‘I am ready,’ Brice said.
Josse, watching closely, saw him go as if to speak to Raelf but, whatever he had in mind, he decided not to say it. Instead he put a hand briefly on the older man’s arm and muttered something that Josse thought was, I will come again soon.
Josse was sure that Brice had wanted to make some comment about Galiena. To give his condolences to her father, perhaps, to ask to be of the company when next the family heard mass for her.
Then he suddenly thought: but maybe Brice does not know that she is dead!
He stared at Brice. Had he the air of a man who had just lost his beloved mistress? Josse could not say. Brice seemed edgy and he was surreptitiously peering around as if he expected someone’s arrival. Was it Galiena? Was he hoping to meet his lover in her father’s household? Had the two of them met here before?
No, no, no, Josse thought, angry with himself that, just when he needed his wits, they were fuddled by his recent fever. Brice cannot hope to meet Galiena here, even if he does not know of her death, because he thinks she is at Hawkenlye taking a cure.
Oh, dear God, he prayed silently, if it has to be that I break the news to him, please let me do it with kindness.
Raelf came out to see them off. He went out through the gates and looked up the track, then, shaking his head, remarked that his wife and family were taking their time and had probably stayed to have a comforting word with the priest.
‘Give them my greetings,’ Josse said courteously.
‘And mine,’ Brice added softly.
Then the two men mounted and rode out of the yard.
When they were once more up on the high ridge, Brice drew rein and said, ‘I believe that I know where you are going, Josse. I was at Hawkenlye with the Abbess Helewise, and she told me where you were bound.’
‘You were at the Abbey? When?’ Josse asked.
‘Yesterday evening.’
Then he must know, Josse thought. The Abbess would have told him. He said quietly, ‘You know, then, the dreadful news?’
There was a long pause. The light was dim beneath the trees that shaded the track and Josse could not read Brice’s expression. After a while, he said heavily, ‘Aye. I do.’
He said no more and Josse, hearing over and over again those three brief words, could not say whether or not they came from a heartbroken man just beginning to become accustomed to the loss of his lover.
Then Brice said, ‘What happened at Deadfall?’
I must wait, Josse thought. I must be watchful, but I do not believe I shall discover the truth by rushing at it. ‘I found the ruined fort,’ he said briefly, ‘but of the place where Galiena’s kin live I saw no sign.’
‘I am not surprised,’ Brice remarked. ‘When I heard you were looking for it, I did not believe that you would succeed. They hide themselves well, I am told.’
Who told you? Josse wondered. Galiena?
And another part of his mind answered, who else?
‘Will you help me find them?’ he asked. ‘I have undertaken to inform them of her death and I cannot return to Hawkenlye until I have done so.’
‘You were riding back towards the Abbey when I found you,’ Brice observed.
Josse grinned. ‘Aye. I had little option, having failed so miserably, but to seek help. I hoped to come across some traveller who knew the area. But-’ He shrugged. ‘I was not quite sure what I was doing, earlier.’ The grin widening, he added, ‘It seems I found exactly what I wanted. It was my good fortune to encounter you.’
‘I will take you to Deadfall,’ Brice said. ‘But we must go carefully and prepared for … We must be on our guard.’
‘Why?’
‘They — the people there — do not welcome strangers,’ Brice said slowly. ‘They prefer to live apart. To keep themselves to themselves, as people are wont to say.’
‘You believe there is danger for us there?’ In the light of his experiences over the last never-ending night, Josse thought grimly, he would not be at all surprised.
And, watching him, Brice said simply, ‘Yes.’
The intimate companionship of two men alone on the road increasingly made Josse feel that he must speak. He argued with himself for some time but finally, almost to his surprise, heard himself saying, ‘Brice, I believe that I have guessed your secret.’
Spinning round in the saddle, his face pale, Brice said, ‘How? We have always been so careful!’
Josse shrugged. ‘I watch. I keep my eyes open. And sometimes I guess, and then on occasions I feel instinctively that I have guessed right.’
‘And I,’ Brice said softly, ‘have just given myself away by what I said in response to you.’ He frowned, his whole face taking on a threatening air. ‘You will keep silent, Josse?’
‘I — aye, I will.’ There was hardly any point, he thought, in telling anyone what he knew now. Not when the poor lass was dead. He murmured, ‘I am sorry,’ but he did not think that Brice heard.
They rode back to Josse’s campsite on the slope above the marsh. To his relief, this evening the sky was clear and the salt flats spread out below had taken on a different appearance from the shadowy and vaguely threatening look they had worn the previous evening. Now a golden light shone down on the quiet land as the westering sun sank in the deep blue sky. It was, Josse thought, unfastening his pack and setting out his gear, a place of enchantment …
‘These old stones must have sheltered you well last night,’ Brice said, breaking in on Josse’s dreaming thoughts.
‘Aye,’ he replied. ‘And one of the Hawkenlye nuns provided me with an oiled sheet that kept off the worst of the rain.’
‘Yet still your soaking made you feverish,’ Brice said.
I do not believe, Josse thought, that the fever came entirely from the rain.
But he was not yet ready to tell Brice about the macabre visitor who had come out of the darkness. Perhaps he never would be.
Brice had brought abundant provisions and they ate well. Then, with a moon rising over the marsh and making flashes of silver on the flat land as its beams shone down and sought out stretches of water, they settled in their covers and slept.
In the morning Brice led the way down the slope and out on to the marsh. They rode here and there across the soggy ground for some time, Brice going ahead, Josse following. After a while, Josse realised that they were covering ground that they had already ridden over and he said, ‘Brice, let us return to the high ridge. It is difficult, surely, to pick out any landmarks that will help you find your way when we are down here on the levels. Do you not think you would find the task easier from a vantage point up there?’ He waved an arm in the direction of the inland cliff, rising steeply behind them.
Brice frowned. ‘I do not know, Josse. I thought — I believed, from what I was told, that I would find the place without difficulty.’ He stared out across the featureless marshland where, as far as Josse could discern, there was little to be seen but some trees and a long line of hedge in the distance and some sheep dotted around like pale flowers fallen from a basket.
Making up his mind, Brice spurred his horse and set off towards the cliff. ‘Let us try out your suggestion,’ he called back to Josse. ‘It can hardly be of less use than the sum of my efforts so far!’
Following him, Josse had to agree.
They rode up the track that Josse had ridden down the previous day. This time the heron must either have been absent about its business or else had decided to stay safely hidden in the undergrowth. At the top, Brice turned to his right and rode a few yards down the road to where a gap in the trees allowed a view down over the marsh.
They sat side by side for a long time. Josse was aware of the sound of hooves on the track away to the west; it was clearly a well-used route, however, and he paid the approaching rider, whoever he might be, little heed.
Then Brice said, ‘I think I may have spotted something, Josse. I remember being told of a long hall, before which there is a corral for the animals, and behind that ought to be a long line of ancient willows that run along beside a little stream.’ He stared out over the lands below them, frowning. ‘Oh, but I am not sure. If I am right and it is the place we seek, then it is not where I expected it to be. I thought it would be simple,’ he added again. Then, with a rueful laugh, said, ‘You would have done better, Josse, to seek further and find someone who knew what they were talking about instead of a man such as I, who has more confidence in his own ability than is justified.’