Heart of Ice

Chapter 3

As Josse and de Gifford rode down to Tonbridge, the sheriff racked his brains to think of anybody in the area who could have sold the victim a sophisticated and costly remedy that included an element commonly regarded as magical. Thinking out loud, he narrowed the possible Tonbridge candidates down to one, ‘and I’m almost sure we’ll be wasting our time with him.’

In the absence of any other place to start, de Gifford led the way to the business premises of the town’s one reasonably renowned apothecary. As soon as Josse understood that the shabby-looking dwelling tucked away between two others — in slightly better repair — was actually the residence of their quarry, he silently began to agree with de Gifford.

The apothecary’s house was towards the end of a narrow, muddy and rubbish-strewn street that led away from the river and the wealthier parts of the town and off south-eastwards in the direction of the boggy, marshy, ague-ridden areas where nobody lived unless poverty and desperation drove them there. The stench was appalling; human waste mixed with melted frost ran in a gully in the middle of the road and rats scrabbled among the rotting heaps of rubbish that had collected at regular intervals. The dwellings were of poor construction and their timbers had warped; here and there walls looked on the point of collapse and several of the roofs had gaping holes. Hoping that he was not about to breathe his last and suffocate beneath a mixture of wattle, daub, rotten vegetables and shit, Josse drew rein behind de Gifford’s horse and watched as de Gifford dismounted and — with an expression of disgust and stepping carefully in his highly polished boots — approached a low door over which had been hung, in touching optimism, a bunch of very ancient lavender to advertise the herbalist’s presence.

While they waited to see if there would be any answer to de Gifford’s knock, the sheriff looked up at Josse and said, ‘He does most of his business at a market stall. I would imagine he’ll not expect callers at his door and he may well not-’

At that moment there came the sound of bolts being drawn back. There were several of these, and Josse suppressed a smile at the thought of anyone bothering to fit so many when the flimsy fabric of the door would surely yield to one determined kick from a booted foot. A gap appeared between the door and the lintel and, with the air of a tortoise poking out its head, an old, creased and unshaven face peered out.

‘Whadyewant?’

De Gifford eased the door open a little more. ‘I am Gervase de Gifford, sheriff of Tonbridge, and this is Sir Josse d’Acquin.’

The old man appeared singularly unimpressed by the titles. ‘Aye?’ The word came out as a sort of bark. Deep-set eyes under prickly eyebrows stared out warily at the visitors.

With a snort of exasperation, de Gifford said, ‘You’re not in any trouble, man; we’ve come to ask for your help.’

‘My help?’ The old man made it sound as if it were the most unlikely request he had ever had, which was strange, considering his profession.

De Gifford was reaching inside his tunic for the bag of herbs. ‘Did you prepare this remedy?’ he asked, holding it out to the old man.

The apothecary took the little bag gingerly, as if expecting it might burn his fingers. ‘What’s in it?’ he demanded, scowling ferociously up at de Gifford.

The sheriff glanced at Josse, who began to enumerate the ingredients. ‘Er — rue, rosemary, myrrh-’

‘I don’t do myrrh!’ the old man objected. ‘Can’t afford myrrh, it’s far too expensive. They charge you a king’s ransom, y’know.’

‘. . vervain-’

‘Don’t do vervain neither!’ protested the old man. ‘That’s magical, that is, and the church don’t hold with magic.’ He nodded self-righteously, then opened the neck of the bag and peered suspiciously inside. ‘Here’s a bit of mandrake root!’ he cried. ‘Now that’s a tricky one, is mandrake, you mustn’t touch it with iron, y’know, you has to delve for it with an ivory staff and it flees from an unclean man. It-’

Cutting short the discourse on mandrake, de Gifford said, ‘You did not prepare this potion, then?’

The apothecary thrust it back at de Gifford, shaking his head so violently that he dislodged the tight-fitting black cap that covered his head, ears and most of his neck. ‘No! No! No, I never!’

Josse grinned. One no would have sufficed, he thought, and, given the way in which the old man’s clear gesture of renunciation had spoken, even that was superfluous.

