by Alys Clare
He waited to see if she would speak again and when she did not, he said tentatively, ‘They tell me that my brother and my baby niece do well, my lady. May I – is it possible for me to see them? They’re only young and it’s likely they may be a-feared, waking in a strange place with unfamiliar faces. Oh!’ Flushing brick-red, he added, ‘That is, I’m sure they’re kindly nuns up in the sick folk’s place. I meant no offence, my lady.’
‘Of course you didn’t, Waldo,’ she reassured him. ‘And you are quite right; it will do your little brother a lot of good to see you, I’m sure, and the baby girl too.’
Waldo made as if to leap up and run off up to the infirmary there and then. She put out a detaining hand.
‘Finish your broth first,’ she suggested. He looked at her and then down at the bowl of broth, obviously wondering if it would breach some rule of Abbey etiquette to eat in front of an abbess. ‘Go on,’ she said softly, ‘don’t let it get cold!’
Gratefully he dipped in his spoon and slurped up the rest of the broth. When he had almost finished and was mopping the bowl with a piece of bread, she said, ‘Waldo, before I take you to see your kinfolk, may I ask you one or two questions?’
‘Questions?’ Alarm filled his face. ‘Have we done wrong, my lady? We thought it was the right thing to do, to bring our family here. My mother died, you know, and my father, and my grandmother and the old aunt.’ Controlling himself with an obvious effort, he muttered, ‘Uncle and Mariah and me, we were beside ourselves. Uncle was wailing and taking on so and it were all I could do to calm him. When the others took sick, we feared to lose them all.’
‘It’s all right,’ Helewise said. ‘You have done nothing wrong and we shall do all that we can for you. But, Waldo, it seems that this disease spreads fast. What I have to discover is where it might have come from. The more we find out about it, the better are our chances of restricting how many other people catch it. Do you see what I mean?’
He had already been nodding as she spoke; thank God, she thought, he is quick to understand. ‘Aye,’ he said. He screwed up his face for an instant as if in pain, then said, ‘It was my mam. She’s maidservant in the household of a Hastings merchant, Master Kelsey, and she’d been looking after him. He came home from a trip away off in foreign places and took to his bed straight away with a fever and that. He has a sister’ – Waldo’s grimace spoke his feelings for the sister – ‘but she’s a lady, wouldn’t soil her hands with anything dirty like caring for a sick man, even if that man was her own brother. Anyway, Mam was with him when he died, then she cleared up after him and left him neat and tidy like, all ready for his burial. That sister of his would have had Mam do that and all if it was possible, and she’d never have paid her for her trouble.’ He turned to spit, then blushed violently again and muttered an apology.
‘It’s all right, Waldo. Please, go on.’
‘Well, Mam comes home and tells us all about what’s been happening.’
‘She came home to her family – to all of you – straight from tending the merchant?’
‘Aye. She were sick, my lady. She had these dreadful pains in her head – she thought it were demons poking around inside with red-hot pitchforks and she were sore afraid they’d come for her to take her down to the fires. We got Father Christian to come to her and he managed to comfort her a bit, although he couldn’t do nothing for her pain.’ He swallowed and then said starkly, ‘She died. Me dad had taken sick by then and he died too. Then me gran and me uncle’s wife’s mother died and all.’
Lost in the complexities of this apparently endless family, Helewise said, ‘You all live close together?’
‘Oh, aye,’ Waldo said resignedly. ‘Me dad and his brother, they built our house in the first place out of the old cottage and barn that their own parents left them. They both married, although Dad’s brother, he only found a wife a couple of years back, and their wives brought their mothers to live with them. Mam’s brother, too’ – he jerked his head in the direction of the Vale’s sleeping quarters – ‘that’s him in there; his name’s Jabez. He’s never been quite right in the head. Then Mam and Dad had me, me sister and me brother, and Dad’s brother’s wife had the twins. See?’ he concluded hopefully.
‘Er – yes. Quite a household,’ Helewise remarked. ‘Let me see . . . twelve of you.’
