Free Heart of Ice by Alys Clare Page A

down over her cot and said very gently, ‘Hello, Jenna. Where’s your spots gone then, eh?’ Then he tickled her under her firm little chin and she squirmed and chuckled with delight.
         When, a few moments later, Waldo stood up and faced Helewise, she saw the glint of tears in his eyes. And, with the dignity of a much older man, the lad said, ‘Thank you, my lady; your nuns have given me back two of the people I really care about. Please may I go to the church? I’d like to thank God and all.’
     
    Josse and de Gifford reached Hawkenlye Abbey late in the morning. They learned about the sick family from Sister Ursel, who informed them that the Abbess had been visiting the lad down in the Vale and had brought him up to see his kinfolk in the infirmary.
         ‘How are they all?’ Josse asked.
         Sister Ursel gave a grimace. ‘The little lad and the girl child do well. The older lad is fine but the man is now feverish.’
         ‘You mean to imply that he has sickened since the family arrived here?’ de Gifford said.
         Sister Ursel nodded glumly. ‘Looks that way.’
         Josse and de Gifford exchanged a glance. This was not news they had wanted to hear.
         They went across to the Abbess’s room to wait for her. It was not long before they heard her quick footsteps coming along the cloister and, after the most perfunctory of greetings, she told them all that she had learned from the lad Waldo – who, Josse soon decided, sounded a sensible and a courageous boy – concerning how the disease had come to the stricken family.
         ‘The mother tended a Hastings merchant?’ Josse said when the Abbess finally finished her account. Looking at de Gifford, he went on, ‘And Gervase and I have just met an apothecary who imports plant herbs and extracts from overseas. Can there be a connection?’
         ‘This is the apothecary who sold the potion to the youth who died here at Hawkenlye?’ demanded the Abbess.
         ‘Aye, my lady.’ Josse turned back to her. ‘Gervase and I located him; he lives in Newenden.’ Briefly he told her how they had found Adam Pinchsniff and what he had had to say on the subject of his apprentice. ‘The youth’s name was Nicol Romley,’ he concluded. ‘God rest his soul.’
         ‘Amen,’ the Abbess said.
         There was a moment’s silence as all three of them thought about the apprentice and his lonely, violent death. Then, as if aware that there was little time for such delicacy, de Gifford said, ‘So, we have two initial victims of this pestilence: the Hastings merchant—’
         ‘His name was Master Kelsey and he lived with a spinster sister,’ the Abbess put in.
         ‘Thank you, my lady. Master Kelsey, then, returns from abroad and falls sick. Nicol Romley, whose master sends him about the land selling the apothecary’s wares, also succumbs. Let us assume that there is a link between the two men; perhaps Nicol was sent to Hastings to collect goods from the merchant. Master Kelsey is nursed by his maidservant but he dies. Adam Pinchsniff fails to cure his apprentice and sends poor Nicol off to Hawkenlye but he is slain before he reaches the Abbey. Meanwhile Master Kelsey’s maid has fallen sick and she returns home to this extensive household, where she passes on the pestilence to – how many was it, my lady?’
         ‘Eight, to begin with,’ the Abbess replied tonelessly. ‘Four of them, including the maid, died. Two more died here yesterday and now the simple-minded uncle has a fever.’
         ‘Dear God,’ de Gifford muttered. Eyes on the Abbess’s, he said, ‘My lady, we have all the evidence that we need of the speed with which this terrible sickness spreads. We should close the gates to new arrivals and concentrate on doing what we can for the victims already here.’
         He did not say that closing the gates and shutting themselves inside would also keep any of the Hawkenlye