Read Online Girl In A Red Tunic by Alys Clare - Free Book Online Page A

she might have been under other circumstances. ‘Coming here was my husband’s idea, Sir Josse,’ she corrected him. ‘He told me – went on telling me until I was so tired that I silently screamed at him to stop – that this was a good place where they would help me. Me ,’ she repeated, emphasising the word. ‘He thinks, like everyone else, that I am in dire need of help because I am an unnatural woman who cannot raise her child.’
         ‘I am sure that is not so!’ Josse protested, but even as he spoke the words he was wondering whether there might not be some truth in Rohaise’s pitiful accusations against herself. Then, like a blessing, he remembered the Abbess’s report on her talk with the infirmarer. ‘They tell me,’ he said, lowering his voice and leaning closer to her, ‘that quite a lot of young mothers have feelings such as yours and that many get better.’
         Damnation! He hadn’t meant to say that, to imply that some did not! ‘That is,’ he hurried on, ‘things quite naturally improve as the child grows and thrives, and – well, all turns out for the best in the end.’
         It sounded lame even to him. He was not at all surprised when she turned cool eyes on him and said, ‘So I have been told, Sir Josse. But it is a different matter to be you , out there where things make sense and normality rules, and to be I , who am forced to live in this nightmare world that threatens me.’
         ‘But threatens you with what, Lady Rohaise?’
         He wondered afterwards if he had spoken too urgently, for she seemed to flinch, then her eyes closed and two huge tears rolled down her sallow cheeks. Then she bent her head over her sewing and began to weep.
         With the horrible sensation of having done more harm than good, Josse got up, summoned one of the nursing nuns – it was Sister Beata, who might not have had the cleverest brain but certainly had the most generous heart – and asked her to look after Rohaise. With a worried little frown, Sister Beata wiped her hands and hurried into the recess, where she crouched down beside the weeping young woman and enveloped her in soft, loving arms, muttering kindly as the girl turned her wet face into the nun’s bosom.
         Feeling utterly redundant, Josse slunk away.
     
    With nothing better to do, he remembered his resolve to exercise Horace and he fetched the horse from the stable. Trying to allow the bracing autumnal air to take his mind off his failure with Rohaise, he kicked Horace into a canter and then a gallop and they pounded along the track that led around the forest, the horse’s big feet sending up flying divots of frosty earth. After a while they slowed to a canter, then a brisk trot, until finally Josse drew the horse to a halt and they turned back towards the Abbey.
         They were not far from the gates when Josse spotted the figures of a man and a small child. The man was crouched down beside the small and well-wrapped figure of the boy and as Josse drew closer he saw that Leofgar was showing his son how to make a skeleton leaf.
         ‘...gently, now, don’t damage the veins of the leaf – there!’ Leofgar was saying as he held up the child’s clumsy attempt. ‘That’s very good, Timus, we’ll take it home as a present for your mother.’
         The child caught sight of Josse before his father did. With a smile of welcome that went some way towards making up for Josse’s failure with the boy’s mother, Timus pointed and said, ‘Man!’
         Spinning round, Leofgar’s wary expression instantly relaxed into an ironic grin as he saw who it was. ‘I should have guessed,’ he called, ‘you being the only person who inspires my son to speech.’
         Hurrying to cover the remaining paces between them, Josse slid off Horace’s back, keeping tight hold of the reins in case the horse should frighten the child by a bit of innocent curiosity; the disparity in their sizes suggested