Helewise was awakened by voices coming from the Old Hall. Disorientated – she hadn’t meant to fall asleep, and was amazed that she had done so – she realized she wasn’t alone on the bed. Olivar lay beside her, curled up like a puppy. He, too, had been woken by the sounds outside.
Voices … Josse’s voice … He was back!
She leapt off the bed, trying to straighten her headdress and smooth out the creases in her gown all at the same time, but then it didn’t matter because Josse was in the doorway, still in his heavy cloak and carrying the damp, cold smell of outdoors, and she flew across the room and into his arms.
‘Are you all right?’ she whispered, her face pressed against his chest. In the brief glimpse she’d had of his face, he looked pale, haggard and exhausted.
‘Aye,’ he whispered back. ‘Much has happened, and I have many things to tell you, but I’m fine. Now,’ he added, squeezing her hand as he let her go.
She felt a hand grab hold of a fold of her skirt. Olivar had crept up to stand beside her, and was looking up at Josse with wide-eyed amazement. ‘It’s the big, strong man!’ he said with happy satisfaction. ‘You’ve come back.’
Josse crouched down to him. ‘Aye,’ he agreed. He seemed at a loss as to what to say next. Someone must already have told him about Cyrille’s death, Helewise thought, remembering those voices out in the hall, and presumably he was wondering what you said to a child of six whose mother had just died.
But then Josse said, ‘I’ve brought someone to see you, Olivar. She’s heard all about you, and she’s looking forward to meeting you.’
Both Olivar and Helewise craned to see round Josse’s bulky shape and into the passage. To Helewise’s delight, Meggie stood there. She looked at Helewise briefly, and Helewise had the sudden, irrational thought: Meggie will help. The two women exchanged a deeply affectionate smile. Then Meggie knelt down beside Josse and said solemnly to Olivar, ‘I’ve just ridden here on a large, friendly horse called Auban. He’s very tired, and also really hungry, so would you like to come out to the stables with me to look after him?’
Olivar nodded eagerly. ‘Can I get his feed ready? I know how to, she showed me.’ He jerked his head towards Helewise.
‘Oh, I was hoping you’d offer,’ Meggie said with relief. ‘I have no idea where everything’s kept, since I’ve only just arrived, and now I won’t need to ask. Come on, Olivar.’
Helewise and Josse watched them hurry away. ‘There are grooms and stable lads out there to see to the horses,’ Helewise murmured.
Josse sighed. ‘Aye, I know. But they’ve just told me about Cyrille, and Meggie must have realized I need to speak to you alone.’
‘She was found beneath the solar window,’ Helewise said neutrally, ‘and her body discovered on the edge of the flooded stream, although she was soaked through and it was quite clear she’d been under the water.’
Josse looked intently at her. Then – and it struck her as a strange question – he said, ‘Are you sure the fall killed her and that she didn’t drown?’
Taken by surprise, she said, ‘I don’t know.’ She thought about it. ‘Surely it must have been the fall. It’s such a long drop.’ She found she couldn’t bear to dwell on it. ‘Why do you ask that? Have you discovered something?’
‘Aye, I have, although how it relates to what’s just happened here, I can’t begin to imagine.’ He smiled at her. ‘I was hoping you would have made a few discoveries of your own while I’ve been gone.’
‘Oh, I have,’ she said fervently. He guided her back inside the room and closed the door. ‘But, Josse, shouldn’t we wait till the family is gathered together? These matters are their concern far more than ours.’
‘Aye, they are.’ He sat down heavily on the bed and pulled off his boots. ‘All the same, my instincts tell me that you and I should share what we know just with each other first. Will you agree to that?’ He looked anxiously up at her.
She went to sit beside him, taking his hand. ‘Yes.’ There was nothing she’d welcome more, she reflected, than a quiet talk with Josse.
‘Shall I start?’ he asked.
‘Go ahead.’
Some time later, Helewise sat frowning in concentration as she tried to absorb all that Josse had just said. She was so sorry to hear that Aeleis was dead. She had hoped very much to meet Josse’s favourite cousin. As for Josse, she knew now why he had looked as he did when he came into the room. But it wasn’t the time to dwell on that still-raw grief.
‘So he wasn’t Aeleis’s son but her husband,’ she said wonderingly. ‘Oh, Josse, she was old enough to be his mother!’
