Alys Clare - Ashes of the Elements

While the Abbess was praying, he got up, folded the blankets and stowed them back into his pack, trying to move quietly so as not to disturb her. The fire was still glowing, but, now that the sun’s heat was reaching down to warm up the forest, there was no more need of it. He stamped out the last of the red embers, and then took out his knife and cut neat turves from the thinly growing grass on the outer fringes of the undergrowth, with which he covered the burned scar in the ground.

He hoped his actions would be pleasing to the Domina.

Then, with nothing else to do, he sat down and waited until the Abbess had finished.

* * *

As she walked towards him, he noticed that, for a moment, she could not meet his eyes. Remembering the night, remembering how he had not only removed quite a lot of her habit but had also lain with her, body close up against hers, he understood.

We have to put that behind us, he thought. Just as if it had never happened.

He stood up. With a bow, he said, ‘Abbess Helewise. I wish you good day. We should, I think, make our way back to the Abbey, as soon as you feel able to travel.’

She shot him a look in which relief and gratitude were mixed. Then she said quietly, ‘Yes, Sir Josse. I am able to travel straight away.’

He shouldered his pack and stepped out on to the path beside her. Together they turned towards the track that led to Hawkenlye.

And saw, standing silently some ten paces off, the robed figure of the Domina.

For a long moment, she stared at them, unmoving, deep-set eyes fixed first on the Abbess, then on him. He felt he should speak — felt, indeed, that he should apologise, although he was not entirely sure what for — but somehow her intent gaze kept him dumb.

Eventually she said, ‘The woman is well?’

The Abbess said quietly, ‘I am well.’

The other woman nodded. ‘It is a long journey you have, for one who has been injured.’

‘I can manage,’ the Abbess said.

The Domina stepped closer. When she stood right in front of the Abbess, she raised a hand and touched the dressing on Helewise’s head, leaning briefly forward and apparently sniffing at the place where the cut was. ‘Clean,’ she observed. ‘The man has done well.’ She glanced at Josse.

He bowed his head.

The Domina was reaching into a leather pouch that hung at her waist, half-concealed by the cloak she now wore over her white robe. Taking out a small glass phial, she removed its stopper and held it out to the Abbess. ‘Drink,’ she ordered.

Josse watched the Abbess. He could sense she was reluctant — which was more than understandable, bearing in mind how they had both suffered from the smoke they had inhaled last night — but at the same time she was also, he thought, hesitant to offend someone who was genuinely trying to help her.

As if she read all of that, the Domina gave a brief laugh. ‘This will not make you see the dance of the creatures of the night,’ she said. ‘It will not make you feel you can fly, nor create the wild pictures inside your head. It is to help your pain.’

‘I have no-’ the Abbess began.

The Domina gave a short tch! of annoyance. ‘Do not deny it,’ she said. ‘I can feel it.’

The Abbess’s mouth dropped open slightly. Then, as if making up her mind, she took the phial and drank its contents.

‘Good, good,’ said the Domina.

The three of them stood, not moving, not speaking; Josse felt, as probably the Abbess did too, that, here in the Domina’s realm, they must take their cue from her. And she seemed to be waiting for something.

After a while, the Abbess suddenly smiled. Looking both happy and surprised, she exclaimed, ‘The pain has gone!’

And the Domina said, ‘Of course.’

Then she turned to Josse. ‘I sense your impatience, man,’ she said. ‘You wish to take the woman back to her own place.’

She appeared to be waiting for an answer, so he said, ‘Aye. I do.’

‘All in good time,’ the Domina said. ‘Before you depart from my domain, I will address you.’ She held out her hands towards Josse and the Abbess, and, as if pushing aside the branches of a tree, she moved them out of her way. Then, beckoning them to follow, she led them along a path which Josse had not previously noticed, one which wound away into the deep forest on the far side of the clearing with the fallen trees.

Why, he wondered, did I not notice it before? He shook his head in puzzlement, for, now that the Domina was leading them to it, the track seemed all too obvious.

The Domina glanced at him over her shoulder, gave him a strange smile, then turned back to face the way she was going. And, quite clearly inside Josse’s head, he heard the words, ‘You did not see this secret way before because I did not want you to.’

Not for the first time, Josse had the alarming sensation that he was in the presence of something — someone — far beyond his experience or comprehension.

As they left the clearing, the Domina said, waving a hand towards the dead trees, ‘This is the work of Outworlders. It is an abomination.’

And Josse thought he heard the Abbess mutter, ‘I knew it!’

* * *

She did not take them far. After perhaps a quarter of a mile of negotiating the narrow path, it opened out into an open space, through which a small stream ran. Above the stream, on a bank which rose up above it, was what appeared to be a dwelling. Made of branches, bent and woven into a framework, it was roofed with leaves and turves. Inside was a stone hearth, on which a pot bubbled quietly.

The Domina indicated that they should sit down on the bank above the rippling water.

As they settled, Josse thought fleetingly how bewitching was the combination of the sounds — the stream rushing along its stony bed, the softly simmering pot — and the smells … some strong herbal scent, from the steam coming from the pot, the sweet smell of flowers and green grass, a sort of peatyness from the stream.

Ah, but it was powerful, this atmosphere!

The Domina did not sit down, but remained standing above them.

After a moment, as if she had been waiting until she had their full, undivided attention, she began to speak.

‘Outworlders,’ she said, ‘are not welcome here.’ She looked down at Josse, then at the Abbess. ‘Outworlders do not understand our ways. They destroy and desecrate what we hold to be holy. Outworlders killed the sacred oak.’

Josse nodded slowly. ‘In the grove where the old temple ruins are,’ he said. ‘They set traps for game, and disturbed buried coins.’

‘They burrowed beneath the oldest tree,’ the Domina said. ‘He had fallen of his own volition, for he was tired and no longer wished to live. Outworlders took what was not theirs to take, and, not content with what came readily out of the earth, they killed a second tree.’ Her face working, she said harshly, ‘He was young, with centuries of life ahead of him! Yet Outworlders hacked with their blunt weapons, hacked at him until he bled, until he wept, and they brought him to the ground!’

‘They did a grave wrong,’ Josse said quietly.

‘Outworlders trespass against us,’ the Domina said, more controlled now. ‘And we do not forgive.’

‘The man — the Outworlder — died,’ Josse said. ‘The spear was skilfully thrown, and he died cleanly.’

The Domina nodded. ‘It is our way. We do not deliberately inflict pain.’

‘Did he die because he had killed your oak?’ Josse went on tentatively.

The Domina gazed down at him for some moments. ‘The trees in the sacred grove bear the golden bough and the silver berry,’ she said. ‘Fruit of the sun and fruit of the moon, pure white seed of the god.’