Alys Clare: The Rose of the World

‘My — my father prepared it for me,’ he managed to say. He was feeling very strange. ‘He — he put in winter garments, a change of linen, a sharp knife and some food.’

‘And have you unpacked your bag since you left home?’ the soft but imperative voice went on.

He tried to think. Had he? Acquin was the last place he had stayed for more than a night, and he was almost sure he had not taken everything out of the bag then. While on the road he had only changed his linen once, stuffing the soiled garments down towards the bottom of the bag. ‘No,’ he whispered. He tried to think what she was doing, why she seemed intent on putting him into a trance; what did she want from him? Even as he formed the fearful question, it was as if her mind reached into his and swept it away.

‘Look inside your pack,’ she intoned. ‘Take everything out. Lay your belongings on the floor where I may see them.’

With no will of his own, he obeyed. He reached out and dragged the pack towards him, unfastening the ties and taking out his leather water bottle — still half full — and his small knife. A shirt came next — very dirty — and then some mud-caked hose that stank of sweat. A lightweight tunic, a length of frayed and stained linen in which he had once wrapped some slices of ham, a filthy undershirt.

The bag was empty, and he turned back to face her. He thought she spoke to him, which was odd because her lips did not move. A voice said: look again.

He reached his hand right down to the bottom of the bag. To his great surprise, his searching fingers located a small, hard parcel wrapped in linen.

As he touched it, he thought that a jolt of some sort of energy flowed into his fingertips and up his arm. With a cry, he withdrew his hand.

‘Take it out,’ Alazais commanded.

He could not disobey. Nerving himself, he took hold of the package again. This time the shock was not so severe. Curious now — dear Lord, what was this thing he had carried unknowingly all those hundreds and hundreds of miles? — he pulled it out of the bag.

The parcel was rectangular in shape, about as long as a man’s hand and two-thirds as broad. The linen that wrapped it was yellow with age and tied with a length of twine.

He held it out to Alazais, but she shook her head. Her eyes shining now, her face filled with such anguished yearning that he flinched from her, she whispered, ‘You have brought it to me. You must unwrap it.’

He placed the package in his lap and with shaking hands untied the knotted twine. He pulled at the linen and it fell away. He stared down at what lay revealed.

It was a book, made up of several sheets of vellum, fastened together on the left-hand side with a leather cord woven into an intricate pattern. The covers were of board, bound in thick leather into which a pattern had been stamped.

‘It’s… it’s a book,’ he said stupidly.

‘Open it,’ she whispered.

He did so.

The first page was densely covered in letters. Ninian could barely read, but he understood enough to appreciate that the words made no sense to him. Whatever language they were written in, it was one he did not know. He turned a page, then another, and sumptuously-coloured illustrations seemed to leap out at him, so vivid, so alive, that he almost thought they moved. One showed a circle of black-robed figures, arms raised, their joy so palpable that he smiled with them. He flicked on through the book and saw a strange cross; another group of people, this time apparently singing; a beautiful scene of pink and gold clouds…

Then on the next page he saw a sight that made him gasp aloud. Two worlds were depicted, side by side. The light world had more of the fluffy, sunlit clouds, now inhabited by human-like figures that were vague and dreamy. The world of the dark, in hideous contrast, was a nightmare land of chaos and misery, its inhabitants wailing in torment as they tore at their hair, nature around them distorted and corrupt.

‘Turn the page,’ Alazais said sharply.

He glanced up at her. He wondered how she had known what he was looking at since she had her eyes closed and, anyway, could not have seen the book in his lap, for his shoulder concealed it from her.

He did as she commanded.

On the very last page, there was neither writing nor any illustration. Instead, there was a strange pattern of marks, odd little black dots, each with a tail that went either up or down. The marks were set out in careful lines, and the lines covered the whole page. Beneath the marks there were symbols. As he studied the lines, it seemed to him that somehow the symbols related to the marks…

He heard a snatch of music, if indeed music was what it was. Sounds, anyway, such beautiful sounds, in a pattern that stopped his heart and then set it beating in a different way. He was filled with a joy so vast that he felt his solid, earthbound body could not contain it.

The sounds ceased. He gave an involuntary sound — a groan? A sigh of ecstasy? All strength left him, and he slumped to the ground.

He was awake. He did not know how long he had been unconscious. Tentatively, he flexed his arms and legs, trying to see if he had been hurt. Everything seemed fine. He opened his eyes and, very carefully, sat up.

Alazais sat in her high chair, dark, immobile, mysterious, like the statue of some ancient goddess from man’s infancy. On her face was a look of bliss. As he looked more closely — for he wondered if she had died — he saw there were tears on her thin cheeks, glistening in the light from the fire.

After a while she opened her eyes and looked down at him. ‘You have done it, Ninian de Courtenay,’ she said softly. ‘Against all expectations, you have found me and brought to me what I so desperately needed. May you be blessed with a long and happy life, for you have done a deed far greater than you can know.’

‘What have I done?’ he demanded wildly. ‘I have never seen that book before, and I had no idea I was carrying it! What is it? Where does it come from?’

But she held out her hand, and abruptly he fell silent. ‘Sleep,’ she intoned. ‘Sleep now, for your journey has been long and hard, and your heart is sore with sorrow. Sleep, be healed, and tomorrow we shall talk.’

Her hand waved above his head in a careful dance of precise movements. His eyelids drooped, and he slipped down on to the floor. His last waking awareness was of hands as gentle as a mother’s tucking the sheepskins more closely around him.

Shortly after his return to the House in the Woods, and after he and Helewise had enjoyed to the full the family’s relieved welcome, Josse set out for Tonbridge to see Gervase de Gifford.

He found the sheriff at home. With a glance at Sabin, occupied with her young daughter as she supervised the girl’s efforts to grind some tiny seeds in a pestle, Gervase led Josse outside. He strode across to a stone bench in a corner of the courtyard and, under a weak late autumn sun, the two men sat down.

‘Olivier de Brionne is dead,’ Josse said. ‘He died on the road south through France, and I surmise he was hunting for Ninian to silence him.’ He outlined his reasoning, and Gervase nodded.

‘You are sure that this dead man was in truth Olivier?’ he asked.

‘Aye, I’m sure,’ Josse replied. ‘The description fitted and, besides, the wounds matched those Olivier had. One was badly infected, and I guess that was what killed him.’

Gervase nodded. ‘Poor Beatrice,’ he murmured. ‘Both sons gone, her daughter mistress of her own establishment, and a witless dotard her only company.’

Josse bowed his head. Aye, he thought, poor Beatrice. In the midst of his own worries and sorrows, he had forgotten hers.