Heart of Ice Read online

He was watching her warily. ‘Aye. Brother Saul told me.’

  ‘Neither remedy had done any good by yesterday evening and, judging by your report, there have been no miraculous recoveries during the night.’

  ‘No.’ Now wariness had turned to something approaching hostility, as if he knew full well what was coming.

  ‘Sir Josse, will you try?’ Helewise implored. ‘Will you take back the Eye and use it to save those poor, suffering souls under Sister Euphemia’s care?’

  He shook his head violently. ‘My lady, you know what I think about that stone! Why do you persist in asking me to try to use it when you are fully aware that I fear it?’

  ‘You fear giving it to your nieces!’ she cried. ‘It is not the same thing to try its power yourself!’

  ‘I gave it away!’ he shouted back. ‘I gave it to you – you are now its rightful owner, you and the sisters!’

  ‘But they have tried and failed! Oh, please, Josse, I’m begging you to help us!’

  He glared at her but, as she watched, searching his angry face for any signs that he might yield, it seemed that his expression softened. ‘Do you really think it will make a difference if the Eye is wielded by my hand?’ he asked.

  ‘I—’ In truth, she had no idea. ‘Possibly,’ she said cautiously.

  ‘Well, that’s an honest answer,’ he said wryly. ‘Very well, my lady. I’ll have a go.’

  Together they went down to the Vale. Brother Augustus hurried to the shrine and fetched another flask of the holy water. Josse pushed up his sleeves and, taking the Eye of Jerusalem from Sister Tiphaine with such an expression of distaste that, had the situation not been so grave, Helewise might have laughed, he dipped it into the water. He held it there for some time. Then Sister Tiphaine said quietly, ‘I reckon that’ll do it, sir. If you have the touch, it’ll have worked by now. If not . . . ’ Tactfully she left the sentence unfinished.

  Sister Anne was summoned and she disappeared into the shelter with the precious water.

  They waited.

  Later that morning, Sister Euphemia emerged from the temporary infirmary with blood on her apron and fatigue in her face. She located Josse, Helewise and Sister Tiphaine in the small shrine that housed the holy water spring. ‘The two women who arrived yesterday morning are dead,’ she said baldly. ‘That’s another motherless child to be taken care of,’ she added, half to herself.

  ‘The water did no good?’ Josse asked. Helewise, observing his stricken face, felt a wave of compassion for him.

  ‘No,’ Sister Euphemia said. ‘I’m sorry, Sir Josse. Looks like the Eye must have known you gave it away.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said lamely.

  ‘We had to try, Sir Josse!’ Helewise said, trying to rally him. ‘We could not have known that—’

  But Josse was not to be consoled. ‘I am a coward and a fool,’ he muttered, scowling, ‘for we have in our very hands a jewel with the power to heal and by my actions I have rendered it useless.’ He bowed, first to Helewise and then to the herbalist and the infirmarer, who stood close together with similar looks of concern on their faces. ‘It is a heavy burden to bear,’ Josse added. ‘If you will excuse me, my lady’ – he had turned back to Helewise – ‘I shall take Horace out for a ride and think about how best I may make amends for my faults.’

  Before she could say a word, he was off, hurrying away off up the path back to the Abbey.

  The three nuns watched him until he was just a small, anonymous figure climbing up the steep path; the very way he was moving spoke of dejection and failure. Then Sister Euphemia said quietly, ‘Oh, dear.’

  Helewise had been thinking hard, arguing with her conscience. She came to a decision.

  As the infirmarer announced wearily that she must be getting back to her patients, Helewise lightly touched the arm of the herbalist. ‘Sister Tiphaine,’ she said, ‘walk with me, please.’ To her distress her voice was not quite steady. She took a breath and tried again. ‘I would speak with you on a private matter,’ she continued, very softly, ‘and we shall take the path beside the pond and continue until there is no danger of our being overheard.’

  Sister Tiphaine’s eyes widened but, disciplined nun that she was, she bowed to her superior, muttered, ‘Of course, my lady,’ and, as Helewise strode away, fell into step behind her.

  Helewise continued along the path until she reached the place where it began to curve around the end of the pond. Then, beneath the skeletal branches of a copse of winter-bare birch trees, she turned and faced the herbalist.

