by Alys Clare
‘We have come from Hawkenlye Abbey on an urgent matter concerning a death,’ he began. ‘You are Adam Pinchsniff?’
The apothecary flushed. ‘No I am not,’ he said crossly. ‘My name is Adam Morton. The people have given me the eke name of Pinchsniff, although I really cannot imagine why.’ He gave a short snort of disapproval, the action appearing to draw in his nostrils so that his already thin nose became positively beak-like. Observing, Josse could see exactly how the name had come about.
‘I apologise,’ de Gifford was saying smoothly. ‘I meant no offence; it is merely that I asked a man in the town where I might find the apothecary and that was the name by which he called you.’
The apothecary sniffed again. ‘Very well. A matter to do with a death, you say? Then you and your friend – what’s his name? – had better come in. You there, Sir Joseph, tie those horses to the hitching ring; they’ll be safe enough out here, nobody would dare to steal so much as the smallest coin from a guest of my house.’
Thinking that the welcome would have been warmer had Adam Pinchsniff offered to have the horses attended to, for both mounts were displaying the signs of a hard ride, Josse did as he was commanded. Then he followed de Gifford into the apothecary’s house.
It was a timber framed building with walls of plaster-coated mud brick. The stone floor of the interior had been recently swept and was covered in a scattering of fresh, clean-smelling rushes. There were few articles of furniture – a large chest, some shelves on which there were several wooden boxes of various sizes, a long, narrow table and a large chair – but what there were appeared to be of excellent quality and obviously costly. A fire burned in a hearth, the aroma of the burning wood – apple, Josse thought – mingling with that given off by the spirals of blue and golden smoke rising up from several small dishes of fragrant, smouldering incense.
‘So he’s dead, then,’ the apothecary said.
‘To whom do you refer?’ De Gifford’s tone was wary.
‘Why, to young Nicol, naturally. Nicol Romley, my apprentice. He took sick and I lent him my horse so that he might ride over to see what the good nuns and monks of Hawkenlye could do for him, since whatever ailed him failed to respond to my potions.’ Again the sniff, disdainful now, as if the young man had been to blame for throwing out an illness that Adam Pinchsniff could not treat. ‘I presume, from your tidings, that the sisters and brothers could do no better than I.’
Josse did not trust himself to speak. That poor young man – Nicol; at least he could now be called by his given name – had died, alone and sick. And here was the lad’s former master, reacting with the sort of indifference a man might display on being told he’d trodden on an ant.
De Gifford seemed to be having a similar interior struggle. After a moment he said, in almost his usual voice, ‘Nicol Romley, if indeed that is the man who lies dead at Hawkenlye, was sick, just as you say. The Abbey infirmarer examined his body and observed . . . certain signs.’ The apothecary made as if to speak but de Gifford held up a hand. ‘With your permission, sir, I would finish what I have to say. The young man may well have been dying of whatever it was that ailed him, but he was not given the chance. He was struck down by a blow to the head and thrown in a pond.’
Adam Pinchsniff had settled himself in an immense throne-like oak chair whose back and front legs were elaborately carved. He rested his elbows on the chair’s wide arms, pressing his hands together, the slender, broad-ended thumbs and each long finger pressed lightly against its equivalent on the opposite hand. He stared at de Gifford, apparently thinking. Eventually he said, ‘Struck down. And so close to a great abbey! Dear me. These vagabonds and thieves grow bold. And no doubt the assailant made off with my horse, fool that I was to allow Nicol to borrow him.’ He sighed, shaking his head, and neither Josse nor, he imagined, Gervase was in any doubt that he regretted the loss of the animal over that of the man.
De Gifford, displaying what Josse considered admirable self-control, extracted the bag of herbs from inside his tunic. He walked across the hall and held it out to the apothecary who, after a suspicious look, took it and held it up close in front of his eyes.
‘This was found in the dead man’s purse,’ the sheriff said.
‘Then the dead man is indeed Nicol Romley,’ the apothecary said, ‘because this potion is my work and I gave it to him not a week ago.’ He untied the string around the neck of the bag and stared inside. ‘It has been opened!’ he said accusingly, raising angry eyes to meet de Gifford’s.
