by Alys Clare
There was a horrified silence. Then my father said, ‘What happened? I mean,’ he corrected himself hurriedly, ‘what does Baudouin claim happened?’
Hrype was watching me. It made me feel very uncomfortable. He said, ‘He claims that Sibert stole the crown from its hiding place at his manor of Drakelow.’ I almost protested that it wasn’t his manor any longer but then I remembered that I wasn’t supposed to know that. I wasn’t supposed to have been anywhere near the place, never mind knowing who it did or did not belong to. ‘Then he set off to make his way secretly home to Aelf Fen.’ He paused. ‘Baudouin suspects that Sibert was not alone.’ Again those strange silvery eyes with their unreadable expression glanced against me. ‘He claims that his nephew Romain knew of the theft and pursued Sibert with the intention of reclaiming the stolen crown. He says that, worried for his nephew’s safety, he set out to look for him. He encountered men searching for him, bringing the awful news that Romain was dead and offering to take him to the place where he had been slain. He says that he has a witness to the moment when Romain caught up with Sibert and this person saw with his own eyes how Sibert doubled back on his tracks and so came upon Romain from behind.’ Then Baudouin’s witness has identified the wrong man, I thought fiercely, for Sibert did no such thing. ‘It is claimed that Sibert leapt out on Romain, taking him by surprise, and hit him very hard on the back of the head with a heavy branch. The witness heard the crunch of the shattering bones and Romain fell dead to the ground. Sibert ran away.’ He stopped abruptly, wiping his hands over his face several times.
After a while my father spoke, very hesitantly expressing what I was thinking. ‘Er – if this is true,’ he said, ‘if we are meant to believe that there is a fragment of truth in it, then, as soon as Baudouin learned from the witness what had just happened, why did he not immediately set off after Sibert – er, after the assailant, and catch him? He had just been told that his nephew had been brutally slain, yet he would have us believe he did nothing to apprehend the killer? He is a big, strong man,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘and surely he could have outrun a slight youth like Sibert.’ He thought some more. ‘He’d surely have had a horse,’ he added.
Hrype looked at him intently and then said neutrally, ‘He says he was preoccupied with looking after Romain.’
‘But he’d been told that Romain was dead when he fell! If Baudouin knew that, surely he realized there was nothing he could do and much the better course of action was to catch the killer!’ My father sounded quite cross, as if such irrational behaviour were more than any decent man should be asked to believe.
My mother gave a quiet sound of distress. Putting a hand on my father’s arm, she murmured, ‘He was grieving and surely not himself, Wymond. The poor man had just been led to where his nephew lay dead and was that very moment bending over the body.’
My father grunted something.
Hrype was still looking at him. I saw him give a very small smile of approval. ‘I thought precisely the same thing as you,’ he said. ‘It is what, indeed, I tried to say to the men who are holding Sibert.’
‘How is he?’ my mother asked softly. Now it was she to whom I was grateful, for I longed to ask the same question.
‘He – has suffered a profound humiliation and a severe shock,’ Hrype said. ‘He does not believe, however, that he is guilty of theft and he knows he is not guilty of murder. I hope,’ he said with a sigh, ‘that these firm beliefs may sustain him in his time of trial.’
‘He’s going to be tried?’ I asked. I had not really wanted to draw Hrype’s attention to me – any more than it was already there, for all the time he was engaged in talking to my parents I sensed that a part of him was probing me – but I could not hold back the question.
Hrype gave me a wry smile. ‘I did not speak literally,’ he said. ‘As to whether he will be tried, I cannot say. I hope so, for it is better than summary execution, but then the trial will be performed by Normans and we are not of their kind.’
We all knew what he meant by that.
