Heart of Ice Read Online Free PDF Page A

said instead. ‘Shall we go to see him?’
         ‘Of course.’
         He stepped back to let her precede him and she led the way around the cloister and across to the infirmary, where she turned to her left and, removing a bar that had been put across its narrow entrance, went into a small curtained recess. Wondering about the barrier – and why, indeed, they had just ignored it – he moved to stand beside her in front of the narrow cot.
         The body lying on the cot was covered with a sheet.
         Sister Euphemia must have seen the Abbess and Josse walk along to the recess; she appeared almost immediately and, with a brief bow to Josse and a deeper one for the Abbess, said quietly, ‘I’ll show you the wound, Sir Josse.’
         He watched as she folded back the sheet to expose the head; he noticed how careful she was that the rest of the body remained covered. He looked at the blow that had killed the man and he saw straight away what Augustus had meant. ‘Aye, the man was murdered,’ he muttered, half to himself. Glancing up at the infirmarer, he asked, ‘Any more marks on him, Sister?’
         The infirmarer exchanged a look with the Abbess. Neither spoke for a moment; then the Abbess said, ‘Come with me, please, Sir Josse. I will show you the dead man’s clothing and his pouch. They are back in my room.’
         Increasingly mystified, Josse followed her out of the infirmary.
     
    ‘Here,’ she said, picking up a dark bundle from the floor and depositing it on her table, ‘are his garments. Sister Euphemia has been drying them by the fire but they are still a little damp.’
         Josse inspected the hose, the tunic, the undershirt and the cloak. The items were cheap; the linen shirt was of poor quality and the underarm seams had split. Its hem, he noticed, was stained. Both the hose and the shirt smelled unpleasant.
         ‘He suffered a flux of the bowels,’ the Abbess said. ‘Despite his immersion in the lake, the odour is still detectable.’
         Josse nodded. He was looking at the cloak – it was of heavy wool and, he thought, would have dragged the body down as it soaked up water – and unpleasant images were filling his mind of dark water and a sheen of ice forming. But, he reassured himself, the poor lad would have known nothing about all that, not with such a frightful wound. He’d have been dead before he hit the ground.
         ‘There is also this.’ Josse looked up to see that the Abbess was holding out a leather pouch. ‘It was attached to his belt and it, too, we have dried as best we could.’
         Josse took it from her. ‘Is there anything inside it?’
         ‘See for yourself.’ She sounded unlike herself, Josse thought; she was distant, almost aloof  . . .
         He turned his attention to the pouch. There was a small pocket sewn inside and it looked as if someone had searched it with a rough hand, for the stitching had been torn. Had robbery been the motive for this death, then? Josse put his hand right down inside the pocket and his fingers touched something hard, cold and round. More than one thing; extracting what he had found, Josse looked down on five heavy coins.
         ‘If he was killed for the contents of his pouch, then the assailant did not make a very thorough search,’ he said. ‘See, my lady? These coins were tucked away right at the bottom of the pouch’s pocket.’
         She looked. ‘I see.’
         Josse put his hand back inside the pouch. There was something else . . . it was cold and slightly damp and felt like a little bag made of waxed cloth. Carefully drawing it out, he put it down on the Abbess’s table.
         ‘What’s this?’ he asked, not really expecting an answer; the Abbess’s strange mood was worrying him.
         She leaned close to him, studying the bag. She sniffed then, bending down so that her nose was right over the bag, sniffed again. ‘I believe,’ she said slowly,