Heart of Ice

by Alys Clare

  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.

  Tiphaine rose hastily to her feet from the log on which she had been sitting and the two women embraced. ‘You were asleep,’ Lora said.

  ‘I was not!’ Tiphaine protested. ‘I was closing my eyes against the sun’s glare.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ Lora said, ‘that February glare.’

  ‘I need to see Joanna,’ Tiphaine said, ignoring the mild jibe. ‘There’s sickness at the Abbey. I am not sick,’ she hastened to reassure Lora.

  ‘I know that,’ Lora replied calmly. ‘I should not be here standing so close to you if you were.’

  ‘They’ve got this jewel that they’ve been trying to use to make people better,’ Tiphaine continued, ‘but it’s not working. It’s a family treasure of Josse’s’ – it was odd, she thought fleetingly, how worldly titles had no meaning here when she was among the forest people – ‘and they reckon there’s some old prophecy that says the stone will only be truly effective when it’s in the hand of a female of Josse’s kin.’

  Lora had been nodding as if this was no news to her, although she did not interrupt but allowed Tiphaine to finish. ‘So they need Joanna’s child, do they?’ she said thoughtfully. ‘They would think it appropriate to allow a fifteen-month-old infant to try out her power?’

  ‘They do not know for sure that Joanna has a child,’ Tiphaine protested, aware both that she was evading the issue and that it had not gone unnoticed.

  ‘The Abbess knows,’ Lora said.

  ‘Aye, I reckon she does. But she has never breathed a word to – to anyone else, even though they’re such close friends.’

  ‘She has not told Josse, you mean.’

  ‘Aye.’

  Tiphaine waited. Lora was one of the venerated elders here in this forest domain and it did not do to hurry her. Since any chance of Tiphaine’s getting to see Joanna rested entirely with the woman standing before her, the herbalist tried to control her impatience by silently reciting a list of the Healing Herbs . . .

  ‘You can stop that,’ Lora said. ‘You are distracting me.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Tiphaine had known Lora far too long to be surprised at her ability to overhear another’s thoughts.

  Finally Lora spoke. ‘I have no quarrel with the Abbess,’ she announced, ‘for our impression of her is that she has a good heart and, although she suffers from a sense of her own importance, she uses her position more to help others than to inflate her pride.’

  ‘She—’ Tiphaine began, but made herself stop.

  ‘And similarly I can find no fault with her wish to use an object of power to save life, even though it is clear that she cannot have the first understanding of what this stone is. Therefore I will agree to take you to Joanna.’

  ‘Thank you, Lora,’ Tiphaine said humbly.

  But Lora had not finished. ‘I say only that I will take you to her,’ she warned. ‘You may then tell Joanna what you have told me, but I caution you not to put any pressure on her.’ She lowered her voice and added, ‘She has been to our sacred places and she has learned a very great deal. She is not the woman you once knew, Tiphaine.’

  A shiver of fear went through the herbalist. ‘I will do as you command, Lora,’ she whispered. ‘I sense already that Joanna has come into her power, for even from some distance away, I could sense her presence in her hut.’

  Lora nodded. ‘Aye. She is back there, with the child, after a year’s absence. She is busy strengthening her defences.’

  Tiphaine nodded. She knew without being told that the defences were not on the physical level; no wonder, she thought, she had sensed Joanna’s power.

  I am afraid of what lies before me, she realised as she trod in Lora’s footsteps across the clearing and out between the trees. If it were left to me, I should turn tail and flee back to the safety of the Abbey, to the arms of a gentler god than the force they bow before out here in the woods.

  But it was not up to Tiphaine.

  Squaring her shoulders, praying both to the old god and the new for their protection, she bent down beneath the tangled undergrowth to follow Lora into the mouth of the hidden path that led to Joanna’s hut.

  Chapter 12

  Josse and Augustus found no trace of Sabin de Retz on the journey back to Hawkenlye. That was not to say, as Augustus remarked, that she was not there, hidden away in some house where, out of charity, they had taken her in before the dread threat of the pestilence became common knowledge.

  It was possible, Josse agreed, although from his knowledge of how gossip travelled in country districts – it was as unstoppable as rats in a hay barn – he privately considered it unlikely. Had the young woman in fact found sanctuary somewhere along the road, then he reckoned that one of the handful of people who had reluctantly opened their doors a crack to speak to him would have known about it. And, with no reason to keep it secret, they would have told him all about her, probably adding all sorts of highly colourful and unlikely speculative details for good measure.

  Deep in the country, he mused as they approached Hawkenlye, it was so rare for anything unusual to happen that, when it did, people habitually made the very most of it.

  ‘D’you reckon she’s putting up in Tonbridge, then, Sir Josse?’ Augustus said, coming to ride alongside him as the track broadened; they were only a few miles from the Abbey now and soon would pass the turning that led down to the town.