‘Can you think,’ de Gifford said, with what Josse thought was remarkable patience, ‘of anyone hereabouts who might have prepared it?’

The old man thought. He screwed up his face, scratched his head under the black cap, sniffed, frowned. Then he said, ‘No.’

De Gifford thanked him and, remounting, turned his horse. Josse did the same; it was not an easy manoeuvre, given the meagre width of the street. They set off back into the town, Josse leading the way.

‘I always thought it was a waste of time,’ de Gifford said. ‘But then-’

Something occurred to Josse. Pulling Horace sharply to a halt — he heard de Gifford give a muttered curse as his own horse threw up its head — he turned and said, ‘Gervase, where does that old boy obtain his supplies?’

‘He goes out and picks his plants by moonlight with the dew on them, Mars in the mid-heaven and a south-west wind blowing, I expect, like any other herbalist. Why?’

‘He said’ — Josse could barely contain his excitement — ‘that myrrh was too expensive. Well, how would he know what it cost unless he’d tried to buy some? He wouldn’t gather it locally himself, would he? It comes from. .’ Josse tried to think, but to no avail. ‘Well, it’s foreign, anyway. It must be imported and I was just thinking that the old apothecary back there might well know of a supplier somewhere near here who brings myrrh and other exotic plant drugs into England. .’

De Gifford was off his horse and running back towards the apothecary’s house. Josse watched as once again he knocked on the door. It was answered more quickly this time and there was a brief conversation between de Gifford and the old man. Then de Gifford called out his thanks, sprinted back along the alley and, vaulting on to his horse — whatever he had just found out seemed to have put a spring in his step — said, ‘He prepares most of his simples and his remedies himself from locally grown plants, but the few things he uses and can’t gather or grow he buys from a lad who does the rounds three times a year.’

‘A lad?’

‘Yes. The boy’s apprenticed to an apothecary in Newenden.’

‘And this apothecary imports foreign ingredients?’

‘Yes. It sounds as if he’s both a practitioner and a merchant.’

‘And therefore could very well have prepared a remedy containing myrrh,’ Josse concluded. ‘Newenden,’ he said slowly. Then, looking at de Gifford, he said eagerly, ‘We could be there in a few hours. New Winnowlands is close by and we could put up there overnight and ride back to Hawkenlye in the morning. What do you say?’

De Gifford grinned. ‘I say yes! Ride on, Josse, I’m right behind you.’

At Hawkenlye Abbey, two travellers arrived in the Vale dragging a dilapidated hand cart on which lay a middle-aged man, a boy of about ten years old and twin babies of perhaps eight or ten months. The men — one of them was little more than a boy — said they had come up from north of Hastings. Both of them were exhausted and the lad was near to tears. The older man collapsed on the ground, head in his hands, temporarily speechless; the lad was too distressed to relax.

Brother Firmin took the boy’s arm and gently invited him to go into the pilgrim’s shelter and warm himself, but he shook off the old monk’s solicitous hand and cried, ‘Me mam’s dead! Me dad too, and me gran and me auntie’s ma! He’ — he indicated with a thumb the older man who had arrived with him — ‘he’s me mam’s brother, and them on the cart, they’re me brother, me dad’s brother and his two little ’uns.’ Turning beseeching eyes on to Brother Firmin, he said, ‘Can you save them, Brother? We’ve come all this way to find you and we’re desperate.’

Brother Firmin looked horrified — he had been a healer for long enough to know what four deaths and four sick people all at once probably meant — but swiftly he disguised his fear and set about trying to help the stricken family. Summoning Brother Saul and Brother Adrian, he sent the former to seek out the infirmarer and the latter to organise a working party and prepare accommodation there in the Vale for the lad and his uncle.

While he waited for Sister Euphemia, Brother Firmin approached the cart. He saw immediately that the middle-aged man was in a bad way; he was shivering and trying to clutch the thin blanket closer to him, yet he was soaked in his own sweat and his face felt hot to the touch. His shirt was open at the neck and Brother Firmin could see that the great blotches of dark pink extended down from the face over the chest. Brother Firmin got a phial of holy water out of the pouch at his belt — he always carried some of the precious water about him — and said gently, ‘Will you take a sip of our precious water, friend? It is powerful strong and it will aid you.’

