The man got off him. The cloth was pulled off his head and he found himself face to face with Brice.
‘I am sorry, Josse,’ Brice whispered, ‘but we had to stop you making any sound. We have been waiting for you to warn you. They are looking for you.’
‘Why? What-’ Josse began, but Brice shook his head.
‘Not now. We are not safe here. Come with me.’
Horace, Josse saw, had been led away by Brice’s companion — was it the huntsman? It looked as though it was — and was already some distance down the road. He was heading eastwards, along the cliff-top road and towards the distant sea. Of Brice’s and the huntsman’s horses there was no sign. Urging Josse to hurry, Brice set off at a run after Horace and the huntsman.
Soon the man turned off the road and led the way up a narrow and overgrown track that wound through thick undergrowth into a copse of ancient beech and oak trees. They came to a small clearing and the man led Horace over to a makeshift corral where two other horses were tethered. Brice said, ‘Do not worry — your horse will be fed and watered,’ and, taking Josse’s arm, led him into a rough shelter made of woven branches and roofed with bracken. Motioning him towards a seat made from a length of log, he said, ‘Please, sit down. I will fetch food and drink for us as well.’
He was gone for only a short while, returning with bread — rather dry — and some strips of dried meat. He also brought ale in a flask. Setting these offerings out neatly on the grassy floor of the shelter, he said, ‘Again, I apologise, Josse, for treating you so roughly and I thank you for coming here with us. You had only my word that there was danger in remaining exposed out there on the cliff top.’
Josse studied him. Then he said, ‘I have no reason to doubt your word, Brice. I do not now believe that you mean me harm.’
Brice dropped his head. He said quietly, ‘Thank you for that.’
‘But,’ Josse went on, ‘be that as it may, I need an explanation.’
‘Of course, of course.’ Brice sounded distracted. Getting up, he went to the entrance of the shelter and looked out, returning with a glum expression. ‘I had hoped to have help in this tale that I am about to tell you,’ he murmured, ‘but it seems that it is to be left to me.’ He grinned suddenly. ‘Which I suppose is only fair, since much of what has occurred has come about because of my own insistence in having that upon which I had set my heart.’
‘Ah,’ Josse said, and even to him the brief syllable sounded knowing. He was beginning to think that he understood.
Brice looked up at him sharply. Then he said quietly, ‘Aye, Josse d’Acquin. They do say that little escapes your notice.’ Then, after a short pause as if he were gathering his words, he said, ‘You are aware, I know, of the tragedy that befell my wife.’
‘Aye.’
‘Well, I felt much guilt over the manner of her death and, until I did penance with the good monks at Canterbury, I was near to drowning in remorse and self-pity, neither of which was going to bring Dillian back. Did you ever wonder how I picked myself up and got on with my life, Josse?’
‘I-’ The truth was that Josse had barely spared Brice’s private life a thought. They had met from time to time, as neighbours tend to do, exchanged greetings, made small talk. ‘No,’ he said honestly.
Again, Brice smiled. ‘Well, men are not in the habit of searching their souls concerning their own or one another’s emotions. We consider, do we not, that sensitive and complicated things of that nature are best left to the womenfolk?’ Not waiting for an answer, he plunged on, ‘I did mourn my wife, sincerely and for a long time. But then I met someone else and I fell in love with her.’
You met Galiena, Josse thought, although he did not speak.
‘She was — matters were delicate,’ Brice went on. ‘We were not free to be together, to enjoy a steady fostering of our feelings for each other; in short, not free to admit our love. We could only meet by careful arrangement and we were helped in this by a sympathetic friend who did us the great kindness of relaying messages between us. She — my lady — liked to ride and it was known that she often set off alone to hunt with her falcon.’
‘Indeed?’ Josse had not known that Galiena enjoyed such pastimes but then, he thought, why should he have been told?
‘Indeed,’ Brice repeated. Misunderstanding Josse’s query, he said, ‘It sounds unlikely, perhaps, for one who does not know her, and I suppose that it is unusual for a woman to hunt alone. But that is her way.’
He spoke of her, Josse noticed, as though she were still alive. It touched him profoundly for, even though the man’s love for her had been adulterous, it also appeared to have been deep and sincere.
‘We spent many happy hours out in the wild country together,’ Brice was saying, ‘and our urgent need not to be seen caused us to find lonely places where men do not go.’ He raised his eyes to Josse, his own naked with the emotions that were driving him. ‘We became lovers, Josse, for we could not wait for matters to work out so that we could ask the Church for her blessing on our union. We-’
But Josse could not contain himself. Even if the two of them had truly loved each other, Galiena was wife to Ambrose; what of him? Were his feelings not to be considered at all? ‘And just how were you expecting this working out of matters to be accomplished, eh?’ he demanded. ‘Were you waiting for Ambrose to die so that you could marry the mistress whom you had already impregnated?’
Brice stared at him, his mouth open. He shook his head as if in disbelief, then said, ‘Ambrose? Why should we wish that Ambrose-’
Then light appeared to dawn. He said, and the anger was audible in his voice, ‘You believe I loved Galiena? Josse, you make a foul accusation!’ He was on his feet, looming over Josse, large hands clenched into fists.
Quickly Josse got up too. ‘I make the accusation because I have followed the hints and the suggestions that led me to it!’ he shouted back. ‘From the first, when you took me to Ryemarsh, I observed the tension and the suppressed excitement in you as we rode towards your love! Man, you were like a boy in the throes of calf-love!’ Ignoring Brice’s menacing expression, he ploughed on. ‘And then, when we rode out together from Readingbrooke just yesterday, I said that I had guessed your secret and you did not deny it!’
‘Yes, but I thought you-’
But Josse was too agitated to let him speak. ‘You were not of the party that escorted Galiena from Ryemarsh on her way to Hawkenlye, for you had left Ryemarsh the previous evening to return home. Or so you said. Then, after we reached New Winnowlands and I left the group, you met up with her somewhere on the road! I went to your house, Brice, I went to call for you when I set off for Hawkenlye and you were not there! And then she died, your mistress Galiena, and she was poisoned!’ He paused, breathing hard. ‘Good God, I have even found myself wondering if it was you who poisoned her!’
Anger seemed to have drained out of Brice. His face dark with sorrow, he said gravely, ‘Why should I have wished her dead?’
‘Because she carried your child. It was meant to be a pleasant diversion, your lovemaking, and yet it resulted in her pregnancy, she who was married to another.’
But even as Josse said the words, he knew that he was wrong. Terribly wrong.
There was silence in the shelter. Slowly Brice sat down again and, after a while, looked up at Josse. ‘I am horrified that you should believe me capable of such dreadful callousness,’ he said, dropping his head and burying his face in his hands. ‘You know of my past, aye, and I suppose you think that a man whose hot temper led to the death of his wife might similarly lose control and bring about the death of his mistress.’ Removing his hands, eyes firmly on Josse’s, he said, ‘But I swear to you that you are wrong this time. I knew Galiena, of course I did, and I honoured her for her kindness and her generosity, aye, and for her beauty.’ He gave a faint smile, there and gone in an instant. ‘I admit that, had she been free and had my heart not already been engaged elsewhere, I might well have courted her. Under those circumstances, what man worth the name would not have done the same?’