  Josse glanced at him, pleased to note that a day in the fresh air and away from his anxieties had put colour in the lad’s face. ‘She may be,’ he agreed, ‘although if she is and has been enquiring after Nicol Romley, then I imagine news of that would have reached Gervase de Gifford and he would have told us.’

  ‘He keeps his eyes and ears open, that one,’ Augustus remarked solemnly. Lowering his voice to a wh
isper, he added, ‘They do say he has spies everywhere.’

  ‘Do they?’ Josse hid a smile, amused at the concept of an innocent young lay brother such as Augustus knowing all about the sophisticated professional practices of the sheriff of Tonbridge.

  ‘Oh, aye,’ Augustus was saying, ‘we talk to lots of folks from down in the town when they come up to the Vale for the water and for Sister Tiphaine’s simples. They suffer terribly from the rheum down there, you know, Sir Josse – it’s all that water and marshland so close to where they live. It’s said you can’t tell a sheriff’s man from an innocent traveller putting in at Goody Anne’s for a mug of ale and a piece of pie, so well do they blend in with the company.’

  ‘How so?’ Josse was curious, and also cross with himself for his patronising attitude; just because a boy chose to live in an Abbey did not mean he had cut himself off from all contact with the rest of the world.

  ‘Because the sheriff recruits men and then tells them not to reveal that they work for him,’ Augustus said. ‘That way folks enjoying a drink at the end of a hard day’s work speak freely and it all gets back to the sheriff.’ Shaking his head with a frown, he added, ‘I couldn’t do that. Pretend to be friendly just so as to make a man talk, then sift out the important details and run to tell the sheriff.’ His intent eyes met Josse’s. ‘Could you, sir?’

  ‘I—’ Yes, I could, would be the honest answer but somehow he felt it would diminish him in Gus’s eyes. ‘Well, it would depend on the circumstances,’ he said evasively.

  Augustus nodded. ‘I dare say there’s times in the sort of world you move in when such things are necessary,’ he said gravely.

  The sort of world I move in, Josse echoed to himself.

  The trouble was that sometimes he was no longer sure what that world was . . .

  Jerking his thoughts back to the present, he reminded himself that he had a job to do. As they approached the Tonbridge road, he said, ‘Gus, I’m going to ride down to the town right now to see if anyone has seen Sabin.’

  ‘Want me to come with you, Sir Josse?’

  ‘No, thank you. But I should be grateful if you would ride on to the Abbey and tell the Abbess where I am and that I shall report back to her on my return.’

  ‘I’ll do that,’ Augustus said. ‘Good luck, sir.’

  The tavern was almost empty when Josse arrived and he was served with his mug of ale almost immediately. Goody Anne came hurrying in, apparently as pressed as ever, and, spotting Josse, immediately put a hand to the spotless cap covering her hair, straightened her voluminous apron and came over to the fire to speak to him.

  ‘Thought you’d found yourself another woman and abandoned me,’ she greeted him cheerfully. ‘How are you, Sir Josse?’

  ‘Well, thank you. And you, Goody Anne?’

  The humour left her face and she sighed. ‘I am well, too, thank God,’ she said, ‘but business is dreadful. It’s these rumours of sickness up at Hawkenlye.’ Staring at him, suddenly she went ashen and took two very large paces back. ‘You’ve come from there?’ she whispered.

  ‘Aye, but do not fear, for they know how to keep the sick well away from the healthy.’

  She did not look reassured. Keeping her distance, she said, ‘No offence, Sir Josse, and it’s not like me to turn away custom, especially now when things are so bad and when I’m that glad to see your friendly face, but would you be so kind as to finish your ale and leave?’

  His initial hurt feelings quickly subsided as he studied her expression; her request clearly distressed her more than it did him. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I understand, and it was thoughtless of me to have come, my connection with the Abbey being common knowledge.’

  Goody Anne nodded. ‘Knew you’d be reasonable, a fine man like you,’ she muttered. Then, as an afterthought, ‘Why did you come? They serve a good mug of ale up at the Abbey, so I’ve always been told, so you’re not here just for my brew.’

  ‘No. I’m looking for someone. A young woman, well dressed, mounted on a grey mare. She arrived in Hastings, went to Newenden and then came to seek me up at the Abbey, only—’

  But Goody Anne’s pallor was back. ‘She followed the plague route, then,’ she whispered. ‘Hastings, Newenden, Hawkenlye.’

  Josse had imagined this to be a secret known to few. He might have known better. ‘You have had no such guests here at the inn?’ he asked, already knowing what her response would be.

  ‘No.’ Goody Anne shook her head. ‘I’ve had no travellers putting up here with me in a week or more, Sir Josse. Folks are frightened and they stay within their own walls as much as they can.’

  ‘Is there anywhere else in the town that this young woman might be staying?’ he persisted.

