Where Love Has Gone

By

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Copyright © 2014 by Flora Speer

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The Warden’s Manor

Island of Jersey

Early March, A.D. 1117.

“There is a bond between sisters,” Elaine
said, forcing the words through quivering lips. She refused to
weep. “Something is very wrong. Aglise would never leave without
telling me.”

Elaine and Lady Benedicta were in the linen
room. Formerly the smallest of the guest chambers in the large
manor house, the room had been converted by Lady Benedicta to suit
her passionate desire for order and neatness. Wooden shelves were
fitted to two walls and on them rested the household’s supply of
carefully folded sheets. Below the shelves large, covered baskets
held bulkier items – extra pillows and quilts, clean bed robes for
guests who arrived with none, and even a few rolled-up pallets in
case they were needed for visiting servants.

The sunlight streaming through the open
shutters of the double window illuminated the sturdy table in the
middle of the room, on which linens could be folded.

Elaine often thought the precise order within
the tiny room reflected Lady Benedicta’s mind; she would not
tolerate disorder, nor behavior that ventured beyond the rigid
limits she had set for those around her. Even so, Elaine preferred
the sometimes stifling linen room to her foster mother’s other
great interest, the dovecot.

She could not understand how a woman so
driven by a need for cleanliness and perfect order could tolerate
the messiness created by the several dozen birds housed in the
round stone building near the mews. The molted feathers that tended
to float in the air, the droppings and other debris that were
inevitable wherever birds were kept cooped up, all made Elaine
cough and sneeze until Lady Benedicta had one day forbidden her the
dovecot, claiming her presence there disturbed the birds. Elaine
could only be grateful for the command.

“Nonsense.” Lady Benedicta’s response to
Elaine’s remark about Aglise was typically brisk and firm, her
manner even cooler and more controlled than usual. “Child, you are
far too imaginative. I have often told you so. You would be better
advised to pray for your sister to change her mind and return
promptly to her rightful place, than to claim without proof that
something terrible has happened to her. The girl is willful. Her
absence is her own doing.”

Elaine didn’t believe it, but she knew after
the last two years of difficult experience that once Lady Benedicta
had made up her mind, nothing would change it. So she stopped her
tongue from further protests, bowed her head as if in meek
submission, and quietly went about the daily chores that were the
duty of the foster daughter of Lord Bertrand, Warden of the Island
of Jersey, and his lady.

Only later, in the nighttime privacy of the
tiny room assigned to the sisters, did she dare to take action.
Having lit a candle, Elaine took out the sheet of parchment she had
begged of Lord Bertrand’s chaplain, Father Otwin, by saying she
wanted to practice her letters. She sharpened the quill that she
kept in the flat wooden box containing her personal treasures, then
added a bit of wine to a half-dried bottle of ink and shook it
well.

Sitting on the side of the bed she had shared
with her sister until two weeks ago, tongue caught between her
teeth in concentration and using the box as a desk, she began to
write. She had much to relate, several unpleasant suspicions to
divulge, and she intended to phrase the message so no one who read
it out of mere curiosity could guess the true meaning behind her
words. When, some hours later, she was finished to her own
satisfaction, she sealed the folded parchment with many drippings
of candle wax and impressed the wax in two places with her late
father’s old seal ring.

In the course of her routine duties the next
morning she spoke to Jean, the kitchen boy who had once sworn he’d
do anything for her or her sister because, according to him, they
were the only two people in the entire manor who treated him with
kindness. When Jean left with the cook on an errand to Gorey
village, to purchase fresh fish for the midday meal, Elaine knew
her letter had gone with the boy and would find its way aboard a
ship bound for Normandy. How long it would take the letter to reach
Caen she could not judge with any certainty. Two weeks at least,
possibly much longer. Then more weeks to wait for a response.

Elaine began to pray, over and over, that the
letter would safely arrive at the court of King Henry I of England,
who was also duke of Normandy, and that it would without too much
delay be delivered into the hands of the man to whom she had sent
it. For Elaine believed that Royce, the baron of Wortham was the
only person in all King Henry’s domains who was capable of helping
her sister.

The islands in the Narrow Sea between England
and the continent of Europe belonged by hereditary right to the
dukes of Normandy. When Duke William set out to conquer England, he
appointed a loyal noble to hold the islands for him against any
attempt by the king of France to seize them for his own.
Thereafter, William, as king of England, kept dependable men in the
post and his sons, King William Rufus and Henry I, followed his
example.

On a bright mid-April morning in the Year of
Our Lord 1117, the large sailing vessel
Daisy
approached the
eastern end of the island known as Jersey. Captain Piers stood at
the helm, his sharp eyes watching the sea intently, for the waters
there are treacherous, with cross currents, and strong tides barely
covering rocks that can gut a ship and send it to the bottom.

The captain’s passengers seemed unaware of
any danger. The squires remained below deck, but the two men who
were their masters leaned on the rail, squinting against the sun as
they watched the island. Captain Piers scowled at them, wishing he
could hear what they were saying. The tall, sandy-haired man was
known to him as one of Lord Royce’s best agents; he had several
times transported Sir Desmond to France or to England. The second
man, the near-giant whom they had picked up at Teignmouth on the
previous evening, was a stranger to the captain. Telling himself
all that mattered was the heavy bag of gold awaiting him when he
reported to Lord Royce the safe arrival of his men at Jersey,
Captain Piers shrugged, dismissing their conversation, and gave his
complete attention to the water ahead.

