by Alys Clare
He lay down again. She sensed his movement and turned on to her side, facing away from him. Her breathing settled down again, rhythmic and deep, and he realized she hadn’t woken up.
He curled his long body round behind hers, arm around her slim waist, legs drawn up and pressed to hers. For a while, her nearness aroused him, but he told himself that now was not the time. Besides, he was still very weary. Soon he fell asleep again.
It was daylight when I woke up. I lay looking out at the thin sunshine in the glade beyond our shelter, and I knew from the quality of the light that it wasn’t long after dawn. I was blissfully comfortable, for Rollo’s blanket beneath us was thick and soft, and the animal skin had kept the ground chill from penetrating. I was warm, too, for not only were we covered by my own blanket, but also his arms were around me and his body was pressed against my back. I sighed with pleasure, relaxing against him.
As I grew more fully awake, the reality of my situation dawned on me. I was lying naked with a man I barely knew! Yes, I loved him, and I was fairly sure he loved me. The fact that I’d heard him when he called out to me, even though he was far away, told me that, in some great pattern that humans are not meant to understand, he and I were bound together.
Nevertheless, we were virtually strangers to each other, and the fact of our sharing a bed without a stitch on was out of necessity, not desire. Well, I desired him then, without a doubt, and I could tell it was the same for him, for all that he was still asleep.
It would happen, and I knew it. One day, probably quite soon, we would fulfil our destiny and become lovers. The day was not that day, however; every instinct told me so. Carefully removing his arms – not without several pangs of regret – I crept out of our lair and, gathering up the bundle of my folded clothes, stepped out into the glade and got dressed.
I had just finished brushing and braiding my hair – quite dry now – and was putting on my coif when I felt eyes on me. Bending down to look back inside the shelter, I saw he was propped up on one elbow, watching me with a smile on his face.
His eyes ran over me, from my head to my feet and back again, taking in the fact that I was dressed. I thought he murmured, ‘Shame.’ Then he unfolded his own clothes, and I turned my back to give him privacy.
I felt him come and stand behind me. He put his arms round me – already they felt familiar – and he said, right in my ear, ‘You came to find me, and you saved my life. I am now bound to you, by ties of indebtedness and also by ties of love.’ Then he turned me to face him and, as if putting a seal on his words, gently kissed me on the lips.
It was the first time he had spoken to me of love; the first time any man had done so. Glad, so very glad, that it was Rollo, I lifted my chin so that I was looking into his eyes. ‘As I am to you,’ I whispered.
We stood for some moments, not speaking, not moving, simply absorbing each other. It felt as if we were enchanted, as if that little glade among the pine trees was a place of magic that had bestowed its gift on us.
With a sigh, he broke the spell.
‘We should get going,’ he said, and the obvious regret in his tone made me want to sing. ‘There is much I have to tell you, my love, and a task that I must complete.’
‘Let me help,’ I said, without even a pause to think. I didn’t care what his task was. It would be dangerous – of course it would, for yesterday the forces ranged against him had had him at their mercy, on the point of death. I wanted to share the danger. Just at that moment, I was so exhilarated, so full of joy, that I’d have died with him if he’d asked me to.
He was watching me, his dark eyes intent. ‘I am reluctant to ask you,’ he muttered, ‘but I have the feeling that I’m not going to be able to fulfil my mission without your help.’
‘I will do anything,’ I said softly.
He made a sound in his throat, half anguish, half a moan of happiness. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘That is why I don’t want to involve you.’
‘I can take care of myself,’ I said gently. ‘Remember who it was who got us away from the storm at the end of the path?’
He smiled grimly. ‘I’m not likely to forget.’
We studied each other for some moments. I was pretty sure I knew what he was thinking. It must have come hard, for a man such as he to face the fact that a skinny village healer could do something he couldn’t do, and that, in truth, he still had need of her assistance.
In the end he gave a sigh, but he didn’t seem to be able to stop the grin spreading over his face. ‘Are you hungry?’ he asked.
It was not what I was expecting, but I was, very. ‘Starving,’ I said.
