Heart of Ice Read Free

morning, the pond and its deadly secret were covered in a thick sheet of ice.

Part One
    The Enemy

Chapter 1
     
    The mood at Hawkenlye Abbey was festive. A short spell of very cold weather had covered the pond in the Vale with almost a hand’s breadth of ice and, in the spirit of turning an affliction into a gift, the monks and lay brothers were trying to teach themselves to slide across the ice on their sandalled feet without falling over. Brother Augustus recalled having once been told that tying deer-bone blades to the feet increased the speed at which it was possible to glide across the ice and he was busy experimenting; so far he had only a sore thumb and a large bruise on his backside to show for his troubles.
         Word spread quickly that there was fun to be had in Hawkenlye Vale and soon others, at first children but then their older sisters and brothers and their parents as well, began to arrive and clamoured to be allowed to join in. The local people were in the middle of a cold, miserable and desperately poor winter, there was never enough to eat and Christmas was a dim memory; nobody needed any encouragement to stop what they were doing and remember what it was to be playful and carefree. Old Brother Firmin, who felt it was one thing for the brethren to risk life, limb and death by drowning but quite another for outsiders to do so, cast suspicious looks at the ice and shook his head dubiously. Brother Saul, observing the disappointed faces of the onlookers, said he would test the ice by walking the Abbey’s hefty cob across it once or twice. With the eyes of the growing crowd upon him, he did so; once, twice across the pond and two or three times along its length, he led the patient horse and listened somewhat nervously for the first sound of cracking ice.
         No such sound came. With a grin, Saul called out, ‘The ice is strong. Come and try your skills!’
         Catching the air of celebration, Brother Erse asked permission to make a fire and, using birch shavings and some seasoned odds and ends of wood from his carpentry bench to get it started, soon had a good blaze going. Brother Augustus abandoned his experiments with the bone skates and, with Brother Adrian, set about preparing a large pot of thin but nourishing broth whose chief ingredients were the carcases of three or four fowl scrounged from the Abbey’s kitchen, some onions, some garlic, several large handfuls of barley and a big bunch of dried herbs. They suspended the pot over Brother Erse’s fire and soon an appetising smell was wafting out over the pond; very quickly a line of hungry children (and not a few of their parents) formed beside Erse’s fire. More monks came to help and the broth was ladled into the rough earthenware mugs that the brethren kept for the use of pilgrims coming to the shrine in the Vale. The monks imposed order on the queue and started handing out the broth to the visitors. Sounds of laughter and merriment floated up to the Abbey; before long, some of the nuns came down to the Vale to find out what was going on.
         Among them was Sister Caliste, who worked in the infirmary under Sister Euphemia, one of the most senior of the nuns. Sister Caliste reported back to the infirmarer, who in turn told the Abbess Helewise. Just as the sun was setting, the Abbess went to see for herself.
         Brother Firmin, watching her face as her grey eyes looked slowly from one end of the pond to the other, taking in the cheerful, red-cheeked people struggling to keep their balance and laughing loudly when inevitably they failed, waited apprehensively for her to speak. ‘I am sorry, my lady Abbess, not to have asked for your permission,’ he began, ‘but in truth—’
         She held up a hand and, with a smile, interrupted him. ‘No need to apologise, Brother Firmin,’ she said. ‘I do not think any permission was necessary; there is nothing wrong with making people happy on a cold winter’s day.’ Her