Alys Clare - Ashes of the Elements

There was a reflective silence in the little room. Then Josse said, ‘You and I, Abbess Helewise, have shared our worries before, to both our own and others’ benefit.’ He hesitated. Should he go on, even bearing in mind all that they had endured together in the past?

Yes, he decided. He should.

He said gently, ‘Why don’t you tell me about her?’

After a slight pause, Helewise did so.

* * *

Listening, Josse thought, I think she’s quite right, for what it’s worth. Another year as a novice will give both girl and the Abbey some much needed extra time.

‘… you see, Sir Josse,’ the Abbess was saying, ‘and, what with her odd behaviour since the time of the murder, well, it’s just the final straw.’

Realising he had missed something — something rather important — Josse said sharply, ‘Murder, Abbess?’

She murmured something; it sounded like, ‘ Now who’s not listening,’ then proceeded to tell him the few slim facts about the death of Hamm Robinson all over again.

‘I bring you bad luck,’ Josse observed when she had finished. ‘The last time I was here, it was because of a murder. Now here I am again, and, heralding my return, someone else is slain.’

‘People have been killed in the intervening years,’ the Abbess said. ‘Much as it pains me to say so, we live in violent times, Sir Josse. When men are hungry, when they act recklessly and fear retribution, such things lead all too easily to the swift blow, delivered too hard.’

Sobered by her words, yet at the same time relieved that he was not actually some dread harbinger of death, Josse nodded. ‘But the murder of Hamm Robinson was unusual?’ he prompted. ‘Killed with a spear, you say?’

‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘A spear with a flint head. Which, according to our friend the sheriff, implicates the people of the forest, but, as I told you, since they’ve left the area, he has abandoned any faint hope of bringing them to justice.’

‘It could equally be some devious soul making it look as if the forest dwellers are responsible,’ Josse said.

‘Exactly what I thought,’ the Abbess said.

‘Hmm.’ Josse frowned in concentration. The concept of these Wild People, as the Abbess had called them, was new to him. He knew the old legends, everyone did, but to have figures from the ancient tales apparently take on flesh and blood and kill a man, well, that took a bit of swallowing. ‘Abbess, about these forest folk who-’

‘Sir Josse, there is no point in pursuing this!’ she interrupted. ‘We must follow the sheriff’s example, and accept that the matter is closed.’

‘Hm,’ he said again. Then, remembering something, ‘Abbess, you were saying that your young novice began acting up — how did you describe it? Behaving oddly? — when this Hamm Robinson was killed? Surely, then, you can’t forget about it, since it affects one of your nuns?’

‘It was not the death that made her behave oddly,’ the Abbess said firmly. ‘I must make that plain, because there is no question of her being involved, in any way.’

‘Ah.’ Why, Josse wondered, are you denying it so strenuously, unless you really fear the opposite?

‘No, indeed,’ the Abbess went on. ‘It was merely that — oh, it sounds silly and insubstantial, now that I try to put it into words.’

‘But, please, Abbess, do so.’

‘Very well. You see, Sir Josse, a couple of nights before Hamm Robinson was slain, I heard Sister Caliste get up out of her bed. I think she was walking in her sleep — certainly, she gave no sign that she was aware of me, following her.’

‘I see. And what did she do?’

‘She walked to the door, quietly opened it, and stood on the top of the steps outside.’

‘Innocent enough,’ Josse said. ‘Perhaps she merely needed a breath of air.’

‘In her sleep?’ Abbess Helewise spoke with faint irony. ‘And that’s not all. Standing there, straight as a reed, she was gazing out over the wall.’

‘Over the wall,’ Josse repeated.

‘Yes. Her eyes were wide open, and she was humming softly under her breath, some weird succession of notes, so very different from anything I’ve ever heard before that…’ The Abbess gave a faint shudder. ‘Well, never mind.’

Josse, trying to remember the layout of the Abbey, was picturing the scene. ‘Top of the steps leading to the dormitory, you said, and looking out over the wall?’ The Abbess nodded.

He sighed. He was beginning to understand the Abbess’s unease.

‘Then, Abbess,’ he said heavily, ‘your young Sister Caliste, whether knowingly or not, was staring out over the forest.’

And the Abbess, her eyes full of anxiety, said, ‘Exactly.’

Seeing Josse on his way, Helewise felt much calmer than she had done earlier. It was not so much that he had resolved the problem of what to do about Caliste, more that it had been such a luxury to speak frankly with someone of Josse’s sound common sense.

‘You must certainly postpone the girl’s admission into the ranks of the fully professed,’ he had agreed. ‘It wouldn’t be fair, Abbess, either on the girl or on the community, to promote her to a life of dedication and maturity for which, from what you tell me, she isn’t yet ready.’

As well as endorsing Helewise’s own view, he had, however, also ventured a suggestion of his own. A typically practical one, and one which the Abbess herself should have thought of. And I might have done, she had reflected, listening to him, had my mind not been fixed on the abstract things of the spirit, at the expense of the more tangible matters of the day to day.

‘Why not put the girl to working with one of your nuns with a particularly strong but, if I may use the word, simple faith?’ Josse had said tentatively. ‘If you have such a sister.’

‘Indeed I have!’ Helewise said, lighting on the idea. ‘Sister Beata, whom you have met — a nurse in the infirmary. She is just such a one, and the perfect mentor for a novice who needs to be coaxed more firmly into our spiritual fold!’

But, dampening her enthusiasm, another thought struck her.

‘What’s the matter?’ Josse must have read the sudden doubt in her face.

‘Oh — merely that, at present, I have another young woman working in the infirmary. She has been with us for a couple of months while we and others search for a permanent post for her. Her name is Esyllt, and she arrived with her late mistress, a very old and crippled woman who died while she was with us, taking the holy waters. Esyllt was left with nowhere to go, and we thought it better to keep her here than to let her roam the countryside alone.’

‘Ah, it’s a big world out there, fraught with perils for an innocent young girl,’ Josse agreed.

‘Well, it wasn’t exactly-’ Helewise made herself stop. No need to gossip about Esyllt, and why Helewise was quite sure she wasn’t a suitable companion for the novice Caliste. Anyway, for sure, Josse would see what she meant, if and when he ever met the girl. ‘I shall move Esyllt to the aged monks’ and nuns’ home,’ the Abbess said decisively. ‘The Good Lord knows,’ she added in a murmur, ‘her vivacious spirit should have an excellent effect there. And Esyllt has gentle hands, and is used to caring kindly for the very old. Her late mistress spoke highly of her,’ she explained to Josse, ‘and it is partly at her earnest behest that we are at such pains to secure the right place for Esyllt.’

Esyllt transferred from infirmary to old people’s home, she had mused, Caliste moved from her pupillage under the wise but controversial Sister Tiphaine, to work under the watchful eye of Sister Beata, whose childlike faith might just work the necessary miracle.