Alys Clare - Heart of Ice

But the other woman is the Abbess, he told himself firmly. He opened his mouth to speak but Joanna got in first.

‘Of course I will come, Josse,’ she said.

He glanced back at Sister Tiphaine; the herbalist was no more that a vague dark shadow, some distance away. ‘Has she already asked you, then?’ he demanded. ‘She said not, she-’

‘No, Tiphaine has not spoken. I read it in your mind, dear Josse.’

‘You — is that the sort of thing they’ve been teaching you?’ Even to his own ears, he sounded like a shocked and prissy old woman.

Now she was laughing and, despite everything, he found himself joining in. It was impossible not to: she carried a joy in her that was irresistible. ‘Anyone could pick up what preoccupies you at the moment,’ she told him, ‘especially one who was aware of your deep love of the Abbess Helewise.’

‘I don’t-’ he began. But why deny it when it was true? Saying the first thing that came into his head, he asked, ‘Do you mind?’

‘That you love her? Josse, why should I?’ Joanna sounded genuinely puzzled.

Trying to set aside the bewildering swirl of emotions that the brief exchange had sparked off, Josse spun round, said, ‘Let’s be away to her, then,’ and stomped off out of the forest.

He was quite sure that he heard Joanna’s soft laughter behind him.

Marching along behind Josse’s broad shape — Sister Tiphaine was trotting at his side — Joanna tried to overcome her surprise at what the reunion with him had done to her. Ever since she had realised that the meeting was inevitable — Tiphaine had told her that the Abbess was dying and she had known Josse would come, sooner or later — she had been dreading it.

Now, most of her mind already thinking ahead and seeking out the Abbess’s spirit in order to try to call her back, Joanna reflected briefly that, while she had known she still loved him, she had never expected the surge of sheer happiness that his appearance in the clearing had given her.

But it was no time to think of herself or of him; she had a job to do and she knew it was going to be a tough one. Sending out a fleeting thought to Meggie — the child had been taken home to the hut by Lora, who would look after her until Joanna returned, whenever that might be — she turned her thoughts to what lay ahead.

They must have realised that she worked alone. The large nun with the kind eyes showed her to the recess at the end of the ward and then, with the curtain pulled behind her, it was just the Abbess and Joanna.

Joanna studied the statue-still figure lying on the narrow cot, taking in the visual signs. The prospect of bringing this woman back from where she now was seemed all but impossible; the Abbess was burning hot, deadly pale and the infrequent, shallow little breaths barely lifted the chest beneath the white sheet.

Joanna stood quite still and closed her eyes. She concentrated on her breathing, turning her full attention to each deep intake and outlet of air. She felt them come to her almost instantly, as if they knew her need and were just waiting for the chance to join her.

You are a channel , they had told her. You do not heal; healing is bestowed through you. It is we who heal . Who are we ? she had asked. We are the collective spirit of the people. We are the consciousness that was ancient even when the first stones were set up; the consciousness that awoke and greeted the first day. We are always here for those who seek us with the right mind; you have but to learn what that mind is and how to achieve it .

Joanna had spent a year doing just that. She was a rank beginner, she well knew it; a green sapling among mature, majestic oaks, birch and beech. She had undergone the exacting, alarming and sometimes downright painful initiations; she had experienced her first spirit journey. She had the supreme soul friend in the Domina and this was, Joanna was well aware, an important factor in having achieved the progress she had managed.

Now, standing in the recess where the Abbess lay dying, Joanna drew on all that she had been taught and sent out a silent cry to the spirits clustering around her to help her find the swiftly receding soul and try to bring it back.

She did not know how long she stood there; time as a phenomenon of the earth ceased once she had entered the trance state and walked with the spirits. Presently she saw that she was in a little hollow beside a stream; it was a lovely place, bright and shining with spring greenery and with the scent of growing things on the soft air. Helewise sat before her on a narrow strip of sandy shore that formed a beach by fast-rushing, shallow water.

Joanna sat down beside her.

‘Helewise,’ she said after a while, ‘you are on the brink of passing from this world on to another.’

‘Yes.’ Helewise sounded dazed. ‘I guessed that might be the case.’

‘Are you sure that you truly wish to go?’ Joanna kept her voice low, hypnotic; nothing in that dream-like place was loud or discordant.

Helewise considered. ‘I thought I saw Ivo waiting for me,’ she murmured. ‘This is where he and I first met. Where, not very long afterwards, my first son was conceived.’ She laughed, a sound of such happy remembered joy that it touched Joanna’s heart.

‘Will you go on to him now?’ she asked.

Helewise hesitated. ‘I — a part of me is so tired and in such distress that I long to lie in his arms again and find my comfort in him, as once I did.’

‘But?’ Joanna prompted. She knew there was a but; there usually was.

‘But I feel that my road in this earth-’ She stopped, turning puzzled eyes to Joanna. ‘ Are we still within this earth?’

Joanna smiled. ‘Our bodies certainly are. As for our spirits. .’ She shrugged.

Helewise appeared to accept that. ‘My road on earth goes on,’ she said simply. ‘I can see it sometimes if I try not to look, if you see what I mean.’

‘I do,’ Joanna assured her. ‘What is on your road? Can you see?’

Helewise broke into a lovely smile. ‘Oh, very many things! My son and his wife are there. . my grandson Timus. . Oh! And a baby girl too and she’s called Little Helewise! Isn’t that delightful? And. . yes, there’s my younger son and his skin is so deeply tanned — whatever has he been doing? There is a look about him that I. . And there’s- Oh! ’ The last vision, whatever it was, affected her very much.

‘What is it?’

But Helewise turned to her, still with that happy smile, and said, ‘I will not tell you, if you don’t mind.’

Joanna could have been mistaken but she thought there was a slight emphasis on you ; as if Helewise were saying, anyone else I might tell, but not you.

‘What is your decision?’ Joanna asked. ‘Will you go on or will you let me help you return?’

For a long time Helewise did not speak. She sat there smiling, face turned up to the sun so that brightness shone on her, from her; as if some wonderful, blessed light beamed down and she felt its power and its benevolence.

Eventually she said simply, ‘I would like to go back, please.’

Joanna swayed on her feet as the healing force of her people surged through her and out through her hands, extended over the Abbess, and into the dying body. The power came in waves; one at the start was so strong that she felt as if a great jolt had flowed through her, jerking her like a puppet dancing on its strings.

She heard them; sometimes she thought she could see them. They chanted — quietly, hypnotically, continuously — and they wore white. In their hands they held rods tipped with quartz that looked very like her own. But the mighty strength that came pulsing out from them was as far removed from anything she had yet achieved as a puddle is from an ocean.