The man’s eyes flickered open for an instant — Brother Firmin noticed that the flesh inside the lids was severely inflamed — but then, with a groan, shut his eyes again and tried to turn away.

Brother Firmin looked at the others on the cart. The young boy was stirring and, when the old monk offered water to him, he accepted it and drank it down as fast as Brother Firmin could tip it into his parched mouth. ‘There,’ the old man said with a kindly smile, ‘that will put you right. You’ll see!’

Then he uncovered the two babies. To his distress he noticed that one was already stiff; the infant’s bowels seemed to have ejected more than such a tiny body could possibly have held and its faeces were watery and streaked with blood and mucus. Brother Firmin looked at the other baby, which was crying weakly and pitifully; with a practised hand he let a couple of drops of holy water fall on the infant’s lips, at which it instantly put out its tongue and licked them off. Brother Firmin smiled and repeated the process once, twice, three times, each time encouraging the infant to accept a little more. Then he said softly, ‘That’s enough for now, my little one.’

Taking care to leave the living child wrapped up, he extracted its dead twin. Then, covering the tiny face with a fold of the baby’s thin shawl, he began to pray.

Brother Firmin knew what the church had to say about unbaptised infants not being permitted into the presence of God. It was perfectly possible that the dead child in his arms had been baptised already but it did not do to take any chances; putting his heart into his prayer, Brother Firmin stood on the cold ground and said the words that brought both the dead baby and its twin into the blessed family of God. He put a couple of drops of holy water on to his thumb and drew the sign of the cross on both tiny foreheads.

There, he thought. Now they’ll be all right.

Then he found a quiet corner in which to place the dead baby and went back to see what he could do for the living.

Josse and de Gifford reached Newenden as the light was beginning to fade. The cold weather was keeping most people indoors but de Gifford spotted a man hastening off along the main street with a puppy under his arm and called out to him, asking if he knew where the apothecary might be found.

‘You’re wanting Adam Pinchsniff?’ the man replied, shifting the wriggling puppy to the other arm and, when it snapped playfully at his fingers, giving it a smart tap on the nose.

‘If that is the name of the apothecary, then yes, I am,’ de Gifford said.

The man eyed both de Gifford and Josse. ‘Hope you’ve brought full purses with you,’ he said with a grin. ‘Follow this road down till you see the river appear in the valley before you, then turn sharp left past the church and it’s the third house on the left. The one with the fresh plaster,’ he added, his grin widening. ‘He’s no pauper, old Adam.’

De Gifford thanked him and set off in the direction the man had indicated, Josse close behind. The house with the fresh plaster stood out clearly from its shabbier neighbours and the men would have known it even without the traditional apothecary’s sign hanging above the door. The front wall of the house extended into a lower wall and Josse, curious, went to have a look. The wall enclosed what was apparently the apothecary’s garden, a neat quarter-acre of carefully tended ground which, although winter-bare, showed clear signs that every inch was put to good use. Low box hedges divided the beds, in most of which the soil had been recently dug over. Trees and shrubs formed a dense barrier at the bottom of the garden and Josse was quite sure that every last one of them grew or produced some lucrative plant drug that could be used alone or blended into some popular remedy.

De Gifford had dismounted and was knocking on the door which, Josse observed, was considerably more substantial than that of the Tonbridge herbalist and made of oak studded with iron. Well, if the man were wealthy, then it made good sense to lock himself up carefully at night. .

Josse slid off Horace’s back, wincing a little; he and de Gifford had ridden hard and Josse’s lower back was complaining. He was just wondering how much this Adam Pinchsniff might charge him for some soothing liniment when abruptly the oak door was flung open, revealing a man perhaps in his sixties wearing a luxurious black velvet robe lined with fur. His long hair was white, as was his beard, and smoothly combed; on his head he wore a cap of similar design to his Tonbridge fellow-practitioner, except that Adam Pinchsniff’s was made of deep maroon silk and, as far as Josse could see, spotlessly clean.

‘Yes?’ he demanded, eyeing de Gifford up and down.

