by Alys Clare
I could recall only too well the words I’d hurled at my grandfather that day. ‘I shouldn’t have spoken to you as I did,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry.’
But he shook his head. ‘There is no need for you to apologize,’ he said. ‘You were right. I was being cowardly, and it is I who am ashamed. But I shall put it right. To do so, indeed, is why I am here.’ He paused. ‘What I need to know, Lassair, is whether whatever trouble you have encountered is of so grave a nature that it must take precedence over everything else. Over, for example, an old man finally finding the courage to reveal the truth to his son.’
He stopped speaking. For some time he sat still, looking at me. I tried to think how to answer him.
Finally I said, ‘Grandfather, I have just witnessed the death of a man I loved. There is nothing I need to do, for his body burned on a pyre and now his spirit flies free. My grief is waiting for me, and I am not yet sure how I shall manage it.’ I paused, for I’d felt my voice begin to shake. ‘I do not wish you to change your plans. I haven’t yet decided what to do next – I don’t know when I’ll be able to do that.’ I paused again. ‘So in the meantime, it will be my privilege to come to Aelf Fen with you, and to be as much or as little involved with you and my father as you dictate.’
I had watched his face as I spoke. His expression had changed as swiftly as light on water, and I could feel his love and his pity flowing from him to embrace me. I almost threw myself into his arms, and I knew he wouldn’t have turned me away. But I was holding on to my resolve and my courage with my fingertips. Too much kindness just now would undo me.
I think he understood. He nodded once, curtly, and stood up, beginning to pile up our bowls and mugs. ‘Very well. I shall ask you, then, to wash out these and store them while I prepare the boat. Then we shall set out.’
I did as he said. I also kicked out the small fire he’d made up on the bank, scattering the ashes.
The fens were still feeling the effects of all the rain, and the water level remained high. The best way to reach Aelf Fen was by boat.
I watched from beneath the ancient oak tree on the rise as my grandfather walked up to my parents’ house. He was within only briefly before he and my father emerged. My father was smiling, but I could see from his face and from his demeanour that he was curious about this stranger; even, perhaps, a little anxious.
Thorfinn led the way back to his boat and they went aboard, the awnings falling closed behind them. I wondered if my father was surprised at this desire for concealment; for secrecy. If, somehow, he was already apprehensive about what was to come.
They talked for a long time. The temptation to let my steps casually approach the boat so that I could hear what they said was all but overwhelming. I forced myself to resist. But I did leave the shelter of the oak tree; I just couldn’t stop myself.
At one point I heard my father shouting.
I could barely imagine how he was feeling. I wanted more than anything to rush down to my grandfather’s boat, push aside the awning and jump aboard; to go to my father, help him, comfort him. But I knew I couldn’t. He’s strong, I kept telling myself. He will not bend or break under this.
I wished I could be sure.
After what seemed an age, the awning parted again and my father emerged. His face was flushed and he looked furious. He glanced once back towards the house, then strode off in the opposite direction. Without a single thought, I set off after him.
My father is a big, tall man, and when he wants to he can walk as fast as I run. He wanted to now, and I couldn’t catch him. I followed, panting, gasping, tripping and sometimes falling. He must have heard me but he didn’t stop until he reached his destination.
He was standing on the shore immediately opposite the island where the ancestors are buried. As I panted my way to join him, he didn’t look at me, simply went on staring out over the little island. Where, of course, his mother lay.
After a while, once I’d got my breath back, I said, ‘Father, I’m so sorry.’
He didn’t answer. I wondered in fact if he’d even heard.
Then, after quite a long time, he said, ‘I didn’t know you were back. You were here, staying with Froya and looking after Sibert after he’d been attacked, and we only knew you’d gone when Froya passed on your message.’ The raw pain was evident in his voice, and although I knew that my sudden disappearance without a word to him wasn’t really the cause – not the main one, anyway – still it stung.
‘I had to leave, and in a hurry,’ I said, trying not to let the emotion break through. ‘Someone – a friend’ – oh, Rollo, far more than that – ‘a dear friend needed me, and I—’
‘You set off on some new adventure with not one thought to those left behind who love you,’ he finished for me harshly. ‘It’s always the same, isn’t it, Lassair? You outgrew your home, your family and your village years ago, as soon as you’d discovered how much more lively and interesting life in the town could be!’
If only you knew, I thought, my heart aching with all sorts of different pains.
Tell him, a voice said. It sounded very like Granny Cordeilla’s.
So I did.
