Heart of Ice

Chapter 14

Sister Tiphaine and Lora had spent the night in the forest, in a compact shelter deep in its heart that the forest people occasionally used when in the vicinity. Despite the cold, Lora had contrived to make the shelter quite comfortable; she lit a small fire, prepared warm food and a hot drink and, when it was time for sleep, provided Tiphaine with a woollen cover that kept the herbalist as cosy as she usually was in her own bed back at Hawkenlye.

There had been no sign of Joanna at her hut when they went looking for her that morning. Lora had found the place without any difficulty and it was clear to both women that somebody — almost certainly Joanna — had recently been there for the dead bracken had been cut away from the clearing in which the hut was situated and the patch of earth where Joanna grew her herbs and her vegetables had been weeded and dug over ready for the spring planting. The hut itself was, Tiphaine had noticed, quite hard to spot, even when you knew quite well where it was. The undergrowth had advanced around the base of its walls and the branch of a birch tree bent low over its roof, in a gesture that was almost protective. Standing with her hands on her hips at Tiphaine’s side, Lora had observed that Joanna had learned a lot since she had first fled to hide in the Great Forest; when Tiphaine queried the remark, Lora turned to her with a wry expression and said, ‘She’s learned how to disguise her habitation so well that even I had to look twice.’

They had waited for the rest of that day. When it grew dark — and much colder — Lora had announced that they’d give it up for the day and try again tomorrow.

Now tomorrow had come.

As the two women strode through the forest, Tiphaine wondered if Joanna would be there this time when they reached the clearing. It was a strange thought, and one undoubtedly brought on by the unusual experience of sleeping out beneath the stars and the trees, but the herbalist realised that she would not be surprised at all to find that, this morning, Joanna had managed to make her hut totally invisible.

They approached the clearing and automatically slowed their fast pace. Tiphaine sensed that even Lora felt a little cowed by the force that seemed to emanate from the hut, and Lora was one of the elders of the forest people and a powerful woman herself.

Lora turned to Tiphaine with a grimace. ‘She knows we’re here,’ she said quietly. ‘Best go up to her openly; no sense skulking in the undergrowth.’

Tiphaine fell into step behind her and they strode across the clearing until they stood before Joanna’s door.

‘Joanna,’ Lora called, ‘we need to speak to you.’

No answer.

Lora raised her hand and tapped on the stout wood of the door. ‘Joanna!’ she said a little louder.

Still no answer.

Then she was standing right behind them, so close that Sister Tiphaine’s veil brushed against Joanna’s arm as the herbalist spun round.

Lora said somewhat caustically, ‘Very clever, my girl. Demonstrating your skill, is that it?’

Joanna did not speak for a moment. She stood quite still, dark eyes studying first Lora, then Tiphaine. Then she said, ‘I knew you were looking for me, Lora, and that there was another with you. Until now, I did not know the identity of the other.’

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.’

‘I-’ Whatever Joanna was about to say, she changed her mind. ‘Farewell, Lora, Tiphaine.’

As the two older women passed her by and left the hut, she gave them both a curt bow and then closed the door behind them.

‘Could we not have tried to persuade her?’ Tiphaine said crossly as they hurried away along the winding forest tracks. ‘People are dying, Lora, and she could help!’

‘It is Joanna’s decision,’ Lora said firmly, ‘and that’s an end to it.’

Watching her face, Tiphaine wondered why, when she seemed to be resigned to failure, Lora should look quite cheerful about it. .

Back at Hawkenlye that evening, Josse and Augustus were the first to return. Josse went straight to the Abbess to report that they did not find Sabin de Retz at Robertsbridge but that he and Gus both had the distinct impression that the monk to whom they spoke was eager to see the back of them.

‘The Cistercians are renowned for their love of solitude,’ the Abbess remarked. ‘Could this monk’s demeanour have been simply the desire of a man who has become accustomed to his own company to be free of outsiders?’

‘Perhaps,’ Josse agreed. ‘Only Gussie pointed out that Stephen — that was the monk’s name — excusing himself by saying he had to get back to work was odd since the White Monks have lay brothers for the hard labour.’

‘There is work in a monastery apart from tilling the fields and digging,’ the Abbess said, indicating her heavily loaded table. ‘Possibly this Stephen was behind in his accounts?’

Josse sighed heavily; he was far too tired to rack his brains to find the words to explain the subtle sense that both he and Gus had felt that Stephen was being economical with the truth. ‘No doubt you are right, my lady,’ he said, rather more tetchily than he had intended; the Abbess, he noticed, gave a faint smile. ‘But what of matters here?’ he asked, hastening to change the subject. ‘How fare the infirmarer’s patients in the Vale?’

Now it was the Abbess who sighed. Putting her hands up to rub at her eyes, she said, ‘More sick people arrived this morning; five very ill and three with fever but sufficiently well to help their relatives. Two are dying; for another two there is little hope. And a man came stumbling into the Vale not long ago; he is a thatcher and lives in a hamlet under the eaves of the forest some five miles from here. He is sick but ignores his own symptoms out of anxiety for his twelve-year old son; that boy too, according to Sister Euphemia, will be lucky to see the morning.’

‘I see.’ Josse’s faint optimism that there would be no more new cases said a brief farewell and melted away. ‘How is Sister Judith?’

‘She is holding on.’

Josse hesitated. ‘Brother Firmin?’

The Abbess closed her eyes, as if in a brief prayer. ‘He, too, is still with us.’

Observing her face, Josse said gently, ‘There is still hope, my lady.’

