‘So she turned my man to cloud and my sword passed straight through him,’ Josse murmured. He still could not believe it.
‘It’s mind control again, Josse,’ she said earnestly. ‘You thought you did things that, in reality, worked out rather differently.’
‘I’ve been a soldier all my life!’ he cried. ‘I know when I’m swinging my sword down in a death blow and you can’t tell me otherwise.’
She began to speak but then, with a nod, stopped; it was almost, he thought, as if she were listening to a voice within her head giving her instructions. .
‘Let us just be relieved that further harm has been averted,’ she said calmly. ‘Now, what do you want for breakfast?’
‘I-’ Breakfast? When his mind was still bursting with things he was desperate to know?
But she was already moving away back towards the hut. She held out her hand to him and, after a moment, he took it.
After they had all eaten, Joanna unwound the linen bandage and inspected the wound on his forearm. It had healed well and skilfully she removed the stitches.
Then there was no more reason for him to stay.
Joanna and Meggie went with him to the edge of the forest. He had announced he must return to the Abbey; ‘She’ll be worried about me,’ he said.
Joanna did not have to ask who she was.
Dear Josse, she thought now as the moment of parting approached. He did not really understand one little bit of what had happened by Merlin’s Tomb yesterday. She did not understand all of it herself; the level of power possessed by beings such as the Domina and the Long Men was as far beyond her own small skills as Saturn was beyond the Moon. But she, unlike Josse, had the great advantage of knowing that it was quite possible to learn how to do such things, provided you were prepared to devote your life to the process.
I am prepared for that, she thought. I shall miss Josse more than I can now know, I am certain of that. But my life is here. I have set my feet on the path and I cannot deviate now.
And he would be back.
The thought gave her a deep, secret joy.
They had emerged from the trees. Meggie had stooped down in the grass that began where the trees stopped and was picking daisies.
‘Farewell, dearest Josse,’ Joanna said, both his hands in hers.
‘Take care, sweeting.’ His eyes were wet.
Feeling the emotion rising, she tried to think of something to say that might lighten the mood. Ah, yes; she had the very thing.
‘About that female antecedent of yours who used to tend the sacred fire on the Caburn,’ she began. ‘Remember?’
‘Aye. What of her?’ Despite himself, he looked interested.
‘About you, taller than most men.’
‘What are you talking about?’ He frowned ferociously, then all of a sudden his face cleared and, wonder in his eyes, he said, ‘She was of their people?’
She nodded, almost laughing. ‘Indeed she was. They didn’t let just anyone muck about with the Caburn fire.’
‘Have you known all the time?’
‘No, of course not — I knew hardly anything about the Long Men until very recently. The Domina told me yesterday. In fact, she said she told you too but you weren’t listening.’
‘She did no such thing!’
‘Some men whose antecedents were from this area still stand out by their height. Don’t those words sound familiar at all?’
‘Er-’ He hardly liked to think.
‘She was referring to you, Josse.’
‘So — that woman lying in the tomb is one of my forebears.’ It was yet another thing that scarcely bore credence.
‘Indeed she is.’ She thought for a moment, then added, ‘The Domina will have told the Long Men who you are. I shouldn’t think they would object if, once in a while, you went back to the grave of your ancestress to pay your respects.’
He was shaking his head, giving every impression of a man too bemused and perplexed by a succession of wonders to know if he was on his heels or his elbows. ‘I just don’t know what to make of it all, and that’s the truth,’ he said.
She put her arms round him. ‘Go now, my love,’ she urged him. ‘Go back to the Abbey, speak to the Abbess Helewise and reassure her that all is well, both at Merlin’s Tomb and with you, which will be concerning her far more than some old bones in the ground.’
‘She doesn’t know that we-’ he protested.
But she put a gentle finger up to his lips, silencing the words. ‘Oh, yes, she does.’
She watched as, still looking as if he had been recently poleaxed, he walked slowly over to Meggie, gave her a hug and a kiss and said, in a remarkably cheery voice, that he would be seeing her soon. Meggie reached up to return his kiss and dropped her daisy chain around his neck.
With Meggie standing at her side and holding her hand, Joanna watched as he mounted Horace and, kicking the horse to a trot, descended the slight slope towards the Abbey gates.
Then, doing her best to sound as cheerful as Josse had managed to do, she blinked away her tears and said, ‘Now, Meggie, time to go home.’
Helewise heard his footsteps coming along the cloister with vast relief and when he knocked on the open door and stepped into her room — he appeared to be wearing a daisy chain — she got up and hugged him.
‘Sir Josse, I do apologise,’ she said hastily, taking two large paces backwards. ‘It’s just that I was so very worried about you because I know how you and-’ Flustered, she stopped abruptly and then tried again. ‘That is, the brethren in the Vale said you did not come back last night and I feared some harm had come to you.’
He was watching her, deep affection in his brown eyes, smiling gently as if at some small private joke. ‘What is it?’ she demanded.
‘Oh — nothing, my lady. I am very sorry to have caused you anxiety. I — er, I met some people I was not expecting at Merlin’s Tomb but all is well there now. The site is indeed closed and the grave has been filled in.’
She stared intently at him. ‘That is for sure?’
‘Yes, my lady. Your Abbey is safe.’
Oh, thank God, she thought. ‘Thank you, Sir Josse. I am more grateful than I can say.’
‘No need to be grateful to me, my lady. The principal reason it’s closed is because Melusine paid a killer to murder Florian, and so far it looks as if both of them are getting clean away with it.’
‘Give Gervase time,’ she soothed. ‘He will not give up so easily, I know.’ Then, remembering why he had gone back to the tomb the previous day, ‘Did you find out whose the bones were?’
‘Aye,’ he said. She waited, but he said no more.
Well, perhaps it didn’t really matter.
She read sorrow in every part of him. Walking slowly out to the stables to see him off — he had declined her offer of sharing the midday meal, saying that he really ought to return to New Winnowlands — she had a sudden vivid picture of him going back to that empty house.
Oh, Josse!
But what can I do? she demanded of herself. My work and my duty are here; I cannot make rash offers to ride over and visit him to see how he is and check that he’s happy. Anyway, he probably won’t be.
Impulsively she reached for his hand. ‘Come back whenever you feel like company,’ she urged him. ‘Remember that you have many friends here who care about you very much.’
She saw tears in his eyes. He bent to kiss her hand and muttered something about knowing that right enough. Then he strode into the stable, emerged leading Horace and, with barely a nod in her direction, mounted and hurried away.