Heart of Ice by Alys Clare Page A

more so, the awesome prediction that accompanied it, had given it to Helewise and begged her to hide it away. ‘It would be best to keep it here,’ he had said, ‘because it is only safe in the hands of the very strong, the very wise and the very good, and you and your nuns here at Hawkenlye are all of those.’ Deeply touched, she had agreed, although she had firmly told Josse that if ever the day came that he wanted his treasure back again, he had only to ask. ‘I won’t want it back,’ he had assured her, ‘I’ll be delighted to see the back of it!’
         Helewise had taken the treasure and prayed for guidance as to what she should do with it. There were associations of violence in its long and complex history and, to cleanse it, she had decided it should be placed near the altar. Pleading with God that he would make the treasure fit for the healing work that might one day be performed with it, she had left it in its little silver box tucked away on a hidden ledge beneath the altar, where a wooden support was concealed by the linen cloth that covered the altar. Where for the past fifteen months, other than a brief excursion for a first tentative testing of its powers, the treasure had quietly remained  . . .
         Helewise debated with herself. Magic jewels are a relic of heathen, pagan times, she thought, and we should have no use for them, trusting only in the merciful, healing love of God and his precious son.
         But here you are, another part of her instantly replied, kneeling before God’s altar, and what happens? A memory of that jewel of Josse’s pops into your head, for all the world as if God himself were prompting you! And did you not see fit to let Sister Euphemia try it out – successfully – when there was that outbreak of fever a year ago last autumn?
         To and fro the argument went until Helewise felt quite distraught. Then, as if a cool hand were smoothing her brow, she had the sudden thought: I’ll ask Josse. It is his jewel, so that will only be right. And if, as I’m sure that he will, he gives his permission, the thought went on – it seemed to have a life and a purpose all of its own – then I shall authorise that the treasure be used.
         And we shall see, she concluded as, stiffly and with aching knees, she got to her feet, whether Josse’s Eye of Jerusalem is really as powerful as we have been led to believe.

Chapter 6
     
    Helewise did not know, when she awoke in the morning, that part of her desperate prayer had already been answered: Josse had arrived back in the Vale the previous evening, soon after the monks had settled for the night.
         He presented himself in her room in the usually quiet time between Prime and Tierce and she had rarely been as glad to see anybody.
         ‘What news?’ she demanded, forgetting in her haste to greet him.
         ‘Some; not much,’ he replied, ‘although I believe that I begin to see a pattern in what was hitherto a mystery. My lady, unless there are matters about which you wish to speak with me, then, with your leave, I would set out what I see as a possible version of events.’
         ‘Yes, yes, do!’ she urged. Then, reminding herself that the poor man had been in the saddle for much of the past two days, she restrained her impatience and added more gently, ‘If you would, please, Sir Josse.’
         His swift grin, there and gone in a flash, suggested he wasn’t convinced by her belated show of good manners. Then he said, ‘The foreign pestilence came to England with the Hastings merchant, Martin Kelsey, who had been on business in Paris and caught the sickness when he tended a dying beggar in Boulogne. Kelsey travelled back to Hastings on a ship called the Angel of Mercy in the company of the apothecary’s apprentice, Nicol Romley, who had been to the great market at Troyes buying supplies for his master. Someone followed the men on board the Angel , although employing such secrecy