‘He wasn’t as young as we imagined,’ Josse replied. He smiled. ‘Certainly, he wasn’t the nineteen-year-old you thought he might be.’
‘I always was a bit dubious,’ she agreed. ‘But you must admit, it was very difficult to work out how old he was, under all that damage to his poor face.’
‘He was eighteen when he met Aeleis; old enough to know his own mind, and—’
‘He was thirty-eight?’ Helewise interrupted. ‘Oh, surely not!’
Josse laughed. ‘No, of course not! Think, Helewise: we conjectured that he’d have had to be only nineteen or so when we believed he was her son, because the year after I’d seen her at Yule was the first in which she could have conceived him. Only he wasn’t her son but her husband, so that timescale becomes irrelevant. Do you see?’
She nodded slowly. ‘Yes, I do. How long were they together?’
‘I don’t believe she told me,’ he replied. ‘She just said they were happier than anyone had the right to expect, or some such phrase.’
‘They were lucky,’ she murmured.
Josse broke the brief, reflective silence. ‘She wants them to be buried together. Abbess Caliste promised to look after the – to look after Aeleis until the family have decided where that should be.’
‘Peter’s – that is, Parsifal’s body has been moved down into the undercroft,’ she said. ‘Isabelle ordered that Cyrille be put in the chapel.’ She glanced at him. ‘Both the undercroft and the chapel are cold, and the weather is warmer than it has been,’ she added. There was no need for further explanation.
‘So,’ he said heavily, ‘what about Cyrille?’
Helewise stood up. ‘Come with me, and I’ll show you what I’ve been doing.’
She took him first to the chapel. He spared a quick glance for the shrouded body before the altar, then turned away and followed her. It was only with great difficulty that he managed to squeeze through the little gap beside the pillar in the north-east corner, but, once they were down among the foundations of Southfire, he admitted it was well worth the effort. She watched as, with delight in his face, he revisited his childhood playground. Then – for she had not brought him here to indulge in nostalgia – she showed him the other discoveries she had made beneath the ground, finishing in the undercroft beneath the Old Hall. They paused, standing silently side by side, to pay their respects to the body lying there. Josse went up to the bier, briefly putting his hand on the dome of the head. He murmured something, but Helewise couldn’t make out the words.
A little later, pausing together in the passage leading past the family’s quarters in the first extension, he turned to her. ‘How on earth did you discover that secret passage?’
‘I knew it had to be there,’ she said. They heard voices, quite near at hand: it sounded like Philomena and the little girls. ‘Not here,’ Helewise whispered. ‘Let’s find somewhere we won’t be overheard.’
He looked aghast. ‘Not back the way we came?’
‘No, dear Josse, I won’t make you force yourself through that tiny gap in the chapel wall again!’
They hurried back to their room. ‘You see,’ she said even as he was closing the door, ‘there were two occasions when someone just seemed to vanish. The first time was when we heard someone outside this room, when you told Isabelle we thought Peter Southey was Aeleis’s son, and the second was when I encountered Olivar’s monster.’
‘And, being the logical and down-to-earth woman that you are, you realized nobody can disappear, there are no such things as monsters, and so you went looking for another explanation,’ he said approvingly.
‘Well, it wasn’t all that clever,’ she admitted. ‘You’d already told me there was a network of crypts and passages down below the house, and it seemed the obvious place to search. Now we’ve discovered for ourselves that it’s easy to move from one part of the house to another without being seen.’
‘So, now all we have to work out is who needs to do so, and why.’
She hesitated. ‘I think I know that, too.’
They waited until after the family had finished supper before telling them. Josse realized he felt very nervous. He had said firmly to Helewise that he should be the one to reveal what the two of them had worked out, but, now that the moment was at hand, he was very reluctant to start.
Despite all that had happened, the mood in the Old Hall was serene. All the family were there except for the children, who had been put to bed, and Emma, who had retired with a headache. Looking round at the faces, Josse couldn’t see any signs of profound grief for the woman who no longer sat in her accustomed place. Herbert was very quiet; he had barely said a word all evening. He was pale, and clearly suffering, but once or twice Josse had caught a hint of something in his expression that could almost have been relief.
