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‘But the blood?’ Josse said. ‘What about the blood?’

‘It came from her throat, I reckon,’ Euphemia said quietly. ‘Whoever did for her, he scooped up the blood from her cut neck and smeared it on her — smeared it down there. Left her there, skirts up over her belly, legs all open, covered in blood.’

There was silence in the room as they all thought about that.

Then the Abbess said, ‘Someone killed her, and made it seem as though he had also raped her.’

‘Because,’ Josse added, ‘murder and murder plus rape are two different crimes.’

The Abbess looked up and met his eye. Nodding slowly, she said, ‘Two very different crimes.’

Chapter Four

‘And now, if you please, Abbess Helewise,’ Josse said when, Sister Euphemia having gone back to her infirmary, they were once more alone, ‘I should be grateful if you would tell me everything you can recall of Gunnora’s last hours.’

Helewise wondered if he had intended to sound so pompous. Studying him, observing the slight tension evident in the way he leaned forward in his seat, she decided in his favour. The man was nervous — perhaps uneasy at being inside a convent, it did affect some people that way, especially men — and his anxiety had given rise to an overformal tone of voice.

He was also, she had noticed, considerably too large for the delicate little chair he was sitting on. Well, it was hardly more than a stool, really, all right for a lightly built woman but not equal to the task of supporting a tall and broad-shouldered man. One, moreover, who appeared to have an innate restlessness, so that, trying to keep still on his inadequate seat, the effort was readily apparent.

It was up to her, Helewise decided, to put him at his ease. With that in mind, she arranged her face in what her late husband had been wont to refer to as her despot-after-a-good-dinner expression. Smiling benevolently at her visitor, she noticed brief alarm, quickly replaced by a tentative answering smile.

Oh, dear. Perhaps dear old Ivo had been right about the despot.

‘How much do you know about the daily routine of a convent, my lord d’Acquin?’ she began. ‘I ask because, without a working knowledge of our life, it will be more difficult for you to remark on any oddities in Gunnora’s final days.’

‘I understand. Madam, I know little other than that your hours are determined by the saying of the offices, and that your prayers intercede with Almighty God on behalf of all mankind.’

It was nicely said, and she inclined her head in recognititon. ‘Indeed, we follow the discipline of the Divine Offices, throughout the twenty-four hours of the day. Our rule, like that of the great foundation at Fontevraud, is modelled on the Benedictine Rule, although there are certain significant modifications. However, we are not like a strictly enclosed order, in that prayer within our own house is not our sole occupation. We serve the community in other ways.’

‘As I was escorted in, I saw a sister helping a man to accustom himself to walking with a crutch,’ Josse said. ‘And I could be wrong, but I thought I heard a baby cry.’

An observant man, this Josse d’Acquin, Helewise thought, to have noticed so much in the brief seconds it would have taken him to cross from the gates to the cloister. ‘You were not wrong. We run a hospital here, in the long wing beside the church. Sister Beata, whom you saw, has been caring for a poacher who lost his foot in a man trap. We also have a wing for the care and rehabilitation of penitential whores. It would perhaps surprise you, sir, to know how many former harlots are redeemed by motherhood into the wish for a purer life.’

‘I am happy to hear it.’ He appeared to have detected a reproof in her tone, which she had not intended, for he went on, ‘I did not wish to sound as if I were prying, Abbess Helewise, when I mentioned the baby — it was merely that the sound surprised me.’ In a convent, hung unsaid on the air.

‘Please, there is no need for explanations.’ She smiled at him again, this time more genuinely. ‘One of the girls in our care gave birth last week. We, too, are still sometimes taken aback at the sweet sounds of her baby.’

‘A hospital and a reformatory,’ he said, visibly relaxing now. ‘You have much work here at Hawkenlye.’

More than you think, she thought. Would it appear prideful to tell him the rest? Perhaps. But then she would be speaking for her sisters, who did the hard work. Who deserved recognition. ‘We also run a retirement home for aged and infirm monks and nuns, and a small leper hospital.’ He reacted to the last, as people inevitably did, and she said what she always said by way of reassurance. ‘Do not be alarmed, sir. The leper house is isolated from the community, and we are fortuante in that three of our sisters elected of their own free will to be enclosed with the sick. They, and those of their charges who are able, join in with the spiritual life of the community by way of a closed-off passage leading to a separate chapel, which backs on to a side aisle of the church. You are no more in danger of contagion here than in the world at large, possibly less so, since our nursing sisters are expert at detecting the early symptoms of leprosy. If they have the least suspicion, the patient is put in a separate holding ward until-’ No. No need to go into the clinical details. ‘Well, until the sisters are sure.’

He was shaking his head, had been doing so for the last few seconds of her speech. ‘Abbess, you misunderstand. My response to what you were telling me was not one of fear or horror.’ He paused, then amended, ‘Not entirely so, anyway. I cannot claim to be any more immune to the dread of the sickness than the next man. But actually what was passing through my mind was what a heavy burden of work you and your sisters bear. What a responsibility is yours.’

She stared hard at him, but could detect no insincerity, no attempt to flatter her, win her over. ‘My nuns and I are greatly helped by the lay brothers, who live with the monks down beside the shrine,’ she said. Credit where it was due. ‘They are good men. Unlearned, but strong and willing. They remove from us the need to weary ourselves with hard labour.’

‘I did not know about them,’ Josse said. ‘I was only told of the monks, who care, I believe, for the spring where the holy water flows.’

‘Indeed they do.’ She was careful to keep her tone neutral. No need to reveal to this sharp-eyed visitor that one of her most persistent problems was with the fifteen monks in the vale, who appeared to think that living so close to Our Lady’s blessed shrine gave them an aura of holiness that everyone else ought to revere. A holiness that, so they seemed to believe, gave them immunity from hard work. They were, in Brother Firmin’s own words, the Marys, adoring the Lord, or in this case His Holy Mother, while the Marthas — Helewise and her nuns — got on with being ‘busy with many things’.

Instead she went on, ‘You appreciate, my lord d’Acquin, the reason for our hospitals and homes?’

‘Aye. You have a healing spring in your Abbey.’

‘Yes. And, according to tradition, the original sick merchant to whom the Blessed Virgin appeared — you are aware of the story?’ He nodded. ‘The merchant said that Our Lady praised him for giving the spring water to his fevered companions, and she told him it was the best possible cure.’

‘The monks, then, tend the spring,’ Josse summarised.

‘Yes. They see to the immediate needs of those who come to take the water. They provide shelter from the sun or the rain, a warm fire when it is cold, benches to sit on, simple lodgings for those who wish to stay overnight. They collect the water in jugs and pour it into the pilgrims’ cups. They also provide. spiritual counsel for those in need.’

Josse caught her eye. She knew what he was going to say before he said it. ‘It sounds a relatively undemanding life, compared with that of your sisters,’ he remarked.

He had picked up what she had tried so hard to ensure that he didn’t. I must, she told herself sternly, be even more careful not to allow my resentments to show. ‘The monks work devotedly,’ she said, filling the words with sincerity.