Heart of Ice

Chapter 13

Josse and Brother Augustus made swift time on the journey down to Robertsbridge. The road was indeed good and there were relatively few places where potholes and cracks meant slowing down to pick a careful path.

Augustus must have asked directions — perhaps he already knew the way, for before coming to Hawkenlye his young life had been spent travelling on England’s roads — and as they approached the place he was able to lead Josse along increasingly narrow paths and tracks until, deep in the forest and with the gentle slope of a hill behind it, they came to Robertsbridge Abbey.

Josse was not sure what he had been expecting; in the back of his mind he had had a vague picture of a smaller and more isolated Hawkenlye. As soon as the settlement known as Robertsbridge Abbey came into view, however, he realised that his mental image was quite wrong: Robertsbridge was nothing like Hawkenlye and, had it not been for the rough wooden cross affixed to one of the larger buildings, it could, from a distance, have been mistaken for a primitive peasant hamlet.

As they rode closer, Josse could make out a plan. The monks had hacked away trees, shrubs and undergrowth from the edges of what appeared to have been a pre-existing open space in deep woodland. Judging from the position of the sun, the monks had utilised the low hill for protection from the easterly winds, for the settlement was built to the west of it. Their foundation consisted of a wide central cloister surrounded by cells on the west side and gardens on the east, the latter tucked under the lee of the hill and exposed to the south to gain maximum sunshine. The communal buildings were small and built of roughly shaped wooden planks infilled with wattle and daub. A stream winding round the base of the hill had been diverted so that little channels ran through the vegetable and herb gardens; presumably the site had been selected because of proximity to the stream.

To the right of the monks’ buildings and some two hundred paces along a track leading into the forest, Josse could just make out the outlines of another small group of dwellings; probably stables, farm buildings and workshops. They would be invisible from the abbey, he realised, once the trees and bushes were in leaf.

Perhaps that was the idea.

A low wooden fence with a gate, at present standing open, surrounded the monks’ buildings; the fence would not have deterred a determined intruder and Josse guessed that it was probably intended to keep out livestock or the wild animals of the forest.

He led the way through the open gate. All was still and quiet — the monks must either be at prayer or out somewhere supervising the work on their lands — but nevertheless he felt quite sure that he was being watched.

He and Augustus drew rein just inside the gate and Josse called out, ‘Halloa the Abbey! We have come from Hawkenlye and would have speech with you!’

For a moment nothing happened; Josse thought he caught a snatch of whispered conversation but decided that it was probably his imagination, stimulated by the susurration of the wind in the bare branches of the trees. Then out of a long, low building to the left, roofed with thatch and totally unadorned, a man appeared. He was clad in a simple white habit of coarse wool tied at the waist with a length of rope.

He walked over to Josse, staring up at him out of bright, round eyes that reminded Josse of those of an inquisitive bird. He said, ‘I am Stephen. What do you wish to speak to me about?’ As Josse hesitated, he added, ‘Please, dismount, and your companion too.’ The shiny brown eyes turned to Augustus and Stephen gave the lad a nod of greeting.

‘I am Josse d’Acquin,’ Josse said, sliding down from Horace’s back, ‘and this is Brother Augustus of Hawkenlye.’

‘Good day to you both,’ Stephen said. Then, with a sudden radiant smile, ‘Welcome! I will see to your horses and then we shall take food and drink together; simple fare, I fear, but what we have you may freely share.’

Waving away Josse’s thanks, Stephen took the horses’ reins and led the animals in the direction of the track branching off towards the buildings in the forest; he called out, ‘Bruno! Come and take these horses and tend to them!’ A boyish figure dressed in brown appeared from behind the church where, to judge by the way he was brushing earth from his hands, he had been engaged in some gardening task. He gave Stephen a reverential bow, then took the horses and hastened off with them down the track, making a quiet sound in his throat that sounded remarkably like a horse’s soft whinny.

Stephen gazed after him, shaking his head. ‘Poor Bruno is short of wits,’ he said very softly, although the lad was too far away by now to have heard even a voice speaking at normal pitch. ‘He is dumb and cannot talk to his fellow man, but God has compensated by bestowing upon the boy the ability to communicate with animals and, if it does not sound too strange, with plants.’

‘Plants?’ Josse and Augustus said together.

