Girl In A Red Tunic (33 page)

     ‘Where is she?’ Helewise asked faintly.

     ‘She will not be far away.’ Arthur sounded confident. ‘She knows that you were to be brought here. She will soon come back.’

     Then, with a glance at her that she could not read, he went outside and closed the door. She heard him push some heavy object up against it and, when after a while she quietly got up and went to try to open it, it would not budge.

     She sat down again and waited.

     Trying to keep fear out of her mind, she thought about Arthur Fitzurse. It was as she had conjectured, she was sure of it. He was in truth the illegitimate son of Benedict Warin, and that was why he was doing all this; it was why he had sent someone to search Leofgar’s house and implicate him in murder, why now he had brought her here. Before dread could take hold of her, she made herself think about something else. Two matters presented themselves for her immediate consideration: first, why should Benedict have fought so hard to deny the son he had fathered? For a man of his station to spread his seed and throw up one or two bastards was hardly uncommon, after all; why, even kings did it! And Benedict had in any case been a well-known womaniser; although people might have thought the less of him, nobody would have been very surprised to know about Arthur.

     The other matter for her to think about was the interesting fact that it seemed to be Arthur’s mother, not he, who was the driving force. She was just turning over in her mind who this fierce woman might be when there came the sound of voices outside. Soon afterwards the door was thrust open and Arthur came in. Behind him stepped a slight figure dressed all in black, a shawl over its head and pulled forward to conceal the face.

     Arthur stood aside and tucked himself away in a corner just inside the door. The shrouded figure moved across the room and stopped right in front of Helewise. There was a husky laugh – a woman’s laugh – and then a voice said, ‘Young Helewise de Swansford, or I suppose I should call you Helewise Warin. It must be a quarter of a century since last I set eyes on you. To these eyes of mine that see so clearly, you have scarcely changed. Despite the habit of
poverty
’ – she seemed almost to spit the word – ‘I would have known you anywhere.’

     Helewise drew herself up. ‘You have the advantage, then. Who are you, and what do you want of me?’

     The woman laughed again, a sound that now she managed to fill with malevolence and menace. ‘Do you not know? Then I will tell you what happened to me and we shall see if you can guess.’ Before Helewise had a chance to comment, the woman pressed on, her voice louder now and the words coming readily, as if she had gone through this story very many times.

     ‘I was the daughter of a widow of spotless reputation but limited means,’ she began. ‘We lived honestly but we were poor, and when I was thirteen a position was found for me in a large household. I began as the lowliest of maidservants but as the great improvement in my diet took effect I grew comely and men began to notice me.’ Her face was still concealed but it seemed to Helewise that she stood straighter, preening herself; perhaps she was remembering her lost looks. ‘I was given easier work and a better position, then one day I went with my master and mistress to the Old Manor.’ Helewise gave a start. ‘Aye, Helewise, you remember the place?’ Now the woman was jeering. ‘You remember its master too, I dare say. You remember Benedict Warin as he was in his prime. So do I, lady. So do I.’

     She stopped. Turning away from Helewise, she strode to the door and back, as if the memory that she was conjuring up was too powerful for her to stand still. ‘I liked what I saw, I admit that,’ she said, resuming her position in front of the bench where Helewise sat. ‘I knew by then how to attract a man, how to make him think he would never rest again until he had bedded me, and I put my spell on Benedict. It’s quite easy to draw a man when you know how, Helewise,’ she remarked, as if Helewise had asked, ‘a simple matter of a love potion slipped into his broth, a spell spoken naked in the moonlight and the exquisite scent of your own lust on your fingers when your hands are close to his face. He came running, I can tell you, quicker than a hound on a hare.

     ‘Then when I found I was with child I sought him out and asked him what he was going to do. I told him what I wanted—’

     ‘Yes,’ Helewise interrupted, ‘I already know the sum of your demands.’

     ‘Oh, you do, do you?’ The woman’s mocking tone had returned. ‘Reasonable, were they not? The pity of it was that Benedict Warin did not agree. He claimed the child wasn’t his and when I insisted, he threw me out. I kept coming back and he blackened my name, hounded me wherever I went, and I was driven to trying a few little ruses of my own to keep body and soul together. I was pregnant, mind, and you know, don’t you, Helewise, how that state makes the appetite grow? Especially when it’s a healthy boy who kicks in your womb?’

     ‘Little ruses?’ Helewise demanded sharply. ‘You speak of spells and witchcraft, do you not?’

     ‘Perhaps, perhaps.’ The woman drew out the words. ‘Folk are superstitious, no matter how the church tries to beat it out of them, and if they prefer to trust in the old ways when they perceive a threat instead of running to that meek and mild saviour whom their priests value so highly, why should I care?’

     ‘What did you do?’ Helewise whispered.

     The woman smiled. ‘Oh, I poisoned a well and when the people fell sick I told them they’d offended the spirit of the spring and that only my charms would save them. Then when they had all paid up I stopped putting the potion in the water – don’t look like that, Helewise! It wouldn’t have killed them, for I know my herbs better than to kill where I don’t intend to – and miraculously the people recovered.’ Leaning closer, she said softly, ‘That was a trick. But I have the Sight and the power to see and to influence things that are veiled from others. You would be surprised to know how many folk crept to my room by night and begged me to make this person fall in love with them, or that person’s crops fail, or tell them what some secret enemy was saying behind their back.’

     Despite herself, Helewise was fascinated. ‘How can you see these things?’ she asked.

     The woman contemplated her for a long moment. ‘Does your bible not speak of visions?’

     ‘Yes, but—’

     Sirida sighed. ‘But such things are allowed among the holy but not for witches? Helewise, witches are but the holy of an earlier religion! Are you so blind that you cannot see?’

