‘Sir Josse, we all wish to tend those whom we love who fall sick,’ she said softly. ‘But Sister Euphemia has ordered that we must not do so.’
‘For fear of spreading the affliction,’ he murmured.
‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘Two of the nursing sisters have already volunteered to work with Sister Euphemia in the temporary infirmary that she has set up in the Vale. She has undertaken to ask when she needs more help.’
I said when, she realised. Not if.
Josse must have noticed too. ‘There will be more sick and dying making their way to us, my lady?’ he asked gruffly.
‘I fear so.’ Rather than allow either of them to dwell on that terrifying prospect, she hurried on. ‘That is why I must make this request of you, my friend. May we have your permission to remove the Eye of Jerusalem from its hiding place and use it?’
His expression would have made her laugh had the circumstances been less deadly. ‘The Eye?’ he echoed. ‘Oh, no, my lady Abbess! I gave it to you in the earnest hope of never having to catch sight of it again, for I fear it and would have no dealings with it!’
‘People are dying, Josse,’ she said quietly. ‘May we not even try to use this — this thing that has found its way to us?’
‘You may!’ he shouted, driven to discourtesy by the strong emotion. ‘You and your nuns may do whatever you like with it, only do not ask me to use it!’
‘I do not do so,’ she said, in the same soft tone. ‘I propose to give it to Sister Euphemia and see what she can make of it, and then to Sister Tiphaine, to see if she might be able to use it to make a febrifuge.’
Josse was already contrite. ‘My lady, I apologise for my rudeness,’ he said, ‘but you may recall why it is that I fear the Eye?’
‘Oh, yes I do,’ she agreed. ‘You shun it because you were told that it would be used by one of your female descendants, someome who would possess strange power, and you would not put this burden upon the girl children of your brothers.’
‘The progeny of my brothers are the only descendants that I have!’ Josse said. ‘The little girls are but children, my lady; I cannot make them take on this dreadful burden!’
‘No, of course not.’ She tried to soothe him, but it was difficult to sound adequately sincere when her mind was so preoccupied with another thought. . Pulling her mind away from that thought — not without effort, for it was something that had nagged at her and intrigued her for eighteen months or more — she said, ‘Sir Josse, what I ask is simply that you allow my nuns the opportunity to work with the Eye and see whether it can come to our aid in our desperate need. You told me that the Eye will only put out its powers for its rightful owner’ — oh, how can I speak in this way, she cried silently, I who have put my trust and my life into God’s hands and have no use for superstition! — ‘and my hope is that, if you lend it to us willingly and in good faith, then perhaps the question of rightful ownership may be overcome.’
‘You can have the wretched stone!’ Josse cried.
No, we can’t, Helewise said silently, for it is an heirloom of your family, my friend; it belongs to the women of your blood. But she did not speak her thought to him; for the moment at least, it remained a matter for her alone.
Instead she said, ‘Thank you, Sir Josse. I will take the Eye to Sister Euphemia and we shall see what happens.’
The infirmarer had been summoned from her patients inside the temporary infirmary and now she stood in the Vale with Helewise and Josse. In a brief, late-morning burst of February sun, she took the jewel from Helewise’s hand and held it up to the light.
The Eye was a large, round sapphire about the size of a man’s thumbnail. At some time in its past it had been set in a thick gold coin, whose centre had been softened in order that it could be moulded so as to hold the jewel securely. The coin and its precious stone hung on a heavy gold chain.
The Eye, or so they said, had the power to protect and defend its rightful owner. Dipped in a mug offered by a stranger, it could detect the presence of poison. Dipped in a draught of clear, cool water, its force entered the liquid and produced a medicine that stemmed bleeding and lowered fever.
And, according to its own history, it was a thousand years old. .
‘Aye, I remember this pretty thing,’ Sister Euphemia said after a moment. ‘I have seen it before and indeed I have used it before.’ She looked at Helewise. ‘We had some success, my lady, did we not?’
Helewise had never managed to make up her mind whether those particular patients had recovered because of the jewel or because of the infirmarer’s nursing skill and God’s help. But now, she thought, was not the time to say so. ‘Indeed we did,’ she agreed readily.
‘I’d give much to have a remedy that lowered fevers and brought a halt to bleeding,’ Sister Euphemia murmured, half to herself, ‘for most of our patients are delirious and burn as if with hell fire and not a few have begun to show ruptures and cracks in their skin, so that a constant and painful seepage of blood is added to their woes.’
‘How many lie sick at present, Sister?’ Helewise made herself ask, conquering her revulsion and trying to replace it with pity.
‘There’s the two merchants — one, the elder man, is close to death and will not last the day, but the other begins to recover. There’s the woman who brought in the dead child; she takes a little water and all may be well with her. There’s dear old Firmin, bravely trying not to complain but beside himself with fever most of the time.’ Glancing at Helewise, she added quietly, ‘And there’s the five who arrived just before you came down here, plus their three relatives who are making their way to us.’
‘Are all the victims from Newenden?’ Josse asked quietly.
Sister Euphemia turned to him. ‘The merchants had called in at the town,’ she said. ‘They sold a bunch of basil leaves to the woman with the dead baby. Today’s arrivals come from a village to the east of Tonbridge.’
‘It lies between Newenden and Hawkenlye?’ Josse asked in a pressing whisper.
‘Aye, it does,’ the infirmarer agreed.
Josse let out a gusty sigh of relief. ‘Then let us hope and pray that our two merchants came straight from that village to Hawkenlye,’ he said. ‘If they paid a visit to Tonbridge first, then. .’
He did not finish his sentence, for which Helewise was very grateful; she did not even want to think about what would happen if the pestilence broke out in the narrow, dirty and crowded streets of the town.
She sensed Josse’s sudden restlessness. ‘I shall ride down to see Gervase de Gifford,’ he announced abruptly. ‘I must report to him of my discoveries concerning the young man who died here,’ he added, explaining himself to the infirmarer, ‘and in addition I shall be able to gain up-to-date news as to whether — well, I’ll see how things are down there,’ he finished lamely.
Helewise caught at his sleeve as he made to leave. ‘Be careful,’ she said, although she could not have said quite why.
‘I will,’ he promised. Then, with a smile, he hurried away.
Sister Euphemia sent for the herbalist, and for most of the afternoon they busied themselves preparing what they hoped would be a miracle cure for the sickness. Sister Tiphaine fetched several flasks of the precious healing water from the natural spring that bubbled up out of the sandstone rocks in the Vale; the very water whose discovery had led to the foundation of the Abbey. Sister Euphemia carefully washed the sapphire in its coin in a pot of warmed water, scrubbing off as best she could the grime of centuries. Then she and the infirmarer, heads together as they muttered quietly to each other, set about dipping the Eye into the flasks of spring water.
‘How long should we give it, d’you think?’ Sister Euphemia asked.