Girl In A Red Tunic (17 page)

     Josse paused. But there was no point in prevaricating since she must surely be thinking exactly the same thing. ‘De Gifford came hunting for a man known to be violent and whom there was evidence to suggest was making for the Abbey. And then the man’s brother is found hanging by the neck.’

     ‘My son saw this man,’ the Abbess said slowly. ‘And that same night he fled from Hawkenlye and went we know not where. Sir Josse, surely there has to be a connection!’

     ‘Not necessarily,’ he said, trying to use his most positive tone to convince her that there was yet room for doubt. ‘For one thing, I find it hard to think what reason there could be for your son knowing a man of Teb Bell’s nature and habits. Why should their paths have ever crossed? For another, we know what Rohaise – and therefore Leofgar – were afraid of, and it had nothing to do with some Tonbridge ruffian looking for his missing brother.’

     The Abbess hesitated, and then said, ‘Unless this priest that Rohaise feared was so anxious to locate Leofgar and the family that he employed one or both of the Bell brothers to search for them.’

     Josse thought it most unlikely. Nevertheless, he said, ‘Perhaps we should speak to the priest before we head off for Hawkenlye.’

     And she simply said, ‘Very well.’

Wilfrid, his son and the blonde young woman he shyly introduced as his wife saw them on their way and Wilfrid told them where to find Father Luke. Josse and the Abbess rode in silence. They carefully followed Wilfrid’s instructions and in time found themselves outside a small and immaculately kept stone cottage that nestled beside the church.

     Father Luke was a short and round little man with twinkling blue eyes set in laughter lines and curly grey hair clinging tightly to his bald head as if afraid of being swept away. His black robe was as neat as his cottage, the mud carefully brushed from the hem and only a couple of rusty-looking stains down the front, where the cloth stretched over his protruding stomach. He greeted the Abbess with elaborate and formal good manners, clearly impressed by her title; Josse noticed with amusement that he was not nearly so moved by a mere knight. He offered them what hospitality his humble home might provide but the Abbess, with an impatient shake of her head, declined.

     ‘I am grateful, Father Luke,’ she said, ‘but Sir Josse and I must be on our way back to the Abbey. I have sought you out merely to ask after two of your flock: Leofgar Warin and his wife Rohaise.’

     The priest shook his head. ‘Ah, yes, a sad little family,’ he said. ‘The young wife is deeply troubled and I fear for her child.’ Leaning closer, standing right beside the golden mare’s shoulder, he elongated his stubby neck so that his face rose closer to the Abbess’s and declared, ‘I suggested to her that her child was a changeling and said I would take him away and put him in the care of the monks!’ He smiled and nodded, as if expecting their amazed and delighted approval.

     But the Abbess said, ‘What possessed you to do something so cruel?’

     All pleasure and pride left his plump face. He exclaimed, ‘But my lady, my intention was to
help
!’ Hurrying on before she could interrupt, he said, ‘I reasoned that perhaps the lady Rohaise herself was uneasy with the child – well, I could see very well that she was – and I came up with the idea of the changeling for her sake. I thought that if I took the little boy away for a time and then brought him back, I could tell her that a miracle had happened while he was with the monks and that, thanks to their prayers, her own boy was returned to her. Then she – all of us – could adopt the pretence that she hadn’t been happy with the child before for the very good reason that he wasn’t hers!
Oh
,’ he pleaded, ‘do you not see? I thought to give her a fresh start! I really was trying to help!’

     ‘Yes, I see,’ said the Abbess. Josse thought that her tone was marginally less stony. ‘And you do not in truth subscribe to the possibility of changelings, Father Luke?’

     He laughed, only a little uneasily. ‘Of course not, my lady Abbess! Superstitious nonsense!’

     Josse, who remembered why they had come to see the priest even if the Abbess appeared to have momentarily forgotten, gave her a swift glance and then said, ‘Father Luke, you are not aware, I believe, that Leofgar and Rohaise are not at the Old Manor?’

     ‘Not ... No, indeed, sir knight, although in fact they were not there when I called a few days ago and I imagined they were merely off on a ride somewhere getting some fresh air. I was planning to visit them today or perhaps tomorrow and—’

     Before he could continue and possibly ask any questions that Josse and the Abbess would not wish to answer, Josse interrupted. ‘So you did not send two men out to look for them?’

     ‘I did not!’ Father Luke’s astonishment was written all over his puzzled face. ‘As you rightly surmise, I did not know they were from home!’ His frown deepening, he said, ‘And why should I send someone out to find them?’

     Josse shrugged. ‘To implement this plan of yours of taking Rohaise’s son away from her, perhaps.’

     Father Luke had the grace to look ashamed. ‘No, indeed, for I—’ But then a thought apparently occurred to him, by his dismayed expression not a pleasant one. ‘Oh, dear sweet God,’ he whispered, ‘oh, you think that Leofgar has fled because I was going to take Timus away? Oh, but I was trying to help them!’

     He looked as if he were about to weep. The Abbess, Josse noticed, was staring at him with the first signs of compassion on her face which he thought, under the circumstances, was generous. He said, ‘Aye, Father, we understand that your intentions were good, even if—’ No. He would not go on. Father Luke’s conscience was already troubling him quite enough. ‘We must be on our way, Father,’ he said instead, ‘for we wish to reach the Abbey by dusk fall.’

     Father Luke nodded vaguely, eyeing the Abbess uneasily. She wished him a fairly distant good day and turned Honey’s head, kicking the mare’s sides and heading off down the path. Josse, pitying the priest staring miserably after her, said, ‘Thank you, Father, you have been very helpful.’

     ‘But I don’t understand!’ Father Luke cried. ‘Why should the Abbess of Hawkenlye ride all the way over here to ask about Leofgar Warin and his wife?’