‘Not so many now,’ Waldo said sadly. ‘Four dead at home and one of the twins gone yesterday.’ Then, eyes on Helewise’s, he said, ‘We’re all on top of each other at home, see. Mam did her best to keep everything clean and tidy but she were away in Hastings more often than not, slaving away with all the worst of the chores for Master Kelsey and that bitch of a sister of his. Sorry, my lady.’
‘Never mind, Waldo.’ Perhaps, Helewise thought, she should pull the lad up for speaking in such a way of his mother’s employer, but then that mother had just died. It was surely charitable to make a few allowances for the poor boy. ‘Did – er – did none of the other women of the household try to help?’
Waldo gave a snort of disgust. ‘Not if they could think up a good excuse not to. Me auntie – that’s me dad’s brother’s wife – she still says she can’t do no heavy work, what with her just having had the twins, but they’re eight months old now so it’s not as if . . .’ He trailed off. Probably, Helewise decided, he was recalling that one of those twins was dead.
‘And what about the older women?’ she pressed, more with the intention of taking his mind off his grief than for any real desire to know.
‘The old auntie was no use to anybody, not unless you had a need for a spiteful and demanding crone who moaned all the hours she was awake and snored loud enough to wake the dead whenever she fell asleep. Me gran weren’t too bad. She’d try to do what Mam asked her to do, only she had the twisting pains in her hands and she never seemed to manage much.’ Waldo gave a sigh. ‘It’s mainly Mariah and me does the work when Mam’s in Hastings. Tam helps us when he has a mind to, but seeing as he’s only ten, he’s easily distracted.’
‘And what work did your father and your uncle do?’
‘Dad’s brother did a bit of this and a bit of that. Dad, he worked for a master mason.’ There was sudden warmth in Waldo’s voice. ‘He were a stone cutter. He didn’t do the fancy work; he cut the big stones into the rough shapes and sizes as were required.’
Trying to come up with something kind to say to this poor lad who had just lost both parents – of whom, to judge from the way he spoke about them, he had been both proud and fond – Helewise said after a moment, ‘Then your father, Waldo, has left a memorial to his life’s work.’
Waldo’s eyes widened. ‘I hadn’t thought of that, my lady.’ Turning to give her a shy smile, he said, ‘That’s nice, that is. I’ll tell Tam when I see him and save it up to pass on to Mariah when we go home.’
‘Your sister remains in the house alone?’ And the girl could not be much over fourteen, if Helewise had guessed Waldo’s age correctly.
‘Don’t you fret, my lady.’ Waldo had clearly followed her reasoning. ‘She may be only twelve but our Mariah can take care of herself.’
‘How old are you, Waldo?’ Helewise interrupted.
‘Fourteen last birthday,’ he said. There was a faint suggestion of a youthful chest being thrown out. ‘I’ll be fifteen this summer and then I’ll be ‘prenticed to Dad’s stone yard. I’m big enough now, but Master, he doesn’t want me till the summer.’
He was, Helewise reflected, mature for his years . . .
‘And anyway she’s got me auntie there,’ Waldo was saying, ‘me dad’s brother’s wife. She’s looking after her.’
‘Your aunt did not fall sick?’
‘Aye, she did, but she’s better. I meant Mariah’s looking after Auntie, not t’other way round.’
‘I see.’ It was a silly thing to say, Helewise thought, because, until she could slowly go through it all again with Waldo, preferably with her stylus and a piece of parchment so that she could take notes, she was very
far from seeing anything very much.
But making sure that she had committed every last detail to memory was not the priority: taking Waldo to see his remaining kin was. Standing up, she said, ‘Come along, young Waldo. Let’s go and find Tam and your little niece.’
In a day full of anxiety and looming threat, Helewise found a rare moment of happiness when she ushered Waldo into the infirmary and took him to the adjacent cots where his brother and his little niece lay. The young boy – Tam – was sitting up in bed and his face lit up at the sight of Waldo striding along the ward towards him.
‘Waldo! Waldo! I’m mended!’ Tam cried out, and one or two of the nuns smiled. ‘They’ve given me ’orrible stuff to drink but the one what does the herbs and that says it’s to make me strong again and she made me hold me nose so’s I di’nt taste it! Coo, Wal, it were like sheep’s piss and I don’ know what were in it!’
