Josse chuckled and, reaching out, ruffled the boy’s hair. ‘Happen I don’t have as many relatives as you, lad,’ he said. Then, after a moment, ‘I don’t know, though.’
Helewise looked from one to the other, affected by their ease in one another’s company. They were almost like father and son. It crossed her mind to wonder briefly why Josse had no family; no sensible, affectionate wife, and no son to follow in his footsteps.
Then she remembered something. Something she was trying very hard to forget. No, she told herself firmly. Do not dwell on Joanna de Courtenay, and of what may or may not have passed between her and Josse. You do not know for certain, and it is none of your business.
But, despite herself, she thought: February, it was, when Joanna was hiding out in the Forest. And now it is nearly October. If Sister Euphemia was right. .
No.
Firmly putting the speculation from her, she turned her attention back to Josse and Augustus, who were laughing helplessly at something Josse had said about his sister-in-law’s mother. Helewise cleared her throat and both men jumped; Josse, looking abashed, said quickly, ‘Ah, but I should not make fun at her expense, she means well, I dare say, although-’
There was another tap on the door. Wondering if it might be Brother Firmin, cutting short his prayers for some reason of his own, again Helewise called out, ‘Come in.’
It was not Brother Firmin but Sister Anne.
Round eyes alight with the fascinated interest of someone whose daily round did not include very much excitement or even variety — Sister Anne, none too bright but well-meaning, scrubbed pots in the refectory — the nun said, ‘Ooh, Abbess Helewise, Sister Ursel sent me, she’s busy attending to the man’s horse and didn’t want to leave him, not that there’s anything amiss but-’
‘Sister Anne?’ Helewise prompted.
‘Yes, sorry.’ Sister Anne shot at Josse a glance that, in any other woman, might have been called flirtatious. Then: ‘It’s another man called d’Acquin, see. Just like Sir Josse here, only this one’s a bit smaller and a bit younger and he says his name is Yves.’
The Abbess, to Josse’s relief, took the startling announcement in her stride. She must have noticed his amazement — hardly surprising; he felt as if his jaw had dropped at least to his knees — and she said calmly, ‘Sir Josse, what an honour for us to receive a visit from your brother! Let us go out straight away to greet him.’
He and Augustus stood back to let her precede them out of the room, Sister Anne bobbing along beside them like a rowing boat attending a sailing ship. Watching the Abbess’s straight-backed figure gliding along just ahead of him enabled him to regain something of his composure so that, by the time they were approaching the little group at the gate — Sister Ursel, Sister Martha, Yves’s bay and, naturally, Yves himself — Josse was ready — eager — to rush forward and take his brother in his arms.
‘Yves, Yves!’ he said against the warm and slightly sweaty skin of his brother’s neck; he must have been riding hard, for the bay, too, was lathered. ‘How good it is to see you!’
Straightening up and pulling away slightly, he held Yves by the shoulders and studied him. His brother’s pleasant face was beaming his delight, which, Josse fervently hoped, suggested that, whatever had brought him to England to seek out his elder brother, it was nothing too terrible.
‘Josse, you look good!’ Yves was saying, slapping Josse on the arm. ‘This English country life must suit you!’
‘Aye, it does.’
‘They told me at New Winnowlands where I might find you and, after they’d put me up for the night — she’s a good cook, that serving woman of yours, isn’t she? — they gave me directions and saw me on to the right road.’ Another grin. ‘Ah, dear God, but it’s good to see you!’
Josse, suddenly remembering where they were, took a step back. ‘Yves,’ he said, ‘a moment, please.’ Turning to the Abbess, he said, ‘Abbess Helewise, may I present to you my younger brother, Yves d’Acquin? Yves, this is Abbess Helewise of Hawkenlye Abbey.’
Yves bowed deeply. ‘My lady Abbess, it is a great honour at last to greet the woman we at Acquin have heard so much about,’ he said gravely. ‘I am your servant.’ He bowed again.
Josse, observing the Abbess, hoped that she would not find Yves’s manner rather overcourtly; he does not know, he fretted, that she is a plain-speaking, down to earth woman, even if she is an abbess. .
He need not have worried. The Abbess, smiling, was clearly unperturbed by Yves’s display of Gallic charm; she was asking him the usual questions that one asked a new arrival, about his journey, were the family well and so forth, clearly at her ease.
That particular small concern out of the way, Josse thought, but why is he here?
The Abbess, bless her, must have read his mind. Turning to him, she said, ‘Sir Josse, your brother will, I am sure, desire to speak to you in private. You may take him to my room, if you wish, and I will send refreshments.’
Josse looked at Yves, who nodded swiftly. ‘Aye, then, Abbess Helewise,’ Josse said, ‘if you are sure we shall not put you out?’
‘Not in the least,’ she said smoothly, ‘I am expected over in the infirmary.’
With a silent but steely look around at the various members of her community — Sister Martha, Sister Ursel, the wide-eyed Sister Anne and Brother Augustus — the Abbess dismissed them back to their duties.
And Josse took his brother’s arm and led him across to the cloisters and along to the Abbess’s room.
‘Now then, what has brought you all the way across the Channel to see me?’ Josse asked him as soon as the door was closed behind them. ‘Is anyone sick? Is there trouble at Acquin?’
‘No, everyone is well, thank the good Lord’ — ‘Amen,’ Josse said fervently — ‘and the estates run smoothly. We had an excellent harvest this year, Josse, we’ve got it all in now and we shall do well this winter, us and the animals, although we’ll be putting plenty of meat down to salt come Martinmas to see us through the lean times, and-’
‘Yves,’ Josse reprimanded him. ‘I may know very little of farming, but even I know about that.’
‘Of course. I apologise, Josse, you must be keen to know my news.’
‘Keen,’ Josse murmured, ‘is an understatement.’
Yves leaned forward — Josse had shown him to the Abbess’s throne-like chair; it seemed, he thought ruefully, that he was forever destined to perch on the uncomfortable and insubstantial little stool — and said, ‘Josse, we had a visitor.’
‘A visitor?’ Surely, not such a rare occurrence.
‘Aye. He came looking for Father. He was dressed simply and he had but the one lad with him, yet there was something about him, some air that suggested he might not be the poor man he posed as. He said, “I come from far afield in search of one Geoffroi d’Acquin, and I have at last made my way here to Acquin.” Well, we told him straight away that Father was dead — Mother, too, though he did not in fact ask after her — and then he said to me, “You are his heir.” So then I said no, I was the second son, the eldest was Josse — you, that is — and the man said, “Where, then, is this Sir Josse?”’
‘And you said I had a manor in England, aye?’ Josse, impatient, wished Yves were not quite such a long-winded teller of tales.
‘Aye, that I did. So then this fellow said, “To England I must go,” and, even though we offered to put him up for a while — he didn’t look too well and he had a nasty, hacking cough — he wouldn’t hear of it. He kept saying, “I have already left it too late, I fear. I have missed Sir Geoffroi, and this I must bear as best I may.” So Marie gave him some of her green liniment to rub on his chest — you know, that stuff that stings like the Devil’s prongs and makes your eyes water? You once said you preferred the cough — and we gave the two of them, the man and his lad, a hearty meal and some good, red wine.’
‘And then?’
‘Then they left. Patrice and my Luke rode with them some of the way and reported back that, when last seen, the old fellow and the boy were stepping out strongly on the road to Calais.’