Stephen smiled. ‘Aye. Bruno’s vegetables, herbs and flowers put those grown by the rest of us to shame. He treats his plants as if they were little creatures and we cannot but conclude that it is the boy’s very breath that encourages such extraordinary growth.’ Shaking his head at the vagaries of the natural world, Stephen led the way into the long, low building from which he had earlier emerged.

Josse saw that it was a very rudimentary refectory. The long tables were of plain wood and the benches either side of them so narrow that being seated on them must have been like sitting on top of a fence rail. The candlesticks were simply made, and of undecorated iron. Stephen had called out as he entered the room and in response another white-robed monk now appeared bearing a wooden tray on which were a pottery flagon, two tankards and some hunks of what looked like rather coarse bread.

‘Small beer is our usual beverage,’ Stephen said, filling the tankards. ‘And I fear the bread may be dry to your taste for we do not use animal fat.’

Josse, who had taken a mouthful of bread and was now trying to summon sufficient saliva to chew it, had to agree, but good manners made him say, as soon as the bread was under control, ‘We are grateful for your hospitality, Stephen, and the victuals are most welcome.’

Stephen nodded in satisfaction. He watched Josse and Augustus eat and drink and, when they had finished, he said, ‘You have ridden some distance to speak to us here. Now that you are refreshed, will you explain why?’

Josse had been rehearsing what he would say; monks and nuns were not, in his experience, people to waste time with unnecessary words and so he tried to be brief. ‘A young woman came asking for help at Hawkenlye Abbey,’ he said. ‘Her name is Sabin de Retz and she was in fact looking for a friend. She came to Hawkenlye because she had been told he had gone there. We — Augustus and I — rode to Newenden, the town where the young man, Nicol Romley, lived, and we discovered that Sabin had also been there asking for him. It was there that she was told he had gone to Hawkenlye.’

Josse had the distinct sense that he was making the explanation more complicated than it need be and was fleetingly surprised to see that Stephen was nodding his understanding. ‘Did she not speak to you at the Abbey?’ he asked.

‘No, for I was not there,’ Josse replied, ‘and, indeed, since she had not heard of me, she could not have asked for me by name. She did not find Nicol Romley either,’ he added. ‘In fact, Nicol is dead.’

‘Dead!’ The monk’s eyes widened dramatically. ‘Dear me!’

‘Ever since I learned that Sabin de Retz was looking for Nicol,’ Josse continued, ‘Augustus and I have been trying to find her. She’s not staying in Newenden nor, as far as we can ascertain, anywhere along the road to Hawkenlye, and it appears she’s not in Tonbridge either.’ Glancing at Augustus, he said, ‘Brother Augustus here had the bright idea that she might be enjoying the hospitality of a monastic house and, yours being the obvious choice, we have come here to ask you if you know of her or have had any word of her.’

There was quite a long pause. Then Stephen said, ‘She is not here, Sir Josse.’

Josse’s heart sank. It was not until he heard Stephen’s denial that he realised how much he had been banking on finding her here. ‘And-’ He swallowed and tried again. ‘You do not even recognise the name? She’s young, as I say, well-dressed, apparently, and mounted on a good mare.’

Stephen gave a shrug. Cursing monks for their habits of economy of speech, Josse turned away before Stephen could read his expression; it was not, he thought fairly, the monk’s fault that he could not provide the happy solution that Josse so badly wanted.

Stephen’s voice broke the uncomfortable silence. ‘You say that the young man is dead,’ he said. ‘Forgive my curiosity — very little happens in our daily life here, Sir Josse, and we enjoy the occasional scrap of news of the outside world — but how did he die?’

Josse studied the monk’s face. He wore a bland smile but there was a certain avidity in the round eyes, as if he were hungry for a good gossip and a few gory details. ‘Nicol Romley was suffering from a pestilence that we believe was brought across from the continent,’ he said, speaking more curtly than was polite. ‘But he didn’t die of the sickness; someone struck him over the head and rolled his body into the lake in Hawkenlye Vale.’

Stephen had gone white.

Josse said, after a moment, ‘Do not fear contagion from Augustus and me, for the nuns and monks of Hawkenlye have arranged matters so that the sick and the healthy are kept well apart.’

Again, Stephen seemed to weigh his words before speaking. Then he said, ‘I thank you, Sir Josse, for the reassurance.’