‘Hush, Tam!’ Waldo hastened to take his brother’s outstretched hands, then, perching on the cot, enveloped Tam in his arms. Helewise heard him say something in an urgent whisper – something to do with not likening the Abbey’s remedies to sheep’s piss, she guessed – but the irrepressible Tam was too happy at being free of pain and reunited with his brother to take any notice.
‘They’re not cross here, they’re nice, Wal,’ he said earnestly. ‘They gave me a wash – all over! – and the nun with the big round smily face said oh, look, I’d got a brand-new white skin just a-waiting to be discovered!’
That, thought Helewise, must have been Sister Beata.
Waldo gave Tam another hug, then turned to look at the small cot where the baby girl lay. She was awake, her large dark eyes wide open and a nervous little smile on her lips, staring at Waldo as if she was hoping against hope that it was really him. He leaned down over her cot and said very gently, ‘Hello, Jenna. Where’s your spots gone then, eh?’ Then he tickled her under her firm little chin and she squirmed and chuckled with delight.
When, a few moments later, Waldo stood up and faced Helewise, she saw the glint of tears in his eyes. And, with the dignity of a much older man, the lad said, ‘Thank you, my lady; your nuns have given me back two of the people I really care about. Please may I go to the church? I’d like to thank God and all.’
Josse and de Gifford reached Hawkenlye Abbey late in the morning. They learned about the sick family from Sister Ursel, who informed them that the Abbess had been visiting the lad down in the Vale and had brought him up to see his kinfolk in the infirmary.
‘How are they all?’ Josse asked.
Sister Ursel gave a grimace. ‘The little lad and the girl child do well. The older lad is fine but the man is now feverish.’
‘You mean to imply that he has sickened since the family arrived here?’ de Gifford said.
Sister Ursel nodded glumly. ‘Looks that way.’
Josse and de Gifford exchanged a glance. This was not news they had wanted to hear.
They went across to the Abbess’s room to wait for her. It was not long before they heard her quick footsteps coming along the cloister and, after the most perfunctory of greetings, she told them all that she had learned from the lad Waldo – who, Josse soon decided, sounded a sensible and a courageous boy – concerning how the disease had come to the stricken family.
‘The mother tended a Hastings merchant?’ Josse said when the Abbess finally finished her account. Looking at de Gifford, he went on, ‘And Gervase and I have just met an apothecary who imports plant herbs and extracts from overseas. Can there be a connection?’
‘This is the apothecary who sold the potion to the youth who died here at Hawkenlye?’ demanded the Abbess.
‘Aye, my lady.’ Josse turned back to her. ‘Gervase and I located him; he lives in Newenden.’ Briefly he told her how they had found Adam Pinchsniff and what he had had to say on the subject of his apprentice. ‘The youth’s name was Nicol Romley,’ he concluded. ‘God rest his soul.’
‘Amen,’ the Abbess said.
There was a moment’s silence as all three of them thought about the apprentice and his lonely, violent death. Then, as if aware that there was little time for such delicacy, de Gifford said, ‘So, we have two initial victims of this pestilence: the Hastings merchant—’
‘His name was Master Kelsey and he lived with a spinster sister,’ the Abbess put in.
‘Thank you, my lady. Master Kelsey, then, returns from abroad and falls sick. Nicol Romley, whose master sends him about the land selling the apothecary’s wares, also succumbs. Let us assume that there is a link between the two men; perhaps Nicol was sent to Hastings to collect goods from the merchant. Master Kelsey is nursed by his maidservant but he dies. Adam Pinchsniff fails to cure his apprentice and sends poor Nicol off to Hawkenlye but he is slain before he reaches the Abbey. Meanwhile Master Kelsey’s maid has fallen sick and she returns home to this extensive household, where she passes on the pestilence to – how many was it, my lady?’
‘Eight, to begin with,’ the Abbess replied tonelessly. ‘Four of them, including the maid, died. Two more died here yesterday and now the simple-minded uncle has a fever.’
‘Dear God,’ de Gifford muttered. Eyes on the Abbess’s, he said, ‘My lady, we have all the evidence that we need of the speed with which this terrible sickness spreads. We should close the gates to new arrivals and concentrate on doing what we can for the victims already here.’
