Heart of Ice Read online

  Despite himself, Josse laughed. He stood up and, with a grin, said, ‘I wish you luck. Thank you for your help, Captain.’

  As he approached the head of the gangplank in preparation for descending to the quay, the sailor hurried up to him. ‘I were listening,’ he said disarmingly. ‘It weren’t two men we brought back from Boulogne, it were three. Leastways, I’m pretty sure of it.’

  ‘Three?’

  ‘Aye. We was just slipping our moorings when this dark shadow comes creeping along the quayside, all shifty-like as if he didn’t want to be seen. I saw him, though. Well, I think it was a him.’

  ‘And he came on board the ship?’

  The sailor shrugged. ‘Reckon he must have done. He weren’t on the quay no longer and weren’t nobody in the water, so wasn’t no place else he could have gone.’

  ‘But nobody actually discovered him aboard?’

  The sailor laughed. ‘No, but there’s a hundred places a man could hide on the old Angel. And,’ he added reasonably, ‘nobody was looking for him, was they?’

  ‘No,’ Josse agreed, ‘I suppose not.’

  An image was forming in his mind. A dark figure following the merchant and the apothecary on board the Angel of Mercy, trailing Nicol home to Newenden. Not quite carefully enough, for Nicol had suspected his presence and was afraid. With good reason, it seemed.

  But why? Why should anyone go to the trouble of stowing away on a ship and following the poor lad all the way to England; first to Newenden, then to Hawkenlye, where, if Josse’s instinct was right, this someone waylaid Nicol and killed him?

  Oh, but he was so far from getting at the truth of it!

  He reached inside his pouch and, extracting a coin, flipped it at the sailor, who deftly caught it. ‘I’m grateful to you,’ Josse said. ‘Have a drink on me.’

  Then, with a great deal to think about and one or two possibilities already forming in his mind, he made his way back to the inn where he had left the cob and set off for Hawkenlye.

  In the day and a half that Josse had been absent, Hawkenlye Abbey seemed to have filled up with fear, pain and sorrow.

  The simple-minded man called Jabez, young Waldo’s dead mother’s brother, had died early that morning. Two merchants had arrived a little later, both complaining of terrible pains in their heads and their joints; one of them, the weaker of the two, was showing a rash of dark pink spots on his face, throat and chest. They were being cared for in the far part of the shelter where Jabez had died. The less unwell of the two was able to take in fluids and, as Brother Augustus remarked, the liquid consumption really appeared to help, for all that it seemed that the poor man was losing it out of his rear end as fast as they poured it into his mouth. The older merchant was deep in delirium by midday and too far gone to drink; his fever was steadily increasing and the monks did not think he would last the night.

  A little over a week ago, the merchants had put up overnight in Newenden, where, according to the younger man, they had delivered a consignment of frankincense to a certain apothecary’s apprentice.

  In the afternoon a woman came in with a dead child. The little girl had only just died and the rash still stood out in ugly, vivid blotches all over her small face.

  Sister Euphemia, standing in the Vale with Helewise, was setting out her orders for what must be done. So preoccupied and worried was she that she had been talking for some time before she recalled whom she was addressing: ‘Forgive me, my lady; hark at how unsuitably I’m speaking, telling my Abbess what she should and should not do!’

  ‘Please, Sister Euphemia, do not stop to consider such a thing,’ Helewise replied swiftly. ‘I thank God that, at this dreadful time, he has seen fit to supply us with someone like you. Go on with your instructions and, if you can, think of me simply as another pair of hands.’

  The infirmarer’s dubious expression suggested that she was going to find this difficult. Nevertheless, she went back to her ordering and soon, as her clear-sightedness took over, she forgot all about what was suitable and what wasn’t.

  Her instructions were based upon trying to keep the sick well away from the healthy and to this end she decreed that, since there were sick people there already, the sleeping shelter in the Vale be converted into an emergency infirmary. Braziers would be installed and the monks would do what they could to make the roof and walls more substantial; ‘Patients with fever,’ said the infirmarer, ‘feel the cold something wicked.’ She would send nursing nuns down to tend the patients as required.

