And Helewise, moved, simply said, ‘Amen.’
In the morning Josse came to seek her out and informed her that he was leaving. ‘I’ve been away from New Winnowlands since before Christmas,’ he said, ‘and it’s high time I went home.’
‘You do not, I hope, fear for your manor?’ she asked.
‘No, indeed. Will and Ella are quite capable of looking after anything that arises in the normal run of events. For anything else, they knew where I was spending the Yule season.’ He gave her a quick grin. ‘And no doubt they would have guessed where I went afterwards.’
She returned his smile. ‘As always, you are welcome here.’
She saw him off, standing by the gates and waving until he rounded the corner and was out of sight. Then, with a faint sigh and a sudden brief lowering of the spirits — gone almost before she had registered it — she went back to her work.
Josse, trotting off along the road and bound for New Winnowlands, put a hand inside his tunic to check that the linen-wrapped package was secure. He had been thinking about a hiding place for it back at his manor house and believed he had come up with a good one.
I did not tell her about the manuscript, he thought as he rode. I almost did, but somehow I stopped myself. She has been through quite a lot just recently, and every one of us has our limits.
He pictured her, the wide grey eyes troubled. Then he saw her weeping, saw himself go to stand by her side and place on her shoulder an awkward hand that wanted so much to comfort and did not know how.
Helewise.
Deliberately turning his thoughts away from her, he spurred Horace and cantered for home.
Postscript
Meggie was getting used to the people who now looked after her. They were kind and tended her with loving hands. They made sure that she was fed when she was hungry and bathed when she was dirty. They found somewhere warm and safe for her to sleep. When she cried — which, for the first time in her short life, she did quite often — someone always came to pick her up, give her a cuddle and croon a soft little song until her tears ceased.
But it was not the same. It was not right, because neither the very old woman with the long silver hair, nor the slightly younger one with the brown, wrinkly face, nor the plump young girl whose breasts were swollen with milk was the person for whom Meggie hungered.
None of them was her mother.
She was too young to understand, far too young to ask questions. At four and a half months old, all she could do was frown because her sorrow hurt her, without knowing why it had come.
Lora was looking after Joanna’s baby, with the help of one of the young mothers of the forest people. Sometimes Meggie would accept milk from the young mother’s breast — she was still feeding her own five-month-old son — and sometimes she would screw her small face up into an expression of grief and turn away.
‘I don’t smell like Joanna,’ the young woman remarked sadly one evening after she had finally admitted defeat.
‘Milk’s milk,’ Lora said tersely; Meggie’s quiet, heartbroken crying was affecting her badly. Glancing at the baby girl, she said, ‘The child must feed. Try once more, Silva.’
But Silva shook her head. ‘No, Lora. I want her to take in some nourishment as much as you do, but she’s just not interested at the moment.’ She picked up her own child and put him to her breast, whereupon he instantly began to suckle eagerly and efficiently, clutching at the smooth curve of his mother’s warm flesh with one small hand.
‘Hmm.’ Lora was staring at the pair of them with an absent expression. Then, as if suddenly coming to a decision, she got quickly and gracefully to her feet and said, ‘I’m going to speak with the Domina, if she will receive me. I’ll try to be back afore nightfall.’
‘Very well,’ Silva replied, eyes on her son.
Lora picked up Meggie, wrapped her warmly — the March evening was chilly, clear skies suggesting the coming of a frost after a sunny day — and headed off along one of the faint tracks that led out of the clearing where the forest people had set up a temporary camp.
After walking for some time she reached the dell where the Domina was wont to set up her own private shelter, a little apart from her people, whenever she visited this part of the Great Wealden Forest. Smoke was rising from a fire that burned within a circular hearth of stones. From within the shelter Lora could hear faint sounds of chanting. Knowing better than to interrupt, she sat down on a fallen log, checked that Meggie was warm enough, and waited.
It was not long before the chanting ceased. From within the shelter, the tall, grey-clad figure of the Domina emerged.
Standing up, Lora said reverently, ‘I am sorry if I disturbed you, Domina.’
‘You did not.’ The older woman sighed. ‘I was aware of your presence, yours and the child’s, and my own thoughts interrupted my meditation.’ Approaching Lora, she held out her hands for the baby and Lora put Meggie into her arms. ‘Now then, my pretty maid,’ she said in a gentle voice, ‘what is it that ails you? Why will you not accept milk from one other than your own mother when it is given with love?’
Meggie stared up at her, the delicate, dark eyebrows drawing together into a frown. She made a little mewing sound and the Domina lightly touched her cheek with a long finger.
Still staring intently into the baby’s round eyes, the Domina said, her voice now taking on a more compelling tone, ‘Return to Silva, little one. Satisfy your hunger on that which she so freely offers you and then sleep. Do not dream; do not see bad visions of what must now be put behind you. Feed, and then sleep. Sleep soundly, sleep long.’
So powerful was the Domina’s magic that Lora found herself yawning hugely. With a grin, she said, ‘I am grateful to you, Domina. I’d better take the child back now afore I fall asleep myself.’
‘You will find that the babe will suckle now,’ the Domina replied. ‘And tomorrow. .’
She did not finish her sentence and Lora knew she must contain her impatience over what the older woman intended to do. It was not done to ask questions of one so senior. With a deep bow, she took Meggie back, wrapped her in her furs and turned around to set her feet on the homeward track.
The Domina sat alone outside her shelter long into the night. The temperature fell drastically as the hours went by and a sharp frost turned the ground around her to a shade of silver that almost matched her long hair. The waxing Moon, already past the half, shone down on her, the bright light paling the stars of the Milky Way that stretched high above in an arc as if someone had hurled them from an outstretched hand.
She did not feel the cold. Her mind had left her body and the current state of her limbs and her torso was of no great importance to her. She would return to herself when she was ready, and then she would go inside her shelter to the hearth and to the drink she had set ready earlier. Once she had stirred the fire into life and added fuel, drunk her drink and wrapped herself up in her great bearskin, she would soon be as warm as she could wish.
Her deep-set eyes stared sightlessly out into the darkness. She was looking at a very different scene, one whose stage was a circle of standing stones beneath a February moon. And she was seeing herself, standing facing a young woman who wore around her neck a talisman of such power that its presence had caused the Domina’s strong, indomitable heart to miss a beat.
Joanna had not realised the significance of either the gift or the giver. She had told the Domina that the claw had been given to her by a man of the tribe who had slipped away from the Yule celebrations that she had not been able to attend. When the Domina had informed her that the tribe’s Yule festivities had been held too far away to make such a visit feasible, Joanna had clearly been greatly surprised. But, young and ignorant though she was in the life and the ways of the tribe, she had managed not to ask the question that burned in her eyes. She had never been told who her visitor was. Nor, indeed, what his visit implied.