“What did Royce tell you about the mission?”
Desmond asked his companion.

“Not much.” Cadwallon turned a little to look
at him. “I didn’t confer with him in person, you see, Royce being
in Normandy with King Henry, and me being at home in Devon. Nor
does he ever include details in his letters, lest they fall into
the wrong hands,” Cadwallon finished with a knowing grin.

Desmond frowned. He liked spying, enjoyed the
thrill of knowing what others did not know, and he drew an almost
erotic pleasure from the risk involved, from the realization that
death could be upon him at any moment, with only his wits to stave
it off. But he did not like working with another agent. Once, he
had been betrayed by a trusted colleague; the long months of
imprisonment and the ill-health that followed had taught him to be
wary. He certainly was not going to trust an unknown man who,
judging by his name, was Welsh. Not even if the man was hand-picked
by Royce. Even King Henry’s brilliant spymaster could make a
mistake.

“I assumed you’d know what we are to do when
we reach Jersey,” Cadwallon said, still grinning.

“There’s a girl missing,” Desmond responded
in his most clipped tone. “We are to find her.”

“That’s all?” Cadwallon looked puzzled.
“Having received a confidential letter written in Royce’s own hand,
I thought there’d be an important matter of state to pursue.”

“You can read?” Desmond asked, his full
interest caught by Cadwallon’s second mention of the contents of
Royce’s letter.

“Of course. I can write, too.”

Cadwallon was grinning again. Desmond wished
he’d stop. He glared at the sea, so much brighter than the waters
surrounding England, more clearly blue and green and glittering as
if dark secrets lurked far below the surface, until Cadwallon spoke
again.

“How old is the girl?”

“She’s sixteen.”

“Old enough to be married,” Cadwallon noted.
“Perhaps she ran off with a lover.”

“That’s what I said to Royce. He doesn’t
think so.”

“Why not?” Cadwallon slanted a surprisingly
intelligent glance at Desmond and spoke in a brisk manner
distinctly at odds with his large size and his lazy movements. “If
we are to work together effectively, you’d better tell me
everything Royce has told you.”

“The girl, whose name is Aglise, is Royce’s
godchild.”

“Ah,” said Cadwallon, “so it’s personal for
him.”

“Royce and the girl’s father, Lord Aldwynd,
and Lord Bertrand, who presently holds these islands for King
Henry, were all squires together in their youth and they became
close friends. Aldwynd died a few years ago, leaving no sons. When
his widow remarried she sent her two daughters to Jersey, to be
fostered by Lord Bertrand and Lady Benedicta.” Desmond absently
fingered the pouch he wore attached to his belt. In it rested
several of the instruments of his trade: two metal lock picks, a
block of wax, a candle stub, a wad of woolen lint and a pair of
flints, a tiny vial of poppy syrup.

“Go on, then,” Cadwallon prompted him.

“A few days ago Royce received a letter from
the older sister, Elaine, telling him that Aglise has disappeared
and appealing for his help in finding her.”

“Why didn’t she appeal directly to Lord
Bertrand?” Cadwallon asked. “Or does she think her sister has left
the island and, thus, Royce will be better able to locate her? But,
if that’s so, why are we headed for Jersey?”

“Because Royce wants us to talk to Elaine,
and to Lady Benedicta and Lord Bertrand, to discover what
information they may have. Apparently, Elaine thinks Aglise is
still somewhere on the island.”

“Does the missing girl’s mother know of
this?” Cadwallon asked.

“She does, and if Aglise is anything like her
mother, you may be right in your assumption that she has run off
with some fellow. Perhaps, an unsuitable fellow for a nobly born
girl.” Desmond’s frown deepened. “Royce introduced me to Lady
Irmina. Her second husband is eight or ten years younger than she,
and remarkably handsome. She’s doing her best to hold his interest
against all the flirtatious young creatures of the royal court, so
she doesn’t have much time for concern about her daughters.”

“Which may be why they are unmarried,”
Cadwallon said.

“Probably. I’m sure if she could arrange
advantageous marriages for either of them, she’d do so, just to
advance her own position. Lady Irmina is ambitious.” She was also
shallow and silly, but Desmond was wise enough to refrain from
further criticism of the lady to a man he didn’t know. Nor was he
going to mention how Lady Irmina’s young husband set his teeth on
edge. Too handsome, too charming, and utterly useless summed up
Desmond’s opinion of Sir Lamont de Bruay.

“How can a parent be indifferent to the
plight of a child?” Cadwallon asked with great feeling. “If our
child were missing, my Janet would be searching every inch of the
kingdom to locate the poor thing. Even so, she’d be well behind
me.”

“You are married?” Desmond asked in
astonishment.

“Aye.” Cadwallon was grinning again. “Didn’t
Royce tell you? It’s only thanks to him that I was able to marry my
Janet. A few years ago, after I helped Royce to resolve a minor
problem, he appealed to King Henry to grant me a little castle in
Devon.”

“No one told me that you are a baron,”
Desmond said accusingly. “Or that you left your domain and your
wife to come on this mission.”

“Well, I’d do almost anything for Royce, and
have done a bit of work for him now and then,” Cadwallon said.
“Besides, I was glad to leave for a few weeks. I have recently
learned that Janet tends to be a bit testy when she’s with
child.