Blood of the South

FIFTEEN

Hrype and I walked through the darkness for a long time. I was wondering how much further we were going to have to go when a big, broad shape loomed up out of the shadows ahead.

‘I decided to walk to meet you,’ a deep and well-remembered voice said.

With a gasp, I broke into a run. My grandfather opened his arms to receive me, and I fell against him. For some moments I just stood there, breathing in his scent. It was just as I remembered it; the essence of him. When he had first embraced me, long before I knew of our close relationship, something deep within me had recognized him. Perhaps, I’ve subsequently thought, it was his blood calling out to mine.

Gently he disengaged himself, keeping hold of my hand, then, nodding ahead down the narrow track that wound through the reed bed, he said, ‘Come with me. I have made camp down there, and we will be more comfortable under cover.’

We followed the little waterway for perhaps thirty or forty paces, then, as the track rounded a gentle bend, I saw a small wooden boat tied up to the bank. Thorfinn had rigged up lengths of skins and oiled cloth, giving the impression that a low tent rose up over the boat.

Thorfinn let go of my hand and, striding ahead, opened a gap in the awning, indicating that Hrype and I should go aboard. I eased myself down the bank and stepped inside. Instantly the little craft rocked beneath me, and hurriedly I sat down on the bench that ran around the boat’s sides, reaching out to steady the single lamp that Thorfinn had left alight.

Hrype settled beside me, and Thorfinn took what I guessed was his accustomed place at the back of the boat, wrapping his thick cloak around him. He lit another lantern, and as the flame flared up, I looked around. Thorfinn’s stores of food and drink were neatly stowed in the bows, and he had padded the seating area with well-stuffed sacks to keep out the cold. Rolled-up blankets were stored under the bench. I smiled. I might have known an experienced mariner such as he would know how to make life on a small boat adequately comfortable.

My grandfather looked at me. ‘Have you brought the shining stone?’ he asked softly.

‘I have.’ I placed the stone, still inside its leather bag, on my lap.

‘Will you look into it and tell me what you see?’ Thorfinn’s expression was hungry.

I made myself stare into his eyes. His gaze was steady and penetrating, and, although I knew he meant me no harm, I was unnerved by the power I sensed in him.

I eased the bag open and drew out the stone. I pushed aside the sheep’s wool and spread both my hands around its cool, hard smoothness. Then, surely too fast to have been as a result of my touch, the stone began to feel first warm, and then hot.

I tore my eyes away from my grandfather’s and looked down. The rivers of gold and green that ran deep within the stone were already beginning to shine, and, even as I watched, they became incandescent, their light rivalling and then eclipsing that of the two lamps. I heard someone gasp – my grandfather? Hrype? – but it was as if the sound was from far away and nothing to do with me.

Perhaps as a result of my experiment that afternoon, the shining stone was responding to me. To the warmth of my blood pulsing through my veins; to my soul, maybe, which the stone had begun to recognize. Out of somewhere in the recent past, I heard Gurdyman’s voice, speaking of the stone: It needs to stay close to you.

As if the shining stone had a will of its own.

Well, if that was right – and still the reasoning, logical part of my mind was struggling to accept the evidence I could see with my own eyes, and feel in my own hands – it suggested that Gurdyman had been absolutely right. The stone was as curious about me as I was about it, and it was setting about satisfying that curiosity by sending its essence out to meet mine.

But that, a rational and steadily diminishing part of me responded, was nonsense. It was just a stone …

I stared into the shining stone, now living up to its epithet with such a glorious display of light that my eyes had instinctively narrowed. Those fascinating strands of green and gold drew my gaze, and I had the sense that I was falling more deeply into the dark depths. But I was not afraid: I knew the stone was not my enemy but my ally.

And then from somewhere came understanding so firm, so certain that there was no arguing with it: the time when others could command and control my interaction with the shining stone was over.

For some time I just sat there, my hands clasped around the stone, my eyes half-closed as I stared at the movements I could see within it; the shapes, images, pictures, ideas, even, that formed, melted and reformed as I watched.

Thorfinn and Hrype were very patient; I’ll give them that.

