Heart of Ice by Alys Clare

for some time before she recalled whom she was addressing: ‘Forgive me, my lady; hark at how unsuitably I’m speaking, telling my Abbess what she should and should not do!’
         ‘Please, Sister Euphemia, do not stop to consider such a thing,’ Helewise replied swiftly. ‘I thank God that, at this dreadful time, he has seen fit to supply us with someone like you. Go on with your instructions and, if you can, think of me simply as another pair of hands.’
         The infirmarer’s dubious expression suggested that she was going to find this difficult. Nevertheless, she went back to her ordering and soon, as her clear-sightedness took over, she forgot all about what was suitable and what wasn’t.
         Her instructions were based upon trying to keep the sick well away from the healthy and to this end she decreed that, since there were sick people there already, the sleeping shelter in the Vale be converted into an emergency infirmary. Braziers would be installed and the monks would do what they could to make the roof and walls more substantial; ‘Patients with fever,’ said the infirmarer, ‘feel the cold something wicked.’ She would send nursing nuns down to tend the patients as required.
         Nobody who did not have to mingle with the sick in the Vale for the purposes of taking care of them would go anywhere near them. Those monks who had already tended the sick would bear the brunt of the nursing; ‘It’s nothing that requires special skill,’ Sister Euphemia said, ‘and I’ll be here if anybody’s unsure what to do.’
         ‘You can’t carry everybody all by yourself,’ Helewise said gently. ‘Let me help you; I’m not skilled but I’m willing.’
         ‘Aye, I know, my lady. But we need you to go on performing the role you were chosen for. Besides’ – she gave Helewise a swift and preoccupied smile, possibly in apology for having so summarily dismissed the offer of help – ‘I’ve already accepted the first two volunteers.’ She gave a nod back up the track that led to the Abbey and Helewise, looking in that direction, saw two black-clad figures hurrying towards her.
         Soon they were close enough for their identities to be distinguished. Helewise felt a lump in her throat. As she might have expected, Sister Beata and Sister Caliste had been the nuns who had stepped forward when volunteers were called for. And Helewise, who valued both women not just for their loving, generous hearts and nursing skill but also for themselves, did not know whether to be glad or sorry.
     
    That evening, Brother Firmin complained that his head hurt.
     
    Up at the Abbey, Helewise knelt in the church and prayed that there would be no more cases of the terrifying sickness, that those who were sick now would get better – oh, especially Brother Firmin! Oh, dear Lord, please spare Brother Firmin! – and, perhaps most urgently of all, that Josse would come back.
         As the first panicky outpouring of her appeal spent itself, she began to speak the words of the familiar prayers and, as always, felt comfort fall on her like a soft shawl around her shoulders.
         And then – perhaps it was the juxtaposition of thinking of Josse and about Brother Firmin, that staunch believer in the benefits of holy water – something slipped into Helewise’s mind. At first it was faint and elusive . . . a snatch of memory, nothing more, from, what, a year and a half ago? But then the dreamy images began to clarify and she knew what it was that something – someone – had prompted her to remember.
         In the autumn of 1192, a stranger had presented Josse with an ancient treasure that had rightfully belonged to his father. Josse’s father was dead and so, as the eldest son, the treasure had come to Josse; it came from Outremer and they said it had the power to detect poison and that, dipped in water, it made a powerful febrifuge. But Josse, fearing not only its magical power but, even