  Nobody who did not have to mingle with the sick in the Vale for the purposes of taking care of them would go anywhere near them. Those monks who had already tended the sick would bear the brunt of the nursing; ‘It’s nothing that requires special skill,’ Sister Euphemia said, ‘and I’ll be here if anybody’s unsure what to do.’

  ‘You can’t carry everybody all by yourself,’ Helewise said gently. ‘Let me help you; I’m not skilled but I’m willing.’

  ‘Aye, I know, my lady. But we need you to go on performing the role you were chosen for. Besides’ – she gave Helewise a swift and preoccupied smile, possibly in apology for having so summarily dismissed the offer of help – ‘I’ve already accepted the first two volunteers.’ She gave a nod back up the track that led to the Abbey and Helewise, looking in that direction, saw two black-clad figures hurrying towards her.

  Soon they were close enough for their identities to be distinguished. Helewise felt a lump in her throat. As she might have expected, Sister Beata and Sister Caliste had been the nuns who had stepped forward when volunteers were called for. And Helewise, who valued both women not just for their loving, generous hearts and nursing skill but also for themselves, did not know whether to be glad or sorry.

  That evening, Brother Firmin complained that his head hurt.

  Up at the Abbey, Helewise knelt in the church and prayed that there would be no more cases of the terrifying sickness, that those who were sick now would get better – oh, especially Brother Firmin! Oh, dear Lord, please spare Brother Firmin! – and, perhaps most urgently of all, that Josse would come back.

  As the first panicky outpouring of her appeal spent itself, she began to speak the words of the familiar prayers and, as always, felt comfort fall on her like a soft shawl around her shoulders.

  And then – perhaps it was the juxtaposition of thinking of Josse and about Brother Firmin, that staunch believer in the benefits of holy water – something slipped into Helewise’s mind. At first it was faint and elusive . . . a snatch of memory, nothing more, from, what, a year and a half ago? But then the dreamy images began to clarify and she knew what it was that something – someone – had prompted her to remember.

  In the autumn of 1192, a stranger had presented Josse with an ancient treasure that had rightfully belonged to his father. Josse’s father was dead and so, as the eldest son, the treasure had come to Josse; it came from Outremer and they said it had the power to detect poison and that, dipped in water, it made a powerful febrifuge. But Josse, fearing not only its magical power but, even more so, the awesome prediction that accompanied it, had given it to Helewise and begged her to hide it away. ‘It would be best to keep it here,’ he had said, ‘because it is only safe in the hands of the very strong, the very wise and the very good, and you and your nuns here at Hawkenlye are all of those.’ Deeply touched, she had agreed, although she had firmly told Josse that if ever the day came that he wanted his treasure back again, he had only to ask. ‘I won’t want it back,’ he had assured her, ‘I’ll be delighted to see the back of it!’

  Helewise had taken the treasure and prayed for guidance as to what she should do with it. There were associations of violence in its long and complex history and, to cleanse it, she had decided it should be placed near the altar. Pleading with God that he would make the treasure fit for the healing work that might one day be performed with it, she had left it in its little silver box tucked away on a hidden ledge beneath the altar, where a wooden support was concealed
by the linen cloth that covered the altar. Where for the past fifteen months, other than a brief excursion for a first tentative testing of its powers, the treasure had quietly remained . . .

  Helewise debated with herself. Magic jewels are a relic of heathen, pagan times, she thought, and we should have no use for them, trusting only in the merciful, healing love of God and his precious son.

  But here you are, another part of her instantly replied, kneeling before God’s altar, and what happens? A memory of that jewel of Josse’s pops into your head, for all the world as if God himself were prompting you! And did you not see fit to let Sister Euphemia try it out – successfully – when there was that outbreak of fever a year ago last autumn?

  To and fro the argument went until Helewise felt quite distraught. Then, as if a cool hand were smoothing her brow, she had the sudden thought: I’ll ask Josse. It is his jewel, so that will only be right. And if, as I’m sure that he will, he gives his permission, the thought went on – it seemed to have a life and a purpose all of its own – then I shall authorise that the treasure be used.