Finally, I believed I was ready for them. Carefully I moved my hands so that my palms and interlinked fingers covered the stone’s surface. The light instantly dimmed and, once more, the scene was illuminated solely by Thorfinn’s two lanterns. Then I raised my eyes and looked straight at my grandfather.

‘You wanted me to see what Skuli was doing, and I’ve done so. I’m not referring to what I’ve just seen,’ I added swiftly, as he opened his mouth to speak. ‘I’m referring to the last time I looked into the stone, when I was with you, Hrype.’ I gave him a quick glance, then turned back to Thorfinn. ‘I won’t repeat the information, since I’m quite sure Hrype will already have told you every last detail, but, to summarize, we know that Skuli reached Miklagard after a headlong rush that lost him crewmen.’ I paused, steadying myself. Despite the new-found confidence which the shining stone seemed to have bestowed on me, it was still nerve-racking to confront two such powerful men. ‘We also know,’ I went on softly, ‘that Miklagard was not Skuli’s final destination.’

In the sudden, utter silence, I heard the hoot of a hunting owl, somewhere out on the fens.

Now I had to grab my chance. I was about to do something I’d never attempted before, and I knew that my slender courage would fail if I gave myself time to think.

‘Before I describe what the stone has just revealed to me,’ I went on, trying to keep my voice steady, ‘you must tell me where he’s going, and what he intends to do there.’

Thorfinn’s expression smoothed into bland indifference, but not quickly enough; I had caught a glimpse of his anguish. Clearly, he didn’t want to share whatever he knew, or suspected, with me. He met Hrype’s eyes, and I thought Hrype gave a small shake of the head. So that was how it would be …

With a smile, my grandfather said, ‘I can’t tell you, child, because I don’t know for certain. He-’ A pause. ‘Skuli has a warped soul. He believes life has treated him very unfairly, and that the shining stone should be his. If it were, he is convinced that he would have led the hero’s life he so desperately wants. With its help, he would have made voyages and discoveries of the sort that become legends, to be told and retold by the bards until the end of our line.’ Briefly he closed his eyes. ‘For better or worse, actions were taken to ensure Skuli never got his hands on the shining stone. But, in the end, it made no difference; he has gone to pursue his dream anyway.’

I waited, but it seemed he had finished.

I could scarcely believe it.

‘But what dream?’ I cried, my voice loud in the enclosed space.

Now Thorfinn’s distress was written all over his face. He leaned close to me. ‘Child, child, it is perilous even to speak of it!’ he said, his voice almost a moan of pain. ‘You must trust to older and wiser heads, and accept that some things it is truly better not to know.’

Once more, silence fell. I said, wondering at my nerve even as I spoke, ‘Then you’re not going to hear what the stone just imparted to me.’

Thorfinn’s mouth fell open. ‘You saw?’ he hissed, and anger flared in his eyes. ‘You saw the place? Those ancient, wondrous halls, and the ravens which-’

‘Enough.’ Hrype spat out the single word with the force of an arrow hitting the butt. I twisted round to him, my fury about to erupt, but he forestalled me. ‘She’s fooling you, Thorfinn! She saw nothing – she’s leading you on, in the hope that you’ll tell her what she wants to know.’

Hrype was right. In that moment, I hated him for his perception. He knew me far too well and he hadn’t hesitated to use that knowledge against me, stepping in to stop Thorfinn just as he was about to speak.

Ravens. He’d said ravens.

I’d seen them.

Thorfinn was looking at me. ‘Is this true, child? You were trying to mislead me?’

I met his eyes. Gathering the remnants of my courage, I said, ‘Yes, Grandfather, I was.’ Making myself ignore the disappointment in his face, I hurried on. ‘You have asked too much of me. You would have me use the shining stone – which you put into my hands – for your own purposes.’ I stopped, my response to his pain making my eyes fill with tears. Then, anger rising again, I said, ‘If you have a use for the stone, you should have held on to it.’

He went white. I knew I had gone too far, but whatever was driving me wouldn’t let me apologize. Instead, I said coldly, ‘Please don’t ask me again to use the shining stone to do your bidding. It doesn’t work like that any more.’ I paused, for this was important. ‘It’s mine now, and it’s concerned only with my preoccupations. Nobody else’s,’ I added for emphasis, ‘even yours.’

