Heart of Ice (34 page)

     ‘You were not able to find him in Troyes to seek his help and to give him the warning?’ de Gifford asked. Josse, who had been wondering the same thing, nodded.

     ‘I searched for him, naturally, as soon as I had found somebody to look after Grandfather. But I could not find him.’

     ‘Perhaps, seeing the burning lodging house where he knew you to be staying, he guessed that he too might be about to be attacked and made a run for it?’ de Gifford suggested.

     ‘No.’ Sabin spoke the denial as if there could be no shade of doubt. Then, with a slight frown, ‘Well, perhaps. But Nicol would not have deserted me – us, that is. He must have been in hiding somewhere . . . I do not know. But, seeing what he believed to be Grandfather’s and my fate, who can blame him for fleeing Troyes?’

     I could, Josse thought, and, from the look on his face, so could de Gifford. Both of us might have taken the time to see if we could help you and the old grandfather, or at least to confirm that you were really dead, before we turned tail and ran.

     ‘So you followed Nicol to Boulogne, and then across the Channel to Hastings?’ de Gifford was prompting.

     ‘Yes. He’d said that he would sail home via those places because his home was in Newenden, and there was quite a good road to the town from the port. My search for him was as Sir Josse suggested, with the exception that it was at Hawkenlye that I found out Nicol was dead.’ She paused, eyes downcast, as if affected by the memory of that moment. ‘I heard some people talking and they spoke of the dead young man found in the Vale; they even spoke his name, so I was left in no doubt. I thought that he must have died from the sickness, for I already knew that he had gone to the Abbey in the hope of being cured. Although, even then, I experienced a sudden intensifying of my dread, almost as if I knew in my heart what had really happened. For sure, I knew that Grandfather and I must remain in hiding, and I hastened back to Robertsbridge and reminded Stephen that, if anyone came asking, he had never heard of Sabin and Benôit de Retz and they certainly were not secreted away in the guest house of his Abbey.’

     ‘So what persuaded you to break cover?’ Josse asked.

     ‘You,’ she said simply. ‘You came to Robertsbridge and Grandfather, who is in the habit of listening at doors, windows and keyholes, heard you tell Stephen that Nicol was murdered. I then had two options: to take Grandfather back home and hope that our particular fate’ – she glanced at de Gifford – ‘never finds us, or to come out of hiding and find out the identity of the man who killed Nicol and have him hanged. Since the man undoubtedly knows who we are and where we live and work, the chance of his failing to find us is negligible. That left only the other option. So here I am.’

     ‘You say you would see the killer hanged,’ de Gifford said, ‘but I must tell you, my lady, that here in England we do not tolerate summary justice. The man would have to be tried and found guilty before such a punishment was imposed.’

     ‘Naturally,’ Sabin said with a touch of impatience. ‘But I would tell them that the man killed Nicol.’

     ‘You have proof?’ de Gifford asked.

     ‘Yes. No. Proof would be found,’ she finished grandly.

     ‘How do you propose that we find this man, when you implied just now that you do not know who he is?’ Josse said.

     Sabin turned her clear blue eyes to him. ‘He will come after Grandfather and me and you will catch him and arrest him,’ she said, as if explaining to one whose reasoning was particularly slow.

     De Gifford gave a short bark of laughter. ‘Indeed? We put the pair of you in some nice, obvious spot and wait for this man to attack, then pounce on him and throw him into gaol?’

     ‘Yes.’

     ‘
No
, my lady,’ de Gifford said very firmly. ‘I would never put you at such risk.’

     ‘Then what do you suggest?’ she said angrily. ‘Grandfather and I will die unless this man is stopped, for he will not give up until our lips are sealed by death.’

     ‘What is this secret that must not be told?’ Josse asked. ‘We have surmised that the man who murdered Nicol and who seeks you and your grandfather has come to England on some secret and deadly mission, and I guess that somehow you and Nicol have discovered what it is.’ She turned to him as he spoke and he saw a strange expression fleetingly flash in her eyes; he must have been wrong, but he thought it looked like relief. ‘Will you not reveal the truth to us?’ he pleaded.

     She kept her eyes on him. ‘No,’ she said, with a small smile. ‘If I were to do so, then you too would be in danger.’

     De Gifford gave a snort of disbelief. ‘You surely do not think that this man will go on killing until everyone to whom you could possibly have unburdened yourself is dead!’ he exclaimed.

     ‘No, I do not think that,’ Sabin agreed. ‘He knows, I believe, that we are aware that we should never speak of what we know. It was, as I said, only the wine that led to Grandfather revealing the secret to Nicol.’

     Something had dawned on Josse. ‘The killer went to Troyes to murder you and your grandfather,’ he said slowly. ‘He followed you there from your home, wherever that is, where you came by the secret. Why did you go to Troyes? Why select that town in particular as a hiding place?’

     ‘We had a good excuse to go there,’ Sabin said, ‘for there is a wider choice of wares available there than anywhere else in northern France and there were, as I have explained, particular ingredients – particular purchases that we wished to make. Our – the person whom we serve accepted that we must make the journey but we knew that, for her own good reasons, she would tell nobody else where we were bound. We hoped that the killer would not find out our destination and I do not see how he could have done; it is likely that he had a simple stroke of luck and spoke to someone who had seen us on the road. From then, I imagine it was quite easy to follow our trail; the combination of an old, blind man on a fat bay and a woman on a grey is not a common one.’

