Josse did not hesitate. Rough ground was the lesser threat now and, in any case, the rent in the mist was still there and, for the time being anyway, he could see. Heels digging into Horace’s sides, he urged the horse round to the right and, trying to steady the girl’s motionless body with his left hand, rode as fast as he could for the track up the cliff.
Brice galloped to meet him, wheeling around in a circle and coming in to ride close to Josse’s left side. Josse spared a moment to be thankful that Brice knew better than to take up his position on Josse’s right flank, since this was his armed side. Neck and neck, they flew towards the inland cliff.
Josse spared a glance behind them. Aelle had outrun his men and was gaining on Josse and Brice. Dear God, but he moved fast! His teeth were bared and he looked as if he were half out of his mind.
Josse reached the track a bare nose ahead and Brice reined in to let him set off up it first. He urged Horace into the shade of the trees and up the dark tunnel that their branches formed over the path, hearing the sounds of Brice starting out on the ascent behind him. Horace plunged valiantly up the track, moving quickly until he reached the very steep section right at the top, where he checked, then went on at a slower and more careful pace. Now Josse could see Isabella, who had gone on ahead up the path and was waiting for them on the road above. Her hawk was on her wrist.
Turning hastily, Josse had time to register that Brice was just riding out from the concealing trees when a stumble from Horace drew his attention back to more crucial matters. Steadying the horse, he leaned his weight forward across the inert girl, encouraged Horace on and very soon they were safe on the road.
He was saying something to Isabella — he could not later recall what it was — when he saw her face change. A look of horrified recognition twisted her features and with a quick, decisive gesture she flung her fist in the air and her hawk took off in swift, graceful flight. The bird gained height and then, falling like a dead weight from the summer sky, dived down on Brice.
Watching helplessly, Josse called out a warning …
But it was not Brice who rode after them up the track. It was Aelle.
He was on the steepest part of the slope now. The hawk shot down straight at his face, her talons outstretched for the kill, and there was a sudden flash of scarlet as she opened up deep cuts through his eyes and down his cheeks. Then she flew up again and fell on the horse, and a sudden shrill whinny of pain and terror made a discord with Aelle’s screaming.
Aelle’s horse reared and then shied so that its forefeet came down slewed over at an angle and missed the track. In alarm it tried to find firm ground but, panicking now, it failed. Overbalancing, it fell off the path and dropped down over the almost sheer cliff. Aelle, blood pouring down his face and frantically trying to get his feet out of the stirrups, did not release himself in time. The horse fell on its side straight on to the rock-strewn ground at the foot of the cliff with its master beneath it.
Aelle was dead. He had to be; no man could survive when his head had been burst open and the white and red matter of his brains was already mingling on the short grass.
Now Brice came thundering up the track, eyes only for Isabella. She sat on her horse, the hawk once more on the heavy gauntlet. Meeting Brice’s anxious look, she nodded and said, ‘I am unhurt. So, I believe, is Josse, and he has the girl with him. But what of you?’
‘Aelle outmanoeuvred me at the foot of the track,’ Brice said grimly. There was a vivid mark on the side of his head that would soon turn into a spectacular bruise. ‘I could not stop him — he was possessed.’
Brice nudged his horse with his knees and the animal stepped off the track and on to the level ground of the road. Josse, still feeling the shock, said, ‘What of his men?’
‘The mist has closed in again,’ Brice said shortly. His eyes had followed the direction in which Isabella was staring and he, too, took in the sight of the chieftain’s dead body. Then he looked from that grisly spectacle to Isabella, and Josse did too.
To his amazement, she was smiling. ‘It was necessary,’ she said. ‘I will explain, but not now.’ Then, her smile widening as if at some secret joy that was spreading like sun’s warmth through her whole body, she cried, ‘Oh, Brice, my dearest love, at long last all shall now be well!’
Then, without another word, she put her heels to her mare and led the way off along the road into the west. She did not stop — and neither did Josse, burdened with the unconscious girl, nor Brice — until they reached Rotherbridge.
21
At Rotherbridge, Josse, Brice and Isabella hardly spoke as they saw to the horses and then went inside. The girl seemed to be recovering a little. She had been muttering during the ride from Saltwych and Josse had moved her so that, for the latter stages of the journey, she had sat astride in front of him, leaning back against him. He hoped that perhaps the fresh air, and being outside in the beautiful day after her long confinement in the hut, had helped her. She had suffered bouts of shivering, and Josse had contrived to fasten the old blanket more securely around her.
Inside Brice’s hall, it was cool and shady. Brice headed straight for the door to the kitchens and hollered for wine and, as soon as it was brought, poured out deep mugs of it for himself and for Josse. Isabella had declined; she insisted on first attending to the girl and so, helped by Josse, the two of them took her through into a smaller room that led off the hall. Brice was sent to fetch warm water, washing cloths and towels; Josse was commanded to collect Isabella’s saddlebag, in which she said she had spare clothes. The sacking garment and the blanket, Isabella said firmly, she would throw out to be burned.
Josse and Brice were on their second mugs of the cool wine when a sudden cry shot them both to their feet. Brice in his alarm threw his mug on to the flagstones and rushed for the door of the little side room.
He yelled, ‘Isabella! Isabella!’ And, with a shout of alarm, flung his weight against the door.
On the journey to Ryemarsh and in the course of the day and a half that she had spent there with Ambrose, Helewise felt that she had learned a great deal about him. He was, as she might have predicted, unfailingly courteous and considerate and, as soon as they were ensconced in his house, he was revealed as a man of authority who knew exactly what he wanted and usually got it instantly. His household seemed to be both deeply in awe of and genuinely fond of him which, in Helewise’s experience, was rare enough to be noteworthy.
She had not known how wealthy he was. His house spoke loudly of his means, from the finely carved wooden furniture in his hall and the richly worked tapestries on the walls to the high standards of his board.
But all the money in the world could not help him in the moment when he first set foot into the home that no longer included his wife. Helewise, walking beside him, felt him falter and she heard him mutter something under his breath. He dropped his head and put a hand up to his face, as if to conceal his emotions from the servants who stood in the hall to welcome their master home.
She waited, uncertain whether or not he would want her to intervene. But in the end she was glad she did not for, from the front rank of the household staff, an elderly man stepped forward and said gently, ‘We are glad to have you home, my lord. We too mourn her and it is good that you are here with the folk who loved her best.’
It was perhaps over-familiar, but Helewise realised that the little speech was just right. Raising his head, Ambrose gave the old man a sketchy smile and said simply, ‘Thank you, Julian.’ Then, turning to Helewise, he said, ‘My lady, may I present Julian, who is the head of my household staff. Julian, this is Abbess Helewise of Hawkenlye. Please give orders for the best guest chamber to be prepared.’