As if he, too, felt the need of light in this suddenly terrible place, Josse took a flare out of its bracket on the wall and held it in his left hand as he unlocked the door of the makeshift prison, carrying it in with him as he and Helewise advanced into the cell.
She saw him immediately, for all that he was cowering right in the far corner. As the light from the flare fell on him, his face relaxed into a smile. But only for a moment; seeing who stood beside her, he gave a low moan, and slumped back against the wall as if he were trying to bury himself.
Glancing over her shoulder, Helewise noticed that Josse had positioned himself with his back to the closed door of the cell, his stance appearing to defy the prisoner to challenge him. His face, in the light of the flare, was stern; she was, she reflected briefly, now seeing the man of action, the King’s agent, making quite sure a murder suspect didn’t make a break for freedom.
The young man whom she knew must be Milon d’Arcy was now sitting with his legs drawn up to his chest, head dropped on to his knees. Stepping forward, Josse said, with a gentleness which greatly surprised her, ‘Milon, get up. The Abbess Helewise is here, and you must show her respect.’
Slowly the youth did as he was told. For the first time, Helewise was face to face with the husband of the late postulant, Elanor d’Arcy, known in this community as Elvera.
She hadn’t known what to expect. But it certainly wasn’t this thin, white-faced young man, whose fine bright clothes were muddied and torn, and whose eyes bore an expression which, although she couldn’t yet read it, struck a chill in her.
And who, quite obviously, had been crying.
Not knowing of any better way to begin, she said, ‘Did you kill your wife, Milon?’
She heard a brief exclamation from behind her — Josse, apparently, did not approve of her straightforward interrogation methods — but, after a tense moment, slowly Milon nodded.
‘And why was that?’ she continued, in the same quiet tone.
‘I didn’t mean to,’ he whispered. He sobbed, sniffed, and wiped his wet nose on his sleeve. Raising his eyes to Helewise, the pupils wide in the dim light, he said urgently, ‘She came to me, you see, that night, down in our secret place. Just like she always did on a Wednesday. I used to wait for her, on those nights, in the bed I’d made for us deep in the undergrowth. We’d lie together till the very first glimmer of light, then she’d run back to her dormitory and pretend to be asleep when the summons came for Matins.’
‘Prime,’ Helewise corrected automatically.
‘Was it?’ Incongruously, in that dread place, he gave a sudden swift smile. ‘She said it was Matins.’
‘Well, she was very new to convent life.’ Dear God, but this was difficult! ‘So, she came to you that night, Milon. And you — you spent some time together.’
‘We made love,’ Milon said. ‘We made love a lot, ever since we were wed.’ An echo of the smile again. ‘Before that, once, although we never told anyone. Many, many times, once we were man and wife and we were allowed to. She was pregnant.’ There was a distinct note of pride in his voice. ‘Did you know that, Abbess?’
Helewise nodded. ‘Yes, Milon. I knew.’
‘It was wonderful, wasn’t it,’ he hurried on eagerly, ‘for her to be with child so soon after our marriage? Of course, she didn’t tell Gunnora. Didn’t even tell her we were wed. So, apart from me, there was nobody she could chat to about how happy she is, how excited.’ He frowned. ‘That was sad. She needed to tell people, Elanor did. She always needs to share it when something good happens to her. That’s why it’s — why it was so hard for her being in the Abbey.’ He looked around him, as if suddenly remembering where he was. ‘Being here,’ he added, in a whisper.
Helewise wondered if Josse, too, had noticed Milon’s confusion of past and present. Turning to look quickly at him, she saw that his deep frown of disapproval had lifted slightly. And that, mingled with the outrage and the anger, was pity.
Yes, she thought. He has noticed. And, like me, he is torn between condemning this youth for what he has done and pitying him for the frailness of his mental state.
But now was no time to allow compassion to overrule justice.
‘The child — your and Elanor’s child — would have been rich, wouldn’t he?’ she pressed on. ‘Or she, of course. Born into wealth.’
Milon was nodding again. ‘Yes! Yes! He’d have had a silver spoon, all right! That was why, you see.’ He looked eagerly from Helewise to Josse, as if inviting their understanding. ‘We were thinking of ourselves at first, I can’t deny it, thinking how unfair it was, that, with Dillian gone, the old fool was thinking of changing his will and leaving the lot to Gunnora after all. And she didn’t want it!’ He opened his hands wide as if to say, just imagine! ‘That was the stupid thing! She hated wealth, and everything to do with it! That’s why she had to come in here — it was all part of her plan. She was going to-’
Just then Josse interrupted. ‘And you couldn’t bear the thought of your uncle-in-law’s wealth ending up in Hawkenlye Abbey, could you? So you killed her.’
‘No!’ The denial came out with such deep anguish that Helewise began to sense she had been right all along.
‘There’s no point keeping on saying no when we-’ Josse began furiously.
But Helewise said, ‘Sir Josse, if you please?’ and, with an obvious effort, he stopped.
She turned back to Milon. ‘So Elanor posed as the postulant Elvera, entered the convent and met up with her cousin. How did she explain herself?’
Milon smiled. ‘She told Gunnora it was for a bet. That I’d bet her a gold coin she couldn’t fool everyone into believing she really wanted to be a nun, and she’d claimed she could, and, what’s more, she’d show me. Of course, she said it wouldn’t be for very long, that, soon, she’d pretend she’d changed her mind and go again. Before they threatened to cut her hair off, that’s for sure!’
The sound of his laughter — bright, happy, as if he hadn’t a care in the world — was, Helewise thought, almost as dreadful as that moaning had been.
And then, looking confidingly into her eyes, he added, ‘She’s got lovely hair, hasn’t she?’
Fortunately for Helewise, who was, just at that moment, incapable of continuing, Josse took up the questioning.
‘And Gunnora believed in this stupid prank?’ He sounded incredulous. ‘But didn’t it strike her as deeply irreverent, when she herself was about to take the first of her final vows?’
But she wasn’t, Helewise thought. And she was beginning to understand why. She sighed. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘Gunnora swallowed the story. She believed everything Elanor told her. Didn’t she, Milon?’
‘Yes.’ He was grinning. ‘She went along with it. She actually thought it was as funny as Elanor did.’
‘But all the time Elanor’s presence here had a much darker purpose,’ Josse said. ‘All along, you and your wife were planning to kill Gunnora.’
‘I keep telling you, it wasn’t like that!’ Milon cried. ‘We just wanted to make a friend of her, wanted her to like us, so that when she got her father’s money, she’d pass it on to us and not give it to the Abbey.’
‘You felt that your need was the greater?’ Helewise said, with some irony.
He turned to her. ‘No.’ His expression was aggrieved. ‘It wasn’t because of that.’
‘What, then?’ Josse demanded.
Again, Milon looked at both of his questioners in turn. Meeting the tormented, shadowed eyes, Helewise was reminded of a wild animal cornered by hounds.
But then, finding from some unsuspected reserve a vestige of pride, Milon sat up and straightened his shoulders. Raising his chin, he said with quiet dignity, ‘Because I’m his son.’
There was utter silence in the cold little room. Then Josse repeated, ‘His son.’
Helewise’s mind had leapt to one crucial thing. Silly, really, she thought, when so much else is at stake. ‘Your marriage wasn’t legal, if Sir Alard was indeed your father,’ she said. ‘A union between first cousins is within the prohibited degree.’