for, then, believe me, she doesn’t want him to find her.’

Helewise saw the man again in her mind’s eye. Tall, strong, oozing a charm that was far too obviously false. And, worst of all, that frightening moment when he had lowered his guard and allowed her to see him for what he really was.

She shivered. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I believe you readily enough.’ She raised her eyes to meet Josse’s. ‘And, having met him, truly, I can’t say that I blame her.’

Josse discharged himself from Sister Euphemia’s care the next morning.

‘ I don’t know!’ she complained, giving the wounds on the back of his head a final inspection. ‘You and the Abbess Helewise, you’re a right pair! You both believe the world’ll come to an end if you’re not around to make sure it doesn’t.’

‘How true,’ Josse agreed. ‘Of myself, in any case. I always was an arrogant fellow, Sister Euphemia.’ He gave her a wink, and she blushed faintly.

‘Go on with you!’

‘I’m going.’

‘You hurry straight back, now,’ she said, trotting along the long, open space between the infirmary’s many beds to keep up with his strides, ‘the moment you start to get head pains, or dizziness, or-’

But, with an acknowledging wave of his hand, he had gone.

* * *

In the crisp morning air, the heavy frost sparkled pure, dazzling white. Horace’s breath hung in clouds, like the smoke of some idling dragon.

Josse met nobody on the road down into Tonbridge. Which was no surprise: it was too cold a day to venture out of doors and go off journeying unless you really had to.

He rode straight for the castle.

He hadn’t really hoped he would find his stranger there, which was just as well since he didn’t. The drawbridge was now fully up and the castle looked, if it were possible, even more abandoned than it had on Josse’s last visit.

A woman passed by, a bundle of kindling under one arm.

‘You’ll get no welcome from them, ’ she remarked, nodding in the direction of the castle. ‘They’re away. Gone, they have, and gone they’ll stay, s’long as there’s sickness in the valley.’ She sniffed. ‘Don’t have no truck with the idea of helping the sick and needy, they don’t.’

‘Ah.’ Trying to sound casual — a passer-by venturing a conversational remark — he said, ‘I’m surprised they don’t leave at least a small staff, though. After all, there must be caretaking duties and there’s security to think of…’ He trailed off, hoping she would take up the opportunity of a bit of a gossip.

She did. Putting down her kindling and folding her arms, she said, ‘Security? I don’t imagine that bothers them, not with that ruddy great drawbridge pulled up. I mean, who’s going to try to climb up there ?’ She jerked her head towards the castle’s formidable walls. ‘And why bother, that’s what I say! If them grand folks don’t want to associate with the likes of us, then there’s no call for us to go bothering them. ’

An independently-minded woman, Josse reflected. ‘Is there truly nobody within?’

‘Oh, there’s your caretakers, all right.’ She sniffed again, then suddenly her face lightened into a smile of genuine humour. ‘You’re not thinking, mate,’ she said. ‘Course there’s got to be someone inside, else how’d they raise the drawbridge?’

He grinned in response. ‘Aye. You’re right there.’

‘There’s any number of them,’ she continued. ‘Caretakers, like. But they ain’t going to come out all the while there’s food and water within. They’ll see the advantages of keeping themselves apart from the sickness, same as their precious lords and masters. You mark my word, there’ll be no comings and goings over that drawbridge till spring.’

‘I did have a faint hope of finding an acquaintance of mine here. I heard tell he lodged with the family…?’

The woman shook her head. ‘Unlikely. As I’ve already told you — ’ she was eyeing Josse suspiciously now, as if trying to decide if he had evil intentions or was just plain stupid — ‘the family’s away. If your acquaintance is in there, he must be a guest of the caretakers, not the Clares.’ Another assessing look. ‘And you’ll be a better judge than me, sir, as to the likelihood of that.’

‘No, no, as you say, he can’t be. I must have been mistaken.’ Keen to allay her curiosity — he didn’t like the idea of her passing on details of her meeting with a man nosing around outside the castle and asking daft questions — he said, ‘I’m for the tavern. A mug of ale and a spell of warming my toes by Goody Anne’s fire sounds just the thing for me. I wish you good day.’ He bowed, swung up on to Horace, and set off down the track towards the river.

When he risked a glance behind him, the woman had picked up her bundle and was striding away.

* * *

The inn was bustling. There seemed to be as many people milling around in the yard as within, Josse thought as he pushed his way inside. And there was a deal of animated chattering going on, too.

Goody Anne was in the tap room, sleeves rolled up to display her well-muscled forearms, handing out jugs of ale to a band of men.

‘How goes it, Mistress Anne?’ Josse asked when, catching sight of him, she nodded a greeting.

‘Rushed off my feet, as ever.’ She gave him a friendly grin. ‘Thanks to you, sir, people haven’t been scared off.’ She winked. ‘If you get my meaning.’

He did. Standing beside her now, he said softly, ‘Glad to have been of service.’

‘Any news as to who did for poor old Peter Ely?’

‘No.’

‘And now there’s this new business. I really don’t-’ A voice demanded service, followed by a chorus of others, and, interrupting herself, Anne said, ‘You’ll have to excuse me, sir, I’m that busy.’

‘Of course.’

He took his ale and went to lean against the wall. What new business? Tuning in to conversations around him, he tried to find out.

It didn’t take long.

‘… seems she’d been there for days!’ a man beside him said in an awed voice. ‘Well, ain’t no surprise, right out there in the wilds.’

‘Aye, you’re right there,’ agreed another, and his two companions nodded sagely. ‘Reckon she’d her own reasons for keeping herself apart, an’ all.’

A cold hand took hold of Josse’s heart. He said to the man nearest to him, ‘What’s happened? Who are you talking about?’

The man, fortunately, was too fascinated by the tale to worry about why a stranger should be so eager to know. ‘Why, they’ve found a body, in the woods. Dead, she is, found with her head in a foot of water.’

‘Who was she? Does anybody know?’ Josse looked wildly from face to face. ‘Come on, one of you must know something !’