by Alys Clare
I obeyed him, but only because I had to. That day of all days, close involvement with my magical stone – the heirloom handed down to me by the huge awe-inspiring old Icelander whom I have only quite recently known is my grandfather – was the very last thing I wanted.
The shining stone is made of a strange substance that I had never heard of before encountering it. Gurdyman told me it is formed out of the red-hot, white-hot matter that is hurled out of the depths of the earth when a volcano erupts, and the heat is so tremendous that the very rock turns liquid. That is the first change. But then, when this newly molten substance cools – when, for example, it meets water – it turns to black glass. That is the second change.
No wonder there were strange, arcane forces at work inside the shining stone. It was, it seemed to me, the epitome of the sort of achievement men like Gurdyman strived for: one substance turned, or, as he would say, transmuted, into another. In the case of the stone, it wasn’t just the one transmutation.
Sometimes when I look deep inside it – at first glance it is plain, glossy black, but then after a while you can make out sinuous, winding strips of brilliant green and fiery gold – I find myself speaking to it. You were once rock, I say, and you lived in a place so far away that I can barely imagine the distance. My grandfather Thorfinn told me the stone came from a land beyond the sunset, where men’s skins are dark and they wear feathers in their long black hair. Then the earth caught fire, I continue, and the heat melted you, but your agony stopped and you grew cool again, and found yourself changed out of all recognition. I always feel sorry for the stone when I think about that. How does it feel, to be here with me so far from your home? Are you happy?
It may sound foolish to ask an inanimate object if it’s happy. Unless you had actually held my shining stone in your hands, you couldn’t understand, but there is life inside it, and I know it. It has the power to make you see the truth; it is ruthless; if you have the strength, it will enable you to reach out to the spirits and ask for their help. Of course it’s alive.
Understandably, I think, I’d been in awe, not to say terrified, of the stone for quite a long time after it came into my hands. But gradually, over the weeks and months, curiosity had overcome fear. What had really prompted me to stop being such a coward and get on with it had been when someone else – my grandfather, to be exact – had tried to make me use the stone to find out something he needed to know. Then I had been hit by a powerful combination of anger, indignation, resentment and possessive pride: You would have me use the shining stone for your own purposes, I yelled at him the last time I saw him. If you had a use for it, you should have held on to it.
I have regretted my cruel outburst ever since. I know my words hurt him deeply, for he loves me, as indeed I do him. I hope very much I shall see him again, and soon, in order to apologize and make things right between us.
But oh, he did me a favour. The power of my emotions that day acted like a cleansing fire, and afterwards I knew, as plainly as if it had told me, that the shining stone was truly mine. I had risked one peep into it since coming to this wonderful realization, and what I saw then shook me to my core. That had been back at home, in Aelf Fen, and I had resolved not to make a further attempt till I had Gurdyman beside me.
I found that I had wandered through the house to the foot of the ladder leading up to my little attic room, where I keep the stone concealed. Well, I thought, it looks as if the moment has come. Squaring my shoulders, I climbed up, knelt down and reached under the bed to the loose board beneath which the stone lay, safe in the soft leather bag that I had made for it. I took it out, held it briefly to my heart, and went back to the crypt.
With Gurdyman’s eyes on me, I took the stone out of its wool wrappings and laid it on the workbench. He had already cleared a space, as if perhaps he felt that the shining stone was too awesome an object to be placed among the clutter of the working day. Reluctantly I lowered my eyes and stared at the stone.
Perhaps it picked up that I wasn’t in the right mood to be allowed a glimpse into its depths; I don’t know. I hope that was the case, because I like the thought that we are becoming close, the stone and I, and that it is aware of my feelings as I try to be aware of its own. Whatever the reason, I saw nothing. I went on staring, but the stone didn’t allow me in, and all I saw was my own faint reflection in its glossy black and, today, impenetrable surface.
After a while Gurdyman said quietly, ‘Why are you unwilling, Lassair?’