Meggie sat beside Isabelle, and it warmed his heart to see his daughter and his cousin with their heads together, talking as if they had known each other all their lives. He would tell Isabelle about—
But he didn’t finish the thought. Helewise jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow and hissed, ‘Time to start!’
Josse got to his feet, cleared his throat and said, ‘When Meggie and I got here earlier this evening, I promised I would tell you what I have found out. Since then I’ve had a chance to speak to Helewise, and between us we believe we have a version of what may be the truth. If I may, I will share it with you all.’
His family sat staring up expectantly. He had no choice but to begin.
‘When the man we knew as Peter Southey was brought to the house we realized he must know Aeleis, because he had her precious Queen Eleanor chess piece, and she would never have given it away to anyone she didn’t love very deeply. We wondered if he was her son, and, carelessly, we allowed someone to overhear our speculations.’ He paused, staring at Herbert. This part was going to be difficult. ‘We believe it’s possible that this someone was driven to an act of violence. Someone had staked a lot on what they believed would be the line of inheritance, and, on finding out that there was another claimant – a legitimate son born to Aeleis of whom nobody had previously been aware – this person acted in the only way they could to safeguard the present arrangement.’
Again, he stopped, taking a moment to prepare himself. ‘Peter Southey wasn’t Aeleis’s son but her husband,’ he said. ‘He was killed – and aye, I’m afraid he was killed –’ there had been several gasps – ‘there is no doubt of that. He was murdered to get him out of the way; to stop him claiming what his killer desired.’
‘But how was he killed?’ Isabelle said, her voice choked with emotion.
‘A pillow, or cushion, was put over his face while he lay deeply asleep,’ Josse replied.
Her hands flew to cover her mouth. ‘I gave him the sleeping draught!’
‘Aye, for a very good reason,’ Josse said instantly. ‘His death is no fault of yours, Isabelle.’
‘How do you know this?’ Herbert asked shakily.
‘It was his habit to press Queen Eleanor against his lips,’ Josse said gently. ‘He must have gone to sleep like that, and, when the pillow smothered him, the chess piece was pressed into his flesh, cutting his lip and bruising his chin. It’s been checked,’ he said, raising his voice against the outburst of objections, ‘and there is no mistake. Furthermore, there was a small piece of fluff attached to Queen Eleanor when I found her under Peter’s bed, and we now know where it came from.’
‘Where?’ Isabelle demanded.
He held up his hand. ‘I will tell you very soon,’ he said. ‘First, we need to speak of Olivar’s night terrors, and what – or, rather, who – caused them, and why we believe this person was driven to act so cruelly.’
‘Is it – is it the same person?’ Jenna asked, as if she couldn’t bear to think two people capable of such acts could be present under Southfire’s roof.
‘Aye,’ Josse said gently. ‘Driven by one of the oldest instincts: the desire to protect an unborn child.’
Herbert shot to his feet. ‘You’re speaking of Cyrille, aren’t you?’ he cried. ‘It’s Cyrille you mean when you say all that stuff about not wanting anyone to interfere with the inheritance, because it’ll come to me, and then to Olivar, once he’s legally my ward. But she’s not – she wasn’t pregnant, Josse! She wasn’t! I was her husband! Don’t you think I would know?’
He stood panting with his hands resting on the table, supporting him.
‘I think she was, Herbert,’ Helewise said calmly. ‘There were many little things she did that implied she was suffering the early effects of pregnancy, and taking the appropriate care to protect herself and the baby.’
‘But – but she’d have said!’ Herbert whispered, although his voice held less conviction now.
‘Perhaps she was waiting to be absolutely sure before she told you,’ Helewise suggested kindly. ‘She wouldn’t have wanted you to face the disappointment if she was wrong.’
Herbert sank back into his seat. ‘I thought she was too old,’ he said. Only desperation, Josse thought, aching for him, could have wrung that revealing confession out of him.
There was a short, awkward silence. Then Meggie spoke. ‘If it would be appropriate,’ she said diffidently, ‘I could look at the lady. I’m a healer,’ she added, ‘and I am experienced in caring for pregnant women.’ She turned to Herbert. ‘I will treat her with the utmost respect,’ she said earnestly.
Herbert stared at her for a moment. Then, waving a hand, he said, ‘Oh, do what you like.’ Then he stood up again and strode out of the hall.
