by Alys Clare
‘We are discussing what is the best option now that we are here, Grandfather,’ she improvised, casting a quick glance at Brother Basil in apology for the small lie.
‘Didn’t you say we must search out that knight who came asking for us down at Robertsbridge?’ Benoît de Retz said tetchily. ‘Isn’t that why we’ve come all this way on a bitter morning? Surely the best option’ – he mocked her words – ‘is to ride right up to the Abbey gates and demand to see him!’
Sabin hesitated. Her grandfather knew about the sickness at Hawkenlye – it had been he who had confirmed it to her, having overheard the knight Sir Josse tell Stephen – but he could not see what she was now looking at, and the sight of the new graves and the body being carried to the graveyard brought the severity of the danger home to her far more forcefully than mere words had done. Benoît would undoubtedly have refused to leave Robertsbridge, she reflected, had he somehow had a preview of the scene now before them. It had crossed Sabin’s mind that she could leave him there in relative safety while she went alone up to Hawkenlye to search for Sir Josse, but every instinct had argued against it. Her grandfather had cared for her diligently, if not especially tenderly, ever since her parents had died when she was three. Now that he was old, feeble and all but blind, it was her turn to look after him. It had been different when she had made the earlier journeys to Newenden and to Hawkenlye alone, for then he had been too sick to travel and she had had no alternative. Now that he was once more well, leaving him for what might be quite a long time in the care of strangers was just not a choice.
Making up her mind, she said bluntly, ‘There is very much sickness at Hawkenlye. The situation is worse than we thought. We can see the monks burying a body even as we sit here.’
Benoît gasped, crossed himself and muttered a hasty prayer. ‘We cannot risk going any nearer! To do so would be folly!’
We could help. Sabin bit back the exclamation. You, Grandfather, she thought, are renowned far and wide for your skills, not a few of which you have passed on to me. But: ‘Very well,’ she said instead. With a jerk of her head to Brother Basil, she asked, ‘Where else might we put up hereabouts? Is there a town nearby?’
‘Aye. Just down the hill there.’ He pointed back along the track to where another road led off down the slope of the hillside. ‘Tonbridge is but a short ride and there’s an inn.’
He appeared to know the area quite well so she ventured another question. She was thinking that, if this Sir Josse d’Acquin had indeed returned to Hawkenlye Abbey and thus rendered himself out of bounds, as it were, to anybody who had not already risked an encounter with the sickness, then she would need to find someone else to talk to about the death of Nicol. ‘Is there a—’ She was not sure what the right word would be. ‘Will I be able to find a man of law down in this town?’
‘A sheriff?’ Brother Basil shrugged. ‘Probably. There’s a big castle there and not a few wealthy folks, and where there’s money there’s usually rules to protect it and that means a man of law.’ He risked a very small smile as he used the words that she had done.
‘Then, please, Brother Basil, if you will,’ she said courteously, ‘increase our indebtedness to you by escorting us on to Tonbridge.’
Brother Basil looked at her for a moment, then, with a nod to the two monks sitting shivering on their mules to the rear of Benoît, he nodded and kicked his sandalled feet into his horse’s sides.
And, quite a short time afterwards, the three monks had left their two charges safely ensconced in the inn at Tonbridge and were on their way back to Robertsbridge. Meanwhile Sabin, bemused and trying hard to understand everything that was said to her, had been met by an effusive Goody Anne delighted to have even two customers in these terrible times. Anne had led Sabin and Benoît along to her best guest chamber, sent for hot water and hot drinks, told them to make themselves comfortable and to come along to warm themselves by the fire as soon as they were ready, where she would cook them up something to take the chill out of their bones.
‘Where are we?’ came Benoît’s plaintive voice. ‘Is that woman a nun?’
‘No, Grandfather,’ Sabin said, lapsing with relief into her own language. ‘I told you, we couldn’t go to the Abbey at Hawkenlye because there’s sickness there. We’re in a town nearby called—’ No; she had forgotten. ‘Well, never mind what it’s called. But it’s big enough to have a castle and a sheriff, so as soon as we’ve eaten whatever that kind woman is going to prepare for us, I’ll say I want to speak to the sheriff and see if he can tell us anything about Nicol’s death.’
