Ashes of the Elements Read Free Page B

talking about, Helewise hastened to explain her laughter. Fortunately, the image of a dignified knight of the realm lying face down while his wife extracted a bee sting from his bottom appealed to Eleanor’s sense of humour, too.
    ‘I recall that you mentioned your marriage at the time I appointed you as abbess here,’ Eleanor said. ‘It was clearly a happy union.’
    ‘It was.’
    ‘And you had children, I seem to remember?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Daughters?’
    ‘Sons. Two.’
    ‘Ah.’ The Queen fell silent.
    The two of them, Queen and Abbess, sat for some time without breaking the silence. Helewise wondered if, as she were, Eleanor also was thinking about her sons.
    After some minutes, there was another tap on the door. Getting up to open it, Helewise was greeted by the sight of the porteress. Craning round Helewise to catch a glimpse of Queen Eleanor, Sister Ursel said, ‘Abbess, a party has arrived for the Queen. A man who says he’s Tobias Durand, and he’s come with a retinue to escort Her Majesty to his house.’
    ‘A retinue,’ the Queen murmured. ‘Does he not realise I already have one? Two retinues will only serve to double the dust.’
    ‘Perhaps the lady Petronilla has sent him,’ Helewise remarked shrewdly, ‘eager to impress Your Majesty with the sight of her handsome young husband in all his finery, at the head of a band of his own men.’
    Eleanor glanced at her. ‘How right you are,’ she observed.
    Sister Ursel was watching them from the doorway. ‘Go and tell Tobias Durand that we shall join him directly,’ the Abbess ordered.
    ‘Yes, Abbess.’ With one last look, Sister Ursel hurried away.
    Helewise went to stand beside the Queen, trying to be ready to help her up if necessary, but without making it too obvious.
    But Eleanor said, without any apparent attempt to conceal her need, ‘Give me your arm, Helewise, I’ve become stiff from sitting too long.’
    As they made their slow way out of the room and across the cloister to where Tobias and his party could be seen, mingling with Eleanor’s own escort despite their best efforts not to, Eleanor leaned her head close to Helewise’s and said softly, ‘Thank you, Abbess.’
    There was no need to ask, for what? Instead Helewise replied, ‘The thanks are mine, my lady.’
    ‘I shall come back,’ Eleanor said, ‘and, if my arrangements permit, I shall stay with you for rather longer than a day and a night.’
    ‘The Abbey is at your disposal,’ Helewise replied. ‘Nothing could give us more delight, than to have Your Majesty as our guest.’
    ‘Nothing could give me more delight,’ Eleanor muttered. ‘But it is not yet time for me to do what pleases me.’
    As the two of them approached the waiting ladies, men and horses, Helewise was quite sure she felt the Queen give her arm an affectionate squeeze.

Chapter Two
    Helewise stood for some time, watching the Queen’s party disappear down the road. As Eleanor had predicted, all those mounted men had indeed made an almost intolerable amount of dust. Thinking that a breath of clean air would be pleasant, Helewise delayed her return within the Abbey walls, and set out instead for a brisk walk along the track that led off towards the forest.
    The warm air of early June was bringing the wild flowers into bloom, and a soft, sweet perfume seemed to fill the air. Somewhere nearby, a blackbird sang. Ah, it was good to be alive! Straightening her shoulders and swinging her arms, Helewise increased her pace and marched towards the first of the trees. She would not go far into the forest, she decided, because it was always dark in there; even in June, the sun did not seem to penetrate, so that the atmosphere always struck chill. She would just take a brief turn around the perimeter of the woodland, a mile or so, no further, then—
    She almost trod on him.
    Hastily stepping back, twitching the full skirt of her habit away from the blood pooled on the fresh green grass, she pressed her hand to