Alys Clare - The Joys of My Life

‘Josse, I don’t know.’ She leaned against him as she always did and he put up his hands and stroked the length of her smooth brown hair. ‘I have asked my people the same thing but they cannot tell me. It is the first time that it has happened, for one such as I to love someone who is bound entirely by the limits of the earth.’

‘I love you,’ he said.

‘And I you.’ She managed to smile. ‘And love doesn’t die — that is the one rule of the universe that cannot change.’

‘Find me, if you can,’ he whispered.

‘I will.’ She stretched up and kissed him, long and deeply.

Then she was gone.

Now the vision was different. He knew he was back in the cathedral but it was subtly altered, as if his dreaming mind accepted that what he was seeing could not occur in a real place. He saw the figures standing like statues round the circle of light, every head raised, all eyes staring at the central point, every voice singing a chant of praise. Beyond them, the cone reached up, up to the high ribs where soon now the ceiling would soar up there above the wide nave, enclosing the space beneath and closing out the elements, the heavens and the stars. For now, though, the cathedral was still open to the night sky.

The vortex of white mist swayed and flowed, and within it could be glimpsed the central void. But all at once it was not empty; there were people in it. Josse stared at the figures. Sometimes they seemed to be a woman and a huge bear; sometimes it was a man who supported the woman as they twisted and turned, driven upwards, always upwards, by the power of the vortex. There was a flash of white light — so dazzling that it seemed to force its way right through Josse’s eyes and inside his head, momentarily blinding him — and he thought he saw within his mind the image of a huge swirling tower of luminous brilliance that stretched from the zenith of the heavens above down, down through the space where one day the cathedral roof would be, down through the very centre of the labyrinth, down through the solid stone floor to the crypt below, into the heart of that strange cave-like depression, to bury itself at last in the earth far, far below.

Within the light danced the figures of Joanna and the Bear Man. They were a part of it now, as he knew they would always be. Other images flowed alongside them, forming, dissolving and forming again: a black woman in a horned headdress who rode on the crescent moon; the same woman, eyes closed in bliss and long, graceful hands clasped in the age-old symbol of protection across her pregnant belly; a child, as dark as his mother, sitting on her lap with a star in his hand.

All at once the voices of the people soared up into a paean of praise that rose to an unbelievable, deafening climax and then fell away. The cone of light flared like a bursting star and then went out. Josse, his head spinning and sick with vertigo, fell senseless to the ground.

When he came to, the great cathedral was empty except for Ninian, curled up by his side. He kept quite still — his head ached agonizingly and he felt dizzy even lying down — and slowly let his eyes roam around.

His face was still wet with tears. Slowly he raised a hand and wiped them away. Did I dream it? he wondered. I must have done, for what I saw is impossible. The vision was, he decided, the product of his fears for Joanna and the aftermath of the fight, perhaps augmented by some herbal concoction that the people had been brewing and that made the white mist. He closed his eyes again. Is that what I believe has happened to her? he asked himself. Do I want to think she’s gone far beyond my reach and I may never see her again?

No.

But he was afraid — very afraid — that she had indeed gone, and perhaps his dream version of her fate was the only one that he could find at all acceptable. If so, it was scant consolation.

Beside him, Ninian stirred. Very carefully Josse turned his head to look at the boy. His face too was drenched in tears.

Did he see what I saw? Josse wondered. Did he too witness his mother in that huge cone of power and understand, in part at least, that this was her destiny?

He had no idea. It was much too soon to ask, if, indeed, he ever could. Instead he put out his hand and clasped Ninian’s. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked softly.

After a moment, Ninian said, ‘Yes.’

Without another word they cautiously got up and, leaning on each other for support, slowly walked through the deserted cathedral and out into the dawn.

As they crept out of the cathedral, Ninian gave a gasp and pointed to where three bodies lay in the corner between a buttress and the wall. He and Josse hurried over and, carefully turning the men over to see their faces, recognized the night watchmen.

‘Are they dead?’ Ninian asked softly.

Josse inspected each one. ‘No,’ he replied. ‘All three are breathing.’ He had been feeling around the head of the third man. ‘They’ve been knocked unconscious. De Loup’s work, or one of his knights, to ensure they were not disturbed down there in the crypt.’

‘Not de Loup, then,’ Ninian said in a hard voice. ‘He would have killed them.’

‘We ought to take them somewhere they can receive care,’ Josse began, ‘and-’

‘We can’t, Josse!’ Ninian exclaimed. ‘There’s a crypt full of dead and wounded knights behind us and we did the damage! Yes, I know we were defending ourselves and seriously outnumbered, but it’ll take ages to prove that, even assuming we can, and in the meantime de Loup is running away.’

The boy was right. Josse looked down at the watchmen, one of whom was already stirring. If he and Ninian fled now, nobody need know they had ever been there. They could return to their anonymous lodging house, collect their horses and be away in next to no time.

He stood up. ‘All right.’

Both Josse and Ninian guessed that de Loup would run for home. Denied his aim of placing the black figure beneath the cathedral, surely his only alternative would be to return her to the tower at World’s End. It was only a guess, though, and, as they urged their horses on down the smooth, flat road that ran south-east beside the River Eure, Josse prayed that it was the right one.

As the sun came up across the water to their left, they saw ahead of them a long-maned white horse, head down as it grazed the lush grass beside the river. Beneath a willow tree, leaning back against its trunk with his knees drawn up and his head in his hands, sat Philippe de Loup.

He looked up at Josse and Ninian, wry resignation on his lined, chalk-white face. ‘So you have found me once more,’ he remarked. ‘You are persistent; I will say that for you.’ He closed his eyes.

‘What ails you?’ Josse asked.

De Loup opened his eyes and glared up at him. ‘As I said last night, the boy has a heavy hand with a bolt of wood,’ he said. He put up a hand and touched the back of his head. ‘I believe he cracked my skull.’

Josse slipped off Horace’s back. ‘Let me look,’ he said. ‘Perhaps we can assist, or help you to where you can receive treatment.’

De Loup began to laugh. ‘I said you were a fool,’ he observed, ‘and I was right. Do you not recognize an enemy when he stares you in the face?’ Before Josse could reply, he added, ‘Besides, it is too late.’ He took a breath and squared the slumped shoulders. ‘I can no longer feel the left side of my body.’

Josse thought rapidly. He had seen men take a blow to the head, get up and appear to be all right and then some time later, just like de Loup, take sick and die. It was as if the brain refused at first to admit it was fatally damaged.

Ninian had also dismounted. ‘I will take her,’ he announced, advancing on de Loup.