‘Aye,’ Augustus agreed again.
If the younger man were to be asked for confirmation at every turn, thought Helewise, then this story would take the rest of the day to tell. ‘So Brother Firmin scared you all with an old ghost story at the fireside?’ she prompted.
‘Aye, my lady.’ Now Saul was frowning, as if trying to decide whether the story were fit for a lady’s ears.
‘I need to know it, Brother Saul,’ she said gently. ‘As you say, Sir Josse has ridden off to Deadfall and if there is danger there, then we must send help.’
‘Oh, I don’t reckon as how it’ll be dangerous, not to a man of Sir Josse’s quality,’ Saul said. ‘I don’t see him as someone who is afraid of the dark!’ He laughed nervously.
‘I am sure you are right.’ Then, putting her full authority into her tone, ‘Now, the story, please.’
But Saul glanced at Augustus, who, picking up his cue, told her what she had to know.
‘Brother Firmin knows those parts where the sea and the land merge,’ he began. ‘Seems he grew up thereabouts. He said there were such tales told as to keep children safe in their beds at night, else they might have wandered off and been drowned in a creek that wasn’t there yesterday, or put their feet on to boggy ground that would suck them down easy as a stone falling in a pond.’
‘Cautionary tales,’ murmured Helewise. ‘Go on, Augustus.’
‘Then there was another reason to keep safe indoors, because the heathen men came from over the seas and killed any who stood in their path. They took their long boats up the creeks and the inlets looking for fertile fields and pastures, because their own lands had been drowned.’
‘But that was hundreds of years ago!’ Helewise protested. ‘The Northmen do not come now.’
‘No, my lady, but it seems-’ Augustus paused. Then, in a rush, went on, ‘They left a presence, so Brother Firmin says. They did terrible deeds and the Marsh holds memories.’
The story was, she thought, beginning to sound very like Josse’s account. Fear of the ferocious fighting men of the past seemed to be a long time dying.
‘They attacked the monasteries,’ Augustus was saying. ‘Stole the treasures, killed the monks and ra- er, did harm to the nuns.’
‘I know what they did to the nuns,’ Helewise said softly. ‘I, too, have learned of the east coast’s violent past.’
‘When they launched a new boat, they took a virgin to sacrifice,’ Saul said, eyes round with wonder. Entranced by the tale, he seemed to have forgotten about whether or not his Abbess ought to hear it. ‘Seems their god of the sea and the storm needed a blood sacrifice in payment for keeping the craft and her crew safe from the waves.’
‘And when they were betrayed, they took the traitor and tore his lungs out of his living chest,’ Augustus whispered. ‘They called it the blood eagle.’
As if all three of them were picturing that horror, there was silence in Helewise’s room.
Breaking it — with difficulty, since she knew she must speak normally and was not sure she could — she said, ‘We speak, my brothers, of tales told by the hearth, of ancient legends rooted in folk memory. Oh, yes, I am sure they tell of things which really happened, but these things are past.’ She fixed both men with a direct glance, Saul first, then Augustus. ‘It will, I am sure, reassure you when I tell you that Sir Josse is not ignorant of Deadfall’s fearful reputation. However, when offered company on his visit there, he declined and said he did not see that he would be in any danger.’ Forcing a smile, she said, ‘We must, I think, abide by Sir Josse’s decision and agree with him.’
Then, before either brother could protest, she thanked them and dismissed them.
12
The long June day kept its light late and Josse did not make camp until dusk was at long last falling. He had covered many miles that afternoon and he reckoned he could not be far from his destination. The riding had been easy for much of the way, for he had taken a route that ran along the southern edges of the northern High Weald and the track was level and reasonably well maintained. The long dry spell, however, meant that the surface of the road had been pulverised to fine dust, which clouded up around him as Horace’s big feet repeatedly struck the baked ground. As he had saddled the horse prior to leaving Hawkenlye, Sister Martha had watched his preparations.
‘You’ll need more than those two blankets of yours to keep you comfortable if you’re planning to sleep in the open,’ she had observed.
Turning to her with a smile, he said, ‘Will I?’
‘Aye. There’s rain coming.’
He had stared at her for an instant in total disbelief; he had rarely known a spell of such relentlessly fine, hot, dry weather. ‘Are you sure, Sister?’
‘Quite sure.’ She held out a square of some folded material, loosely wrapped in sacking; it was quite heavy and decidedly malodorous. ‘You’d better take this.’
He took it from her gingerly. ‘What is it?’
‘Linen treated with tallow. It’ll keep the wet out.’
‘Er — thank you, Sister.’ Even as he spoke, he was wondering where he could pack it so that its aroma would not be constantly under his nose.
As if she knew perfectly well what he was thinking, she laughed. ‘Aye, I know it’s none too sweet, but you’ll be grateful for it, Sir Josse, you mark my words!’
Faced with such certainty, he had conceded defeat and stowed the stinking cloth behind his saddle.
Now, settling for the night, he put the cloth package as far away from him as possible. He soon had a small fire going — there was plenty of kindling and dry wood about, there on the edge of the woodlands that cloaked the northern hills — and everything was bone-dry. For safety’s sake he made a hearth of stones to contain the little blaze. He put water in a pot and in it threw some strips of meat and some root vegetables. When his makeshift stew was ready, he began his meal by dipping chunks of dry bread into the rich, hot gravy.
He was so hungry that he could have eaten virtually anything but, fortunately, the Hawkenlye victuals were as usual very good and his meal was delicious.
As he settled for sleep — under a darkening sky still entirely innocent of cloud — he went over in his mind the plan for tomorrow. Now that he was nearing his goal, the directions that Audra had provided were beginning to seem a little paltry. The Saxon Shore, she had said — well, that was relatively easy. As a military man, Josse had been taught about the Romans and the line of forts they had built to defend England’s east coast from marauding bands coming over the seas from the north and the east; those forts had been known as the Forts of the Saxon Shore. Audra had mentioned a place where men of old had built a fort, and Josse was almost sure she must have referred to one of the Saxon Shore forts. She had said that Deadfall lay beneath an inland cliff, in a place that used to be sea but was now marshland.
It had sounded so simple when she said it, he reflected as he twisted and wriggled on the hard ground, trying to find a comfortable spot. And, indeed, he had found the line of the inland cliff, or thought he had; for the latter part of the evening he had been riding along the top of a ridge that overlooked the marsh below. With a little imagination, he could see that the mysterious, shadowy land that spread out at the foot of the cliffs could once have been under the sea. Sometimes, indeed, as he had stared down half-hypnotised at the secret land below, the lowering sun painted images and fleeting patterns on the salt flats and he had almost thought he could see the ripple of water …
Turning his mind deliberately from that strange, seductive and vaguely disturbing memory, he made up his mind that all he had to do in the morning was ride along the cliff top until he saw below him the ruins of the old fort. Then, somewhere on the marsh below, he would surely find Deadfall.