Heart of Ice (44 page)

     De Gifford looked horrified. ‘Then – good God, if they had succeeded, then that vast ransom that we have raised and that has caused such terrible hardship would have been all for nothing!’

     ‘Aye,’ Josse agreed, ‘I do not suppose for a moment that anybody would have got their money back. But it did not happen, Gervase; our Richard has not been wasting his time while in captivity and it is ever a policy of his to befriend those who might subsequently be useful to him. He made allies of some of the empire’s influential princes and it is said that it was they who persuaded Duke Leopold that it was not fitting to sell a king as if he were a side of bacon being bargained over by two old women in the market place.’

     ‘So—’ De Gifford was clearly concentrating hard. ‘So the English bid was accepted?’

     ‘I am sure it must have been,’ Josse agreed. ‘For the fact that King Richard was about to be or had just been released was surely what prompted Prince John to reverse his order to the assassin. There is, after all, little point in having Arthur of Brittany killed while King Richard is on the throne; with Arthur gone, the King would simply name another heir, and whoever he was, he still would not be Prince John.’

     There was silence in the hall. Josse, greatly relieved at having the matter exposed and thoroughly discussed, was reflecting on the ways of kings and princes, which did not seem to take the same account of basic right and wrong as those of ordinary people, when Sabin’s quiet voice broke across his reverie.

     ‘What will happen to Arthur,’ she said, ‘when King Richard dies?’

     Nobody broke the silence; not one of us, Josse thought, wants to think about that.

Josse was out in the courtyard preparing to set off back up to the Abbey when he heard the sound of light footsteps. Turning, he saw Sabin hurrying towards him.

     ‘My lady?’ he said courteously.

     ‘I came to thank you, Sir Josse, for all that you have done for Grandfather and me,’ she said breathlessly.

     Nonplussed, for he couldn’t think of very much that he
had
done, Josse muttered a brief acknowledgement.

     But thanks, it became clear, had not been her main motive in following him outside. Looking up into his eyes, she said, ‘Do
you
think it is safe for us to return home to Nantes?’

     Her emphasis on
you
making him wonder if someone else had suggested it wasn’t, he said carefully, ‘It would seem that the threat has been removed with the death of the assassin, my lady. There is the messenger, I know, who also knew the secret, but we do not know that he was aware even of being overheard, never mind by whom. The killer, I would wager, surely would not share that knowledge with a mere messenger, and I do not think that removal of witnesses would even occur to the man. And you have your poor patient to consider, as well as the rest of the good people of Nantes who have reason to be grateful for a first-rate apothecary.’

     ‘Grandfather and I could work here in England, and there are other apothecaries in Nantes,’ she said. He thought she sounded wistful. ‘Tonbridge seems to be a nice town.’

     And it has a very handsome and eligible sheriff, he thought. ‘You could,’ he agreed, ‘and aye, Tonbridge is pleasant enough. What does your grandfather think?’

     ‘He’s tired, Sir Josse,’ she said. ‘He needs a long rest.’

     ‘Then, since you seem to be asking for my opinion’ – he grinned at her and her answering smile confirmed it – ‘my advice is that you postpone making a decision until your grandfather is ready to travel. In the meantime . . .’ He decided it was best to leave that up to her to decide; he was quite sure she would think of something.

     Now her smile was radiant. ‘Oh, what good advice,’ she said softly. ‘Thank you; I shall take it.’

     With a swirl of her skirts she was off, running lightly back to the steps that led up into Gervase de Gifford’s hall. Where, Josse was quite sure, the sheriff would greet her announcement that she and her grandfather would like to stay on for a while with a delight that he would find quite difficult to conceal.

     ‘Oh, Horace,’ Josse said to his horse as they rode out on to the track and he spurred him to a trot, ‘what it is to be young and in love!’

His mood quickly sobered as he put the town behind him and headed for Hawkenlye Abbey. He was due to visit the Abbess and, for perhaps the first time, there was something – a very major something – that he knew he must not tell her. It was a very small reason to be grateful that she was still not herself, for the terrifying sickness had left its mark on her, as on all its victims, and she seemed to have but a hazy memory of events that happened immediately before she was taken ill.

     She had remembered about Nicol Romley and vaguely recalled something about a dead merchant in Hastings; Josse had explained briefly that the killer had been apprehended and was now dead, and, most unusually for her, she had accepted this without demanding more details.

     That alone – her almost total lack of curiosity – told him how unwell she had been and still was. He prayed for her whenever he thought of her, which was many times each day, and one of his chief requests was that her wonderfully agile and enquiring mind had not deserted her for ever.

     Time would tell.

     At least she was still alive; that, he thought as Horace climbed to the top of Castle Hill and, from long habit and without being prompted, broke into a canter, was probably quite enough for now.

Chapter 23

When Josse rode down into the Vale an astonishing sight met his eyes. The monks and lay brothers were laying into the temporary infirmary with mallets, hammers, sticks and even their bare hands and already one wall was no more than a great heap of plaster and splintered wood.

     Tethering Horace at a safe distance, Josse approached the work gang. Brother Saul, noticing him, gave him a grin and said, ‘We’re ordered to pull it down and burn it, Sir Josse. The infirmarer says it’s the only way; she’s had us scrubbing the floors again and again but still the smell hangs on, and when we tried to wash down the walls, quite a lot of the daub came away.’ Leaning closer, he whispered, ‘There were all manner of insects and small rodents in that wattle and daub, you know; it fair turned some of the younger brethren’s stomachs, I don’t mind telling you.’

