by Alys Clare
He had paid when he took the room – it was the sort of place where payment was always demanded in advance; no doubt, Rollo reflected, because it was so horrible that people might quibble over the price after they’d been there a day or so – and now he was free to go. He made his way along behind the taverns, the brothels and the other lodging houses, alert, keeping to the shadows. He waited for some time before emerging to cross the Great Bridge, hiding behind the last of the big warehouses until the right moment came and then slipping out to join a large, cheerful group heading out of town onto the road north. He stayed with them until they reached the lane that led off to the place where he had stabled the horses, then left them as quietly and as unobtrusively as he’d arrived.
A short time later, he was mounted on one horse and leading the other, the bags on the second horse and firmly fastened. His bag of gold – only slightly lightened by his recent purchases and expenses – was in its accustomed place on his belt.
It was, to judge from the sun’s position, an hour or so before noon. If he made good time, and if he remembered the way, he should reach Aelf Fen before dusk.
The paths and tracks around the south-eastern edge of the fenlands were in reasonable condition for the season, for the weather had been dry so far this autumn, and Rollo’s progress was steady and uneventful. His anxiety eased off slightly as the distance between him and Cambridge increased, although he didn’t for a moment lessen his extreme vigilance. It would have been so much more convenient had Lassair been in the town, and sometimes, when he thought he heard or saw something suspicious, he was angry with her for not being there when he had such need of her.
He knew it was unreasonable. He told himself firmly that it was probably a symptom of his fear. For he was afraid; although he couldn’t have said why he was so sure, he knew without any doubt that somebody wanted to kill him.
He came to a stretch of good road. He put his heels to his horse’s sides and increased his pace, first to a canter and then, unable to quell the alarm coursing through him, a gallop.
He arrived on the higher ground above Lassair’s village as the sun was setting beyond the waters of the fens to the west. He needed somewhere secure to tether the horses, not wishing to advertise his presence to the whole village by riding up to her door. He had already passed the hall where the lord and his household lived, down to his left between him and the water. Lakehall. The name popped up from his memory; Lassair must have told him. Now he was level with the church.
In a corner of the graveyard beneath a yew tree, a man was digging. Turning his horse’s head, Rollo rode down the gentle slope and hailed him.
‘May I leave my horses under your watchful eye?’ he asked. He put a hand on his purse.
The man’s eyes had gone straight to it. ‘You may,’ he replied, ‘although if you tether them too close to this yew, they’ll not be fit for much when you return for them.’
Rollo had extracted a coin, which he flipped towards the man. Transferring his spade to his left hand, the man stretched out his right and deftly caught it.
Nodding his thanks, Rollo dismounted and tied the horses’ reins to a stumpy alder well out of reach of the yew. Removing a heavy leather bag from the second horse, he slung its strap over his shoulder and headed down into the village.
He thought at first that she wasn’t there.
The depths of his distress told him, if he’d needed telling, just how much he was depending on her help.
He spent some time – too long, for his state of mind and his desperate impatience – watching her aunt’s house and the house where her parents lived. The dwellings were small, and when anybody opened the doors to go in or out, the interiors were visible. Lassair was in neither house.
Rollo retreated to the shelter of the huge old oak that stood on the upland behind the village. He’d stood there before, and knew it was a good vantage point. Also, he remembered he’d seen Lassair standing just where he now stood, the last time he’d come to the village. She’d been talking to a fair-haired young man. Irrationally – he was forced to admit he wasn’t his usual self – he thought that standing in the very place she had stood might help towards the success of this mission …
And then it seemed as if the spell had worked.
For he saw the young man with the smooth fair hair, going into a house that stood on the edge of the row lining the track through the village. The man appeared from nowhere and was looking over his shoulder. Spy that he was, Rollo instantly recognized someone trying not to be seen.
He was tempted to wait until it was fully dark, but haste had him in a stranglehold and he found he couldn’t. He hurried down the slope and, slowing his pace, crept up to the house. Raising his hand before he could change his mind, he tapped on the door. The door was opened a crack. The fair-haired young man, suspicion written clearly on his face, stared out at him through narrowed eyes. He had a cut on his forehead, healing and starting to scab over. He said curtly, ‘What do you want?’
Rollo almost put his shoulder to the door to shove it open and burst in. But that wasn’t the way to do it. Forcing himself to speak quietly, he said, ‘I am looking for Lassair. I believe you are a friend of hers, and wonder if you could tell me—’
Then suddenly the door was wide open, for someone else had shoved the young man out of the way so that he no longer held it almost shut. In a flurry of swift impressions, Rollo took in a sweet-smelling, clean interior, bedrolls beside the hearth, cheap but well-made shelves of pots and platters, a fire over which a pot of something fragrantly savoury was bubbling. A woman knelt beside it, stirring, and she looked up at Rollo with pale, alarmed eyes.
Right in front of him, staring up at him as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing, stood Lassair.
She looked dreadful. His first thought was that she was ill, but swiftly he dismissed it for if she was, she’d have been in the care of her healer aunt. He couldn’t begin to guess why she was here, in the house of the young man and the older woman. Had she come to the village for a rest? Had she worn herself out caring for the wounded man?
