The grey-haired soldier came back into his thoughts, and the little half-gesture he had made on the bridge. As his stocky colleague had shouted and pulled on Wistan’s hair, the grey-haired man had started to raise his arm, his fingers almost in a pointing gesture, a reprimand all but escaping his lips. Then he had let his arm fall. Axl had understood exactly what the grey-haired man had experienced during those moments. The soldier had then spoken with particular gentleness to Beatrice, and Axl had been grateful to him. He recalled Beatrice’s expression as she had stood before the bridge, changing from grave and guarded to the softly smiling one so dear to him. The picture now seized his heart, and at the same time made him fearful. A stranger — a potentially dangerous one at that — had but to say a few kindly words and there she was, ready to trust the world again. The thought troubled him and he felt the urge to run his hand gently over the shoulder now beside him. But had she not always been thus? Was it not part of what made her so precious to him? And had she not survived these many years with no great harm coming to her?
“It can’t be rosemary, sir,” he remembered Beatrice saying to him, her voice tense with anxiety. He was crouching down, one knee pressed into the ground, for it was a fine day and the soil dry. Beatrice must have been standing behind him, for he could remember her shadow on the forest floor before him as he parted the undergrowth with his hands. “It can’t be rosemary, sir. Who ever saw rosemary with such yellow flowers on it?”
“Then I have its name wrong, maiden,” Axl had said. “But I know for certain it’s one commonly seen, and not one to bring you mischief.”
“But are you really one who knows his plants, sir? My mother taught me everything grows wild in this country, yet what’s before us now is strange to me.”
“Then it’s likely something foreign to these parts lately arrived. Why distress yourself so, maiden?”
“I distress myself, sir, because it’s likely this is a weed I’m brought up to fear.”
“Why fear a weed except that it’s poisonous, and then all’s needed is not to touch it. Yet there you were, reaching down with your hands, and now getting me to do the same!”
“Oh, it’s not poisonous, sir! At least not in the way you mean. Yet my mother once described closely a plant and warned that to see it in the heather was bad luck for any young girl.”
“What sort of bad luck, maiden?”
“I’m not bold enough to tell you, sir.”
But even as she said this, the young woman — for that was what Beatrice was that day — had crouched down beside him so that their elbows touched for a brief moment, and smiled trustingly into his gaze.
“If it’s such bad luck to see it,” Axl had said, “what kindness is it to bring me from the road just to place my gaze on it?”
“Oh, it’s not bad luck for you, sir! Only for unmarried girls. There’s another plant entirely brings bad luck to men like yourself.”
“You’d better tell me what this other looks like, so I may dread it as you do this one.”
“You may enjoy mocking me, sir. Yet one day you’ll take a tumble and find the weed next to your nose. You’ll see then if it’s a laughing matter or not.”
He could remember now the feel of the heather as he had passed his hand through it, the wind in the branches above, and the presence of the young woman beside him. Could that have been the first time they had conversed? Surely they had at least known one another by sight; surely it was inconceivable even Beatrice would have been so trusting of a total stranger.
The woodcutting noises, which had paused for a while, now started up again, and it occurred to Axl the warrior might remain outside the entire night. Wistan appeared calm and thoughtful, even in combat, yet it was possible the tensions of the day and previous night had mounted on his nerves, and he needed to work them off in this way. Even so, his behaviour was odd. Father Jonus had specifically warned against further woodcutting, yet here he was, back at it again and with night well fallen. Earlier, when they had first arrived, it had seemed a simple courtesy on the warrior’s part. And at that point, as Axl had discovered, Wistan had had his own reasons for cutting wood.
“The woodshed is well positioned,” the warrior had explained. “The boy and I were able to keep good watch on the comings and goings while we worked. Even better, when we delivered the wood where it was needed, we roamed at will to inspect the surroundings, even if a few doors stayed barred to us.”
The two of them had been talking up by the high monastery wall overlooking the surrounding forest. The monks had long gone into their meeting by then, and a hush had fallen over the grounds. Several moments before, with Beatrice dozing in the chamber, Axl had wandered out under the late afternoon sun, and climbed the worn stone steps to where Wistan was looking down on the dense foliage below.
“But why go to such trouble, Master Wistan?” Axl had asked. “Can it be you’re suspicious of these good monks here?”
The warrior, a hand raised to shield his eyes, said: “When we were climbing that path earlier, I wanted nothing but to curl in a corner adrift in my dreams. Yet now we’re here, I can’t keep away the feeling this place holds dangers for us.”
“It must be weariness makes your suspicions keen, Master Wistan. What can trouble you here?”
“Nothing yet I can point to with conviction. But consider this. When I returned to the stables earlier to see all was well with the mare, I heard sounds coming from the stall behind. I mean, sir, this other stall was separated by a wall, but I could hear another horse beyond, though no horse was there when we first arrived and I led in the mare. Then when I walked to the other side, I found there the stable door shut and a great lock hanging on it only a key would release.”
“There may be many innocent explanations, Master Wistan. The horse may have been at pasture and lately brought in.”
“I spoke to a monk on that very point, and learnt they keep no horses here from a wish not to ease their burdens unduly. It would seem since our own arrival some other visitor has come, and one anxious to keep his presence hidden.”
“Now you mention it, Master Wistan, I recall Father Brian made mention of an important visitor arriving for the abbot, and their great conference being delayed on account of his coming. We know nothing of what goes on here, and in all likelihood, none of it touches us.”
Wistan nodded thoughtfully. “Perhaps you’re right, Master Axl. A little sleep would calm my suspicions. Even so, I sent the boy to wander further this place, supposing he’d be excused a natural curiosity more readily than a grown man. Not long ago he returned to report he’d heard a groaning from those quarters over there”—Wistan turned and pointed—“as of a man in pain. Creeping indoors after this sound, Master Edwin saw marks of blood both old and fresh outside a closed chamber.”
“Curious certainly. Yet there’d be no mystery in a monk meeting some unfortunate accident, perhaps tripping on these very steps.”
“I concede, sir, I’ve no hard reason to suppose anything amiss here. Perhaps it’s a warrior’s instinct makes me wish my sword was in my belt and I was done pretending to be a farmboy. Or maybe my fears derive simply from what these walls whisper to me of days gone by.”
“What can you mean, sir?”
“Only that not long ago, this place was surely no monastery, but a hillfort, and one well made to fight off foes. You recall the exhausting road we climbed? How the path turned back and forth as though eager to drain our strength? Look down there now, sir, see the battlements running above those same paths. It’s from there the defenders once showered their guests from above with arrows, rocks, boiling water. It would have been a feat merely to reach the gate.”