‘He didn’t die of the sickness,’ Benoît said mournfully. ‘That knight on the big horse said he’d been murdered. I heard him! Someone struck Nicol over the head and rolled him into a pond.’
‘I know, Grandfather,’ Sabin said gently, wishing in passing that there was some way to stop his unfortunate habit of creeping about and listening to conversations that were none of his business. But then, she could understand well enough why he did it. A man in his profession – he had once been at the very top of it, one might say – became accustomed to being important. How wretched it must be, she thought, to grow old, to develop shakes in those hands that were once so precise, to lose the keen eyesight that was so vital to one whose work involved such delicacy and accuracy. It is simply, she concluded with a sigh, that he does not wish to be shunted aside and ignored; his sly habit of hiding himself away and picking up fragments of other people’s private conversations is his way of keeping himself at the hub of what goes on around him. And those keen ears of his – she had noticed that Benoît’s hearing seemed to have improved as his eyesight failed – ensure that he picks up more than is good for him.
Far, far more . . .
She studied him. He still looked half perished with cold; the tip of his nose had a large dewdrop about to fall from it and automatically she reached for a linen handkerchief, handing it to him. The handkerchief was spotlessly clean, as indeed was almost all of their personal linen; the enforced idleness at Robertsbridge had at least given her the opportunity to catch up with her domestic duties.
In addition to appearing to be cold, Benoît also looked miserable, confused, weary and hungry; his brow was creased in a pathetic frown and his lean cheeks seemed to be caving in on themselves. Well, hunger at least we can do something about, she thought, rousing herself to a smile. Taking hold of his thin arm, she said brightly, ‘Come on, dear Grandfather. That nice woman promised to prepare a meal for us – remember? – so let’s hurry off and see if English cooking is really as terrible as they claim.’
Her show of optimism must have convinced him. As they made their slow and careful way along to the main room – Benoît was confident enough on home ground, where he knew every room, hallway, corridor and little hidden passage, but everywhere else he trod with the nervous care of a man walking on glass – he was already cheering up. ‘Maybe,’ he said hopefully, ‘she’ll cook beef. They say the English are good at beef.’
Agreeing that it might be a possibility, Sabin led him into the tavern’s tap room, sat him down by the huge fire and, her own stomach growling in anticipation, sought out Goody Anne to ask her to bring their supper.
He was tired, hungry and cold.
He had followed them to Hawkenlye, waited in hiding as they had stopped for some sort of discussion, then had to back hurriedly deeper into the undergrowth on the skirts of the Great Forest as suddenly they had turned and ridden back towards him. He had thought for a puzzled moment that they were going to ride off back to Robertsbridge, but then they had turned off the road on to another that went away downhill in a roughly north-north-westerly direction. He had known the direction because the wind was coming from the north and for an uncomfortable time that seemed to go on for ever they had all been riding straight into it. The three monks had left the woman and the old man at an inn and then ridden away.
The man had waited for a while to see if either of his quarry might emerge again, but
they did not. The light was fading fast and he had still to find somewhere to spend the hours of cold darkness; there was no point in watching the inn any longer that night, he decided, and soon he had quietly slipped out of his hiding place and set off out of town.
He had to get rid of them, he told himself. They still carried the secret and he could not allow them to live. But is there in truth any point in killing them? he wondered dismally. They have been with the monks at Robertsbridge, now they are presumably settling down for a convivial evening in a tap room full of people – he was not to know that Sabin and Benoît were Goody Anne’s only guests that night – and so how many more people are now privy to what should never have been overheard?
Where, he wondered, depression seeping insidiously through him like an ague, where will it all end?
No! It was no use thinking like that. It will end, he told himself firmly, when the old man and the young woman are safely dead and no longer a threat. Then he could leave this damp, foggy, cold and unwelcoming island, head back across the Channel, find his master in Paris, receive his fee and lose himself somewhere in the vast heart of France.
