Alys Clare: The Joys of My Life

‘Yes,’ Ninian agreed tentatively.

Josse had asked himself over and over again how he would tell Ninian what he had to know. In the end he had decided on a simple statement of facts. ‘Your mother and I fell in love,’ he said. ‘We lay together and she conceived a child, a little girl who was born the following October.’ He waited but Ninian made no comment; Josse could sense his tension and the boy hardly seemed to be breathing. ‘I did not know about our child for quite a long time,’ he went on. ‘For her own good reasons, your mother did not tell me. I met my daughter — she’s called Meggie — ’ Ninian gave a gasp of recognition and Josse remembered his references to that little girl — ‘when she was sixteen months old and, although she continued to live with her mother out in the forest, she and I have had regular contact ever since.’

There was a long silence. Then Ninian said, ‘Why did you not marry my mother?’

Josse had expected the question. ‘I wanted to and, in a way, so did she, for our love was true and enduring, but she was not willing to abandon the strong voice that called her to her life in the wild, and it was not a life that I could join.’

‘Why not?’

‘She lives with people like her, Ninian. They are not like me.’

‘Are they like me?’ Ninian spoke intently but so softly that Josse had to strain to hear.

‘Your mother is of their kind, as was her mother,’ he said. ‘Mag Hobson, your grandmother, was one of the Great Ones of the forest people, as indeed is your mother. I do not know, lad, but I imagine that your inheritance on the distaff side would make you welcome out in the wild, if you chose to go.’

‘I was looking for my mother when you and I met,’ Ninian said. ‘You did not ask why that was.’

‘That’s true.’ Josse thought back. ‘I had imagined it was because you were concerned about her.’

‘I was only worried after I’d looked for her and been unable to find her. I went looking for her because I wanted to ask if I could go and live with her.’

But you were too late, Josse thought, pain ripping through him. Your mother would have done all she could to persuade you back to the life she thought you ought to lead but, in the end, she would have let her heart rule and given you the best, biggest and most loving welcome any lad ever had.

He did not think it would help either of them to say so.

‘What now?’ he asked gruffly.

‘Now? I do not know.’ Ninian sounded far too world-weary for a boy of fourteen.

‘You could return to Sir Walter,’ Josse suggested. ‘He would be pleased to see you, I’m sure, and you could continue your training with-’

‘No.’ Ninian spoke the single word with utter conviction. ‘Sorry, Josse. I know you are trying to persuade me on down the path my mother envisaged for me, but I don’t want to take it any more.’

‘What do you want?’ Josse hardly dared to ask.

Ninian gave him a very sweet smile. Then, settling down on his folded blanket and wrapping his cloak round him, he said, ‘I’ll tell you tomorrow.’

Josse listened to Ninian’s breathing, deepened by sleep, and wondered why the soporific sound was not making his own eyes heavy. Sleep, though, was far away; quietly he got up and walked along the deck until he was standing directly behind the figurehead up in the prow. He looked at the carved wooden face and torso, faded by years of sun and saltwater. She was bare-breasted, her long hair flowing around her shoulders, and the expression on the strong face was fierce and proud. An image of the black goddess, wrapped in Ninian’s pack, floated into Josse’s mind. Soon she’ll be safe, he thought. Soon we shall ‘May I join you?’ A soft voice spoke beside him.

Turning, Josse saw that it was the young man who had come aboard with his wife and twins. ‘Aye,’ Josse said with a smile. ‘I’d have thought you’d be grabbing some sleep while your babies were quiet,’ he added.

The man returned the smile. ‘Yes, it is true that the presence of young makes sleep a rare commodity.’ There was a short silence. Then he said, ‘You are Josse d’Acquin.’

‘Aye.’ And you, Josse thought instantly, are of the forest people, for they do not use worldly titles but call a man simply by his name. Hard on the heels of that realization came another: his companion might bring word of Joanna.

‘I bring you news that will gladden your heart,’ the man began, ‘although it is not that which you yearn to hear.’

‘Joanna is not… She’s…?’

‘I can add nothing to what you already know,’ the man said, with an air of stopping further questions. ‘I am sorry but that is not why I am here.’

‘You were following me?’

‘Yes. We know you went to Rouen, and Deidre and I — she’s my woman; I’m called Ruis — were sent after you. We’ve been watching you and this afternoon, after you had arranged to cross the narrow seas on this ship, I bought passage for us too.’

‘Why?’

Ruis paused for some time. Then he said, ‘You saw Joanna, both before the great ceremony and on that night when the power was raised.’

‘Aye. I… Aye.’ Josse found it both a joy and a pain to remember and it was hard to speak.

‘You did not lie with her when you met in the cathedral?’

‘No. We… She had to return to her encampment.’

‘You observed her face on the night we raised the power?’

‘Aye.’

‘How did you think she looked?’

He pictured her, pale, with grey circles round the eyes. He recalled how he thought she looked exhausted, as if the ordeal had taken all her strength. ‘She was tired. Very tired.’

‘Yes,’ Ruis breathed. ‘She was.’

‘It was taxing, what she had to do?’ Josse asked, desperate to know.

‘Very, although she was fully prepared for it and the extreme exaltation would have provided her with all the strength and energy she needed and more.’ He paused. ‘Josse, she was weary before the ceremony began.’

‘Why?’ The word shot out of him, for he was suddenly angry, so angry, with this calm young man who spoke for the strange people whom Josse could not understand and never would. ‘Just what was it you’d made her do?’

Ruis laughed softly, but Josse could not begin to imagine what was amusing him. ‘Neither we nor anybody else made her do anything. The days when Joanna could be forced into any act against her will were long gone.’ He turned to look at Josse, his eyes bright in the light of the stars and the slim moon. ‘She had a rare power,’ he added. ‘She was a great gift to us, and we shall honour her always for what she has done.’

‘What has she done?’ Josse whispered.

Ruis’s smile spread, as if he were suddenly suffused with joy. ‘She and the entity known as the Bear Man gave up their essence that night and merged themselves in the cone of power. It rose up to the heavens and drove down deep into the ground in that place that has always been sacred to us. The force that lies within the earth answered and it opened up to admit them. The power is now great — greater than it has ever been — and nothing can destroy it. Now and for ever we and what we believe will stay there.’

‘But what of the priests?’ Josse demanded. ‘They will finish their great cathedral and it will-’

‘Yes, indeed they will,’ Ruis agreed serenely, ‘but it does not matter. They cannot stop what now breathes through the very stone, wood and glass of their building. It will be there as long as the world lasts, for even if the cathedral falls, the power will remain. It was there at the beginning; it will be there at the end.’

‘And this… this mission was for Joanna to fulfil?’

‘With the one other, yes. It is what she was born for; her destiny was marked out for her.’