Alys Clare - Heart of Ice

The cumulative emotional shocks of the recent past seemed to gather themselves together and rush at him. He felt Joanna’s compassion wrap around him like a warm, soft blanket. It was the easiest thing in the world to drop his head into her lap and weep.

Later, lying side by side beneath the covers up on the sleeping platform, he said, ‘Joanna, this is what I suggest. I will return to my life at New Winnowlands’ — such as it is, he almost added — ‘and you, naturally, will pursue the path that has been set for you, developing your healing skills and guiding Meggie’s steps along her own destined path. I trust you to protect her and do your best for her; I do not think you would allow any harm to come to her.’

‘I won’t,’ Joanna said quickly.

‘With your permission, I will visit you here from time to time. If you are away or do not want to see me, then I’m quite sure you will find a way to ensure that I do not find you.’

It sounded hard and she must have thought so too. ‘I would only do that if there were some pressing reason,’ she replied. ‘There are certain times of the year when we-’

‘Don’t tell me,’ he said swiftly. He did not think he could bear to know the details of this strange other life that Joanna lived and into which his only child had been born.

‘Very well.’ She hesitated. ‘It is — beneficial, Josse. The power is frightening sometimes but nobody is made to handle it before they are ready.’

‘A sixteen-month-old child may wield a magical healing stone, however.’

It was unkind and he immediately regretted it. But she said evenly, ‘Meggie is a special case.’ Then, quickly: ‘But you have my word that I will never allow her to do anything that I believe to be beyond her.’

And with that, he realised, he would have to be satisfied.

They lay in each other’s arms. He very much wanted to make love to her — of course he did — but his child lay beside him and it did not seem right. Eventually he slept.

He left her early in the morning while Meggie was still asleep. Quickly, with no words of farewell and no turning back. He hurried through the forest, just waking to the first light of the new day, and was back at the Abbey in time for Prime.

Then he went straight to the infirmary and took his seat on the stool by the Abbess’s bed. She was asleep but that was where he needed to be.

When she’s better I’ll tell her, he resolved. I’ll tell her that when we were first thrown together, Joanna and I were lovers and that she conceived my child. I’ll describe Meggie to her and I’ll tell her how beautiful my daughter is. I might even tell her that it was Meggie’s strange power that made the Eye of Jerusalem work as it was intended to.

He watched the Abbess’s sleeping face. With only the simple cap in place of her coif and veil, she looked like any other woman and it was sometimes quite difficult to recall that she was far from being that.

Joanna.

Helewise.

Meggie.

On the other hand, he thought with a grin, maybe I won’t tell her anything at all.

Hawkenlye Abbey 27th March 1194

The King was back.

News came quite quickly to the Abbey because Josse had been involved in the triumphal receptions prepared for Richard at Rochester and Canterbury, culminating in the state entry into London on 23rd March.

Knowing that everyone within and on the fringes of the Hawkenlye community would be avid to know the latest news, Josse made sure to make frequent return visits to the Abbey. The King, he reported, looked fit and well; Queen Eleanor looked happy but very tired. Along every mile of the King’s progression from Sandwich, where his party had landed on 12th March, people lined the streets and cheered; it was a fine display of wholehearted welcome for a returning monarch.

But, as Josse confided in the Abbess, now sitting up in bed and quite clearly desperate to be allowed up, the joyful celebratory mood had not in truth come about spontaneously. It had been a major part of Josse’s job — and that of his companions also summoned to assist in the arrangements for the homecoming — to whip up a bit of enthusiasm in a cynical population among whom the prevailing mood was resentment at the terrible privations forced upon them by the ransom demands.

However, a king was a king and a magnificient, colourful spectacle had its own way of raising the spirits. Cheering was apparently even more infectious than the foreign pestilence that had so recently devastated Hawkenlye and, in the end, Josse was quite sure that King Richard must have believed his people were overjoyed to see him back and reckoned the unbelievably high price they had had to pay for him was money well spent.

On the night of 23rd March, Josse arrived at the Abbey with incredible news. The King and his mother were to embark on a round of visits to abbeys where there would be services of appreciation for Richard’s safe return and where the King would take the opportunity of thanking the religious communities that had prayed so hard for his delivery. He was to visit St Albans, Bury St Edmunds and. . Hawkenlye.

Josse had half-feared to deliver the announcement since he was worried by what such anxious excitement would do to the convalescent Abbess. But he had reckoned without her calm confidence; on expressing the careful sentiment that she must be sure not to overtire herself, she said, ‘Sir Josse, Hawkenlye Abbey has entertained royalty before. Queen Eleanor has been a frequent visitor and, as I am quite sure you will recall, Prince John also stayed with us not so many years ago. We shall do our best to make the King welcome and that will have to suffice.’

Her recent close brush with death, he reflected ruefully, seemed to have increased her serenity; as the day of the visit approached, he wished he had her steely nerves.

The morning of 27th March dawned bright and dry. The Abbey looked as if every inch had been scrubbed, buffed and polished. The new building in the Vale was completed just in time; Catt had done a magnificent job. It was a long, low building, simply but stoutly made, and Catt had been meticulous in the details so that the room was well insulated and would be practical and easy to keep clean. He had finished it off with straw thatch; the roof was a joy to behold.

Many of those who had been cured of the sickness either remained at or came back to the Abbey to attend the great service of thanksgiving. The King might not know they’d had a narrow escape, they reasoned, and he might be under the impression that the thanks were for his release. But it didn’t matter, the people reasoned, because they knew and — much more importantly — so did God that they were really giving thanks for their own deliverance.

Some families had been torn apart by the sickness, but, as compensation, in some cases new families had been formed. A strong young woman who had brought in and lost her father adopted an orphaned child and a crippled boy. A young merchant took pity on a widowed bride and promised to take care of her. When Waldo was eventually able to take his little brother and his baby niece back home to the house in Hastings, Catt had undertaken to make sure the children got safely home. And Catt himself appeared to cast rather a lot of glances in the direction of the strong young woman. .

Nobody, it seemed, would be able to forget the brush with death; those who survived would perhaps find life the sweeter for having come close to losing it.

The arrival of the King was a moment that none who witnessed it ever forgot. He was magnificently dressed in white trimmed with scarlet and rode a fine black horse. Queen Eleanor, veiled against the dust of the roads, wore a dark cloak over a gown as golden as summer sunshine. Mother and son alike glittered with fine jewels; it was as if the King were stating plainly that he might have suffered the ignominy of imprisonment but look, everyone, here he was as strong, splendid, regal and rich as ever.