     Josse was working hard, trying to store away the fragments of information which, despite her clear intention to the contrary, Sabin was unwittingly giving away. He heard de Gifford ask her a question – something about what work she and her grandfather did – and he heard Sabin politely refuse to tell him.

     Josse, however, thought that he already knew.

     Sabin had given him other clues, too, including one small fact that nagged away at him because it chimed with something that he had picked up recently; a piece of court gossip, he had thought, although now, faced with the enigma of Sabin de Retz, he was beginning to wonder.

     De Gifford was suggesting that they return to their respective dwellings. ‘We can gain nothing from standing out here in the cold,’ he said, ‘and I have decided upon a course of action.’

     ‘What is it?’ Sabin asked.

     ‘Aye?’ Josse spoke at the same time.

     De Gifford looked from one to the other. ‘It is, in a way, a variation of the plan that the lady proposed.’ He gave a small bow in Sabin’s direction. ‘I suggest that you and your grandfather move into my own house, where I have servants to care for you and where I can arrange an armed guard to protect you. Having ensured your safety and my staff’s silence, I will then spread false word that you are still lodging at the tavern and wait—’

     ‘Wait for him to set fire to that too?’ Josse broke in, angry at the way in which de Gifford appeared to be disregarding the safety of the tavern and everyone within it. ‘That will please Goody Anne!’

     ‘I will protect the tavern,’ de Gifford said calmly. ‘This man, whoever he is, will not find it an easy matter to approach the Tonbridge inn and fire it; not with my men waiting for him.’

     ‘Hm.’ Josse was far from convinced. He was about to offer his own services when he remembered that he already had a mission up at Hawkenlye. The thought prompted the realisation that he had already been gone far too long; the endless water-carrying would be that much more arduous for the monks and lay brothers without him. ‘I must be away,’ he said. Meeting de Gifford’s eyes, he added, ‘You will keep me informed if—?’

     ‘I will,’ de Gifford assured him.

     He and Sabin mounted their horses and Josse collected Horace and did the same. Then they rode back towards the town, Josse saying farewell as they passed de Gifford’s house – where the sheriff was going to lodge Sabin before riding on to fetch her grandfather and her few possessions from the tavern – and heading on up towards Castle Hill and Hawkenlye.

     De Gifford’s plan, such as it was, seemed to Josse to be full of flaws, not the least of which was that it was hardly fair to put Goody Anne’s tavern – her livelihood – at such risk in the slim hope of the killer turning up there to murder two people who were not even within.

     There had to be something better.

     Reaching the summit of the hill, Josse went over what he had deduced about Sabin de Retz and her grandfather. He would seek out the Abbess, he decided; he would put the facts before her and then the two of them would put their heads together, as they had done so many times in the past, and see if they couldn’t come up with something that would help them guess what secret the old man and the young woman were keeping, why it was so dangerous, the identity of the killer and the place where he was hiding out.

     It was a tall order and, he thought with a rueful smile, a virtually impossible task. But then he and the Abbess had achieved the impossible before.

     And, besides, he could not think of anything he wanted to do more than to sit with her in her little room, talking, puzzling, watching the intelligent grey eyes and the light that entered her face when she thought she had found a possible solution.

     I’ll present myself for water duty for the rest of the morning, he told himself, then I’ll go and seek her out.

     With that happy prospect in mind, he put his heels to Horace’s sides and, on flat ground now, cantered off along the track that led to the Abbey.

Part Four

The Last Battle

Chapter 18

The sickness came upon her so swiftly that she barely had time to realise how unwell she felt before she slipped into a feverish sleep that was more like unconsciousness.

     She had been feeling a deep ache in all her bones when she went to bed the previous night but, exhausted by her role in the first spells of nursing duty under the new roster system, had ascribed the discomfort to fatigue. Rising in the morning, it had taken her longer than usual to perform the tasks that daily repetition over the years had made all but automatic; for one frightening moment, she had forgotten how to pin her veil.

     She managed to get through Prime and, later, Tierce, although she was almost sure she had briefly slept during the latter and added to her prayers a hurried request that nobody had noticed her lapse. The idea of eating revolted her; she did not even feel up to going near the refectory in case some odour of food should waft out, at which she was quite sure she would have vomited.

     Then it was time to return to the Vale infirmary for the next spell of duty. Her head ached violently, with a sharp-edged pain behind the eyes that seemed to be sawing off the top of her skull. She felt hot, had begun to sweat and then was suddenly cold, shivering as the clammy dampness held her like an icy shroud. Her skin felt tender to the touch; even the pressure of her garments hurt.

     They were discussing the importance of making sure that recovering patients ate, even if, as often happened, this meant that whoever was nursing the patient had to sit beside them and spoon the thin but nourishing soup into their mouths.

     Soup. Mouth.

     Her own mouth filled with water and, making a dash for the door, she ran along the outer wall of the ward and, rounding a corner, threw up on to the frosty grass. When she had finished – her body convulsed into several acutely painful, dry retches after her stomach had emptied itself – she felt so weak that her legs would not hold her up. Her back against the wall of the Vale infirmary, she slumped down to the ground.

     Where, she was not sure how long afterwards, they found her.

She was in bed at the very end of the long ward where she was meant to be caring for others. Somebody had removed her habit and she wore just her high-necked undergown. Her head was bare – she put up a shaky hand to feel her short hair – and she seemed to be lying on a thick lump of folded linen . . . Yes. She had seen that done for others. It was in order that, when the flux of the bowels began, the soiled linen could be removed and replaced without disturbing the patient and remaking the whole bed.