Alys Clare - Heart of Ice

‘Never mind, Waldo.’ Perhaps, Helewise thought, she should pull the lad up for speaking in such a way of his mother’s employer, but then that mother had just died. It was surely charitable to make a few allowances for the poor boy. ‘Did — er — did none of the other women of the household try to help?’

Waldo gave a snort of disgust. ‘Not if they could think up a good excuse not to. Me auntie — that’s me dad’s brother’s wife — she still says she can’t do no heavy work, what with her just having had the twins, but they’re eight months old now so it’s not as if. .’ He trailed off. Probably, Helewise decided, he was recalling that one of those twins was dead.

‘And what about the older women?’ she pressed, more with the intention of taking his mind off his grief than for any real desire to know.

‘The old auntie was no use to anybody, not unless you had a need for a spiteful and demanding crone who moaned all the hours she was awake and snored loud enough to wake the dead whenever she fell asleep. Me gran weren’t too bad. She’d try to do what Mam asked her to do, only she had the twisting pains in her hands and she never seemed to manage much.’ Waldo gave a sigh. ‘It’s mainly Mariah and me does the work when Mam’s in Hastings. Tam helps us when he has a mind to, but seeing as he’s only ten, he’s easily distracted.’

‘And what work did your father and your uncle do?’

‘Dad’s brother did a bit of this and a bit of that. Dad, he worked for a master mason.’ There was sudden warmth in Waldo’s voice. ‘He were a stone cutter. He didn’t do the fancy work; he cut the big stones into the rough shapes and sizes as were required.’

Trying to come up with something kind to say to this poor lad who had just lost both parents — of whom, to judge from the way he spoke about them, he had been both proud and fond — Helewise said after a moment, ‘Then your father, Waldo, has left a memorial to his life’s work.’

Waldo’s eyes widened. ‘I hadn’t thought of that, my lady.’ Turning to give her a shy smile, he said, ‘That’s nice, that is. I’ll tell Tam when I see him and save it up to pass on to Mariah when we go home.’

‘Your sister remains in the house alone?’ And the girl could not be much over fourteen, if Helewise had guessed Waldo’s age correctly.

‘Don’t you fret, my lady.’ Waldo had clearly followed her reasoning. ‘She may be only twelve but our Mariah can take care of herself.’

‘How old are you, Waldo?’ Helewise interrupted.

‘Fourteen last birthday,’ he said. There was a faint suggestion of a youthful chest being thrown out. ‘I’ll be fifteen this summer and then I’ll be ‘prenticed to Dad’s stone yard. I’m big enough now, but Master, he doesn’t want me till the summer.’

He was, Helewise reflected, mature for his years. .

‘And anyway she’s got me auntie there,’ Waldo was saying, ‘me dad’s brother’s wife. She’s looking after her.’

‘Your aunt did not fall sick?’

‘Aye, she did, but she’s better. I meant Mariah’s looking after Auntie, not t’other way round.’

‘I see.’ It was a silly thing to say, Helewise thought, because, until she could slowly go through it all again with Waldo, preferably with her stylus and a piece of parchment so that she could take notes, she was very far from seeing anything very much.

But making sure that she had committed every last detail to memory was not the priority: taking Waldo to see his remaining kin was. Standing up, she said, ‘Come along, young Waldo. Let’s go and find Tam and your little niece.’

In a day full of anxiety and looming threat, Helewise found a rare moment of happiness when she ushered Waldo into the infirmary and took him to the adjacent cots where his brother and his little niece lay. The young boy — Tam — was sitting up in bed and his face lit up at the sight of Waldo striding along the ward towards him.

‘Waldo! Waldo! I’m mended!’ Tam cried out, and one or two of the nuns smiled. ‘They’ve given me ’orrible stuff to drink but the one what does the herbs and that says it’s to make me strong again and she made me hold me nose so’s I di’nt taste it! Coo, Wal, it were like sheep’s piss and I don’ know what were in it!’

‘Hush, Tam!’ Waldo hastened to take his brother’s outstretched hands, then, perching on the cot, enveloped Tam in his arms. Helewise heard him say something in an urgent whisper — something to do with not likening the Abbey’s remedies to sheep’s piss, she guessed — but the irrepressible Tam was too happy at being free of pain and reunited with his brother to take any notice.

‘They’re not cross here, they’re nice, Wal,’ he said earnestly. ‘They gave me a wash — all over! — and the nun with the big round smily face said oh, look, I’d got a brand-new white skin just a-waiting to be discovered!’

That, thought Helewise, must have been Sister Beata.

Waldo gave Tam another hug, then turned to look at the small cot where the baby girl lay. She was awake, her large dark eyes wide open and a nervous little smile on her lips, staring at Waldo as if she was hoping against hope that it was really him. He leaned down over her cot and said very gently, ‘Hello, Jenna. Where’s your spots gone then, eh?’ Then he tickled her under her firm little chin and she squirmed and chuckled with delight.

When, a few moments later, Waldo stood up and faced Helewise, she saw the glint of tears in his eyes. And, with the dignity of a much older man, the lad said, ‘Thank you, my lady; your nuns have given me back two of the people I really care about. Please may I go to the church? I’d like to thank God and all.’

Josse and de Gifford reached Hawkenlye Abbey late in the morning. They learned about the sick family from Sister Ursel, who informed them that the Abbess had been visiting the lad down in the Vale and had brought him up to see his kinfolk in the infirmary.

‘How are they all?’ Josse asked.

Sister Ursel gave a grimace. ‘The little lad and the girl child do well. The older lad is fine but the man is now feverish.’

‘You mean to imply that he has sickened since the family arrived here?’ de Gifford said.

Sister Ursel nodded glumly. ‘Looks that way.’

Josse and de Gifford exchanged a glance. This was not news they had wanted to hear.

They went across to the Abbess’s room to wait for her. It was not long before they heard her quick footsteps coming along the cloister and, after the most perfunctory of greetings, she told them all that she had learned from the lad Waldo — who, Josse soon decided, sounded a sensible and a courageous boy — concerning how the disease had come to the stricken family.

‘The mother tended a Hastings merchant?’ Josse said when the Abbess finally finished her account. Looking at de Gifford, he went on, ‘And Gervase and I have just met an apothecary who imports plant herbs and extracts from overseas. Can there be a connection?’

‘This is the apothecary who sold the potion to the youth who died here at Hawkenlye?’ demanded the Abbess.

‘Aye, my lady.’ Josse turned back to her. ‘Gervase and I located him; he lives in Newenden.’ Briefly he told her how they had found Adam Pinchsniff and what he had had to say on the subject of his apprentice. ‘The youth’s name was Nicol Romley,’ he concluded. ‘God rest his soul.’

‘Amen,’ the Abbess said.

There was a moment’s silence as all three of them thought about the apprentice and his lonely, violent death. Then, as if aware that there was little time for such delicacy, de Gifford said, ‘So, we have two initial victims of this pestilence: the Hastings merchant-’

‘His name was Master Kelsey and he lived with a spinster sister,’ the Abbess put in.