     Josse wondered if to tell him. But then he thought,
she
didn’t, and he decided to follow her example. Instead he shrugged and said, ‘She keeps her own counsel, Father. You know how it is.’ He gave the priest a man-to-man grin and, before Father Luke could say anything else, hurried away after the Abbess.

‘The man is a fool,’ said the Abbess as she kicked the mare into a canter, ‘and his
good intentions
’ – the very way in which she spoke the words was a mockery – ‘may have cost my son dear.’

     ‘Aye.’ Josse had to agree with her. But, knowing her so well, he knew too that quite soon her anger would fade and she would begin to see the matter from the priest’s viewpoint. Then she would regret having spoken unkindly about him, confess her impatient and bitter first reaction and no doubt be given penance for it.

     Hoping to take her mind off Father Luke and his blundering attempts to help, he said brightly, ‘Home to the Abbey and your own bed tonight, my lady!’

     But she turned and gave him a severe look that had the effect of preventing any further such conversational attempts. And, for the rest of the journey back to Hawkenlye, they rode in silence.

As they led the horses into the stables, Sister Martha came out to meet them. She gave the Abbess a low and reverential bow and then, just as Josse spied the extra horse already tethered in one of the stalls, said, ‘My lady, Sir Josse, Gervase de Gifford is here. He has been shown to your room, where he awaits you.’

     ‘Very well, Sister Martha.’ The Abbess turned on her heel and strode off towards her room, Josse following close behind. He was about to make some remark to the effect that Gervase’s business with her must be pressing, for him to have waited even when there was no guarantee that she would be returning to the Abbey today, but something about her straight back and the determined set of her shoulders suggested that she had also realised this and did not want to talk about it.

     She preceded him into her room, where de Gifford stood up and greeted them with his usual smooth courtesy. ‘Good day to you both.’

     The Abbess returned his greeting. Moving around her table and seating herself in her chair, she said without preamble, ‘I understand that you wish to speak to me?’

     De Gifford, emulating her directness, said, ‘A man named Arthur Fitzurse has been to see me. He claims to be a friend of the Bell brothers and, apparently unaware that I am already doing so, he has asked – demanded – that I instigate a full-scale search for Walter Bell, whom he is very afraid may have met the same fate as Teb.’

     Josse asked swiftly, ‘Is this Fitzurse the man who was overheard talking to Teb Bell in the tavern?’

     De Gifford turned to him. ‘Yes.’

     ‘And what do you know of him?’

     ‘Very little,’ de Gifford confessed. ‘Personally I have never met him and my man who saw him with Teb Bell will say only that Fitzurse looks “vaguely familiar” and that he “could have seen him once or twice afore”. Fitzurse is in middle age – perhaps in the mid-thirties – and dresses well. When seen in the tavern he wore a dark woollen tunic with good, bright trimmings and his boots were of supple and probably costly leather and when he—’

     ‘Your man keeps his eyes open,’ the Abbess interrupted.

     ‘He does, my lady,’ de Gifford agreed. ‘When Fitzurse came to see me, he was dressed in a different tunic and also a thick fur-trimmed cloak. As I said, he is a man who likes to dress well and has the means to do so.’

     ‘We were going to search for Walter Bell ourselves,’ Josse said. ‘When you left us two days ago, I was planning to organise the lay brothers into a hunt both among the people staying here in the Abbey and also out into the fringes of the forest.’

     ‘And did you find anything?’ There was a strange eagerness in de Gifford’s tone, Josse thought uneasily, as if it were very important that Josse gave him a positive answer.

     Josse glanced at the Abbess. ‘Er – we were called away on another matter and, as you see, have only just returned. I will speak to Brother Saul presently and ask if he has news for us.’

     ‘I see.’ De Gifford frowned. Then, turning to the Abbess, he said, ‘My lady, I have been fervently hoping that Walter Bell would turn up alive and well, with no mischief done either by him or to him. But my own search party has found no trace of him. He is known to frequent the tavern in Tonbridge, just as his brother did – in fact they were regularly to be found there, heads together as they plotted their various schemes. Nobody has seen Walter for some weeks. The last positive sighting was reported by Goody Anne, who had an argument with him one market day at the start of the month.’ He paused. ‘She is a reliable woman, I have always found, and I am inclined to believe her.’

     ‘So am I,’ Josse agreed. Turning to the Abbess, he said, ‘I have met Goody Anne on several occasions, my lady, and she is both intelligent and shrewd.’ The Abbess nodded. To de Gifford he said, ‘What was the argument about?’

     De Gifford smiled. ‘Walter Bell complained that his dish of pie was cold and Goody Anne said it was his own fault for drinking two mugs of ale on an empty stomach and getting so garrulous that he forgot to eat his dinner.’

     ‘Garrulous,’ murmured the Abbess. Both men turned to look at her. ‘If he was garrulous, he was talking to somebody, perhaps more than one person,’ she said. ‘Would she, do you think, Sheriff, remember who?’

     Looking at her approvingly as if in appreciation of her astute remark, de Gifford said, ‘She does. He was talking with his brother and with Arthur Fitzurse and, according to Anne, they were very intent on whatever it was they were saying –
plotting
was her word – and they kept their heads close and their voices down as if they didn’t want to be overheard.’

     Josse, picking up de Gifford’s urgency, said to the Abbess, ‘My lady, with your permission I will seek out Brother Saul and ask if the search party has come up with anything.’

     She nodded. ‘Of course, Sir Josse. Send someone to find him.’

     He bowed briefly and hurried to the door. Opening it, he saw a lay brother crossing the cloister towards the refectory and called out to him; once he had the young man’s attention, he asked him to find Brother Saul and send him up to the Abbess’s room.