She gave a small smile and said, ‘You’d better ask it, Sir Josse, and I’ll see.’
‘I want the Abbey to have the Eye of Jerusalem. Oh, I know you’ll say it’s mine and I must take the responsibility’ — it had not entered her head to say any such thing — ‘but let me explain my reasoning.’
‘Please do.’
‘This Sidonius fellow said that the Eye was now mine, mine and my family’s, and that it would pass down to my descendants when I die. But, as you know, my lady, I am not married and I have no child. He also said that one day the Eye would fall into the hands of a woman of my blood who possessed strange powers, and she would be the first ever owner of the Eye to bring its full potential alive. Well, you see, the trouble is that I’m worried that he meant one of Yves’s girls — Marie-Ida, Mathilde or even Madoline, who is but a year old, poor little lassie. Or he might have meant Acelin’s daughter Eleanor. What a terrible weight I would put on them, if it were so. Neither they nor my brothers would thank me, would they?’
‘Some might say that you were in fact giving this mystery woman a very special gift,’ Helewise said quietly.
‘Aye, but then there’s this business of the girl having what Sidonius called psychic powers, whatever they may be,’ Josse protested. ‘Well, I can’t be sure about my sisters-in-law — although they seem a pretty ordinary quartet to me — but I know for certain there’s never been any of that magic stuff in my family!’
Helewise was silent. She was thinking very hard.
She knew — or at least she strongly suspected — something that Josse did not. And she knew that she must not tell him, because the secret was not hers to keep or give away. Always assuming that her suspicions were right.
He was waiting for her answer. ‘Abbess Helewise? Will you take the Eye or not? It’s a heathen thing, I know, but there must be some good in it. I’m told its magic will only work for its rightful owner, but if I give it away of my own free will, then the recipient surely becomes the rightful owner. Anyway, it would be for the best, I’m sure, to keep it here because Sidonius said the Eye was only safe in the hands of the very strong, the very wise and the very good, and you and your nuns here at Hawkenlye are all of those.’
Touched both by the generosity of his compliment and by his faith in her community, she raised her eyes to look at him.
‘I will,’ she said gravely. ‘I shall speak to Sister Euphemia and Sister Tiphaine, both of whom will, I suspect, find better uses for the stone than I could. If it will work for them, that is. From what you tell me, I imagine that it could be a very handy thing in the infirmary, and Sister Tiphaine might find its poison-detecting ability useful when she is working on new remedies.’
She had seen the relief sweep through him from the moment she said ‘I will’. His face was full of emotion: gratitude, certainly, but something more. .
Preferring not to dwell on that, she said, ‘However, Sir Josse, we at Hawkenlye Abbey will look upon our custodianship of the Eye purely as temporary; the stone will be on loan. We will keep it safely here as long as you wish it. But if ever the day comes that you and-’ She almost said, you and your descendants, but managed to stop herself — ‘that you wish to claim it back again, you will only have to ask. Is that all right?’
He was smiling broadly. ‘More than all right, and I thank you with all my heart. And I won’t want it back, my lady, I can assure you of that. I’ll be delighted to see the back of it!’
She waited. He had it with him, presumably, so he would probably present it there and then.
Nothing happened.
She said, ‘Sir Josse? Do you wish me to take over the Eye now?’
He watched her for a moment. Then he said, ‘I have been selfish in making this request just at this moment, Abbess Helewise.’
‘How so?’
‘Because Prince John is here seeking it. And, although John Dee has given his word not to let his master know the truth, I fear that the Prince will not meekly ride away without further questions.’
Understanding, she said, ‘And you would not have me lie, if he comes to me demanding to be told what I know of the Eye.’
‘Exactly so. I’m thinking, my lady, that, were I to hide the stone somewhere myself, some place that you do not know, you could say to the Prince that you have no idea where the Eye is and be telling the truth.’
She smiled. ‘I think that might be considered to be a falsehood by omission,’ she observed.
‘Aye, I was afraid you would say that.’ He stared at her, the fatigue apparent in his face and his very stance. ‘What am I to do?’
‘First, you must allow me to be the judge of what lies I choose to state or to imply.’ She had not intended to sound as if she were reprimanding him, but the droop of his mouth suggested that he took her remark in that way. ‘Sir Josse?’ she said kindly, and he raised his eyes to meet hers. ‘I meant no reproof.’
‘No, my lady.’
He did not seem to be comforted in the least. Very well; best, she decided, to proceed. ‘I propose that you do just as you suggest, and hide the Eye. Should the Prince ask me about it — which I rather doubt that he will, since all along he has dared only to enquire about a man called Galbertius Sidonius, not what this man may or may not have carried with him — I shall respond as I see fit. The one thing that I shall not say’ — she leaned forward, speaking earnestly- ‘is that we now know who Sidonius is, that you have spoken to him and that he has given you what is rightfully yours.’
He said, with an air of wonderment, ‘You would do that? Withhold the very information that he seeks, if he asks for it?’
‘I would. I shall.’ He still seemed perplexed. ‘Sir Josse, it is, as you are aware, a sin to lie. To lie to a prince of royal blood may in addition be a crime — it might even be treason, I do not know. But even if so, it is better than the alternative.’
‘Letting the Prince have the Eye,’ he said dully.
‘Quite so. And, as you told me, even John Dee indicated the folly of that.’
There was a silence during which she — and, she imagined, Josse too — considered just how Prince John’s ambition, intelligence and ruthlessness might put a magic talisman to use.
‘We would in truth be doing the Prince a favour, not letting him have the Eye,’ Josse said eventually.
‘We would? How so?’
Josse grinned. ‘I won’t give it to him freely, so, if he took it, he would not be the rightful owner. John Dee says the powers won’t work for such a person. Could even work against him.’
‘Ah, I see.’
Had she needed further justification of her decision — which she didn’t — Josse had just supplied it.
There was a further, longer, silence. Then she said gently, ‘I suggest you go and hide it now, Sir Josse.’
‘Eh?’
‘The Eye.’
‘Ah. Oh, yes.’
It was a measure of his fatigue and his state of mind that he turned and left the room, quietly closing the door after him, without even bidding her good night.
She sat there in silence for some time after he had gone.
She had just remembered that, when he had left her earlier in the day with John Dee, he and his brother had been going to take the old man to Sister Tiphaine, for treatment for his bad back.
Had the herbalist said anything? Oh, dear, supposing-
But with a deliberate act of will, Helewise cut off that line of thought. I am quite certain that she did not, she decided. For one thing, during our conversation just now Josse hardly looked like a man who had recently learned a life-altering piece of news. For another, Sister Tiphaine adamantly refuses to discuss the matter with me, so why presume that she would reveal the secret to Josse the moment she had a chance?
Wearily Helewise dropped her aching head down on to her arms, folded on her table. And all of that, she thought, presupposes that I am right.
Am I?
She thought back to her last talk with Sister Tiphaine. She had sought out the herbalist in her garden; it had been the day that Josse and Yves had set out to visit Prince John, and come back with the sheriff and his men bearing the dead body of the old man’s servant lad.