‘Hope for what?’ she snapped back. ‘Nearly a dozen dead and the accommodation in the Vale filled to overflowing with feverish, pain-racked, vomiting people who void their bowels as fast as the nursing nuns and monks can pour the liquid into them! It is a nightmare down there, Sir Josse; a vision of hell, complete with sounds, stenches and suffering that must be making the devil dance with glee!’

She paused, panting, and he waited. Then, calming herself, she said more quietly, ‘I am sorry. You know these things as well as I do and I should not have shouted at you.’

‘Shout away, my lady, if it helps,’ he said kindly.

She was looking at him with an odd expression in her eyes, and he remembered how strange she had seemed before he had left to go to Robertsbridge. Puzzled, he was about to ask her outright what was the matter when she spoke; her words serving only to increase his mystification, she said, ‘Oh, Sir Josse, do not be generous with me; I do not deserve it.’

‘My lady, I-’

But she was not going to allow him to speak. Standing up, she said, ‘I must seek out Sister Tiphaine, for there is a matter I wish to discuss with her. Sir Josse, I will not keep you any longer from your well-earned rest; off you go to the Vale where, I am quite sure, Brother Saul will be able to find you something hot to eat.’

Reckoning that he had rarely received such a clear dismissal, Josse opened the door for her and stood back to allow her to precede him out into the cloister. He watched her stride away in the direction of the herbalist’s hut, then spun round and hurried away to the rear gate of the Abbey and the path down to the Vale.

I would do anything in my power to help you, you stubborn woman, he thought angrily. But if you prefer to keep me shut out, then you render me helpless and I am happy to leave you to it.

But as his anger faded he knew that happy was completely the wrong word.

Helewise had no idea whether in fact Sister Tiphaine had yet returned from the forest; she had used a visit to the herbalist as an excuse to see Josse on his way. As the hours had passed she had been feeling increasingly guilty about the events she had set in motion and having him standing right in front of her being kind to her had been more than she could bear.

She hastened past the Great West Door of the Abbey church, hurried on by the sinister, windowless walls of the leper house and turned right along the far perimeter of the Abbey, pacing along the path to the herbalist’s garden and hut.

There was a light showing under the hut’s closed door; it looked as if Sister Tiphaine were back. Opening the door, Helewise stepped into the warm, scented air of the little room and immediately Sister Tiphaine bent in a low reverence.

‘My lady Abbess, I would have come to find you straight away following my return,’ she said after the customary exchange of greetings, ‘but I saw Sir Josse approaching your room and deemed it best not to see you when he was in your presence.’

‘Quite right, Sister.’ Trying to keep the eagerness out of her voice, she said, ‘Now, what news?’

Sister Tiphaine’s very expression seemed to speak of her failure; straight away she said, ‘It’s no good, I’m afraid, my lady; she won’t agree to it.’

Oh, dear God, no!

But it was not the role of abbesses to appear before their nuns distraught and hopeless; rallying, Helewise said, ‘I see. Now, Sister, will you please tell me the full story?’

‘She’s back,’ Tiphaine said shortly. ‘Joanna, I mean. She’s been away learning skills from the Great Ones of her people and now she’s formidable.’

A shiver went down Helewise’s back. ‘You mean — is she dangerous?’

Sister Tiphaine gave a brief snort that could have been laughter. ‘I’m sure she could be, my lady, but that was not what I meant. She’s been in training as a healer.’

‘A healer.’ Helewise stored that away for future thought. ‘And there is a child, isn’t there?’

Tiphaine gave her a thoughtful look. ‘You already knew that, my lady, did you not?’

Yes, was the truthful answer. But Helewise said somewhat stiffly, ‘It was but idle speculation.’

Tiphaine looked as if she was not fooled for a moment. But there was nothing but the usual respect in her tone when she spoke. ‘The child is a little girl, some sixteen months old. She is dark haired and has eyes that dance with light. She seems to have a sweet disposition and she is very pretty.’

‘She is the child of Sir Josse?’ Helewise just had to have it confirmed.

‘Aye, my lady.’ But you knew that too hung unspoken in the air.

‘She is- Does she resemble her father?’

‘Oh, aye. There would be no doubt in the mind of anyone who had seen both father and child that Meggie is his.’

‘Meggie,’ Helewise repeated softly. ‘A pretty name for a pretty child.’

‘Aye, my lady.’ The herbalist stood silent, eyes cast down, waiting for her Abbess to speak.

Which, eventually, she did. ‘Was any reason given for Joanna’s refusal to bring Meggie here to Hawkenlye?’

‘She fears the sickness, not for herself but for the little one. We suggested that she need bring the child no nearer than the forest fringe, where we could take water and the Eye to her, but Joanna’s real reason for staying well away from Hawkenlye is because of him.’

We, Helewise noted. Tiphaine had not been alone when she approached Joanna, then. Letting that pass, she said, ‘Because of Sir Josse, you mean.’ Yes, she could well understand why Joanna would not wish to open old wounds, either her own or Josse’s, and a part of her was dancing with delight at the young woman’s forbearance.

But Joanna keeping Meggie away would not help the Hawkenlye sick, she told herself firmly. Then, swallowing her pride because she was fairly sure what the answer would be, she asked tentatively, ‘Would it make any difference if I spoke to Joanna?’

‘None whatsoever, my lady,’ Sister Tiphaine said promptly. ‘I am sorry to speak so bluntly.’

‘It’s all right, Sister; I asked the question and I wanted an honest answer.’

There was a short silence and then Sister Tiphaine said, ‘Are there many sick now?’

And there was nothing for Helewise to say but, ‘Oh, yes, Sister, I’m afraid there are.’