by Alys Clare
The island where our ancestors lie buried is only a short distance from the fen edge, rising like the humped back of some sleeping animal out of the black water. Some time in the distant past, my kinsmen drove stakes of alder wood down into the mud and, when access is required, struts and timbers are fitted to them to make a temporary walkway to the island. The timbers were not now in place, for it was months since anybody had visited the island.
I stood on the bank looking out over the water. Although it was raining now and the levels were visibly rising, the past few weeks had been dry. I could wade out to the island, and the water would only come up to my thighs.
Probably.
There was no point standing there thinking about it. The sooner I went, the sooner it would be over. I lifted up the skirts of my robe and under gown and secured them around my waist. I took off my boots and tied them round my neck. Then I went down the steep, slippery bank and walked into the water.
It was so cold. I’d thought I was wet and uncomfortable before, but it was nothing compared to this. The mud beneath my feet was slimy, thick and very slippery, and I had to lurch from one stake to the next to avoid falling. As it was, the water quickly rose up to my knees, thighs and my belly. I hitched my clothes higher, although they were so wet already that I didn’t really know why I was bothering.
After an eternity, the claggy marsh bed began to rise again and I clambered out on to the island. I shook the water off my legs, let my robe fall to the ground and strode off to where Granny Cordeilla lay buried.
The low bump of her grave lay nearest to me as I approached. Beyond her were our honoured ancestors, and I liked to think they had given the newest arrival a warm welcome. The kin who Granny would most have liked beside her, however, were not there; of her three beloved brothers, two had died at Hastings, their bodies lost for ever, and the third, Harald, had left England after the Conquest, never to be heard of, or from, since.
Hardly daring to look, I crept up to Granny’s grave. I realized I was holding my breath.
With a rush of relief, I let out a sob. Granny’s last resting place lay undisturbed, the turf over it green and smooth. I knelt down and, as if I were kissing her dear face, pressed my lips to the springy grass. I closed my eyes, visualizing her, and instantly images burst into my mind.
At first they were all of Granny Cordeilla, as she had been in life. I saw her seated beside the hearth, telling a story to an enthralled audience. I saw her face creased in wicked laughter as she played a trick on Goda; she never had much time for my eldest sibling. I saw her watching my father, her expression so soft, so piercingly loving, that it moved me to tears.
After a time – I don’t know how long – I became aware that the visions had changed. Now I no longer saw things from my own memory. I knew, without knowing how I knew, that I was seeing into the past ...
I saw a long shore, the sea grey and shot with silver where a ray of sun pierced the heavy clouds. Through the mist I saw a ship, its square sail filled with a powerful wind, racing towards land. The ship had a high prow, and the prow terminated in the startling, frightening figurehead of a dragon. Its long neck curved gracefully, its snout ended in a curling swirl that suggested fire and smoke, and its elongated eyes stared out with furious determination. Inside my head someone said, Malice-striker.
The ship was running before the wind, its long, graceful lines appearing to fly over the waves as if the dragon had spread its wings. It was stunningly beautiful, and, at the same time, deeply frightening. Had the ship come for me? Was it headed for this shore, where its fierce crew would disembark and fall on my own village?
No, said the voice in my head, for this is not now, but a window into the past.
I felt an instant of sweet relief.
Then abruptly the ship disappeared into the mist and the vision faded. Coming back to myself, I shook off the trance and struggled to sit up. Staggering slightly, I stood up and made my way back to the end of the island nearest to the shore, gathering up my garments once more and bracing myself to plunge back into the dark water.
I scrambled ashore and set off for the village, telling myself over and over again, It’s over, it’s done, Granny’s safe. It helped, a little.
I was almost back at the track when it happened. I hadn’t seen a soul; my fellow villagers apparently had far more sense than I, and, once the day’s toil was done, had headed for home and shut themselves firmly inside. Smoke rose from many rooftops, and imagining the warmth of the hearth fires was making me feel even colder.
