What were they doing up there? Did they snatch Piers’s young squire, bind him, tie him face down to the altar and then make Piers watch as de Loup stepped up to the dais? He recalled the splattered blood and the stained silver robe and his mind turned in horrified disgust from the irrevocable conclusion. Was it the lad whose screams rang out into the night? Was it his sacrificial death that turned the blue light blood red? Dear God, if so, then what a frightful end to a young life.
Abruptly he stood up, and wood shavings tumbled from his lap. Meggie looked enquiringly at him. ‘I have to go and speak to someone, sweetheart,’ he said, forcing a smile.
‘But I haven’t finished my fox!’
‘I thought it was a hound.’
‘It was but its tail’s too bushy so it’s a fox.’
Brother Erse grinned. ‘I’ve done the same myself, Sir Josse, when a face I was carving turned out more like one saint than another. I’ll watch over her,’ he added quietly. ‘If you’re not back by noon, I’ll take her along with me and get her something to eat.’
‘Thank you, Brother Erse. See you soon, Meggie.’
In the infirmary, he asked to see Piers but Sister Euphemia, hurrying to intercept him, said it was impossible. ‘He has a fever,’ she said. ‘We have done everything we can to cleanse that wound in his throat but still it has become foul.’
‘Will he live?’ Josse muttered.
‘I hope so.’ The infirmarer glanced over at the curtained recess where Piers lay. Her tone, Josse thought, did not sound very optimistic.
‘I have to speak to him,’ Josse said. ‘It’s very important.’
‘You’ll get no sense out of him today,’ Sister Euphemia said firmly. ‘He’s raving again. Something about some boy who died and he was to blame. It’s the fever, Sir Josse. Either that or a guilty conscience.’
‘Then I must-’
‘Not till I say so! Go away and leave us alone. If your man recovers, I’ll send for you.’
And with that Josse knew he had to be content.
He decided to go back into the forest. If he had been in his right mind last evening — and he was not sure he had been — then there had been someone following him as he returned from Joanna’s hut. Could it have been de Loup? Having tried and failed to kill Piers, was he hanging around waiting for the opportunity to try again? Why? Because, he answered himself, Piers is horrified by the Knights of Arcturus and, far from becoming one of the thirteen, he may well betray them. Perhaps he had already done so.
Josse diverted from his path and, going up to the little room by the gate where the porteress kept watch, he collected his sword and his dagger. If he was going to come face to face with the sinister Philippe de Loup, he did not wish to do so unarmed.
He stepped warily along the tracks between the trees. Now, in early summer, they were in full leaf and he could not see far. He held his knife in his hand; within these narrow confines, it was a handier weapon than his sword.
He walked on. There were no sounds other than the songs of a thousand birds and the soft rustling of the leaves. The forest felt unusually peaceful. Perhaps he was wrong about having been followed.
Presently he found himself outside Joanna’s hut. As he had done the previous day, he let himself in. Everything was just as he had left it and again he climbed the ladder up to the sleeping platform. Answering some strong unspoken summons, he lay down and closed his eyes.
It seemed to him that suddenly night fell; he knew in a part of his mind that he must be dreaming, for outside it was midday, the sun high in the clear sky. He surrendered to the vision that was overcoming him.
She was there with him, lying in his arms, her body pushing against his. He held her close, so close, as if his dreaming self tried to meld her firm flesh with his. She was murmuring to him, sweet loving words, and her face was wet with tears. He thought he heard her say that she had come to bid him farewell. ‘Are you dead, my love?’ he whispered, lips against her soft, clean hair, tears running down his cheeks and into his mouth.
She said, ‘I am altered, dearest Josse. I am here but not here — I can see you, and my child, and I shall always be with you, loving you, protecting you, calling down blessings on you. But…’ She did not go on. Could not, he thought, grief burning through him, for her own sorrow prevented the words.
Deeper sleep followed and when at last he awoke, his memory of the dream was fudged and already fading. Was it true? Had she managed somehow to reach him and tell him that he would never see her again? Oh, but she had seemed so very real — he could have sworn that the place beside him in the bed was warm from her body.
Slowly he sat up, dazed, bemused, not understanding where reality ended and dream began. He would feel the pain of loss very soon now. He knew, in some fundamental part of himself, that the woman as he had experienced her was no more, but he kept remembering her soft voice speaking those precious words: I shall always be with you.
Out of habit, for she always kept the hut so neat and tidy, he reached round to plump the pillows and straighten the covers. Beneath the pillow where in his dream she had laid her head, he found something.
He picked it up and, wonderingly, stared at it. It swung on its silver chain and it was heavier than he had imagined. It was the bear claw that she always wore round her neck.
Slowly, not knowing if he was doing the right thing, he slipped the chain over his head and tucked the claw inside his tunic.
He was barely aware of closing up the hut and setting out back to the abbey. His senses were full of her and it was as if she walked beside him. She was… in him, he realized. In some strange way far beyond his comprehension, she seemed to have slipped inside his consciousness.
Inside his soul.
Stay, sweeting, he implored her. Stay with me.
He paced on, so deep within himself that it was some time before he registered the soft but regular sound of someone following him. Suddenly alert, he dragged his attention away from the sweet ways where he had walked with Joanna and back to the perilous present.
Listen. Listen! There — and there again. Someone was creeping along behind him, carefully matching their footfall to his so that it was barely audible. He went on, trying not to give away the fact that he was aware of his pursuer. Keep the element of surprise, he thought. Act naturally and then when the opportunity arises, grab it.
He waited until he had passed a dense thicket of bramble and holly, then, without breaking his stride, swung off the path and crouched down behind it. The footsteps came on and after a moment a cloaked, hooded figure slipped past. Silently Josse stood up and with a great leap was on the path behind the man — who was slight and considerably shorter than Josse — throwing one arm round his neck and pressing the point of his knife to his throat. The hooded figure stopped dead.
Josse said, ‘Do not move a muscle.’ Holding the knifepoint steady, with his left hand he caught the edge of the hood and pulled it back, revealing a head of smooth brown hair, neatly trimmed. Stepping back a pace, withdrawing the knife a little but still pointing it firmly at the man, Josse said, ‘Turn round.’
He was hit with a series of surprises. First, the man facing him was not a man but a boy of no more than fourteen or fifteen, the tanned skin of his chin innocent of even the fluff that would precede his beard. The lad was slightly built and, although perhaps tall for his age, still nowhere near the height of an adult. The second surprise was that he was smiling broadly, the expression of joyful relief revealing clean, even teeth and crinkling the skin around the brilliant blue eyes. The third surprise was that Josse knew who he was. He sheathed his knife, threw out his arms and, embracing the boy, cried, ‘Ninian! What in God’s name are you doing here?’
And Joanna’s son said happily, ‘Looking for you.’