Thorfinn didn’t reply. I think he was shocked into silence. Hrype made no comment either, although I could feel his furious disapproval coming at me like a wave. I risked a glance in his direction. His silvery eyes were narrowed to slits.

I busied myself wrapping the stone in its soft wool and stowing it back inside the leather bag. Then I got up from the bench, pushing aside the heavy awning.

‘You’re going?’ Thorfinn’s voice cut into the silence.

‘Yes.’

‘But you can’t go alone! It’s dark, and the waters still run high. You should-’

I cut him off. ‘I’ve lived in the fens all my life and I’m perfectly capable of finding my way home,’ I said. I stepped up on to the bank.

‘Hrype, stop her!’ Thorfinn commanded.

‘She knows her own mind,’ Hrype replied coldly. ‘Let her go.’

He spoke as if he hated me. It was too much. Sticking my head and shoulders back in through the gap in the awning, I let all the anger, hurt and resentment fuse into a weapon as sharp as a sword. Unfortunately, I aimed it at the wrong target.

Glaring at Thorfinn, I said, ‘One more thing: you need to explain to my father who you are. It’s not right or fair that I know and he doesn’t. Apart from anything else, you’re forcing me to enact a lie with someone I really love, and it’s very, very painful.’ I paused for breath, fighting not to let the sight of Thorfinn’s expression affect me. ‘My father’s a grown man, and he’s tough,’ I finished. ‘The news won’t break him. Compared to everyone and everything he holds dear, it’s just not important enough.’

I flung the awning back into place and strode away along the narrow track.

Hrype studied the old man. He sat with bent head, the broad shoulders sagging, one hand covering his face.

She has hurt him, Hrype thought. So far he has only known one face of his granddaughter, and now he has seen another. She is a lot tougher than he had suspected.

He watched Thorfinn struggle to overcome his distress. Finally, the old man lowered the concealing hand and turned to Hrype. ‘She is quite right,’ he said quietly. ‘What she said pained me, but in both matters – her right to use the shining stone as she wishes, and my need to confess the truth to my son – she tells me what my conscience already knows.’

Hrype considered, his head on one side. ‘In essence, yes,’ he agreed. He paused. There was something he knew he should add, but it was not strictly necessary, and he was impatient to discuss what he and Thorfinn should do next. But, somewhat to his amazement – he prided himself on being above emotion – the old man’s distress had affected him.

‘You should not be surprised at her strength,’ he heard himself say. ‘She is of your own blood, old man, and you do not breed weaklings. Her mother, too, is formidable.’ He smiled, a swift expression there and gone in a moment. ‘Threaten those she loves and she’ll use an iron cooking pot on you as if it were a battle axe,’ he murmured.

Thorfinn looked up at him. ‘Really?’

‘So they say,’ Hrype confirmed. There was more; he made himself go on. ‘Thorfinn, I sense that already she is regretting her cruel words to you,’ he said. ‘It was me she wished to hurt, but you, being more vulnerable, were the easier target.’

‘Why should she wish to hurt you?’

Because she grows in strength and will one day rival me, and because I cannot let myself admit it, I suppress her, was the honest answer. Hrype wasn’t going to share that with Thorfinn. He shook his head. ‘Explanations would take too long. The important thing is that what has just happened will not come between you.’

Thorfinn’s face lightened. ‘You are sure?’

‘I am.’ All at once weary of the discussion, Hrype hardened his tone and said, ‘Now, what are we to do about Skuli?’

Next morning, I was heavy-eyed after my night’s excitement. I was also sore at heart and guilty; I had shouted at my grandfather and hurt him, and he really hadn’t deserved it.

I didn’t try to justify to myself why I sought out Jack. I needed to be with him: that was all.

He was in the Lakehall stables, tending his horses. He seemed to find conversation as awkward as I did, and, for want of anything better, I said, ‘I asked my aunt if my Granny Cordeilla revealed anything useful concerning her missing brother, but she said not.’

He didn’t reply straight away. Then, just when I was thinking I ought to go and leave him to his work, he said, ‘The missing one was the youngest brother, you said. What of the others?’

