‘I mean exactly what I said.’ She kept her voice even. ‘Only God knows what drives any of us to the actions we take. We are encouraged to hate the sin, not the sinner, and we take in those who repent of their ways and wish to make a new start in life.’
‘Whores,’ he muttered.
An angry retort rose to her lips, but she held it back. Why bother to argue with one such as he? He wasn’t worth it.
He poked around the reformatory in a desultory way — she thought he might be beginning to believe that they really did have nothing to hide — then, emerging, said, ‘What’s that big building straight in front of us?’
‘It is the infirmary.’ Her voice, she was glad to notice, was calm. Unconcerned.
‘I want to go inside.’
She hurried to follow as he strode towards the infirmary’s main door. ‘Of course,’ she murmured.
He shot her a look. ‘Many patients at present?’
She pretended to pause and count, although there was no need; she knew every patient by name, what was wrong with them, whether they were expected to recover, and, if so, how soon they were likely to be well enough to leave and release a bed for somebody else.
‘We have about forty patients at the moment,’ she said as they entered the infirmary. In fact there were thirty-seven.
He stopped dead, looking startled. And also slightly anxious. ‘So many? What’s wrong with them?’
‘They suffer from a variety of maladies. Some have broken bones, some are having painful teeth removed, we have two women awaiting imminent childbirth, and one whose baby was born the day before yesterday. We also have many who have contracted the sweating sickness — they are in a separate ward — and two youths suffering from the bloody flux.’ She pretended to frown. ‘One of our fever patients is causing particular anxiety. The sickness struck so suddenly — whilst he was attending a service at our Holy Water shrine, down in the Vale, and his descent into delirium occurred within the hour.’ It was a slight exaggeration, and she was deliberately giving the impression that the man was more ill than he actually was. But it had the desired effect.
Denys de Courtenay now looked as if the infirmary was — after the leper house — the last place on earth he wanted to visit.
She edged past him, and, from within, said, ‘Come along. We should keep our disturbance of the sick as brief as we can.’
Relentlessly she led him all round the infirmary. Sister Euphemia came bustling up to attend her visitors, and needed no encouragement from Helewise to expound on the symptoms of her patients.
While she was doing so, Helewise caught sight of Brother Saul, who had come in to bring a message to a man lying in a cot next to the door, a broken right thighbone strapped between splints. Murmuring an excuse, she glided over to him.
‘Brother Saul!’ she called.
He turned from the cot. ‘Abbess Helewise?’
She beckoned him close, then, speaking softly, said, ‘Saul, de Courtenay is asking for Sir Josse. I did wonder, might it be an idea to-’
‘To forewarn him?’ Saul, too, seemed blessedly informed of exactly what was going on. ‘Of course, Abbess. My business here is done — I’ll go straight away.’
‘You will find him at home at New Winnowlands, or so I believe,’ she said. ‘But I’m afraid you’ll have to round up the horse. Sister Martha’s turned him out.’
Brother Saul grinned. ‘She’s just been to fetch him,’ he said. ‘I saw her bringing him in.’
‘Oh, well done, Sister Martha!’ Helewise breathed. ‘God’s speed, Saul.’
He bowed his head while she gave him a swift blessing, then hurried away.
Helewise returned to de Courtenay and Sister Euphemia, who had the young man by the sleeve and was making him look at an elderly woman whose face was covered with red pustules, some of which had burst to emit yellow matter. Euphemia seemed to be asking him if he’d ever seen anything like it before.
‘Just a few more patients to see,’ Helewise said — de Courtenay, she noticed, appeared very relieved at her interruption — ‘so let’s hurry on, shall we?’
They finished the tour of the infirmary’s patients and went back outside. Helewise led him on without speaking; she was praying.
‘And the last place to visit,’ she said, after her silent and fervent Amen, ‘is the little sewing room.’ She opened the door and stood back to let him look inside.
Sister Caliste’s black-veiled head was bent over her mending, and, beside her, a small white-veiled figure copied her actions.
‘Sister Caliste is our youngest fully-professed nun,’ Helewise said conversationally, ‘and I often ask her to work with our novices, she being nearest to them in age. Here, she is mending torn bedding, and Sister Felice is learning the skill.’
She watched him watching the two nuns. Then, her own eyes moving to the sisters, suddenly her heart gave a great leap of alarm. She willed Caliste to look up, and, to her huge relief, she did. Helewise very deliberately folded her arms, tucking her hands in the opposite sleeves. With a faint nod, she indicated for Caliste to do the same. Caliste glanced at her companion, and her eyes widened briefly; she gave her a nudge, and the young novice put down her needlework and also folded away her hands.
De Courtenay stood staring down at the two bowed heads.
The moment lengthened till Helewise wanted to scream.
Then he said, ‘Why have they stopped sewing?’
She said quietly, ‘They are respecting the presence of a visitor. They will not resume until we leave.’
He spun round and strode out of the room. Waving his arm, he said, ‘Oh, let them get on with it.’
Helewise felt for a moment that she might faint. But that would have been plain stupid, so she pulled herself together and set off after de Courtenay, who, with his angry disappointment evident in the way he was striding along, was heading for the gates.
As she walked, Helewise sent up a prayer of deep gratitude for Caliste’s observant eyes and quick wits.
She reached the gates to find de Courtenay yelling for his men; they had grown tired of lounging against the Abbey walls poking fun at Sister Ursel, and had wandered off along the track, leading their horses and aiming punches at them when they tried to put their heads down to rake up mouthfuls of the thin winter grass.
‘Get mounted!’ de Courtenay bellowed. ‘You there, bring me my horse!’
Sister Ursel came to stand beside Helewise. They watched de Courtenay’s men inelegantly mounting up, and stared openly at de Courtenay himself, whose horse, still tempted by the delights of the vegetation beside the track, was reluctant to stand still for him.
‘Oh, dear,’ Helewise said with pretend concern, ‘are you going to manage? Or should one of us come and hold his head for you?’
He shot her a thunderous look. One final effort got him into the saddle, and, putting harsh spurs to his horse’s sides, he led his men off at a canter.
Sister Ursel muttered something: Helewise thought she heard one or two words not in common use among nuns.
‘I shall pretend, Sister Ursel, that I didn’t hear that,’ she said.
‘Thank you, Abbess.’ Sister Ursel blew her cheeks out. ‘Phew, I’m glad to see their dust. Lord, but what a rotten bunch!’
‘They are, and their leader the rottenest.’
‘Aye, aye.’ Sister Ursel grinned briefly. ‘Just as well for you, Abbess dear, that looks can’t kill. That last stare he gave you would have had you breathing your last.’
‘Quite,’ agreed Helewise. ‘Now, Sister Ursel, would you please refasten the gates? I must go and speak to Sister Euphemia.’
And, she thought, refraining from saying so aloud, convey to that wonderful, quick-thinking Sister Caliste my heartfelt thanks …
Death by the Blade
Chapter Fifteen
Leaving the Abbey church after Compline, Helewise was wracked with anxiety over Brother Saul.