Heart of Ice (8 page)

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 dread 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.

     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?’