by Alys Clare
‘What happened?’ I asked eventually.
‘Edild told your father that Hrype revealed to Froya the truth concerning where his heart really lies, and explained to her that it was his wish to leave the home he’d shared so long with her and Sibert and move in with Edild.’
‘And how did Froya take that?’ I’d always thought of Froya as a dependent, weak woman who, it seemed, had never really got over the death of her husband; or perhaps it was guilt over the fact that she’d slept with his brother while he lay dying that had turned her into a nervous, anxious shadow of a woman.1 I couldn’t imagine that she would have accepted Hrype’s departure without protest.
But to my surprise my mother said, ‘All seems perfectly amicable, and Froya apparently told Hrype that she was quite relieved to be told at last since she’d known all along something wasn’t right.’
‘What about Sibert?’ If Froya was nursing a secret heartache at Hrype’s revelation, then it would be my friend who would bear the burden of it.
‘Sibert is giving nothing away,’ my mother replied. ‘It’s always seemed to me,’ she added, poking at the fire again and throwing on more wood, ‘that Sibert and Hrype never really got on that well, so maybe the lad’s pleased to see the back of him.’ She looked up at me and grinned. She is well aware, I’m sure, that I don’t much like Hrype either.
‘Anyway,’ she went on, settling back on her stool with a sigh, ‘Edild and Hrype quietly made their vows and are now man and wife. The village is still gossiping and they’ll go on doing so, but most folks are too scared of Hrype to do so in his presence. Besides, he’s still looking after Froya and she doesn’t seem dismayed that he’s gone, so people are forced to keep their most malicious comments to themselves.’
I smiled. Yes, everyone was wary of Hrype, and for good reason. He was, I well knew, powerful in his way; not as powerful as Gurdyman, but the force that operated through Hrype was undoubtedly darker. You crossed him at your peril.
I’d been staring into the fire, relaxed, warm down to my toes from the delicious hot drink, and it was only now that I realized my mother was studying me.
‘So why are you home?’ she demanded. She leaned closer. ‘You look a bit pale. Not sickening for something, are you?’
‘No, of course not,’ I said, putting on an aggrieved tone to mask my horrified reaction at her perspicacity. ‘I’m tired, that’s all. I’ve just walked all the way from Cambridge. You don’t think I’d come visiting if I thought I was bringing sickness to your house and the village, do you?’
She was still looking at me, and now, with a sniff, she said, ‘No, I reckon not.’
The sooner I leave, I thought, the better.
After what I hoped was long enough not to rouse her suspicion, I said, ‘Well, I suppose I’d better be off to Edild’s.’
‘Don’t you want to see your father, and your brothers, and Zarina and the little ones?’
I gave her a weak smile. ‘Tomorrow,’ I promised. ‘I really am tired, Mother.’
I stood outside Edild’s door, not sure what to do. In the past, when she and I had shared the house, I’d always gone in and out unthinkingly, and it had never occurred to me to knock. Now, though, things were different.
I tapped very gently and called out, ‘Edild? Are you there? It’s Lassair.’
There was a brief pause – I thought I heard a swift whispered conversation – and then my aunt opened the door. She smiled gently at me and, although it was her usual calm, unflappable expression, I saw immediately that something had changed: in the soft light from the hearth and the two little lamps, her skin glowed like pale honey and a sort of illumination seemed to shine out of her. She didn’t need to tell me she was happy, for anyone with eyes to look could see for herself.
‘What a nice surprise,’ she said, standing aside to let me go in and closing the door. ‘We didn’t know you were coming, Lassair.’
We.
It’s one of the telltales of a new couple, isn’t it? Before they always said me and I. Afterwards, suddenly and very emphatically and at every possible occasion, it’s we and us.
Well, my dear aunt was now half of an us, and I had better begin to get used to it; even, if I could manage it, start being glad for her.
Her new husband lay relaxed beside the hearth, propped up on a bedroll, a mug of some fragrant, steaming liquid to hand. Wooden platters, scraped clean, were stacked close by, and the appetizing smell of what they’d just had for supper still permeated the air, mingling with the usual scent of herbs that always characterizes Edild’s house.