I raised my eyes and met his. Was it so certain that it was my reluctance that was not allowing anything to happen? Why did he not consider that the blame lay with the stone, shutting itself away from me?
There didn’t seem any point, however, in arguing. ‘I don’t know,’ I muttered.
‘I think you do,’ he countered, although not unkindly. ‘I can think of three reasons. First, you have been badly affected by the body you were summoned to look at yesterday, and your sensitivity has been temporarily blunted.’
‘No!’ The response was instinctive; I didn’t like to think of my sensitivity being blunted, even if it was only temporary. Besides, although seeing the body had been a shock, it wasn’t true to say that it had badly affected me.
‘Very well,’ said Gurdyman. ‘The second reason is that it is I who am asking you to look into the stone, and you are no longer willing to do so at anyone else’s behest.’
Again, I met his cool gaze. I wondered if he knew about what had happened between my grandfather and me. It was quite possible. My aunt’s lover Hrype – another mystical figure who is almost as powerful as Gurdyman and, at times, far more threatening – had been present when I’d yelled at Thorfinn, and Hrype also knew Gurdyman. I found that the prospect of Gurdyman knowing how I’d behaved was both something to be pleased about – because he’d know that at last I’d stood up for myself – but at the same time a little shaming. It wasn’t right to treat people you loved in that way.
But Gurdyman was waiting for me to answer.
‘Er – it’s true that I’m not prepared to use the stone to find out things for other people now.’ I sought the right words to explain. ‘It seems a betrayal of the stone, or perhaps of the relationship we’re building between us.’
Gurdyman nodded. ‘I think that is right,’ he remarked.
‘But this, now, isn’t quite like that,’ I hurried on. ‘I don’t believe you want me to find anything out on your behalf. I think you want to help me, and, indeed, I do need your help.’
‘And you shall have it,’ he replied. ‘So, we come to the third reason, which is that, some time recently, you have looked into the stone by yourself, for yourself, perhaps with the tentative purpose of finding something out, and been somewhat shocked by what the stone showed you.’
He had found the truth, as I suspected he would. Very little escapes Gurdyman. I had indeed looked into the stone, a few weeks back, just after I’d walked out to the place where my grandfather’s boat had been moored and found him gone.
I saw a ship, very like my grandfather’s beautiful longship, the original Malice Striker. Yet I didn’t believe it was Thorfinn’s ship: somehow I knew – perhaps the stone told me – that this was a craft that flew over the dark blue waves there and then, at the very moment that I was watching it, and so couldn’t be my grandfather’s craft because that was a wreck on an Iceland beach. I knew that was true because I’d seen it there.
I also knew because on board that ship I perceived within the stone – or I assume that’s where he was – I saw Rollo.
Rollo is a secretive Norman, and, for want of a better description, I suppose you could call him a spy. He finds things out for the very important and the very wealthy of the land – I dare not think just how important and wealthy. He is my lover, or I should say he was, for a while, a year ago. Since then he has been away, presumably on some mission or other, and I have had no word from him.
The stone showed him to me, though, on that swift, beautiful ship. H
e looked straight at me, and then turned away.
I have wondered since whether he did that because he knew I had met Jack Chevestrier. That I liked him; admired him; enjoyed his company and had come hurrying to Cambridge to seek him out.
I didn’t feel I could say any of that to Gurdyman, so I just muttered, ‘Yes, that’s what happened.’
He waited. ‘You saw something that frightened you?’
‘No, I wasn’t frightened. I—’ But then I thought, I do not need to reveal this to him. It is not his concern. I looked at him and said, ‘I don’t wish to tell you, Gurdyman. It’s private.’
His eyebrows shot up, and just for a moment I thought I saw admiration in his face. I was tempted to feel proud of myself, but then I realized, with a thrill of awed respect, that it was undoubtedly the stone’s strength, not mine, that had prompted that firm refusal.
Gurdyman had turned aside. ‘Put the shining stone away, child,’ he said evenly. ‘We’ll try again when you wish to.’
It might have been my imagination, but I thought I detected a faint emphasis on you.
