Alys Clare - Whiter than the Lily

And now that poor young woman — that pregnant young woman — was dead. It was, thought Helewise, all very sad.

It was a relief when Isabella was announced. She had brought her two children with her and Brice had escorted them all to the Abbey. She wished, however, to speak to Helewise alone and so Brice was going to take the children off down to the Vale to see Josse. Josse was about to return to New Winnowlands and now, Helewise thought, feeling pleased for him, he would have company on the road home because Isabella’s party had only come for a brief visit and would ride away with him.

The children had been brought in to be presented to Helewise. The handsome young son had nice manners, she thought, and she noticed in passing that Isabella’s daughter had her mother’s wide eyes, although their colour was different …

When the others had left the two women alone in the privacy of Helewise’s room, she turned to her guest and said, ‘Now, Isabella. What can I do for you?’

‘It is a question of what I can do for you , my lady Abbess,’ Isabella replied.

‘Indeed? Please, go on.’

‘I have been speaking to Ambrose about the woman who pretended to be Galiena,’ Isabella said. ‘I knew her. Fritha was also a child of the Saltwych community, as no doubt you realised, and she was closely related to Galiena. She was her half-sister, born to the same mother but by a different father.’

‘She resembled Galiena quite closely,’ Helewise said. ‘As you do too.’

Isabella smiled. ‘I am related by blood to Galiena but it is not such a close tie. She is my second cousin. There are few families at Saltwych and most of the people are distantly related. But, if I may return to the reason for my visit, it is to ask you whether you and your nuns have resolved the question of how Fritha died.’

‘I regret to say that we have not,’ Helewise admitted. Watching Isabella’s calm face, she decided not to mention the fact that the dead woman had been pregnant. If Isabella did not know — and it was difficult to see how she could have done — then there did not seem any need to tell her. ‘Poison was administered,’ she said, ‘of that my infirmarer is reasonably certain, for there seems no other way to explain Fritha’s terrible, fatal symptoms.’

‘There is another way,’ Isabella said quietly. ‘According to Ambrose, Fritha included in her impersonation of Galiena a session of massaging Galiena’s special cream into his hands?’

‘Yes, indeed she did.’

‘The ointment had a base made of hazelnut oil,’ Isabella said. ‘I know the recipe. It is one that I was taught as a girl and I showed Galiena how to make it.’

‘I see,’ Helewise said, although she was still mystified as to why Isabella had ridden over to tell her all this.

‘Only a very small number of us were taught to be healers,’ Isabella went on, ‘because our people believed that such skills are precious and not for the many. But those of us with the knowledge learned caution with the fruit of the hazel because, for a few people, the oil of the nut can act as if it were a poison.’

‘A hazelnut can kill?’ Helewise was incredulous.

‘Oh, indeed it can, my lady. The sensitivity appears to run in families.’

‘And you know of somebody related to Fritha who has this sensitivity?’

‘Yes. Her elder sister — her full sister, not a half-sister like Galiena — went gathering nuts when she was a young girl and, disobeying the instructions to bring her basket home without eating any of her harvest, she returned to Saltwych in a dreadful state. Her face was grossly swollen and the swelling seemed to extend down her throat, for she could hardly breathe.’

‘Did she die?’

‘No. The wise man has a small silver tube that he uses to blow the ritual incense into life on his brazier. He snatched it up, forced it down the child’s throat and it allowed her to take in breath until the swelling went down again.’

Helewise realised, to her shame, that she was surprised. She had dismissed these strange marshland people as backward and barbaric yet their healer — if that was what Isabella meant by wise man — had managed to save a life when all the skill and devotion of the Hawkenlye nursing nuns had failed.

It does not do, she thought sombrely, to be proud.

‘Thank you for telling me this,’ she said to Isabella after a moment. ‘It seems that you have solved for us the mystery of how she died. And, since it was by pure mischance, there is no necessity to search for her killer.’ Something occurred to her. ‘But surely this cream for Ambrose’s painful hands would not be something that Fritha would have eaten?’

Isabella smiled sadly. ‘It smells delicious, my lady. Appetising. Did you not remark on it?’

‘Oh — yes, I suppose I did.’

Still with the same smile, Isabella said, ‘Fritha would not be the first person to lick the residue off her fingers.’

Helewise told Josse later, when he came to take his leave of her. With a whistle of surprise, he said, ‘It would be wise, my lady, to mention this business of the nuts to Sister Euphemia and Sister Tiphaine.’

‘I have already done so,’ she said. ‘Sister Euphemia said she would bear it in mind. Sister Tiphaine said, oh, of course, and why hadn’t she thought of it?’

‘She already knew?’ he said.

‘So it seems. But then nothing surprises me any more about our herbalist.’

She went with him to the gate, where Isabella, Brice and the two children were patiently waiting for him. The children were laughing at something Brice had said and already, she thought, the four of them looked like a real family. She went up to them and said her farewells.

Then she went over to Josse. ‘Goodbye, my friend,’ she said to him. Then, on an impulse, ‘Be careful .’

As he swung up on to Horace’s broad back, he too was laughing.

She stood in their dust as the five of them rode away and out of sight. Then, smiling, she went back to her duties.

September 1193

Deep in the great forest, a solitary traveller had made a temporary camp. He had been living there for a little over two months and, although he knew he would have to move on soon, he was as yet undecided where to go.

Perhaps he would make his way north-west to Mona’s Isle.

His old life was finished and he could never go back. For one thing, there was no future in that place, not for him, not for any of them, or at least not for long. For another, he had given away too much of himself there and did not want the constant reminder of what was lost and could not be reclaimed.

As evening came down, he did as he often did and prepared a small fire. In its soft light, he poured water into a black iron pot and stared into its inky depths.

After a while, the pictures began to form.

He saw a young woman, tall, slim and very fair, walking in a garden. She was happy; she sang as she walked. She had placed a jug of water on a small pile of rocks and beside it there were flowers and a tallow lamp. She lit the wick and the lamp’s light shone out into the twilight. As the moon rose in the deep blue sky, softly the woman began to chant.

There was a bump in her belly, below the waistline of her closely fitting gown, and her breasts were swollen with early pregnancy.

Ah, she might have been raised in the ways and the beliefs of the new religion that came from the east, the man thought, but the blood of her people runs true in her veins. She remembers. She knows who has granted her this, her heart’s desire.

With a sigh of pleasure, he watched as Galiena gave thanks to the spirits whom she still honoured for their gift of new life.