Heart of Ice (22 page)

     ‘I am not sure, Gussie,’ he said carefully, ‘that God really wants monks who enter the religious life as part of a bargain. Are you quite sure it’s what you want? What’s right for you and for God?’

     There was a long silence. Then Augustus said miserably, ‘No, Sir Josse. I’m not sure at all.’

     ‘Speak to God, then,’ Josse said. ‘Tell him of your doubts.’

     ‘But if I withdraw my offer then Brother Firmin will die!’ wailed Augustus.

     ‘He may well die anyway,’ Josse said. ‘But whether he lives or dies, I do not believe it will have anything to do with your offer, Gus. I don’t think God works that way.’

     Augustus turned reddened eyes to look at him. ‘Don’t you?’

     ‘No,’ Josse said firmly. ‘Tell you what, Gus – we’ll ride along without talking for a while and you have a bit of a prayer. Tell God how you’re feeling, how much you want to save Brother Firmin but how you’re not sure that offering to become a monk is the right thing for you after all.’

     ‘But how can we pray?’ Augustus looked worried. ‘We’re not in church.’

     Josse gave a shout of laughter. ‘Sorry, lad, but I couldn’t help it,’ he said; Augustus was looking horrified. ‘You don’t have to be in church to pray, Gus. If you’re sincere, which you are, and if you put your heart into your prayers, which I know you will, then I reckon God can hear you wherever you are.’

     Augustus eyed him doubtfully for a few moments. Then he closed his eyes and Josse heard him muttering under his breath. Resigning himself to a long period of silence, Josse clicked his tongue to Horace and steered the big horse in front of Augustus, mounted on the Abbey cob; it would not help the poor lad if his horse decided to wander off the track and into danger while Gus had his eyes shut, and the cob was more likely to keep to the path with Horace leading the way.

     Quite a long time later, with Augustus still praying, they rode into Newenden.

Josse had been noticing that whenever they passed through any inhabited areas, from villages and hamlets down to lonely farms or solitary hovels, those who dwelt there dashed inside and slammed their doors. This road, he told himself, is the route of the pestilence: it went from Hastings to Newenden and from Newenden to Hawkenlye. No wonder the people barricade themselves in against passers-by; they are terrified of infection.

     Newenden was deserted. Augustus, open-eyed now and looking considerably more cheerful, remarked on the lack of people.

     Josse told him why the place was empty.

     ‘Oh, aye, of course.’ The boy nodded. ‘Will this apothecary we’ve come to see open up and talk to us?’

     Josse had been wondering the same thing. ‘I hope so,’ he grunted.

     He rode along the street to the apothecary’s house. Dismounting, he handed Horace’s reins to Augustus and banged on Adam Morton’s door.

     There was no answer and so he banged again, more loudly, this time calling out, ‘Master Morton, I would speak with you! It is Josse d’Acquin and I have ridden from Hawkenlye Abbey.’

     Even as he spoke the words he realised his mistake: Adam Morton would no longer be the only man in Newenden to know there was pestilence at Hawkenlye, even though he had probably been the first.

     But then there was a sound from the other side of the oak door and Adam Morton’s voice reached Josse, muffled but audible. ‘What do you want now?’ he demanded. ‘I will no longer open this door to you, Sir Josse, so it’s no use your thumping on it; you’ll only serve to put dents in it.’

     ‘I understand,’ Josse shouted back. ‘I do not ask admittance, Master Morton; only information.’ It was embarrassing, holding a conversation at such a volume that the whole street could hear; it was also, given the delicacy of the question to which he had come to seek an answer, potentially dangerous.

     Perhaps Adam Morton’s good sense got the better of him; there was a long pause, then he said, ‘Go along to the wall that divides my herb garden from the street. Mount your horse and you will be able to see over it; I shall go into my garden and stand on my bench.’

     Josse did as he was told. Augustus, watching, raised his eyebrows and Josse made a grimace. ‘Better than nothing,’ he remarked.

     Presently there came sounds of a bench being dragged across the ground and then Adam Morton’s face appeared over the top of the wall. He held a piece of spotless white linen up to his nose and mouth and Josse caught the scent of lavender oil. ‘Don’t you come too close!’ he warned Josse, ‘and you, lad’ – he waved a finger at Augustus – ‘you stay over there! Now,’ he said, turning back to Josse, ‘what is this information you want?’ He added something under his breath, something to the effect of
as if I didn’t know
.

     ‘I believe that you sent someone to Hawkenlye Abbey,’ Josse said, speaking as quietly as the distance between him and Adam Morton allowed. ‘A young woman named Sabin de Retz, who came to you looking for news of Nicol Romley.’

     The apothecary gave a weary sigh. ‘Yes, I did,’ he admitted.

     ‘You did not think to tell her that he was dead?’ Josse hissed.

     ‘Ah, but when she came to see me I did not know!’ Adam Morton protested.

     Stunned, Josse said, ‘But—’ Then: ‘So you mean she visited you before I came here with Gervase de Gifford? Yet you didn’t think to tell me she was also looking for Nicol?’

     ‘I don’t see why I should have told you,’ the apothecary said somewhat stiffly. ‘And
obviously
she came before your first visit; I should hardly have sent such a lovely young woman chasing after a man I knew to be dead.’

     ‘Yet you knew he was sick,’ Josse reminded him.

     ‘He might have recovered!’

     Aye, Josse thought, that he might, had not some unknown hand struck the poor young man down.

     And, as that thought brought him right back to the reason for this visit, he said, ‘Did Sabin de Retz tell you why she needed to see Nicol?’

