Very close at hand.
Moving as silently as he could, Josse hurried back into his temple. Crouching down behind the ruined wall, he pulled down a branch of hazel to cover his head and peered out into the clearing.
Two men were approaching the fallen trees, carrying what looked like a spade and a sack. They were still muttering, and Josse thought he could detect fear in the higher pitched of the voices.
‘… still ain’t happy, all the same, not after you-know-what,’ one was saying.
‘Shut up and dig,’ said the other.
And Ewen and Seth clambered down into the hole under the trees and began to shovel out earth.
Josse watched them for some time. Periodically one or other would emerge, put something in the sack, then disappear into the ground again.
When the noise came, it scared Josse as much as it did Seth and Ewen.
It was a humming sound, rather lovely at first. Sweet, like singing. Or chanting, perhaps.
But then, as if the strange music had slid into a scale that no human ever used, it began to chill the very soul. As it grew louder, making the night air vibrate with its sound waves, Josse, crouched down behind his walls, trying to make himself small. Trying to make himself invisible. For, illogical though it was, he was assailed by the fear that there were people out there, watching him from their hiding places, deep-set eyes penetrating the shadows, lighting on him, knowing him …
He felt a moment’s pity for Seth and Ewen, out there in the middle of the clearing, exposed and vulnerable. Ewen had his hands over his ears, Seth, clutching the half-full sack to his chest, was trying to look challenging, but succeeding only in looking afraid.
‘Oo’s there?’ Seth shouted. His words made no echo: their sound was instantly cut off, as if someone had closed a mighty door.
‘I’m off!’ Ewen sobbed, running and stumbling out of the clearing. Seth began to go after him, but just at that moment the humming stopped.
Seth stood quite still, looking all around him as if suspecting a trap.
But there was no further sound.
He climbed back into the ground, coming up again, grunting with effort, bearing some large object in his hands. Stuffing it into the sack — with some difficulty — he had a last look around the clearing, then, slinging the bulging sack over one shoulder and picking up his spade in the other hand, set off after Ewen.
Josse gave him a few minutes’ start, then, coming out from his hiding place, moved stealthily back into the clearing. Staring first down the path which the men had taken, then around the circumference of the encircling trees, he began to suspect his eyes were playing tricks.
Either that, or-
No. The alternative didn’t bear thinking about.
What Josse thought he saw was a figure.
Human, and, by its slenderness, female. Robed in white, a little stooped. And, in her hand, a long wand.
But it must have been his eyes, seeing imaginary sights. Because, when he rubbed them hard and looked again, she was no longer there.
Josse clutched at his talisman. He felt the point of the sword press into his hand, and the small sharp pain brought him back to himself.
It was just the effect of the forest, he told himself, of the watchful, silent trees, of the ancient workings, the ruined buildings and edifices of a long-gone people. And that humming — that dire, haunting humming — was probably no more than some weird effect of the wind in the branches.
But the night was still and calm.
There wasn’t any wind.
He tried to stay calm. Telling himself that he was making a rational decision, that the dark, swooping waves of alien power he could sense emanating from the dense wood all around him had nothing whatever to do with it, he concluded that there really was no purpose in staying out any longer. That, for all the good he was doing, he might as well head back to the Abbey. He was on the point of doing just that when another, very different, sound seared through the forest.
It wasn’t humming, this time. It didn’t even begin as a sweet sound, and there was no suggestion in it whatsoever of music, of singing.
It was a scream.
A human scream, beginning faintly, swiftly escalating to a high-toned, vibrant pitch of sheer terror.
It ended, abruptly, in a sort of groan.
Then, as the echoes died away, the utter silence of the brooding forest closed in once more.
And Josse, at last losing what little remained of his self-control, heedless of the brambles and the tangling undergrowth that tried to hold him back, raced out of the clearing and off down the path that led to the outside world.
PART TWO
Chapter Nine
Josse returned to the Abbey to find, for all that it was after midnight, the community still awake, with torches blazing in the courtyard and lighting the shadows of the cloisters.
After the frightening darkness deep within the trees, it was a blessed relief.
He found the Abbess in her room, with the door open; it was, he thought briefly as the impression hit him, as if, in that night of anxiety and disturbance, she wanted her nuns to feel that she was close by. Accessible.
She got up as he came into the room.
‘Abbess, I haven’t found her,’ he began, ‘but I think-’
At the same moment, she said, her face full of joy, ‘She’s here! Sister Caliste has come back, and she is quite safe! Quite unharmed!’
‘Thank God,’ he said quietly.
‘Amen,’ the Abbess echoed, then hurried on, ‘Sir Josse, would you credit it! She’s dreadfully sorry to have caused us all this worry and trouble, she says, but she went for a little walk under the trees and forgot the time! Dear me, did you ever hear such a silly idea?’
‘She forgot the time,’ Josse repeated. He didn’t want to admit it to the Abbess, but, knowing the forest now rather better than she did, in fact he could see all too clearly how such a thing could happen. ‘Where is she?’ he asked, turning his thoughts with an effort away from the mystical spell of the forest and on to more urgent matters. ‘You say she is not hurt, but has she taken a chill?’
‘She’s fine.’ Abbess Helewise’s relief was evident in her wide smile. ‘She is on her knees in the Abbey church. She is full of remorse, as I said, and praying for God’s forgiveness for having upset all her sisters so badly.’
Sisters. That reminded him. ‘Abbess, this may sound a strange question, but do you know where Esyllt is?’
‘Esyllt?’ Clearly, it did sound a strange question. ‘She sleeps in a little dormitory in the aged monks’ and nuns’ home,’ the Abbess said, frowning. ‘Often they need attention during the night, you see. I’m quite sure that’s where she is.’ Eyes turning to Josse, she demanded, ‘Why?’
‘Could you send someone to check?’ he urged. ‘Abbess, I wouldn’t ask if it were not important!’
She seemed to recover herself. ‘No, of course you wouldn’t. Wait here, I’ll go myself.’
He waited. Sank down on the wooden stool, leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes.
A little later, she came back. One look at her face told him he’d been right.
‘Not there?’ he asked.
‘Not there.’ The frown was back, deeper than before. ‘Do you know where she is, Sir Josse?’
‘Where she is now? No, not exactly. But I have an idea where she went earlier.’ Briefly he outlined to the Abbess the idea he’d had when he was setting off into the forest.
The Abbess was nodding slowly. ‘It seems you were right,’ she said. ‘But why? Why should Esyllt make secret visits into the forest? And at night!’
‘They would have to be at night, if they were to be secret,’ he pointed out. And, even though she’d gone at night, she hadn’t managed to keep it secret from him; he’d seen her returning, yesterday morning.