Alys Clare - Heart of Ice

‘A lad?’

‘Yes. The boy’s apprenticed to an apothecary in Newenden.’

‘And this apothecary imports foreign ingredients?’

‘Yes. It sounds as if he’s both a practitioner and a merchant.’

‘And therefore could very well have prepared a remedy containing myrrh,’ Josse concluded. ‘Newenden,’ he said slowly. Then, looking at de Gifford, he said eagerly, ‘We could be there in a few hours. New Winnowlands is close by and we could put up there overnight and ride back to Hawkenlye in the morning. What do you say?’

De Gifford grinned. ‘I say yes! Ride on, Josse, I’m right behind you.’

At Hawkenlye Abbey, two travellers arrived in the Vale dragging a dilapidated hand cart on which lay a middle-aged man, a boy of about ten years old and twin babies of perhaps eight or ten months. The men — one of them was little more than a boy — said they had come up from north of Hastings. Both of them were exhausted and the lad was near to tears. The older man collapsed on the ground, head in his hands, temporarily speechless; the lad was too distressed to relax.

Brother Firmin took the boy’s arm and gently invited him to go into the pilgrim’s shelter and warm himself, but he shook off the old monk’s solicitous hand and cried, ‘Me mam’s dead! Me dad too, and me gran and me auntie’s ma! He’ — he indicated with a thumb the older man who had arrived with him — ‘he’s me mam’s brother, and them on the cart, they’re me brother, me dad’s brother and his two little ’uns.’ Turning beseeching eyes on to Brother Firmin, he said, ‘Can you save them, Brother? We’ve come all this way to find you and we’re desperate.’

Brother Firmin looked horrified — he had been a healer for long enough to know what four deaths and four sick people all at once probably meant — but swiftly he disguised his fear and set about trying to help the stricken family. Summoning Brother Saul and Brother Adrian, he sent the former to seek out the infirmarer and the latter to organise a working party and prepare accommodation there in the Vale for the lad and his uncle.

While he waited for Sister Euphemia, Brother Firmin approached the cart. He saw immediately that the middle-aged man was in a bad way; he was shivering and trying to clutch the thin blanket closer to him, yet he was soaked in his own sweat and his face felt hot to the touch. His shirt was open at the neck and Brother Firmin could see that the great blotches of dark pink extended down from the face over the chest. Brother Firmin got a phial of holy water out of the pouch at his belt — he always carried some of the precious water about him — and said gently, ‘Will you take a sip of our precious water, friend? It is powerful strong and it will aid you.’

The man’s eyes flickered open for an instant — Brother Firmin noticed that the flesh inside the lids was severely inflamed — but then, with a groan, shut his eyes again and tried to turn away.

Brother Firmin looked at the others on the cart. The young boy was stirring and, when the old monk offered water to him, he accepted it and drank it down as fast as Brother Firmin could tip it into his parched mouth. ‘There,’ the old man said with a kindly smile, ‘that will put you right. You’ll see!’

Then he uncovered the two babies. To his distress he noticed that one was already stiff; the infant’s bowels seemed to have ejected more than such a tiny body could possibly have held and its faeces were watery and streaked with blood and mucus. Brother Firmin looked at the other baby, which was crying weakly and pitifully; with a practised hand he let a couple of drops of holy water fall on the infant’s lips, at which it instantly put out its tongue and licked them off. Brother Firmin smiled and repeated the process once, twice, three times, each time encouraging the infant to accept a little more. Then he said softly, ‘That’s enough for now, my little one.’

Taking care to leave the living child wrapped up, he extracted its dead twin. Then, covering the tiny face with a fold of the baby’s thin shawl, he began to pray.

Brother Firmin knew what the church had to say about unbaptised infants not being permitted into the presence of God. It was perfectly possible that the dead child in his arms had been baptised already but it did not do to take any chances; putting his heart into his prayer, Brother Firmin stood on the cold ground and said the words that brought both the dead baby and its twin into the blessed family of God. He put a couple of drops of holy water on to his thumb and drew the sign of the cross on both tiny foreheads.

There, he thought. Now they’ll be all right.

Then he found a quiet corner in which to place the dead baby and went back to see what he could do for the living.

Josse and de Gifford reached Newenden as the light was beginning to fade. The cold weather was keeping most people indoors but de Gifford spotted a man hastening off along the main street with a puppy under his arm and called out to him, asking if he knew where the apothecary might be found.

‘You’re wanting Adam Pinchsniff?’ the man replied, shifting the wriggling puppy to the other arm and, when it snapped playfully at his fingers, giving it a smart tap on the nose.

‘If that is the name of the apothecary, then yes, I am,’ de Gifford said.

The man eyed both de Gifford and Josse. ‘Hope you’ve brought full purses with you,’ he said with a grin. ‘Follow this road down till you see the river appear in the valley before you, then turn sharp left past the church and it’s the third house on the left. The one with the fresh plaster,’ he added, his grin widening. ‘He’s no pauper, old Adam.’

De Gifford thanked him and set off in the direction the man had indicated, Josse close behind. The house with the fresh plaster stood out clearly from its shabbier neighbours and the men would have known it even without the traditional apothecary’s sign hanging above the door. The front wall of the house extended into a lower wall and Josse, curious, went to have a look. The wall enclosed what was apparently the apothecary’s garden, a neat quarter-acre of carefully tended ground which, although winter-bare, showed clear signs that every inch was put to good use. Low box hedges divided the beds, in most of which the soil had been recently dug over. Trees and shrubs formed a dense barrier at the bottom of the garden and Josse was quite sure that every last one of them grew or produced some lucrative plant drug that could be used alone or blended into some popular remedy.

De Gifford had dismounted and was knocking on the door which, Josse observed, was considerably more substantial than that of the Tonbridge herbalist and made of oak studded with iron. Well, if the man were wealthy, then it made good sense to lock himself up carefully at night. .

Josse slid off Horace’s back, wincing a little; he and de Gifford had ridden hard and Josse’s lower back was complaining. He was just wondering how much this Adam Pinchsniff might charge him for some soothing liniment when abruptly the oak door was flung open, revealing a man perhaps in his sixties wearing a luxurious black velvet robe lined with fur. His long hair was white, as was his beard, and smoothly combed; on his head he wore a cap of similar design to his Tonbridge fellow-practitioner, except that Adam Pinchsniff’s was made of deep maroon silk and, as far as Josse could see, spotlessly clean.

‘Yes?’ he demanded, eyeing de Gifford up and down.

For the second time that day the sheriff introduced Josse and himself. Then — for Adam Pinchsniff was clearly a man of a very different quality from the Tonbridge herbalist — he proceeded swiftly and without prevarication to the reason for the visit.