‘Me too.’ He reached down for my hand, gave it a squeeze and released it. ‘Let’s pack up and head off for some place where they’ll serve us breakfast. I’ll treat you to anything and everything you fancy –’ he patted a purse at his waist and I heard the chink of coins – ‘and when we’ve eaten all we want, I’ll tell you why I’m here and what I have to do. What do you say?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
SIXTEEN
Gurdyman leaned back in his chair, kneading the flesh of his brow as if his head hurt. Watching him, Hrype would not have been surprised if it did. The intense concentration he had brought to bear on the matter, and the awful, underlying sense of urgency spurring them both on, were enough to give anyone a headache.
‘If the man at Chatteris isn’t Father Clement,’ Gurdyman said heavily, removing his hand, ‘then who is he? And if we are right in our conclusion that the dead man is Father Clement, then what was he doing over in the eastern fens? Was he killed at the spot where he became entangled with the boat, or did the murderer take the body there because it was a fitting place for his sacrifice?’
Hrype gave a brief sound of frustrated irritation. ‘Too many questions, Gurdyman,’ he said shortly. ‘I can give no answers other than useless speculation.’
Gurdyman smiled. ‘Your speculation is never useless, old friend,’ he murmured.
Hrype barely heard. ‘It would be quite possible for anyone with a boat to have done the killing in one place and then transported the body to the spot where it was found,’ he said slowly, ‘but my heart tells me it was not done like that.’ He hesitated, trying to catch the nebulous impression that so convinced him and put it into words. ‘From what you have told me, I have a picture in my mind of a body, naked and suffering the marks of the Threefold Death: the stab to the neck, the garrotte, the drowning. In his stomach are the remains of his last meal; the powerful substances that rendered him unconscious have done their work all too well. The killer forces hazel stakes into the soft ground at the fen edge, lashing his victim to them with honeysuckle ropes. This was not so much a killing, Gurdyman, as a performance, done for the benefit of the only witnesses.’
‘The spirits. The gods of the place,’ Gurdyman said softly.
‘Yes. Our killer was making an offering to them because he wished something from them; perhaps because, having already been granted whatever he had asked for, he was giving thanks. Either way, this performance would have been enacted in its entirety in the place where the body was found.’ He added, with quiet conviction, ‘I am quite certain of it.’
Gurdyman nodded slowly. ‘Yes. I, too, see it that way,’ he agreed.
‘So, let us ask the question again,’ Hrype said. ‘Why was Father Clement over on the east side of the fens?’ Abruptly, he stood up, moving to the side of the sunny courtyard so that he could look up into the sky. ‘Not long past midday,’ he murmured. ‘If I leave now, I should be there by noon tomorrow.’
Gurdyman got to his feet. Stiff after sitting still for so long, he pressed a hand to the small of his back. ‘It is a long way,’ he said. ‘I will pack some provisions for you.’
He did not need to ask where Hrype was going; if they were to find out what reason Father Clement had had for journeying to the area where his body was left, then one of them must go and ask at the last place where he was known to have been: Crowland A
bbey.
Hrype had lived for much of his adult life in the fen country, and he would have said that he was immune to the fears and the superstitions of outsiders. He had visited the Crowland area twice before, but the first time had been before the latest fire, when the abbey was bustling with life, and on the second occasion, he had been intent on a specific mission – to find out more about Father Clement from locals in the vicinity – and he had not taken much notice of his surroundings. Now, however, when in the early afternoon of the following day he finally reached Crowland, he discovered he was wrong. He was as susceptible to irrational fears as anyone.
He was entirely alone. He was exhausted, for yesterday he had walked for almost twenty-five miles before giving in to his hunger and fatigue and finding a place to sleep for what remained of the night. Today he had travelled sometimes on foot and occasionally by boat, in the places where the waters were too wide to jump over or ford. Since mid-morning, when a boatman had dropped him off after ferrying him over a meandering river, he had not seen a living soul. The sky was cloudy and lowering, heavy with the threat of rain. Spirals and twirls of white mist rose up from the damp fen, coalescing into a sort of pale layer lying just above the ground. Looking down, Hrype had the impression that he had no feet. Or, perhaps, was walking on cloud . . .
