Grinning back at him, Leofgar said, ‘Go and search my table?’
‘Exactly that, because Rohaise did not report that Walter Bell succeeded in finding anything in, on or under that table.’ And, he thought, I saw with my own eyes that Arthur Fitzurse met with no more success when he looked. But he did not voice the thought; there seemed no need yet to add to Leofgar’s worries by revealing that Arthur Fitzurse had also searched the Old Manor. ‘So,’ he concluded, ‘whatever Bell came hunting for-’
‘-is still there!’ Leofgar gave a whoop of joy. ‘Go, Josse, be on your way, I beg you, and God’s speed,’ he said more quietly. ‘May you meet with success.’
‘I have a feeling that I will,’ Josse said. ‘Tell that to your pretty wife, Leofgar, and make sure she keeps her hopes up and her heart high.’
‘I will,’ Leofgar assured him. ‘Come back soon. I will watch for you.’
With a grunt of assent, Josse clicked to Horace and, leading the horse down the narrow track, set off in the direction of the Abbey.
He was so eager to tell the Abbess what had happened and about this thrilling and promising new prospect of searching for the precious thing that Walter Bell was sent to find that, as soon as he could, he mounted and kicked Horace to a canter. Arriving at the Abbey gates in a thunder of hooves, he drew to a halt, slid off Horace’s back and, after the most perfunctory of greetings to Sister Martha and Sister Ursel at the gate, he ran off to find the Abbess.
‘She’s not there!’ Sister Martha’s voice called after him.
He stopped dead. ‘Where is she?’ he asked, turning to look at the two nuns.
They looked at each other and then back at him. Then, in a voice that reflected her puzzlement and the very beginnings of anxiety, Sister Ursel said, ‘Isn’t she with you?’
He got the tale from them in time. Plunged almost into panic by their dread, they both kept trying to talk at once and for a while he could make no sense of what they said. Some man had come up from Tonbridge and told Sister Ursel that he had been sent by the sheriff and would the Abbess Helewise please go down with him to join Gervase de Gifford and Sir Josse d’Acquin there as something had happened and they wanted her to know of it and to give her opinion. Sister Ursel had thought it a little odd, but then hadn’t another of the sheriff’s men come up to the Abbey earlier with a similar message for Josse, and hadn’t he set off without a qualm in answer to that summons? Anyway, odd or not, the Abbess, bless her, hadn’t hesitated but had ordered Sister Martha to prepare the golden mare so that she could be on her way. ‘And it wasn’t for either of us to question her actions, was it, Sir Josse?’ Sister Ursel asked tearfully. ‘She’s our Abbess and we must do as we’re told!’
Full of pity for the two distressed nuns, Josse agreed that it was for the Abbess to order her own comings and goings, and he reassured both sisters that it wasn’t their fault and nobody would hold them to blame.
‘That’s all very well, Sir Josse,’ Sister Martha said after waiting patiently for him to finish. ‘But if she’s not with you, where is she?’
Trying to keep his own fears under tight control, he said, ‘What was the man like, the one who claimed he had come from the sheriff?’
The two nuns looked at each other, then Sister Martha said, ‘Dark sort of aspect to him. Rode a decent horse and although he wore a cheap, thin cloak, I thought I caught a glimpse of a fine tunic beneath it. And there was something else …’ She broke off, frowning as if trying to search for the words to describe a fleeting impression. Then, apparently finding them, said, ‘The man who came for you, Sir Josse, who I sent down to the Vale to find you, he sounded like what he was, if you understand me. This other fellow, he sounded as if he were putting on a voice. Speaking with words he didn’t usually use.’
‘Could he,’ Josse said cautiously, not wanting to lead her, ‘have been just pretending to be a sheriff’s man?’
Sister Martha shot him a quick look. ‘Aye, Sir Josse, he well could. I reckon there was a man of quality hiding under that dirty cloak, or at least a man who habitually puts on the airs of one, and he didn’t much like having to act otherwise.’
A man who habitually puts on airs … Aye, Josse thought. A shrewd assessment of Arthur Fitzurse, if ever I heard one. Wondering what on earth this meant, what Fitzurse could possibly have been trying to do in luring the Abbess away from Hawkenlye, he did his best to reassure the two nuns that it was probably a simple mistake that would soon be cleared up. ‘I’ll go straight back down to Tonbridge,’ he said, taking Horace’s reins back from Sister Martha and swinging up into the saddle, ‘and I’ll have the Abbess back here before you know I’m gone!’
His words sounded cheerful and optimistic. But his last glimpse of the two worried faces as he cantered away suggested they were no more confident of this rapid success than he was.
He went straight to de Gifford’s house. Gervase was still there, or perhaps had been out and returned; he was sitting down to a hasty meal as Josse flung himself into the hall.
‘Arthur Fitzurse has taken the Abbess Helewise,’ he said breathlessly. ‘He went up to Hawkenlye and claimed to be one of your men sent to fetch her down to join us here.’
‘Fitzurse?’ De Gifford was standing up even as he spoke. ‘Why? What does he want of her?’
Josse shook his head impatiently. ‘I cannot begin to guess. Where does he live? Do you know?’
‘He lodges in rooms in the town. A mean sort of place; I should have expected better from the man’s manner.’
Josse heard Sister Martha’s voice again. Aye, it seemed more than one person had gained this impression of Fitzurse: he was a man who had the air of someone of more means than he in fact possessed. In that moment Josse saw the man again as he had first watched him ride into the courtyard of the Old Manor, looking as if he owned the place.
‘We’ll go and look for him,’ de Gifford was saying, reaching for his cloak that he had spread before the fire to warm. ‘Come on!’
Needing no encouragement, Josse followed him. They mounted their horses and hurried off and after a short time were outside the dilapidated building where Fitzurse had his lodgings. To the surprise of neither man, he was not there and neither was the Abbess.
‘Where has he taken her?’ Josse raged as they returned to de Gifford’s house. Trying to keep his voice low, he demanded, ‘Why has he taken her?’
Reading his anxiety, de Gifford spoke calmly. ‘I will summon all the men at my disposal and set them hunting for her. My men are good,’ he added, eyes on Josse’s, ‘believe me, Josse, they know their way around the dark corners of this town very well and they will not give up until they find her.’
Only a little reassured, Josse watched as de Gifford sent out the summons and, as his men began to arrive, quietly issued his orders. When the last man had gone, he turned to the sheriff and said, ‘What do we do? I cannot just sit here and wait, man, I-’
‘I understand,’ de Gifford said gently. ‘You need to be doing something, and so do I. What do you suggest?’
Josse tried to think what he had been doing before this new and dreadful thing had happened. He’d been desperate to see the Abbess because he wanted to tell her something …
Aye. He knew what it was, and he also knew what he and Gervase must now do. He said — and he was pleased to hear that his voice sounded brisk and decisive and the terrible anxiety didn’t show — ‘We’ll ride out to the Old Manor.’
De Gifford looked surprised. ‘Do you think to find Fitzurse there?’
Josse shrugged; it was possible, he supposed, although he did not see quite why. ‘Maybe. But there’s something else that we must look for.’ And, as they rode out of the courtyard and set off along the road northwards, he explained what it was.