Alys Clare - Heart of Ice

‘She was strong enough to be moved?’ The sudden sharp anxiety took him by surprise.

‘Oh, yes,’ Saul said, looking at him kindly. ‘She wouldn’t have been moved otherwise, don’t you worry. Four of us carried her well wrapped-up on a litter, Sir Josse, and she was that light, it fair amazed me!’

Josse found that he was temporarily unable to speak, so he merely nodded.

Saul, who obviously sensed his emotion, tactfully picked up the conversation. ‘Now you may well be wondering just what we’re going to do without this here old place.’ He waved a mallet in the direction of the fast-disappearing shelter. Josse, who had actually been wondering nothing of the sort, smiled. ‘Well, there was a thatcher came in with his son,’ Saul was explaining, ‘and he thought — everybody thought — that the lad would surely die. But he was saved, Sir Josse! The lady Abbess, she tended the boy herself and knelt there by his bedside with his poor desperate father, and God heard her prayers and the lad got better!’

‘It was indeed a miracle, Saul,’ Josse said solemnly.

‘The thatcher — his name’s Catt, and that’s him over there up on the roof hacking away at the supporting beams — well, Catt, he promised the Abbess that if God spared Pip — that’s his boy — then he’d put new roofs on any of the Abbey buildings as needed them. Since our roofs are in good repair’ — there was a note of pride in Saul’s voice, quite justified since he it was who did most of the repairing — ‘Catt said that instead he’d build us a new shelter. He says it’ll be the best shelter we’ve ever seen, although as young Gussie pointed out, since most of us have only got the old one to judge by that’s not saying a lot.’ Saul chuckled.

‘A good man, this Catt, so to honour his undertaking,’ Josse remarked.

‘Oh, aye, he’s that all right.’ Catt, it was clear, had impressed Brother Saul. ‘Pip’s up in the infirmary with the other convalescents, being as how he’s still very weak, and until he’s well enough to get up, Catt’s going to get some of us to work with him.’ Saul looked down at his sandals. ‘Thought I’d offer to help,’ he said bashfully. ‘Got some thanks of my own to give.’

Josse knew exactly what he meant.

He found the Abbess in a bed at the end of the infirmary. He thought she looked a little better; there was a very small amount of colour in her face. He went to sit beside her on the stool that Sister Euphemia had supplied for people visiting the infirmary’s most important patient.

‘Hello, Sir Josse,’ the Abbess said faintly. ‘What have you been up to?’

There was no need to mention the visit to Tonbridge and what he had found out unless she specifically asked. She must put all her energy into getting strong and it would not help her to fret about problematic situations that were now over and done with. ‘I’ve just come from the Vale,’ he said with perfect truthfulness. ‘They’re getting on well with demolishing the old shelter.’

‘Good,’ she said.

‘That fellow Catt is working like three men. No doubt he can’t wait to start on the new building.’

‘No doubt,’ she echoed.

‘The Abbey will gain something from this terrible episode, won’t it? The new shelter, I mean; it’s bound to be a great improvement on the old one.’

‘Oh, yes.’

I am tiring her, he realised. So, making himself as comfortable as he could, he patted her hand and then contented himself with sitting quietly at her side.

Presently she went to sleep.

The infirmarer came to check on her after a while. Josse discreetly moved out of the recess and quite soon Sister Euphemia came along the room to find him.

‘She is doing well, isn’t she?’

The infirmarer smiled. ‘She’s not doing too badly, Sir Josse. She’s just very, very weak and even speaking a few words tires her out.’

‘That’s what I thought.’

‘Yes, and it was considerate of you to sit there quietly, not making her talk to you. Even though she seemed to be asleep, she may well have been aware that you were there.’

‘I will be able to talk to her properly again, though, won’t I?’ The question burst from him before he could stop it and he was ashamed of himself; he sounded like a child frightened by the dark pleading for reassurance.

But the infirmarer understood. Taking hold of his hand, she squeezed it and simply said, ‘Yes.’

He went up to the Abbey church for Nones to pray with the community. They gave thanks, in simple but very affecting terms, for the cessation of the pestilence, for the recovering patients and, in particular, for their beloved Abbess’s life. Leaving the great building afterwards, Josse thought suddenly that somebody ought to go and thank Joanna.

I will, he decided.

He left the Abbey by the main gate, crossed the open ground between the track and the forest and was soon following the track that he knew led to her hut. He was not very confident of finding his way — it was a long time since he had been there — but he knew he must try. After several false trails, suddenly he had the impression that someone was guiding his steps for, every time there was a choice of tracks, he unerringly took one or another. And he seemed to know he was going in the right direction.

Soon he came to the clearing that he remembered. There was the small patch of neatly tended earth where she grew vegetables and herbs. Over there, carefully kept apart, was the special place for the plants which, touched or nibbled at by the unwary, would have effects that, far from curing the hurts and ills of animals or humans, would actually do the reverse.

The hut stood over to one side and it was quite difficult to make out; it was as if it had been deliberately camouflaged to keep it secret from curious eyes. He found that he could see it better if he did not look straight at it but observed it out of the corner of his eye.

Just as he was pondering on this strange fact he heard voices. A woman’s voice, then a child’s happy laugh. The last was such a happy, musical sound and it put him in mind of something. . or someone. .

Then, as if she had felt his presence, the door of the hut opened just enough to allow Joanna to emerge. She closed it carefully behind her and walked slowly across the clearing until she stood before Josse.

So many things flashed through his mind. But he had come for just one reason. ‘Thank you, Joanna,’ he said, ‘for saving the Abbess Helewise’s life.’

Joanna watched him steadily for some time. Then she said, ‘She was not ready to go on.’

‘Perhaps not, but she’d have gone, ready or not, had you not intervened. Your skill saved her, and-’

‘Not my skill alone,’ Joanna interrupted. She paused as if trying to decide whether or not to speak. Then she said, ‘Your magic jewel played its part.’

Completely taken aback, he said, ‘You used the Eye of Jerusalem?’ Somehow he had not expected that.

‘Yes. Tiphaine told me that some of the nuns had tried and so had you. They — I imagine they thought it was worthwhile allowing me to have a go.’

‘With success,’ he said.

‘It is an object of power,’ she said simply. ‘Very old, extremely potent.’

‘I was told that one day a female of my blood would use it and be the first person to extract its full potential,’ he said. ‘That was why I gave it to the Abbess; I was afraid to put such an alarming burden on the girl children of my brothers.’

‘It is not an alarming burden in the right hands,’ she said calmly. ‘It is likely that your instant reaction to keep it well away from your nieces means that theirs are not the right hands.’

‘No, there’s no magic in my family!’ He spoke lightly, trying to alleviate the growing gravity that he sensed in the mood between them.