Alys Clare: Heart of Ice

She was silently praying for the young man’s soul when Sister Caliste said softly, ‘He is ready for you, Sister.’

The infirmarer stepped forward and, carefully turning back the spotlessly clean linen sheet with which the nursing nuns had covered the corpse, began her inspection. She worked quickly and thoroughly, barely speaking, and when she was finished she said, ‘Sister Caliste, be good enough to hurry and tell Brother Firmin that he can stop beating his breast; this death has come about through no fault of his, since it was not through tripping on any crack in the path that this young man fell in the pond.’ Sister Caliste bowed and hastened away. Then, turning to Sister Anne, the infirmarer added, ‘And you, Sister, must go and find the Abbess and ask her if she could spare me a moment.’ Sister Anne’s mouth had dropped open. ‘Quickly now!’

With a bob of the head and a muttered ‘Yes, Sister,’ Anne too scurried off.

Sister Euphemia stood alone by the dead man’s body. Perhaps I am mistaken and have been too hasty to remove the blame from Brother Firmin’s cracked path, she thought. Gently she pushed back the wet hair from the corpse’s forehead and looked again, studying the front of the head intently for some moments. No, she decided eventually, I am not mistaken.

When, not long afterwards, the Abbess entered the infirmary and, escorted by Sister Caliste, made her way to the curtained recess, Sister Euphemia was quite ready for her. She made her reverence and then said with admirable brevity, ‘My lady, this young man has been slain by a blow to the top of his head, after which he either fell or was pushed into the pond. The death must be investigated and we must therefore seek help.’

The Abbess stood quite still, listening to the infirmarer and studying her with expressionless eyes. As soon as Sister Euphemia finished speaking, the Abbess turned to look at the young man lying on the cot. Tenderly she put up a hand and touched her fingertips to the terrible blow on the top of his head. She said calmly, ‘Yes, Sister, indeed we must send for help.’

Sister Euphemia opened her mouth to reply but then, as if the Abbess could no longer maintain her air of efficient indifference, she muttered passionately, ‘This was done with great force. See, Sister, how the bones of the skull have been crushed! What can he possibly have done to bring down such hatred upon himself? He is but young, and-’

She did not complete her remark. Achieving detachment once more, she straightened up, lifted her head and said, ‘I shall send word to Gervase de Gifford down in Tonbridge.’

‘And-’ the infirmarer began. She stopped herself.

But her superior had already read her mind. ‘Yes, Sister,’ she said with a faint smile. ‘I shall also send word to Sir Josse and ask, if he is not too busy, if he will kindly pay us a visit.’

Gervase de Gifford sent a message back to the Abbess that he would be at Hawkenlye first thing in the morning. The monk who had ridden off to New Winnowlands to find Sir Josse d’Acquin did not return that evening, which was no cause for alarm since he would undoubtedly have been pressed to come in, warm himself by Sir Josse’s fireside, refresh himself with a good, hot meal and a jug of ale and stay overnight. Expecting just such a turn of events, the Abbess had given the brother — it was young Augustus — permission not to return until morning. She only hoped, as she left the Abbey church after the final office of the day, that he would bring Sir Josse with him. .

Sister Euphemia was still in the infirmary. She had dismissed the other nuns who earlier had worked on the body with her and now she and the dead man were alone in the privacy of the recess. Beyond the curtains she could hear the sounds of the long infirmary ward settling for the night: there was one of the nuns helping an old man suffering from a hacking cough to pass water before he slept; there was the soft voice of Sister Caliste soothing a fractious child with griping pains in his belly. That sudden shrill cry, swiftly curtailed, was the newborn baby at the far end of the infirmary demanding to be fed and having her demand met. These were the normal sounds that were part of Sister Euphemia’s everyday life; she heard them, registered them and dismissed them.

There was something far more alarming right under her eyes.

She went over the body again. It was too soon to share her anxiety for, if she were wrong, then she would have caused a worrying stir all for nothing. And she must be wrong, surely she must! Sister Euphemia found she was praying in quiet desperation, the same words over and over again: Dear merciful Lord, please let it not be so!

Think again, she told herself firmly. Reconsider. Go over every inch again.

There was the wound on the top of the head; it looked to Sister Euphemia as if the young man had been struck from directly in front and above. Either his attacker had been a very tall man or else the victim had been on his knees when he was hit. That was the more likely, she decided, for the young man himself was not particularly short and so, to inflict a wound in such a place, the attacker would have had to be a giant of a man. She put her hand to the wound in the skull. Its position was what had prompted her to send the message to Brother Firmin: it was just not possible for someone to trip and fall in such a way that they struck the top of their head on the hard ground, unless perhaps they were a professional tumbler. Sister Euphemia smiled wryly at the unlikelihood of this poor young man having been that .

And in any case she could almost trace the outline of the weapon that had made that fearful hollow in the young man’s skull — she was no longer smiling — and the shape was almost certainly that of a club, or perhaps a stout stick or staff with a bulbous, rounded end. No; she had been right to inform Brother Firmin that he was not to blame. At least he, she reflected, with his conscience eased, is probably having a good night’s sleep. .

She continued her examination of the body. The condition of the skin suggested that the man had been in the water for a few days, although the flesh was still quite firm and there was no sign of decay yet. This, Euphemia reasoned, was no doubt because the water had been so cold; indeed, so cold that it had been ice until this morning. She had observed before that cold temperatures seemed to arrest the decay of both plant and animal matter — including human flesh — and it occurred to her that, until this poor dead body warmed up, it would remain virtually in the same condition in which it first went into the water.

The dead man’s eyes had been closed — presumably by one of the monks who pulled him out of the pond — and now Sister Euphemia gently raised one of the eyelids. He’d had light eyes, this young lad; soft blue-grey. Now in death they were bloodshot and the surrounding tissues were red and inflamed. The infirmarer closed the eye again and, putting a hand on the jaw, pressed down firmly and opened the mouth. The roof of the mouth appeared to be covered in small transparent blisters. .

Then there was nothing else but to look again at what had so alarmed her.

Sister Euphemia closed the mouth and picked up the tallow lamp that stood on a small shelf above the cot where the body lay. Holding it just above the bare shoulders, she bent down for a closer look. Was she seeing things? Was it a product of her tired eyes and the dim light, or were there really spots on the young man’s face, chest and abdomen?

Instinctively the infirmarer put her hand over her mouth although, since she had been in close proximity to the body for some time, the gesture was futile; she would long ago have breathed in whatever noxious humours it might be emitting and it was far too late to worry about that now. But her nursing instincts were automatic and, she was very afraid, she had good reason to be wary of this particular body.