‘There is another way,’ Isabella said quietly. ‘According to Ambrose, Fritha included in her impersonation of Galiena a session of massaging Galiena’s special cream into his hands?’
‘Yes, indeed she did.’
‘The ointment had a base made of hazelnut oil,’ Isabella said. ‘I know the recipe. It is one that I was taught as a girl and I showed Galiena how to make it.’
‘I see,’ Helewise said, although she was still mystified as to why Isabella had ridden over to tell her all this.
‘Only a very small number of us were taught to be healers,’ Isabella went on, ‘because our people believed that such skills are precious and not for the many. But those of us with the knowledge learned caution with the fruit of the hazel because, for a few people, the oil of the nut can act as if it were a poison.’
‘A hazelnut can kill?’ Helewise was incredulous.
‘Oh, indeed it can, my lady. The sensitivity appears to run in families.’
‘And you know of somebody related to Fritha who has this sensitivity?’
‘Yes. Her elder sister — her full sister, not a half-sister like Galiena — went gathering nuts when she was a young girl and, disobeying the instructions to bring her basket home without eating any of her harvest, she returned to Saltwych in a dreadful state. Her face was grossly swollen and the swelling seemed to extend down her throat, for she could hardly breathe.’
‘Did she die?’
‘No. The wise man has a small silver tube that he uses to blow the ritual incense into life on his brazier. He snatched it up, forced it down the child’s throat and it allowed her to take in breath until the swelling went down again.’
Helewise realised, to her shame, that she was surprised. She had dismissed these strange marshland people as backward and barbaric yet their healer — if that was what Isabella meant by wise man — had managed to save a life when all the skill and devotion of the Hawkenlye nursing nuns had failed.
It does not do, she thought sombrely, to be proud.
‘Thank you for telling me this,’ she said to Isabella after a moment. ‘It seems that you have solved for us the mystery of how she died. And, since it was by pure mischance, there is no necessity to search for her killer.’ Something occurred to her. ‘But surely this cream for Ambrose’s painful hands would not be something that Fritha would have eaten?’
Isabella smiled sadly. ‘It smells delicious, my lady. Appetising. Did you not remark on it?’
‘Oh — yes, I suppose I did.’
Still with the same smile, Isabella said, ‘Fritha would not be the first person to lick the residue off her fingers.’
Helewise told Josse later, when he came to take his leave of her. With a whistle of surprise, he said, ‘It would be wise, my lady, to mention this business of the nuts to Sister Euphemia and Sister Tiphaine.’
‘I have already done so,’ she said. ‘Sister Euphemia said she would bear it in mind. Sister Tiphaine said, oh, of course, and why hadn’t she thought of it?’
‘She already knew?’ he said.
‘So it seems. But then nothing surprises me any more about our herbalist.’
She went with him to the gate, where Isabella, Brice and the two children were patiently waiting for him. The children were laughing at something Brice had said and already, she thought, the four of them looked like a real family. She went up to them and said her farewells.
Then she went over to Josse. ‘Goodbye, my friend,’ she said to him. Then, on an impulse, ‘Be careful.’
As he swung up on to Horace’s broad back, he too was laughing.
She stood in their dust as the five of them rode away and out of sight. Then, smiling, she went back to her duties.
Postscript
September 1193
Deep in the great forest, a solitary traveller had made a temporary camp. He had been living there for a little over two months and, although he knew he would have to move on soon, he was as yet undecided where to go.
Perhaps he would make his way north-west to Mona’s Isle.
His old life was finished and he could never go back. For one thing, there was no future in that place, not for him, not for any of them, or at least not for long. For another, he had given away too much of himself there and did not want the constant reminder of what was lost and could not be reclaimed.
As evening came down, he did as he often did and prepared a small fire. In its soft light, he poured water into a black iron pot and stared into its inky depths.
After a while, the pictures began to form.
He saw a young woman, tall, slim and very fair, walking in a garden. She was happy; she sang as she walked. She had placed a jug of water on a small pile of rocks and beside it there were flowers and a tallow lamp. She lit the wick and the lamp’s light shone out into the twilight. As the moon rose in the deep blue sky, softly the woman began to chant.
There was a bump in her belly, below the waistline of her closely fitting gown, and her breasts were swollen with early pregnancy.
Ah, she might have been raised in the ways and the beliefs of the new religion that came from the east, the man thought, but the blood of her people runs true in her veins. She remembers. She knows who has granted her this, her heart’s desire.
With a sigh of pleasure, he watched as Galiena gave thanks to the spirits whom she still honoured for their gift of new life.
Time passed.
There was another whom he yearned to watch over but he knew he had forfeited the right. He would try to resist the temptation. Getting up, he went to the branch and bracken shelter that he had made and selected food for his evening meal. Having something to do with his hands might act as a distraction.
He ate his simple food and thought about the place he had left. They had been numbed by Aelle’s dreadful death and finding themselves suddenly leaderless had unhinged them. It was Aelle’s fault; he should have made better provision for his succession. There was only the witless son of his cousin and, in truth, the lad was not much of an heir. But, had he been given the proper schooling and training that was his right, the youth would have done. He would have been no Aelle but then, despite his charisma and his undoubted strength, Aella had been far from perfect. As it was, the youth had reacted badly to his suddenly elevated status and he had wept and pleaded for pity, support, for another’s shoulders to help him to bear the heavy burden of leadership.
It was my shoulders he wanted, the man thought. And, by the gods, I have had enough!
The silver eyes glittered in the firelight and, against his will, he saw again in his mind the scenes he had despaired over when he had first sat watching them flitting to and fro in the black scrying water. The Saltwych community was doomed, of that he was sure. They would live on there in their isolation and their increasing squalor for another generation, perhaps more, but already others were encroaching on the marshland. The incomers were beginning to live there all the year round now that the land was drying out. They were planting trees and hedges, these new marshmen, building their churches, turning the salt wilderness into a pattern of small, neat fields, careful cultivation and tidy little dwellings. The Saltwych people would face strong and resolute competition for the marsh that they regarded as their own. It would be a case of adapt or die and, because the Saltwych folk had for so long looked inward and kept themselves to themselves, they did not know how to adapt.
They would die.
He knew because he had seen it.
Oh, they would not go dramatically, all together in some final battle! No, they would become demoralised, interbred, desperately poor, weak, helpless and, in time, sink down into starvation. And Saltwych, that place that had been so wonderful, the haunt of kings descended from the very gods, would fall, forgotten, in the dust.