He shivered, wrapping his cloak more tightly around him. From somewhere quite close there was a sudden booming sound, like someone blowing across the top of a large jar. The reed beds and the swampy conditions were perfect for bitterns, but such was Hrype’s state of mind that it took him several moments of heart-pounding fear to remember that. He stood quite still, and presently the sound came again. It was spring, Hrype mused. The bird was seeking a mate.
He trudged on. Peering ahead, he could make out a hump of higher ground ahead. The intervening terrain was sodden but not actually under water, or so he thought. But then, still some hundred or so paces from the island, he realized that it was, in fact, surrounded by water. Not very deep, and clogged with reed banks, but nevertheless he was going to have to get his feet wet. Reaching the water’s edge, he stopped and looked around. Now he could make out the fire-blackened ruins of the abbey, but they appeared to be deserted. If there was anyone in residence – there had to be, he told himself firmly, refusing to believe he’d come all this way for nothing – then they were not keeping a lookout for visitors and preparing to send out a boat.
He noticed that there was a line of stakes sticking out of the water. Hoping that these had been placed to mark the shallow way across to the island, he sat down, removed his boots, rolled up his hose and stepped into the water.
He was too busy watching where he put his feet and trying to avoid the deeper water to look up, so when a voice hailed him from the far shore, it took him by surprise. It was only then, when he had evidence that there was someone there other than himself and the spirits whom he sensed crowding around him from all sides, that he let himself acknowledge how the atmosphere of the place had unnerved him.
‘Halloa!’ the voice cried. Hrype saw a tall, spare man in his middle years standing on the shore just above the water line. ‘Go over to your left –’ the man waved the appropriate arm vigorously in case his visitor did not know his right from his left – ‘and you’ll find the ground slopes up more gently.’
Hrype did as he was bid, soon finding himself climbing up out of the water on to the soil of Crowland island. His feet were filthy with black, slimy, clinging mud. They were also so cold that he could not feel them. He appeared to have cut his right heel; he saw a line of blood snaking out through the foul mud.
The man hurried to meet him. ‘That looks nasty,’ he observed, studying Hrype’s foot. ‘Come along with me to what is left of our infirmary, and I’ll see if I can find something to bathe it with.’
Hrype followed him up the shore. He looked around, noticing the remains of the church and the buildings that had formed the sides of the cloister beside it. Judging by one that had survived the flames, they appeared to have been made of timber, with wattle infill and reed-thatched roofs. No wonder the abbey had burned so thoroughly.
The thin man led him to a makeshift hut that stood within the outlines of what had been a bigger building, rectangular in shape. ‘We’ve put everything we salvaged in here,’ he said, ducking his head and leading the way inside the little hut, which was crowded with sacks and crates and had a small fire burning in a central hearth. ‘It’s not much, but at least it keeps the rain off. Now—’ He stared around, his eyes alighting on a small three-legged stool. ‘Sit there, and I’ll wash and tend your foot.’
Hrype sank down on to the stool, watching as the man moved around him, fetching a bowl, filling it from the iron vessel suspended over the hearth and adding some drops from a small bottle made of green glass. Then he rolled up his sleeves, hitched up his robe and knelt before Hrype.
‘Our infirmarer is not here,’ he said as he bathed Hrype’s wounded heel, ‘since, like most of my monks, he has been sent to be useful in another abbey until this one is up and running again.’ The my monks was a clue, and Hrype was prepared for what the man said next. ‘I am Ingulphus,’ he said, looking up and smiling, ‘and I am abbot here.’
‘I heard about the fire,’ Hrype remarked. If he began with some general comments, he thought, then it might be easier to pose the question he’d come to ask without raising suspicion.
Ingulphus made a sound of despair. ‘I am not surprised. We lost so much. All our buildings burned, including our library, with its precious manuscripts and the experimental model Brother Luke had been working on, with which he hoped to demonstrate the movements of the planets in their spheres.’
