‘Aaah,’ said Hilde. ‘Fine fellow that, eh, Abbess?’
‘He is an honourable and courageous man,’ Helewise replied somewhat stiffly.
‘Wish I were a dozen years younger,’ the old woman sighed. ‘Well, twenty years, mebbe.’ She sighed again. ‘What I wouldn’t have got up to with a man like that! Abbess, don’t you-’
Whatever Hilde was about to say, Helewise decided it was probably better not to hear it. ‘Thank you, Hilde,’ she interrupted, ‘you’ve been most helpful. Now, if you will excuse me, I have things to see to.’
‘Off you go, Abbess.’
Helewise couldn’t help but notice that, as she turned to go, the old woman gave her an exaggerated and very suggestive wink.
* * *
As Josse made his way back into the forest, along the same tracks and paths he had taken the previous night, he had a sudden thought. As he played with it, mentally trying it out, his conviction grew until he was tempted to return to the Abbey and discuss it with the Abbess.
He came to a stop, thinking hard.
Hilde had said that Caliste was going into the forest after another sister. But supposing the old woman hadn’t really heard properly? Had jumped to conclusions — which would have been understandable — and only thought that Caliste had meant another nun?
Perhaps what Caliste had really said was that one of the others had gone ahead into the forest, and Hilde, on the basis that the others were all nuns, had translated the remark and understood it as ‘one of the sisters’?
I know one of the Hawkenlye community who goes into the forest, Josse thought. At least, I think that’s where she’d been, when I met her on her way back to the Abbey. This very morning.
Had Esyllt returned there now? Was it she whom Caliste had followed?
There was only one way to find out. Deciding that there was little point in dashing back to talk it over with Abbess Helewise, instead Josse hurried on into the forest.
* * *
He realised quite soon that he was lost.
He had imagined it would be far easier finding his way in late afternoon than it had been by the moonlight of last night. But, unfortunately, a thick bank of cloud had come up from the west, so that, deep within the trees with no sun to guide him, he had no way of getting his bearings. And, as he was quickly discovering, one path looked much like another. One stand of ancient oaks was indistinguishable from the next.
It began to rain.
With no clear idea which way would lead him further into the forest and which would take him back to the world outside, he crawled into the shelter of a yew tree, pressed his back against its trunk and waited for the rain to stop and the skies to clear.
* * *
He sat under his yew tree for a long time. Its dense foliage kept out most of the rain, but sitting still meant that he grew cold. After what seemed like hours, he realised that it had become quite dark.
And that the rain had, at long last, ceased.
He stepped out from under his tree, feeling a sudden and inexplicable urge to thank it for its protection. Going back and putting a hand to the trunk, he actually found himself framing the words.
Fool! he thought, hurrying away. It’s only a tree! It can’t hear.
Back on the track, he followed it until he came to a clearing. Staring up, he saw a sight that released in him a flood of relief: a perfectly cloudless sky. The moon was full, and riding high, giving nearly as much light as day, and, over to the north, he could make out the Plough and the Pointers.
Now that he knew which way led out of the forest, he felt less inclined to take it. He hadn’t actually achieved anything yet; all he had done was to get himself lost and shelter from the rain beneath a tree. He had found neither Esyllt, Sister Caliste, nor any sign of either of them.
Working out which direction he had taken the previous night, making a mental map of the forest, he stepped out under the brilliant full moon and headed on into the heart of the woods. He was still wearing the talisman, on his leather thong; he reached inside his tunic and, drawing it out, clutched on to it.
* * *
Nobody had told Josse that Hamm Robinson had been killed on a full moon night. Exactly one lunar month ago, Hamm had trespassed into the Great Forest, and somebody had spitted him with a spear.
Perhaps it was as well, for Josse’s peace of mind, that he didn’t know it.
* * *
More by luck than judgement, Josse found himself back at the grove with the fallen trees. In the midst of congratulating himself on his skill, he was suddenly overcome by an urge as strong, if not stronger, than the strange emotion he had felt underneath the yew tree. Not understanding, and with the sense that he was outside himself, a witness to his own actions, he stepped slowly across to the larger of the trees. Putting out his hands, he held them palm-downwards above the great trunk.
At first he felt nothing. Then, right in the middle of each palm, he began to feel a tingling. It grew swiftly in strength until it was almost burning him, only just tolerable. And, at the same time, he was hit with a devastating sadness, a mourning, almost, for the vast dying thing that lay at his feet.
Moving across to the smaller oak, he repeated the action. This time, as well as sorrow, there was anger.
Someone had killed this tree, deliberately.
And the forest was furious.
Josse felt that fury. Standing there, a profound, deep dread upon him, he began to shake with fear.
Summoning his courage, he stepped away from the fallen trees. Squaring his shoulders, standing up straight, he said softly, ‘“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff do comfort me…”’
He trailed off. No, it was not evil that he feared. He stood in awe of some vast natural power, but it was not an evil force. He was sure of that.
Comforted by the familiar words of the psalm, he took some deep breaths, then set out to explore the far side of the clearing.
Beyond the spot where, according to Josse’s theory, Hamm Robinson, Seth and Ewen had been digging for treasure, there seemed to be another disturbance in the forest floor. Josse hadn’t noticed it the previous night, but now, staring at it, he began to wonder. If he’d been right about the treasure being Roman in origin, then might that not suggest there were other relics of the Romans in this area of the forest?
He made his way carefully to the edge of the clearing. There were stones there, ancient, worked slabs of stone, forming the rough shape of a right-angle … The remains of two walls of a building?
Pushing his way into the undergrowth, Josse followed the line of the better-preserved of the walls. And came to a gap, spanned by a flat slab. A doorway?
Stepping back to have a better look, he tripped over something. Feeling with his hands, he found a circular stone, broken off at an angle.
Hurrying now, he searched first to the right, then to the left. And quickly found five more round stones.
They were, he was certain, column bases. Which, from what little he knew about Roman buildings, strongly suggested that this edifice had been a temple.
He circled the walls, finding the remains of a stone floor, and, leading away from the entrance, a paved road, badly broken up, overgrown, all but gone.
But it was evidence enough. The Romans — or someone — had built a temple here, deep in the forest. They had mined here, that Josse knew already, built their roads here. Now, if he were right, it must be concluded that they had also buried something very valuable out here.
We must come back here with a proper working party, Josse thought, bring ropes and-
He heard voices.
Muttering voices, speaking quietly as if anxious not to be heard.