But he won’t pay up, he thought lugubriously. He’ll wriggle out of it and I’ll be left with nothing to show for all of this effort but a few more deaths on my conscience.
He could find no consolation to help him out of his misery. Riding on down the desolate and overgrown track that he had found and that seemed to lead to marshes, he looked around half-heartedly for some sort of shelter. He came to a wild bramble hedge and, beyond it, the slowly decaying shape of what had once been a dwelling. Thinking that even that was better than nothing, the man dismounted, kicked open the door, eyed the dank and dark interior and then, with a nod, went out again to see to his horse and set about finding some firewood.
Later, when he had eaten from his meagre and fast-dwindling supplies of dried meat strips and the hard heel of a loaf, he tried to get comfortable in his thick cloak and his blanket. He slept – he did not know for how long – and then woke to find that the fire had died down and he was shivering violently. He stoked the fire, wrapped himself up again and went back to sleep, to dream that he was back at the Troyes lodging house trying to dash into the raging fire because he had left his pack behind the door . . . Waking, he found he was sweating, his skin hot, burning.
He rolled over on to his back, pushing back the blanket and feeling the relief of the cold night air on his face and his neck.
He realised that his head was aching.
Chapter 16
At Hawkenlye, it was becoming increasingly difficult for even the most optimistic souls to believe that the outbreak was under control. Twenty-three people lay sick and, in some cases, dying in the infirmary in the Vale. Sister Beata had been joined in death by a young monk called Roger and a little novice nun whom nobody knew very well because she always kept her head down and never spoke unless she really had to. Sister Judith was still very ill. Brother Firmin, who had serenely given himself up to death, appeared to be a little better.
Sister Euphemia, despite the best efforts of her senior nurses, continued to bear on her broad shoulders the full responsibility for the sick. This was due neither to vanity nor an overwhelming sense of her own importance; it was simply that she appeared to have a God-given gift for healing and she refused to set it aside. It was as if, when face to face with someone who had decided that death was just around the corner, the infirmarer possessed a penetrating voice that, even if it did not always call the dying one back, at least gave the patient the opportunity to see if there was an alternative. Sister Euphemia possessed hands which, once laid upon the forehead of a feverish man or woman, instilled relief and a new confidence; more than one recovering patient was heard to observe that it was the big sister in charge who’d made them better; ‘She told me I weren’t so sick as I’d feared,’ one woman said, ‘and, once she’d got a few mugs o’ that cold water into me, reckon I started to believe her.’
Sister Caliste could see that the infirmarer was on her knees with exhaustion. She pleaded with her superior to rest, to retire to her bed and catch up on her sleep, but Sister Euphemia insisted that the occasional short spell napping on a screened-off cot at the far end of the temporary infirmary was all that she needed. Such spells were, however, not very restful at all since, as Sister Caliste well knew, the infirmarer’s acute ears picked up even the faintest sounds of distress, at which she would be up and out of the little recess the moment she had straightened her veil. And sounds of distress were all too common in that place of suffering.
Finally Sister Caliste, hating herself for the disloyalty, went to the Abbess. Entering in response to the Abbess’s quiet ‘Come in’, and bowing low, she said, even before she had straightened up, ‘My lady Abbess, I am sorry to disturb you but I must report that Sister Euphemia urgently needs a respite from her labours and—’ She stopped herself before she could add ‘and flatly refuses to take it.’
But the Abbess knew her infirmarer of old. As Sister Caliste straightened up, she found the calm grey eyes watching her. ‘And I imagine,’ the Abbess said, ‘that, despite the repeated pleas of all her nursing nuns, she will not rest?’
‘No,’ agreed Sister Caliste.
The Abbess was silent for some moments. Then she said, ‘Sister, assess for me, if you would, the strength of the nursing staff.’