Meggie looked at Josse, then at Isabelle. ‘I think that’s a good idea,’ Isabelle said firmly. She got up. ‘Come with me, Meggie. Everyone else, stay here. This is not a matter requiring witnesses.’
They were not gone for long. Quite soon, their footsteps could be heard coming back from the chapel. Josse glanced at Helewise. She looked anxious; nervous, even. With good reason, he reflected. This was her theory, after all.
Isabelle and Meggie sat down. Meggie looked up, around the intent faces. ‘She wasn’t pregnant,’ she said, her voice low but clear.
‘Then why would she—’ Jenna began.
Isabelle held up her hand for silence.
‘She was probably too old to conceive,’ Meggie went on, ‘and it’s possible she confused the symptoms of the time of change in a woman’s life with those of pregnancy. She certainly wouldn’t be the first to do that.’ She paused. ‘There’s something else, I’m afraid.’
Josse stared at her. What could be coming? He shot a glance at Isabelle, who was also staring at Meggie as if this was unexpected for her, too.
‘Go on, Meggie,’ Josse said.
Meggie looked at him, and he saw from her face that she was both embarrassed and distressed. ‘I’m really sorry to have to say this, because I realize it’s not what you all thought, and what you’d been told, but, all the same, it’s true and there’s absolutely no doubt.’ She seemed to brace herself, then said, ‘The woman lying dead in the chapel there has never borne a child.’
There was a stunned stillness in the Old Hall. Nobody seemed to know what to say. Helewise, watching Josse, thought he looked guilty, as if afraid that it was his determination to discover what had happened to Aeleis that had brought all this disruption, distress and tragedy. It isn’t your fault, dear heart, she said silently to him.
Then, breaking the mood, there came the sound of footsteps. Two pairs: one firm and steady, the other, a dragging shuffle. Several pairs of eyes turned to the doorway leading to the family’s quarters in the original extension, where, presently, Herbert appeared, his grandfather holding on to his arm and propping himself up with a stick held firmly in his other hand.
‘Father!’ Isabelle leapt to her feet. ‘What are you doing out of bed?’ She rounded on her son. ‘And Herbert, you should know better than to risk him damaging his health and injuring himself – what were you thinking of?’
‘Leave him be, daughter,’ Hugh said, with a note of command in his voice. ‘You, what’s your name, Josse, give me a chair!’
Hastily Josse leapt up and, between them, he and Herbert installed Hugh in the seat he had just vacated.
Isabelle, still sending fuming glances at both Herbert and Hugh, stood impatiently tapping her foot.
‘Well, this is nice!’ Hugh said, staring round at his assembled family with a smile. ‘I really should come along to the Old Hall more often. I can already feel it doing me good.’ Carefully he laid his stick down beside his chair then, folding his hands, rested them on the table. ‘My mind is clearer tonight than it has been for a long time,’ he went on, ‘although –’ he glanced compassionately at Herbert – ‘this may well be because this young man’s distress touched me deeply, as did the fact that he chose to come to me for comfort.’ He paused. ‘Not quite so far into my dotage as you all thought, eh?’
‘Father, that’s not fair!’ Editha protested. ‘We’ve only treated you like a confused and forgetful old man because that’s what you’ve been, for weeks and months!’ She was almost in tears. Getting up, she ran to Hugh and took his hand. ‘It’s wonderful to see you back in your rightful place, and I don’t know how you could even think we wouldn’t all be delighted!’
‘Peace, Editha,’ Hugh said, patting her hand. ‘I dare say you’re right. I can’t seem to tell – for a long time it’s as if I was seeing you all through a darkness, a shadow, but now, all at once, it’s gone.’ His eyes roamed over his kinsmen and women, over his own hall, with an expression of wonder. Then, staring straight at Josse, he said, ‘I gather you have been making some discoveries, nephew.’
‘Er – aye, I—’
‘Don’t bother, Young Herbert here has already told me,’ Hugh said. He turned to Meggie. ‘You must be Josse’s daughter, since yours is the only face I don’t know.’
‘I am,’ Meggie agreed.
‘And the lady wasn’t pregnant, was she?’ Hugh went on remorselessly.
Meggie met his hard eyes. ‘No.’
‘And I will hazard a guess that she had never before had a child.’
Meggie looked surprised. ‘You are quite right.’
