‘You have been working hard,’ Helewise observed as, outside the lean-to, she noticed several freshly washed items hanging out to dry.
‘Yes.’ Esyllt led the way to one of the benches used by the old people, and, waiting while Helewise seated herself, then sat down beside her. ‘Sister Emanuel is very wise, she believes hard labour is a good medicine for — well, for what I’m suffering from.’
It was said without self-pity. But, nevertheless, it was with concern that Helewise asked gently, ‘And what is that, Esyllt?’
Esyllt’s dark eyes met hers. ‘I can’t exactly tell you, Abbess.’
‘But, Esyllt, you-’
Esyllt put out a hand. ‘Abbess, you’re going to ask me what I was doing out in the forest last night, since, if I’d been tucked up here like I should have been, then that poor man wouldn’t have … I mean, I wouldn’t have seen … what I saw.’ She turned to face the Abbess, expression intense. ‘I was preparing a story to tell you — I was going to pretend I’d gone to pick wild flowers to make posies for the old ladies, I was even going to sneak out and fetch some, to make my story convincing.’ She looked down at her hands, now reddened and sore from the hot water. ‘But I find I can’t. I can’t lie to you, when you’ve been so good to me.’
Helewise was stunned. She tried to assimilate all that Esyllt had just said, and, equally, implied; she had, it seemed, been out in the forest last night for some reason that she wasn’t prepared to divulge.
What on earth could it be?
‘Esyllt,’ Helewise said eventually, ‘you are not a professed nun, nor even a postulant. It is true that we have found you work here, when otherwise you might have had to leave and face the perils of the world outside, but you do that work conscientiously and well. Sister Emanuel says you have the gift of knowing just how to treat your elderly patients, and she is satisfied with you. More than satisfied!’ Sister Emanuel was a little grudging with her praise, but Helewise, who had seen for herself how Esyllt carried out her duties, was not. ‘What I am saying is that, as a member of the Abbey who is not in holy orders, your position is a little different. Of course, you owe Sister Emanuel obedience, and, naturally, we should not condone any wrongdoing that you committed. But, if you choose to go walking in the forest at night, then, apart from reasons concerning your own wellbeing, we can hardly stop you.’
Esyllt’s head and shoulders were bowed, and she appeared intent on the fingernail she was picking at. Helewise waited, but she didn’t answer.
‘Esyllt?’ Helewise prompted.
At last Esyllt raised her eyes and met Helewise’s. ‘I keep seeing him, Abbess,’ she whispered. ‘All that blood! Oh, God!’ She covered her face with her hands.
‘It was a frightful thing to have seen,’ Helewise said, putting her arm round Esyllt’s shaking shoulders. ‘It’s better not to fight the reaction, Esyllt — the dreadful images will haunt you for a while, but, believe me, if you try to suppress them, then you will take longer to get over this.’ She gave Esyllt a quick hug. ‘You’re strong. I know that. You will get over it.’
For a brief moment, Esyllt leaned against the Abbess, allowing herself to be comforted. But then she pulled away.
Staring into Helewise’s eyes, she said, ‘Don’t be kind to me, Abbess!’
‘But-’
Esyllt began to cry. Brushing away the tears, she stood up. She was half-way back to her wash house when she turned, gave Helewise a brave attempt at a smile and said, ‘Save your kindness for others. Much as I wish I could accept it, I can’t.’
The smile faded as, in a whisper, she added, ‘I’m not worthy.’
Then she went back inside and closed the door.
Helewise sat on for a while in the sunshine, thinking hard. She was tempted to call Esyllt back there and then, and face the girl with one or two very pertinent questions.
But would it do any good?
Would it not be better to give Esyllt a chance to calm down, come to her senses? Goodness, the child was probably still suffering from shock!
Helewise was becoming more and more convinced that she knew why Esyllt had been in the forest, and why she couldn’t — wouldn’t — explain herself. She was, the Abbess reflected, an honourable girl, in her own way.
With a sigh, Helewise got up and went in search of Sister Caliste.
* * *
A short while later, going into the Abbey church a good half hour before Sext to give herself time for some private prayer, Helewise tried to quell her irritation with Sister Caliste.
Because, despite Helewise’s probings, despite having the paucity of her version of events thrown in her face, Caliste was sticking stubbornly to her story.
She went into the forest the previous day for a little walk. And, entranced by the flowers and the trees, she forgot the time.
Falling to her knees, Helewise began quietly, ‘Dear Lord, please help me to find the truth.’
The one thing about which she was absolutely sure was that she had got nowhere near it yet.
Chapter Eleven
Josse met with as little help in his search for Ewen’s killer as he had when he tried to investigate who might have slain Hamm. Ewen had indeed lived with his mean-spirited and whingeing widowed mother until her death, which was, according to the old man who was Josse’s only faintly useful informant, ‘a right blessing for the old misery-guts, Ewen being the wastrel and the worry that ’e were.’
A picture emerged of a youth who, without a father and with a nagging, narrow-minded mother, had absented himself from home as much as possible, never putting his shoulder to even the least demanding of wheels, either physically or symbolically, and who had earned his meagre livelihood by a bit of desultory poaching and thieving. Who, according to the same old man, ‘didn’t do a ’and’s turn iffen someone else’d do it for ’im.’
Until, Josse thought, filling in the many blanks, life took on a new turn. When Ewen joined forces with Hamm Robinson and Seth Miller in the venture that killed him. Killed Hamm, too, come to that.
And, like Hamm, Ewen Asher did not, on the face of it, seem a great loss to the world.
But that, Josse told himself firmly, is thinking as Sheriff Pelham would think. Ewen is dead, cut to death in a brutal assault.
And Josse himself had heard the man’s screams. It had not, as Josse was all too well aware, been either a quick death or a painless one.
He spoke last to a couple of men herding their pigs back towards some miserable-looking dwellings half a mile up the road from where Hamm’s widow lived. They could add little more to Josse’s knowledge of Ewen, except to remark that ‘it were more’n likely Seth Miller did for ’im, ’e’s always ’ad a temper on ’im.’ And, echoing Josse’s own shameful conclusion, ‘We’re well rid of ’im, aye, and that ’amm Robinson ’n all.’
If Sheriff Pelham speaks to those two, Josse thought, thanking the men and riding away, then Seth will be strung up on the nearest gallows the very next day.
* * *
Heading up the track into the forest, his mind was already concentrating on what he should look out for at the murder scene when he saw a mounted figure coming towards him.
Coming out of the forest.
‘Good day, Sir Josse!’ the man called when he was within hailing distance. He was young, no more than thirty, and bareheaded. Dressed well, he rode a fine horse, with what looked like new harness, beautifully crafted. On one wrist he wore a heavy leather glove, on which, tethered by jesses, perched a hooded hawk.
Josse said, ‘Good day to you, Tobias.’
‘Fine morning for hawking!’ Tobias exclaimed. He glanced at the bird. ‘She’s caught a rabbit and two voles, and we haven’t been out more than an hour!’
‘She’s beautiful,’ Josse said. ‘What is she?’
‘A peregrine falcon.’ Tobias had come to a halt, and now, as his horse stood patiently, he stroked the falcon’s head with his free hand. ‘Do you know why they’re called that?’