Alys Clare - Heart of Ice

‘So she comes up here to the very vicinity of the lad’s death, when it is clear that she fears for her own safety? A brave woman, Josse, thus to put herself at risk.’

‘What was the alternative?’ Josse countered. ‘To remain in hiding at Robertsbridge for the rest of her days?’

De Gifford lifted an eloquent shoulder. ‘Better than being dead.’

‘Only just,’ Josse muttered. Then something occurred to him. ‘You said she’s travelling with an old man?’

‘Yes. He’s blind and quite feeble, and she appears to care for him very tenderly.’

‘And yet she has brought him into danger with her, if we are right in our assumption that there is danger for her here from this mystery murderer?’

‘Oh, there’s danger, be in no doubt, Josse.’ De Gifford gazed at Josse, his expression grave. ‘She has given me to understand that there is some dread secret at the heart of all this and somebody — perhaps more than one person — is fighting very hard to suppress it. Sabin knows what it is, although she has not admitted that. Nicol Romley and Martin Kelsey were killed to keep the secret, and now we can be certain that the murderer is after Sabin and probably the old blind man too.’

‘She will not open her heart to you?’

De Gifford’s expression softened. ‘She’s terrified, Josse. She’s an intelligent and intuitive woman and I would imagine that she usually judges friend from foe with little effort. But now she’s scared of her very shadow and no longer trusts anyone.’

Even the handsome sheriff of Tonbridge, who is already not a little affected by her, Josse thought. ‘What should we do?’ he asked.

De Gifford smiled. ‘I rather hoped that you and I could speak to her together. I could fetch her from the inn, we could ride a safe distance from the town and from overly interested ears and eyes, and we could meet you out in the open.’

‘How would that help?

De Gifford’s smile deepened. ‘You have a reputation for honesty, Josse. When Sabin asked Goody Anne how to find me, Anne told her quite bluntly that if she was in any sort of trouble then she should seek out Josse d’Acquin, who was probably to be found up at the Abbey.’

Josse felt embarrassed and tried to disguise it with a curt question: ‘How do you know that?’

‘One of my men was in the tavern and heard the conversation.’ De Gifford waved a hand as if brushing that aside. ‘What do you say, Josse? Will the honest man come to talk to the lost and frightened woman?’

‘Of course I will. Name the place, and I shall be there.’

De Gifford’s house was at the end of a road leading out of Tonbridge, far enough past the dwelling places and the hovels of the town for the sheriff to breathe clean air with the tang of the river and the countryside on it. The place that he suggested for the meeting was half a mile or so beyond his house, on a slight rise above the river where two tracks intersected. Arriving there first, Josse had to admire the choice; there was a stand of winter-bare oak trees with a thick undergrowth of bramble, holly and hazel to screen them from curious eyes, but they would have the advantage of being able to watch the tracks to see if anyone approached. Even if the killer was about and managed to follow Sabin out here, Josse thought, the man would hardly make a move against her when she had both de Gifford and Josse with her.

He waited.

Then, on the track leading out of the town, he saw two figures approaching. One was de Gifford — Josse recognised the horse before the rider — and the other. . he narrowed his eyes to make out the details — was a woman on a white horse. He remembered Sister Ursel’s description of a fair-haired, blue-eyed woman well dressed in a heavy, hooded cloak with good gloves, who rode ‘a pretty grey mare’.

He dismounted, tethered Horace and walked to the side of the track to greet her.

She was a very striking woman. She was dressed in good-quality but plain garments, which suggested to Josse that she was more concerned with comfort and practicality than fashion. The fair hair was tightly braided and in the main modestly concealed by a cap of stiff white linen. Seeing him as she and de Gifford rode up, she dismounted, handed her mare’s reins to de Gifford and strode towards Josse.

‘I am Sabin de Retz,’ she announced from a few paces off, ‘and you are Sir Josse d’Acquin.’