De Gifford made a visible effort to control himself. Then: ‘It was necessary. This bag was the only item found on the body that yielded any possible means of identification. The contents were examined by the herbalist at Hawkenlye Abbey and from them she deduced that the potion had been prepared by a skilled and sophisticated apothecary.’
Slightly mollified by the flattery – perhaps, Josse thought, that had been de Gifford’s intention – Adam Pinchsniff gave a self-deprecating shrug. ‘I suppose I can understand the line of reasoning,’ he admitted grudgingly.
‘We went first to a herbalist in Tonbridge,’ de Gifford pressed on, ‘and he too looked at the ingredients of the potion. He told us of a certain apothecary who imported and sold rare foreign plant herbs and extracts and whose apprentice was wont to call on him a few times every year, and he revealed that the apprentice’s master lived in Newenden. That is how we found you, Master Morton.’ He gave the apothecary a long stare. ‘Now that we have what we came for, we shall leave you in peace.’
The sheriff was turning to go when the apothecary spoke. ‘Wait!’ he commanded. De Gifford stopped but he did not turn round. ‘What do you mean, you have what you came for?’
Now de Gifford faced him again. ‘We have a name for the dead man at Hawkenlye,’ he said coolly. ‘Now Nicol Romley may be buried in a marked grave.’
‘Don’t you want to ask me what ailed him? What it was that I – I! – was not able to treat, and for which I sent him to Hawkenlye?’
Now de Gifford began to smile. It was a chilly smile, but a smile all the same. ‘That we have already surmised,’ he said courteously. ‘For all that the cause of poor Nicol’s death was clear, nevertheless his body was examined by the Hawkenlye infirmarer. She deduced from certain symptoms that he had been suffering from a serious illness and she feared that it might be the pestilence.’
He paused but the apothecary did not speak. There was some new expression in his eyes, Josse observed. Was it fear? Guilt? Or perhaps a mixture of both?
‘We guessed,’ de Gifford went on, ‘that you prescribed as best you could to treat Nicol’s symptoms. He suffered from headache, fever, flux of the bowels and severe pains throughout his body. You also included two of the sovereign remedies against plague: vervain and marigold. We concluded that when your remedy failed to make him better, you washed your hands of him and sent him to Hawkenlye.’
‘I do wonder what became of my horse,’ the apothecary muttered, apparently following a train of thought of his own. ‘You will be sure to bring him back should he turn up, won’t you?’
Shooting him a look of such savage dislike that Josse fancied he saw it score a mark across the apothecary’s pale cheeks, de Gifford ignored the remark and instead said, ‘Did you fear infection, Master Morton? Did you shut the poor lad away the moment the first symptom appeared? I smell incense; have you been fumigating your house?’
The apothecary gave his careless shrug again. ‘For what good it may do me, yes.’ Then, glaring at de Gifford with matching venom, he said, ‘Would you not have done the same?’
‘I might,’ de Gifford owned evenly. For a moment Josse thought that the seething atmosphere in the room was about to ease – he hoped it would; there were several questions that he wanted to put to the apothecary – but then, in the same reasonable tone, the sheriff went on, ‘I’ll tell you what else I might have done, Master Morton. I might have gone with my young apprentice to ensure that he reached his destination and st
ayed by his side praying for him while the Hawkenlye nuns fought for his life. If their help came too late, I might have sat in vigil over Nicol and arranged for his burial. When finally I left him, I might have paid for masses to be said for his soul. That’s what I might have done.’
Oh dear, Josse thought. Observing the apothecary’s cold mask of fury, he realised that the slim chance he had had of posing his questions had now irrevocably vanished. De Gifford was on his way out of the room; Josse caught the heavy oak door just as the sheriff was forcefully swinging it shut and, wincing, he followed him out.
On the doorstep, Josse turned.
‘Thank you for your time, Master Morton,’ he said politely, ‘you have been most helpful.’
Then, with a low bow, he gently closed the door.
‘Why did you do that?’ de Gifford demanded as they rode away. ‘Did you have to touch your forelock to the man? He’s a monster, Josse, he worked that young man like an animal and he couldn’t have been less concerned to hear that the poor lad’s dead!’
