Ashes of the Elements by Alys Clare Read Free Book Online

rather shyly brought for his inspection his favourite tunic, whose hem had been coming down where he’d caught a spur in it. Not only had she carefully stitched up the hem, she had also brushed off quite a lot of mud and sponged away a gravy stain.
    Rested after his good night, well-fed, dressed in his best, Josse set out in the sunshine for Hawkenlye, feeling in such good spirits that, presently, he began to sing.

Chapter Four
    In the few days since the murder of Hamm Robinson, and Sheriff Harry Pelham’s dismissal of it, Abbess Helewise had found scant moments in which to dwell on the matter.
    Life as abbess to a community of nigh on a hundred nuns, plus the fifteen monks and the lay brothers who tended the holy spring down in the Vale and cared for the pilgrims who came to visit it, was demanding at the best of times. Helewise’s everyday duties, on top of the hours spent each day in the Abbey’s round of devotions, meant that there was little, if any, time to spare. So that when, as now, a problem seemed to be looming, it was no easy matter for Helewise to find the occasion to give it due thought.
    It was her custom, when there was something important demanding her attention, to slip into the awe-inspiring Abbey church on her own. And that – having the church to oneself – was not easily achieved, either.
    Today, she was in luck; re-entering the church after the noon office, she found there was nobody else there.
    She made her way towards the altar, then, moving into the shadow of one of the great pillars, fell to her knees. Praying quietly for some moments, soon she found she was sufficiently calm to put her troubled thoughts in order.
    But the words, when they came, were not to do with poor dead Hamm Robinson and the problem of finding out who killed him. Another matter, perhaps less dramatic but, certainly, closer to Helewise’s heart, had taken precedence.
    ‘Dear Lord,’ she said softly out loud, ‘what am I to do about Caliste?’
    *   *   *
    Caliste, now a member of the Abbey community, had spent the first fourteen years of her life answering to another name. As a tiny infant, no more than a few days old, she had been found on the doorstep of a small and already overcrowded household, in the little hamlet of Hawkenlye. Wrapped in a piece of fine wool which had been dyed the dark purply-black of sloes, the baby was naked but for a beautifully worked wooden pendant, tied around her neck on a slim leather thong. On three sides of the wood – a long, narrow sliver of ash – there were strange, carefully incised marks. If they had a meaning and were not mere random patterning, then nobody in the Hawkenlye community either knew or could guess at what that meaning was.
    Whoever had deposited the baby on that particular doorstep had known what he, or she, was doing. For the family who lived within, although equally as poor as their neighbours, equally as ignorant and equally as dirty, were loving people. Matt Hurst and his sons kept pigs, his wife Alison and her daughters tended their hens. Between them, the family also worked their strips of land, more diligently than did many of their neighbours, so that, although there was never an abundance of food on the table, the Hursts rarely went hungry.
    The Hursts were God-fearing people. When, one summer’s night, a mysterious female infant was left at their door, they accepted that this was a duty put on them by the Almighty. Not only did they take the child in, they cared for her as if she were one of their own. They named her Peg.
    If there had ever been any idea in Matt and Alison’s minds of keeping Peg’s strange provenance from her, then they had to abandon it, because Peg herself seemed to know. Knew, at least, that she was not their child, although, in truth, that would not have taken any particular psychic powers. The Hursts, both the women and the men, were short and dumpy, with reddish or lightbrown hair, pinkish, freckled skin, and pale eyes