  And we shall see, she concluded as, stiffly and with aching knees, she got to her feet, whether Josse’s Eye of Jerusalem is really as powerful as we have been led to believe.

  Chapter 6

  Helewise did not know, when she awoke in the morning, that part of her desperate prayer had already been answered: Josse had arrived back in the Vale the previous evening, soon after the monks had settled for the night.

  He presented himself in her room in the usually quiet time between Prime and Tierce and she had rarely been as glad to see anybody.

  ‘What news?’ she demanded, forgetting in her haste to greet him.

  ‘Some; not much,’ he replied, ‘although I believe that I begin to see a pattern in what was hitherto a mystery. My lady, unless there are matters about which you wish to speak with me, then, with your leave, I would set out what I see as a possible version of events.’

  ‘Yes, yes, do!’ she urged. Then, reminding herself that the poor man had been in the saddle for much of the past two days, she restrained her impatience and added more gently, ‘If you would, please, Sir Josse.’

  His swift grin, there and gone in a flash, suggested he wasn’t convinced by her belated show of good manners. Then he said, ‘The foreign pestilence came to England with the Hastings merchant, Martin Kelsey, who had been on business in Paris and caught the sickness when he tended a dying beggar in Boulogne. Kelsey travelled back to Hastings on a ship called the Angel of Mercy in the company of the apothecary’s apprentice, Nicol Romley, who had been to the great market at Troyes buying supplies for his master. Someone followed the men on board the Angel, although employing such secrecy that nobody except an observant sailor spotted him. Kelsey went home and shortly afterwards fell sick; his spinster sister baulked at nursing him and delegated the task to her maidservant. Kelsey died and, with a cruel opportunism, that same night someone broke into the house and stole a few trinkets. The maidservant fell ill and went home to her family, whose surviving members are even now recovering here at Hawkenlye. Or so I pray?’ He looked at her with raised eyebrows.

  ‘The boy and the baby girl are better,’ she confirmed. ‘The simple uncle died yesterday.’

  ‘Ah.’ He muttered something under his breath; probably, she thought, a blessing on the poor man’s soul.

  ‘Go on,’ she said when she could no longer endure the wait; a matter of all of four heartbeats.

  ‘Nicol Romley fell ill soon after returning to Newenden,’ Josse said, ‘but there’s something else: the lad was mortally afraid that somebody was following him.’

  ‘You mean—’ she began, but stopped herself; Josse would tell his tale more succinctly and swiftly if she refrained from interrupting him.

  With a quick nod, as if he understood her thought, Josse went on, ‘Nicol’s master tried to treat him but failed and instead sent the lad off to Hawkenlye. He got as far as the Vale, but then someone attacked and killed him. It’s unlikely that this was a simple case of robbery because, although it appeared that Nicol’s purse had been searched, the coins hidden at the bottom of it were still there when he was found.’

  He waited to see if she wanted to comment but she shook her head.

  ‘So, my lady,’ he concluded, ‘a virulent and deadly pestilence has come by evil chance to our land. At the same time, some unknown assailant whose purpose we cannot begin to guess follows a young man home from France and kills him.’ With a helpless shrug, he said, ‘Would you care to propose a likely explanation?’

  ‘Not yet,’ she replied with a small smile. ‘Although one or two things occur to me . . .’

  ‘Let’s hear them!’

  ‘Well, I am thinking about those coins that were overlooked in the apothecary’s purse. It seems that there is a similarity between this and the few trinkets stolen from the merchant’s house.’

  ‘Aye, that had crossed my mind too. In addition, the merchant’s sister’s best guess was that he died in the small hours, and she claimed that the ransacking of the house took place between the time that her brother died and when she found his body soon after daybreak.’

  ‘The house was ransacked?’ Helewise asked. ‘Did the sister not hear any sound?’

  ‘Apparently not, but I have an idea that she may have exaggerated the offence; my guess is that the intruder broke in, quietly looked into one or two rooms and, finding a dead man in one of them, took advantage of his good fortune and made a quick search, taking anything that caught his fancy and was small enough to carry away.’

