The Song of the Nightingale Read Free Page B

him!
’
    Even in her distress, she had seen the tenderness of the deeply sympathetic glance her grandmother bestowed on Josse. ‘There are reasons, Granddaughter,’ Helewise said quietly. Josse made as if to stop her, but she shook her head. Then she said, ‘Little Helewise, you must be very brave.’
    And she told her where Ninian had gone.
    Of course, Little Helewise had understood then, or at least she had begun to, once the storm of fierce, furious, angry, helpless tears had passed and she was herself again. Ninian, her beloved man, her one true love whom she had loved as long as she could remember, appeared to have wandered into the middle of a vicious, terrible war; one in which – according to Josse, who had patiently and lovingly tried to explain – the pope and the king of France had joined forces in order, each for their own reasons, to eradicate a heretical sect who lived somewhere far to the south in a land called Languedoc. Ninian had been making for a specific address – that of an elderly woman who was the sheriff of Tonbridge’s mother – but apparently this distant land was in uproar, and the town where the old woman lived had been razed to the ground by the crusading knights and their armies. Nobody had any idea where Ninian might now be.
    If, indeed, he was still alive.
    Nobody had said that out loud, but Little Helewise had been quite sure they were all thinking it. She had vowed then and there not to give in to such negativity, replacing it with her constant silent assurance to herself:
he is alive, and he will return to me.
    She had quickly made her peace with her grandmother and Josse, offering a sincere and heartfelt apology even before her mother had time to order her to. Both the older people had understood. She thought she had seen tears in Josse’s eyes, and her grandmother had given her a hard, bracing hug and murmured, ‘Chin up. Have courage, dear heart, and we shall pray that all will be well.’
    Over the slow winter months, Little Helewise had discovered painfully that having courage and keeping one’s chin up were easier said than done. Praying might be all right for her grandmother, who had after all long been a nun, but, as far as Little Helewise was concerned, it made a poor substitute for a real-life, handsome young man whose brilliant blue eyes danced with laughter and who loved her as fervently as she loved him.
    Enough
, she now told herself firmly. She could feel tears pricking behind her eyelids, and all of a sudden she despised herself for being so weak. Yes, she was faced with an ongoing, miserable anxiety which nothing she could do would lessen, but she was not improving matters by lying alone in her chamber weeping about it. She sat up, threw back the covers and stood up, automatically reaching down to straighten the bed and leave it tidy; her mother was fussy about things like that.
    Her mother . . .
    Suddenly, Little Helewise knew what she wanted to do. Living under her parents’ roof was not helping her. On the contrary, Rohaise’s attitude – that Little Helewise should count her blessings and start doing a great deal more to help the management of the household, and that it would probably be better for everyone concerned if she put all thoughts of Ninian behind her and got on with her life – was, Little Helewise now realized, one of the most disturbing and hurtful elements of the whole situation. It would, she reflected ruefully, have been so nice to curl up beside her mother on the bench beside the hearth, open her heart and reveal all her worries and anxieties. She pictured her mother’s face, the expression tight, anxious; the sharp eyes on the lookout for any behaviour requiring a reprimand. Slowly, Little Helewise shook her head. There wasn’t going to be a tender fireside scene, because her mother just wasn’t the type you went to for comfort.
    But,
Little Helewise thought,
I know