The Enchanter's Forest Read Online Free PDF Page A

in our visitors. Brother Firmin mentioned it to me – he prepares the Holy Water, as you know, and he was wondering why he did not seem to be as busy as usual. Then Brothers Saul and Augustus began to check on the daily tally of pilgrims and they brought me the results. Usually our numbers are anything from half a dozen to as many as twenty a day – it’s the season, Sir Josse; people save their travelling up for fine summer weather and long hours of daylight whenever they can. But now, well, the average was at first closer to three per day. Then two, then, last week, only four people for the entire week. This week’ – she gave a pathetic little shrug – ‘so far, nobody.’
         ‘ Nobody? No pilgrims at all?’ He was amazed that the rival attraction should have had such a devastating effect so soon.
         ‘Not a one. Here we all sit, ready and eager to fulfil our purpose in life by giving aid to all who come seeking it, yet nobody comes. And oh, Sir Josse, I am so afraid that when word gets round that the people now go elsewhere for succour, as no doubt it already has, then all those who support us so generously will think again.’ Lowering her voice to a whisper, as if she could not bear the thought of anyone else hearing the humiliating words, she said, ‘We need the funds, you see. We cannot charge for the care that we give; that would be unthinkable, for we do the Lord’s work. Yet we must have money to survive and one of our main sources of income is the gifts that the wealthy bestow in exchange for Hawkenlye’s prayers and its beneficial, healing presence within the wider community. If our benefactors choose to support a rival foundation, then with a huge and unfillable hole in our income and, far more crucially, without the needy, the lost, the sick and the desperate to care for, we shall no longer have a reason to exist and we are lost.’ She looked down at her hands, folded in her lap, and her coif cut off his view of her face. Leaning forward, he saw that she had her eyes tightly shut, as if trying to blot out the dismal prospect before her.
         ‘What shall we do?’ he said. ‘What can we do?’
         She turned to him, a smile spreading over her face. ‘Dear Josse. Thank you for the we .’
         He waved away her gratitude, embarrassed, as he always was, when she accredited him with altruistic motives when what he was really doing was to ensure that, for the foreseeable future anyway, he would be near— No. He made himself arrest that thought. ‘I know the name of the man behind this tawdry scheme,’ he said gruffly.
         ‘ Do you?’ She seemed amazed. ‘Sir Josse, you are well-informed – I have asked whomsoever I can for details of this dreadful business but they appear to be scant. Who is he?’
         ‘He’s a young man named Florian of Southfrith.’
         ‘Southfrith. He is a local man, then, for the Southfrith lands are close by. Yet he made his discovery on the far side of the forest, where the woodland peters out and the heathland begins.’
         ‘So I’m told. Giant bones, apparently, and this Florian seems to have sufficient evidence to prove that they belong to Merlin. My lady,’ he turned to her with a frown, ‘what puzzles me is how it is that all the people who now divert like brainless sheep after the bellwether to this new shrine know the name of Merlin!’
         She looked surprised. ‘But Sir Josse, everyone has heard of Merlin. I would warrant a small wager that if we assembled my nuns and monks and asked for a show of hands, all but those with their heads permanently in the clouds – and I own that we do have a few of those – would raise their arms and say, Merlin? Oh, yes, I know of Merlin. He was King Arthur’s magician.’
         Greatly taken aback – was he in truth the only person in England not to be fascinated by this Arthur and his companions? – Josse shook his head wonderingly. ‘I see.’ His voice