For the second time that day the sheriff introduced Josse and himself. Then — for Adam Pinchsniff was clearly a man of a very different quality from the Tonbridge herbalist — he proceeded swiftly and without prevarication to the reason for the visit.

‘We have come from Hawkenlye Abbey on an urgent matter concerning a death,’ he began. ‘You are Adam Pinchsniff?’

The apothecary flushed. ‘No I am not,’ he said crossly. ‘My name is Adam Morton. The people have given me the eke name of Pinchsniff, although I really cannot imagine why.’ He gave a short snort of disapproval, the action appearing to draw in his nostrils so that his already thin nose became positively beak-like. Observing, Josse could see exactly how the name had come about.

‘I apologise,’ de Gifford was saying smoothly. ‘I meant no offence; it is merely that I asked a man in the town where I might find the apothecary and that was the name by which he called you.’

The apothecary sniffed again. ‘Very well. A matter to do with a death, you say? Then you and your friend — what’s his name? — had better come in. You there, Sir Joseph, tie those horses to the hitching ring; they’ll be safe enough out here, nobody would dare to steal so much as the smallest coin from a guest of my house.’

Thinking that the welcome would have been warmer had Adam Pinchsniff offered to have the horses attended to, for both mounts were displaying the signs of a hard ride, Josse did as he was commanded. Then he followed de Gifford into the apothecary’s house.

It was a timber framed building with walls of plaster-coated mud brick. The stone floor of the interior had been recently swept and was covered in a scattering of fresh, clean-smelling rushes. There were few articles of furniture — a large chest, some shelves on which there were several wooden boxes of various sizes, a long, narrow table and a large chair — but what there were appeared to be of excellent quality and obviously costly. A fire burned in a hearth, the aroma of the burning wood — apple, Josse thought — mingling with that given off by the spirals of blue and golden smoke rising up from several small dishes of fragrant, smouldering incense.

‘So he’s dead, then,’ the apothecary said.

‘To whom do you refer?’ De Gifford’s tone was wary.

‘Why, to young Nicol, naturally. Nicol Romley, my apprentice. He took sick and I lent him my horse so that he might ride over to see what the good nuns and monks of Hawkenlye could do for him, since whatever ailed him failed to respond to my potions.’ Again the sniff, disdainful now, as if the young man had been to blame for throwing out an illness that Adam Pinchsniff could not treat. ‘I presume, from your tidings, that the sisters and brothers could do no better than I.’

Josse did not trust himself to speak. That poor young man — Nicol; at least he could now be called by his given name — had died, alone and sick. And here was the lad’s former master, reacting with the sort of indifference a man might display on being told he’d trodden on an ant.

De Gifford seemed to be having a similar interior struggle. After a moment he said, in almost his usual voice, ‘Nicol Romley, if indeed that is the man who lies dead at Hawkenlye, was sick, just as you say. The Abbey infirmarer examined his body and observed. . certain signs.’ The apothecary made as if to speak but de Gifford held up a hand. ‘With your permission, sir, I would finish what I have to say. The young man may well have been dying of whatever it was that ailed him, but he was not given the chance. He was struck down by a blow to the head and thrown in a pond.’

Adam Pinchsniff had settled himself in an immense throne-like oak chair whose back and front legs were elaborately carved. He rested his elbows on the chair’s wide arms, pressing his hands together, the slender, broad-ended thumbs and each long finger pressed lightly against its equivalent on the opposite hand. He stared at de Gifford, apparently thinking. Eventually he said, ‘Struck down. And so close to a great abbey! Dear me. These vagabonds and thieves grow bold. And no doubt the assailant made off with my horse, fool that I was to allow Nicol to borrow him.’ He sighed, shaking his head, and neither Josse nor, he imagined, Gervase was in any doubt that he regretted the loss of the animal over that of the man.

De Gifford, displaying what Josse considered admirable self-control, extracted the bag of herbs from inside his tunic. He walked across the hall and held it out to the apothecary who, after a suspicious look, took it and held it up close in front of his eyes.

‘This was found in the dead man’s purse,’ the sheriff said.