‘Yes, that is my name.’ He answered her in French; de Gifford, an educated man, would understand the language of the nobility even though he habitually used the common speech.

But it was in the latter language — heavily accented — in which she had first hailed him that she replied: ‘I am not French and it is not my mother tongue.’

‘You should keep your distance, my lady,’ he warned, ‘for I have of late been at Hawkenlye Vale, where-’

‘I know what is happening at Hawkenlye Vale,’ she interrupted, coming closer — he picked up a faint scent from her, one that, after a moment, he identified — ‘for I have seen both the dead and the fresh graves. I am not afraid and I will not insult you, Sir Josse, by standing off from you with a look of terror in my eyes, for it is how I am regarded here and I know how it affects the soul to be treated as a leper.’

‘You are courageous, lady,’ Josse murmured.

She gave a bitter laugh. ‘Am I?’

De Gifford had also dismounted and had tethered his and Sabin’s horses next to Horace. Now he came to stand beside Sabin.

She glanced at him. ‘You too brave the shunned, Sheriff?’ she asked.

De Gifford met her eyes. ‘I would not be shown up as a coward,’ he said simply. ‘There remains only one alternative.’

Josse said, aware of breaking an almost tangible thread of tension between de Gifford and Sabin, ‘I do not believe I present a danger, for I have been at the Vale for some days now and yet I remain well.’

‘Do not tempt the fates!’ de Gifford warned.

Sabin emitted a sound that sounded like pouff and was clearly expressive of scorn. ‘The fates have nothing to do with it,’ she said baldly. ‘The spread of sickness follows a set pattern; we have but to discover what that pattern is.’

‘But-’ de Gifford began.

Josse interrupted; they were not here to discuss such incomprehensible scientific mysteries. ‘You followed Nicol Romley from Troyes to England because you had to tell him that his life was in danger,’ he said bluntly to Sabin. ‘You went to see his former master, the Newenden apothecary Adam Morton, who said the lad had ridden over to Hawkenlye Abbey because he was unwell. It was some days before you managed to pursue him on to Hawkenlye, but when you did so you did not find him there either. You needed a place of safety in which to stay while you went on with your search and you settled on Robertsbridge Abbey, where you convinced the monk Stephen to lie if anyone came asking for you. You learned that Nicol has been murdered and then you decided to brave whatever danger pursues you and come up to the place where he was killed to discover what you can of how he died, why he was killed and who killed him.’

‘I know the reason why he was killed,’ Sabin said softly. ‘That, Sir Josse, is the one thing I can be sure of.’ But before Josse could ask what that reason was, she went on, ‘You are right in essence. We met Nicol-’

‘We?’ put in de Gifford.

‘Grandfather and I.’

‘The old man who is with you at the inn?’

She sighed. ‘Of course. His name is Benoit de Retz, the father of my late father. He and I were at the market in Troyes, where we had gone to buy — to buy things that were needed in our work. There we met Nicol and, since he was a lonely young man in a strange town, we befriended him. We shared a meal one night and we drank too much of the excellent wine they serve there. Grandfather wanted to impress Nicol and, his tongue loosened by the wine, he told Nicol something that should never have been told. Somebody was following Grandfather and me — someone who was aware that we possessed this dangerous knowledge — and, observing our friendship with Nicol, must have assumed, quite rightly, that the secret had been passed on to a third party. This someone set fire to our lodging house and it was only through chance that, other than some unpleasant symptoms resulting from breathing in the smoke, Grandfather and I were not harmed. The man who was after us must have believed us to be dead — which was not unreasonable since the lodging house was burned to the ground and they pulled out several bodies — and I guess that he set off after Nicol, the other person who knew the secret, to silence him too. When Grandfather was sufficiently recovered to travel, we too followed Nicol, but our intention was to warn him of the danger he was in.’ She hesitated. ‘Well, to speak honestly, it was also in my mind that Nicol would protect us.’