Alys Clare - Ashes of the Elements

Josse thought immediately of the Abbess, but, since he didn’t recognise the messenger, it was not likely that the man came from Hawkenlye. He watched as Will came hurrying up the steps towards him.

‘Sir Josse, this man brings word from someone calling himself Tobias Durand,’ Will reported. ‘He says you know his master, and that he — the master — invites you to visit him and his lady.’

‘Does he indeed,’ Josse said softly.

‘Sir?’

‘Thank you, Will, I shall speak to the man myself.’

He went down the steps and across to the mounted man, who, well-schooled in manners, slipped off his horse’s back and made Josse a courteous bow.

‘Tell your master and his good lady that I accept their invitation,’ Josse said.

The man — he was actually little more than a boy — raised his head. ‘When shall I say, sir?’

‘Say-’ Josse thought. ‘Say the end of the week.’

‘The end of the week,’ the boy echoed. Then he said, ‘I’d better tell you the way.’

* * *

Josse set out mid-morning of the following Friday; the ride to the house of Tobias Durand would, the boy had said, take well over the hour.

As he rode, he distracted his main train of thought — why Tobias should suddenly have expressed a desire for Josse’s company — by recalling what the Abbess had told him of the man. Which was, in fact, precious little.

Ah well, he would just have to see for himself.

* * *

The house was a grand one. Not all that big, but expensively built and, as Josse discovered when a tall and dignified manservant ushered him inside, beautifully furnished in the latest style.

No expense had been spared, it was clear.

What was not quite so clear was where Tobias had come by the money to pay for it all …

Tobias came bounding across the hall to greet his guest.

‘Sir Josse, how wonderful to see you!’ he gushed. ‘We’re in the solar, enjoying the sunshine. Won’t you join us? Paul!’ he called to the manservant. ‘Bring wine — draw a jug of that new barrel we broached last night.’

Josse followed Tobias back across the hall and up a spiral stair that led off it. At the top, the stair opened out into a sunny room with, Josse noticed in faint surprise, glass in its modest window.

Glass!

In front of which, stitching at a framed piece of embroidery with every appearance of calm, sat a woman.

Straight away, as the woman turned her head, Tobias said, ‘Dearest, may I present Sir Josse d’Acquin, King’s knight and lord of the manor of New Winnowlands?’ And, to Josse, ‘Sir Josse, my wife, Petronilla.’

It was just as well, Josse reflected swiftly as, moving forward, he bent to kiss the woman’s outstretched hand, that Tobias had introduced her immediately, and so clearly.

Because, otherwise, Josse might have taken the woman for Tobias’s mother rather than his wife.

‘Please, Sir Josse, sit down,’ Petronilla was saying, indicating a leather-seated chair. ‘In the sunshine, by me.’

‘Thank you, lady.’

Tobias busied himself with pouring the wine that the manservant had just brought, and Josse, listening to the light-hearted comments he was exchanging with his wife, took the chance to study Petronilla Durand.

She had a thin face, and had a bony look about her, so that she appeared to be all angles. She must, he thought, trying to be charitable, be at least forty-five. At least. And the greying hair visible at the temples, under the smoothly starched linen of her barbette, made her look older, as did the thin lips surrounded by a network of tiny lines. Lines which, Josse observed, all seemed to run downwards. If she could manage a less severe look, put a little flesh on those bones, he thought, then it might take a few years off her. As it was …

If he had been right in his estimate of Tobias’s age, then Petronilla was about fifteen years his senior. Perhaps not quite old enough to be his mother, but it was a close-run thing.

‘… making an embroidery to celebrate our first three months in this gracious house,’ Tobias was saying. ‘See, Sir Josse, how fine is her work?’ He pointed to the stitched linen in Petronilla’s hands; she appeared to be working on a design of pansies, the purple and the egg-yolk yellow making a dramatic but pleasing contrast.

‘Fine indeed, my lady.’ Josse looked up into the pale face, noticing the maze of small wrinkles around the deep-set eyes. ‘Such stitching! This must have taken you hours.’

‘I like to sew,’ she said. Her voice was pleasantly low-pitched. Her lips made a gesture which, Josse was to realise, was typical of her, a sort of folding-together which made them all but disappear. It was not, he thought with some pity, a mannerism that did anything for her appearance. ‘It is a pastime I have always enjoyed.’

‘I see. I-’

‘Petronilla was lady-in-waiting to Queen Eleanor,’ Tobias butted in. ‘They are old friends, my wife and the Queen.’ Possibly old had been tactless, Josse thought, as had the implication that Petronilla and the Queen were contemporaries. ‘Petronilla was a member of the Queen’s court, both here in England and in France.’

A faint blush had stained Petronilla’s white and slightly greasy-looking cheeks. ‘I hardly think-’ she began.

‘Oh, dearest, don’t be modest!’ Again, her husband interrupted. ‘Sir Josse would love to hear of your days in court circles, him being King Richard’s man! Wouldn’t you, Sir Josse?’

‘Aye, that I would,’ Josse said, with as much enthusiasm as he could muster.

‘Why, you’ll probably discover you have a friend or two in common,’ Tobias went on. ‘Don’t let me stand in the way of some enjoyable reminiscences!’

Was he, Josse wondered, testing? To see if Josse was really what he had claimed to be? Had Tobias primed his wife to pose some searching questions?

If so, then Josse was more than ready to field them.

Petronilla had turned towards him, and was saying politely, ‘Sir Josse, my husband exaggerates. I did indeed have the honour to serve the Queen, and I like to believe that we became friends. However, my time in her court was but brief, and amounted to the relatively short years between Queen Eleanor’s emergence from her residence at Winchester and the death of my father.’

‘I am sorry for your loss,’ Josse said sincerely. ‘A recent one, I take it?’

‘Yes,’ she said quietly. ‘Some six months ago.’

There was a brief and, Josse thought, awkward silence. Perhaps, he thought, it’s just my guilty conscience that makes it seem awkward.

He did indeed feel slightly guilty. Because he couldn’t suppress the possibly unworthy thought that he now knew exactly why a young, lively and very handsome man like Tobias Durand had married a tight-lipped woman fifteen years older than himself.

It was — it had to be — because she had inherited richly from her late father.

As if Tobias knew very well what Josse was thinking, he said smoothly, ‘It was to me that, I am humbly happy to say, Petronilla looked for comfort in her loss.’ He gave his wife a warm smile. ‘And, since we became man and wife, together we have set about turning her father’s house into our own home.’

Nice for you, Josse thought. But, despite himself, his cynicism was being undermined. Covertly observing Petronilla, he watched as her face lit up in response to her husband’s smile. And, flicking a glance back at Tobias, he could see nothing but affection. And was there the briefest suspicion of moisture in the young man’s eyes? Could it really be that his emotions regarding his elderly wife were that strong?

Perhaps it was true, then. Perhaps he really loved his bride, despite her years.