by Alys Clare
Half a mile. He risked a glance at Sibert. The boy was frowning, staring about him as if he were confused. Of course he was confused. He had not been here for several years and much can happen in that time.
They were close now, so very close. The woodland was thinning and here and there were the scars of recent timber extraction. So many trees had been felled . . . Should I speak now? Romain asked himself, his heart beating fast. Would it be better to forewarn him?
The decision was taken out of his hands. Sibert gave a sort of groan – a dreadful sound of anguish and pain – and began running on down the path.
‘Stop!’ Romain yelled.
Sibert ran on.
Romain raced after him, pain from his blistered heel stabbing like a nail, but violent emotion had put wings on Sibert’s feet. Romain was aware of the girl’s light footfalls as she flew along the path behind him, but his attention was all on Sibert.
He caught up with him at last but it was too late. Sibert stood on a low rise at the very edge of the tree line, staring down at the great wounds that cut across the landscape like the scars of violence on a beloved face.
In the centre of a broad open space totally denuded of the softening trees rose a brash new building. To be accurate, it was a series of buildings, the group dominated by a squat, square tower topped with crenellations that stood on the summit of an earth mound. As befitted a structure designed as the last defence for the inhabitants, the tower had no windows and the single door was stoutly made of oak and bound with iron. It was surrounded by a palisade of stakes, their tops sharpened to savage points. A gated opening in the palisade led to steps leading down to another enclosed area in which there was a large thatched house and a semicircle of smaller buildings, including barns and a smithy. One or two people could be seen in the lower yard and smoke came from the roof of the large thatched building.
Sibert turned to Romain and the power of the emotion coursing through him had so twisted his features that he looked like someone else.
‘What have you done?’ he bellowed. ‘Where is my house?’
There was a sharp exclamation from the girl but Romain ignored her. He put out a calming hand, catching Sibert’s sleeve, but Sibert flung him off. ‘Sibert, be calm and I will explain,’ he said. Sibert had bunched his hands into fists, his whole body gathered as if to strike. ‘Please!’ Romain pleaded. ‘Hear what I must tell you!’
Tears collected in the boy’s wide eyes. Romain watched in horrible fascination as slowly they spilled over the lower lids and slid down the boy’s dirty face. Beside him, he heard the girl give a low moan – of pity? – and she moved a step closer to Sibert.
Sibert drew back, and the hand that the girl had tentatively put out to him fell by her side.
Straightening his back with a touching gesture of pride, Sibert said, ‘Go on, then. Say what you have to say.’
It was Romain’s only chance. He knew he must get it right.
‘Come back into the shade,’ he said gently, ‘for although the afternoon is passing, it’s still hot out here in the sunshine. Come – yes, that’s right!’ He made his voice light and encouraging, for the youth had slowly and reluctantly begun to move. ‘We’ll sit down here by the side of the path, and you will be told what you ask to know.’
He sat down, indicating a patch of grass beside him. Sibert lowered himself on to the ground, and the girl did the same. She was watching him intently, he noticed uneasily, her eyes narrowed in concentration. Romain waited for a few moments, taking a few calming breaths, and then, well aware that he had their full attention, he began to speak.
‘Before us lies the manor of Drakelow,’ he said, ‘which was awarded to my grandfather Fulk de la Flèche by William the Conqueror in recognition of my grandfather’s contribution to the victory at Hastings in 1066. My grandfather was a wealthy and influential Norman nobleman,’ he added, unable to keep the bragging tone out of his voice, ‘and he supplied the Conqueror with a band of well-armed, well-drilled fighting men, many of whom did not live to enjoy the fruits of the victory. Fulk de la Flèche’s prize was a fine one, for he was awarded extensive lands on the coast, close to a thriving port where the produce of the estate could be taken away by sea and sold for a handsome profit, and the lands themselves were fertile. Naturally, the king’s largesse was not entirely without self-interest, for in a newly conquered land it was to his advantage to have his own supporters installed in castles and fortified manors so that they could come to his aid in the event of rebellion.’
