The Devil's Domain

either heal it or break it!’
    Lady Monica sighed noisily, her eyelids fluttering. ’That poor, poor, young man. I shall pray for him, too.’
    ’Brother Norbert. Tell him...’
    ’No, no!’ Lady Monica grasped Angelica’s wrists. ’You can send him no message, my child.’
    Athelstan caught the look in the young woman’s eyes and knew there was no need. He got slowly to his feet. Sir John did likewise.
    ’We must leave now,’ Athelstan said firmly. ’But, Lady Monica, if it is agreeable to you, we will return?’
    ’Oh yes, oh yes.’ The abbess wiped a tear from the comer of her eyes. ’Sir Jack, all this brings back sweet memories.’
    Cranston nodded solemnly. ’We have seen the days, Lady Monica. Oh, we have seen the days!’
    Once they left the convent of Syon, Athelstan had no objection to Sir John ’leading them into temptation’, heading like an arrow to the welcoming darkness of the taproom in the Jerusalem Tree. Sir Maurice’s face was saturated in sweat. Athelstan found that his legs were trembling a little while Sir John was chuckling. Indeed, by the time they had ordered three tankards of good, frothy London ale, this had turned into guffaws of laughter.
    ’I wouldn’t have believed that.’ He sighed. ’Trust me, Athelstan, Lady Monica, or Isabella Fitzpercy as she was known when I was thin as a beanpole, is a formidable woman.’
    ’I’ll take your word for it.’ Athelstan drank the ale rather quickly. ’I’m going to pray to St Antony of Padua , my favourite saint, that Prior Anselm never finds out.’ He tapped his tankard against Sir Maurice’s. ’But I warn you, if he does, you’ll have to join the Dominican Order. You’ll make a good preacher, Sir Maurice.’
    ’I feel sick,’ the young knight moaned. ’Believe me, sirs, I’ve jumped from one ship to another. I have fought hand-to-hand in the most bloody mêlée but I have never been so terrified.’
    ’Did you love the Lady Monica once?’ Athelstan asked.
    Sir John ruffled his hair and twirled his moustache.
    ’In my day.’ He slurped from the tankard. ’In my day, I was truly a lady’s man, fleet of foot, sharp of eye and keen of wit. I could dance. Oh, I could dance, Athelstan! Those were the glory days when the great Edward held his court. I mean no offence, but men like Sir Maurice were as many as pebbles on the beach. Slim as a greyhound.’ Sir John wiped the tears from his eyes. ’Fast as a swooping hawk!’
    Athelstan gazed affectionately at this great mound of generous, laughter-filled man with a body as big as his heart.
    ’You did very well, Sir Maurice,’ Sir John said approvingly, then bawled for another tankard. ’And the Lady Angelica is most beautiful. You could lose your soul in those eyes. If I were younger.’ He tapped his fleshy nose. ’Never tell the Lady Maude but, if I were younger, Sir Maurice, I’d enter the lists against you. Oh the days!’ he sighed. ’Oh, the passing of time!’
    ’One thing I did notice,’ Athelstan said, putting his tankard back on the table. He watched a young boy sitting in the doorway, a pet weasel in his lap. ’Lady Angelica knew nothing of that business at the Golden Cresset. Now, if that had been the work of Sir Thomas Parr, he would have let his daughter know immediately.’
    ’I’ve been thinking about that,’ Sir John said, nose in his tankard. He put it down and smacked his lips. ’I’ve asked my scrivener, Simon, a veritable ferret of a man, to seek out among the bawds and whores, the brothels and the courtesans, to discover if any young woman is missing.’
    ’Sir John?’ A shadow darkened the door.
    ’It’s magic. I speak the man’s name and he appears! Simon, come here!’
    His spindly-shanked scrivener tottered across. Sir John offered him his tankard, which the fellow drained in one gulp. Then he smiled at Sir John’s glowering glance.
    ’A message arrived for you at the Guildhall. You are needed at Hawkmere.’ He stared quizzically at Sir Maurice. ’Don’t I know you?’
    ’Mind your own business!’ Sir John snapped. ’What’s happened at Hawkmere?’
    ’One of the prisoners has escaped and Sir Walter Limbright’s beside himself with rage!’
    They arrived at Hawkmere Manor dishevelled and dusty, hot and perspiring. Sir Maurice had taken off his Dominican robes and was now dressed in brown woollen leggings and white shirt, his military cloak slung over his shoulder. He had left his friar’s robes with Simon