     Adam Morton appeared to be thinking. Then he said, ‘She said she had come from France. She met Nicol in Troyes and something happened there that she would not tell me. I gathered from her manner that it was something that had frightened her, for she went quite pale when she spoke of it. There had been danger and she had escaped. She knew Nicol was bound for Boulogne, where he would take ship for Hastings and then travel back here to Newenden, and she followed him. She told me that she
must
see him, that it was a matter of life and death.’

     ‘And so you sent her after him to Hawkenlye,’ Josse said, half to himself. ‘Yet it was not until yesterday that she came to the Abbey looking for him. I was not there,’ he explained to the apothecary, ‘and when I returned, there was no sign of her.’

     ‘Yes, she appeared furtive when she was here,’ Morton agreed.

     ‘With good reason, perhaps,’ Josse suggested.

     ‘Maybe, maybe.’

     ‘I am wondering,’ Josse said, ‘why it took Sabin de Retz the best part of a week to travel from Newenden to Hawkenlye.’

     The apothecary reached up to smooth the long white hair beneath the spotless cap. He looked away, first across his herb garden and then beyond Josse to the road. Then, almost disinterestedly, he said, ‘I have no idea.’

     ‘Thank you for that,’ Josse muttered ironically. Then, as an earlier thought returned to him, he said, ‘I should still like to know why you did not tell me on either of my previous visits that you had sent Sabin de Retz to Hawkenlye.’

     ‘I am an apothecary,’ Morton snapped. ‘In my profession there are many secrets and a man grows used to speaking only when he must.’

     There seemed, Josse thought, no suitable reply to that. ‘Is the young woman staying here in the town?’ he asked.

     ‘I do not think so,’ Adam Morton replied. ‘She was mounted on a grey mare and the horse looked as if it had been ridden hard.’

     ‘She went from Hastings to Newenden, then on to Hawkenlye,’ Josse said slowly, thinking aloud, ‘and, given the present climate of fear, she’d have found precious little in the way of hospitality for a traveller in between the three locations. So,’ he looked up and met the apothecary’s eyes, ‘where is she?’

     The apothecary gave an apologetic shrug. ‘Again, Sir Josse  . . .’

     ‘You have no idea,’ Josse finished for him. ‘Thank you for your time, Master Morton.’ He turned Horace and, with a nod to Augustus, set off back down the street.

     ‘Where are you going?’ Adam Morton called after them.

     Josse spun round in the saddle. ‘We’re going to look for her!’

Somebody else had left Hawkenlye Abbey even earlier that morning, slipping out secretively before it was light and when the majority of the community were still asleep. Sister Tiphaine had wrapped herself in her thick cloak, exchanged her sandals for the stout sabots she used for gardening and set off into the forest.

     She had not enjoyed the previous day’s conversation with the Abbess at all. While it was true that she had contacts with the forest people – far stronger and more regular contacts than Tiphaine hoped anyone at Hawkenlye was aware – she also had an overriding duty to the Abbey and its Abbess. It had been hard – and strangely painful – to stand mutely listening to the Abbess’s speculations concerning the outcome of the brief liaison between Sir Josse and Joanna and make no comment. But then the secret was not Tiphaine’s to tell  . . .

     Of course, the Abbess had been absolutely right. Joanna had born a child to Sir Josse, and a girl child at that. In addition, given what Tiphaine knew about Joanna – and the child – it was highly likely that both mother and daughter had power in their very blood, although since little Meggie was only fifteen months old, nobody would yet have put her to the test.

     A magical jewel, Tiphaine thought as she strode along the faint forest tracks, which were so familiar to her that she barely needed to look where she was going. What might such a precious and powerful thing do in the hand of Joanna or her child! Why, lives could be saved, even that of the old fusspot Firmin, who always looked askance at Tiphaine as if searching for her horns and tail!

     No.

     Tiphaine made herself arrest that line of thought, for it was far in the future, if indeed it was to happen at all. First she must find a way of approaching Joanna, then she must find the words with which to phrase her request, neither of which tasks she had very much confidence of easily achieving.

     She knew the location of Joanna’s hut and, indeed, the secret forest paths that she now trod took her quite close to it. She had been there once, on the night that Joanna bore Josse’s child; she and her old friend from the forest people had helped the young mother bring Meggie into the world, and Lora had taken the baby outside into the cold October night and briefly placed her naked body on to the Earth so that the Mother would know her own. Lora had prophesied that night that Meggie would be one of the Great Ones of her people, and apparently the same had been said by others during the months of Meggie’s short life.

     Knowing the location of Joanna’s dwelling by no means meant that Tiphaine could simply stroll up, knock on the door and ask admisssion, for Joanna had grown greatly in power over the past year and Tiphaine did not dare approach unannounced, uninvited and alone. Before she could seek out Joanna, she knew she must first find an intermediary. Which was why, as the sun rose on to another cold and bright February day, she was making her way to the oak grove deep in the forest that was her usual meeting place with Lora.

     Time passed.

     By mid-morning, there was still no sign of Lora and Tiphaine was beginning to wonder if she ought after all to go on to Joanna’s hut. There was no guarantee that Lora would come; the forest people might be miles and miles away and, even if word had somehow reached Lora that Tiphaine was looking for her, sheer distance could well mean that Lora would not appear in the glade today. And it certainly was not acceptable to keep Abbess Helewise waiting when her request and her need were so very urgent.

     The low midday sun of winter was shining down into the glade when a slim, supple figure clad in soft grey stepped out from behind the concealing trunk of a huge oak tree. Her silvery eyes held the knowledge of ages and her long hair was white, yet the smooth skin of her tanned face had barely a wrinkle and she moved like a dancer. Coming forward into the sunshine, she smiled as she called out Tiphaine’s name.