Heart of Ice (27 page)

     Then, with a sudden wide smile, she opened her arms and embraced the herbalist, then turned to Lora and gave her a quick bow. ‘Lora, I am glad to see you. And you, Tiphaine,’ she added in a murmur, ‘helped me when Meggie was born. I do not know why you have come’ – she had turned back to Lora – ‘but you are welcome. Come in.’

     Stepping forward, she unlatched the door of the hut and led them inside. Tiphaine remembered the night of Meggie’s birth too and she noticed that the hut seemed little changed since that day. Joanna had clearly been busy since her return, for the place was spotless and smelled pleasingly of lavender; the pile of ashes in the small central hearth had been brushed up within its ring of stones, and kindling and small logs were laid ready for the day’s fire. The iron pot that stood ready beside the hearth was black with age and long use but it had recently received a good scrubbing. The beaten earth floor had been swept and the planking shelves on the far wall were dust-free, their contents neatly arranged. The steps up to the sleeping platform were in good repair and there was now a slim barrier bar on the side not protected by the wall of the hut; a low rail along the open side of the platform had also been added. On the platform were a straw mattress and several woollen blankets; among the blankets sat a very pretty child.

     Tiphaine stared at the little girl whom she had helped bring into the world and the little girl stared right back, her well-shaped mouth breaking into a tentative, friendly smile. The child had smooth dark hair and her eyes were brown, although of a lighter shade than her mother’s; it was almost, thought the herbalist, as if the child had gold light in her eyes.

     And those eyes quite definitely reminded Tiphaine of those of somebody else; somebody whom she knew quite well. In fact, the more she stared, the more she could see Josse in the child’s face. As if Joanna read her thought, she came up to stand beside the herbalist; ‘It’s the smile,’ she said softly and Meggie, obliging child that she was, instantly turned her shy smile into a beaming grin, laughing down at her mother and Tiphaine. Then, after a tense moment, Joanna whispered, ‘Does he know?’

     Tiphaine shook her head.

     ‘Does anybody at Hawkenlye know?’

     ‘The Abbess Helewise guesses, although I have not confirmed that she guesses aright.’

     ‘I see.’

     Tiphaine could feel Joanna’s faint distress; it felt as if someone were rubbing the fine hairs on her skin in the wrong direction. It occurred to the herbalist that if Joanna could provoke such a reaction when surely no more than mildly disturbed, what might she do when really angry?

     I think, Tiphaine decided, that I prefer not to dwell on that.

     Lora was standing in the doorway and now she called to Tiphaine to attract her attention. ‘You have something you wish to tell Joanna here, do you not?’ she said.

     ‘Er . . .’ Suddenly it did not seem such a good idea.

     ‘Go on,’ Lora said relentlessly.

     Joanna was looking enquiringly at Tiphaine. ‘What is it?’ she demanded. The anxiety in her eyes suggested she thought it might be to do with Josse and it was Tiphaine’s instant need to reassure her that Josse was quite safe that gave her the courage to speak.

     ‘There is a bad sickness at Hawkenlye,’ she began, and swiftly went on to tell Joanna what she had yesterday told Lora; unlike Lora, however, it seemed that Joanna had had no idea that the foreign pestilence had struck.

     ‘But the nuns are healers, are they not?’ she said when Tiphaine paused for breath. ‘You too, Tiphaine, have fine skills that will help the sick. Why have you come to me?’

     This was the tricky bit; Tiphaine summoned her courage and told Joanna about the Eye of Jerusalem, how it was said to operate and the identity of its rightful owner.

     Finally her words stumbled to an end, to be followed by a very long silence. Then Joanna said, ‘This prediction that you speak of says that a female of Josse’s blood will be the stone’s most powerful master and you have come here asking that I present myself at the Abbey with my daughter and put the jewel into her hands.’ Joanna’s eyes, hard as rock, fixed on Tiphaine. ‘My daughter,’ she said icily, ‘is but sixteen months old.’

     ‘Aye, I know,’ Tiphaine said evenly, retaining her composure with an effort. Sensing Joanna’s anger, she knew better than to try to explain herself.

     ‘And what if my child falls ill herself with this pestilence that you would have her treat in others?’ The sarcasm was bitter.

     ‘I don’t know about
treat
,’ Tiphaine said, evading the main issue, ‘I’d imagined it’d be more a question of Meggie’s being the hand that held the Eye and dipped it in the water.’

     ‘So you would not actually insist that she nurses the dying?’ Joanna said, one eyebrow raised in an expression of contempt.

     ‘Well, no.’ Tiphaine forced herself to meet Joanna’s eyes. ‘Like you say, she’s too little for that.’

     ‘She’s too little to have anything to do with magic stones and objects of power!’ Joanna shouted.

     But Lora said, ‘That is not necessarily true, Joanna. You know her heritage; can you truly say that, once past babyhood, any age in such a child may be deemed too young?’

     ‘I can! I do!’ Joanna’s distress was growing.

     Lora went on pressing her. ‘But is that not because you are still battling to accept what you have recently been told of that heritage, which naturally is also yours?’ Her dictatorial tone softening, she said, ‘I know what the Domina said to you as you were leaving Armorica, Joanna.’

     Now Joanna looked . . . haunted, Tiphaine thought, watching the young woman with pity. ‘Did you know?’ Joanna whispered to Lora.

     ‘Aye.’

     ‘Did everyone know?’

     ‘No, only the elders.’

     ‘Why didn’t they tell me before?’ Joanna pleaded. ‘It’s hard, so hard, to find out
now
!’

     Tiphaine began to understand.

     ‘We felt it better for you not to be told until the time was right,’ Lora said. ‘Until it was plain that you were ready for this other life that you have chosen.’