Eyes on those of the monk’s, Josse had the sudden quaint thought that Stephen’s intent stare meant he was trying to convey something about which he would not speak. Perhaps he wants to know more about the foreign pestilence, Josse thought, but fears to ask in case Gus and I condemn him for his morbid curiosity. ‘The disease takes the form of a high fever with a deadly looseness of the bowels that leaches every drop of fluid from the body,’ he began, but Stephen put up a silencing hand.

‘I pray to the merciful one above that I shall not need to know the symptoms,’ he said. ‘We shall include the sick of Hawkenlye in our prayers.’

‘Thank you,’ Josse said gruffly.

‘Well,’ Stephen said after a moment, ‘if there’s nothing else, I will send Bruno for your horses and see you on your way.’ With a beaming smile, he edged Josse towards the door. ‘We live a life of hard work, you know, and these lands that we wrested back from the wild need our constant vigilance to keep them productive.’

‘We would not keep you from your work,’ Josse said. ‘It was good of you to spare the time to see us and I apologise for troubling you.’

‘Oh, think nothing of it!’ said the monk brightly. ‘Bruno! Bruno! Leave your digging and fetch the horses — our visitors are going now.’

‘Now why,’ Josse said to Augustus as they emerged from the track on to the main road up from Hastings and could ride side by side, ‘do I have the impression that Brother Stephen was eager to see the back of us? Can he have truly been in that much of a hurry to return to whatever he was doing when we arrived?’

Augustus frowned. ‘It’s odd he should speak of working hard on the land,’ he said slowly.

‘Why? I understood that to be the way of the Cistercians, to carve out a clearing deep in the forest and cultivate it? I thought their rule involved less hours praying in chapel and more out working the land.’

‘It does,’ Augustus agreed. ‘Or, rather, it did, until the White Monks discovered that, as any farmer could have told them, working the land thoroughly and well doesn’t really leave any time for saying your prayers, at least not when the prayers are of any length.’

‘So how do they manage?’

‘They invented the system of lay brethren,’ Augustus said. ‘That boy Bruno, he was dressed in brown instead of the white that Stephen wears. Well, he’ll be a lay brother.’

Josse frowned. ‘But we have lay brothers at Hawkenlye, although you wear black like the monks.’

‘Aye, but the Cistercians had them first,’ Augustus said with a grin. ‘Reckon whoever set about making sure that the system at Hawkenlye Abbey worked all right wasn’t above pinching a good idea from another order.’

Josse smiled in response. Then, recalling where the conversation had begun, he said, ‘So what you’re saying is that it’s odd for Stephen to say he’s got to get back to manual work because it won’t be the likes of him who carries out the farming and forestry tasks?’

‘Aye,’ Gus agreed. ‘If he wanted an excuse to see us on our way, it seems to me he ought to have come up with something more convincing.’

An excuse to see us on our way. Aye, Josse thought as, the road smoothing out in front of them, they kicked their horses to a canter. Aye, that’s just how I saw it.

And as they covered the miles back to Hawkenlye, he tried — with a singular lack of success — to work out why Stephen had wanted them gone. By the time the Abbey came into view, all that he had managed to come up with was that Stephen had not been as convinced by Josse’s reassurances concerning the sickness as he claimed to be.

Back at Robertsbridge, as soon as Josse and Augustus had ridden off down the track, Stephen had raced to climb the hill behind the Abbey. He knew from long experience that, on a clear day, it allowed someone standing at its summit a good view of the place where the track to Robertsbridge Abbey joined the main road coming up from the coast; he wanted to make quite sure that his visitors had gone.

He waited for some time, stamping his bare feet in their rough sandals against the cold, hard ground and, as the sweat of exertion cooled, wrapping his arms round himself in a vain attempt to stop the shivering. Then at last the two horsemen came into view; the young monk was leading, the big knight following. As Stephen watched, a smile of relief on his face, the pair emerged on to the road and their pace increased. He watched until they were out of sight and then turned and hurried back down to the Abbey.

He turned left instead of right at the foot of the hill and ran along the track to the buildings hidden in the forest.

She was waiting for him.

‘Have they gone?’ Her accent was strong but he could understand her if she spoke slowly.

‘Aye. I waited until they broke into a canter to be sure. They’re hurrying back to Hawkenlye now.’

‘They will not return here?’

‘I do not think so.’

‘What did they say about Nicol?’ she demanded urgently. Her face was pale and her wide blue eyes showed her fear but she was still beautiful, even to an avowed monk who ought not to notice such things.

