Free Ashes of the Elements by Alys Clare Page A

to pity, he said, ‘I am sorry for you, child. I know what it is to have to obey, when the dictates of one’s heart say differently.’
    ‘Do you?’ She stopped, staring at him. ‘Yes,’ she murmured, ‘I believe you do.’ As if recognising in him a kindred spirit, she smiled. But this time, the expression seemed to include all of her soul.
    Quite shaken, he smiled back.
    After a pause, he said, ‘Have you settled down in your new work? Are you happy, Sister Caliste?’
    She replied, ‘I have, and I am. I tell myself that, if I am to make a good nun, then I must learn not to have – what was it you said? Dictates of the heart? Yes. Not to have those. And I am happy.’
    There seemed nothing else to say. They walked, in silence, side by side back to the infirmary.
    But, as she stood back to let him go in first, Caliste said, ‘Thank you for asking, Sir Knight. It was kindly done.’
    In a barely audible whisper, she added, ‘And I do not forget a kindness.’

Chapter Six
    When Helewise finally emerged from the infirmary and spared a few moments to greet Josse, he realised without her having to tell him that she was both preoccupied and very busy. In addition to the dying man, a woman in the nuns’ care had just given birth to twins, one of whom was sickly. So sickly that the Abbess was anxious to fetch the priest and arrange for immediate baptism. ‘Just in case,’ she added, with a sad little smile.
    Also, one of the monks from the vale was being treated for a septic foot, and Brother Firmin had asked the Abbess to send down an extra pair of hands to help deal with the sudden rush of pilgrims, encouraged by the fine weather to come and take of the holy waters.
    ‘Does Brother Firmin not appreciate how busy you are, you and the sisters, with your own concerns?’ Josse asked her mildly.
    A flash of anger briefly lit the Abbess’s grey eyes, there and gone in an instant. After taking a rather audible deep breath, she said, ‘Brother Firmin’s duty is to his pilgrims, Sir Josse. If he feels that he is short-staffed and cannot fulfil his duties properly, then he is right to ask for help.’
    ‘Ah,’ Josse said quietly. And folded his lips over what he would have liked to say next.
    ‘I’m sorry that I can’t help you in this matter of the murdered man,’ the Abbess said, looking around her as she did so. ‘Now, where is Brother Saul? I want him to act as my messenger, and go to find Father Gilbert…’
    ‘I wouldn’t dream of imposing,’ Josse said. ‘I shall proceed on my own, Abbess, and, in due course, report my findings. If I may?’
    ‘Yes, yes,’ she said, still looking for Brother Saul. ‘Ah! I see him.’ She hurried off towards the distant figure of Brother Saul, raising a hand and hailing him as she did so. Then abruptly she stopped, turned, and called back to Josse, ‘He lived in a tiny hovel down by the ford. His woman is called Matty, and he has two fellow-poachers named Ewen and Seth. Seth, I believe, is Hamm’s cousin.’
    As Josse thanked her, he wondered how, in the midst of all she had on her mind, she had, first, discovered that information, and, second, stored it away and remembered it to pass on to him.
    A remarkable woman, the Abbess of Hawkenlye.
    *   *   *
    Hovel, he reflected as he rode down the track to the ford, had been about right.
    The track petered out into a muddy slipway as it neared the water. The stream issuing out of the forest was quite wide just there, fast-running over a good, firm base, the water slightly brown from the peat, and from the centuries upon centuries of fallen leaves that had gone into the making of the stream’s banks and bed.
    It would have been a lovely spot, had it not been for the row of dwellings straggling up the track on the far side.
    Two were deserted; even the most desperate of people, surely, could not live in a house with no roof and half its walls gone. The middle three were reasonably sound, and the last in the row was