‘If there is a trial,’ he said, ‘then Sibert will have to prove that he could not have done the deeds of which he is accused. Somehow it will have to be demonstrated that the object he stole did not belong to Baudouin de la Flèche.’ He did not elaborate but I thought I knew what he meant; Sibert had said the crown had been made by his own ancestor and placed beneath the tree stump by men of his family. This surely made the crown his, and you can’t be convicted of stealing from yourself. ‘It will also have to be proved,’ Hrype went on, ‘that Sibert did not leap on Romain and batter him to death. For that to happen, it will have to be shown that he was elsewhere.’ I knew that his full attention was on me now, for all that he was staring down into the hearth, and it was a frightening feeling. ‘Someone,’ he concluded, ‘will have to speak for him.’
Silence fell, the echo of Hrype’s words slowly dying. My mind was whirling and I felt the vertigo returning. I shut my eyes, but that was worse. Someone will have to speak for him. Hrype can only have meant me, and it appeared he knew much more about Sibert’s and my escapade than I had thought.
My father, who must have been thinking as hard as I was, said, ‘Does Baudouin say where and when his nephew was killed?’
Hrype looked at him. ‘He does. He says the attack happened a few miles short of the road that goes from Lowestoft to Diss, and that it was five days ago.’
I counted. I had been back with Goda for two days and for the three days before that Sibert and I had been making our way home following the fight with Romain. This meant, I realized, that whoever had killed Romain must have caught up with him shortly after Sibert had laid him low with a knee in the crotch.
We had left Romain alive and fairly well, other than the bruised testicles. And from then on I had been with Sibert all the way home.
Despite everything, I felt a cry of triumph inside my head. Sibert was innocent, and I knew it.
Whether I could prove it – whether I even had the courage to try – was a very different matter.
FOURTEEN
In the morning I was up and quietly preparing to go out before my mother, my granny or Edild could try to stop me. We had talked late into the night, at first with Hrype and then, once he had gone home to the unenviable task of trying to comfort Sibert’s poor mother, among ourselves.
I had slept for a while but not long. My dreams had been deeply troubling and when I opened my eyes in the pre-dawn darkness and knew I would not sleep again, my waking thoughts were no more reassuring.
I knew what I had to do and I did not want to do it. I was very scared, for one thing, and as well as that I was nervous because I was about to make myself do something I would not normally have considered in a hundred years.
I had not said much more during the long discussions last night but I had listened very carefully, especially to a certain question posed by my father and answered by Hrype. This morning, as a consequence, I knew not only what I had to do but where I must go to attempt it. The how I would leave to what I hoped would prove a benevolent providence; having no clear idea yet, I prayed that inspiration would strike at the appropriate moment.
I did not want to do this at all. The problem was that I didn’t see I had any choice.
My mother was surprised to notice, on waking, that I was pulling my boots on. ‘Where are you going?’ she asked, brushing back her long plait. She wears her lovely strawberry blond hair like this for sleeping.
Her voice disturbed Edild, who had been asleep by the hearth. She propped herself up on one elbow and watched me, waiting for my reply.
‘Back to Goda’s,’ I said shortly.
My mother looked very surprised, as well she might as she would, I’m sure, have expected me to use the drama of Sibert as an excuse to stay in Aelf Fen as long as possible and certainly for today. ‘I think you should stay here and have a restful day,’ she said, sounding worried. ‘You were quite ill yesterday and we were anxious at how pale you were.’ She tu
rned to her sister-in-law. ‘Don’t you agree, Edild?’
I met my aunt’s eyes and sent her a pleading look. She seemed to understand – really, I was asking a great deal of her just then – and said, after a moment’s consideration, ‘She looks better this morning. I believe that a walk in the fresh air followed by the resumption of her duties will be better for her than staying here and brooding.’
The voice of authority had spoken and my mother seemed to accept it. ‘Very well,’ she said, not sounding entirely happy. ‘But if you feel at all unwell, Lassair, you are to come home. Do you hear me?’
‘Yes, Mother.’
She muttered something under her breath, something about Goda having to get off her fat backside and manage without me, and I realized then just how disturbed my mother was, for in the normal way she never runs down one of her children in front of the others. Not even Goda.
Before either of them could say anything else – or, even worse, before my father could awake and get the chance to weigh in to the discussion – I said a swift goodbye to Edild and my mother and slipped out of the house.