‘Like Hereward,’ the girl piped up. ‘He led a rebellion from Ely.’ Romain started with surprise. Caught up with his tale, he had all but forgotten her presence, and he was astounded that an ignorant village girl would speak with such authority of matters surely so far removed from her sphere.
‘Yes, like Hereward,’ he agreed, turning to beam at her. He had become so accustomed to the shy blush that flooded her face as she diffidently returned his smile that it was remarkable now because of its absence. Instead the clear grey-green eyes stared levelly back at him and he thought he saw the corner of her wide mouth turn down in a swift wry quirk.
Again he was struck by the faintly alarming thought that he did not really know her very well . . .
But there was no time for that now. ‘So, my grandfather was given the manor of Drakelow, everything and everyone in it,’ he said, taking up his tale. He sensed Sibert’s sudden tension, as if he were about to speak, but, not wanting to be interrupted again, he hurried on. ‘Fulk had brought with him to his new home his wife, my grandmother Mathilde, who was like him of noble Norman blood, and their two sons, Baudouin and Athanase, who at the time of the Conquest were fifteen and fourteen. Baudouin, I am told, had pressed to be allowed to ride with his father into battle but the most that my grandfather permitted was that he might be a part of the reserve troops, and in the end he was never in any great danger. In due course the family settled in their new home and the younger brother, Athanase, wed the daughter of another Norman. Her name was Amarys and she was my mother.’ He paused, but it was purely for effect. ‘My birth was difficult and my mother did not recover from it. She died in 1071, a few months after I was born.’
He had half expected some sort of sympathetic acknowledgement from the girl; none came.
‘It was not the end of tragedy for my family,’ he went on. ‘The summer of 1076 brought sickness to the region. The symptoms of the illness were a high fever, a rash and a violent, destructive cough that frequently brought on a spitting-up of blood. It was thought that the malady must have come in with a sailor on one of the ships that docked at Dunwich, for few suffered from it beyond the immediate vicinity of the port. Once the patient coughed blood, he was as good as dead.’ Again he paused. Then he said softly, ‘I lost my father and both my grandparents in the space of a week.’
‘You did not fall sick?’ the girl asked, but he detected curiosity in her tone rather than pity. They say she is a healer, he reminded himself. Perhaps her interest is professional. Nevertheless, the absence of so much as a single compassionate word still seemed strange.
‘No, I did not,’ he replied easily, putting aside his misgivings. ‘My nursemaid was an old countrywoman and when the first of my family fell ill she shut me up in my chamber, burned rosemary and sandalwood and made me wear an amulet.’
‘And what about your uncle?’ she persisted.
‘He was away from home. Word was sent to his hosts and he was warned to keep away while the sickness ran its course.’ He waited but it appeared she had no more questions. ‘My uncle Baudouin adopted me and made me his heir,’ he went on. ‘He is not a naturally paternal man and he has never given me much affection, but he supported me, provided a luxurious home and saw to it that I was educated as he saw fit. It is more,’ he added, ‘than most people have.’
He heard the girl mutter something under her breath. Sibert was silent and he sat as still as if made of stone. No doubt it would not last; the tricky part of the
story must now be spoken.
‘Even while the Conqueror lived,’ Romain said, ‘we were anxious about what would happen when he died.’
‘We?’ the girl said.
For a simple and ignorant villager, Romain thought, there was quite a lot of irony in the one short syllable.
‘I am sorry. By we I mean my own family and the wider community of Norman lords.’
‘We, by which I mean the people of my village, were quite worried as well,’ she murmured.
He chose to ignore her.
‘We expected that Duke Robert would probably have Normandy and William Rufus would inherit the throne of England,’ he continued, ‘and, on the Conqueror’s death last September, this is what happened. However, many of our number would have preferred Robert to rule in England. We knew what he was like as a ruler, and the majority of the Norman landowners had already sworn fealty to him during his father’s lifetime. Once someone had the temerity to propose ridding ourselves of William Rufus and putting Robert on the throne of England, a great many of the Norman lords chose to follow him. So this past Easter, when Odo of Bayeux whispered the details of his plot, he discovered that he had a great deal of support.’