‘Life in Cambridge is lively and interesting, just as you say,’ I said quietly. ‘In addition, work is very hard, and I’m driven at a fast and relentless pace by my teacher. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like it, because I do, even though sometimes my head is aching with weariness by the time he releases me so I can go to bed. He doesn’t really need sleep, you see, and he often forgets that other people do.’ My father began to speak but I didn’t let him. ‘In addition, I met a wonderful man who is good, honest and who got very badly wounded, and I nursed him, and before he was hurt we slept together and I was briefly pregnant, but I lost the baby, and then another man I loved before needed my help and so I went off with him, and someone wanted to kill him and they did, they shot him with a crossbow bolt, and although I got it out and I thought he was going to be all right, he wasn’t and he died, and the man who had killed him set fire to the house where we were and I couldn’t move the body, he was just too heavy, and so I added fuel to the fire and gave him a funeral like those of our ancestors, and then his killer came after me but he went the wrong way in the water and although I tried to save him he went under and he didn’t come up again because he was in the quicksand, and then I was wet and so cold and I didn’t know where I was, and – and—’
But my tears had begun when I spoke of Jack and the lost baby, and by the time I reached the bit about being wet and cold I was gasping and sobbing and my father had his strong arms tightly round me and was holding me against him, one hand smoothing my hair, dropping soft kisses on top of my head as he’s done since I was a child and, all the time, muttering soft, nonsensical sounds that were as comforting as the sweetest, most tender music.
When he sensed I had gathered myself together – and that didn’t happen very quickly – he pushed me away just far enough that he could look at me and said, ‘Dearest child, I’m not sure how much of that you really meant to tell me, but I’m very glad you did and you have my word that I will share it with nobody.’ Not even your mother, hung unspoken between us. ‘And’ – he was hugging me again – ‘I am so very sorry for all your pain.’
His love and his kindness made me weep anew.
When I stopped, I said, ‘I’m sorry too, Father, that I knew the secret you’ve just been told before you did. I swore not to tell you, because Thorfinn said it was something he must do himself. I told him it wasn’t right for me to know when you didn’t. I was actually a bit rude about that.’
‘Yes, he told me,’ my father said. I had the impression he was smiling, and when I looked up, he was in the very act of straightening his face.
I went on looking at him. ‘What do you think?’ I whispered. ‘How do you feel?’
He frowned, and I guessed he was trying to think how to answer.
‘I’m upset, of course,’ he said eventually. ‘I have to chan
ge the whole sense of myself. The gentle, unambitious man who I loved and believed to be my father wasn’t, and now I have this large, silver-haired warrior of a man in his place …’ He paused, and I saw something very painful cross his face. ‘I also now know that my mother bore a child by another man, yet kept it not only from her husband but from everyone else as well.’ He paused again, and now the intense distress was plain to see. ‘I thought she and I were close!’ he whispered, his eyes filling with tears.
I was so horrified at the sight of my big, strong father in tears that I couldn’t speak. But then, from somewhere very close, I heard a voice say urgently, Help him, child! You know the truth of it, it’s up to you!
I looked out towards the island and replied, Of course, Granny.
‘You were close, Father, and you know very well that you were,’ I said firmly. ‘It was you out of all her children that she chose to live with when she didn’t want to be on her own any more, wasn’t it? She loved you so much, and she knew how much you loved her.’
A silence fell, but it was a kind, soft sort of silence.
Presently I said, ‘Will you tell the family?’
He met my eyes. ‘Your mother, yes. This is not something I can keep from her.’ He frowned. ‘But as for everyone else …’
I waited, but he didn’t go on.
‘It depends, doesn’t it,’ I said, ‘on whether Thorfinn plans to be a part of our life?’
My father raised his eyebrows. ‘Does it?’
‘Yes. Of course!’ I was smiling, assuming he was joking.
But he looked perplexed and I realized he wasn’t. I was going to have to explain.
‘Father, who was at home just now when he came to call?’
‘Just your mother.’
‘Well, that’s all right, since you’ve just said you’re going to tell her anyway.’
‘But I—’
‘Father, if Thorfinn’s going to stay around for a while you won’t have to decide whether or not to explain who he is, since anyone with eyes will see for themselves.’
He still looked puzzled, so I took his hands in mine and said, ‘He is an older version of you, and you could be nothing else but father and son.’
He went on staring at me and slowly he began to smile. Then he said, ‘Better tell them, then, hadn’t I?’ and, still holding my hand, he led me back to the village.
TWENTY
I knew that I must go back to Cambridge.
I went to Jack’s house.
I didn’t let myself dwell on his expression when he opened the door in answer to my soft tap. He stood back and I went in. I sat down on one of his tree-trunk stools and he stayed where he was, leaning against the closed door. I had the impression he was being very careful to keep his distance.
I said, ‘Rollo is dead.’ Before he could say a word – and I had no idea what that word might have been – I hurried on. ‘I went away with him because he knew someone was after him. He was all but sure it was some agent of Duke Robert of Normandy, because he’d sold some information to the duke that he’d previously sold to the king. King William,’ I added, as if there was another.
Jack’s face was still. His eyes were fixed on mine. He said, ‘Go on.’
‘Rollo knew that the man on his trail was hunting for a man on his own. He suggested that I travel north with him – he was searching for the king – because the duke’s man would overlook a richly dressed man and woman together. So we set out, but the duke’s man managed to see through the ruse and he found us anyway. He burned down a small, desperately poor monastery because he thought Rollo and I were within. Five people died.’