Baudouin de la Flèche disliked having to stay under another man’s roof but, as he frequently and sourly reminded himself, he ought to have thought of that before he joined Bishop Odo’s rebels and by that action found himself on the losing side with his manor taken away from him. Its loss had followed the defeat at Rochester with breathtaking speed and he was still reeling from the blow. He had quit Drakelow with the clothes he wore, his knife, his sword, a saddlebag of provisions and one of hastily packed spare linen and his horse. Everything else in the house, the tower, the outbuildings and the whole estate was now under the care of the king’s representative.
Baudouin tried not to think about that.
There was plenty to distract his thoughts, although the labyrinthine cast of mind of Baudouin de la Flèche meant that some of his deepest, darkest thoughts and deeds were sometimes all but hidden even from himself. He was a man who acted with ruthless decisiveness and, if he did not actually regret things that he had done, he was on occasion faced with consequences that proved challenging to surmount.
Now was such a time, although he believed that already the way was becoming clearer. The boy was in captivity and the treasure was restored to its rightful owner. Or very soon it would be . . .
Baudouin heard footsteps coming along the passage into the hall and, with some difficulty, composed his features into a smile of welcome.
The stranger’s roof under which he had slept the previous night was that of Gilbert de Caudebec. Gilbert’s father Ralf had fought with William the Conqueror and, having proved himself an efficient administrator rather than a ruthless and inspired soldier, his reward had been not one of the castles deemed crucial to the Conqueror’s defence of his new realm but the relative backwater of a small manor on the edge of the Fens known as Lakehall. There Ralf de Caudebec had settled quite happily, in due course marrying an English heiress, Alftruda, who gave him a son, Gilbert, and two daughters. On Ralf’s death Alftruda had gone to live with the elder of her daughters, leaving Lakehall to Gilbert and his young wife Emma.
The plump and easy-going Gilbert showed no more flair as a fighting man than his father but, unlike Ralf, he was not a particularly talented administrator either; probably the shrewdest thing he had ever done was to appoint a hard-working and highly efficient reeve. The estate that Gilbert controlled on the king’s behalf was a mixture of arable land on the higher, drier ground and waterlogged marsh out in the Fens. Happily for Gilbert, the people of the latter seemed content to carry on the way they had always done, back through the long decades and centuries before the Conquest, and that suited him very well.
He was rarely called upon to fulfil his judicial role, which suited him too, but now trouble had come and lodged itself right in his own house. He found it hard to meet the dark eyes of his guest, for the man seemed all but unhinged by his nephew’s death. The dead young man was also his guest’s heir, Gilbert thought astutely, and we Normans set a great store on having a suitable male heir to inherit from us, so that the loss of such a man would indeed be a heavy blow. Yes, he thought with a sigh. Trouble was here all right, and he was uncomfortably aware that he must step forward to deal with it.
Now, on this bright summer morning when he would far rather have stayed in his own chamber with his pretty wife and the enchanting baby boy with whom she had recently presented him, he had been forced to rise, dress and go into his hall to entertain Baudouin de la Flèche.
Baudouin stood up smartly as Gilbert strode into the hall and they exchanged polite greetings. When Baudouin deemed there had been enough pleasantries, he said quite curtly, ‘So, Gilbert, have you come to a decision concerning the crown?’ He almost said my crown but that could have been seen as provocative.
Gilbert did not immediately answer, instead walking over to the open door of the wide hall and gazing out for a few moments over the peaceful scene outside. Gentle country sounds floated up: the quacking of ducks on the pond just beyond the courtyard; the barking of a dog; light voices and laughter as two young maidservants enjoyed a gossip; the rhythmic sound of someone sweeping muck and old straw out of a stable. Ah, he thought, with a soft sigh. If only these small, pleasurable, everyday matters were to be the sum of my concerns this day. Then he turned to face his guest.
Even before Gilbert had said a word, Baudouin’s heart sank, for he knew from the fat man’s uncharacteristically solemn expression what he was going to say. Gilbert was weak – Baudouin had detected that after a very short acquaintance – and, like all weak men, he could on occasion stick with stubborn tenacity to some small point which, among the minutiae of everyday occurrence, for some reason presented itself as a matter of principle.
