by Alys Clare
Her smile deepened. ‘I’m actually not a nun. My name’s Lassair and I’ve come to look for you.’
‘Me?’
‘Yes.’
‘But why?’ He fought down the sudden surge of optimism. What good could one skinny girl do against an abbey full of monks?
She leaned closer, speaking quietly into his ear. ‘My cousin saw you being bundled into the abbey, and they tried to murder him,’ she whispered. ‘He’s safe now, but others have died. Whatever secret they are trying to keep clearly centres around you and is worth killing for.’
He shook his head in frustration. ‘I don’t understand!’ he moaned. ‘I wish I did, I wish I could explain to you what’s happening, but I can’t!’
She was staring at him intently. ‘Who are you?’ she breathed. ‘What is this mystery that surrounds you?’
‘I don’t know!’ he hissed. ‘Don’t you think I haven’t been wondering the same thing myself? There’s nothing special about me – I’m a carpenter’s son from Fulbourn!’ His voice had risen with his anxiety.
‘Shhhh,’ she soothed him. ‘Hush, or the night watchmen will hear. Can’t you think of anything that—’
She heard the footsteps before he did and, tensing, drew back right against the ancient wall. He met her eyes; hers were wide with alarm. ‘They’re coming!’ she hissed.
He got up and cautiously peered around the wall. His worst fears were realized: the quartet of burly monks who now strode out across the cathedral site were the four who had brought him to the abbey.
‘Go!’ he said to her. ‘Quickly, now – get away from here!’
She did not move. ‘What about you?’
He smiled grimly. ‘I’m allowed to be here in the abbey, for they seem to have turned me into a monk. You, on the other hand . . .’ He did not think he needed to finish the sentence.
She understood. ‘I will not abandon you,’ she said urgently. ‘I promise. I’ll help you if I can.’ She was already on her feet, crouched to spring away.
He heard the monks’ footsteps echo on the ground. They sounded like the herald of some dread fate. ‘Go!’ he repeated.
She shot him a last anguished glance, and then she fled. The ancient stretch of wall was between her and the four monks, and he was almost certain they could not see her. Nevertheless, his heart beat hard with alarm, making him feel sick. He watched her closely, and as she flew across the one place where she might be visible to them – between the base of some of the falsework and the foundations of a vast, new pillar – he stood up and faced them.
They would not kill him. They wanted him safe within the abbey, but they wanted him alive.
Or so he fervently hoped.
He stepped out of the shelter of the old wall and went to meet them.
ELEVEN
H
rype was almost at the stage where he could no longer hide his anxiety from Froya. Almost. He was accustomed to spending the majority of the hours of daylight away from the house, either at work on the land or else busy with the mysterious intricacies of his calling. Froya did not appear to have noticed that, at present, she barely saw him, except briefly in the morning, as they ate breakfast together, and last thing at night, when he would slip inside, exchange a few words with her, and then throw himself on his bed as if he were worn out and desperate to sleep.
He rarely slept nowadays. As Froya, too, went to her bed and the lamp was extinguished, he would lie there in the dark, keeping his body perfectly still while his mind roamed free, always making straight for the same place in the past.
Behind closed eyes he watched the drama re-enact itself over and over again. The flight from Drakelow and the illusion of hope and safety that beckoned him and his poor blighted mother to the Isle of Ely. The voice of Hereward as he stood up on a block and addressed his loyal followers, inspiring them with his ferocity and making them truly believe they could oust the Normans and send them back to where they came from. The mocking laughter as the rebels watched the Conqueror try again and again to find a way across the fenland; the howls of derision and the screams of triumph when the hastily constructed causeway collapsed and King William’s army choked and drowned in the dense, black mud.