I saw a huge figure: a giant of a man, broad-shouldered, his pale-coloured hair hanging in braids either side of his heavily bearded face. His light eyes seemed to shine in the deepening dusk, as if lit from inside. He stood on the edge of the track, looking up at the village.
He was half-turned away from me, and I did not think he had seen me. I dropped to my knees, then to my belly, wriggling through the tufty grass and the low knolls that dotted the sodden ground of the fen edge. I made my way to the meagre shelter of a clump of scrawny hazel bushes, then lay still. I could feel the water soaking into my clothes, from my neck to my knees, but I ignored its chilly embrace. Better to be wet than visible to that monster of a man ...
After a moment, I made myself look up.
He had gone. He was nowhere to be seen.
I shook my head, puzzled, for surely my eyes were playing me false. In the short time that I hadn’t been watching him, it was inconceivable that he’d managed to get out of sight; there was simply no place of concealment he could have reached so quickly.
Had I imagined him, then? Was he a vestige of that strange vision I’d had out on the secret island?
I did not know.
I was shivering, my teeth chattering. I was so cold that I couldn’t feel my feet, and my hands were blue-white and clumsy. If I didn’t get into the warmth soon, I’d make myself ill.
I checked once more, very carefully, to see if the giant had reappeared. There was no sign of him. Then I got to my feet and, stumbling, tripping over my own feet, I hurried home to Edild.
She was alone, sitting cross-legged by the hearth, hands folded in her lap. I wasn’t taken in for a moment by her air of serenity. I could feel her ire crackling and fizzing just beneath the surface.
She looked up at me, raising one eyebrow.
I flopped down beside her, drips from my hair and garments hissing into the fire. ‘I’ve been out to the island to check on Granny,’ I said. There was no point in dissimulating.
She did not speak. Shooting a quick glance at her, I noticed that she had gone very white, and her instant concern for the danger I’d just put myself in touched me. It also made me feel very guilty.
‘I worked out that the giant who’s been searching for whatever he’s after in all our dwellings has turned his attention to trying to find Granny’s grave,’ I hurried on. ‘He seems to know a lot about us, such as where all of us live, and apparently he’s also aware that Granny died only a couple of years ago, since it was only the most recent graves that he disturbed. We know she’s not there, of course, and I suddenly had the most awful fear that maybe he had found that out too.’ I hesitated. ‘I’m sorry I worried you. I just had to go and make sure.’
‘And?’ The single syllable was barely even a whisper.
‘It’s quite clear that nobody’s been on the island for ages,’ I replied. ‘All the graves, Granny’s included, are just as they ought to be.’
I felt my aunt’s relief coming off her in waves.
After a short silence, she said, ‘How can you be sure your rash action didn’t lead this giant straight to the one place we don’t want him to find?’ She quickly corrected herself. ‘I mean, one of the places. We don’t really want him near any of us!’
I wondered at her suddenly light tone. It was unconvincing, and I thought perhaps she was trying to take my mind off the dark threat that seemed to swirl around us.
‘Don’t worry, I was very careful,’
I assured her. I told her briefly how I’d checked for any malicious presence, and detected nothing. ‘But I ...’ I was on the point of telling her how I’d thought I’d seen the figure of a huge, bearded man just as I returned to the village, but I decided to keep it to myself. Now that I was back in the warmth and safety of Edild’s house, I was even more convinced that it had been merely some sort of after-image from my strange vision.
My aunt was looking at me oddly. It felt almost as if she was trying to see inside my head. Deliberately I put up a barrier, and after a moment she turned away.
Presently she said, ‘Your father will be here to collect you soon.’
I had quite forgotten my promise to my father that I would sleep under his roof again that night. Getting up and going out into the rain again was the last thing I wanted to do, but a promise is a promise. I stretched out my hands to the flames and waited for his knock on the door.