     ‘But I did not begin this life until it was too late!’ There were tears in Joanna’s eyes. ‘She died too soon, and I never knew, never had the chance to feel her arms around me in the full knowledge of what she really was to me! And now she’s gone and I can never tell her how much I loved her!’

     Lora stepped forward and, perhaps with the desire to be some sort of a substitute, put her arms around Joanna’s slim body. ‘There, child,’ she said gently, ‘there.’ One graceful hand smoothed Joanna’s hair. ‘Now you’ve been told before that she’s not really gone, haven’t you?’

     Joanna raised her head from Lora’s shoulder, a slight frown on her face. ‘Yes. The Domina said hadn’t I felt her presence, and I realised that I had. I still do; I hear her voice in my head and sometimes I feel that if I can just turn my head quickly enough, there she’ll be.’

     ‘Well, then.’ Lora resumed her stroking. ‘You had to wait till you were able to sense her, see. If you’d been told too soon your reaction might have been different. Back in your old life, it might have displeased you to know the truth.’

     ‘No!’ Joanna’s protest was instant and quite definite. ‘I always loved her, far, far more than the woman I knew as my mother.’

     ‘Perhaps,’ Lora murmured. ‘Anyway, we’re not here to discuss the rights and wrongs of all that. The important thing now is that you have the gifts bestowed on you through your blood, and these gifts have been passed on to your daughter here. Now we must add to them this precious jewel of Josse’s – no, Joanna, don’t recoil from the mention of it; don’t you know better than to reject an object of power when it presents itself? – and we also should take into account what Meggie may have inherited from the other half of her ancestry; from her father.’

     Joanna gave a short laugh. ‘Don’t go telling me Josse has magic power because I simply won’t believe you.’

     ‘Then you’d better think again,’ Lora said tartly, ‘and not be so swift to pass judgement.’

     Joanna muttered an apology. Then, with a kind of affectionate humour still evident in her expression, she said, ‘I did not detect power in him. Please explain to me, Lora, how it was that I missed it.’

     ‘That’s more like it.’ Lora gave a curt nod. ‘Well, happen you’re right in a way, because he doesn’t know his own forebears, or at least not the particular one who is relevant to our present concerns. His mother’s family came from the Downland and, six generations back, one of them was a woman who tended the sacred fire up at the place they now call Caburn.’

     ‘She was one of the elders?’ Joanna asked.

     ‘She was one of the Great Ones.’

     Joanna slowly shook her head. ‘That’s the name they keep associating with my daughter,’ she said. ‘Meggie, they say, will be one of the Great Ones.’ Her eyes pleading with Lora as if she hoped to be contradicted, she whispered, ‘You said the very same thing yourself.’

     ‘Aye, I remember.’ Lora sighed. ‘It’s a heavy burden for a child not much over a year but, Joanna, she’s a very special child and you couldn’t stop this thing that has come to her even if you wanted to; she
will be
the person she is destined to be. She’ll develop the strength to deal with it, don’t you worry.’ Releasing Joanna from her embrace, Lora turned to Meggie, who had been watching the proceedings with interested eyes. ‘Well now, child of the ancient line, bearer of the pure bloodline of the people, what do you reckon, eh?’ She took one of Meggie’s small hands and the child smiled at her.

     Lora studied the little face for a while. Then she said, ‘The child is like her father, as we can all see. But she’s also like you, Joanna, and even more like her grandmother.’ Then, turning to Tiphaine, finally Lora confirmed it: ‘Do you see it?’ she asked, smiling. ‘Can you see what I see in Meggie’s sweet face?’

     ‘I only met her but once,’ Tiphaine said, ‘and that was a very long time ago, in my life before I entered the Abbey. But, aye, I see it too.’

     Joanna had moved away and was standing staring out through the half-open door into the clearing beyond. Tiphaine and Lora exchanged a glance; it was clear to both of them that Joanna was thinking about what they had asked her to do, for her very stance emanated tension and worry.

     Neither of the older women spoke. Meggie returned to the plaything that had been entertaining her before the visitors arrived – it was a small sack stuffed with sheep’s wool and cleverly fashioned into the shape of a little doll, with black eyes and a smiling red mouth – and there came the faint sounds of her quietly chatting in nonsense language to herself.

     They waited.

     After what seemed a very long time, Joanna turned and said, ‘I will not do it.’

     Tiphaine felt herself sag with disappointment.

     Lora said evenly, ‘Will you tell us why not?’

     ‘Yes. For one thing, there is no guarantee that this Eye of Jerusalem is the power object they claim it to be. What, then, if I take Meggie to Hawkenlye only to have her fall sick with a fatal illness which I cannot cure? I will not take the risk of losing my child!’ The last words were spoken in a very quiet whisper but their force still reached the child sitting on the platform, who gave a little whimper.

     ‘What if we brought the Eye and the water out to the forest?’ Tiphaine suggested. ‘Would you agree to let the child wield the stone far away from any danger of infection?’

     ‘I—’ Joanna frowned, as if she had to think hard to find an acceptable way of rejecting this most reasonable request. Then, apparently deciding that nothing but the truth would do before Lora, who would know if she lied, she said, ‘It’s Josse. You, Tiphaine, have just told me that he does not know about Meggie. I have made my life without him; he, presumably, manages quite well without me.’ She glanced up at her beautiful child and her expression softened. ‘And he cannot miss that little person if he is not aware of her existence. No,’ she said, more firmly. ‘I will not undo all that I have achieved over the past two years. I am sorry, but that is my final answer.’

     Tiphaine was about to plead, to describe the suffering of the sick and see if that would melt Joanna’s resolve, but Lora gave her a dig in the ribs and she shut her mouth.

     Lora said calmly, ‘Very well, Joanna. Thank you for agreeing to speak to us; we shall leave you to your solitude now.’