Alys Clare - Fortune Like the Moon

Trying to put aside one possibly loopy old man’s prejudice and maintain an open mind, Josse rode on.

* * *

The Winnowlands estates, he could see straightaway, were rich. The land here, on the edge of the escarpment that rose up to the north of the great marshland, was good, and put to a variety of uses. Herds of cows grazed in well-grassed meadows, and flocks of sheep fattened themselves on the sparser grass nearer the marshes. The land under the plough was well-tended and looked fertile, and the strips were neat and tidily fenced. There were several huddles of dwellings, and, inspecting one which was clearly visible from the road, Josse noted that the reed-thatch roofs looked sound. One or two small cultivated areas near to the dwellings were thick with cabbages, carrots and onions, and in one, someone was growing some tiny pink flowers. In a fenced-off run, a sow and her young rootled in the dirt.

The land, quite clearly, yielded a good living. This should have been a happy place.

Why, then, Josse wondered as he slowly rode on, was there such an air of despondency? The few people he had seen — and why were they so few? Where was everyone? — seemed hardly to be aware of the stranger in their midst. Wasn’t that in itself strange? Josse had travelled countless miles, through all sorts of alien lands, and the one constant factor among all the different peoples he had encountered — especially the country people — was their curiosity. Well, you could understand it. They lived small lives, probably never went further away than the boundaries of the manor where they’d been born and where, in due course, they’d die. Saw exactly the same faces, year in, year out. A stranger was a rarity. Someone to be stared at, his possible provenance and purpose discussed and analysed for days, if not weeks, afterwards.

But these people working away on the Winnowlands acres seemed preoccupied. Dejected, Josse thought, would not be inaccurate. Was it — could it be — that they shared the family grief for a dead daughter? It was a possibility. But surely such an exaggerated response was unlikely; to grieve deeply, one had to have known the dead person well. And would any of these serfs working in the fields have known anything of Gunnora, other than a vague distant presence? Even more distant, for the last year of her life.

And, Josse thought as he rode on towards the manor house, hadn’t Abbess Helewise said that her lay brother detected a deep misery in these people even before he gave them the news of Gunnora’s murder?

No. Something else had happened here. Something so bad that it affected all the people whose security depended on the Winnowlands manor. And, whatever it was, it had predated Gunnora’s death.

He drew rein on the top of a hillock that rose up on the other side of the road from the Winnowlands manor house, and, in the golden light of late afternoon, stared down at the place that had been Gunnora’s home.

It was a solidly built construction, clearly the home of a wealthy family, and of generous proportions; stout stone steps led from the wall-enclosed courtyard up to the entrance, at first floor level, and there was space for a large hall. There was a solar at the western end, and what appeared to be a private chapel. Two turreted extensions suggested that the original building had been extended at some time, perhaps to make room for an increasing family. Beneath the living quarters was a wide undercroft; its narrow door stood ajar, and Josse could glimpse within the shadowy depths a profusion of stores.

As he watched, a man, clad in a leather jerkin over hose tucked into stout boots, appeared from behind the house. He called out a reply to some unseen presence within the house; it seemed to have been a demand for firewood, for he disappeared inside the undercroft and emerged with a basket of small logs.

A fire? When the day had been so hot?

A cooking fire, Josse decided. The person within wanted to get on with preparing the master’s supper. But, as he watched, he noticed a billow of smoke issue from some aperture in the roof. Not the sort of smoke that comes from a well-established fire, such as might have been kept in all day for the purposes of cooking or water-heating; the smoke that comes when a fire is newly lit.

Someone, then, had ordered the man in the jerkin to light a fire. When the day was still so hot that Josse could feel the trickles of sweat running down his back, even sitting still.

He heard the sounds of an approaching horse, coming from his right. The man in the jerkin heard them too, and came slowly down the steps from the hall to await the new arrival. Josse quietly urged his horse to take a few paces back, so that he was hidden behind the bulge of the hillock; it did not seem wise, whichever way you looked at it, for Josse to be observed peering down at the goings-on in the Winnowlands household. Dismounting, he crawled forward so that he could peer down into the courtyard.

The newcomer was a young man, slim, well-dressed in the latest fashion. He had shortened his tunic to mid-thigh length, and the richly decorated hem was cut away into exaggerated slits at the side, revealing the muscles of the man’s buttocks, clad in very tight hose. On his feet — and unsuitable, surely, for riding — he wore soft leather shoes with elongated points at the toe. His fair hair was very neatly cut, the fringe a dead-straight line above the wide forehead, except for where one careful curl had been arranged. He said something to the leatherjerkined man, who must, Josse thought, be some sort of senior house-servant, and the man shook his head. The young man leaned down off his horse, and, this time, spoke more loudly. Josse picked up a word or two: ‘… must see him … do insist … come all this way … no authority to bar the door against me! ’

The older man’s reply was also audible; even more so, since he was in fact shouting.

‘I know very well what you’re here for, and so does the Master! I tell you, young sir, he doesn’t want to see you!’

‘I will see him! It’s my right!’

‘You’ll be admitted when the Master’s good and ready, and not a moment sooner! Now you’d better be gone, Milon, afore the Master hears and comes out himself to send you packing!’

The younger man gave a short laugh, an unpleasant, mocking sound. ‘That one? Come out here? Ha! It’ll be the first time in a long while if he does, Will, and you know it!’

‘I’ll not admit you, Milon, so there’s no use you hanging around.’ The man in the jerkin — Will — now advanced towards the youngster, and even from a distance Josse could see the menace in his face. ‘Be gone! You’ll be told, when there’s aught for you to know.’

Milon turned his horse with a savage jerk at the reins. Glaring at Will, he had his parting shot: ‘I’ll be back, you dirty peasant! Just you wait!’

Will stood looking after him as he spurred his horse into a furious gallop and, raising clouds of dust, set off back the way he had come. Then, the heavy face full of disgust, he spat out a heavy gobule of phlegm in the direction the young man had taken. There could not, Josse thought, have been a more eloquent valediction.

Josse waited until Will had gone back inside, gave him a few minutes in case he came out again — somehow he didn’t fancy having to explain himself to Will right there and then — and, after a good interval, mounted, rode down off his hillock and set off for Newenden and his bed for the night.

* * *

He returned the next morning. He had found lodgings in an acceptable inn, eaten a good supper, even been provided with hot water to remove the dust and sweat of the journey. Now he was dressed in his best, as befitted an emissary from the Abbess of Hawkenlye Abbey; he and Helewise had agreed that this would be his role, and that, as his reason for calling on Gunnora’s father, he would say that the Abbey urgently needed to know what were his wishes concerning his daughter’s body.