FOUR
After a restless night, I got up early and set about helping my mother prepare the first meal for all of us. I had barely slept, and I was grumpily – but silently – asking myself how on earth I’d managed to get a decent night’s rest in the days when I’d lived permanently at home, in the midst of my large family. You can, I suppose, get used to anything. The trouble was that I’d become accustomed to the luxury of peaceful nights, either just with Edild for company or, when living in Cambridge with my teacher, Gurdyman, alone in my little loft.
My mother looked exhausted. My heart went out to her and, putting aside my self-pity, I took the large stone vessel out of her hands and went outside to fetch water.
My father was looking thoughtful as he ate his porridge. I had told the family the previous evening about the disturbed graves and about my hasty (and highly foolhardy, according to my father) dash across the marsh to check on Granny out on the island. I guessed this was what was occupying him and, when at length he spoke, I was proved right.
‘It’s no longer common practice to bury grave goods with the dead,’ he mused. ‘Hasn’t been for many a long year. Not something the Church approves of, telling us as they do that we go to meet our maker mother-naked, just as we entered the world.’
My mother gave him a swift, impatient look. She is a woman who always keeps both feet firmly on the ground. If anyone had the temerity to ask her opinion on some question broadly to do with the realm of gods and spirits, she would brush the question aside with some sort of dismissive comment, such as, ‘I know what I believe and that’s good enough for me.’ She does not waste her time pondering unanswerable questions, and has little patience with those who do.
I thought I knew what my father was thinking. I often do. ‘The giant intruder has exhausted the places where the living members of our family could have hidden whatever it is he’s searching for,’ I said quietly, just to my father. ‘You’re thinking, too, that he’s been driven to looking in the graves of our dead?’ It was just what I’d concluded the previous day.
‘I am,’ he agreed softly. He smiled grimly. ‘Just as well he doesn’t know about the island, isn’t it?’
I nodded. It was, of course, because it would have been dreadful if, like the relatives of the disturbed dead in the churchyard, we’d been faced with the desecration of a loved one’s grave. Had it happened, it would in any case have been all for nothing.
I saw my granny in her grave and I knew there was nothing buried with her except for some of her most treasured possessions and a scattering of flowers. By now the flowers would be turned to dust, and the few simple personal objects had already been worn down by a lifetime’s hard use when they went into the ground. A bone comb, beautifully carved but with half its teeth missing. A prettily crafted drinking cup, mended at least twice. A soft woolly shawl, much darned. There was surely nothing in the grave with Granny that anyone else would take such extreme steps to retrieve.
I reached out and took my father’s hand. He had loved his mother dearly. I was so glad, for all of us but especially for him, that her eternal sleep had not been interrupted.
I worked hard all day with Edild, my thoughts fully occupied so that there was little time for wondering whether my father would relent and let me return to sleeping at my aunt’s house. When I did briefly dwell on it, it occurred to me that perhaps he wasn’t only thinking of me. If, as it seemed, it was my father’s children who were the objects of the giant intruder’s search, then my presence in Edild’s house might also put her in danger. Edild, I knew, was under Hrype’s protection, but I very much doubted that anyone else was aware of it.
Spring was getting into its stride. The worst of the various weather-related sicknesses was over, and soon I should start thinking about returning to my studies with Gurdyman. A part of me longed to be back with him in the twisty-turny house in Cambridge, engrossed in the fascinating things he was teaching me and with the lively, vibrant town all around me. But such thoughts seemed disloyal to my family, especially under the current circumstances, so I tried to suppress them.
We were just clearing up for the day when there came the sound of running footsteps on the path leading up to the door. There was a perfunctory knock, then the door was flung open and my cousin Morcar burst into the house.
There was no need for even the swiftest glance at his poor, haggard face to know that something terrible had happened. Distress radiated out of him, reaching me with such force that I staggered back. Edild ran to him, took his hands in hers and, on a huge sob, he cried, ‘My mother’s dead!’
