Alys Clare - Ashes of the Elements

She took a deep breath, then another.

It worked. She was still terrified, but at least she felt in control of herself.

Fleetingly she wondered, as she set off once more after Josse, if he was wearing his talisman. Somehow, she thought he probably was.

* * *

They were now deep in the forest. They had come, she reckoned, some two miles or more. Probably more; it was hard to tell, with the frequent stopping, but when they had been moving, they had walked swiftly. Despite everything, a part of her had been revelling in the sheer pleasure of hard physical exercise. It must, she thought, be years since she’d marched along like this, breathing deeply, arms swinging, legs striding out. Nuns in a convent just didn’t walk like that.

It reminds me, she reflected happily, of outings with dear old Ivo.

Her late husband had liked to walk hard, too. Often, when the demands of their busy life had relented for a few hours, the two of them had set out and-

‘Listen!’ said Josse’s soft voice, right beside her.

‘What?’

He had stopped again, at what appeared to be the end of a long and winding little path deep within the trees; they had been following its rather well-concealed course for some time. He drew her back into the moon shadow of a great oak, and, mouth to her ear, said, ‘Can you hear it too, or am I imagining it?’

She held her breath, and, trying to shut out the sounds of Josse beside her, listened.

At first, nothing. The wind in the treetops, high overhead, and a faint distant rustling, quickly curtailed, as if some small animal had been running for safety and had made it to its burrow.

She was just beginning to shake her head in denial when she heard it.

Just a short snatch, which could have been the dancing leaves up above. But then it came again. The same phrase was repeated, again and then once more, each time with a fraction more volume.

And then, in some macabre and premature parody of the dawn chorus, still many hours away, other throats took up the sound. The original phrase echoed again, but extended now, elaborate, involved, turning back on itself and going higher, higher, so high as almost to leave the range of human hearing, only to dive down into a deep, thrumming baritone that throbbed like a distant drum.

Then it stopped.

Helewise felt the sweat of fear run down her back, accompanied by a great shudder that seemed to make her hair crawl on her scalp. In atavistic dread, she wanted to crouch on the ground, curl herself up small, creep away into some dark little niche where she would be safe, where they could not find her. But, just as the urge to hide became all but irresistible, Josse leaned close and said quietly, ‘Abbess, it seems you were right after all, and the answers to all our questions may be just ahead of us.’

She managed to say, in something like her usual tones, ‘Indeed.’

Had he known? Had he picked up her huge fear, and, wanting to help her master it, spoken thus to her?

It was his having called her by her title that did it, she thought, feeling strength returning with each second. It had, in that moment of weakness, reminded her of who and what she was. Of her responsibilities. And, even more important, reminded her what she was doing there in the middle of the forest when she ought to be safe in her bed.

Answers must be found, she told herself firmly. And Sir Josse and I shall find them.

She whispered, ‘What should we do now?’

Turning from his intense concentration on the open space that lay ahead, he whispered back, ‘We are close to the grove where the two fallen oak trees lie, where Hamm discovered the treasure. It is, I believe, of some importance in the forest, and I think we should try to get closer.’

‘Very well. I was going to tell you, I-’ But now was not the moment, and in answer to his eyebrows raised in enquiry, she shook her head.

He hitched the pack higher on his back, and was about to set forth when he hesitated. With a quick look back to her, he said, ‘They — whoever they may be — could be in the oak grove. We must be absolutely silent.’

She smiled in the darkness, and said, ‘I realise that. I’ll be as quiet as the grave.’

Only as she began to creep after him did she wish she had used any other word but ‘grave’.

* * *

The next mile seemed terribly slow. Copying him, she trod carefully, trying each footstep before committing herself to it, making sure no cracking twig gave them away. It was nerve-racking.

At last, he stopped once more. Again, they were on the edge of an open space, but this time it was a much wider one. And, peering round the comforting bulk of Josse’s shoulder, Helewise could see two vast felled oak trees lying across the short turf.

But, apart from the trees, the grove was empty.

Josse was moving forward, peering into the shadows that encircled the moonlit space. Suddenly he gave a soft exclamation, and, as he came back to her, she saw that he was grinning.

‘They’re ahead of us,’ he said softly, when he was right beside her again. ‘In another clearing, through there.’ He pointed.

She looked, but could see nothing. ‘Where?’

He took hold of her shoulders and pushed her gently towards the open space. ‘Go to where the trees thin out, and look to your left,’ he ordered.

She did as he said. And, staring into the darkness of an apparently impenetrable thicket of old trees, younger trees and dense, scrubby undergrowth, she saw what he had seen.

A light.

Faint, as if a single candle had been lit, or perhaps a small and carefully contained fire. But, in the deserted blackness, a strange sight.

She was about to return to him, ask what he thought should be their next move, when something caught her eye.

That light … It was as if, just for a split-second, it had been extinguished, then, just as quickly, relit. Watching, straining her eyes, it happened again.

What was it? Could it be-

Then she knew.

The blinking-out effect had an obvious cause, when you stopped to think about it. A cause that explained, too, why it went on happening.

Somebody was moving between Helewise and the source of the light.

Out in that hidden grove, there were other beings abroad in the forest.

For all that she had known they must be out there — what else, indeed, was the purpose of this whole enterprise but to find them? — still, the sight of human movement, so close by, set her heart thumping.

The fear came flooding back, with the speed and the unremitting force of the tide over flat sands. And Helewise, forgetting all about being quiet, raced the few paces back to Josse’s side as if she herself were in danger of inundation.

Silent as wraiths, they moved around the fringes of the oak grove, keeping to the shadows, pressing close to the surrounding trees.

As they passed the place where he had found the ancient ruined temple, Josse thought, I have never yet been further into the forest than this.

Amid all the other causes for concern, this was a new one. And, illogical though it was, somehow it was the most frightening.

The Abbess, he thought, more to take his mind off his apprehension than for any other reason, was obeying his command to move even more quietly. Had he not been perfectly well aware that she was behind him, he would never have guessed. Moving as if she had been specially trained for silent night operations, she made not a sound. Once or twice he had to fight the temptation to turn round and make sure she was still with him.

He would never have guessed, either, that a nun would be so well adapted for hard exercise; the pace he had set had made no concession to having a woman with him, less out of deliberate consideration for her and more because it had not entered his mind. Fear and intense concentration, he had found, tended to drive courtesy and pretty manners right out of the head.