She strode on, ignoring her fatigue and the ache in her legs. She was used to walking — they all were — but now the demands she was making on herself were extreme. To take her mind off the pain, she thought about where she was going.
The abbey was out of bounds to her, for the reasons that dear Josse had so eloquently given. It was not that the community would not have welcomed her, and that included Abbess Caliste, for there was a great depth of understanding and love between the former abbess and the present one. It was that the abbey would not be best served by Helewise’s return, since, despite their best efforts not to do so, the nuns and the monks would not be able to help a very understandable tendency to remember — and undoubtedly talk at length about — how life used to be in Helewise’s day. Were there to be some emergency, there could very well be a few of the older ones who turned to Helewise and not Abbess Caliste for guidance. That would not do.
Helewise did not feel that she could take up her abode in the little cell next to St Edmund’s Chapel, no matter how much she longed to, for much the same reasons. The chapel and its attendant accommodation were outside the abbey walls but, all the same, everyone would know she was there. You just couldn’t help that sort of news spreading in a place like the abbey.
No. What she had in mind was somewhere a great deal more remote from the Hawkenlye community. It depended on two things: whether she succeeded in finding it, and whether the person who had very recently been living there would permit her to stay.
She found the place quite easily, only missing her way once. The question of whether or not she would be allowed to stay did not arise, for there was nobody there.
As Helewise unfastened the intricately-twisted knot of rope that fastened the door of the little hut, she wondered where Meggie was and when she would be back. Then she put aside her speculation and set about the tasks she had to do. She collected water from the stream and several loads of kindling and dead wood from the surrounding woodland. She got a fire going in the hearth inside the hut, for it would be cold that night. She checked on Meggie’s food supplies, relieved to discover that, although she would very soon be hungry unless she foraged for more, she would not starve. Once she had seen to the practicalities, she went outside into the little clearing and turned her mind to the reason that she had come.
Being much closer to the abbey than the House in the Woods, the hut made a more convenient base for her task. But there was more to her choice than that; much more. She needed an intermediary who could slip in and out of the abbey without arousing interested comment, someone who did it all the time and who people were used to seeing coming and going, and this was the best place to find her. The person she had in mind had once lived mostly within the abbey walls as a nun, although it had been common knowledge that she had close allegiances with the strange forest people who had once frequented the area. Now they were gone, or so it was said, or perhaps they had become better at remaining hidden. The wildwood was steadily shrinking as the population grew and men nibbled away at its fringes, bringing more and more land under cultivation. In addition, the old tolerance of those who lived a different life and worshipped God in another guise was fast becoming nothing but a memory. In lands far away to the south, the church had taken up arms against those it accused of heresy, and it was only a matter of time before the same harsh and narrow rule was applied everywhere.
It was no wonder they had gone, Helewise mused.
Yet she was one of the few people who suspected that they had not all deserted the Hawkenlye wildwood. She knew for certain of two who remained. One stayed out of love for Hawkenlye’s abbess, for she was her sister. The other had her own unfathomable reasons, and it was she whom Helewise was waiting for.
She stood quite still in the centre of the clearing. The little stream sang its bubbling song away to her right, and somewhere a blackbird protested at her presence. She wondered if she should venture out into the forest and start looking for the woman she sought, but quickly she dismissed the thought. They always knew when an outsider was in their domain. If Helewise was patient, by some mysterious method word would be passed and the one she was mentally summoning would come.
‘Helewise.’
She had no warning, and when the quiet voice spoke right in her ear, Helewise jerked round so violently that she felt a stab of pain in her neck.
‘That’ll need a rub with some oil and some warming herbs,’ the voice went on. ‘You never have taken enough care of yourself, have you?’
Helewise stared into the watchful eyes and studied the weather-beaten, deeply lined face. The newcomer opened her arms, and Helewise walked into her firm embrace. Then she took a step back, and she and Tiphaine, former herbalist of Hawkenlye Abbey, exchanged a warm and loving smile.
It was neither woman’s habit to waste time, for years spent in an abbey had cured them of that. Tiphaine was first to speak. ‘I know why you are here,’ she said. ‘The little girl.’
‘Yes, my granddaughter,’ Helewise agreed. ‘Her name is Rosamund and she’s-’
‘I know,’ Tiphaine interrupted gently.
Helewise wondered how she knew, but almost instantly answered her own unspoken question. ‘Meggie,’ she breathed.
‘Meggie, aye,’ Tiphaine said. ‘She and the child were here together yesterday. She’s a pretty little thing, and she has a generous heart.’
‘Yes, she-’ But Helewise’s eyes had filled with tears and she could not trust her voice.
Tiphaine stepped closer. ‘She is alive and as yet she is unharmed,’ she murmured.
Hope flared in Helewise’s heart. ‘You know this? You have seen her?’
Tiphaine shook her head. ‘Not since she and Meggie left this place to return to the House in the Woods.’
‘Then how can you be so sure she’s not-’ Helewise could not say the word dead. ‘How do you know she’s unharmed?’
Tiphaine looked at her for a long moment. ‘Such a death would have been so far from the natural ways of the woodland that we would have felt it,’ she said. As Helewise opened her mouth to protest, Tiphaine stopped her. ‘Do not ask, Helewise. I cannot explain further. You will just have to believe me.’
‘You do not know where she is,’ she said instead. She was sure Tiphaine had no such knowledge for, had she done, she would have acted upon it.
‘No,’ Tiphaine agreed.
‘I need to know if anyone inside the abbey mentions her,’ Helewise said. ‘People always gossip, and it’s possible some visitor to Hawkenlye has seen or heard something of her. I-’
‘You want me to find out,’ Tiphaine finished for her.
‘You should see Abbess Caliste and explain what I need to know.’
‘She is already aware of what has happened. Selene has been to see her.’
Selene. Caliste’s twin. Helewise had seen her once and believed she was Caliste. But that was long ago; with a shake of her head she brought herself back to the present. ‘I would dearly like to speak to Abbess Caliste, only I cannot-’
‘You cannot go yourself. I understand.’ Tiphaine had turned and was already walking away.
‘Where are you going?’ Helewise cried.
Tiphaine stopped and looked at her over her shoulder. She smiled quickly. ‘Where do you think?’
He did not know what to do.
It was the day after he had taken her. At first it had been so easy; far, far easier than he had thought possible. Right from the start, once the audacious, brilliant plan had slipped into his head, events had played straight into his hands.
He did not understand the impulse to creep away from the others and follow his lord when he had gone off under the trees. His lord had said, clearly and firmly: ‘Wait for me here.’ Usually, all the men obeyed his instructions automatically. They knew what he was capable of when he was in a temper, and his temper was all too easily aroused nowadays when, like all the wealthy and important men in the land, he had a sackful of problems to deal with. It had been as if a secret voice had spoken inside the young man’s head: Go after him. See what he’s up to.