Sister Caliste paused, ordering her thoughts. Then she said, ‘Sister Tiphaine is the most respected, after Sister Euphemia. Although her skill is primarily in the preparation of herbal remedies, she has a wealth of experience and people believe in her. We’ve lost Sister Beata, of course, and she is sorely missed, and Sister Judith is still sick. Sister Clare has joined us, and Sister Anne, as well as Sister Emanuel, whose particular touch with the elderly is most useful. Then we have a number of other sisters, as well as two monks, who tend the patients when their other duties allow.’
The Abbess was still regarding her. ‘You have left someone out,’ she observed.
Sister Caliste frowned. ‘Have I, my lady? I am sorry, I—’ But then, blushing, she realised what the Abbess meant.
‘Sister, I have in mind to organise three teams of nurses,’ the Abbess said after a moment. ‘If you are willing, I propose that you lead one, and that Sister Tiphaine and Sister Emanuel lead the others. Each of you will select a senior nursing nun as your second in command, and Sister Euphemia will be in overall control. I will ask for volunteers and, provided our nuns and monks respond as I hope and pray they will, we will aim at teams of perhaps as many as six. I am right in saying, am I not, that the nursing duties required amount more to sheer hard work than to any particular skill?’
‘You are, my lady,’ Sister Caliste agreed, ‘for indeed it is in the main a matter of making the patients drink, of getting them to take their draughts of the remedies and of bathing them when they are feverish, washing the sheets and cleaning them up when they’ve – er – of cleaning them.’
‘Quite so,’ murmured the Abbess. ‘What do you think, then, Sister? Would this plan persuade Sister Euphemia that it was permissible for her to take a day off and sleep?’
Sister Caliste smiled. ‘I believe it might, my lady, were it you who proposed it.’
The Abbess answered her smile. Rising to her feet, she said, ‘Then let us waste no more time.’
Sister Caliste waited outside the Vale infirmary while the Abbess went in and summoned Sister Euphemia. The two senior nuns soon emerged and walked a short way off down the path that led to the lake. The two veiled heads were close together; the Abbess and the infirmarer were obviously deep in conversation. Sister Caliste took the opportunity to slide down onto a bench beside the infirmary door and close her eyes for a precious few moments . . .
‘There is no need to repeat yourself,’ Helewise said, restraining her impatience with difficulty, ‘I heard you the first three times, Euphemia.’ The infirmarer made to speak but Helewise held up her hand. ‘If you continue to work al
l day and all night, soon you will be exhausted, nature will take over and you will collapse, whether you wish it or not. Then where should the rest of us be? We can work according to your instructions, my very dear Sister, but if you have driven yourself to unconsciousness, where will you be when we need your advice?’
‘I—’ the infirmarer began.
‘This is an order, Sister,’ Helewise said gently. ‘Out of my great respect for you and bearing in mind our long friendship, I am reluctant to remind you of our relative positions here. But, nevertheless, in this case I am so doing.’
Sister Euphemia stared at her. The infirmarer’s eyes were ringed with dark circles, the eyelids swollen from fatigue. ‘What must I do?’ she asked.
Helewise’s heart almost failed her. But, summoning her resolve, she said firmly, ‘You are to go to bed and you are to stay there until tomorrow morning. In the dormitory, mind; I don’t mean that cot of yours at the end of the Vale infirmary.’
‘But it’s the middle of the morning!’ Sister Euphemia protested. ‘Nuns don’t go to bed in the middle of the day!’
‘They do if they are worn out from hard work and their Abbess demands it,’ Helewise replied coolly. ‘Now, go to the refectory, tell Sister Basilia that I have ordered that you be given whatever you wish to eat and drink, then go and sleep.’
All at once Sister Euphemia’s resistance fell away. It was the word sleep, Helewise decided, watching her with compassion; hearing it, the infirmarer’s eyes had all but closed and she swayed on her feet.
‘Go on,’ Helewise urged.
Sister Euphemia made one last effort. ‘You are quite sure that these rotas of yours will work properly?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Helewise serenely.
‘Hm.’ The infirmarer took a step up the path towards the Abbey. Then another.
‘Off you go,’ Helewise prompted.
And then Sister Euphemia obeyed. Without a backward glance, she strode away up the path and was soon attacking the slope that led up to the rear gate.