‘He and the two who fell at Hastings were the final three. There were two older sisters, but they died years ago.’ I paused. ‘Oh, and one entered a monastery. His name was Sihtric.’

‘Is this monk still alive?’

‘Yes, as far as I know. He’s in an enclosed community out to the south-east of Cambridge, at Little Barton.’

‘Quite an easy ride, now that the flood waters are receding,’ Jack observed. He reached out for the grey gelding’s bridle, deftly buckling the straps.

‘But he won’t know what happened to Harald!’ I protested. ‘He may not even be still alive.’

‘Wouldn’t his monastery have notified his family if he’d died?’ Jack asked.

‘Yes, I suppose so.’

His own horse was now tacked up. Gently pushing me out of the way, he turned his attention to Isis. ‘We’ll go and find out.’

We reached Little Barton in the late morning. Jack had been right about the flood water, and there had only been one place where we’d had to make a detour. The village was tiny: a collection of lowly dwellings, a run-down smithy, a church with holes in its roof. Jack asked a man waiting for the smith to finish replacing a shoe on his horse’s hind foot if he knew of a monastery in the area. He removed the straw from his mouth, spat, then silently pointed down the narrow track leading off behind the church.

We headed out of the village. Several small boys emerged from a line of hovels, and one of them said a dirty word. For a few awkward moments, we were the centre of attention, and several pairs of round eyes in snotty-nosed faces watched as we rode by. Perhaps they didn’t get many visitors.

The monastery was about a mile out of the village. It consisted of a small group of wattle-and-daub buildings up on a slight rise, and the largest of them had a wooden cross on its roof. The buildings were enclosed by a high paling fence, and the tops of the palings were sharpened into points. On three sides, the fence merged into thick undergrowth from which stands of willow, hazel and alder rose up, effectively concealing the monastery. In the fence facing us as we approached there was a gate, firmly closed.

‘Do you think they’re trying to keep the world out or the monks in?’ Jack wondered, staring at the wretched enclosure before us.

‘A bit of both,’ I replied.

‘What do they do all day?’ Jack went on. ‘They obviously don’t spend their time tending the poor and the needy.’

‘They’ll have to support themselves,’ I said, ‘so presumably they farm their land.’ In a field to our right there was a small herd of skinny cows. ‘And most of their time is probably spent in prayer.’

‘Praying for a better world,’ Jack muttered. ‘I can’t help but think they’d do more good trying to heal the sick and feed the hungry, but I suppose it’s a matter of belief.’

‘Granny Cordeilla said Sihtric was always a dreamer, even as a boy,’ I said. ‘He got out of a lot of distasteful chores by saying he had to go and communicate with God.’

‘It looks as if he’s still doing the same,’ Jack observed. ‘Let’s see if they’ll open the gate and admit us.’

We rode up to the fence and dismounted. I held our horses’ reins, and Jack banged on the gate. It was some time before anyone came to see what we wanted. Finally, a tiny gap appeared between the stout wood of the gate and the frame in which it was set, and a cowled face peered out. ‘What do you want?’ hissed a reedy voice.

‘We wish to speak to Brother Sihtric,’ Jack said firmly. ‘This young woman is his great-niece, and needs to consult him urgently on a family matter.’

‘We abandon our families when we enter St Botolph’s,’ the monk said reprovingly.

‘But perhaps your families do not abandon you,’ Jack replied gently. ‘Is Brother Sihtric here?’

‘Of course he is,’ the monk snapped. He opened the gate a fraction more, glaring out at me from faded, rheumy eyes narrowed into suspicious slits. ‘You can’t come in, you’re a woman,’ he accused. ‘No women allowed!’

He went to slam the gate shut, but Jack had put his foot in the gap. Wincing slightly – the stringy old monk must have been tougher than he looked – he said reasonably, ‘Well, if we can’t come in, perhaps Brother Sihtric could come and speak to us here?’

The monk frowned, furiously working empty jaws together as if chewing on invisible meat. Then he said, ‘Wait,’ and slammed the gate shut.

We waited. There was the sound of a brief muttered conversation, and within the enclosure a door creaked open and closed. Footsteps approached, and the gate opened again – a little wider this time – to reveal an even smaller and more wizened monk dressed in a patched and fraying habit.