We were eating a late supper, sitting beside the hearth in the cramped little kitchen, when there was a knock at the door. I made to get up, but Gurdyman shook his head, already on his feet and, still chewing, heading off along the passage. I heard the heavy bolts being drawn back, and the door creaked open. Voices: the same ones I’d heard that morning as I awoke.
Gurdyman came back to the kitchen, and Jack was behind him. He nodded a greeting, looking slightly abashed.
‘Jack has come to ask our help,’ said Gurdyman.
‘I didn’t say Lassair!’ Jack protested. ‘She doesn’t have to come.’
Gurdyman turned calm eyes to him. ‘Lassair is my pupil,’ he said in the sort of voice you don’t argue with. ‘It is my duty to share every aspect of my work with her, including that which is distasteful.’
Distasteful?
Gurdyman turned back to me. ‘Jack will escort us to the room beneath the castle where the body of Robert Powl has been taken,’ he said. ‘The castle is quiet now, with only the night watch on guard, and very likely we can slip in and out again without being seen.’
There were many thoughts flashing through my mind, most of them to do with the fact that I really didn’t want to look at that mutilated body again, but I said, ‘Why mustn’t we be seen?’
Gurdyman bowed to Jack, as if to say, Go on, tell her.
‘Sheriff Picot is dismissing the death as the result of a wild-animal attack, and he has made it clear that he does not wish anybody to question this,’ Jack said, his voice carefully neutral and not giving away what he must obviously think of the sheriff’s absurd conclusion. ‘He is trying, I believe, to stop the rumours; hoping, by supplying a reasonable explanation, to halt the rising panic.’
‘But it’s not reasonable!’ I protested. ‘No animal exists that could have made such a wound!’
‘Not so,’ Gurdyman corrected, ‘for I have heard tales of savage creatures like enormous cats that roam the mountains far to the east, and other, similar beasts that live in the hot lands to the south. There are huge white bears, too, in the permanently icy lands to the north.’ Jack caught my eye for a moment and we both smiled. Gurdyman must have noticed. ‘But it is, I agree, unlikely that any such animal should be found hereabouts.’
I looked at Jack, for I had guessed why he was here. ‘You want us to investigate the damage to the corpse, and suggest how it was done, don’t you?’ I demanded. ‘Is that it?’
Jack winced at my words, but he nodded. ‘Pretty much, yes. I’d really value your opinion,’ he added.
Gurdyman looked at me enquiringly. Filled with a mixture of fearful apprehension and a growing excitement, I got up. ‘I’ll go and fetch my shawl.’
THREE
It was not long after sunset, but already the streets were deserted. Lights flickered in some of the windows as we hurried along between the huddling houses, and at one point someone who had presumably heard our approaching footsteps reached out and firmly closed the shutters.
The body had only been discovered last night, and already fear was spreading like a contagious miasma.
As we crossed the Great Bridge, the quays stretching out on either side of the river down to our right, Jack, who had been pacing ahead, fell into step beside Gurdyman and me. ‘Sheriff Picot is talking of imposing a curfew,’ he said, keeping his voice low, ‘but I think there will be no need.’
How right he was. Glancing down at the river, I noticed that even the ships’ captains and crews, usually sociable in the evening and often to be seen assembled around a makeshift hearth or a brazier, drinking, sharing their food and chatting, were nowhere to be seen. The craft that lined the quays were closed up, their occupants safely inside.
Jack led us on past the new priory on our right and shortly after we turned off the road towards the castle, up on its hill. Well, we call it a hill, but by any other than fenland standards, it’s more of a shallow rise. The main entrance was imposing, leading over a wooden drawbridge to a gateway with a heavy iron grille and a couple of guards outside. However, we were not, it seemed, to go in that way. Jack dived off down a narrow little alleyway that ran around the base of the rise – it was bordered by the huge rampart surrounding the castle hill on the left and by stone walls on the right, and was in fact more like a tunnel than an alley – emerging after fifty or sixty paces into a small open space surrounded by hovels, animal pens, storerooms and a ramshackle stable.