‘How did the fire start?’ Hrype asked. ‘Was it a raid?’
‘No, no, it wasn’t,’ the abbot replied. ‘In a way, that would have been easier to bear, since it would have been outside our control. No; a plumber was working in the church tower. A moment’s carelessness, and you see the result all around you.’ He sighed, returning to Hrype’s foot and rinsing it carefully, then applying some drops of whatever it was in the little green bottle.
For a few moments Hrype felt as if someone had set fire to his foot. He cried out, and Ingulphus grinned.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I should have warned you, I suppose, but I always feel that if I’m going to experience pain, I’d rather not be warned, since then you suffer twice, once from the anticipation, once from the pain itself.’
He put another couple of drops into the cut, and this time the pain was less acute. ‘What is that?’ Hrype asked.
The abbot looked up. ‘I have no idea. Our herbalist makes it, and it is his sovereign remedy for cleaning cuts. Now, a dressing, to keep the wound clean –’ he worked as he spoke, his busy, capable hands wrapping and tying the strip of clean linen – ‘and you can put your boot back on.’ He looked at Hrype’s other foot and, after only a brief hesitation, washed that as well.
‘Thank you,’ Hrype said gravely when he had finished.
The abbot grinned. ‘That’s all right. It seemed a shame for you to have one nice clean foot and one filthy one. Now, why not tell me who you are and why you are here? I thought, when I first spied you coming across the water, that you were one of my monks returning, but I soon saw my mistake.’
‘Are you here alone, then?’ Hrype asked.
‘No, four of the brethren are with me.’ He grimaced. ‘The four strongest, for our work just now consists mainly of tearing down the ruins and clearing the ground so that the new build can begin.’
The four strongest, Hrype reflected. They would not necessarily be the four brightest, and he thought he understood the abbot’s rueful expression. ‘Is there not work elsewhere for you too, My Lord Abbot, more suited to your abilities?’
Ingulphus smiled. ‘This is my abbey,’ he said simply. ‘It is up to me to rebuild it.’ His smile widened. ‘It is often acknowledged among us here that we have a very comfortable life compared with our founder, fo
r our blessed Guthlac clad himself in crude skins, his daily fare was no more than a morsel of barley bread and a cup of muddy water, and he bore his ague and marsh fever without complaint. Men say the island was the haunt of terrifying creatures, demons and vengeful spirits, yet Guthlac prevailed. Perhaps it is no bad thing for we who dwell here two hundred years later to experience the hardships our founder encountered and to celebrate his stout courage, which has enabled his successors to begin again each time our settlement has been destroyed. We shall not fail him now.’
He had finished tidying away the bowl and the wash cloths, and now, straightening up and turning to face Hrype, he said mildly, ‘You still haven’t told me why you are here.’
The mildness was, Hrype decided, deceptive. The abbot was an astute, brave man and, with such as he, the best thing – perhaps the only thing – was to tell the truth.
‘You had a priest here by the name of Father Clement,’ he said.
If the abbot was surprised at the remark, he did not show it. ‘Yes, indeed. He was our confessor until the fire and, like my monks, he was sent elsewhere afterwards. The five of us here go over to Thorney for confession,’ he added, ‘for it would be a waste of Father Clement’s talents to have him tend to the spiritual welfare of so small a group.’ He studied Hrype intently. ‘Did you hope to find Father Clement here? If so –’ he answered the question before Hrype had a chance to – ‘then I am afraid you have had a wasted journey, for he now ministers to the nuns at Chatteris, although we hope very much that he will be permitted to return to us soon, once we are a proper community again, because he—’
‘My Lord Abbot,’ Hrype interrupted, as gently as he could, ‘I am very sorry to tell you this, but I fear that Father Clement is dead.’
The abbot’s lean face paled. ‘Dead?’ he said in a whisper. ‘But how? He was not an old man, and I would have said he was fit, and he—’
‘If the body has been correctly identified, and I fear that it has, then Father Clement was murdered,’ Hrype said.