‘No,’ my aunt replied. ‘It is possible that more of the nuns may succumb, but Elfritha has been sick for two days now, and I would have expected somebody else to be already unwell, were this something that is going to affect many.’
‘I hope you’re right,’ Hrype muttered.
I was concentrating so hard on putting the smallest possible droplet of water on to my sister’s lip that I missed what Edild said next. Hrype spoke, the low rumble of his deep voice a soft and sort of hypnotic sound. But then one word leapt put at me, and all at once I was fully alert.
Edild must have sensed my involuntary movement. She crouched down beside me, waiting as I administered another drop of water.
‘How many has she taken?’
I knew she would ask and had been carefully counting. ‘Seven.’
Edith nodded. ‘Well done,’ she whispered. ‘That’s enough. Now we wait.’
I did not need to ask what we’d be waiting for.
I stood up, putting the cup and the spoon down on the little table beside the bed. Straightening up, I was met with the disconcerting sight of two pairs of eyes, green and silvery-grey, watching me with the intensity of a hawk eyeing the mouse that will be its supper.
I collected my thoughts, for I knew what they were about to tell me.
‘Someone tried to poison her, didn’t they?’ I said.
Instantly, they both shushed me, stepping closer so that the three of us stood in a tight triangle. ‘We think so,’ Hrype agreed.
I paused, again thinking rapidly. ‘Have we a sample of the vomit?’
Edild’s mouth turned down in a grimace. ‘Not of what she brought up at the outset. Since I have been here, it has mainly been watery bile.’
The product of a stomach that had emptied itself, I reflected.
I had a sudden thought. ‘What of her garments?’ I asked eagerly. ‘If the sickness came on her abruptly, might she not have been sick down herself?’
Edild glanced at Hrype, then back at me. ‘Surely someone would have washed her clothes by now?’ There was doubt in her tone.
I made the offer before either of them could ask me. ‘I’ll go and find out.’
I realized quite quickly that the nuns must be in their church, saying one of the daily offices, for the abbey was all but deserted. Two lay nuns sat at either end of the infirmary, and one nodded to me as I emerged from the short passage outside Elfritha’s room. Rather than go down the length of the long room, I used the door that opened directly on to the cloister. I paused to look around, gazing out over the abbey and listening. There was another stout lay sister on duty at the gate, and from somewhere close at hand I could hear voices, a man and a woman’s.
I slipped back into the shadows of the cloister and wondered how I was going to find the laundry. It would have to be close to a water source, I reasoned, and I recalled having seen a little stream running along the western edge of the enclosing walls, where the abbey was closest to the surrounding fen. I turned in that direction and presently saw a small hut, its door propped open to reveal big tubs and a small hearth over which a large pot was suspended, presumably where water was heated. On a rough frame behind the hut, a load of washing was drying in the last rays of the setting sun.
I checked quickly, but there was nobody watching. I looked at the items on the frame, and most of them appeared to be bedlinen. I crept inside the hut.
There was a big pile of dirty clothes awaiting the laundress’s attention. The pot above the hearth was full of cold water, and kindling had been set ready. The nun in charge must have been intending to do a wash when she returned after the office.
I fell on the bundle of clothing, searching for my sister’s habit. I thought I was going to be disappointed, for almost all of the garments were light in colour — novices’ white linen veils, several under-shifts — but then I saw something black rolled up tightly underneath them. I reached for it, my fingers finding the coarse cloth of a nun’s habit. I drew it out from the pile, and even as I unrolled it I knew I had found what I was searching for: I could tell by the smell.
My beloved sister had been sick all over the front of her habit. Smoothing out the fabric so that I could inspect what was spread over it, I held it to the light coming in through the open door.
My heart seemed to lurch in my chest, and I smothered a gasp.
Among the sticky, smelly mess, I could clearly make out pale berries and those dark, distorted rye seeds.
I had seen enough — more than enough, for I was feeling pretty queasy myself, my fear and anxiety adding to the unpleasant atmosphere inside the little hut. I rolled up the habit again and pushed it back underneath the shifts and the veils, careful to make it look as much as possible as it had done before I disturbed it. I peered out through the doorway, checking to make sure there was still nobody watching, then I gathered up my skirts and hurried back to the infirmary.
Back in Elfritha’s room, I found my aunt busy changing the soiled bedlinen, helped by two of the infirmary nuns. I did not at first see Hrype; looking round for him, I spotted him standing behind the door. I had already noticed what a master he was in the art of appearing invisible, and I doubted very much if either of the nuns, preoccupied as they were, had realized he was there.
Edild was too busy to stop and talk to me, so I met Hrype’s eyes and inclined my head very slightly towards the doorway. He understood instantly. As I crept back outside, once more using the door that was closest to Elfritha’s little room, I knew without looking that he was right behind me.
We found a place in the far corner of the cloister, where we sat down on a low wall. The cloister was deserted, and we positioned ourselves so that we could see anyone coming. It was evening now and beginning to grow dark. I checked that there were no doorways in which people could lurk and listen to our conversation.
I had a final quick look round, then I told him, as succinctly as I could, what Gurdyman had found in the stomach of the dead man in the fen. I was on the point of describing how Gurdyman and I had speculated that Herleva had also been given the same poison, but there was no need because, being Hrype, he had already worked it out.
‘And the little nun — your sister’s friend — she, too, had vomited,’ he said.
‘We’ve no way of knowing what it was that poisoned Herleva,’ I went on. ‘But I am pretty sure that Elfritha was given the same fatal gruel that the man in the fen ate.’
‘Not fatal yet,’ Hrype put in swiftly.
I ached for reassurance. Could he give it? I knew he had ways of seeing through the mist into the future. ‘Will she live?’ I asked in a small voice.
He turned to meet my eyes. ‘I do not know, Lassair,’ he said. ‘Your aunt has not said, and she is the healer, not me.’
‘Couldn’t you-’ I began. I dropped my head, unable to go on.
‘Could I ask the runes?’ he supplied. ‘Is that what you would ask, child?’ Mutely, I nodded.
There was quite a long pause. Then he said, ‘I could, yes, and they would give an answer. But they do not lie, and they tell truths that often cause terrible pain, for sometimes to know of a dreadful event before it happens is to suffer it many times over rather than just once.’
‘Then you do think she’s going to die.’
‘No,’ he said very firmly. ‘I said I do not know. Nobody does, Lassair. All we can do is look after her to the best of our ability.’ His mouth creased up in a very small smile. ‘By we, I mean, of course, you and your aunt.’ He reached for my hand, clasping it for a moment and then letting it go. ‘Nobody could have better care,’ he added softly.
It was kind of him, but really undeserved. I would only be doing what Edild told me; if Elfritha survived, it would be thanks to my aunt.
We were quiet for some time. It was pleasantly warm in our corner out of the wind, and I thought fleetingly how lovely it would be to curl up in my shawl and go to sleep.