‘And Leofgar?’
She could no longer fight her memories. ‘It was Leofgar of whom I was thinking when I spoke of the nonsense language,’ she said. ‘He was so eager to speak that he even made sounds in his sleep. Ivo claimed he was snoring but I said he was trying to communicate with us. Oh, and he used to make every other sort of sound, too — he’d laugh at almost anything, he was such a sunny, cheerful child.’
The nun that she now was commanded enough, and abruptly she stopped.
As if he were reluctant to bring her from the happy past to the distressing present, Josse waited a moment before he spoke. Then he said, ‘What does Sister Euphemia have to say about your son’s child?’
She went back to studying her hands. ‘She says he is afraid.’ She looked up hastily and met his compassionate face. ‘And before you ask, afraid of what, I have no idea!’ Then she shot to her feet and said, ‘Wait here. I will fetch Leofgar and the child and you can judge for yourself.’
Josse watched her tall figure stride away down the infirmary. He lay back on his pillows, momentarily exhausted by the tension. She’s feeling very guilty because she’s putting a mother’s natural instinct to care for and help her child above her duty as a nun, he thought, trying to make sense of it all, and in addition to that she’s frantic with worry about her daughter-in-law’s fragile mental state and her grandson’s dumbness.
Great God, he reflected, no wonder she’s so distressed.
He was just making a solemn promise to himself that he would do all that he could to help her when he saw her coming back. Now there was a tall young man walking beside her, carrying a small child dressed in a short blue tunic and thick hose.
As they approached, he wondered if anyone else had had the same thought: that these three people were so alike that, even had you not known them, you would have guessed that the same blood just had to run in their veins. Leofgar was taller than his mother but shared her broad shoulders and her upright bearing; his hair was dark (and Josse knew full well that Helewise’s was reddish-fair) and his skin had the same golden glow. The little boy’s colouring was light, like his grandmother’s, and the well-shaped mouth, although now set in a solemn line, looked as if it were made for smiles and laughter.
What pointed them out as close relatives, though, was their eyes.
Struggling to sit up, Josse held out a hand to this sad man who was the son of his dearest friend and said, ‘I am in my infirmary bed and you are troubled, young Leofgar. This is no time for lengthy and formal introductions — I shall only say that I’m Josse and I’m delighted to meet you.’
Amusement filled Leofgar’s eyes — making him look even more like his mother — and, taking Josse’s hand, he said, ‘The delight is all mine, sir. My mother has told me all about you.’
Not all, Josse hoped. That would be too much for anyone to absorb in a few hours and anyway he fervently hoped that the tenderest parts of all remained his own secret.
‘And this is Timus?’ Josse turned to look at the child.
‘Yes. Timus, say hello to Sir Josse,’ Leofgar commanded.
But the little boy was timid and hid his face in his father’s tunic, turning his head only a fraction so he could look at Josse out of the corner of his eye.
Josse remembered a trick that had once amused one of his nephews. Making sure that Timus was still looking at him, he raised both hands and, with an expression of deep concentration, pretended to wrench off his left thumb, tucking it down into the palm of that hand. Then he put his right hand behind his left and, sticking up the thumb, slid it up and down as if it were the detached left thumb.
Timus had come out of hiding now and was openly staring, eyes wide with fascination. Then, as Josse looked with exaggerated and horrified amazement at his wayward thumb, suddenly the boy laughed.
The sound was so sweet and so infectious that, almost without realising it, the three adults began to laugh too. But then Leofgar said, ‘You are a magician, Sir Josse. That is, I believe, the first time in a week that my son has laughed.’
Josse gave him a vague grin; he was busy with the next trick. As once more he held up his hands, Timus struggled round in his father’s arms to get a better view; Leofgar, with a raised eyebrow at Josse, who nodded, carefully placed the child down on Josse’s bed. Josse caught Timus’s eye and said softly, ‘Watch.’
Frowning and narrowing his eyes as if he were having trouble seeing, Josse threaded an imaginary needle. Then, wincing in pretend pain, he stuck the imaginary needle through each of the fingers of his left hand, starting with the little one and ending with the thumb. He gave the invisible thread a twitch, which brought all his fingers snapping together, then, pushing hard and going ‘Ouch!’, he pretended to push the needle into his left ear and pull it out of his right. Then, as if a thread really did run from his bound left hand through his head to his right one, he pulled his right hand down and simultaneously raised his left, repeating the manoeuvre several times and beaming broadly in triumph.
Timus, who had been watching open-mouthed, clumsily copied the gesture. Then, pointing at Josse, who had now stopped, he said quite clearly, ‘More!’
Josse was smiling again, and one glance at Helewise and her son — whose mouths had dropped open just like Timus’s entranced by the trick — made him laugh aloud. ‘This is the child who does not speak?’ he said quietly; Timus was kneeling on his lap now and trying clumsily to make Josse’s hands do the trick again. Looking down at him, he added, ‘Well, whatever ails him that makes him opt for silence, it is not because he can’t speak.’ Staring up at the mother and son before him, he said, ‘Is it?’
And as Helewise quietly shook her head, Leofgar’s face took on an expression of deep joy as he said, ‘No. Oh, I must tell Rohaise as soon as she wakes!’ Looking over his shoulder down the ward, it was clear to Josse where he wanted to be. Josse said, ‘Off you go. Timus will be quite safe with me. If his grandmother’ — he shot a look at Helewise — ‘has to be off and about her duties, I shall be glad of this little man’s company. I have a few more tricks yet and, if I remember children’s ways aright, the first two amusements may bear a repetition or two.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ Leofgar gave him a graceful bow, then turned and hurried away in the direction of his wife’s bedside.
Josse knew she was looking at him even before he raised his head to check. ‘How did you do that?’ she breathed.
‘It’s quite easy really, you only pretend there’s a needle and thread and-’
‘Sir Josse, do not joke!’ But she was smiling as she spoke. ‘You have a rare gift with children; your brothers’ sons and daughters are fortunate in their uncle and you would appear to be a natural-’
She stopped, and he could tell that she was confused. Well, perhaps what he guessed she had been about to say was a little personal, but he wouldn’t have minded.
He watched the little boy crawling across his bed for a moment or two. Timus seemed to have made himself at home and instinctively Josse put out a hand and gently took hold of the child’s ankle, in case he went too near the edge and fell off. ‘Do you feel reassured a little, my lady?’ he asked.
‘I do, Sir Josse,’ she replied. ‘I do not dare to hope that this minor miracle you have brought about means that all Timus’s troubles are behind him but, as you said, we now know that he can utter sounds if he wants to.’
‘Aye,’ Josse agreed. And he thought, but did not say, that the next question was surely to ask why Timus did not want to speak. Or to laugh; he wondered if Helewise had also noticed what her son had said when Josse’s first trick had met with such a response: that it was the first time in a week that the little boy had laughed.