Heart of Ice (12 page)

     Helewise debated with herself. Magic jewels are a relic of heathen, pagan times, she thought, and we should have no use for them, trusting only in the merciful, healing love of God and his precious son.

     But here you are, another part of her instantly replied, kneeling before God’s altar, and what happens? A memory of that jewel of Josse’s pops into your head, for all the world as if God himself were prompting you! And did you not see fit to let Sister Euphemia try it out – successfully – when there was that outbreak of fever a year ago last autumn?

     To and fro the argument went until Helewise felt quite distraught. Then, as if a cool hand were smoothing her brow, she had the sudden thought: I’ll ask Josse. It is his jewel, so that will only be right. And if, as I’m sure that he will, he gives his permission, the thought went on – it seemed to have a life and a purpose all of its own – then I shall authorise that the treasure be used.

     And we shall see, she concluded as, stiffly and with aching knees, she got to her feet, whether Josse’s Eye of Jerusalem is really as powerful as we have been led to believe.

Chapter 6

Helewise did not know, when she awoke in the morning, that part of her desperate prayer had already been answered: Josse had arrived back in the Vale the previous evening, soon after the monks had settled for the night.

     He presented himself in her room in the usually quiet time between Prime and Tierce and she had rarely been as glad to see anybody.

     ‘What news?’ she demanded, forgetting in her haste to greet him.

     ‘Some; not much,’ he replied, ‘although I believe that I begin to see a pattern in what was hitherto a mystery. My lady, unless there are matters about which you wish to speak with me, then, with your leave, I would set out what I see as a possible version of events.’

     ‘Yes, yes, do!’ she urged. Then, reminding herself that the poor man had been in the saddle for much of the past two days, she restrained her impatience and added more gently, ‘If you would, please, Sir Josse.’

     His swift grin, there and gone in a flash, suggested he wasn’t convinced by her belated show of good manners. Then he said, ‘The foreign pestilence came to England with the Hastings merchant, Martin Kelsey, who had been on business in Paris and caught the sickness when he tended a dying beggar in Boulogne. Kelsey travelled back to Hastings on a ship called the
Angel of Mercy
in the company of the apothecary’s apprentice, Nicol Romley, who had been to the great market at Troyes buying supplies for his master. Someone followed the men on board the
Angel
, although employing such secrecy that nobody except an observant sailor spotted him. Kelsey went home and shortly afterwards fell sick; his spinster sister baulked at nursing him and delegated the task to her maidservant. Kelsey died and, with a cruel opportunism, that same night someone broke into the house and stole a few trinkets. The maidservant fell ill and went home to her family, whose surviving members are even now recovering here at Hawkenlye. Or so I pray?’ He looked at her with raised eyebrows.

     ‘The boy and the baby girl are better,’ she confirmed. ‘The simple uncle died yesterday.’

     ‘Ah.’ He muttered something under his breath; probably, she thought, a blessing on the poor man’s soul.

     ‘Go on,’ she said when she could no longer endure the wait; a matter of all of four heartbeats.

     ‘Nicol Romley fell ill soon after returning to Newenden,’ Josse said, ‘but there’s something else: the lad was mortally afraid that somebody was following him.’

     ‘You mean—’ she began, but stopped herself; Josse would tell his tale more succinctly and swiftly if she refrained from interrupting him.

     With a quick nod, as if he understood her thought, Josse went on, ‘Nicol’s master tried to treat him but failed and instead sent the lad off to Hawkenlye. He got as far as the Vale, but then someone attacked and killed him. It’s unlikely that this was a simple case of robbery because, although it appeared that Nicol’s purse had been searched, the coins hidden at the bottom of it were still there when he was found.’

     He waited to see if she wanted to comment but she shook her head.

     ‘So, my lady,’ he concluded, ‘a virulent and deadly pestilence has come by evil chance to our land. At the same time, some unknown assailant whose purpose we cannot begin to guess follows a young man home from France and kills him.’ With a helpless shrug, he said, ‘Would you care to propose a likely explanation?’

     ‘Not yet,’ she replied with a small smile. ‘Although one or two things occur to me  . . .’

     ‘Let’s hear them!’

     ‘Well, I am thinking about those coins that were overlooked in the apothecary’s purse. It seems that there is a similarity between this and the few trinkets stolen from the merchant’s house.’

     ‘Aye, that had crossed my mind too. In addition, the merchant’s sister’s best guess was that he died in the small hours, and she claimed that the ransacking of the house took place between the time that her brother died and when she found his body soon after daybreak.’

     ‘The house was ransacked?’ Helewise asked. ‘Did the sister not hear any sound?’

     ‘Apparently not, but I have an idea that she may have exaggerated the offence; my guess is that the intruder broke in, quietly looked into one or two rooms and, finding a dead man in one of them, took advantage of his good fortune and made a quick search, taking anything that caught his fancy and was small enough to carry away.’

     ‘Supposing,’ she said slowly, ‘good fortune had nothing to do with it?’

     ‘You mean—’ He stopped, had a think and then, as he realised exactly what she meant, said, ‘My lady, I had got as far as wondering if our mystery assailant had been watching Martin Kelsey’s house and, guessing that it would be an easy matter to search the house of a dying man, took his chance and by coincidence chose for his intrusion the very night that Kelsey died. But you, if I hear you aright, would go one step further?’

