Alys Clare - Heart of Ice

‘A sheriff?’ Brother Basil shrugged. ‘Probably. There’s a big castle there and not a few wealthy folks, and where there’s money there’s usually rules to protect it and that means a man of law.’ He risked a very small smile as he used the words that she had done.

‘Then, please, Brother Basil, if you will,’ she said courteously, ‘increase our indebtedness to you by escorting us on to Tonbridge.’

Brother Basil looked at her for a moment, then, with a nod to the two monks sitting shivering on their mules to the rear of Benoit, he nodded and kicked his sandalled feet into his horse’s sides.

And, quite a short time afterwards, the three monks had left their two charges safely ensconced in the inn at Tonbridge and were on their way back to Robertsbridge. Meanwhile Sabin, bemused and trying hard to understand everything that was said to her, had been met by an effusive Goody Anne delighted to have even two customers in these terrible times. Anne had led Sabin and Benoit along to her best guest chamber, sent for hot water and hot drinks, told them to make themselves comfortable and to come along to warm themselves by the fire as soon as they were ready, where she would cook them up something to take the chill out of their bones.

‘Where are we?’ came Benoit’s plaintive voice. ‘Is that woman a nun?’

‘No, Grandfather,’ Sabin said, lapsing with relief into her own language. ‘I told you, we couldn’t go to the Abbey at Hawkenlye because there’s sickness there. We’re in a town nearby called-’ No; she had forgotten. ‘Well, never mind what it’s called. But it’s big enough to have a castle and a sheriff, so as soon as we’ve eaten whatever that kind woman is going to prepare for us, I’ll say I want to speak to the sheriff and see if he can tell us anything about Nicol’s death.’

‘He didn’t die of the sickness,’ Benoit said mournfully. ‘That knight on the big horse said he’d been murdered. I heard him! Someone struck Nicol over the head and rolled him into a pond.’

‘I know, Grandfather,’ Sabin said gently, wishing in passing that there was some way to stop his unfortunate habit of creeping about and listening to conversations that were none of his business. But then, she could understand well enough why he did it. A man in his profession — he had once been at the very top of it, one might say — became accustomed to being important. How wretched it must be, she thought, to grow old, to develop shakes in those hands that were once so precise, to lose the keen eyesight that was so vital to one whose work involved such delicacy and accuracy. It is simply, she concluded with a sigh, that he does not wish to be shunted aside and ignored; his sly habit of hiding himself away and picking up fragments of other people’s private conversations is his way of keeping himself at the hub of what goes on around him. And those keen ears of his — she had noticed that Benoit’s hearing seemed to have improved as his eyesight failed — ensure that he picks up more than is good for him.

Far, far more. .

She studied him. He still looked half perished with cold; the tip of his nose had a large dewdrop about to fall from it and automatically she reached for a linen handkerchief, handing it to him. The handkerchief was spotlessly clean, as indeed was almost all of their personal linen; the enforced idleness at Robertsbridge had at least given her the opportunity to catch up with her domestic duties.

In addition to appearing to be cold, Benoit also looked miserable, confused, weary and hungry; his brow was creased in a pathetic frown and his lean cheeks seemed to be caving in on themselves. Well, hunger at least we can do something about, she thought, rousing herself to a smile. Taking hold of his thin arm, she said brightly, ‘Come on, dear Grandfather. That nice woman promised to prepare a meal for us — remember? — so let’s hurry off and see if English cooking is really as terrible as they claim.’

Her show of optimism must have convinced him. As they made their slow and careful way along to the main room — Benoit was confident enough on home ground, where he knew every room, hallway, corridor and little hidden passage, but everywhere else he trod with the nervous care of a man walking on glass — he was already cheering up. ‘Maybe,’ he said hopefully, ‘she’ll cook beef. They say the English are good at beef.’

Agreeing that it might be a possibility, Sabin led him into the tavern’s tap room, sat him down by the huge fire and, her own stomach growling in anticipation, sought out Goody Anne to ask her to bring their supper.

He was tired, hungry and cold.

He had followed them to Hawkenlye, waited in hiding as they had stopped for some sort of discussion, then had to back hurriedly deeper into the undergrowth on the skirts of the Great Forest as suddenly they had turned and ridden back towards him. He had thought for a puzzled moment that they were going to ride off back to Robertsbridge, but then they had turned off the road on to another that went away downhill in a roughly north-north-westerly direction. He had known the direction because the wind was coming from the north and for an uncomfortable time that seemed to go on for ever they had all been riding straight into it. The three monks had left the woman and the old man at an inn and then ridden away.

The man had waited for a while to see if either of his quarry might emerge again, but they did not. The light was fading fast and he had still to find somewhere to spend the hours of cold darkness; there was no point in watching the inn any longer that night, he decided, and soon he had quietly slipped out of his hiding place and set off out of town.

He had to get rid of them, he told himself. They still carried the secret and he could not allow them to live. But is there in truth any point in killing them? he wondered dismally. They have been with the monks at Robertsbridge, now they are presumably settling down for a convivial evening in a tap room full of people — he was not to know that Sabin and Benoit were Goody Anne’s only guests that night — and so how many more people are now privy to what should never have been overheard?

Where, he wondered, depression seeping insidiously through him like an ague, where will it all end?

No! It was no use thinking like that. It will end, he told himself firmly, when the old man and the young woman are safely dead and no longer a threat. Then he could leave this damp, foggy, cold and unwelcoming island, head back across the Channel, find his master in Paris, receive his fee and lose himself somewhere in the vast heart of France.

But he won’t pay up, he thought lugubriously. He’ll wriggle out of it and I’ll be left with nothing to show for all of this effort but a few more deaths on my conscience.

He could find no consolation to help him out of his misery. Riding on down the desolate and overgrown track that he had found and that seemed to lead to marshes, he looked around half-heartedly for some sort of shelter. He came to a wild bramble hedge and, beyond it, the slowly decaying shape of what had once been a dwelling. Thinking that even that was better than nothing, the man dismounted, kicked open the door, eyed the dank and dark interior and then, with a nod, went out again to see to his horse and set about finding some firewood.

Later, when he had eaten from his meagre and fast-dwindling supplies of dried meat strips and the hard heel of a loaf, he tried to get comfortable in his thick cloak and his blanket. He slept — he did not know for how long — and then woke to find that the fire had died down and he was shivering violently. He stoked the fire, wrapped himself up again and went back to sleep, to dream that he was back at the Troyes lodging house trying to dash into the raging fire because he had left his pack behind the door. . Waking, he found he was sweating, his skin hot, burning.