A range of emotions ran across Alba’s gaunt face. Shock, shame, a brief flaring anger and, finally and most enduringly, horror.
‘You can’t make me go, Abbess!’ she said in a whisper. ‘I am a nun! That is my vocation, and I shall be the best nun ever! I shall rise, just like you, to be Abbess — just wait and see!’
‘You are no longer a nun, Alba,’ the Abbess insisted firmly. ‘You knew that when you presented yourself to me, and yet you told me you had been fully professed for years.’
‘Yes, yes, I’m sorry,’ Alba said impatiently, as if brushing a minor matter out of the way. ‘But I’ll just have to begin again. Here.’
‘You cannot, Alba!’ The Abbess sounded aghast.
‘Ah, but I must!’ Alba countered. ‘You see, it’s my sisters. They are to take the veil, I’ve told them so, and I must be here, senior to them, to tell them what they may and may not do.’
‘But they — you wouldn’t-’ the Abbess began. Then, as if, like Josse, she realised she was addressing an irrationality that verged on mania, she stopped. ‘You have heard my decision, Alba,’ she said with dignity. ‘We shall do what we can to find you somewhere to go, then you will be released and you will leave Hawkenlye. That is final.’
The Abbess turned and left the cell, and Brother Saul swung the door shut and bolted it.
But, as the four of them walked away, they heard the dreadful sound of Alba hurling herself against it.
Josse could see that the Abbess was shaken. As Sister Martha and Brother Saul returned to their duties, he said to her, ‘Why not leave it for a while, Abbess? Sit and compose yourself, rest, go and pray, and-’
She turned to him, and the expression in her clear grey eyes silenced him. ‘I cannot stop until I see this through,’ she said coldly. Then, her face softening: ‘Oh Josse, forgive me! You meant only to help me, I know. But would you advise a general to have a little rest just when the battle is at its height?’
‘No.’
‘Well, then. All the time this awful, disturbing mystery remains with us, there can be no rest, for me or for any of my nuns. No. I shall speak to Brother Augustine and entrust to him his vital mission, then I shall find Berthe, and tell her what I have just told Alba.’
He nodded. ‘Aye. That’s for the best.’ He put out his hand and touched her wrist. ‘Good luck, Abbess. God be with you.’
Her muttered ‘Amen’ floated back to him as she hurried away.
The early afternoon was a quiet time down in the Vale. As Helewise approached the little clutch of simple buildings, she noticed that several of the pilgrims were resting under the overhanging roof outside the shelter; it was all part of the cure, she reflected, for them to be encouraged to take naps. As Sister Euphemia often said, going to sleep allowed the body to get on with the work of healing itself without any distractions.
She could see Berthe in the distance, sitting at the waterside further along the Vale. She had a clutch of children with her, and, from their rapt faces, it looked as if she were telling them a story.
Some of the monks and lay brothers were about, engaged in various tasks. Nobody seemed to be in a hurry. It was all most peaceful. .
Helewise told herself to stop daydreaming and remember why she had come. She wondered where Brother Augustine was. She was just about to send a monk to go and find him for her when one of the pilgrims got up from where he had been sitting, leaning against the front wall of the shelter, and came over to her.
She stared at him as he approached. She didn’t think she had seen him before, although it was hard to tell with so many people passing through all the time. And there was actually something vaguely familiar about him.
She said pleasantly, ‘Good day to you, pilgrim.’
He stopped a few paces from her and made her a deep reverence. She noted fleetingly that it was exactly the way that the professed greeted one another; the man must have a good eye for detail. Then, straightening, he met her eyes. His, she noticed, were dark, as was his short-cropped hair. And, unlike most men, he wore a beard.
He said in a low-pitched voice, ‘I believe I have the honour of addressing the Abbess of Hawkenlye.’
Helewise bowed her head briefly in acknowledgement, and his serious expression lightened momentarily into a smile.
‘You have arrived just today?’ she asked.
He nodded, but then said, ‘Er — yesterday.’
‘Have you yet taken of the precious, holy water?’
‘No.’
She was about to ask whether he was there for healing — not that he looked anything but the picture of health, but you could not always tell — or to offer prayers at Our Lady’s shrine. But she stopped herself. It was not usually her way to question visitors; why should she do so now?
The stranger was still staring at her. Beginning to feel a little uncomfortable, she said, ‘Excuse me, please. I must-’
But again she stopped herself. She was not in the habit of explaining her movements to the pilgrims, either. Giving him the smallest of nods, she turned away.
As she hurried off to find someone to locate Augustine for her, she was surprised to find that her heartbeat had quickened.
Why? she wondered. She tried to analyse the emotion coursing through her. It was not exactly fear, but it was quite close. Apprehension?
Yes.
Then suddenly she thought, it’s as if I’ve just had to go before a superior with an inadequate excuse for some fault!
Amazed at herself — it was a long time since she had been in that position — she put the image of a pair of disturbingly penetrating dark eyes to the back of her mind and beckoned to Brother Saul.
Brother Augustine, who had been helping one of the pilgrims treat his old mule’s cut foot, came hurrying to find her as soon as he was told of her summons. She explained what she wanted him to do and, putting her trust in his shining honesty, told him why.
He frowned as he absorbed her words. ‘You’re really going to use Berthe to lead you to her sister,’ he said slowly.
‘I am, Augustine,’ she replied. She kept her eyes on his. ‘I do not like myself for doing so, but I feel that a greater evil is perpetuated by allowing Berthe to continue living this life of pretence.’
He nodded. ‘Aye. She’s not happy, poor lass.’
‘I don’t suppose that she has confided in you?’ Helewise asked.
‘No.’ He grinned briefly. ‘And that’s the truth, Abbess.’
She laughed softly. ‘Oh, Augustine, I believe you. Really, I never knew a pair so transparently honest as you and Berthe!’
‘Thank you,’ he said gravely. Then, after quite a long silence: ‘I will gladly go for you, Abbess. And, when this is all over, I will explain to Berthe why I did so. Is that all right?’
Thankfully she said, ‘Yes, Augustine. Indeed it is.’
She gave him a little while to find himself a hiding place from which he could observe Berthe. Then, trying to control her excitement, she walked along the path to where the girl was still sitting with the group of children.
Catching sight of Helewise, Berthe leapt up to greet her.
‘Abbess, how nice to see you!’ she said ingenuously.
‘Good day, Berthe. Will you walk with me? I have something that I wish to tell you.’
‘Of course!’
She led the girl further along the path, away from the shrine. Then she said, ‘Berthe, I told you yesterday that Alba is no longer a nun. This means that I have no authority over her, and therefore I cannot keep her imprisoned. I have informed her that, as soon as we can find her somewhere to go, she will have to leave Hawkenlye.’
Berthe’s rosy face had gone dead white. ‘You-’ she began. Then, trying again, ‘But surely she wants to stay?’
‘What she wants is not relevant,’ Helewise said gently. ‘Berthe, she is not at all suited to life as a nun, nor indeed to living in a convent as a lay sister. She is too disruptive an influence. I have the well-being of all my community to consider and, although it is hard on Alba, I have no alternative but to send her away.’