  ‘Sister Tiphaine,’ she began – she had been rehearsing what she would say as she walked – ‘you may or may not be aware that there is a prophecy concerning the Eye of Jerusalem, which was revealed to Sir Josse when the jewel came into his hands.’

  ‘Indeed, my lady?’ The herbalist’s face remained blank; if she was aware of any such thing, it appeared that she was not going to admit it to her Abbess.

  Helewise sniffed. ‘Indeed,’ she repeated. ‘The Eye was presented to Josse’s father by some foreign prince in Outremer in gratitude for Sir Geoffroi having saved the man’s little son. It was lost – stolen, in fact – but in due course it found its way back to its rightful owner, who, Sir Geoffroi having died, was Sir Josse. At the time the Eye was presented to Sir Josse, it was predicted that one day it would go to a female descendant of Sir Josse’s who would have the power to bring the stone alive and awaken its full powers, which are apparently considerable and extend far beyond lowering fevers and testing for poison.’

  ‘Oh, aye, that they do,’ muttered the herbalist.

  But Helewise, intent on what she was saying, barely registered the remark.

  ‘Now Sir Josse has no wife and no child,’ she continued, ‘and when he heard these words he was alarmed, because he thought, quite reasonably, that the man who spoke them was referring to one of his nieces; he has four brothers, Sister, and between them they have three little daughters. Or is it four?’ She frowned, trying to remember what Josse had told her. ‘No matter. Nieces there are, and Sir Josse greatly feared laying this extraordinary and frightening burden on to any one of them.’

  ‘He was right to be wary,’ observed Sister Tiphaine. ‘Such a thing should not fall into the wrong hands. For one thing, it would remain inert unless whoever holds it knows what she’s about.’

  ‘Quite, quite,’ said Helewise. Again, her preoccupation with the delicate matter she was trying to raise meant that she paid less than full attention to her herbalist’s comment, which, considering it revealed that Sister Tiphaine appeared to know more than a nun ought to about pagan power objects, was perhaps just as well.

  ‘Sister,’ Helewise said boldly, ‘I am going to describe a sequence of events to you that may or may not actually have happened. Two years ago, in the February of that year, Sir Josse met a young woman who was fleeing from – well, never mind what she was fleeing from. The relevant fact is that she – her name was Joanna de Courtenay – hid in the Great Forest close by Hawkenlye, where she and Sir Josse met and . . .’ Oh, but this was difficult! Agonising, Helewise thought, supposing I am wrong and have been wrong all along? If so, I shall be making accusations that damage the good names of two innocent people!

  But there was something in Sister Tiphaine’s wary expression that suggested Helewise was not wrong at all . . .

  Heartened, she continued. ‘Let us imagine for a moment that Sir Josse and Joanna de Courtenay became lovers and that she conceived a child. That child would have been born some time in the autumn of that year, and so now he or she would be about sixteen months old.’

  She paused to see if Sister Tiphaine would comment. The herbalist remained silent.

  ‘Sister, if indeed a child has been born to Joanna de Courtenay, and if Sir Josse is that child’s father, and if the child is a girl, then do you not see what it will mean?’

  ‘I do, my lady,’ the herbalist said quietly. ‘If those events really happened, then the descendant spoken of in the prophecy co
uld be alive now.’

  Helewise could not help but notice the heavy emphasis on if.

  ‘Sister Tiphaine,’ she said, after a pause, ‘it is said of you that you keep a foot in the pagan past and I admit that I have always considered there to be something – er – slightly strange about you.’ A brief flash of humour crossed the herbalist’s impassive face, there and gone before Helewise could properly register it. ‘However, you are a dutiful and obedient nun, a skilled herbalist, wise in the lore of healing and, in general, an asset to our community.’

  ‘Thank you, my lady.’

  ‘For this reason I have permitted a certain leeway over your comings and goings that I would not tolerate in another sister.’ Now Helewise fixed the herbalist with a glare. ‘In particular, I speak of your links with the forest people. Oh, it’s no use denying that they exist, Sister, for I am convinced that they do.’

  ‘I was not going to deny them, my lady,’ the herbalist said tranquilly. ‘I learned much of what I know from the forest people and I have never found any malice or evil among them.’

