Alys Clare: Heart of Ice

The infirmarer exchanged a look with the Abbess. Neither spoke for a moment; then the Abbess said, ‘Come with me, please, Sir Josse. I will show you the dead man’s clothing and his pouch. They are back in my room.’

Increasingly mystified, Josse followed her out of the infirmary.

‘Here,’ she said, picking up a dark bundle from the floor and depositing it on her table, ‘are his garments. Sister Euphemia has been drying them by the fire but they are still a little damp.’

Josse inspected the hose, the tunic, the undershirt and the cloak. The items were cheap; the linen shirt was of poor quality and the underarm seams had split. Its hem, he noticed, was stained. Both the hose and the shirt smelled unpleasant.

‘He suffered a flux of the bowels,’ the Abbess said. ‘Despite his immersion in the lake, the odour is still detectable.’

Josse nodded. He was looking at the cloak — it was of heavy wool and, he thought, would have dragged the body down as it soaked up water — and unpleasant images were filling his mind of dark water and a sheen of ice forming. But, he reassured himself, the poor lad would have known nothing about all that, not with such a frightful wound. He’d have been dead before he hit the ground.

‘There is also this.’ Josse looked up to see that the Abbess was holding out a leather pouch. ‘It was attached to his belt and it, too, we have dried as best we could.’

Josse took it from her. ‘Is there anything inside it?’

‘See for yourself.’ She sounded unlike herself, Josse thought; she was distant, almost aloof. .

He turned his attention to the pouch. There was a small pocket sewn inside and it looked as if someone had searched it with a rough hand, for the stitching had been torn. Had robbery been the motive for this death, then? Josse put his hand right down inside the pocket and his fingers touched something hard, cold and round. More than one thing; extracting what he had found, Josse looked down on five heavy coins.

‘If he was killed for the contents of his pouch, then the assailant did not make a very thorough search,’ he said. ‘See, my lady? These coins were tucked away right at the bottom of the pouch’s pocket.’

She looked. ‘I see.’

Josse put his hand back inside the pouch. There was something else. . it was cold and slightly damp and felt like a little bag made of waxed cloth. Carefully drawing it out, he put it down on the Abbess’s table.

‘What’s this?’ he asked, not really expecting an answer; the Abbess’s strange mood was worrying him.

She leaned close to him, studying the bag. She sniffed then, bending down so that her nose was right over the bag, sniffed again. ‘I believe,’ she said slowly, ‘it may be a potion. A remedy.’ Eyes on Josse’s — and for the first time she began to look like herself — she added, ‘I’ve smelt this stuff, whatever it is, before; I’m sure I have.’ She frowned. ‘It’s used for. .’ Giving up, she shrugged, smiling at him. ‘I don’t know. Come on!’

He turned to watch her as she scooped up the little bag and strode out of the room. ‘Where are we going?’

The Abbess did not answer but then she didn’t really need to because Josse had guessed. Pacing along behind her — she was almost running — he followed her along the path that led round in front of the Abbey church and along inside the wall to the herb garden where, cosy in her small and fragrant little hut, the herbalist was sitting peacefully tying bunches of dried rosemary.

The herbalist got to her feet and bowed to the Abbess, giving Josse a quick smile and what could have been a wink. Barely pausing to acknowledge the greeting, the Abbess thrust the small bag at Sister Tiphaine and said, ‘Can you tell us what this is?’

Sister Tiphaine took the bag in careful hands and went to stand outside the hut, so that the full daylight fell on to it. She did as the Abbess had done and sniffed at it several times. Then she pinched one corner of the bag between finger and thumb and sniffed again.

‘Smells of lemon balm and vervain,’ she observed. ‘That’s interesting. .’ Glancing up at the Abbess, she said, ‘May I open it?’

‘Yes.’

The herbalist spread a clean piece of linen on her work bench and then took up a small knife and sliced through the string that held the neck of the bag closed; the string, Josse had noticed, was suffering from its time under water and appeared to have shrunk, making the knot quite impossible to untie. Then Sister Tiphaine gently shook the bag’s contents on to the piece of linen, picking them over and inspecting each item.

After quite a long time — Josse could sense the Abbess restraining her impatience — Sister Tiphaine spoke. ‘This is a remedy,’ she announced.

‘That much we have already surmised. What is it for?’ demanded the Abbess.

‘There is a mixture of herbs here,’ Sister Tiphaine replied. ‘They are used to treat a variety of symptoms.’

‘Well?’

If Sister Tiphaine had also noted the Abbess’s unusual asperity, she gave no sign. Calmly she began to list the ingredients in the bag and to describe the sickness that they treated.

‘Lemon balm, that calms and helps soothe a headache. There’s yarrow, that’s for flux of the bowels.’

‘Yes, yes, we know full well he suffered from that.’

With a quick glance at the Abbess, the herbalist continued. ‘There’s wormwood; now that’s good for treating gripes in the belly and they do say it brings down a fever, although me, I find the bitter taste puts folks off swallowing it down. Rue, now, that’ll help calm a headache, as will this’ — she held up a tiny stem of some withered plant — ‘which is wild marjoram. And here’s a piece of mandrake; expensive, that is, and it’s hardly surprising given how folks fear it and don’t dare handle it.’

‘So this remedy is for the flux, fever and headache?’ The Abbess, Josse thought, was trying to hurry the herbalist along.

But Sister Tiphaine would not be hurried. ‘Hmm,’ she murmured, still picking over the bag’s contents. ‘Here’s water mint and peppermint — both for the bowels — and quince; now that’s normally saved for when the bowel leaks blood. And here’s henbane; that’s a strong remedy and few use it.’

‘What does it do?’ Josse asked.

‘It eases pain, although take too much and you’ll never feel pain again.’

As she spoke the herbalist was deftly dividing the little sack’s contents into two piles, one containing those items that she had already identified and described, one containing nothing except some small, shrivelled flower heads, some withered leaves and some coarse grains of a bronze-coloured substance.

‘What are those?’ the Abbess asked.

‘The granules are ground resin of myrrh. It relieves pain, especially in the muscles and in the stomach. These flowers are marigolds and these’ — she pointed to the cracked, crumbling leaves — ‘are vervain. The vervain is unusual because it’s a magical remedy and I am surprised to find it included in this potion.’

‘Magical?’ the Abbess and Josse said together.

‘Aye. Folks say it has the power to protect a fighting man. Also lads and lassies put it in love potions.’

‘What is it doing here?’

‘I cannot say, my lady, other than to tell you that it is said to have another purpose. As do the marigolds.’ Sister Tiphaine frowned, almost as if she was reluctant to go on.

‘What purpose?’ the Abbess’s voice was barely above a whisper.

The herbalist looked up, first at the Abbess and then at Josse. Then she said, ‘Both are said to ward off the foreign pestilence that folks call the plague.’

‘Plague?’ Josse’s horrified cry seemed to echo in the small room. Turning to the Abbess, he said, ‘My lady, there is no time to waste, we must-’