Alys Clare - Ashes of the Elements

But I didn’t.

He said, although it was not really relevant, ‘Whom did he meet?’

Petronilla looked surprised. ‘You ask me that, Sir Knight? For all your cleverness, you have not worked it out?’

He shook his head. ‘No.’

A faint smile briefly quirked the thin lips. ‘I told you, did I not, that Tobias was raised by his old aunt?’

‘Aye.’

‘Yes. Well, the aunt lived a mean and penny-pinching life, but the one thing that shone like a jewel in her household was her maidservant. A jewel, indeed, that the old woman must herself have much appreciated. The girl was young and joyful, and she used to sing as she went about her work, even though, given that her days were long, the labour was hard, and the old woman gave never a word of praise, one would have thought she had little to sing about.’ A soft sigh. ‘She was irresistible to Tobias, naturally, and he to her. They fell for one another and they became lovers. In time, the old aunt fell sick, and, possibly in some gesture of repentance for her unkind ways, she demanded to go on a pilgrimage to take the holy waters. The girl took her off to Hawkenlye Abbey, where, in the Lord’s good time, He took her to himself.’ Another brief smile. ‘No doubt everyone was pleased to see the back of her, although the kind thoughts any good soul might have had about her would soon have flown out of the window when her will was read, since she left not a sou to Tobias, or to anyone else who had cared for her. She left the lot to that wretched Abbey.’

But Josse was hardly listening. He was thinking, remembering. In his head he heard the Abbess Helewise’s voice … She arrived with her late mistress, who died when she was with us.

Esyllt was left with nowhere to go.

‘He was in love with Esyllt!’ he said. ‘It was she who had been the old aunt’s servant, wasn’t it? And it was to visit her, the love of his youth whom he couldn’t forget, that Tobias kept going up to the forest!’

Carried away by the lovely, romantic picture, he hadn’t paused to think that it would scarcely appear lovely to Petronilla. Hastily he said, ‘Lady, forgive me, I forgot, for the instant, that it was of your husband that we speak. He was, of course, false to you, an adulterer and a liar. And that was a sin, a grave sin, both against holy law and against you, madam.’

But she wasn’t listening. She was humming to herself, an incongruously bright little tune which Josse thought he recognised, although the good Lord alone knew from where.

‘“It is love he doth bring, And the sweet birds do sing, And my love he loves me in the spring,”’ the faint, reedy voice sang. Petronilla’s eyes turned to Josse. ‘She sang that to him, you know, and I would hear him singing it when he thought I couldn’t hear. But I could. Then I knew he had been with her again.’ Tears were running down the ashen face. ‘He promised,’ she whispered. ‘After the last time, he promised. ’ She grasped Josse’s sleeve. ‘He did love me, you see, really he did, and, when I said he must stop seeing her or else I would turn him out, he promised that he would.’ Her face softened suddenly. ‘I couldn’t have turned him out, though. I loved him far too much.’

Josse patted the hand knotted tightly in his sleeve. ‘I understand, lady.’ He did, all too clearly. The elderly wife, knowing her husband’s nature, trying to pen him into a bargain, only to find he was unable to keep to its terms. Reneging, being found out, promising to do better, tempted back again to the sweet and joyous young woman waiting for him.

Had Tobias really loved Petronilla? Seen her as a woman — a wife, indeed — and not just as a wealthy provider?

It seemed as unlikely as it had always done.

But then Josse recalled the young man’s face as he had looked at his wife, smiling at her so affectionately as he spoke of how he had comforted her when her father had died, how, together, the two of them were having such a grand time improving her late father’s house.

I don’t know, he confessed to himself. I just don’t know.

‘He told me this morning that he had been with her again,’ Petronilla said softly. ‘He had just come in, and I imagined he had been out riding in the cool of the early morning. He summoned me to the breakfast table, and I remarked on the glow in his face.’ She sobbed, choked on her emotion, then, after a pause, went on. ‘A terrible dread took me, and I said, oh, Tobias, tell me it isn’t true! Tell me I’m wrong, and that you haven’t been back to her! And, at first, he swore he hadn’t, and I believed him, believed all was well, so I threw myself into his arms and hugged him, and — oh — and I — he-’

For a moment, she couldn’t go on. Then, as if she knew she must, she said, with a touching dignity, ‘He did not return my embrace. He tried to, but his arms were so stiff, and he held his beautiful body away from me. As if, despite his best efforts, he couldn’t help but compare my thin bones with the luxury of her warm, soft flesh. And, finding me wanting, be unable to hold me to him as he had done her. And then I knew.’

The tears were now drenching the breast of her dark gown, but she did not try to mop them up. And, Josse thought, she could no more have stopped them than flown through the air.

‘My lady, I am so sorry,’ he murmured.

She looked at him. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘It is, I dare say, a matter for sorrow.’ She sighed. ‘I could not stop myself, Sir Knight. All those broken promises, all those times when he had sought his joy with her, and now — oh! now! — he was turning away from me.’ Belatedly she drew a tiny, embroidered handkerchief from her sleeve and, although it was clearly inadequate for the task, began to wipe her eyes, her nose and her wet face. ‘I picked up the footstool that stood beneath table, and, as he moved out of my arms and went to go down the steps, I hit him with it.’

‘Caught him right on the back of his head,’ Josse murmured. ‘Aye, lady. I know.’

She eyed him steadily. ‘I killed him,’ she said. ‘Did I not, Sir Knight? I killed the love of my life, because he could not be true.’

There was a long silence between them. Josse stared down at the dead man lying at their feet, then, furtively, up at the wrecked face of the man’s widow.

She had suffered, poor soul. Would go on suffering, bereft as she was of her handsome young husband, left alone to grieve. And, combined with the grief, the guilt. The blow to the back of the head might not have been the one which killed him, but it had led to that terrible fall on to the corner of the step. Enough reason, surely, to give rise to a guilt powerful enough to eat away at mind, soul, and, eventually, body.

Surely that was punishment enough.

Briefly he allowed himself to imagine what would lie ahead for her, if he did as he ought and summoned a sheriff. Arrest, imprisonment, trial. And, after a terrible time in some foul jail, she would, if they found her guilty, be led out one bright morning and hanged.

No.

It was unthinkable. And, besides, it wouldn’t bring Tobias back.

Josse had, throughout Petronilla’s quietly spoken confidences, been standing on her left side. Now, with growing ostentation, he began tweaking at his right ear.

‘Dear me,’ he said, quite loudly ‘this ear of mine!’

After some time, she turned to look at him. ‘What ails you, Sir Knight?’

He met her eyes, held the gaze. Would not let her look away. Then, very carefully, he said, ‘It’s funny, but I just don’t seem to hear well on my right side. Do you know, lady, I haven’t picked up a word you’ve said, not since you entered the hall and thanked me for coming.’

She looked astonished. ‘But-’ she began.