Alys Clare: Ashes of the Elements

Out of nowhere a memory flashed into her head. She and Ivo, enduring an apparently interminable visit from one of Ivo’s distant cousins, had crept out of their own house and, packing up food and drink, gone to spend a few blessedly private hours in a secluded spot by a stream. Ivo had stripped off and waded into the water, and, drying off on the bank, been stung on the left buttock by a bee.

‘What is amusing you, Abbess?’ The Queen’s chilly tones brought her abruptly back to the present.

Recalling what she and Eleanor had been talking about, Helewise hastened to explain her laughter. Fortunately, the image of a dignified knight of the realm lying face down while his wife extracted a bee sting from his bottom appealed to Eleanor’s sense of humour, too.

‘I recall that you mentioned your marriage at the time I appointed you as abbess here,’ Eleanor said. ‘It was clearly a happy union.’

‘It was.’

‘And you had children, I seem to remember?’

‘Yes.’

‘Daughters?’

‘Sons. Two.’

‘Ah.’ The Queen fell silent.

The two of them, Queen and Abbess, sat for some time without breaking the silence. Helewise wondered if, as she were, Eleanor also was thinking about her sons.

After some minutes, there was another tap on the door. Getting up to open it, Helewise was greeted by the sight of the porteress. Craning round Helewise to catch a glimpse of Queen Eleanor, Sister Ursel said, ‘Abbess, a party has arrived for the Queen. A man who says he’s Tobias Durand, and he’s come with a retinue to escort Her Majesty to his house.’

‘A retinue,’ the Queen murmured. ‘Does he not realise I already have one? Two retinues will only serve to double the dust.’

‘Perhaps the lady Petronilla has sent him,’ Helewise remarked shrewdly, ‘eager to impress Your Majesty with the sight of her handsome young husband in all his finery, at the head of a band of his own men.’

Eleanor glanced at her. ‘How right you are,’ she observed.

Sister Ursel was watching them from the doorway. ‘Go and tell Tobias Durand that we shall join him directly,’ the Abbess ordered.

‘Yes, Abbess.’ With one last look, Sister Ursel hurried away.

Helewise went to stand beside the Queen, trying to be ready to help her up if necessary, but without making it too obvious.

But Eleanor said, without any apparent attempt to conceal her need, ‘Give me your arm, Helewise, I’ve become stiff from sitting too long.’

As they made their slow way out of the room and across the cloister to where Tobias and his party could be seen, mingling with Eleanor’s own escort despite their best efforts not to, Eleanor leaned her head close to Helewise’s and said softly, ‘Thank you, Abbess.’

There was no need to ask, for what? Instead Helewise replied, ‘The thanks are mine, my lady.’

‘I shall come back,’ Eleanor said, ‘and, if my arrangements permit, I shall stay with you for rather longer than a day and a night.’

‘The Abbey is at your disposal,’ Helewise replied. ‘Nothing could give us more delight, than to have Your Majesty as our guest.’

‘Nothing could give me more delight,’ Eleanor muttered. ‘But it is not yet time for me to do what pleases me.’

As the two of them approached the waiting ladies, men and horses, Helewise was quite sure she felt the Queen give her arm an affectionate squeeze.

Helewise stood for some time, watching the Queen’s party disappear down the road. As Eleanor had predicted, all those mounted men had indeed made an almost intolerable amount of dust. Thinking that a breath of clean air would be pleasant, Helewise delayed her return within the Abbey walls, and set out instead for a brisk walk along the track that led off towards the forest.

The warm air of early June was bringing the wild flowers into bloom, and a soft, sweet perfume seemed to fill the air. Somewhere nearby, a blackbird sang. Ah, it was good to be alive! Straightening her shoulders and swinging her arms, Helewise increased her pace and marched towards the first of the trees. She would not go far into the forest, she decided, because it was always dark in there; even in June, the sun did not seem to penetrate, so that the atmosphere always struck chill. She would just take a brief turn around the perimeter of the woodland, a mile or so, no further, then-

She almost trod on him.

Hastily stepping back, twitching the full skirt of her habit away from the blood pooled on the fresh green grass, she pressed her hand to her mouth to stifle the horrified reaction.

He was dead. He had to be. He was lying face down, and the long shaft of a spear protruded from his back; from the angle, it appeared that the point, buried deep in the torso, must have penetrated the heart.

He was dressed in the rough clothing of a peasant. The hose were coarse and ill-fitting, and the tunic had been patched and darned. Neatly; someone had taken care with those tiny stitches. He must have had a wife, Helewise thought, or maybe a loving mother. Some poor woman will be grieving, when she learns of this. If she were his wife, it will mean loss of husband and loss of breadwinner. A bad day for her, whoever she is.

As the initial shock receded, it occurred to Helewise to wonder what the man had been doing on the fringes of the forest. And had he been lying there long? Had she and her nuns been going about their business for some days, while, all the time, this poor wretch lay dead not half a mile from the Abbey?

She bent down and touched the back of the man’s neck; it was, she couldn’t help but notice, filthy dirty. There were lice active in his greasy hair; would they not have left the corpse, had the man been dead for any length of time? Surely such little blood-suckers only supped on fresh, uncongealed blood … The flesh retained some semblance of warmth, although, Helewise realised, that could be because he was lying at least partly in the sun. Tentatively she picked up one of the man’s outflung arms: the limb was getting stiff. The rigor that came to the dead was beginning.

Had he died, then, during the past night?

Helewise stood over the corpse, a frown deepening across her brows. Then, abruptly, she turned away. Hurrying back towards the Abbey, she thought, I must get help. I must send word to the sheriff. This is a matter for him.

Breaking into a trot — not a dignified mode of locomotion for an Abbess, but she didn’t notice — she reflected that it was just as well this death — this murder — hadn’t come to light during Queen Eleanor’s visit. Had it done so, then everyone would have been far too preoccupied for the Queen and the Abbess to have had their calm and private little tete-a-tete.

Hard on that thought came another: that it was scarcely appropriate to be pleased about such a thing when a man lay dead, brutally murdered. Her shame at her own musings adding haste to her progress, Helewise gathered up her skirts and sprinted down the track to the Abbey gates.

* * *

Sheriff Harry Pelham of Tonbridge was an odious man.

Helewise, sitting listening to his pronouncements on the murder, had to bite down her irritation. At having to listen to his opinions — grandly stated, as if he alone could be right, as if she, a mere woman, could not possibly have any valid contribution — and at having to tolerate his very presence in her room.

He was a big fellow. Solid, squat, a chest like a barrel, and short legs which seemed barely up to the job of supporting the rest of him. He was dressed in a well-worn leather overtunic, and, when he performed his frequently repeated mannerism of flinging out his chest, it was as if his intention were to draw attention to the battle scars which criss-crossed the tough leather. As if he were saying, look! See what perils my duties take me into! See what cudgel blows and broadsword thrusts I have fended off!