I had seen Hrype in just that pose, in that exact position, times without number. But now he had the right to be there, always, every day, every minute. My sensible self told me not to be so silly, that Hrype was a free soul, a wanderer; a man who needed to go off on his own regularly in order to keep sane; that he could no more alter this lifelong habit than stop breathing; that there would henceforth be almost as many occasions when Edild was alone at home as there had always been.
My sensible self knew the truth, but my emotional self wasn’t paying any attention.
‘Sorry to turn up without warning,’ I said, trying to make my voice friendly and warm. By the swift, amused look that Hrype shot me, I reckoned I’d failed.
Edild put a hand on my arm; a brief, warm touch. ‘It doesn’t matter, Lassair. There’s food if you’re hungry?’
‘Yes, please.’ My empty stomach was growling. It seemed hours since my meagre midday bread and cheese.
Edild ladled a bowl of vegetable and barley stew from the pot over the hearth, and I sat down opposite Hrype. The first few mouthfuls went down almost without my tasting them, but quite soon I began to feel full, and not long after that, slightly queasy. With an apologetic smile, I handed the bowl back to my aunt.
‘I seem to be full,’ I said.
She smiled. ‘You ate too fast,’ she replied. ‘How many times have I told you? You must eat slowly when you’re really hungry, or else you fill up too quickly.’
I went to get up to help her tidy away the remains of the meal and wash the utensils, but she waved me down again. ‘No, you stay where you are,’ she said. ‘You’ve had a long walk, and you are surely worn out.’ As my mother had done earlier, she peered into my face. ‘You’re ashen,’ she observed. ‘Have you a headache?’ She had remembered, then, how my head always pounds when I get very tired, just as hers does.
‘Yes,’ I lied. ‘And you’re right, I am very weary. In fact’ – now I did get up – ‘I think if you don’t mind I’ll settle down for the night.’
‘But we—’
I didn’t let her finish. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to insist that you two extinguish the lamps and sleep as well!’ I forced a laugh. ‘I know it’s not late, and I’m sure you’re not ready.’ I felt myself blush; they were newlyweds and, although I knew full well they’d been lovers for years, there was something about Edild’s bride status that seemed to edge all sorts of wedding-night ribaldry into the place. ‘I’ll sleep out there.’ I nodded towards the chilly little stillroom that Edild built on to the back of the house.
Edild and Hrype exchanged a glance. ‘It’s cold out there,’ Edild said.
‘I have my shawl, and a thick cloak.’ I held up a fold of it to demonstrate.
‘Lovely,’ Edild said vaguely. She, I thought, was almost as embarrassed as I was. Only Hrype, still lying relaxed by the hearth and with a faint smile playing around his handsome mouth, seemed at ease.
My aunt apparently noticed this at the same time I did. She nudged him with her toe and said, quite severely, I thought, for a brand-new wife, ‘Get up, Hrype, and help Lassair! Her bedroll’s over there’ – she pointed – ‘and there’s a newly stuffed straw mattress under the bottom shelf of the stillroom. Go and find the least draughty spot and lay it out for her, if you please.’
Hrype’s grin intensified. He got up, paused to kiss his new wife, then went through to the stillroom to do as he
was told.
It wasn’t quite as uncomfortable as I’d expected, but it wasn’t far off. Thanks to the new mattress, I was cushioned to an extent from the cold, hard stone floor; at the start of the night, anyway, although I’d swear the chilly dampness began to permeate up towards my body the moment I lay down. My shawl and cloak were enormously comforting, not least because of who had given them to me. My soft, thick lambswool shawl, in beautiful, subtle shades of green, was a gift from my sister Elfritha, and she’d presented it to me when both of us first left home, I to look after my other sister in her first pregnancy and she to join the nuns at Chatteris. ‘It’s to remind you of home and a sister who loves you,’ she’d said as she gave it to me. It did, and it still does. Although I wear it almost every day, it shows few signs of wear. My cloak is also wool; heavy wool, dyed a very dark brown that is almost black, close-woven to keep out the cold, the wind and even the rain, unless it is a downpour, and it is lined with linen and interlined with wadded lambswool. The hood is deep and generous.