It was Baudouin’s misfortune that the point on which Gilbert had stuck was the ownership of the crown.
Go on, you moon-faced fool, Baudouin thought bitterly as he waited for Gilbert’s judgement. You don’t care in the least who ends up with these particular spoils and it would make no difference to you if you said now, Here, Baudouin, take your treasure, with my blessing.
Gilbert frowned, as if what he was about to say pained him, and then repeated what he had said the previous day. ‘It would certainly seem, my dear Baudouin,’ he began pompously, ‘that the right of title to this precious object is yours, for nobody is disputing that it was found on the shore at Drakelow. I understand that there is some confusion over precisely where it was found, which raises the question of the ancient and inalienable right of the king to anything found between high and low water, but I do not think we need bother overmuch about that if you assure me it was found on Drakelow land.’
‘As I do,’ Baudouin said firmly. He did not even flinch as he spoke the lie.
‘However,’ Gilbert added, his voice dropping to a new level of portentousness, ‘unfortunately Drakelow is not at present in your hands, although we all hope that this will prove but a temporary state of affairs, as indeed it surely will if the king opts for leniency.’
He won’t opt for anything of the sort, Baudouin thought, unless I persuade him, and I can’t do that without my crown. He stared at Gilbert, fighting to keep his despair and his fury out of his eyes.
When he was reasonably sure that he could speak without his voice giving him away, he said, ‘And what of the boy?’
‘There again,’ Gilbert said regretfully, ‘although I do indeed sympathize most sincerely with your loss, I fear I cannot accede to your demand that he be immediately hanged.’ Some tiny portion of the emotions that seethed and boiled through Baudouin must have been visible, for Gilbert took a step back and said in a placatory tone, ‘Oh, I am sure that it will come to that in the end, for you have a witness who has given a clear statement that he saw Sibert attack your poor late nephew, and of course your word on this is more than enough.’
Then do it! Baudouin raged silently. Take the damned impudent youth out and string him up!
&nb
sp; ‘However,’ Gilbert went on – and Baudouin had reluctantly to admire his surprising refusal to be browbeaten – ‘I do feel that it is necessary that I instigate some further enquiries, both here and at Drakelow. I must—’ He broke off, frowning, and Baudouin guessed that he had little idea how to go about his self-appointed task. ‘I shall speak to the youth this morning,’ he said instead. ‘He was distraught last night when the guards put him in the lock-up but after a night’s sleep he may be more approachable. I shall—’
He was interrupted by voices coming from the courtyard; the male tones of a couple of grooms and the lighter but far more insistent voice of a girl. Gilbert strode over to the doorway and, from the top of the stone steps, looked down at the scene below; Baudouin hurried after him.
The grooms were remonstrating with a thin copper-haired girl who wore a shabby woollen tunic and, tied around her waist, a rather beautiful shawl. She was demanding admittance to the lord’s house and the two grooms were telling her to go away although, Baudouin observed, not in such polite terms.
‘I will see him!’ she insisted, wresting her arm out of the grip of the younger of the grooms and kicking out at his shins for good measure. He skipped neatly out of reach. ‘It’s my right,’ she added, ‘my father’s one of his tenants and he’s a good tenant, he fulfils all his obligations and what’s more he’s an eel-catcher and he sees to it that the lord gets the best of the catch!’
‘Ah,’ Gilbert murmured, and Baudouin saw him smile.
‘You know this girl?’ he demanded.
‘No, but I know her father.’ Gilbert was rubbing his round belly. ‘She’s right, he does bring me fine eels. His name’s Wymond and he lives with his family out at Aelf Fen.’ His eyes rounded. ‘Where your young man comes from!’ He turned to Baudouin, amazed.
So, Baudouin thought. This is the girl. He stared more closely and, as she edged closer, he realized that he had seen her before. She it was who had stared at him so belligerently over the heads of the crowd when he accused the boy of murder.