  Goody Anne thought for a moment. Then she said firmly, ‘No. I reckon not. I’d have heard about her if she were here.’

  Josse finished his ale. ‘Will you let me know if she comes?’ he asked. ‘Her name is Sabin de Retz.’

  ‘If she comes, I’ll let you know.’ Goody Anne had already picked up his empty mug and was moving away towards the scullery. ‘If,’ she added, with a trace of her smile, ‘I can find anyone brave enough to ride up to Hawkenlye and seek you out.’

  Josse rode next to Gervase de Gifford’s house on the edge of the town. De Gifford was relaxing before a blazing fire and just about to eat; he persuaded Josse to join him. Between mouthfuls of roast fowl with garlic sauce, Josse told the sheriff about the mysterious woman and her quest to find Nicol Romley, and how he and Augustus had gone to speak to Adam Morton.

  ‘. . . but now she’s disappeared,’ he concluded. ‘No sign of her in Newenden or on the road, and Goody Anne says she’s not staying here in the town.’

  De Gifford poured more beer into Josse’s mug, nodding. ‘I imagine Goody Anne is right,’ he said. ‘The young woman came from Hastings, you said, so could she have returned there?’

  Josse sighed at the prospect of yet another couple of days in the saddle. ‘I suppose so,’ he said miserably. ‘Yet surely, if she is intent on finding out what happened to Nicol Romley, she would stay near to the place where he died?’

  ‘Does she know he’s dead?’ de Gifford asked.

  ‘She—’ Josse stopped. It was a good question and, he realised, one to which the answer might well be no. Adam Morton hadn’t told her, for when he encountered her Nicol was, as far as Morton knew, still alive. And surely Sister Ursel would have had more tact and kindness than to blurt out news of Nicol’s death the moment someone came asking for him.

  ‘She may not,’ he admitted.

  ‘The trail has led her to Hawkenlye,’ de Gifford said, ‘and to you. Wherever she is, I would guess that she is not far away for, until she has found you and learned news of the man she seeks, she will need to return there.’

  ‘I can’t just sit and wait for her to come back!’ Josse protested.

  De Gifford smiled. ‘Unless you can find out where she’s hiding, you may have to.’ The smile left his face and he said quietly, ‘If you find this Sabin de Retz, Josse, persuade her, if you can, to see me.’ Before Josse could comment, de Gifford added, ‘Amid all our other concerns, let us not forget that I have poor Nicol Romley’s murderer to find and to bring to justice.’

  It was fully dark by the time Josse got back to the Abbey. De Gifford had pressed him to stay for the night but Josse was anxious to speak to the Abbess. Hoping there would still be a light shining through the gap under her door, he walked as quietly as he could along the cloister.

  She opened the door as he put up a hand to knock. ‘I thought you would not retire before we had spoken,’ she said by way of greeting. ‘Come in, Sir Josse, and warm yourself.’

  He did as she said, removing his heavy gauntlets and stretching out his ice-cold hands to the small brazier that stood in one corner of the little room. Without turning round, once more he gave a report of his day’s findings.

  She heard him out in silence and made no comment even when he had finishe
d. Turning, he said, ‘My lady?’ but even as he spoke, it occurred to him that all but the final piece of news she would have already heard from Augustus.

  Perhaps that explained her distracted look . . .

  She raised her head, met his eyes and said, ‘I am sorry, Sir Josse, I was listening but—’ She broke off with a small shrug, as if explaining herself were beyond her.

  ‘You’ve a great deal on your mind, my lady,’ he said kindly, ‘and, in truth, there is little in what I have just said to keep the attention.’ She made to speak but he went on, ‘Any new cases of the sickness?’

  ‘Sister Judith has a fever,’ she said dully. ‘And Sister Beata is very unwell with the bowel flux.’

  ‘I regret deeply that I have no power to use the Eye of Jerusalem,’ he said. ‘If only—’

  ‘Sir Josse, what if—’ she began, but instantly closed her mouth on whatever speculation she was about to make.

  ‘What if?’ he prompted her. ‘Please, my lady, share your thought with me.’

  But she shook her head. ‘It is late,’ she said, ‘and I am weary beyond imagination, as indeed you must be too.’ She managed a faint smile. ‘Let us speak in the morning, Sir Josse.’

  He watched her but she would not look at him. With unease stirring deep within him, he bowed and left the room.

  She might be sufficiently exhausted to sleep, he thought a long time afterwards. I thought I was, too.

  But there was something wrong, something she could not bring herself to tell him. Knowing her as well as he did, it had been a surprise to see an expression on her face that he had never seen before.

  When she had started to ask him something, only to stop again almost instantly, she had looked almost . . . He thought hard for the right word.

  She had looked ashamed.

  Helewise had been asleep but it had been a brief surrendering to her fatigue and had only lasted a few hours. Now she lay wide awake, demons racing around her head.