It was a gift from Jack. Seeing me go out for much-needed herbal supplies as I tended him at the height of his pain, he had been anxious because there was a storm looming. He didn’t get up and go to purchase the cloak himself. He was far too unwell for that. He must have asked one of his men to go on the errand – Walter, probably, who is the most intelligent and worldly, who would know which merchants stocked the best garments. When I got back, soaked to the skin and shivering, the cloak had been spread out on my mattress.
As I lay on the stillroom floor, I drew the shawl and the cloak around me. My sister’s love enveloped me over time and distance, and I smiled as I sent mine back to her. Jack’s gift warmed me from my neck to my toes, and his love too reached out to me.
But I didn’t let myself think about Jack.
I must have slept. I was aware of far too many hours of wakefulness, during which the cold draught under the rear door sought me out, always managing to find the one bit of my body that wasn’t as well covered as the rest. When at last the faint illumination of dawn began to permeate the dark little room, I braced myself to turn over and try to snatch some more sleep. As I moved, a sharp pain shot through my lower back, for a few heartbeats so intense that I was frozen into immobility. But then it eased, as sore muscles often do if you keep still, and quite soon I was able to move without discomfort.
I slept.
Later, as the faint sounds of Edild and Hrype in the next room drifted through the wall, I woke knowing I was about to be sick. I hurried out of the back door, stumbled a little way up the path to the higher ground behind the village and threw up.
TWO
I would have set out back to Cambridge there and then if I hadn’t felt so weak, and if I hadn’t told myself very firmly that I’d only just run away from the place. I dreaded facing Edild, for I feared that she would instantly detect that I was pregnant. Besides, the prospect of another night on the stillroom floor wasn’t in the least appealing.
But there was no choice but to stay, so I would have to make the best of it.
I went back to the house, pausing to draw a ladle of water from the butt. I washed my face and hands, pinching my cheeks to put some colour in them, and rinsed my mouth out very thoroughly. Edild has a nose like a hound and can detect the smell of vomit at five paces. Back inside, I combed my hair, re-braided it and put on a clean white cap. When I was as ready as I was going to be, I went through into the main room and sat down to share Edild and Hrype’s porridge; to my surprise, I was ravenous, and cleared my bowl without any problem.
‘Unless there’s anything I can do to help you,’ I said as my aunt and I cleared the bowls while Hrype tidied away the bedding, ‘I thought I’d go and see my family. If I go straight away, I’ll catch my father before he sets out, and I’ll be able to walk with him.’
‘Of course,’ Edild agreed. She looked even more glowing this morning than she had last night. I didn’t want to dwell on that, so I said a quick farewell and set out.
My family had also just finished eating, and my father and brothers were drawing on their boots as I arrived. My father stood up and, without a word, took me in his arms in a firm, loving hug. It felt so good to be enfolded in his strength and his warmth. I could have stayed like that all day. I heard my two younger brothers, Squeak and little Leir, asking excited questions, demanding to know how long I was staying and if there was news from the town. Their lives are so monotonous, out here in the depths of the fens, and sometimes I forget how thrilled they are when something crops up to break the monotony, even if it’s only a visit from their sister.
‘We’re off to the eels,’ my father said, letting me go at last. ‘Will you walk with us?’
‘That’s precisely why I’m here,’ I replied. So, hand in hand with him while Squeak and Leir jumped and ran along beside, behind and in front of us like a couple of playful puppies, we set off.
My father is an eel-catcher. A very good one; in a tough world, his hard work and expertise ensure that his family live as well as anyone of our station. October is a relatively quiet time with eels, for as the weather grows cold they delve deep down into the thick, black mud at the bottom of the fenland streams, where they usually remain until temperatures rise again in spring. It takes an eel-catcher who has my father’s skill with the sharp-barbed trident that we call a gleeve to grab much in this season.