I knew he was my great-uncle even before he spoke. He had a look of Granny Cordeilla in his very stance, and the deep, dark eyes, bright as a robin’s despite his advanced years, were hers exactly.

‘You wish to speak to me?’ he asked, his voice cracked and rusty with disuse. He cleared his throat of accumulated phlegm and spat a glistening, yellowish gobbet on to the ground.

‘I’m Cordeilla’s granddaughter,’ I said before he could change his mind and shut himself away again. ‘Her son Wymond’s child.’

‘Cordeilla.’ His lined old face softened. ‘How is she?’

‘She died,’ I admitted. ‘Two years and more ago.’

He nodded, as if it was only to be expected. ‘I shall pray for her,’ he said. ‘Was that what you came to tell me?’

I hesitated, but, with those eyes so like my Granny Cordeilla’s burning into mine, I could only tell the truth. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry that nobody thought to inform you before, but that isn’t why I’m here.’ I drew a breath. ‘I wanted to ask you if you ever heard word from Harald. Do you know where he is?’

Sihtric watched me. ‘Harald fled,’ he said. ‘Didn’t want to stay here, once the fight was lost.’

‘I know,’ I said gently. ‘I’m not judging him. I just want to know if he ever sent you any communication, any message, that might reveal where he went.’ Sihtric didn’t answer. In desperation, I said urgently, ‘He didn’t go to Spain, did he?’ I prayed he wouldn’t say yes.

Perhaps prayers said right outside a monastery stand a better chance of being heard and answered; I don’t know. But, with a smile, Sihtric said, ‘Spain? No, no, Harald didn’t go to Spain.’ He chuckled, as if to say, why on earth would anyone wish to go there?

‘Where, then?’ I whispered, hardly daring to breathe.

‘He was a fighter, child,’ Sihtric said kindly. ‘It was the only thing he was good at, and, even then, Sagar was a better shot and Sigbehrt a far better warrior. Where would a warrior go, d’you imagine?’

I didn’t know. I shook my head.

But Jack knew. ‘He’d make his way to where warriors of his race and size were known to be welcomed,’ he said softly. ‘Like so many of his Saxon comrades, he’d have gone south.’

‘South, aye, south,’ Sihtric agreed, shifting his gaze to Jack and nodding his approval. ‘He went to serve the emperor in Miklagard, as one of his Varangian Guard. As far as I know, he’s still there.’

As the initial shock began to wear off, I said, ‘How do you know? How could he possibly have told you?’

Sihtric looked at me, my Granny Cordeilla’s smile brightening his face. ‘Many of our race travel to Miklagard,’ he said. ‘It is not so unusual a voyage.’ He was speaking more easily now, and I had the sense that he was enjoying this rare chance to converse with someone other than his fellow monks. ‘Many come back again, since, unlike Harald and the Varangians, they go not to make a new life but to trade. Harald sent word to me via one such trader returning to these shores. It was -’ he screwed up his face in concentration – ‘perhaps ten or a dozen years after he disappeared? I cannot recall exactly, for time passes slowly in this place and one year is very much like another.’

‘What did the message say?’ I asked, trying to speak calmly.

‘He wished me to know that he was married,’ Sihtric replied with a gentle smile. ‘Crusty old bachelor that he was, he had fallen in love with the daughter of a Frankish merchant, and she, it appeared, reciprocated the sentiment. Her name was Gabriela de Valery, and, according to Harald, she was tall, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, very beautiful and utterly perfect.’ The smile widened into a reminiscent grin. ‘Mind you,’ he added, ‘there was never anyone like Harald for building up a tale, and we always took everything he said with a pinch of salt.’

Harald had married! And this Sihtric, this sibling who had shut himself away from the world, had known, yet my beloved Granny Cordeilla hadn’t.

‘Why did he tell you when he didn’t tell Cordeilla?’ I demanded, the pain and hurt I was feeling on her behalf making me angry. In my distress, I felt her presence acutely. I could see her, a vague, misty shape on the edge of my vision. She was fuming. ‘She was his last surviving sister, and she loved him!’ I yelled.