     Closing her eyes and her mind to what this terrible person would have her see, Helewise fell silent.

     Presently the woman spoke again. ‘What if I did use my talents? I had to help myself, seeing as nobody else was going to. But they turned that against me too and drove me away, accusing me of making magic, of putting the evil eye on their livestock and turning their bawling brats sickly. I promised I’d make all well again if they’d give me what I wanted but oh, no, even my small requests were too much for those smug and self-righteous folk who had once been my neighbours and my friends!’

     She was spitting with anger, all the passion of her rejection returning in full force. Her thin body shook with the force of her rage and the concealing shawl slipped slightly; with an impatient hand, the woman pulled it back in place.

     Trying to speak calmly, Helewise said, ‘And so you came here and brought up your son alone.’

     ‘I did,’ the woman agreed, quieter now. ‘Aye, I did.’ She turned and, for a brief moment, stared into the dark corner where Arthur still stood, his head bowed. Facing Helewise again, she said, ‘But I did not let him forget his roots. He’s a Warin, never mind that he was conceived out of wedlock. Yet look at him and look at your own son, Helewise!’
Son
, Helewise thought with the first stab of relief; this woman, whoever she is, does not know as much as she believes she does! She does not even know that I bore
two
sons. ‘Look at Leofgar in his splendid house,’ the black-clad woman was saying, ‘lovely wife and handsome child, food on the table, servants to attend to his every wish, doting mother who conveniently hears the call from God and vacates her marital home so as to leave it free for her son!’

     Indeed she does not know everything, Helewise thought jubilantly. She knows nothing of Dominic and she is only guessing at how I came to leave the Old Manor and enter Hawkenlye Abbey. Eyes down lest the woman read her expression, she said meekly, ‘Leofgar has lived a blessed life, in truth.’ Until you came along to spoil it, she wanted to add. ‘But what of it? What is it to you?’ She made her voice sound puzzled and indignant, as if she truly had not grasped what was happening.

     The woman gave a sound of annoyance; hard, abrupt. Then: ‘They do not require intelligence of their nuns up at Hawkenlye, then.’ Helewise held her peace. ‘It’s obvious,’ the woman hurried on, eager now. ‘Leofgar has what Arthur ought to have. Leofgar has it
all
, Arthur has nothing. I am old now and I will not live much longer, yet I would see my son come into his inheritance before I die.’

     ‘Your son is illegitimate and has no legal claim on the Warins,’ Helewise stated flatly. ‘That is the law. It will not be changed to suit you.’

     ‘No legal claim, perhaps.’ The woman pretended not to have heard the rest of Helewise’s remark. ‘But he has a moral claim, do you not agree, Helewise? Your father-in-law used me cruelly and flung me away when he was finished with me, and my son and I have lived wretchedly ever since. Why should not Leofgar give some of what he has in such abundance to improve Arthur’s lot?’ When Helewise made no reply – she had no intention of doing so – the woman cried out, ‘I do not ask for much! But what I demand I will have, I swear to you, or else it will be the worst for Leofgar! You think he has suffered already? Well, you wait! If you do not give me what I want, you’ll learn very quickly the terrible things I can do when I’m
really
angry!’

     The threat was awful. But Helewise’s own anger had burned up through her; leaping to her feet, towering over the woman, she shouted, ‘You will not succeed! You have sent a thief to my son’s house and tried to make it appear that my son killed him, and now you have taken me captive, but neither measure will avail you! I am not afraid of you – you will
not
succeed!’

     The echo of her words rang out in the hut and, as they faded, there was silence. A horrible, creeping silence, as if the last word in the world had been spoken. Alarmed, wondering why she should suddenly feel such dread, Helewise stared down at the woman.

     Who, with agonising slowness, drew back her dark shawl so that Helewise could at last see her face.

     It was very white, as if she seldom ventured out, and thin, the cheekbones stark and sharp. Her wide mouth was tight and surrounded by small outward-radiating lines, deep-etched as if from constant pursing. It was a dead face, sucked dry of all joy and of all generous impulse. In it the only living things were her eyes.

     Her eyes burned with fire.

     And she was muttering under her breath, continuously, repetitively; it was a spell, and the terrible sense of malice in the hut was the result.

     When at last she stopped and Helewise was released from her thrall, the woman spoke in her normal voice. ‘Know me now, do you? They told you I was a witch the first time you saw me, didn’t they?’ She laughed. ‘They were right.’

     Helewise, transported back twenty-six years to her wedding day feast as easily as if she were flying on the besom in the corner, saw the woman as she once had been. And she said, with a calm that cost her dear, ‘Yes, I know you. Hello, Sirida.’

Chapter 19

Sirida’s black-eyed stare was horribly discomfiting and Helewise was desperate for her to speak and dispel the frightening tension. But, as if the woman knew this full well and wished to enjoy the power of the mood that she had created, she held her silence.

     Finally it was Helewise who spoke. ‘If—’ But her mouth was too dry to make the words. She coughed, swallowed and tried again. ‘If by threatening me you seek to force my son to give you what you claim is your due, then, Sirida, you will not succeed.’ She hesitated, her resolve weakening; were Leofgar to receive some extravagant demand in return for his mother’s safe return he would, Helewise well knew, accede instantly; both her sons had been brought up to respect and honour her and Leofgar would not permit her to remain captive for a moment longer than necessary if it were in his power to buy her release. Whatever the cost.

     But Sirida must not be allowed to know this  ...

     So Helewise shifted her argument. ‘If what you say is true and Arthur is indeed the son of Benedict Warin—’