The knife was held steady as a rock but she thought — hoped — that the man had lowered it a little.
‘This is God’s house and all who love him are welcome,’ she went on in the same calm, level tone. ‘It may be that you do not wish anyone to know you are here, in which case you could claim sanctuary and be safe from violence or arrest.’
The shadowed eyes watched her warily but still the man did not speak.
‘I am sorry that I startled you,’ she went on. ‘It must have given you quite a jolt, to wake up suddenly from profound sleep and find someone bending over you!’ She forced a laugh. ‘I would have been quite terrified, under the circumstances.’
At last the man spoke. In a low, hoarse, hesitant voice that she had to strain to hear, he whispered, ‘I am not afraid of you.’
‘Good, that’s good,’ she said. She held up the lamp so that he could see her face. ‘I am in holy orders, as you can see, and we are vowed to love our fellow men. We do not do them harm.’
He nodded; a quick, curt movement, his eyes fixed on hers.
‘Will you not accept a more comfortable bed?’ she suggested. ‘There will be a nun on duty in the infirmary. I could take you there — it’s not only the sick who sleep within. When they are in need, the healthy accept its comforts too.’
‘No,’ the man said in a low growl. ‘I do not — I did not want anyone to know I was here.’
‘But now I know,’ she pointed out.
‘You not tell!’ he hissed.
‘No, very well,’ she agreed. ‘But why are you here? Are you in truth in hiding? Do you wish to claim sanctuary?’
He regarded her steadily. Now the knife was pointing at her heart, although she was almost sure he had no intention of harming her. ‘In hiding, yes,’ he said. His eyes glittered in the light of her lamp; she could see five tiny flames reflected. Then he drew away, pulling the headdress still lower so that his eyes were in its shadow.
She thought suddenly, we could be here all night in this stand-off. She had guessed who he was and she said decisively, ‘You are Fadil, aren’t you? You came here to England with a monk from the Order of the Knights Hospitaller, whose prisoner you once were, and not long ago you asked a man who lives near here if you could stay in his outbuilding. You told him your name was John Damianos. Isn’t that so?’
His reaction greatly surprised her. In a strange echo of Thibault’s response when Josse suggested it was Fadil who turned up at New Winnowlands, this man too seemed to be amused. He went further, however, and she thought she heard a faint and muffled laugh. ‘Fadil?’ he said. Then, curtly, ‘Fadil not here.’
‘But you have been travelling with the English monk, haven’t you?’ she persisted. It suddenly struck her that taking this man to the infirmary was not a good idea, since Thibault and Brother Otto might well recognize their monk’s companion; she said, ‘Two of the runaway’s brethren are looking for him. They are called Thibault of Margat and Brother Otto. They were hurt in a fire and they are recovering here in the infirmary.’
‘I know,’ he whispered. She tried to catch the cadence of his voice but it was difficult when he spoke so softly and huskily. She thought he was young, his voice not long broken to manhood.
‘Others were hunting you too, weren’t they?’ She longed to put out a hand to touch him but she did not dare; he might have lowered the knife but he still held it. ‘There were two Saracen warriors called Kathnir and Akhbir and they killed a man they thought was you. They tormented him before they killed him and we assume that was because they thought he — or, rather, you — carried a precious object that they were desperate to find.’
His eyes widened in surprise. ‘You — have discovered much,’ he rasped.
‘We think there is a third group who hunt you,’ she went on, her confidence growing. ‘Men of their number are skilled with the bow. It was-’ She had been about to say that one of the unknown group had killed Kathnir, but she stopped. It was not wise to reveal too much too soon.
‘You think correctly,’ he muttered. Then, putting down the knife, he said, ‘There is abbess here?’
‘Er-’ Should she tell him who she was? Again, caution prevailed: ‘Yes, that’s right. Abbess Helewise.’
‘She is good woman?’
How, Helewise wondered, should she answer that? ‘They say so,’ she said guardedly.
‘And fair? Just?’
‘She would not condemn anybody without hearing what they had to say,’ she said firmly. ‘Even then her inclination would be towards mercy rather than condemnation, for she does her best to follow in the steps of her master, Our Lord.’
‘This is what I have heard,’ the man whispered.
‘Why do you ask?’
He looked at her for what seemed a long time. She sensed tension in the air like crackling frost. Then he growled, ‘I have come a very long way and I have been threatened over every mile and at every turn by these three parties. One party alone hunts for me. The others search for the Englishman.’
‘The runaway monk,’ she said, wanting to be quite clear.
‘He is not-’ The man stopped. ‘Yes.’
‘Is he close by?’ she whispered. Something went through her — some strange sense of heightened awareness — as she spoke the words. When, very slowly, the man nodded his confirmation, she had the peculiar sense that she had already known.
‘He cannot come here,’ the man said softly. ‘It is not safe.’
‘Because of the presence of Thibault, yes, I understand.’
‘Not-’ Again he stopped. Then: ‘Yes, Sister, that is so.’ She thought there was a different quality in his voice: he sounded almost… regretful.
Letting her instinct guide her — after all, thinking and reasoning did not seem to be getting her very far — she said, ‘Would you like to meet the Abbess?’
There was a pause and then slowly he nodded.
‘Come, then,’ she said. ‘I will take you to her.’
Again he shrank back. ‘It is late. She will be sleeping.’
‘She has been working late tonight.’ That at least was the truth. ‘I will take you to her private room, where there is a small fire and candles for light. There you may reveal to her why you are here.’
‘I cannot-’ He seemed to be debating with himself. Then, once again, he nodded. Sliding the knife into a sheath on his belt, he swung his legs down, gathered up his satchel, swirled his wide cloak around him and, jumping off the wooden chest, stood beside her.
He was perhaps her own height; possibly just a little taller, but then she was a tall woman and stood eye to eye with many men. He was lightly built and, as they moved off, she noticed that he was catlike on his feet. Even in the heavy boots he made little noise.
He told me he is not Fadil, she thought, and from his reaction I am quite sure that he is not. But he must be John Damianos: the style of dress, the hesitant speech of a foreigner speaking an alien tongue, it all matches. I’m pretty certain he’s been brought back from Outremer and abandoned, Josse had said. Well, if this young man was in truth not Fadil then perhaps Josse had been right in the first place. The runaway monk could easily have brought a Saracen body servant with him.
They had reached the great doors and she led the way out through the smaller side door. Very aware of him walking beside her, she strode on past the infirmary and into the cloister, then along to her little room.
‘Now, sit here on this stool,’ she said, pushing it forward, ‘and I will add firewood to the brazier. It was banked down only recently and the embers will soon ignite the new fuel.’ She worked swiftly and, when the flames caught, held out her hands to the warmth, watching him out of the corner of her eye.
He was staring around him, as well he might. ‘Where is she?’ he demanded, careful to keep his face away from the light of the fire. ‘Where is the Abbess? You said she would be here!’ There was a faint but definite note of suspicion — of fear? — in the low voice.