Their fierce joy had been short-lived. Hrype remembered too well that sick dread in the pit of his stomach when he’d learned that the monks had betrayed the rebels and given away the secret of the safe ways across the water. He had foreseen in that instant what would happen; he had seen all of it, unfolding in his mind as if the images had been put there by a master story teller. He had taken Froya aside – his pupil, his bright-eyed pupil, now his brother’s wife – and instructed her to help him prepare for what was to come. Together they had gathered all the supplies of bandages, medicaments, splints, slings and gut for stitching wounds that they could lay hands on. Others had had the same idea, and Hrype had not been surprised when a woman had tapped on the door and said she had come to help.
The fighting had been savage and intense. The Conqueror gave no quarter, and his soldiers advanced like a spring tide. So many were injured; so many died. The woman – Aetha, her name was – had turned her attention to laying out the dead.
Then they brought in Edmer. At first Hrype looked down at his patient through the eyes of a brother; here was Edmer, dear Edmer, little companion of childhood, beloved friend of adulthood. The wound in Edmer’s leg made Hrype shake with dread. Edmer had been struck just above the knee by a Norman arrow and somebody, perhaps even Edmer himself, had tried to wrench it from the flesh. At the base of the deep, bloody pit could be seen the head of the arrow . . . Then the healer took the place of the brother. Hrype emerged from his shock and, cool headed, got on with what he must do.
Froya was beside him, and with a part of his mind he noticed, admiring, that she, too, had managed to put her fear for her husband aside while she focused on nursing him. They washed out the wound, Froya keeping a pad of linen ready and mopping at the blood that went on welling up like a spring so that Hrype could see what he was doing.
The first touch on the arrowhead caused Edmer to shriek in pain. Hrype stopped then and, selecting his most potent herbs, made a draught for his brother so strong that the muscles tensed against the agony seemed to relax before their eyes. Edmer, barely conscious, managed a smile and said, ‘Get on with it.’
Hrype dug and delved. Froya mopped and wiped, repeatedly throwing blood-saturated cloths on to the fire as she reached for more. Hrype tried to work faster – his brother’s life force was ebbing away, and he seemed powerless to call it back – and, steeling himself, he made one more great effort, pushing back the strong sinews of Edmer’s thigh and driving the pincers deeper, deeper, until his grip on the arrowhead at last felt secure. He closed his eyes, very aware of the great brown bear that was his spirit guide hovering somewhere close, and then he pulled.
The arrowhead emerged with a nauseating squelch, bringing with it pieces of Edmer’s flesh. Instantly, Froya set to work, washing out the terrible hole with water that had been infused with lavender and rosemary oils, and when she was done, and Hrype was satisfied, he reassembled the pulp of the thigh and stitched it together.
The shock claimed its first casualty: Hrype and Edmer’s mother, already devastated by the seizure that had grabbed her on the flight to Ely, gave her maimed son one last smile, nodded with love in her eyes to his sound brother and, giving up her spirit, quietly died.
They had done all they could for Edmer. Hrype knew that, although it did not assuage his guilt. The damage had probably been done the moment the arrow struck, carrying with it whatever foul matter that soon began to spread through Edmer’s body. He was a strong man and he’d fought back but it had been no good . . .
When after a week the lower leg was turning black, streaks of dark red running like tracks up from the wound towards Edmer’s groin and the smell of dying flesh filling the little room, Hrype knew what he had to do.
Edmer’s fever ran high and he slipped in and ou
t of consciousness. Hrype dosed him with the strongest potion he had ever administered, and then he sharpened his knives and his saw and took off his brother’s leg.
He made a fine job of it; he knew that there was no element in all his medical treatment of his brother for which he could berate himself. He had performed many amputations, and he knew how to leave a flap of healthy skin to stitch over the stump of limb. He and Froya kept Edmer clean, they fed him skilfully blended remedies and whenever he would, to please them, try to eat, they were ready with mouthfuls of nourishing food. Edmer held on.
He might have lived had they not had to move him. But the Conqueror was savage in his vengeance, and Edmer was a wanted man with a price on his head.
Hrype spent all his remaining money on a sway-backed old mare that was worth at most a quarter of what he paid, and by night he carried his brother out of the little house and set him on its back. The he watched as Froya led the animal away.