Was her haggard appearance the outer sign of her grief at his death?
He stared into her deathly pale face. She was thinner, and the loss of flesh emphasized her high cheekbones, which were casting shadows on her face. Her eyes, dark-circled, looked huge. The crescent moon-shaped scar on her left cheek stood out clearly. She staggered slightly – she was obviously exhausted – and he put out his hand, steadying her.
‘Rollo,’ she breathed. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’
He glanced at the young man and the woman, both of whom were watching intently. ‘I need to speak to you, in private,’ he said very quietly. Leaning closer – he could detect her familiar, sweet fragrance – he whispered, ‘I have urgent need of your help.’
She spun round to look at the two people within. ‘I’m going out for a while,’ she said.
The woman made a noise of distress; of protest.
‘It’s all right, Froya,’ Lassair said. ‘This is Rollo, and he’s a friend.’ Then she stepped outside to join him and firmly closed the door.
He led her up the slope towards the higher ground. Twilight was swiftly advancing, and he doubted whether anybody would have spotted them. Nevertheless, he went on to the shelter of the oak tree, only then turning to her.
‘Tell me what you want me to do,’ she said.
He was deeply touched. Here I am, he thought, turning up without warning and, apart from one brief meeting, after months of absence, and I ask her to help me, and instantly she asks what she has to do.
Briefly he closed his eyes in a swift prayer of thanks for her loyalty and her love.
He reached out and took her hand.
‘I have to go north,’ he said, ‘and I can’t go alone because men are hunting for me who I believe may wish to harm me.’ He wondered whether to tell her the truth – that it was not a question of they may wish to harm me, more of they are without
doubt out to kill me. He decided against it. ‘They are, however, looking for a man on his own. If we travel together in the guise of a lord and lady—’ He heard her swift intake of breath and, knowing what she was about to say, forestalled the protest. ‘Don’t worry, I have horses and fine garments. The men who search for me will not look twice at a man and his wife together, and—’
But she didn’t let him finish. ‘I can’t,’ she said flatly. ‘I’ve had—’ She stopped. ‘I’ve been unwell.’
‘Yes, so I see,’ he said, putting all the sympathy he could muster into his voice. ‘I’m sorry, Lassair. I can see you’ve been suffering. But I really need you. I hate to insist, but I truly believe it is a matter of survival.’
‘Your survival.’ She managed a faint smile.
‘My survival,’ he agreed.
There was a pause. To Rollo, his anxiety mounting, it seemed interminable.
Finally she sighed. Then – and she took her hand out of his, wrapping both arms around her slender body – ‘When do you want to leave?’
‘Straight away,’ he said.
She shook her head. ‘No.’
‘At first light, then, before the village is awake.’
She smiled again. ‘Then we’ll have to leave before first light. People work hard here, from sunrise to sunset.’
‘You’ll come with me?’ He could hardly believe it.
‘Yes.’
‘One more thing.’ He knew it was pushing his luck but he had to do it.
Her eyes met his. ‘What?’
He held out the large leather bag. ‘You need to hide this in the safest place you can think of.’
She raised an eyebrow, ‘I do, do I?’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sound as if I was giving you an order.’ He paused. ‘It’s valuable,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ve recently collected it from an agent of mine who lives locally.’ Eleanor de Lacey, in common with others in England, in France and further afield, was the custodian of a portion of his wealth, kept against an urgent need of funds such as this one. He’d already transferred quite a lot of the bag’s contents into the purse on his belt, and the remainder would be much more accessible hidden out here in the wilds than in a house in Cambridge.
There was only one list of the names and locations of all those who guarded his wealth, and, aware that he was going into peril, Rollo had left it in Eleanor de Lacey’s keeping. In case it ever went astray, it was in code.
Lassair took the bag. ‘It’s very heavy,’ she observed.
‘It contains a great deal of gold,’ he replied.
She stared at him.
He reached out and briefly touched her shoulder. ‘Hide it well, and keep the location secret,’ he said. Then with a grin he added, ‘If anything happens to me, it’s yours.’
She didn’t answer.
After a moment she turned and moved off. Then, stopping, she said, ‘Have you a place to sleep?’
She wasn’t, then, going to invite him to share that warm and cosy little house and that appetizing pot of stew.
‘I’ll find somewhere,’ he replied.
She nodded. ‘Until tomorrow, then.’
And she walked away.
FIVE
When I’d wrenched the door from Sibert’s hand and flung it wide open to see Rollo standing there, I’d thought I had entered into the sort of delirium that took hold of Jack during the dreadful days when he was on fire with fever. In the handful of heartbeats of simply staring at Rollo, I was diagnosing myself: You’ve slipped a baby, you’ve lost blood, you’re not sleeping, you’re imagining it!
But then I almost fell – I felt very faint and the feel of my pounding heart was too high in my chest, its noise too loud in my ears – and when he reached out to hold me, his hand was strong and warm. And very real.
But I still couldn’t believe he was there.