Stephen took a step closer to her and placed a gentle hand on her arm. ‘He did not die of the sickness,’ he said. ‘That knight — he is Sir Josse d’Acquin — says he was struck down by an unknown assailant.’

Sabin gasped. ‘It is just as I feared!’ she cried. ‘They tried before in Troyes and now they have followed us to England. Nicol would not accept that we were in danger and so would not agree to take care, and now he has paid the price for his — his insouciance and he is dead. Oh, dear God, he’s been murdered!’ She gave a sob that seemed to come up from the very heart of her.

‘You are safe here,’ Stephen reassured her, ‘we are so deeply buried in the forest that nobody can find us unless they know the way.’

‘That Sir Josse found you,’ she pointed out coldly.

‘Aye, but he had a lad with him who’s a monk and probably knows all about us,’ Stephen replied.

She drew her heavy cloak more firmly round her, pulling the hood up over the neat white cap that covered her fair hair. Turning to Stephen, she gave a very small smile and said, ‘I apologise for my rudeness. It is not right to speak in this manner when you and the other monks have been so kind to us during the week and more that we have imposed ourselves upon you.’

Stephen spread his hands, palms upwards. ‘It is what we are here for, to help those in need,’ he said simply. Then: ‘How is he?’

Sabin shrugged. ‘Restless. He was not in his room when I went to find him earlier and I was worried that he had somehow found out that the knight and the young monk from Hawkenlye had come here.’

‘He was not in the Abbey buildings when they arrived,’ Stephen said quickly.

Sabin smiled again, more generously now, and a dimple winked in her pale cheek. ‘He was,’ she corrected him. ‘He’d gone to beg some ingredients from your herbalist and he heard the horses. He hid in that little room just inside the gate and watched.’

Stephen sighed; Sabin’s old grandfather was becoming quite unpredictable. But then, the monk reminded himself, the poor old boy had been through a lot recently and probably spent much of his waking hours afraid of another attempt on his life. ‘Has he returned to the guest quarters?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ Sabin replied. ‘Now that he has the necessary ingredients to finish whatever remedy he was in the process of making up, he will be quite happy. For the time being,’ she added, looking anxious again.

‘Sabin,’ Stephen began cautiously, ‘I do not in truth believe that the knight represents any threat to you or your grandfather. He seemed to me to be a good man, sincere in his wish to find you and, I would surmise, in so doing discover who killed poor Nicol and why.’

Sabin stared at him, blue eyes intent. ‘Perhaps,’ she said softly. ‘But what if you are wrong? Somebody tried to kill Grandfather and me in Troyes by setting fire to the lodging house where we were staying. Now somebody — perhaps the same man — has pursued us to England and he has slain Nicol. I followed poor Nicol to Newenden in order to insist that he take the danger seriously but I arrived too late; they told me he had gone to Hawkenlye. I would have followed him there straight away but for Grandfather; I had to return here to Robertsbridge because he was still so sick from the smoke that he breathed in and the pains in his chest that followed. When finally I went to Hawkenlye, almost a week later, still in pursuit of Nicol and also to try to find if anyone at the Abbey could help me, it was to overhear that he was already in his grave.’ Her face working with emotion, she said, ‘And now we find out that he did not die of the pestilence but was struck down by an assailant! Stephen, I dare not trust anybody, even your knight!’

Stephen gave a faint shrug. ‘Then you had better stay here,’ he said, with a note of resignation that did not go unnoticed.

‘Where else should I go?’ Sabin asked, spreading her hands wide in appeal. ‘Should I return to Hawkenlye, dragging Grandfather with me, for us to suffer the same fate as Nicol?’

‘Perhaps you would not,’ Stephen said. ‘If you could but persuade yourself that Sir Josse d’Acquin is no threat but in fact your protector, then might returning to the place where Nicol was slain be the first step in bringing his killer to justice? There is much that you could tell the knight that would help in that worthy aim, is there not? We could arrange an escort for you to ensure your safety on the journey; have no fear on that score.’

She stared at him for some moments. Then she said, ‘Grandfather overheard you talking to the knight, Stephen. He left the little gate room and crouched just outside the door of the refectory and he didn’t miss a single word.’ Her expression chilling until the blue eyes were icy, she went on, ‘Just when, I wonder, were you going to confirm to me what, from my visit, I already suspected: that the sickness that drove Nicol to seek help is now rife at Hawkenlye Abbey?’