     ‘I am thinking,’ she said, ‘that, for some reason, the man who slipped aboard the
Angel of Mercy
has need of total secrecy for his mission in England, whatever it is. Therefore he had to make sure that the two men who might have seen him – the merchant and the apothecary’s apprentice – could not live to give testimony to the fact of his having made the crossing from France to England. So he broke into the merchant’s house, put a pillow over his face and then, to make his crime look like theft and not murder, he picked up one or two items and made off with them.’ Leaning forward, she said eagerly, ‘It was to his advantage that the merchant was so ill! Why, the killer may not even have known that Martin Kelsey
had
the sickness! If he was still in the vicinity in the morning, he would have been amazed at his good luck when it was assumed that the merchant had died of the pestilence and not by another’s hand.’

     ‘Martin Kelsey died first,’ Josse said. ‘It is possible, my lady, that, having smothered the poor man, the assailant then hurried off to Newenden to hunt down the other passenger from the
Angel
.’

     ‘And Nicol Romley, already perhaps feeling the first symptoms of the sickness, also realised that somebody was haunting his footsteps. Then he set off for Hawkenlye, the assailant picked up his trail and followed him  . . .’

     ‘And slayed him right here in our Vale!’ Josse finished triumphantly.

     For a moment they stared at each other, sharing the pleasure at having come up with a possible explanation.

     But then Josse began to shake his head. ‘Oh, no. It won’t do, my lady.’

     ‘Why not?’ she demanded; she was not ready to see the tidy theory dismissed out of hand, even if he was.

     ‘Because we’re forgetting the captain and crew of the
Angel of Mercy
,’ he said dolefully. ‘If our hypothetical killer took such trouble to eliminate Martin Kelsey and Nicol Romley, why did he allow the seamen to live?’

     She frowned, chewing her lip. ‘Unless he was quite convinced that none of them had seen him, then because . . .’ she began. But it was no use: she could not think of a reason. Undaunted, however, she said, ‘Sir Josse, I am sure that we have stumbled on the truth behind this matter, albeit not the complete truth. Do not let us abandon the entire picture for want of one or two small details!’

     ‘Very well,’ he agreed. ‘Ignoring the small detail of the crew’ – he laid a slight ironic emphasis on the word
small
– ‘then perhaps we should proceed to speculate on what this killer’s mission in England might be and why he is driven to take such pains to conceal his presence here.’

     ‘Oh!’ she exclaimed, aghast at the magnitude of the task. Then, with a rueful grimace, ‘Where do we start?’

Both Helewise and Josse concluded quite soon that trying to guess what an assailant’s purpose might be in coming in such secrecy to England was about as likely as guessing the number of grains of sand on a beach; with relief, they abandoned their speculation.

     Helewise, who had been uneasily awaiting an opportunity, said tentatively, ‘Sir Josse, there is another matter about which I must speak to you.’

     ‘Please do, my lady.’

     She looked down at her hands and then, after a pause, said, ‘Two sick men arrived yesterday, one of whom is close to death. Later a young woman arrived with her little girl, who was already dead. Now the mother sickens and’ – she controlled the urge to sob – ‘Brother Firmin has a fever.’

     ‘Old Brother Firmin? Oh,’ Josse cried, ‘but I spent the night in the Vale! Why did they not tell me? I must go to him!’ He made a move towards the door, abruptly curtailed. ‘Or perhaps not?’ He turned back to face her.

     ‘Sir Josse, we all wish to tend those whom we love who fall sick,’ she said softly. ‘But Sister Euphemia has ordered that we must not do so.’

     ‘For fear of spreading the affliction,’ he murmured.

     ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘Two of the nursing sisters have already volunteered to work with Sister Euphemia in the temporary infirmary that she has set up in the Vale. She has undertaken to ask when she needs more help.’

     I said
when
, she realised. Not
if
.

     Josse must have noticed too. ‘There will be more sick and dying making their way to us, my lady?’ he asked gruffly.

     ‘I fear so.’ Rather than allow either of them to dwell on that terrifying prospect, she hurried on. ‘That is why I must make this request of you, my friend. May we have your permission to remove the Eye of Jerusalem from its hiding place and use it?’

     His expression would have made her laugh had the circumstances been less deadly. ‘The Eye?’ he echoed. ‘Oh, no, my lady Abbess! I gave it to you in the earnest hope of never having to catch sight of it again, for I fear it and would have no dealings with it!’

     ‘People are dying, Josse,’ she said quietly. ‘May we not even try to use this – this thing that has found its way to us?’

     ‘
You
may!’ he shouted, driven to discourtesy by the strong emotion. ‘You and your nuns may do whatever you like with it, only do not ask
me
to use it!’

     ‘I do not do so,’ she said, in the same soft tone. ‘I propose to give it to Sister Euphemia and see what she can make of it, and then to Sister Tiphaine, to see if she might be able to use it to make a febrifuge.’

     Josse was already contrite. ‘My lady, I apologise for my rudeness,’ he said, ‘but you may recall why it is that I fear the Eye?’

     ‘Oh, yes I do,’ she agreed. ‘You shun it because you were told that it would be used by one of your female descendants, someome who would possess strange power, and you would not put this burden upon the girl children of your brothers.’

     ‘The progeny of my brothers are the only descendants that I have!’ Josse said. ‘The little girls are but children, my lady; I cannot make them take on this dreadful burden!’

     ‘No, of course not.’ She tried to soothe him, but it was difficult to sound adequately sincere when her mind was so preoccupied with another thought . . . Pulling her mind away from that thought – not without effort, for it was something that had nagged at her and intrigued her for eighteen months or more – she said, ‘Sir Josse, what I ask is simply that you allow my nuns the opportunity to work with the Eye and see whether it can come to our aid in our desperate need. You told me that the Eye will only put out its powers for its rightful owner’ – oh, how can I speak in this way, she cried silently, I who have put my trust and my life into God’s hands and have no use for superstition! – ‘and my hope is that, if you lend it to us willingly and in good faith, then perhaps the question of rightful ownership may be overcome.’