‘Josse,’ said Isabella, ‘how lovely to see you! Tilda, bring some mulled ale and some of those little cakes, for Sir Josse will be hungry and thirsty after his ride and it is a chilly morning.’
The maid gave a bob curtsey and hurried away. At Isabella’s invitation, Josse sat down beside her. The little girl immediately scrambled over her mother’s lap and held out a rag doll. ‘E’nor,’ she said. Then, peremptorily: ‘Kiss!’
‘E’nor?’ Josse repeated, lifting up the doll and placing a light kiss on the cloth face.
‘Eleanor,’ Isabella said. ‘Fritha has grandiose plans for her doll.’
Fritha had now elbowed her way onto Josse’s lap. She leaned her head against him and, after a slight hesitation, he put his arm round her. To have a little girl treat him with such affection was a poignant reminder of his own daughter and for a moment he did not feel able to speak. Fortunately he didn’t have to. Not only was Fritha keeping up a long monologue about her doll’s likes and dislikes — of which there seemed to be an unreasonable number — but in addition Isabella was chatting away about her little boy’s progress.
‘And just yesterday he clambered up onto the end of the settle and jiggled around pretending it was a horse, so you can imagine how delighted Brice was about that since he just can’t wait to have another man in the family to go hunting with!’
Josse smiled. ‘How old is Olivar now?’
‘He’ll be a year old next month,’ she said. She held out her arms to the child and he threw himself at her. She sat him on her lap and he put a thumb in his mouth, regarding Josse with wide dark brown eyes.
‘You named him for Brice’s brother,’ Josse said.
‘Yes. I never met him, although you did, Josse?’
‘Aye.’ It was an old tragedy but Josse still remembered the tormented young man. ‘I hope his little nephew here will tread an easier path through life.’
‘Amen,’ Isabella whispered. Then, her smile breaking through, she said, ‘The omens are good, Josse. I know he is mine and therefore I am probably prejudiced, but I have never encountered a child with a sunnier nature.’
The maid brought in a tray containing mugs of warm, spiced ale and a platter of small cakes. ‘The cakes are Tilda’s speciality and quite delicious,’ Isabella said, dismissing the maid with a smile of thanks. ‘The main ingredient is dried marigold petals.’
Both children were eyeing the cakes and Josse decided he had better help himself quickly before they disappeared. He ate one, then another, then one more; they were indeed delicious. Then he brushed the crumbs from his tunic and said, ‘Where’s Brice?’
‘He has taken Roger and Marthe out for a ride,’ she replied, referring to her children by her previous marriage. ‘They’ll be back soon, for they set out early and have been gone some time. You wish to speak to him?’
‘Aye. I’ve a question for him but — ’ he grinned at her — ‘there’s no reason why I shouldn’t ask you.’
She returned his smile. ‘Ask away.’
‘There’s an unpleasant business at the Abbey. Some people are hunting for a couple of men who have returned to England from Outremer. One probably went out to the East with a lord from this area, and I wondered if Brice — or you — knew of anyone locally whose family have interests in Outremer?’
Isabella considered. ‘I can think of families who sent a son or a husband off to the crusades,’ she said after a while, ‘but in each case save one the man has returned, and the one who did not died at Acre.’
‘Oh.’ It was disappointing.
‘Unless,’ Isabella added, ‘you mean the de Villieres clan?’
‘The de Villieres?’
She laughed. ‘Oh, Josse, I thought everyone knew about them! They’re famous and people have been known to commit murder for an invitation to one of their grand gatherings. I’m joking,’ she added.
He grinned. ‘Sorry, Isabella. I’m not much of a one for socializing.’
‘Oh really, Josse?’ The irony was unmistakable. Then she took his hand and squeezed it affectionately. ‘Don’t worry,’ she murmured, ‘as long as you don’t stop coming to see us, I shan’t complain.’
He returned the squeeze. ‘Thank you.’ Then: ‘Who are they, then, and what can you tell me about them?’
She settled Olivar more comfortably on her lap and said, ‘They hold estates to the west of Robertsbridge. They manage their land efficiently and carefully and their wealth has grown accordingly ever since Robert de Villieres was awarded it back in the middle of the last century.’ This Robert, Josse thought, must have been one of the Conqueror’s Normans. ‘He went off to fight in the First Crusade,’ Isabella was saying, ‘and he won lands in Antioch. He married the daughter of a wealthy family of Champagne merchants who, like so many others, turned themselves into noblemen out in Outremer, and she and Robert settled down in Antioch and raised their family.’ She turned to look at Josse. ‘They say that Mathilde de St Denys was a woman in the mould of our own Queen Eleanor,’ she added, ‘a matriarch who lived to the ripe old age of eighty and died in Antioch after fulfilling her ambition of visiting the newly refurbished Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.’
‘Quite a pilgrimage for a woman of eighty,’ Josse remarked.
‘Indeed it was, but apparently nothing deterred Mathilde once she had made up her mind. What was I saying? Ah, yes. Their elder son inherited the Antioch lands. The second son, whose name was Baldwin, was sent home to Sussex. He married the daughter of another noble family and they had several children, although the eldest son died young, I believe. Their son Guilbert inherited the Sussex lands and he was the father of Gerome de Villieres, the present lord.’
‘And Gerome went to Outremer?’
But Isabella was going to tell her story in her own way. ‘Meanwhile,’ she said, ignoring Josse’s interruption with a smile, ‘in Antioch, Robert and Mathilde’s elder son had inherited the title and it passed down through his son to his grandson. He, however, was a sickly man who did not cope well with the climate of Outremer. His wife gave him two daughters, one of whom, Aurelie, was a redoubtable woman and the true descendant of her great-grandmother. She married the Count of Tripoli and produced two daughters and a son, but sadly the son died young. So’ — she had obviously picked up Josse’s impatience, for her eyes were twinkling with mischief — ‘when the redoubtable Aurelie and her count began to feel hard-pressed after Saladin’s victories, they sent home to Sussex to ask Gerome to come out with a company of men to help defend the family lands.’
‘So this Gerome had sons?’ Josse asked.
‘No.’ All levity had left Isabella’s face. ‘He and his wife — she was called Erys — had two girls, Editha and Columba. Columba died when she was a little child and Erys produced another baby girl late that same year. But Erys fell sick of a fever soon after the birth and both she and the baby died.’
‘Yet still he left his surviving child on her own and went off to Outremer!’ Josse cried. Such things happened, he knew full well, but still it seemed heartless.
‘Josse, all this happened fifteen years ago,’ Isabella said gently. ‘Editha — Gerome’s daughter — is a woman in her twenties now and she manages her father’s household with effortless efficiency, so they say. And what a household it is — Gerome may not have sons of his own but he maintains a company of well-trained knights and a number of foot soldiers drilled to perfection.’
‘And it was this company that Gerome de Villieres took out to Outremer?’
‘Yes. Gerome led his knights into the fighting at Acre and then on the march south to Jaffa, although he fell ill and was taken to his kinsman’s home in Antioch to recuperate before taking ship home to Sussex.’
Dear Lord, Josse thought, but this is the very man! He heard Thibault’s voice in his head: The English monk encountered his former lord and he had been stricken with dysentery. It was decided that he should make his way back to Acre and thence to his kinsman’s estate in Antioch. The English monk was selected to care for him.