Not for long; he dried the tears that seemed to have escaped from his eyes and got on with what he had to do. The Normans believed they had all the time they needed to come for Edmer; they knew where he was, and they knew he now had only one leg. Hrype kept up the pretence of nursing his brother, even making a man-shape out of straw and tucking it beneath the covers where Edmer had lain and suffered. If anyone peered into the room, they would think Edmer was still there.
He stayed there for four days. Then one dark night he slipped away.
He did not know where Froya and Edmer had gone, and for some time he did not try to find them. He had done all he could for his brother, and Froya would nurse him as well as Hrype could have done; perhaps it was better to leave them be.
But he could not fight his own deep self. By night he dreamed of them; by day his inner eye saw them. Edmer was dying and Froya . . .
Even now he could not bear to think of it.
He had given in to what his heart commanded. He had crept from the ruined barn where he’d been camping and, by the light of a bright young moon, he’d lit the special fire, entered the trance state and humbly asked the spirits to show him the way. Two days later he’d arrived at Aelf Fen.
It was exactly as the vision had shown him. Edmer died a week later, his head in his wife’s lap and his hand in Hrype’s. He whispered a hoarse blessing, and then his spirit flew away.
Froya’s child was born in the depths of the harsh winter that followed. The birth was hard and the labour long; Sibert came into the world yelling his protest.
Sibert.
Wearily, Hrype opened his eyes. It was deep night, dark and profoundly still. Sometimes, when he had suffered the parade of scenes from the past as it scoured across his mind and finally relinquished him, he managed to sleep afterwards. It would not be so tonight. Sibert had not returned from Ely, and Hrype was very afraid he knew why. Morcar was safely ensconced in Edild’s little house, and thanks to both Lassair, who had administered the original treatment, and now Edild herself, he was quickly recovering. Sibert had brought him home, rowing him across the flooded fenland in a leaking old boat, but he had set off back to Ely as soon as he had handed Morcar over. Hrype had not even seen him; Edild had reported calmly that Sibert was anxious to return to Lassair, busy keeping up the pretence that her patient was still on the island, just as Hrype had done before her, so that those who wanted to kill him would not realize he had gone.
Hrype could not protest. Sibert and Lassair were acting courageously and sensibly, and on the face of it there could be no argument with their chosen course of action.
Only Hrype knew there was more to it. His own instincts had told him why Sibert wanted to stay on the Isle of Ely. To confirm it, he had looked into the scrying ball and seen into Sibert’s mind. There was confusion there, as well as anger. Above all there was determination. Hrype had at last cast the runes, and then he’d seen everything.
He will not come home, Hrype thought. Not until he knows. He sighed, for he knew what he must do and he did not want to do it. Froya’s mood was already low and troubled, and if he, too, went away he knew she would descend into the melancholia that so often afflicted her. But there was no choice; Sibert’s course was set and the runes said he would not divert from it.
The only thing that Hrype could do was make sure he was there when the inevitable happened. He might not survive – he recalled Sibert’s anger, to which he had been a reluctant witness – but he would have to take that chance.
He lay in the dark and formulated his plans. When dawn began to send a paler light into the eastern sky, he was already up. His pack stood ready by the door, and he sat by the hearth waiting for Froya to wake up. She opened her eyes and looked right at him. She knew. He watched as her face crumpled and tears overflowed down her pale cheeks. But she did not try to stop him.
I tried to think. I was still shaking with fear, for now that I thought about it I realized that I had surely just seen an apparition. Had it truly been there, with its face of horror and the long streaks of blood down its white shroud? Or had I picked up the pale youth’s terror and seen what he believed he had seen? Either way, the thing in the old church had been an abomination, and I felt as if I were disturbed in some frightful way right to my very roots.