‘Aye, I know,’ Josse said soothingly. ‘It’s just that . . .’ He hesitated, because what he was about to say would sound very like criticism – well, it was criticism – and in de Gifford’s present mood, and given that the two men were about to put up at New Winnowlands together overnight, Josse wasn’t sure that antagonising the sheriff was a very good idea.
‘Oh, go on, Josse, out with it.’ There was a smile in de Gifford’s voice. ‘It’s not you I’m angry with.’
‘Very well. I tried to wish the wretched man a courteous farewell because there may be more to be gained from him.’
‘About Nicol Romley?’
‘Aye. God forbid it, but if there should be more cases of this pestilence, then it will be important to find out all we can of Nicol’s recent movements. Will it not?’
De Gifford was nodding slowly. ‘Yes. Oh, yes, you’re right, Josse, and I thank you for your foresight.’
They rode in contemplative silence for a while. Then de Gifford laughed shortly. ‘I propose, Josse, that if the acquisition of that knowledge ever becomes necessary, you go on your own to see Master Pinchsniff.’
In Hawkenlye Vale, the middle-aged man died late in the afternoon. Sister Euphemia had taken the difficult decision not to move him up to the infirmary: for one thing, he was very weak and movement seemed to hurt him; for another, he was clearly close to death and there was little the infirmary could do for him that the monks in the Vale could not. And if this was indeed the pestilence, then the fewer cases of the sickness introduced into the Abbey infirmary, the better it would be for all.
Sister Euphemia stood in the Vale watching over the surviving infant and the young boy for the rest of that day. She encouraged Brother Firmin in his efforts to make both patients drink and soon they were sufficiently revived to ingest quite large draughts of liquid. The infant opened its eyes and began to cry; a good sign, the infirmarer decided. The young boy regained consciousness and began to moan that his head ached (his brother said this had been the lad’s chief complaint from the start) and Sister Tiphaine brought him a measure of her strongest pain-relieving potion. She slipped a sleeping draught into the mixture and very soon the boy had fallen asleep.
The two nuns studied both patients. Neither had the frightening dark pink spots, nor the inflammation around the eyes. After some time, Sister Euphemia said, ‘I reckon the sickness is on the wane in these two. I will take them to the infirmary, where I’m sure we’ll be able to hasten their recovery. With God’s help,’ she added.
Sister Tiphaine muttered something that might have been Amen. ‘You’d best check with the Abbess,’ she suggested.
Sister Euphemia sighed. ‘Aye. That I will, for I must have her permission.’ She sighed again. ‘But you know as well as I do,’ she whispered to Tiphaine, ‘that obtaining her permission in no way absolves me of the blame and the guilt if I’m wrong and . . .’
No. She wouldn’t think of that.
Sister Tiphaine gave her an encouraging nudge. ‘You may be wrong and you may be right,’ she said. ‘The Abbess will realise that. She wouldn’t want folks left out here in the cold any more than you do, especially young ’uns like these two here.’ She nodded at the baby and the boy. ‘For charity’s sake, we must make them as comfortable as we can, and that means moving them to the infirmary.’ She set off along the path back towards the Abbey.
‘Where are you off to?’ Sister Euphemia called after her.
‘I’m off to summon the Abbess,’ the herbalist answered.
Late that night, all four of the surviving visitors were sound asleep. Two were on the mend; the ten-year-old boy and the surviving twin baby who, on closer inspection, turned out to be a girl child. The older boy who had struggled so bravely to drag his ailing relations to Hawkenlye would be rewarded by not sickening with whatever frightening disease had wiped out half his family; his uncle was not so lucky. Even as the older man slept, tucked up beside his nephew in a corner of the pilgrims’ shelter in the Vale, the elements of the deadly pestilence were multiplying, spreading stealthily through his blood like an invading and secretive army.
And, unbeknownst to anyone, it had already sent out its advance troops into the Hawkenlye population.
Chapter 4
Helewise was awake early. She rose and dressed quietly and then made her way in the pre-dawn February darkness across to the infirmary. Sister Beata was on duty and she rose to greet her Abbess.
