Helewise was awake very early the next morning. She lay listening, but could hear no sounds of human beings other than faint snores from one or both of the brothers, over in the far corner of the room.
She huddled deeper under the warm, wool cover. She was thankful to have it; she had only packed it because Josse had said you never knew when you might have to spend a night in the open, and it was better to go prepared.
Josse. How was he? I wish he were here right now, she thought, I could do with his good sense and his insight. Not that I am criticising dear Saul and Augustine, she added to herself, they have been exemplary companions. But Josse and I have puzzled over many a problem together. .
She dozed for a while, then had a half-sleeping, half-waking dream in which she sat before Josse and told him that she had brought him a hand and a pelvis, and that he must put the dead man together again. But Josse held up his wounded arm and said he couldn’t manage such a task just then, and instead snapped off two of the skeletal fingers and made them into a cross.
It was quite a relief to wake up.
When all three of them were awake and had eaten a sparse breakfast, she asked Brother Augustine to prepare the horses. When he had done so, she said, ‘I think, my brothers, that it is time we went home.’
‘Is there nothing more that we can find out here, Abbess?’ Saul asked.
She smiled at him. ‘Many things that I should like to find out, Saul. But who is there to ask?’
Slowly he nodded, gazing out at the empty track outside. ‘Aye. And the three people who we know to be most closely involved are back at Hawkenlye.’
‘Do you think that Alba and her sisters knew of that place in the woods?’ she mused. ‘It is so close to their father’s farm that it is hard to believe they did not. They will be distressed to know of the fire, and even more so if we tell them that we found a body inside. The poor man might even have been somebody they knew.’ She thought for a while. ‘In fact I think, brothers, that we should not tell them.’
Both the brothers nodded.
Then, leaving Medely as silent as it had been when they arrived, they mounted the horses and turned their heads for the long road home.
Josse’s days of convalescence seemed interminable. He was bored, sick of the sight of the four walls of the infirmary, and longed to be up and out in the fresh air. He was quite sure he was ready for such an excursion, but had not yet managed to persuade Sister Euphemia. At least he was now visiting the latrine, though, and spared the ignominy of using a bottle to pee in.
As his spirits and his health recovered, Sister Euphemia allowed him more visitors. He was relieved to discover that talking no longer exhausted him. He enjoyed long conversations with many of the nuns and quite a few of the monks; Brother Firmin brought him a daily phial of holy water, praying solemnly with him while he drank it. Whether it was the water, or whether he was catching Brother Firmin’s sincere and fervent belief in it, the daily drink always left Josse feeling full of vitality.
His most frequent — and, he had to admit, most beloved — visitor was Berthe. She came to see him at least once every day, and often managed to slip back in the evening when the infirmary was meant to be closed to visitors. He began to think that she might treasure their time together as much as he did for, although she never said as much, he guessed that she was lonely, worried and very unhappy.
Their conversation had steadily become more wide-ranging as they relaxed in one another’s company. Berthe never mentioned the sister penned up beneath the infirmary, and she seldom speculated about where Meriel was. That in itself was a little suspicious, Josse thought; while she easily might not be too disturbed to have the bullying Alba unable to get at her, surely she must be desperately anxious about Meriel? The two younger sisters had appeared to be so close.
Puzzling over the problem one morning, a thought occurred to him. Perhaps Berthe wasn’t worrying about her sister because she knew quite well that Meriel was safe. .
Feeling only a little ashamed of himself, Josse resolved to do some gentle probing the next time Berthe came to see him.
He did not have long to wait. Towards the end of the morning, he heard her light step coming down the long ward of the infirmary and, leaning forward, he saw her approaching his bed.
‘I’ve brought you some bluebells,’ she said, proffering a small bunch. ‘Alba used to forbid us to pick them, because they would always droop so quickly and then she had to throw them away and wash out the jar. But Meriel says — Meriel used to say the smell was so perfect.’
A pink blush was creeping up the girl’s face. Dear child, Josse thought, lying doesn’t really suit you. ‘Thank you,’ he said, pretending he hadn’t noticed either the slip or the blush. ‘Have you been into the forest?’
‘Yes! But only a little way, the nuns told me it’s easy to become lost.’
‘The nuns were quite right.’ He pretended to be preoccupied with the bluebells while he thought how to proceed. Berthe was on her guard, he realised, so questions pertaining directly to Meriel were probably not the best way. After a moment, he said, ‘There were woods near where I grew up. One of my earliest memories is of picking flowers with my mother.’
‘We used to do that, too, Mother and Meriel and me!’ Berthe responded, with such innocent pleasure that Josse cringed at his own duplicity. ‘Sometimes when Father wasn’t there, Mother used to pack up food, and we’d be out all day. Once we made a pretend house out of dead branches and stuff, and Mother even let us have a fire. We had to make a proper hearth — she showed us how, using stones from the stream as a surround so that the fire didn’t burn out of control. After Mother died, sometimes Meriel and I-’
Too late, she heard her own words.
Josse began to say, ‘It’s all right, Berthe, we’d already-’ But, observing with alarm the girl’s face, he stopped.
Berthe had gone deadly white, and had thrust her knuckle so hard into her mouth that she had drawn blood. She was rocking to and fro in a compulsive, persistent rhythm that was dreadful to watch, emitting all the time a soft, high-pitched keening.
Josse opened his arms to her. After an instant’s indecision, she threw herself against him and began to sob.
She even sobs quietly, he thought, compassion for her drenching his heart. As if crying out loud were likely to earn her a punishment. Poor lass, what can her life have been like?
When the crying subsided, he said very softly, ‘Berthe my love, we had guessed that some of what you have told us wasn’t quite true. We also understand that sometimes people have to tell a lie. It may be to protect somebody else, or it may be because someone is threatening to hurt them if they tell the truth. Which means, sweeting, that a lie isn’t always a bad thing.’
She said, her voice muffled, ‘Father beat us if we lied. He beat us with a belt, and the buckle used to cut our shoulders.’
He stroked the thin back with his left hand. ‘Your father can no longer hurt you, Berthe. You don’t have to tell lies for him any more.’
‘Alba can hurt me,’ Berthe whispered.
‘Not all the time she’s imprisoned.’
Berthe raised her face and stared at him. ‘How long will that be?’
‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘She certainly won’t be released until Abbess Helewise comes back.’
‘I like Abbess Helewise,’ Berthe remarked.
‘She likes you, too.’
‘Does she? How do you know?’
‘She told me.’
‘You’re friends, aren’t you? You and the Abbess?’
‘We are.’
She frowned. ‘I didn’t like it when she asked me about Alba. Before she went away, I mean. She asked if I knew the name of the place where Alba went to be a nun, and I couldn’t tell her because I don’t know.’