As if that were not bad enough, the four broad, thickset monks who had come looking for the pale monk had seen me. They could not but have noticed that the boy and I had our heads together and were whispering; would they jump to the conclusion that he had imparted to me the essence of the dread secret that lay at the heart of this mystery, and would he then be able to persuade them that he hadn’t? Our encounter had been brief, but even in that short time I had sensed that he was honest and decent. I was sure he would do his best to protect me, even . . .
No. It was no good. I was suddenly convinced that it was the pale boy himself who was the secret. Even if he had not uttered a word, I knew he was in there and the four monks now knew that. They had tried to kill Morcar, and they had killed two men they mistook for Morcar, merely because he had witnessed the pale youth being smuggled inside the abbey. What were my chances now that I had seen him in there?
My fear escalated, and without any conscious effort I found I was running, my satchel bouncing on my hip, the skirts of my robe and my cloak threatening to trip me. I gathered them up and ran for my life.
I fled across the marketplace and into the maze of narrow, ill-lit streets opening off it. It was late now, fully dark, and there were few people about. I ran on, panting, a stitch in my side. The houses thinned and petered out; I found myself on the edge of a rain-soaked stretch of open space that sloped gently down to the water. There was a shelter of some sort at the water’s edge, and I hurried down to it; it was a wash house. There was nobody within – people don’t do their laundry late in the evening – and I went inside and slumped on to the stone bench that ran along its rear wall.
My heartbeat gradually slowed. I took deep breaths and, as the sweat cooled on my body, clutched my cloak tightly around me, pulling the hood over my head.
The hood . . . With a stab of profound relief, I thought of something. It wasn’t much but it gave me a glimmer of hope. I had gone inside the abbey as a nun, wimpled and veiled like a Benedictine. I had been wearing my disguise when the four monks approached. With any luck, they would not have realized that the nun whispering to their pale boy was the healer who had tended the man they attacked.
With any luck.
I closed my eyes, concentrated so hard that it made my head throb and summoned my guardian. He came quickly – I’m sure he had been with me all evening – and I sensed the tip of his cool nose push into my hot hand. In my mind I saw him, his luxuriant red coat glowing in the starlight, his deep, dark eyes quietly watching me. It was strange because just for an instant I thought I saw the shadowy shape of another animal standing behind him. It was a silver wolf; Edild’s spirit animal.
Already comforted by the reassuring presence of Fox, now I smiled in the still night, for I knew my a
unt was thinking about me and her thought was so powerful that her guardian had materialized in the dark place where I was.
Slowly, I reached up and took off the wimple, folding it neatly and stowing it in my satchel. I unwound the tight bun – I had drawn my hair back so severely that the skin of my forehead felt unnaturally stretched – and shook my head, feeling my long hair swing around my neck and shoulders. I sat quite still, composing myself and putting my essence back into my true self. Then, recalling all that Edild had taught me about invisibility – which actually is no such thing, just a way of blending into the background so that nobody notices you – I got to my feet and set off up the alley and back into the town.
I kept to the shadows until I reached the market square. I had to cross it to reach the alley where our little house was and I knew that, if unfriendly eyes were looking out for me, then what I must not do was appear furtive. I slid along right in front of the houses that bordered the square, keeping under the overhanging roofs, walking steadily but not hurrying. I am a healer who has been called out to tend a patient, I repeated to myself. I have laboured long and I am tired, so that my feet drag a little. I stumbled, quickly righting myself. I am heading for my home and a well-deserved rest. I let out a little sigh, which turned into a yawn.
I was in the alley now. I risked a glance over my shoulder at the abbey gates; I would be out of the line of sight of anyone looking out in an instant, so I felt it was safe.
The great gate was not quite shut. I could not see anyone but nevertheless I knew he was there. I felt eyes like bright lights searching the darkness; searching for me.
Either he did not see me or he’d realized that I was no nun and so he had no interest in me. I did not wait to find out; I gathered up my skirts again and ran for home.
I did not appreciate how very much I was looking forward to Sibert’s presence in the little house until I got back and found he wasn’t there. I let myself in and closed the door, trying not to let the panic take over.