‘In a loveless marriage, Ninian would have been even more precious to Joanna,’ she went on, ‘and the bonds between them would have strengthened as he grew older. So that, when she sensed the threat from Denys de Courtenay, she would have done anything — whatever it took — to keep her child safe. Josse, my dear, do you not see that, even though she probably longed to reveal the secret of the boy’s parenthood, she just didn’t dare?’
‘She didn’t trust me,’ he repeated stubbornly.
‘She couldn’t trust you,’ Helewise corrected. ‘It wasn’t Joanna who would be in danger if the secret came out, but Ninian.’
He did not reply. Watching him closely, she saw him pass his hand across his face a couple of times. Then he said, ‘Aye. Aye, you’re right. And I’m being foolish. It’s just that we’ve grown so close, Joanna and I, and-’
He stopped.
This time, the silence was rather longer.
Helewise moved away, and stood with her back to him on the other side of her table. After some time, hoping her voice would sound quite normal, she said, ‘Which of them, Joanna or Mag Hobson, do you think put the poison in the pie meant for de Courtenay?’
He began to say something, but his voice broke. Clearing his throat, he started again. ‘I think probably Mag Hobson. She certainly would have prepared the dose — she’s skilled in plant lore and, until her death, had been teaching Joanna. Mag would have been far less conspicuous — there are always a few old men and women hanging around the kitchen courtyard at the inn in Tonbridge, Goody Anne is generous with leftovers. They were busy that day, we know that, and with Goody Anne, Tilly and the serving boy all occupied with tending to people’s needs in the tap room, it can’t have been difficult for Mag to slip into the kitchen when nobody was looking.’
‘How did she know what Denys had ordered?’ Helewise asked.
‘I’ve thought about that. She must have followed him into the tap room — he’d never met her, not then, and so he wouldn’t have known what she looked like — and listened while he told Tilly what he wanted to eat. Then she must have got round to the kitchen before Tilly did and slipped the poison in Denys’s pie.’
‘Would that be possible? For her to reach the kitchen before Tilly?’
‘Aye. If you went out through the main door and slipped along the side passage, you could do it easily.’
‘I see.’
He was shifting in the chair, apparently about to get up. ‘I must go back home,’ he said. ‘I promised Joanna I’d speak to Ninian, see how he is, take any message he may have for her. Can I see him?’
‘Of course. Doesn’t she want to have him back with her?’
‘No,’ he said shortly. ‘Not yet.’
Why? Helewise wondered. Now that the danger was past, why should mother and son not be reunited?
But, sensing Josse didn’t want to talk about it, she merely said, ‘I will take you to him. You can reassure his mother that he’s quite all right. He seems happy, he likes Sister Caliste, and he’s eating like a horse.’
Josse grinned, very briefly. ‘Can’t be too much wrong with him, then.’
They were halfway across to the infirmary when Helewise stopped him. I have to speak, she thought, I can’t let there be an untruth between us.
‘What is it?’ he asked, glancing down at her detaining hand on his sleeve, ‘Why have we stopped?’
She looked round to make sure they were alone. Then, summoning her courage and taking a deep breath, she said, ‘Josse, I know that the story which Brother Saul brought back, the story you have just repeated to me, is not true.’ She noticed he was glaring at her, heavy eyebrows drawn down over his angry brown eyes. Go on! she ordered herself. You must! ‘I cannot believe that a man just happens to fall on a dagger point which pierces him to the heart,’ she hurried on, ‘it’s too convenient. And had you killed him as you fought, it would be self-defence and no crime, either in God’s eyes or under the law of the land. The only other person who could have killed him is Joanna.’
He had hold of her by the shoulders, and he could not have realised, she thought, how hard he was gripping her. She held his eyes steadily, and, after a moment, he loosened his hands.
He said nothing.
She took his silence as an acknowledgement that she was right.
She was tempted to assure him, to swear that the secret was quite safe with her.
But she didn’t really think there was any need.
Chapter Nineteen
Josse rode back to New Winnowlands with a heavy heart.
As well as everything else, he now felt he was a failure. The one thing he had wanted to keep from Helewise, and she had guessed it as easily as if he’d painted it across his forehead.
Ah, but it was a grave business, the whole damned thing.
And, to cap it all, his arm hurt like the very devil.
* * *
She came out to meet him as he rode into the courtyard. She took one look at him, and said, ‘I told you the ride was too much for you. You’re a fool, you should have had a longer convalescence. Now you’re in pain, and it’s your own fault.’
He slipped off Horace’s back, gratefully handing the reins to the waiting Will. Stomping off towards the steps, he said, ‘I’m a fool, am I? Well, I dare say I am.’
She recoiled at his tone. But she said nothing just then, merely accompanied him inside the hall, where, as soon as he had thrown off his cloak and settled himself in his chair in front of the fire, she knelt before him and asked meekly, ‘Josse, may I dress your wound? I have prepared some of the pain-easing draught, if you will take it?’
He did not know what to make of her. First she hectored him like a fishwife, now here she was asking permission to care for him, with all the timidity of some docile maidservant.
Suddenly heartily sick of the whole thing, he said, ‘Do what you like. You usually do.’
She bowed her head, as if accepting his rebuke.
She gave him some of her draught, then helped him remove his tunic and undershirt. As he sat there, keeping as still as he could, gritting his teeth against the sharp agony, she unwrapped the dressings on his arm, bathed the wound, applied some cool salve and re-wrapped it.
When he was dressed once more, she settled at his feet and said, ‘Why are you angry with me?’
Because it was the thing that was uppermost in his mind, he said instantly, without pausing to think, ‘You didn’t trust me. You didn’t tell me who Ninian’s father was.’
‘Denys told you?’
‘Aye, he did.’
She sighed. ‘Josse, I wanted to tell you. You must believe that! I burned to tell you and every instinct was assuring me I could trust you. And I usually do what my instincts tell me.’ She paused, a slight frown between her brows. ‘But I kept seeing Ninian’s face. He’s so loving, so trusting, and I couldn’t help but think that if I gave in and told you about me and the King, then somehow it would be wrong. Dangerous. Oh, Josse, please don’t ask me to explain! I can’t, other than to say that it seemed to come down to a choice between you and Ninian, and I chose him.’
‘Only another mother could understand,’ he murmured.
She looked up sharply. ‘Yes. Exactly that. How did you know?’
‘I didn’t. It was something Abbess Helewise said, when I told her-’ Abruptly he broke off. Oh, God! What had he said?
Joanna was on her feet, face contorted with fury. ‘You told her? You told your precious Abbess who Ninian’s father was? When you knew how desperate I was to keep that knowledge secret?’
He, too, was on his feet. Taking hold of her, gripping hard and wincing at the pain shooting through his arm, he shouted, ‘Aye, I did! And do you know why? Because she and I have perfect trust between us, perfect trust! We share secrets far more deadly than yours, let me tell you, and we have the faith in each other to confide anything we choose! That’s what close friends do, Joanna, in case you didn’t know!’