  ‘Supposing,’ she said slowly, ‘good fortune had nothing to do with it?’

  ‘You mean—’ He stopped, had a think and then, as he realised exactly what she meant, said, ‘My lady, I had got as far as wondering if our mystery assailant had been watching Martin Kelsey’s house and, guessing that it would be an easy matter to search the house of a dying man, took his chance and by coincidence chose for his intrusion the very night that Kelsey died. But you, if I hear you aright, would go one step further?’

  ‘I am thinking,’ she said, ‘that, for some reason, the man who slipped aboard the Angel of Mercy has need of total secrecy for his mission in England, whatever it is. Therefore he had to make sure that the two men who might have seen him – the merchant and the apothecary’s apprentice – could not live to give testimony to the fact of his having made the crossing from France to England. So he broke into the merchant’s house, put a pillow over his face and then, to make his crime look like theft and not murder, he picked up one or two items and made off with them.’ Leaning forward, she said eagerly, ‘It was to his advantage that the merchant was so ill! Why, the killer may not even have known that Martin Kelsey had the sickness! If he was still in the vicinity in the morning, he would have been amazed at his good luck when it was assumed that the merchant had died of the pestilence and not by another’s hand.’

  ‘Martin Kelsey died first,’ Josse said. ‘It is possible, my lady, that, having smothered the poor man, the assailant then hurried off to Newenden to hunt down the other passenger from the Angel.’

  ‘And Nicol Romley, already perhaps feeling the first symptoms of the sickness, also realised that somebody was haunting his footsteps. Then he set off for Hawkenlye, the assailant picked up his trail and followed him . . .’

  ‘And slayed him right here in our Vale!’ Josse finished triumphantly.

  For a moment they stared at each other, sharing the pleasure at having come up with a possible explanation.

  But then Josse began to shake his head. ‘Oh, no. It won’t do, my lady.’

  ‘Why not?’ she demanded; she was not ready to see the tidy theory dismissed out of hand, even if he was.

  ‘Because we’re forgetting the captain and crew of the Angel of Mercy,’ he said dolefully. ‘If our hypothetical killer took such trouble to eliminate Martin Kelsey and Nicol Romley, why did he allow the seamen to live?’

  She frowned, chew
ing her lip. ‘Unless he was quite convinced that none of them had seen him, then because . . .’ she began. But it was no use: she could not think of a reason. Undaunted, however, she said, ‘Sir Josse, I am sure that we have stumbled on the truth behind this matter, albeit not the complete truth. Do not let us abandon the entire picture for want of one or two small details!’

  ‘Very well,’ he agreed. ‘Ignoring the small detail of the crew’ – he laid a slight ironic emphasis on the word small – ‘then perhaps we should proceed to speculate on what this killer’s mission in England might be and why he is driven to take such pains to conceal his presence here.’

  ‘Oh!’ she exclaimed, aghast at the magnitude of the task. Then, with a rueful grimace, ‘Where do we start?’

  Both Helewise and Josse concluded quite soon that trying to guess what an assailant’s purpose might be in coming in such secrecy to England was about as likely as guessing the number of grains of sand on a beach; with relief, they abandoned their speculation.

  Helewise, who had been uneasily awaiting an opportunity, said tentatively, ‘Sir Josse, there is another matter about which I must speak to you.’

  ‘Please do, my lady.’

  She looked down at her hands and then, after a pause, said, ‘Two sick men arrived yesterday, one of whom is close to death. Later a young woman arrived with her little girl, who was already dead. Now the mother sickens and’ – she controlled the urge to sob – ‘Brother Firmin has a fever.’

  ‘Old Brother Firmin? Oh,’ Josse cried, ‘but I spent the night in the Vale! Why did they not tell me? I must go to him!’ He made a move towards the door, abruptly curtailed. ‘Or perhaps not?’ He turned back to face her.

  ‘Sir Josse, we all wish to tend those whom we love who fall sick,’ she said softly. ‘But Sister Euphemia has ordered that we must not do so.’