     ‘Not yours, Saul, I’ll warrant,’ Josse said, slapping him on the shoulder. ‘So there’s going to be a bonfire later?’

     ‘Aye,’ Saul said happily, eyes sparkling like a lad’s at the prospect. ‘We’ve only a few convalescents here now and they’ve been safely moved up to the main infirmary. Sister Euphemia, she’s arranged a curtained-off area for them.’ He leaned closer to Josse. ‘The Abbess was taken up there this morning,’ he confided.

     ‘She was strong enough to be moved?’ The sudden sharp anxiety took him by surprise.

     ‘Oh, yes,’ Saul said, looking at him kindly. ‘She wouldn’t have been moved otherwise, don’t you worry. Four of us carried her well wrapped-up on a litter, Sir Josse, and she was that light, it fair amazed me!’

     Josse found that he was temporarily unable to speak, so he merely nodded.

     Saul, who obviously sensed his emotion, tactfully picked up the conversation. ‘Now you may well be wondering just what we’re going to do without this here old place.’ He waved a mallet in the direction of the fast-disappearing shelter. Josse, who had actually been wondering nothing of the sort, smiled. ‘Well, there was a thatcher came in with his son,’ Saul was explaining, ‘and he thought – everybody thought – that the lad would surely die. But he was saved, Sir Josse! The lady Abbess, she tended the boy herself and knelt there by his bedside with his poor desperate father, and God heard her prayers and the lad got better!’

     ‘It was indeed a miracle, Saul,’ Josse said solemnly.

     ‘The thatcher – his name’s Catt, and that’s him over there up on the roof hacking away at the supporting beams – well, Catt, he promised the Abbess that if God spared Pip – that’s his boy – then he’d put new roofs on any of the Abbey buildings as needed them. Since our roofs are in good repair’ – there was a note of pride in Saul’s voice, quite justified since he it was who did most of the repairing – ‘Catt said that instead he’d build us a new shelter. He says it’ll be the best shelter we’ve ever seen, although as young Gussie pointed out, since most of us have only got the old one to judge by that’s not saying a lot.’ Saul chuckled.

     ‘A good man, this Catt, so to honour his undertaking,’ Josse remarked.

     ‘Oh, aye, he’s that all right.’ Catt, it was clear, had impressed Brother Saul. ‘Pip’s up in the infirmary with the other convalescents, being as how he’s still very weak, and until he’s well enough to get up, Catt’s going to get some of us to work with him.’ Saul looked down at his sandals. ‘Thought I’d offer to help,’ he said bashfully. ‘Got some thanks of my own to give.’

     Josse knew exactly what he meant.

He found the Abbess in a bed at the end of the infirmary. He thought she looked a little better; there was a very small amount of colour in her face. He went to sit beside her on the stool that Sister Euphemia had supplied for people visiting the infirmary’s most important patient.

     ‘Hello, Sir Josse,’ the Abbess said faintly. ‘What have you been up to?’

     There was no need to mention the visit to Tonbridge and what he had found out unless she specifically asked. She must put all her energy into getting strong and it would not help her to fret about problematic situations that were now over and done with. ‘I’ve just come from the Vale,’ he said with perfect truthfulness. ‘They’re getting on well with demolishing the old shelter.’

     ‘Good,’ she said.

     ‘That fellow Catt is working like three men. No doubt he can’t wait to start on the new building.’

     ‘No doubt,’ she echoed.

     ‘The Abbey will gain something from this terrible episode, won’t it? The new shelter, I mean; it’s bound to be a great improvement on the old one.’

     ‘Oh, yes.’

     I am tiring her, he realised. So, making himself as comfortable as he could, he patted her hand and then contented himself with sitting quietly at her side.

     Presently she went to sleep.

The infirmarer came to check on her after a while. Josse discreetly moved out of the recess and quite soon Sister Euphemia came along the room to find him.

     ‘She is doing well, isn’t she?’

     The infirmarer smiled. ‘She’s not doing too badly, Sir Josse. She’s just very, very weak and even speaking a few words tires her out.’

     ‘That’s what I thought.’

     ‘Yes, and it was considerate of you to sit there quietly, not making her talk to you. Even though she seemed to be asleep, she may well have been aware that you were there.’

     ‘I will be able to talk to her properly again, though, won’t I?’ The question burst from him before he could stop it and he was ashamed of himself; he sounded like a child frightened by the dark pleading for reassurance.

     But the infirmarer understood. Taking hold of his hand, she squeezed it and simply said, ‘Yes.’

He went up to the Abbey church for Nones to pray with the community. They gave thanks, in simple but very affecting terms, for the cessation of the pestilence, for the recovering patients and, in particular, for their beloved Abbess’s life. Leaving the great building afterwards, Josse thought suddenly that somebody ought to go and thank Joanna.

     I will, he decided.

     He left the Abbey by the main gate, crossed the open ground between the track and the forest and was soon following the track that he knew led to her hut. He was not very confident of finding his way – it was a long time since he had been there – but he knew he must try. After several false trails, suddenly he had the impression that someone was guiding his steps for, every time there was a choice of tracks, he unerringly took one or another. And he seemed to know he was going in the right direction.

     Soon he came to the clearing that he remembered. There was the small patch of neatly tended earth where she grew vegetables and herbs. Over there, carefully kept apart, was the special place for the plants which, touched or nibbled at by the unwary, would have effects that, far from curing the hurts and ills of animals or humans, would actually do the reverse.