‘Then the dead man is indeed Nicol Romley,’ the apothecary said, ‘because this potion is my work and I gave it to him not a week ago.’ He untied the string around the neck of the bag and stared inside. ‘It has been opened!’ he said accusingly, raising angry eyes to meet de Gifford’s.

De Gifford made a visible effort to control himself. Then: ‘It was necessary. This bag was the only item found on the body that yielded any possible means of identification. The contents were examined by the herbalist at Hawkenlye Abbey and from them she deduced that the potion had been prepared by a skilled and sophisticated apothecary.’

Slightly mollified by the flattery — perhaps, Josse thought, that had been de Gifford’s intention — Adam Pinchsniff gave a self-deprecating shrug. ‘I suppose I can understand the line of reasoning,’ he admitted grudgingly.

‘We went first to a herbalist in Tonbridge,’ de Gifford pressed on, ‘and he too looked at the ingredients of the potion. He told us of a certain apothecary who imported and sold rare foreign plant herbs and extracts and whose apprentice was wont to call on him a few times every year, and he revealed that the apprentice’s master lived in Newenden. That is how we found you, Master Morton.’ He gave the apothecary a long stare. ‘Now that we have what we came for, we shall leave you in peace.’

The sheriff was turning to go when the apothecary spoke. ‘Wait!’ he commanded. De Gifford stopped but he did not turn round. ‘What do you mean, you have what you came for?’

Now de Gifford faced him again. ‘We have a name for the dead man at Hawkenlye,’ he said coolly. ‘Now Nicol Romley may be buried in a marked grave.’

‘Don’t you want to ask me what ailed him? What it was that I — I! — was not able to treat, and for which I sent him to Hawkenlye?’

Now de Gifford began to smile. It was a chilly smile, but a smile all the same. ‘That we have already surmised,’ he said courteously. ‘For all that the cause of poor Nicol’s death was clear, nevertheless his body was examined by the Hawkenlye infirmarer. She deduced from certain symptoms that he had been suffering from a serious illness and she feared that it might be the pestilence.’

He paused but the apothecary did not speak. There was some new expression in his eyes, Josse observed. Was it fear? Guilt? Or perhaps a mixture of both?

‘We guessed,’ de Gifford went on, ‘that you prescribed as best you could to treat Nicol’s symptoms. He suffered from headache, fever, flux of the bowels and severe pains throughout his body. You also included two of the sovereign remedies against plague: vervain and marigold. We concluded that when your remedy failed to make him better, you washed your hands of him and sent him to Hawkenlye.’

‘I do wonder what became of my horse,’ the apothecary muttered, apparently following a train of thought of his own. ‘You will be sure to bring him back should he turn up, won’t you?’

Shooting him a look of such savage dislike that Josse fancied he saw it score a mark across the apothecary’s pale cheeks, de Gifford ignored the remark and instead said, ‘Did you fear infection, Master Morton? Did you shut the poor lad away the moment the first symptom appeared? I smell incense; have you been fumigating your house?’

The apothecary gave his careless shrug again. ‘For what good it may do me, yes.’ Then, glaring at de Gifford with matching venom, he said, ‘Would you not have done the same?’

‘I might,’ de Gifford owned evenly. For a moment Josse thought that the seething atmosphere in the room was about to ease — he hoped it would; there were several questions that he wanted to put to the apothecary — but then, in the same reasonable tone, the sheriff went on, ‘I’ll tell you what else I might have done, Master Morton. I might have gone with my young apprentice to ensure that he reached his destination and stayed by his side praying for him while the Hawkenlye nuns fought for his life. If their help came too late, I might have sat in vigil over Nicol and arranged for his burial. When finally I left him, I might have paid for masses to be said for his soul. That’s what I might have done.’

Oh dear, Josse thought. Observing the apothecary’s cold mask of fury, he realised that the slim chance he had had of posing his questions had now irrevocably vanished. De Gifford was on his way out of the room; Josse caught the heavy oak door just as the sheriff was forcefully swinging it shut and, wincing, he followed him out.

On the doorstep, Josse turned.

‘Thank you for your time, Master Morton,’ he said politely, ‘you have been most helpful.’

Then, with a low bow, he gently closed the door.