‘This used to be the workmen’s village,’ Jack said softly. ‘When the castle was built, the masons, carpenters and their teams lived here.’
Gurdyman nodded. ‘And this is where Sheriff Picot has instructed that the corpse be stored,’ he murmured.
It made sense, I realized, for a man determined on stopping gossip and rumour in their tracks to remove the source to a place where men didn’t have to walk past it, look at it and smell it every day. Nevertheless, it seemed a little hard on the unfortunate Robert Powl.
‘He’s not in one of the pig pens, is he?’ I asked with a nervous laugh.
Jack turned to me. ‘No,’ he said. ‘There’s a little chapel. I put him there.’
He paused to strike a spark and set the flame to the lantern he had brought, and set off again, Gurdyman and I following close behind. It was very dark in the deserted village, the looming, overhanging walls blocking out what remained of the last light. The chapel crouched over on the north-east side of the settlement, slightly apart from the nearest row of hovels. Jack shouldered open the wooden door – it had warped, and stuck on the stone of the step – and, holding up his light, ushered us inside.
Not only had he managed to find somewhere that was in itself fitting to receive a corpse, he had also given the place a good clean. At least, I supposed it must be he who had tidied the accumulated detritus of years into a neat pile in the corner and swept the floor. From what I knew of Sheriff Picot, such an action would not have occurred to him.
The body lay on planks draped with white cloth and set on two wooden trestles. Another, similar cloth had been drawn over it, covering it entirely. Around the throat, the cloth already bore dark stains.
Jack went over to the walls on either side of the corpse – the chapel was only about four or five paces wide – and lit flares stuck in brackets. Light flooded the small space, and, as if taking this as his cue, Gurdyman stepped up to the body. With calm, efficient movements, as if he did this every day, he folded back the sheet and smoothed it across the chest.
Robert Powl’s dead face stared up at us. He looked different, and I realized it was because someone had taken off his hat. The top of his crown was quite bald, and rounded like an egg; perhaps that was why he had worn his hat so determinedly drawn down across his brow.
Gurdyman beckoned me forward, and I went to stand beside him. I looked into the dead eyes. They were wide with horror, and a muddy hazel in colour. One was a little bloodshot.
‘Could we not shut his eyes?’ I whispered to Gurdyman.
He leaned down over the body, peering closely. ‘There is a theory,’ he remarked, ‘that a murdered person’s eyes reflect the face of the killer, but I do not subscribe to it myself.’ With a deft touch of his thumb and forefinger, he lowered the eyelids. Straight away I felt better. Not much better, but a little.
Gurdyman was inspecting the wound. Instinctively I had stepped away, but he reached for my hand and drew me back. ‘Come and look, Lassair,’ he said gently. ‘There is nothing here to harm you, and I am beside you.’
His calm voice gave me confidence. Gathering my courage, I looked right into the wide, open, bloody wound.
It was no wonder they’d all been saying some ferocious animal did the damage. As well as the sheer size of the gaping hole, I now made out the clear marks of five sharp claws, or talons, four over to the upper left, where the worst damage had been done, and one coming in and up from the lower right. It really did look as if a giant hand, or paw, was responsible. Dread went through me, and a sort of superstitious shiver, as if, once I’d admitted the possibility into my mind that such a creature existed, it followed that it must be lurking outside, waiting …
I moved a little closer to Gurdyman.
Jack had gone to stand on the opposite side of the trestle table. He, too, seemed to be transfixed by that wound. ‘Could it—’ He stopped. Then: ‘I am not saying I support the theory of attack by some large wild animal, but if this were so, could the damage have been done by teeth?’
‘Interesting,’ murmured Gurdyman. ‘So, instead of talons having made the marks, we are suggesting it was teeth? A row of four incisors and canines in the upper jaw, let us say, and one protruding fang in the lower?’ He leaned right down over the body, a hand holding back his garments to keep them out of the gaping throat.
‘It wasn’t a serious suggestion,’ Jack said.