‘But not yours?’ the girl suggested.
‘No,’ he agreed. He had not been aware of revealing his own feelings on the matter; he resolved to be more careful. ‘No, indeed. My uncle Baudouin, however, declared for Duke Robert and Bishop Odo. I tried to counsel him against acting rashly, for I feared that if King William were to predominate in the coming struggle it would go badly for my uncle.’
‘And for you as his heir,’ the girl put in.
‘Yes, naturally,’ he said sharply. Then, forcing a smoother tone, ‘My uncle was going off to fight, however, and I did not wish to see him wounded, or worse.’
‘Naturally,’ she echoed faintly.
‘The fighting was fierce and in places quite devastating,’ he went on firmly. He was not going to allow a skinny little girl to take over the impetus of this account. ‘My uncle was wounded but fortunately it was not life-threatening, and he returned to Drakelow where he was tended by—’ No. He must not think about that. ‘Where they looked after him. But meanwhile the fighting in the south was going from bad to worse and earlier this month we received news that Odo had surrendered to the king. Then the disaster which I foresaw indeed came to pass.’ He paused for effect and then said, ‘Drakelow was taken from us in punishment for my uncle’s part in the rebellion.’
There was a moment of utter stillness. Then the girl said, ‘So you have lost your inheritance and your home.’
He could not detect much sympathy in her voice.
He turned to look at her. ‘I have,’ he agreed. ‘But I plan to win it back by—’
‘By buying yourself back into the king’s favour via this thing you’ve brought us here to find for you,’ she finished for him.
He was totally taken aback. ‘Well, yes, I suppose that is the case, although—’
‘What’s in it for me?’ she demanded. He noticed that she kept darting furious glances at Sibert, as if to say, Come on! This is your battle too!
Sibert maintained his state of stony silence.
And Romain, who could think of nothing to say, fell mute as well.
I was shaking, although quite determined not to let him see. I edged away, so that I sat by myself a few paces off. Then I went back over all that I had just seen and heard.
The manor must look very different now from when Sibert had last seen it, that was for sure. Poor Sibert – he had been absolutely shocked by his first sight of that horrible new building down below us. I couldn’t blame him. Where is my house? he said. His house . . . I was still trying to work that out. I knew a little of Sibert’s history, how his father Edmer fought at the Battle of Hastings and later with Hereward in the rebellion, and I understood now what that had meant: Edmer must have belonged to the rich and the powerful elite who held sway in England before the Conqueror came. He must, if I was right, have owned this manor of Drakelow, and it was him from whom it was taken when the first King William awarded it to Fulk de la Flèche.
I sat there, thinking so hard that my head ached.
Sibert was two or three years older than me, so he was about sixteen; I did not know exactly. His mother Froya was quite young, for all that her careworn air made her look older, and would have borne Sibert in round about 1071 or 72. I had always been led to believe that Edmer had died as a result of the wound he received fighting with Hereward, but in fact he must have lived on for a while if I was right about Sibert’s age. So, that was one misapprehension gone. What about the other part of that stirring tale? The bit that had Froya, heavy with the child that would be Sibert, making her secret, desperate journey with her dying husband through the Fens to the sanctuary of Aelf Fen?
I realized suddenly that I had no idea where I had come by these scant details of Sibert’s life. Perhaps I had made them up. Perhaps I had been fed a lie. That hurt, for as a consummate liar myself, I pride myself on my ability to detect when I am being lied to.
There was no mistaking the honesty of that terrible cry that broke out of Sibert when he saw Drakelow: Where is my house? I knew this did not necessarily mean that he had lived at Drakelow; it was equally likely that he had been brought up believing it was his true home, which would be enough to make anyone possessive about it. So, someone – presumably his mother or his uncle Hrype, his father being dead – must have fed the poison into Sibert. Drakelow is your home. It was ours, it has been in our family since time out of mind – since when? I wondered, but I would come back to that – and it ought to be yours.