Instinctively, Morcar had come first to Edild, his mother Alvela’s twin. But Alvela had had other siblings, and one of them was my father. Even as Edild led Morcar over to the bench beside the hearth and gently persuaded him to sit, I gathered up my shawl and ran across the village to my family home. By the time Morcar was ready to tell us what had happened, he had the meagre comfort of his uncle’s, his aunt’s and his cousin’s presence while he related his tale.
‘I’d been working on a job some way from home,’ he began. Morcar is a flint knapper. His and Alvela’s neat little house is up in the Breckland. ‘I finished off this morning, sooner than I’d reckoned, and I headed home with coins in my purse, hoping to surprise Mother.’ Tears filled his eyes. ‘She was lying there, amid the wreck of all the bits and bobs she’d cared for so well. They didn’t amount to much, but she loved them.’ He buried his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking with sobs. He is by nature a reserved, taciturn man, and to see him torn apart by his grief was hard to bear. Alvela had doted on him, and I had always assumed he’d found her fussing something of a trial. Watching him now it was clear that, even were that true, he’d loved her deeply.
He raised his wet face and looked at my father, then at Edild. ‘Whoever broke in beat her, very badly,’ he said, his voice breaking. ‘Her poor face was ...’ But he couldn’t bring himself to tell us. He waved a hand vaguely in my father’s direction, shaking his head in anguish.
‘Never mind that now,’ Edild said gently. ‘Do not distress yourself further by making yourself think of it.’
‘But why did they hurt her?’ Morcar asked, his brow creased in a perplexed frown. ‘She was a small woman, and not strong. Once he’d broken in, he could have taken all he wanted and she wouldn’t have been able to stop him.’
‘He?’ my father asked.
Morcar glanced at him. ‘Yes. Great big fellow, bearded, built like an ox.’
‘Somebody saw him? Edild demanded.
‘Yes, yes, a couple of our neighbours had heard the commotion and gone to see what was up. The man ran off just as they arrived.’ He paused. ‘They found Mother lying there, but it was too late to help her. She was already dead.’ He dropped his face into his hands again.
I saw my father and my aunt exchange a glance. Then my father looked at me. I understood. ‘It’s as if her killer had been trying to make her tell him something,’ I whispered, the words barely more than a breath.
My father heard. His expression grim, he nodded.
Morcar must have heard, too. Perhaps – probably – he had already arrived at the same conclusion. ‘I don’t know what he thought she could tell him!’ he cried, tears running down his face. ‘If he was after some treasure, some object of value, that he believed we had hidden away in our house, he had been wrongly informed. And now she’s dead.’
We fell silent. In Edild’s warm, fragrant little house, the heart-rending sound of a grown man’s weeping was the only thing to break the silence.
My poor father was quite clearly torn between staying with Edild and me while we tended Morcar – well, it was Edild who patiently went on trying to calm and comfort him, while I set about making a remedy to dull the agony of his shock and grief – and returning to protect his family home. In the end, perhaps frustrated by his indecision, Edild said firmly, ‘Go home to your wife and your sons, Wymond. You should send word to Ordic and Alwyn, who must be informed of our sister’s death.’
My father looked at her uncertainly for a moment. Then, his face working, he said, ‘Goda wounded, old Utta dead, Elfritha’s dormitory searched and two nuns hurt, my family’s home – where Lassair is temporarily living – ransacked, and now this – poor Alvela. It’s the women,’ he added in a low, furious voice. ‘My daughters, and now my sister.’ He took a deep breath. ‘What sort of a man attacks women? What is worth finding, for which he’ll kill so casually and thoughtlessly?’ His eyes, normally warm with affection and humour, were suddenly cold as ice. There was, I realized, another side to my father; one that an enemy would do well to fear.
I think it was Edild’s remark about informing Ordic and Alwyn that finally persuaded my father to leave. Although the third-born son, he is the acknowledged head of the siblings, probably because he’s both the wisest and the biggest of the brothers. He got up to go, leaning over Edild and muttering something I did not catch. She looked up at him with a smile, made a soft reply and nodded towards the door. She murmured something that sounded like a reassurance. Whatever she said seemed to convince him.