He did not say that closing the gates and shutting themselves inside would also keep any of the Hawkenlye community who had already been infected away from the healthy; but then, Josse thought grimly, he did not need to.
After quite a long time the Abbess said, ‘I understand your reasoning, Gervase, but I will not close the gates.’ Her eyes wide with distress, she said, ‘If there are to be more victims of this sickness, then it is to Hawkenlye that they will come. Our whole purpose here is to tend the sick, to allow them to avail themselves of the precious healing water and of the skill of our infirmarer and her nursing nuns.’
‘But—’ de Gifford began.
‘I know what you would say,’ the Abbess interrupted, ‘and of course I appreciate that you speak good sense. Nevertheless, sense is not the only factor in this matter; there is duty, charity, love of our fellow man and, above all, love of God. Do you think, Gervase, that our master Jesus would have me close the gates? He who went among the sick and the dying with no thought for his own safety?’
De Gifford stared at her for some moments. Then, with a sigh, he said, ‘No. Of course not.’
‘We shall take what measures we can to keep the sick apart from the healthy,’ the Abbess said. She was speaking quickly, setting out her arrangements with such fluency that Josse guessed she had thought them all out beforehand. ‘The boy and the baby girl were already on the mend when they were taken up to the infirmary, so I would venture to suggest that, thankfully, no dangerous element has been introduced up here. The man Jabez – Waldo’s uncle – is being cared for apart from the community, in a corner of the sleeping quarters in the Vale.’
‘Who is looking after him?’ Josse asked.
‘Brother Firmin.’ She looked up and met Josse’s eyes.
She has the same thought as I, he realised. She fears that this – thing – is too hungry to be content with its present tally of victims. And Brother Firmin is an old man, and not strong . . .
I must not dwell on that, he told himself firmly. There is work to do and I will offer to help where best I can. ‘My lady,’ he said, ‘and Gervase, I suggest that the next step is to return to Adam Pinchsniff in Newenden to ask him if he knows of any connection between Nicol Romley and Master Kelsey in Hastings. Such a connection will be reassuring because it will tell us that these cases of the sickness all stem from the one source.’ It was, he thought, unthinkable that there should be two separate outbreaks of this deadly disease. ‘And, in addition, the more we find out about Nicol’s recent movements, the sooner we will be able to discover why he had to be killed and who killed
him.’
‘Fine optimism, Josse,’ de Gifford said with a smile.
Josse gave a quick grin. ‘Aye, I know. But optimism and a plan of action are preferable to standing here wringing our hands and waiting for catastrophe to overwhelm us.’
‘Indeed,’ de Gifford murmured.
‘I will go back to Newenden,’ Josse said, with another grin in de Gifford’s direction, ‘for it is likely that the apothecary will be more willing to discuss the matter of his apprentice with me than – er – than with the sheriff here.’
‘Why—?’ the Abbess began.
But that, Josse decided, was too long a tale to tell now and anyway it was irrelevant. With a bow, he interrupted her. ‘With your leave, my lady, I should set out as soon as possible,’ he said. ‘Horace is none too lively, given that we have only just arrived here from New Winnowlands, and—’
‘Take the cob,’ the Abbess suggested. ‘He has not been ridden for some time and you will go faster on a fresh horse.’
‘Thank you, my lady. I will return as soon as I can.’
He hurried out of the room, only just catching the ‘God’s speed’ that she called after him.
Chapter 5
The Abbey cob was hard-mouthed and not in the first flush of youth, and Josse was pleasantly surprised to find that the horse had a good turn of speed. But then Sister Martha knew how to look after an animal and the cob did her credit.
He reached Newenden late in the afternoon and rode straight to the apothecary’s house. ‘Master Morton,’ he muttered to himself as he dismounted and tied the cob to the hitching ring. It would not be the best of beginnings to antagonise the man by calling him by his village nickname, appropriate though it was.
Adam Morton opened the door and said, ‘Oh, it’s you again. What is it now?’
‘Good day, Master Morton. There have been more cases of the sickness,’ Josse said without preamble. ‘A family from near Hastings has arrived at Hawkenlye. I am told that six people are already dead and now another has developed a high fever. The sickness was—’