I paused, for the telling of my tale was much harder than I’d anticipated. ‘So I took Rollo out into the wilds of the fens, and we hid in the house that belonged to Gurdyman’s friend Mercure. Then Rollo got tired of running away and he said we should lure the duke’s man to us so that he – Rollo – could kill him. So I went out and sort of caught his attention, and led him back to where Rollo was waiting. The duke’s man did exactly what Rollo said he would, but instead of Rollo killing him, he killed Rollo. With a crossbow. I got the bolt out and I thought he’d be all right, but he bled to death and there wasn’t anything I could do.’
Jack made a very faint movement towards me. Then he stopped.
‘The man sent a second bolt into the door of Mercure’s house, and this one was on fire and soon the house was as well. I had to get out and I couldn’t move Rollo so I left him there. Then I realized the man wanted to kill me too so I got away, along the hidden ways across the water, but he followed me. I asked him why he killed Rollo and he said, “Because he killed my father.”’
Very slowly Jack nodded. ‘His father was Gaspard Picot.’
I was astounded. ‘How did you know?’
He shook his head. ‘It doesn’t matter. It was a guess, really, but I can tell from your reaction that it’s right.’
There was silence for some moments. Then I said, ‘I didn’t understand at first why the man believed Rollo had killed Gaspard Picot, but then I did.’
‘Then tell me,’ Jack said, irony sharpening his tone, ‘because I have absolutely no idea.’
I paused, putting the words together in my mind. ‘He came here to find his father. By the very worst of misfortunes, he arrived at exactly the time that Gaspard Picot died. He tried to find out what had happened, and he discovered that his father had died at the hands of the close friend of the healer girl. That’s me,’ I added.
Jack nodded.
‘I worked out what must have happened. After you – after you were hurt, I went to Gurdyman’s house.’ Something horrible and terrifying had happened there, and I didn’t want to think about it. I hurried on. ‘And then Rollo came to the house to find me. I told him about you, how you’d been so badly wounded, how I feared you—’ But I didn’t want to think about that either and I was quite sure Jack didn’t. ‘Rollo saw how distressed I was and he was so good to me. He just put his arms round me in a close hug full of comfort and kindness, and I was so thankful for his presence, for his support, that I let myself collapse against him.’
And Rollo and I had still been entwined as close as the lovers we’d once been when we’d emerged out from Gurdyman’s house into the little alley outside.
But I didn’t think I could tell Jack that.
‘He still had his arms round me when we came out of the house. Gaspard’s son must have found out that I lived and worked with Gurdyman, and he’d come looking for me. He must have seen Rollo and me together and jumped to the obvious conclusion that Rollo was the man the people meant when they referred to my close friend.’
There was a long silence. Then Jack said expressionlessly, ‘So Gaspard Picot’s son killed your lover because he thought he’d murdered his father. Before he did so, incidentally, it seems he attacked three other fair-haired young men, killing two of them, presumably in the mistaken belief that one of them was the man he sought. He beat and tortured them, you know, perhaps to make them suffer, perhaps to make them talk. And, all along, the man he sought to avenge had in fact died at my hands.’ I went to speak but he shot out his hand, stopping me. ‘There is some sort of irony there, isn’t there?’
I said, the words tumbling out, ‘But it’s not your fault, Jack! You’re no more responsible for Gaspard’s son killing Rollo than for Gaspard himself dying because he threw himself on your blade!’
And he said with harsh bitterness, ‘Oh, well, that’s all right, then.’
I knew then that I had made a huge error in telling him. Oh, I’d have had to explain it all to him some time, but I should have waited until my own feelings were not quite so raw. Until time and distance from the event had enabled me to see it with some detachment. Until I’d come up with a way of telling him that didn’t appear to say, Rollo died and it should have been you!
I looked up at him.
And whatever else I knew in that moment, I knew I was glad he was alive.
I’d forgotten the essence of him. Studying him now, I saw he was still thinner than he should be, but that the muscles in his broad shoulders and strong arms were beginning to show again.
I said, for I couldn’t stop myself, ‘Are you all right? Is your wound healed?’
He gave a curt nod. ‘I’m fine.’
After a while he straightened up from leaning against the door and poked up the fire. ‘Do you want a drink? Something to eat?’
I shook my head.
He turned, looking at me. ‘What are you going to do?’
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Will you return to your village?’
‘No!’ The answer came out far too quickly and emphatically. ‘I can’t. It’s different there now.’ I didn’t really want to explain. I love my family, I appreciate life in Aelf Fen for a few days or even a couple of weeks from time to time, but just now, when so much had just happened, I knew I’d have found its rural peace utterly stultifying. As my father had so accurately said, I had discovered how much more lively and interesting life in the town could be.
Jack was still looking at me. Then he said, quite gently, ‘I’m afraid you can’t come back here.’
‘Back here? To your house?’ Until he’d said those words, I hadn’t realized how much I’d been relying on doing exactly what he’d just said I couldn’t.
‘If you’re going to suggest you come back to me, to live in my house as we did before, then I’m going to say no.’ His face was bleak and expressionless but I saw the pain in his eyes.