They must have encouraged Sibert to come and look at his ancestors’ home. When he returned from each visit, did they increase the pressure on him? Did they present a future when he might win it back for them? Oh, but if they did, how cruel, for what could a slimly built youth do against the might of the ruling Norman lords, especially the one who now owned Drakelow?
Only, of course, he didn’t own it. This Baudouin de la Flèche had been kicked out of his grand manor and his strutting new castle, just as Sibert’s forefathers had before him.
Which appeared to open up all sorts of possibilities . . . and all at once I had a flash of understanding and I believed that I knew Romain’s mind. At the same time I perceived the major flaw in the argument that he must have employed to win Sibert’s help.
I made myself sit very still and I relaxed the muscles of my entire body, from my feet to my scalp, just as Edild had taught me. It worked, as it always does, and the nervous tension dissipated. I knew I could not return to Romain and Sibert until I had regained control. I breathed slowly and gently – in . . . out . . . in . . . out . . . and finally I was ready.
I stood up, brushed down my skirt and wrapped Elfritha’s shawl around me, for the afternoon was over and evening was approaching, bringing a lowering of the temperature. Then I strolled back until I stood before Romain.
‘I had hoped, when I first set eyes on that rather crude habitation before us, that you would offer us accommodation there tonight,’ I said. His head shot up and I noticed that he was eyeing me warily. Good. ‘But, of course, if it isn’t yours, I suppose you won’t be.’ I gave a little sigh. ‘I shall have to say goodbye to my images of a good, hot meal, some of that fine French wine you spoke of and a luxurious night’s sleep in a warm, snug bed on a goose-feather mattress.’
He had the grace to lower his eyes.
‘I suppose we had better move on,’ I continued. ‘You won’t really want to be found loitering in the vicinity, will you, Romain? Under the circumstances, it would hardly be wise.’
He dropped his face into his hands. ‘No, it wouldn’t.’ His words were muffled.
Suddenly I felt very sorry for him. I wanted to reach out and touch the bowed, defeated head, and with that urgent desire all my starry-eyed feelings for him came rushing back.
Why was I being so unkind to him?
/> ‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered.
He must have thought I was saying I was sorry about his misfortune in losing his inheritance. He looked up, gave me the shadow of his bright, beaming smile and said reasonably, ‘It’s not your fault, er, Lassair.’
It was, I believed, only the second time he had used my name since we had set out. But all the same it touched my heart.
He stood up and between us we got the mute Sibert to his feet. ‘We’re moving on,’ I said to him, giving his arm a squeeze. Then, because his continued silence and unresponsiveness was starting to worry me, I added, ‘Are you all right?’
What a stupid question. Of course he wasn’t all right. He had just seen what the new owners had done to his former home and clearly he didn’t like it. I didn’t blame him. When the rich and powerful men of the previous regime had built, they had taken into consideration the location and the nature of the surroundings, so that the long halls that they constructed grew, in time, almost to be a part of the landscape. They lived as their forefathers had done, within wood and wattle walls and beneath reed roofs, their pastoral way of life generally peaceful so that there was no need for extravagant defences. They were not like the Normans, conquerors and invaders who forcefully and violently imposed themselves, their way of life and their harsh rule on an unwilling, unwelcoming populous.
Poor Sibert. I could only imagine what the manor of Drakelow had looked like before Baudouin de la Flèche had rebuilt it to answer his own need. Sibert must have—
No. That could not be right. I had taken a wrong step in my reasoning, for surely the old Drakelow would have been replaced years ago, when Baudouin’s father was first given it not long after 1066. It was impossible for Sibert to have seen the original structure built by his forefathers, for he had not been born until seven or eight years afterwards.
Yet he had uttered that heart-stopping cry: What have you done?
What did it all mean? For the moment I could make no sense of it.