The Song of the Nightingale by Alys Clare Read Free Book Online Page B

might have a look inside the cell and see what sort of a state it’s in,’ she said.
    Josse could bear to watch no more. He put his heels to his horse’s sides, and Alfred set off at a canter down the long slope to the abbey. There was no need to turn round to see if Meggie and Little Helewise were following; he could hear them.
    If he had been holding out secret hopes that Abbess Caliste would refuse even to think of her predecessor and the two young women taking up residence in the cell by the chapel, Josse was doomed to disappointment. She pounced on the idea with delight, saying she’d been thinking along the same lines herself but, unable to spare any of the Hawkenlye nuns, monks or lay brethren, had let the matter rest.
    â€˜But how perfect to have Helewise back!’ she exclaimed. ‘Oh, Sir Josse, word will soon spread, and everyone will remember how very much they depended on her presence when she was there before. And she’ll have Meggie and her own granddaughter with her, so she won’t be alone, and we shall make quite sure that the cell is guarded at night. I’ll get some of our handier brethren to put up a shelter,’ she went on, apparently thinking aloud, ‘and finding volunteers to watch over three such courageous and good women will not present a problem.’ Suddenly, she looked up at Josse. ‘Do they need anything from us?’ she asked. ‘We have very little, but I would not like to think of them cold or hungry.’
    â€˜They anticipated your agreement to the suggestion, my lady abbess,’ Josse said wryly. ‘They have brought with them from Hawkenlye Manor all that could be spared of food supplies, medicaments and blankets, as well as a small bag each of personal belongings. They will be as comfortable as the small space allows, I believe.’
    Abbess Caliste nodded. ‘Very well, Sir Josse. I shall go and see them myself once they have had a chance to settle in.’
    â€˜I’ll go outside and tell the young women what you’ve said, my lady—’ Josse went over to the door of the abbess’s room – ‘and then I will proceed with my own mission here today.’
    â€˜The dead men, yes.’ She came round from behind her table to join him. ‘I will summon our infirmarer, and we will take you to where they have been laid out.’
    It amounted to something, Josse thought a little later as Abbess Caliste and Sister Liese led the way down to the rooms below the nuns’ dormitory, when a man actually looked forward to inspecting dead, putrid bodies. But such was his present mood that anything which took his mind off his own pressing sadness was welcome just then.
    Sister Liese opened the door of a dark, windowless little room, pausing to light a lamp with the candle she held in her hand. Inside, she moved calmly around what lay on the trestle tables to light three further lamps. Then she turned to Josse and said, ‘Come and look, Sir Josse. We did brush off the earth that clung to them from their interment, but their clothing has not been disturbed by us, and so you see them much as they were when they were in the ground.’
    Josse was grateful for the forethought of whoever had directed the recovery of the bodies. It was always useful if you could view your victims as their murderer left them. He was even more grateful to whoever had been burning incense; the smell from the bodies was still very much in evidence, but at least the incense masked it a little.
    Then, putting all else aside, he stepped forward and began his inspection of the three dead men.

FOUR
    T hey lay side by side on rough trestle tables, each body covered with a strip of worn, patched but clean linen. Sister Liese met Josse’s eyes and, at his quick nod, folded back the sheet covering the first body.
    It was that of a man in early middle age. He had been small and wiry, narrow in the chest and shoulders; the sort of