Moving close to speak quietly right into her ear, Helewise said, ‘How are they?’
Sister Beata smiled. ‘They are sleeping, my lady, and in both the infant girl and the lad, the fever is down.’
‘I see.’ Oh, thank God!
‘The baby girl woke up a while ago and drank some more water. I did as Sister Euphemia ordered and heated the water, melting a little honey in it. The lad was restless earlier in the night but now that the fever’s turned, he’s sleeping natural-wise.’
Helewise was still silently praying her thanks. She said quietly, ‘Good tidings, Sister. Where is Sister Euphemia?’
Sister Beata nodded towards a cubicle at the far end of the infirmary. ‘She’s sleeping,’ she whispered. ‘She was exhausted, my lady; dead on her feet.’
‘I am glad, Sister Beata, that you managed to persuade her of the need to rest,’ Helewise said, and Beata blushed with pleasure.
‘Oh, my lady, I don’t know as how I had anything to do with it,’ she said modestly.
‘You have a kind heart, Sister,’ Helewise said. ‘I am quite sure that Sister Euphemia would not have given in to her fatigue had you not gently and lovingly insisted.’
‘Oh!’ Sister Beata blushed.
‘Please tell Sister Euphemia when she wakes that I shall return later,’ Helewise said. Then she left the infirmary and went across to the Abbey church. It was almost the hour for Prime but there was just time for some moments of private prayer before the rest of the community arrived.
After the first office of the day Helewise set off down to the Vale to check on the man and the youth. Both were still sleeping; observing this, the monks had left them alone. Nodding her approval of this, Helewise went back up to the Abbey, leaving instructions that word be sent to her when one or other of the men stirred. ‘You might tell them when they wake,’ she added, ‘that their kinfolk up in the infirmary have passed a good night and this morning they are better.’
Word came later in the morning, as Helewise was returning to her room after Tierce. She accompanied Brother Augustus, who had brought the message, back to the Vale.
‘It’s the young man who’s awake,’ Augustus told her. ‘He’s well, my lady, as far as we can tell. He’s slept, he’s eaten, and he says he feels fine and that there was naught wrong with him but exhaustion.’
‘I am relieved to hear it,’ she replied. ‘What of the older man?’
Augustus frowned. ‘He’s not so good. He’s restless and hot.’
Helewise felt drea
d flood through her. Then, rallying, she made herself say with false cheer, ‘Perhaps he too is merely worn out with anxiety and a hard road?’ Despite herself, she could not help turning her remark into a question.
Augustus gave her a quick look. ‘We’re praying that is so, my lady.’
She noticed that he did not very sound confident of having those prayers answered.
In the Vale the monks had had the good sense to move the older man to the far corner of an empty area of the shelter. Brother Firmin was sitting beside him holding a cloth to the man’s forehead. As Helewise watched, he removed the cloth, wrung it out in a basin of water and reapplied it. Helewise gave the old monk a smile, which he returned. Then, turning back to Augustus, she said, ‘Where is the young man?’
‘Follow me, my lady.’
Augustus led her into the area where the monks and the pilgrims ate their meals. Sitting at one of the long tables in front of a large bowl of broth sat the young man. Seeing the Abbess, he hastily swallowed his mouthful and stood up to give her an awkward bow.
‘My lady Abbess,’ he said, ‘with all my heart I thank you for taking us in.’
He must have been schooled in the correct form of address, she thought; all credit to him for remembering it amid his many worries.
She moved nearer and sat down on the bench beside him, indicating that he should sit too.
‘You need not thank us,’ she said gently, ‘for it is what we are here for. What is your name?’
‘Waldo,’ he said.
‘Waldo,’ she repeated. She studied him; he was about fifteen or sixteen, with a broad face in which the bones were already strengthening and enlarging into their adult shape. On his cheeks were the beginnings of a beard. His eyes were light brown and, she fancied, had an open, honest expression. His hair, as far as she could tell, was dark, but as it was sorely in need of a wash, she could not be sure. He wore a long-sleeved brown woollen tunic that had been mended several times – very neatly – and, over it, a sleeveless leather jerkin. He smelt of sweat and cabbage.