One of the men standing by the door approached and indicated that Josse should dismount. He did so, putting Horace’s reins into the man’s outstretched hand. Then, eyes holding the other man’s, he straightened his tunic and put his right hand on his sword hilt. With a faint smile, the man said, ‘Nobody carries arms when he is admitted into the company in the great hall. Your weapons, please.’
With reluctance, Josse unbuckled his sword belt and handed it over. The man nodded at the dagger in its sheath, and Josse passed that to him as well. Then, the smile broadening until it seemed to hold a tiny amount of genuine warmth, the man said, again in that strange accent, ‘Your sword and dagger will be safe. I will guard them for you.’
With a brief bow — it seemed wise to reply to courtesy with courtesy — Josse said, ‘I am grateful.’
Then the man pushed the door open and, extending a hand palm uppermost, indicated that Josse should go inside.
He did not know what to expect. The light was poor; the long hall was tucked away beneath the cliff and the willows, and not much light penetrated through the partly opened door. Josse could see little but, to judge from the presence of the guards outside and from the remarks of the three horsemen, he thought that the hall might be a place of splendour. Long tables groaning beneath food and drink, splendid tapestries on the walls to keep out the draughts, the crossed swords and shields of defeated enemies and the heads of noble creatures felled in the hunt as decorations. The home, perhaps, of a rich lord who valued his privacy and maintained his borders by a show of arms. And there was the man with the helm to consider too — that brooch he had worn on his shoulder must be worth a fortune …
Stepping forward, Josse’s foot slipped and he stumbled into what seemed to be a shallow groove cut in the floor. The stench of animal urine rose around him, hardly what he had thought to find in this place. But perhaps the hall was built in the old style; he wondered if this first area were a stable or a pen for livestock. Men had always lived alongside their animals when they believed that there was a need to keep the creatures safe; many men still lived that way. Withdrawing his foot — his boot made an unpleasant squelch as he pulled it from whatever substance made up the noisome slurry — he moved on.
He went through a wood-framed doorway set in a wattle screen that appeared to be some sort of internal division and decided that he had been right about the first space inside the door being for the animals. This second area smelt strongly of smoked meat and, above him, he could make out bulky shapes hanging suspended from the beams that held up the reed thatch.
As within the first area, there was nobody there.
And if the lord whom Josse had been imagining did indeed live in the luxury that wealth bestowed, then there was still no sign of it.
He went on through another partition and now he felt warmth. Abruptly there was light as whatever dark material had been before the hearth, blocking its glow, was removed.
Before Josse had a chance to do more than have a swift glance around him — bare walls made of planks that were warping so that gaps had begun to appear between them … smoke-blackened rafters and cobwebs hanging down from the reed thatch … bare floor thick with dirt — someone spoke.
And a voice that demanded instant attention said, ‘You have penetrated to the depths of this hall. You have come with news of a death. Why do you bring it here to us?’
Looking across the hearth, firelight after darkness rendering him almost as blind as he had been outside in the mist, Josse made out shapes, forms. Beyond the fire, set against the far wall of the hall, was a raised dais. Standing upon it, darker patches in the darkness, were two tall wooden chairs, the taller of the two splendid and resembling a throne. Both seats were occupied.
In the hearth, a log fell with a shower of bright sparks. As the sudden brightness lit the dim interior, Josse was staring towards the figure in the lower of the two chairs. Light fell on the face — the man was leaning forward to study Josse as curiously as Josse was studying the outlines of the pair in the wooden seats — and Josse recognised the bright eyes.
With a start of horror he recoiled, stepping back involuntarily from the hearth as memory made the sweat break out across his back. Catching his foot in something on the dirty floor — he had a fleeting impression of softness, as if he had tripped on a tattered fur rug — he fell heavily, banging the back of his head hard against the beaten earth.
A blazing trail of stars seemed to flash across his vision, then everything went black.
16
He opened his eyes to see someone staring down at him. It was a small child — a girl child — and, as soon as she saw that he was conscious, she called out something that he did not understand then, leaping up, rushed away.
He turned on to his side — he had, he discovered, been flat on his back — and stared after her. She wore a tunic in some sort of rough fabric that looked like sacking and her long plait of pale hair hung down to her waist. The delicate white skin of her bare feet was begrimed and filthy.
A recollection floated into his head. He had opened his eyes once before, he was almost sure of it, and seen someone … Not the child but an adult. A woman. And there had been something odd about her … He frowned, worrying at the image until it began to clear. Aye, that was why it was strange, because if he had seen who he thought he had, then she should not be there because she was at Hawkenlye Abbey.
He was still staring in the direction in which the little girl had run away. He seemed to be lying in the middle section of the hall; he could see the joints and haunches of smoked meat hanging from the blackened rafters above. The child had run off towards the door and he shifted his position slightly so that he could peer round the wattle screen.
Aye, that was where she’d been, the woman who ought not to be there! She had been standing in the outer area of the hall and looked around the screen at him, tentatively, as if ready to draw her head back swiftly if he saw her.
As he recovered from having knocked himself out, he began to wonder. Maybe it had been part of a dream, for why on earth should she be here? Deciding that all he could do was to keep his eyes open and see if he spotted her again, he resolved to put the matter out of his mind. Instead, he turned his attention to sitting up — which made his head ache more fiercely — and seeing if he could attract anyone’s attention.
But in fact there was no need, for soon the little girl came back with an older woman — her mother, presumably, for there was a likeness between them — who, with a solicitous smile, asked Josse how he was feeling and offered him a drink.
He was about to take it from her when he stopped. Was it wise, to take food or drink from suspicious strangers? As if the woman perceived his doubt, she said, ‘It is a concoction made from the willow. It will help your sore head.’ Putting out her hand, she touched the bump on the back of his skull with gentle fingers. ‘You fell hard, stranger, and the floor is unforgiving.’
Still he was uncertain. With a soft sound of impatience, the woman gave the mug to the child, said something to her and both she and Josse watched as the little girl took a mouthful, swallowed and made a face.
The woman smiled at Josse. ‘It is bitter to the taste. But I will give her a honey cake to take the effect away.’ Then, her face straightening, ‘Now will you drink?’
It seemed foolish not to, so he sipped at the drink — it was indeed very bitter — until it had all gone. He was not sure whether it was merely his imagination, but he had a fancy that the throbbing in his head began to lessen immediately.