Alys Clare - Heart of Ice

The man followed the merchant and the apprentice ashore in England and as soon as he could he killed them. The merchant he smothered with his own pillow — an easy death, that one, for the merchant had been weak with fever — and then he had set out to find the apprentice. The lad almost got away for, just as the man was about to make his move, the apprentice set off on his master’s horse and made his slow way to Hawkenlye Abbey. But there again the man’s luck was in, for the lad reached the Abbey on a very cold day just as the light was fading. Nobody had been about and it had been a simple matter to strike down the lad and roll his body into the pond.

That should have been that. The four people who knew what the man’s sensitive mission had been were dead and the secret had died with them.

Then, as the man had set off back to the coast to pick up a boat back to France, he had seen what at first sight he had thought must be a couple of ghosts. In deep countryside outside Hastings, following his usual practice when out in the wild of drawing off the road and concealing himself when he heard riders approaching, he had watched with increasing disbelief as the old man and the girl rode up from the port towards him. There was no time then to ask himself what they were doing in England or, indeed, how it came to be that they were still alive. In that urgent moment he calculated swiftly and, deciding that it would be best to slay them there and then, he had been about to pounce.

Then an ox cart had come crawling along the road from Hastings, in the direction from which the old man and the girl had come, accompanied by three horsemen and a troupe of peasants. The old man and the girl had paused to rest at the top of a rise and the group had caught up with them. With a quiet curse, the man had withdrawn deeper under the trees; unless he was prepared to kill the lot of them, attacking the old man and the girl here was just going to create yet more problems.

He followed them and watched from a safe distance as they rode for a few miles with the ox cart party and then turned off at the track for the abbey at Robertsbridge, where they were given lodgings. A few days later he trailed the girl as, escorted by a couple of burly monks, she rode to Newenden to ask after the apprentice, and he was sure she must also have made a similar excursion to Hawkenlye; there was a day where he had not been able to find her and he guessed that was where she had gone. She would probably know by now that the apprentice lad was dead, unless his body were still under the ice in the dark heart of the pond.

There had never been an opportunity to attack her and, indeed, killing her would only have achieved half the task, for there remained the old man, and he had the good sense not to leave the settlement at Robertsbridge.

And there matters had stood, the girl making occasional forays on to the tracks and the roads, always accompanied and therefore unassailable, and the old man all but camping out under Robertsbridge’s altar.

Until now. .

He waited until the group of riders were almost out of sight — a monk led the way, followed by the old man and the girl, with a pair of monks bringing up the rear — and then he nudged a knee into his horse’s side and, moving with his usual stealth, set out after them.

‘Are those structures also part of Hawkenlye Abbey?’

Sabin de Retz’s accented words managed to sound authoritative and faintly dismissive, as if the sight of the Abbey buildings down in the Vale was somehow a disappointment.

It was not the case; she was driven by her need to sound calm and confident, which was not easy when her heart was thumping with fear. This place, she had been thinking as the journey proceeded relentlessly to its destination, this place where we’re going, which I saw but briefly before and where I’m bringing Grandfather, is the place where poor Nicol was struck down. Not only that, but it’s now foul with disease and we approach it at our peril.

The monk in the lead — his name was Brother Basil and he was broad in the shoulders and his heavy-featured face showed the scars of some violent past left behind when he entered Robertsbridge — turned at her words. ‘Aye, lady,’ he acknowledged. ‘The main foundation’s up there on the rise. Down in the valley’ — he indicated with a jerk of his head — ‘is where they discovered the spring with the precious healing water.’

Sabin stared down into the Vale. Two distant black-clad figures were carrying a long, slim shape wrapped in a sacking shroud into what had to be an improvised burial ground, where there were a number of obviously recent graves, scars of brown earth on the frosty ground; she bit back the remark that the holy waters didn’t seem to be making much headway against the pestilence.

‘Why have we stopped?’ Her grandfather’s voice was querulous, tinged with the very edge of complaint; knowing him as she did, for she had lived with him all her life and he had been training her as his assistant for the last fifteen years or more, she realised that the moment was ripe for some encouragement.

‘We are discussing what is the best option now that we are here, Grandfather,’ she improvised, casting a quick glance at Brother Basil in apology for the small lie.

‘Didn’t you say we must search out that knight who came asking for us down at Robertsbridge?’ Benoit de Retz said tetchily. ‘Isn’t that why we’ve come all this way on a bitter morning? Surely the best option ’ — he mocked her words — ‘is to ride right up to the Abbey gates and demand to see him!’

Sabin hesitated. Her grandfather knew about the sickness at Hawkenlye — it had been he who had confirmed it to her, having overheard the knight Sir Josse tell Stephen — but he could not see what she was now looking at, and the sight of the new graves and the body being carried to the graveyard brought the severity of the danger home to her far more forcefully than mere words had done. Benoit would undoubtedly have refused to leave Robertsbridge, she reflected, had he somehow had a preview of the scene now before them. It had crossed Sabin’s mind that she could leave him there in relative safety while she went alone up to Hawkenlye to search for Sir Josse, but every instinct had argued against it. Her grandfather had cared for her diligently, if not especially tenderly, ever since her parents had died when she was three. Now that he was old, feeble and all but blind, it was her turn to look after him. It had been different when she had made the earlier journeys to Newenden and to Hawkenlye alone, for then he had been too sick to travel and she had had no alternative. Now that he was once more well, leaving him for what might be quite a long time in the care of strangers was just not a choice.

Making up her mind, she said bluntly, ‘There is very much sickness at Hawkenlye. The situation is worse than we thought. We can see the monks burying a body even as we sit here.’

Benoit gasped, crossed himself and muttered a hasty prayer. ‘We cannot risk going any nearer! To do so would be folly!’

We could help . Sabin bit back the exclamation. You, Grandfather, she thought, are renowned far and wide for your skills, not a few of which you have passed on to me. But: ‘Very well,’ she said instead. With a jerk of her head to Brother Basil, she asked, ‘Where else might we put up hereabouts? Is there a town nearby?’

‘Aye. Just down the hill there.’ He pointed back along the track to where another road led off down the slope of the hillside. ‘Tonbridge is but a short ride and there’s an inn.’

He appeared to know the area quite well so she ventured another question. She was thinking that, if this Sir Josse d’Acquin had indeed returned to Hawkenlye Abbey and thus rendered himself out of bounds, as it were, to anybody who had not already risked an encounter with the sickness, then she would need to find someone else to talk to about the death of Nicol. ‘Is there a-’ She was not sure what the right word would be. ‘Will I be able to find a man of law down in this town?’