  ‘They are pagans, Sister, and you are a professed nun and vowed servant of Our Lord Jesus Christ and his holy father,’ Helewise reminded her.

  ‘Aye, and right glad I am to serve him,’ Sister Tiphaine said. ‘But—’

  She bit back what she had been about to say, instead bowing her head and, with an air of humility, waited for whatever her Abbess might say next.

  But Helewise did not speak. Into her head, where she had heard it before, a calm voice said, All gods are one god and behind them is the truth.

  Who are you? Helewise cried mutely. Won’t you tell me?

  But, as before, there was no answer.

  After a moment, she addressed Sister Tiphaine again. ‘I am not asking you to speak now,’ she said, pleased to find that her voice held its usual authoritative tone, ‘I am simply asking you to consider what I have said and to think how best to act so as to benefit the greatest number of people.’

  Sister Tiphaine nodded slowly. ‘A gem of power wielded in the destined hand would be useful just now, my lady, even if the hand were but that of a small child,’ she said. ‘There’s no denying it.’

  ‘Exactly!’ Helewise said eagerly. ‘You and Sister Euphemia have tried, Sir Josse has tried, but none of you have met with success. People are dying, people who could perhaps be saved.’

  Again the herbalist nodded. ‘Aye, my lady. I am aware of that.’ She paused, deep eyes looking away down the Vale and back towards the small collection of buildings. After some time she returned her gaze to Helewise. ‘Have I your leave to go into the forest, my lady Abbess?’ she asked.

  Why ask me this time? You do not usually bother, Helewise thought, but she bit back the remark. ‘You have,’ she replied.

  Sister Tiphaine gave her a low reverence. ‘Thank you. I will return as soon as I can.’

  With that she was off, pacing away along the track, her very movements suggesting that, had she not been a nun clad in the habit of obedience and decorum, she might well have broken into a run.

  Helewise watched her go. With you, Tiphaine, she said silently, goes our hope.

  Then she sighed and, slowly and reluctantly, followed in the herbalist’s footsteps back to the infirmary in the Vale.

  Josse rode hard for a few miles and then, drawing rein at the top of a low hill to the north-west of the Abbey, sat for some time looking out at the view. Before him the valley of the Weald stretched from west to east; behind him to the south rose the vast, mysterious forest. After a while, becoming slightly uneasy at having the dark woods at his back, he turned Horace and stared out over the trees.

  He was thinking, so hard that his head ached, about what had caused a secret killer to cross to England, and what could be so sensitive about his mission that the two men who might have witnessed him boarding or leaving the ship that brought him across the Channel had had to be silenced.

  It had to be connected to King Richard’s release and his imminent return to England! But just how, Josse was at a loss to see.

  He realised that he was growing cold; it would do neither him nor Horace any good for the sweat of exertion to chill them so, with an explosive oath that did a little to express his frustration, he turned the big horse and set out back to Hawkenlye.

  He reached the Abbey in the mid-afternoon and Sister Martha greeted him at the gate. ‘You’ve had a hard ride, Sir Josse,’ she observed, looking at Horace with a critical eye, ‘and the old boy’s all lathered.’ She patted Horace’s neck and he whinnied in recognition. ‘Leave him to me and I’ll give him a good rub-down.’ Glancing up and meeting Josse’s eyes, she added quietly, ‘I’ll be glad of something to do. Evil times, Sir Josse; evil times.’

  Josse slid off Horace’s back and handed the reins to Sister Martha. ‘Aye, that they are,’ he agreed heavily. ‘Thank you, Sister.’

  He was on the point of setting out back down to the Vale when he heard a voice calling his name. Turning, he saw the porteress, Sister Ursel, hurrying towards him. It was only then that he realised she had not been at her usual post, in the little lodge by the gate, when he rode in.

  He walked back to meet her; she was coming from the direction of the Abbess’s room at the far end of the cloister. ‘I thought you might have been with the Abbess Helewise,’ Sister Ursel panted, ‘but you weren’t and she’s not in her room either. She’s probably down in the Vale’ – Sister Ursel nodded as if in confirmation of her own deduction – ‘although I pray to the dear God above that she keeps herself out of harm’s way. There’s poor old Brother Firmin sick, and now poor Sister Beata’s got the fever, they say, and Sister Euphemia’s got her hands full even with the two extra who have gone down to help.’