Sihtric looked at me, compassion in his face. ‘I cannot say for sure,’ he said, ‘although I can guess. Harald thought, I imagine, that Cordeilla hated him. He believed she could not forgive him for not having brought the bodies of Sagar and Sigbehrt back to Aelf Fen. I would guess that, in addition, he thought she would rather one of the other two had been spared instead of him. Perhaps he was right.’ He sighed, his dark eyes softening. ‘When we were children, it was always Cordeilla and Harald who picked the most frequent and violent fights with each other.’

‘That might suggest that they were the closest and the most alike,’ Jack said quietly. ‘It is often the way, that the siblings who most resemble each other find so much more to disagree about.’

‘You are right,’ Sihtric said, turning to him with a smile. His eyes seemed to stare out over our heads, as if he were focusing on the distant past. ‘How long ago it all seems. And now, you say, Cordeilla is dead, and I am the only one left.’

‘Harald may still be alive!’ I protested. For some reason, I very much wanted to believe it was true.

Sihtric returned his attention to me. ‘Perhaps so, child,’ he said kindly. ‘But he was a fighter, and that is a dangerous profession. He would be an old man by now, nearly as old as me.’ He sighed. ‘I cannot hold out much hope that he still walks this earth.’ He nodded, already turning to retreat back inside his monastery. ‘I shall pray for him too,’ he added, stepping inside and beginning to close the gate, ‘and for all my brothers and sisters, gone before me to the paradise that we hope awaits us. Farewell, child.’

And, very firmly and finally, the gate was shut. There was the sound of heavy bolts being shot across. The monks of St Botolph’s, it seemed, had finished with us.

Jack did not speak as we rode away. I was grateful. My mind was in turmoil, and I needed time to sort out my emotions. Harald had gone to Miklagard! He had married, made his home and lived the remainder of his life in that impossibly distant city. Oh, why had none of us known? Why, in God’s name, had the only member of the family Harald had seen fit to inform been a monk who didn’t communicate with the rest of us from one year’s end to the next?

Poor Granny Cordeilla! How hurt she would have been, that he had sent no word to her. She would have-

I’m all right, child. I could hear her, inside my head. Sihtric spoke wisely; Harald and I did fight more than the others, and we were two of a kind.

‘I’m sorry he never contacted you,’ I whispered very quietly.

Don’t you fret, she replied robustly. Typical Harald, to send his information to the one sibling who didn’t talk to any of the others! Two of a kind we might have been, but that doesn’t mean I liked him much.

It was so typical of Granny Cordeilla that I had to laugh.

The day was warm, and we stopped at a ford to water the horses. I felt like singing: relief that our Harald had gone to Miklagard, not Spain, and therefore couldn’t possibly be Lady Rosaria’s father-in-law, was bubbling up into happiness. I flung myself down on the grass beside Jack, leant back against his tree and accepted a drink from his water bag.

He seemed preoccupied, barely responding to my remarks. After quite a long silence, he said, ‘Lassair, I’ve been thinking.’

‘Oh?’

He got to his feet, then held out his hand to me and helped me up. ‘Yes. I-’

I heard the whistle. I saw the glint of sunshine on a bright blade. I knew what it was: part of me had been expecting it. Instinctively I flung my arms round Jack’s neck and, using my full weight, dragged him down so that we fell in a heap on the ground.

The knife plunged deep into the trunk of the tree, precisely where our heads had just been.

He had fallen on top of me, and I could hardly breathe. He rolled off me, already up in a crouch, eyes everywhere as he sought for the thrower of the knife. With a shout he was on his feet, sprinting across the grass and plunging through the stream.

‘Be careful!’ I screamed. ‘He’ll have other weapons!’

I don’t think Jack heard. Moving with unbelievable speed, he thrust his way into a thicket on the far bank, and a cry of pain rent the air.

I raced after him, down the slope, across the stream, up the bank on the far side. I launched myself into the thicket, my small blade in my hand, tripped over an outstretched pair of legs and landed on a supine body.

It wasn’t Jack’s. In that first moment, that was all I could take in.

Jack had turned the assailant on to his belly, the face pressed into the earth, and he was tying the man’s wrists behind his back with a leather thong.

‘I punched him and knocked him out,’ Jack panted, ‘but he’s not hurt otherwise.’