In that moment, he seemed to be the answer to a prayer of intense, aching need that I hadn’t even managed to put into words.
So I went outside to hear what he wanted to ask of me, and, because he was Rollo, because he looked so desperate, because he needed me, because I’d loved him – still loved him, perhaps – because I was so sad and didn’t know what I wanted, I agreed.
He’d said that men were after him who he thought wanted to harm him, but it was far, far worse than that. I’d seen fear in his eyes, heard it in his voice, and somehow even smelt it on him. Without his having to say so, I knew without any doubt that he was running for his life.
He looked faintly affronted when I asked if he had a place to sleep for the hours until dawn. Perhaps he’d imagined I was going to invite him to come to Froya’s house and settle down with the three of us beside the fire. It did occur to me, briefly, but for one thing, it wasn’t my house and, for another, the thought of being with Rollo with two pairs of interested eyes watching was so uncomfortable that it wasn’t to be entertained for a moment.
I left him standing under the ancient oak tree.
The bag over my shoulder was so heavy that it was making my back ache. I forced myself to ignore the pain, for I had quite a way to walk. I was heading for the safest place I could think of, to use Rollo’s words, to hide his gold.
Aelf Fen is a small community. Its people know each other’s business, and live in very basic dwellings shared by a number of people. Their animals live close by, often in lean-tos attached to the houses. The idea of a safe hiding place in or close by any of the houses is faintly absurd.
So here I was, trudging off across the marshy ground towards the fen edge, where the dark water laps up against the bulge of land on which Aelf Fen grew up. There’s a faint path that runs to and fro between the stumpy willow and alder, and I can follow it even when the light is fading; I can follow it with my eyes shut.
Many, many generations ago, my fenland ancestors had constructed an artificial island just offshore on which to bury their revered dead. It’s said in the record kept by the long line of our family’s bards that our ancestor Aelfbryga spoke with the spirits, who not only showed her the secret way through the perilous marshland to the spot that would become Aelf Fen, but also instructed her in the building of the island. Most of the villagers give it a wide berth, fearing the presence of its resident spirits. But I am a frequent visitor: the spirits are those of my ancestors, and their shades do not frighten me.
The latest member of my family to be buried there was my paternal grandmother Cordeilla. I was very close to her in life, and sometimes, to my joy, she speaks to me from wherever she is now.
I had reached the fen edge. The weather had been unseasonably dry, and to my relief the water level was quite low. I ought to be able to wade out to the island without getting wet any higher than my thighs. I took off my boots, gathered up my skirts and tucked them in my belt, hitched the leather bag higher on my back and set off. The water was deeper than I’d anticipated, but not by much. I reached the island safely, and, giving a bow of reverence to the lines of ancestors buried on the far side, hurried over to Granny Cordeilla’s grave.
I knelt down. ‘I have something that has to be very well concealed,’ I said, after my usual greeting, ‘and I hope you don’t take offence but hiding it out here with you is the best I can come up with.’ I waited. Nothing.
‘It’s a bag of gold,’ I went on, leaning right down over the ground and whispering for Granny Cordeilla’s ears alone, ‘and it belongs to someone I thought – think – I love, but then I met someone else, and I believe I love him too, and for sure he loves me, and, oh, Granny, I was carrying his baby and I couldn’t tell him because he’d have insisted we marry and I wasn’t sure I wanted that, but then two days ago I lost it and now – now—’ I was sobbing so hard that I couldn’t go on.
And now that the baby is lost, it’s the one thing you want more than anything in the world, said Granny Cordeilla’s kind, loving voice. I know, child, I know.
I stretched out across her grave, arms extended as if I was hugging he
r. Somehow – I know it is physically impossible, but this is how it felt – I was aware that she was hugging me back.
After a while, feeling very slightly better, I sat up. As if she’d been waiting, Granny Cordeilla said, It is very hard for a woman to love two men, and until she makes up her mind or circumstances decide for her, she brings nothing but pain to all three.
Granny Cordeilla spoke from experience; I knew that, and I imagine she was aware that I knew. Whatever else happens the other side of the veil, I’m quite sure the dead acquire a mystical ability to understand what’s going on in their living loved ones’ minds.
Thinking about what Granny Cordeilla had just said, I murmured, ‘So it’s up to me to decide.’
Granny Cordeilla made the impatient snort that had been so very typical of her, and despite everything I smiled.
‘I’m going away with the man who gave me this bag.’ I held it up as if for her inspection. ‘It’s full of gold, and I think he’s probably a very wealthy man. I’m going to hide it here, with you, if that’s all right.’
Granny Cordeilla made no reply, so I took that for acquiescence.
Her grave is covered by a huge slab of stone, and in the years she had lain there, grass has encroached around the edges. I located one corner – one of the two at her feet – and very carefully scraped back the turf, trying not to disturb the grass roots. Then, lying flat on the ground, I put my shoulder to the slab and, bracing my feet, straightened my legs. The slab was reluctant to move, but after a muscle-creaking effort, at last, with a soft crack, it shifted. I went on pushing, and soon had made a space large enough for the leather bag.