My father and I talked as we strode along, of inconsequential things, of small daily happenings. Once or twice I caught him looking at me, a faint frown on his face. I was very scared: had he somehow guessed my condition? Also, there was another anxiety, for I knew a secret about his past that I hadn’t revealed to him and, loving him as I did, this was very hard. But it wasn’t my secret to tell and I had no choice but to keep silent.
But then, as if somehow he’d picked up my thoughts, he said diffidently, ‘I’m to meet up with a new acquaintance soon. He’s sent me a message via the tinker.’
I didn’t really need to ask, but I did anyway. ‘Oh, yes?’ I said with innocent brightness. ‘And who’s that?’
He grinned. ‘Apparently he’s a huge, white-haired old man they call the Silver Dragon, although I know that’s not his real name.’
‘It’s Thorfinn,’ I muttered unthinkingly, but fortunately my father didn’t hear. He had no idea I’d even met the man and I’d almost given it away!
‘Yes, he’s an Icelander, or so I’m told, and he used to frequent these parts when he was a young man.’ He glanced at me. ‘Knew your grandmother Cordeilla, apparently, and he wants to look up her kin.’
I could think of nothing to say except for ‘How nice’, which was totally inadequate.
I knew Thorfinn’s tale, for he and I already knew each other; he’d had me grabbed when I was on my way between my village and Cambridge and taken to his island home.1 Subsequently he’d told me who he was, and why he’d wanted me to be taken to him. It was, I reflected wryly, something of an understatement to say he’d known my grandmother; they’d briefly been lovers and my father was his son, although he didn’t know.
This secret – Thorfinn’s and my Granny Cordeilla’s – was the one I’d been keeping. If Thorfinn had asked to meet my father, I thought and fervently hoped it meant he was going to reveal the truth at last.
‘When is the meeting to be?’ I asked.
‘Soon,’ my father replied. ‘Before the winter sets in, anyway.’ He smiled to himself. ‘The Silver Dragon. What a name, eh?’
I left my father and brothers to their work and wandered back to the village. My back was still sore, so I took it slowly. I didn’t really know what I was going to do with myself all day. I went back to Edild’s house. Perhaps I’d be able to help her in her healer’s work.
She was with someone – a plump young woman whose brilliantly blushing cheeks suggested she’d come to consult my aunt on some very intimate matter – so I waited outside until the visitor had gone. Then, going in, I said, ‘Where’s Hrype?’
‘How is Sibert?’ I asked. ‘How has he—’
My aunt spun round and glared at me, as clear a way of saying I don’t want to discuss it as I could imagine, short of speaking the words out loud.
I picked up a little basket of dried rosemary and put it down again. Smoothed a folded blanket. Then my aunt said in an exasperated voice, ‘Lassair, I have work to do, but not sufficient to occupy us both, so why don’t you call on your mother?’
Without a word, I left.
My mother was making honey-apples, and the smell of spices and sweet honey filled the house. I fetched a knife and sat down beside her, and together we peeled, cored and chopped the apples. She’s not a very chatty woman, and we worked in companionable silence. When the mixture was in the pan and set aside for cooking, she said abruptly, ‘You can sleep here, you know. Edild’s house must feel somewhat crowded now.’
‘I slept in the stillroom,’ I replied shortly.
She laughed. ‘Didn’t want to be a witness, no doubt.’
I smiled, but it was all far too embarrassing to be funny. I said, ‘Thank you, Mother. May I think about it?’
‘Of course. I know it’s always far too much of a crush here, but at least there aren’t any newlyweds.’
We worked together for the remainder of the morning, and she set out bread and some thin slices of ham at midday. Afterwards, we were preparing to go out to see if we could gather any last hazelnuts, in the process of finding baskets and putting on our boots, when we heard raised voices outside. My mother flung open the door and we looked out to see Hrype, half-carrying and half-dragging Sibert towards Edild’s house. Sibert was bundled inside Hrype’s cloak. Without a word, my mother and I raced out onto the track and ran to catch them up. My mother, strong, broad woman that she is, swiftly took some of the burden from Hrype, and Sibert leaned his head on her shoulder.