‘Why did you do that?’ de Gifford demanded as they rode away. ‘Did you have to touch your forelock to the man? He’s a monster, Josse, he worked that young man like an animal and he couldn’t have been less concerned to hear that the poor lad’s dead!’

‘Aye, I know,’ Josse said soothingly. ‘It’s just that. .’ He hesitated, because what he was about to say would sound very like criticism — well, it was criticism — and in de Gifford’s present mood, and given that the two men were about to put up at New Winnowlands together overnight, Josse wasn’t sure that antagonising the sheriff was a very good idea.

‘Oh, go on, Josse, out with it.’ There was a smile in de Gifford’s voice. ‘It’s not you I’m angry with.’

‘Very well. I tried to wish the wretched man a courteous farewell because there may be more to be gained from him.’

‘About Nicol Romley?’

‘Aye. God forbid it, but if there should be more cases of this pestilence, then it will be important to find out all we can of Nicol’s recent movements. Will it not?’

De Gifford was nodding slowly. ‘Yes. Oh, yes, you’re right, Josse, and I thank you for your foresight.’

They rode in contemplative silence for a while. Then de Gifford laughed shortly. ‘I propose, Josse, that if the acquisition of that knowledge ever becomes necessary, you go on your own to see Master Pinchsniff.’

In Hawkenlye Vale, the middle-aged man died late in the afternoon. Sister Euphemia had taken the difficult decision not to move him up to the infirmary: for one thing, he was very weak and movement seemed to hurt him; for another, he was clearly close to death and there was little the infirmary could do for him that the monks in the Vale could not. And if this was indeed the pestilence, then the fewer cases of the sickness introduced into the Abbey infirmary, the better it would be for all.

Sister Euphemia stood in the Vale watching over the surviving infant and the young boy for the rest of that day. She encouraged Brother Firmin in his efforts to make both patients drink and soon they were sufficiently revived to ingest quite large draughts of liquid. The infant opened its eyes and began to cry; a good sign, the infirmarer decided. The young boy regained consciousness and began to moan that his head ached (his brother said this had been the lad’s chief complaint from the start) and Sister Tiphaine brought him a measure of her strongest pain-relieving potion. She slipped a sleeping draught into the mixture and very soon the boy had fallen asleep.

The two nuns studied both patients. Neither had the frightening dark pink spots, nor the inflammation around the eyes. After some time, Sister Euphemia said, ‘I reckon the sickness is on the wane in these two. I will take them to the infirmary, where I’m sure we’ll be able to hasten their recovery. With God’s help,’ she added.

Sister Tiphaine muttered something that might have been Amen. ‘You’d best check with the Abbess,’ she suggested.

Sister Euphemia sighed. ‘Aye. That I will, for I must have her permission.’ She sighed again. ‘But you know as well as I do,’ she whispered to Tiphaine, ‘that obtaining her permission in no way absolves me of the blame and the guilt if I’m wrong and. .’

No. She wouldn’t think of that.

Sister Tiphaine gave her an encouraging nudge. ‘You may be wrong and you may be right,’ she said. ‘The Abbess will realise that. She wouldn’t want folks left out here in the cold any more than you do, especially young ’uns like these two here.’ She nodded at the baby and the boy. ‘For charity’s sake, we must make them as comfortable as we can, and that means moving them to the infirmary.’ She set off along the path back towards the Abbey.

‘Where are you off to?’ Sister Euphemia called after her.

‘I’m off to summon the Abbess,’ the herbalist answered.

Late that night, all four of the surviving visitors were sound asleep. Two were on the mend; the ten-year-old boy and the surviving twin baby who, on closer inspection, turned out to be a girl child. The older boy who had struggled so bravely to drag his ailing relations to Hawkenlye would be rewarded by not sickening with whatever frightening disease had wiped out half his family; his uncle was not so lucky. Even as the older man slept, tucked up beside his nephew in a corner of the pilgrims’ shelter in the Vale, the elements of the deadly pestilence were multiplying, spreading stealthily through his blood like an invading and secretive army.

And, unbeknownst to anyone, it had already sent out its advance troops into the Hawkenlye population.