‘How did you know?’ Herbert demanded.
‘What is all this?’ Isabelle cried, loudly and angrily. ‘Father, you must explain!’
‘Be quiet!’ Hugh roared. Silence fell. ‘I have been wandering in my mind, as you are no doubt all aware, but there has been one thing that has haunted me all this time, so that, even when I permitted myself to be treated like a dying man, petted, pandered to and patronized, yet always something kept nagging at me. Something I knew it was up to me to put right.’
An image flashed into Josse’s head: Uncle Hugh, very distressed, struggling to get out of bed, calling for his horse and saying, I have to see to this and try to sort it out, for it’s all a muddle and I don’t understand.
‘I will tell you what it was, for, now that I appear to be in my right mind again, all is perfectly clear.’ Hugh turned to Herbert. ‘I’m sorry, my lad, for this will pain you, but your late wife misled you. She told you – or rather, let us be kind and say she allowed you to believe – that Olivar was her son; hers and William’s.’
‘Yes, because that’s—’
‘The truth?’ Hugh interrupted him. ‘No, Herbert, I’m afraid it isn’t. William Crowburgh was married before, you see, to a very lovely woman whose name was Marthe de Withan. She bore William a son, but, very sadly and to William’s great grief, she never fully recovered from the birth and she died a couple of years later.’
Herbert’s face worked with emotion. ‘It’s a lie!’ he shouted. ‘She wouldn’t have pretended Olivar was hers if he wasn’t! You’re mistaken, Grandfather, you’re thinking of someone else and you’ve become confused again, and—’
‘Do not treat me like an imbecile!’ Hugh shouted. Then, more kindly, ‘Herbert, you must face the truth. Besides the fact that Meggie here has just confirmed what I’m telling you, you are forgetting that William Crowburgh’s late father was my close friend.’ He paused. Then, touching Herbert’s hand with an expression of deep tenderness, he said softly, ‘Lad, I went to both the wedding and the baptism.’
Herbert looked imploringly at him. ‘Didn’t you also go to William’s wedding to Cyrille?’
‘No, Herbert. Harold de Crowburgh was dead by then, and I had lost touch with the younger family.’
Herbert sank down on to a seat. ‘She—’ He shook his head, a bemused expression on his face. ‘Why did she lie?’ he whispered. ‘Surely she knew I’d fallen in love with her? It didn’t matter to me one bit if Olivar wasn’t her son – it was her I wanted.’
Nobody spoke. Josse, looking at Helewise’s eyes on Herbert, guessed she wanted to go to him, to try to find words of comfort. But he didn’t think there were any. As if Hugh, too, felt Herbert’s pain and wanted to alleviate it, he reached out for his grandson’s hand.
‘I think that’s enough, for now,’ he said quietly. ‘Take me back to bed, please, Herbert. I’m very tired.’
Josse and Herbert got him to his feet, and, all but carrying him, got him to his room. They helped him into his bed, where he lay back against the pillows with obvious relief. Presently Isabelle brought a soothing draught. ‘Go,’ she said to Josse and Herbert. ‘I’ll sit with him until he sleeps.’
‘Why did Cyrille lie?’ Josse demanded. He and Helewise were back in their own room – Isabelle had found Meggie a bed in a small room along the passage – and he was pacing to and fro.
‘I would imagine, because she thought Herbert would be more likely both to marry her, and to adopt Olivar, if he believed the boy was her own son,’ Helewise said. ‘As it is – as it was, I suppose I should say – Olivar has no connection with Herbert at all, being neither his own nor his late wife’s true child.’
‘He’s his old friend’s child,’ Josse said quietly. ‘Knowing Herbert, I think that will matter rather a lot.’
‘That’s what Uncle Hugh kept trying to say!’ Helewise exclaimed. ‘When we thought he was saying martyr, he was actually saying Marthe.’
Josse grinned. ‘I always thought it highly unlikely that he’d had a late conversion to religious fanaticism.’ He looked at Helewise, an expression that was almost furtive in his eyes. ‘I probably shouldn’t say this, but I can’t help being very pleased that Olivar isn’t Cyrille’s child. Hugh said his real mother was a lovely woman, and Cyrille—’
‘Cyrille wasn’t,’ Helewise finished for him. It seemed to be the least unkind thing she could think of to say.