I stared down at the still form. I noticed that my hands were empty, and that a pool of blood was welling up in the middle of the man’s back, staining the cloth of his tunic. In the centre of the red patch, the handle of my knife stuck up.

‘Yes, he is,’ I said softly.

I began to shake, covering my face with my hands. Jack gave an exclamation, and I heard the sound of ripping material. Then he said, ‘Lassair, you need to look at this.’

‘I can’t!’ I whispered. ‘Oh, God, what have I done?’

Then Jack was beside me, holding me by the shoulders. ‘He just threw a knife at us,’ he said harshly. ‘You acted in self-defence and to protect me. That is no crime. Now, tend his wound.’

I did as he told me.

When I pulled out my blade, the blood flowed so fast that I was afraid the man would die. Then I became purely a healer, instructing Jack where to apply pressure while I prepared a length of gut, and then how to hold the man still while I closed the wound. He was coming round, and screaming in agony.

‘Untie his wrists,’ I said to Jack.

‘No.’ He sounded implacably stern; quite unlike the man I was starting to know. ‘He threw a knife at us, Lassair. He’s dangerous and skilful – had you not pulled me down, one of us would now be dead.’

He was right.

Jack turned the man over and forced him to sit up. Then he slapped his face once, hard. ‘Why did you drown her?’ he demanded. ‘Did someone order you not to leave any witnesses alive?’

The man stared up at him, his face full of hate. He spat out a mouthful of bloody spittle, then said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

Jack gave him a shake. ‘You’ve been following us. You tried to kill us. You won’t leave here alive unless you tell me why.’

Suddenly I heard something. ‘Jack, there’s someone else out there,’ I said urgently.

Jack shoved the man back down on the ground and got to his feet. Swiftly he pushed his way through the undergrowth on the far side from where we’d entered the thicket, and through the tangle of branches I saw him circle round. I guessed he was going to jump whoever was out there from behind.

I waited.

Then Jack came crashing back, pushing before him a tall shaven-headed man with dark close-set eyes. I’d seen him before, but in that moment of fear and danger, I couldn’t place him.

But Jack knew exactly who he was. He had twisted the bald man’s arms behind his back, and from the expression on the man’s face, he was causing considerable pain.

‘So you thought to take your chance while I was out in the wilds, did you?’ Jack said with icy fury. He wrenched the man’s arms again, and he suppressed a cry. ‘You sent your killer to throw his knife and pin me to a tree in the depths of the fens, where nobody would find me?’ Another wrench and this time the bald man yelled in pain. ‘I should kill you right now, and the dregs you paid to do your work for you.’ He gave the wounded man at his feet a savage kick.

‘Jack,’ I said warningly.

He’d forgotten I was there. Now, he turned his head fractionally to look at me. ‘Don’t waste your pity on the likes of these two,’ he said coldly. ‘One of them is a hired murderer -’ he kicked the wounded man again – ‘and the other -’ he twisted the bald man’s arms so violently that he was lifted off his feet, his mouth wide in a silent scream of agony – ‘is Gaspard Picot.’

Picot … Then I knew who the bald man was: the sheriff’s nephew. He’d argued with Jack as we were leaving Cambridge with the veiled lady.

A lifetime ago.

The silence extended, broken only by Gaspard Picot’s ragged breathing and the harsh panting of the man on the ground. I said, ‘Are you going to kill them?’

With an exclamation of disgust, Jack extracted another length of leather from inside his tunic and bound the bald man’s hands behind him. Then he kicked his legs from under him, so that he collapsed against the man he’d hired to kill for him.

‘No,’ he said shortly.

Then he strode out from the thicket, waded back across the stream and, gathering the grey’s reins, mounted. I hurried after him, struggling to get on to Isis’s back and kicking her into a canter; Jack had already ridden away.

I caught him up. ‘You’re not – surely you’re not just going to leave them there?’ He said nothing. ‘Jack, they could die!’

He turned to me, his eyes alive with fury. ‘That’d be two less enemies, then.’

I didn’t know how to respond. I was out of my depth, for Jack was dealing with something with which I had no experience.

I reined Isis back, slipped in behind Jack’s grey and we rode back to Aelf Fen.