The Paths of the Air Read Online Free PDF Page B

no doubt.’
    â€˜I—’ But the protest never came. It was exactly where Josse was going.
    Will’s smile was wider now. ‘See you later, sir.’ With what might well have been a wink, he turned and was gone.
    Slowly Josse walked across the open space to the cloister, at the end of which Abbess Helewise had her little room. Tapping on the door, he heard her low ‘Come in’ and opened the door.
    She looked as delighted to see him as she always did.
    â€˜Sir Josse,’ she exclaimed, getting up and striding around her wide oak table, ‘you have come back! What can we do for you?’
    â€˜It’s not me, it’s my servant Ella,’ he said hastily. ‘She’s given herself a bad fright and we just can’t get her out of her terror.’
    â€˜How dreadful for her! What on earth happened?’
    â€˜We had a stranger staying with us at New Winnowlands. He came to us asking for work, although he looked so sickly and weak that I didn’t reckon there was much he could have done. Anyway, we offered him an outbuilding to sleep in and we fed him up a bit.’ He was aware of her nod of approval and it warmed him. ‘It was odd, because for all he ate everything put before him, still he did not seem to grow any stronger. Instead of getting up in the mornings, he kept to his bed and slept for most of each day.’
    â€˜What was the matter with him?’ asked the Abbess. ‘Oh, Sir Josse, it wasn’t some frightful sickness . . . ?’
    â€˜No, my lady, I am sure, for no sick man ever ate like our stranger.’
    â€˜Go on,’ she commanded. ‘What happened to scare Ella so badly?’
    â€˜She was intrigued as to why he slept all day,’ Josse explained, ‘and I guess she imagined he might be up to some secret nocturnal task. Anyway, she got up one night and went to see for herself and she discovered he wasn’t there.’
    â€˜Did that not serve only to confirm her suspicions?’
    â€˜So you’d have thought,’ Josse agreed ruefully, ‘but unfortunately she made up her mind that our stranger was some sort of malevolent spirit who hid from the light and emerged by night to do whatever such entities do.’
    â€˜Had she any reason to believe the man was malevolent?’ asked the Abbess.
    Josse shrugged. ‘If so, she has not revealed it.’
    The Abbess was studying him closely. ‘Have you ?’
    Josse considered the question. ‘I don’t know,’ he said slowly. ‘He’s a mystery, that’s for sure – I’m pretty certain he’s been brought back from Outremer and abandoned, for he looks, acts and for the most part speaks like a foreigner. That’s really what prompted me to take him in, my lady – too many returning crusaders use a man they’ve engaged out East for as long as it pleases them, only to kick him out once they’re home with their own servants again.’
    â€˜I see,’ she said. Then: ‘And this strange guest of yours has definitely gone?’
    â€˜Aye. Vanished into the night, taking everything he owns with him.’
    â€˜If it is indeed true that he is engaged upon some clandestine mission,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘then could it be that Ella’s sudden interest caused him to flee?’
    â€˜Just what I thought,’ Josse agreed. ‘I visualized him on the point of setting out, then spotting Ella tiptoeing across the yard to spy on him. Fearful that she’d report back to me, he ran.’
    â€˜Yet you say he took all his belongings with him,’ she pointed out. ‘Does that not suggest to you that he was planning to leave anyway, even before he saw Ella going out to check up on him?’
    He rubbed a hand across his jaw. ‘Aye,’ he acknowledged gruffly. ‘Aye, it does.’
    She smiled suddenly. ‘Sir Josse, does it matter? You did what you could for him,