De Courtenay strode to the door and flung it open. ‘I’m going to fetch my men. I want to search the Abbey.’
She flew ahead of him and, repeating Sister Ursel’s action at the gates, stood between him and the cloister outside. ‘I do not permit that,’ she said icily. She met his eyes unwaveringly. ‘This is God’s holy place, not some felon’s hideaway. Visitors enter at my discretion, and, once inside, are expected to behave with reverence and decorum. Your companions, sir, do not look capable of either.’
‘What you think of my men is irrelevant,’ he retorted. ‘Search I will!’
‘What do you imagine you will find?’ she cried. ‘I have told you that Sir Josse is not here!’
His eyes narrowed. ‘I asked you before if you had seen my kinswoman, Joanna de Lehon,’ he said, menace in his tone.
‘And I said no!’ Helewise replied. ‘I undertook to inform you if I had word of her!’
‘But you haven’t, have you?’ He put his face close to hers.
‘No, because she, too, is not here!’
He said, with a cold detachment that was worse than anger, ‘I don’t believe you.’
‘You should,’ she insisted. ‘I speak the truth!’
He raised his hand and for an instant she thought he was going to push her out of the way. She put all the authority she could muster into her face — not difficult, since she was boiling with suppressed rage — and slowly he put his hand down again.
‘I do need to look round your Abbey,’ he repeated, softly now. ‘Will you act as escort, Abbess, if I leave my men where they are and come with you alone?’
Stalemate. She could hardly refuse and it would surely arouse direct action from him if she did.
Wouldn’t it be better to do as he asked? Then perhaps he would believe that they had nothing to hide, and leave them alone.
Perhaps.
Again, she waited for a sign that she was taking a wrong path. Again, none came.
Lowering her head — if she were going to take on once more the persona of humble nun, it was best he couldn’t see her expression — she said, ‘I am perfectly willing to show you the Abbey. If you would care to follow me, I shall introduce you to my community and show you something of our work here at Hawkenlye.’
* * *
After that, it was easy, for she had shown off the Abbey to interested visitors on many previous occasions.
It was relatively easy, at least; two major anxieties gnawed at her, and she had to exercise every bit of self-control she could muster to stop them from edging their way into her manner and her voice.
She began with the storage buildings and the stables.
‘… these are the stables, where, as you see, Sister Martha keeps everything spotless.’
Sister Martha, who had obviously heard what was happening, stood with her pitchfork in her hand, looking as if she would just love an excuse to ram it into de Courtenay’s belly.
De Courtenay glanced briefly into each of the four stalls. ‘No horses?’
Sister Martha, having looked at her Abbess for approval, spoke. ‘We keep a cob and a pony,’ she said gruffly. ‘Plain-looking animals, but sturdy. They’re turned out today, in the sunshine.’
‘Where?’ he demanded.
Giving him the sort of look more usually directed at a pile of ordure, she led him outside, took him to the gates and pointed down the road. Helewise, watching from a distance, saw him give a brief nod.
If he had been expecting to see Josse’s horse, or the sort of fine animals owned by a lady and her son, he was disappointed.
De Courtenay strode back to Helewise. ‘Carry on,’ he commanded.
Meekly she obeyed, leading him on towards the herb garden. ‘In front of you you’ll see where we grow our vegetables and our herbs,’ she began, then proceeded to lecture him for some time on the various herbs and their uses. Half of it she made up as she went along. ‘And up on your left — ’ she detached a hand from the opposite sleeve and waved it in the air — ‘is the dormitory where all but the Virgin Sisters sleep.’
‘I want to look.’
She hesitated, then nodded. Retracing her steps, she led him back to the entrance to the dormitory. She waited in the doorway while he strode the length of the long room and back again. Was it her imagination, or did his handsome face show a faint flush of embarrassment?
She led him back to the herb garden, walked past it, then stopped. She was beginning almost to enjoy herself. ‘Ahead,’ she said, lowering her voice dramatically, ‘is the leper house.’
She felt him move involuntarily backwards — people always did that — and he muttered something under his breath.
‘Do you wish to go inside?’ she asked sweetly. ‘I would not accompany you but, naturally, you are free to go in if you choose.’
‘Wh — who lives in there?’
‘Three of my sisters live there permanently. They have elected to give their lives to serve God in this way. The leper population fluctuates. At present, there are seven within.’
‘Seven,’ he repeated in a hushed whisper.
She did not, as she usually did at that point, make her little speech about the visitor being perfectly safe, in no more danger of contagion than when out in the world outside, since the lepers and their three attendant nuns lived quite apart from the community.
Let de Courtenay worry!
‘Do you wish to enter?’ She moved forward, going as if to open the little door in the wall; it was a gamble, and she was calling his bluff, because she knew full well the door was locked and barred from the inside, and had rarely been opened since the Abbey had been built.
‘No!’ he said. Then, more calmly, ‘No. I would not wish to disturb the sick.’
‘Very laudable,’ she remarked. He shot her a quick look but her face was hidden by her coif.
She led him on past the leper house and stopped by the entrance to the Virgin Sisters’ house. Opening the door, she said, ‘This is where the Virgin Sisters sleep. You may go in and look, but please move quietly, some of the sisters have been in attendance on the sick throughout the night and are presently sleeping.’
She thought he would refuse the offer. But, after a pause, he went in. After a very few moments, he was out again. This time, there was no mistaking the flush on his lean cheeks.
She led him inside the Abbey Church, waiting just inside the great west door while he made his way all around the quiet, empty building. He found the door at the top of the stairs down into the crypt — of course he would, it was not concealed — and she waited a little longer while he went down, had a search and came back up again.
He rejoined her at the door. ‘What next?’
‘Next I will show you our home for aged nuns and monks,’ she said, leading him past the end of the infirmary and on to the building forming the east side of the cloisters. ‘Many of our brothers and sisters in God come to end their days here with us, when, after a life in God’s service, they…’
She gave him the longest ever version of that part of her speech.
He wanted to go inside the aged monks’ and nuns’ home. Sister Emanuel, serene and distant as ever, appeared not to be put out in the least by a brusque stranger poking his nose into every cubicle. Helewise, trying but failing to conquer the unworthy impulse, was quietly delighted when de Courtenay chose quite the wrong moment to speak to Esyllt, Sister Emanuel’s assistant; the radiant young woman, on being asked what she was doing, held out to de Courtenay a used urine bottle, full of dark-golden, steaming liquid.
‘My own room you have already inspected,’ she said, resuming the tour, ‘and this is our Chapter House.’ They both peered inside: it was empty. ‘Next, the refectory and recreation rooms,’ — again, empty — ‘and finally, the reformatory.’
‘Reformatory?’ he asked, quickening his pace and hurrying forward.
‘Yes.’ She lengthened her stride to keep up with him. ‘We offer help to women who have fallen into sinful ways.’
He stared at her. ‘You mean whores?’ There was infinite disdain in the way he said the word.