  ‘Aye, it’s a bad time all right,’ Josse agreed. Before Sister Ursel could continue her recitation of woes, he put in gently, ‘You were looking for me, Sister. How may I help?’

  She smiled at him. ‘Ah, there’s the kind soul that you are, Sir Josse. I always say so. It’s never a surprise to me that so many folks come here after you, wanting some of your precious time!’

  ‘Has someone been here today asking for me?’ It sounded like it.

  ‘Oh, yes!’ She paused and then, amending the affirmation, added, ‘Well, not asking for you exactly, although you came to mind the moment she said why she was here.’

  ‘I see.’ He was not at all sure that he did.

  But Sister Ursel was hurrying ahead with her tale. ‘It was – oh, let me see, was it after Sext or after Nones? Nones, I’m sure of it; it wasn’t all that long ago. Anyway, I was returning to my post at the gate – one of the lay brothers relieves me when I go into church for the Offices, Sir Josse, although of course not always the same one, and then he, whoever he is, returns to his duties when I get back.’ She stopped. ‘Where was I?’

  ‘Returning to the gate after Nones,’ he prompted.

  ‘Aye, aye, that’s right. There was someone waiting with the lay brother – it was young Brother Paul; you probably don’t know him, he’s new, see – and Paul had told them to wait till I got back from church. He didn’t really know the usual form so really he did the right thing, telling her to wait for me.’

  ‘The visitor was a woman?’

  ‘Aye, a young woman, maybe twenty-two, twenty-three. Pretty as a picture.’

  For a moment Josse’s heart leapt.

  ‘She was fair,’ the porteress continued, dashing his hopes, for the woman he had in mind was dark, ‘with neatly braided hair under a close-fitting cap. She had blue eyes and a worried expression and her garments were good quality, not cheap. Nice gloves, fur-lined at the wrist – squirrel, I think – and she wore a deeply hooded cloak which she only drew back when she was safe inside the gate. It’s my belief’ – Sister Ursel dropped her voice and leaned close to Josse – ‘that she was afraid. That she knew someone was after her and didn’t want to be identified.’

  Josse reflected that Sister Ursel, for all
her verbosity, had a sharp pair of eyes. ‘And this young woman was asking for me?’

  ‘Not by name. She said she had been given to understand that people came here to the Abbey with all sorts of problems and difficulties that get sorted out for them here and she hoped someone might do the same for her, and so of course I thought that you, Sir Josse, might be able to help her.’

  ‘Is she still here?’ Josse asked urgently; he had the sudden irrational but very strong feeling that this mystery woman, whoever she was, could be important . . .

  ‘No, she’s gone,’ Sister Ursel said. ‘I told her to warm herself in my little room while I tried to find you; I keep a bit of a fire in there, Sir Josse, and the Abbess Helewise turns a blind eye because it’s cold as the tomb in the winter. Anyway, she accepted right gladly and I left her warming her cold hands. I looked for you in the Vale and I was gone longer that I intended because, what with them working so hard to keep the healthy away from the sick, it wasn’t easy finding someone to ask whether you were about. When I got back here she’d gone. I went to the Abbess’s room to see if she knew where you were so I could tell you about the woman, but she wasn’t there. Still, you’re here now and I’ve told you!’ Sister Ursel beamed her relief.

  ‘Was the young woman riding or walking?’ Josse asked; if the latter, then, provided he guessed right as to in which direction the young woman had set off, he might be able to fetch Horace and catch her up.

  But: ‘She was riding, on a pretty grey mare,’ Sister Ursel said. ‘Tied her up to the post there.’ She nodded to a small pile of horse droppings.

  ‘I see.’ Josse frowned. ‘You say that the young woman seemed afraid, Sister; is it possible, do you think, that while she waited in your little room, something happened that made her feel threatened?’

  ‘Like whoever’s following her turning up outside on the road?’ Sister Ursel said. ‘I can’t say, Sir Josse. I didn’t see anybody, but then,’ she added shrewdly, ‘a man who sets himself to trail someone isn’t going to make a song and a dance about it, is he?’