Blood of the South

FOUR

The Maid of the Marsh was a typical river craft: long and narrow, not very big, with a wide space on her foredeck for cargo. There was a mast amidships and spaces down each side for oars. One of her crew had clearly suffered a lapse of attention, allowing her to run into something hard, and at some speed. On the right hand side of her bow, there was quite a large area of new planking, in the seams of which a sailor was now splashing large amounts of a thick, tarry substance. Hearing our footsteps, he looked up and gave us a toothy grin.

‘Is your master aboard?’ Jack asked.

‘Aye, that’s him, back there.’ He inclined his head towards the stern.

‘May we come on board and speak to him?’

The man waved his brush in an expansive gesture. ‘Aye, help yourself.’

I followed Jack along the plank that provided the only access to the boat. It was several paces long, and it was just that: a plank, with no handrails or even a rope to hold on to. I had a vision of myself ending up in the water, but I managed to keep my feet. We crossed the deck and edged along to what appeared to be the master’s own particular space. Not that there was much to distinguish it from the rest of the ship, being cramped, and hemmed in with crates and sacks, neatly stowed.

The master sat on a narrow shelf, swinging his legs to and fro as he watched us approach his domain. Recognizing Jack, he greeted him cheerfully.

‘Repairs nearly done, I see,’ Jack said, having returned the greeting.

‘Aye, and I’m docking the cost from that stupid bastard’s wages,’ the master said. ‘That’ll teach him to eye up pretty girls when he should be keeping his mind on his work.’ He was staring at me. ‘Talking of pretty girls …’

‘This is Lassair, Alun.’

The master jumped down from his seat – he was a head shorter than me – and gave me a bow. ‘How d’ye do, Lassair,’ he said with a grin.

‘Very well,’ I responded, returning the smile. It was impossible to resist his good cheer.

‘That woman you picked up at Lynn,’ Jack said. ‘We have some more questions.’

The master gave him a knowing look. ‘Been stealing again, has she?’

‘Not as far as I know, and she insisted it wasn’t theft the first time,’ Jack replied.

The master gave a snort of laughter. ‘Oh, she did, did she? Well, it looked like it to me.’

‘She paid the baker both for the loaf and for his inconvenience,’ Jack said. ‘I decided to let that be an end to the matter.’

‘Well, you know your own business,’ the master said. ‘She was a slippery one. We were all glad to see the back of her.’

I sensed Jack’s suddenly heightened alertness. ‘What makes you say that?’

‘Arrogant, she was. Gave orders like a queen, and expected my crew to jump to it. Surly, too – when we tried to look after her, she acted like it was her due and never gave a smile or a thank you. Well, like I told you, she came on board at Lynn, wanting passage up to Cambridge. She wanted to get into the fens, but you can’t just drop a passenger out in the middle of nowhere, and I reckoned this was the best place, and the nearest port to the fens. I mean -’ his face creased in a frown – ‘if I’d have put her ashore out in the watery wilds, likely she’d have lost her way and drowned, and that little baby along with her. She paid it no mind,’ he added with sudden vehemence. ‘Didn’t seem to know how to look after it. Didn’t even seem to like it, come to that.’ His frown deepened. ‘The mate found someone who knew how to get a bit of milk inside it, otherwise it’d have yelled its head off all the way.’

‘It’s a he,’ I said. ‘He’s being tended by a wet-nurse, and he’s doing all right.’

The master turned to me. ‘I’m right glad to hear it.’

Encouraged, I said, ‘It’s obvious she’s a noblewoman, and must somehow have become separated from the companions and servants she was travelling with. She seems to be in a state of shock, and I was wondering if, back in Lynn, you heard any talk of some incident that might have resulted in her being all alone? A ship having met with an accident, or illness aboard?’

The master shook his head. I saw his left hand make the sign against evil, no doubt in reaction to my mention of shipwrecks and sickness. ‘No, I heard nothing.’

‘Did she say where she had come from?’ Jack asked.

‘No. She offered no information at all.’ The master thought for a moment, then grinned. ‘But I think I can tell you what ship she arrived in, because she’d underpaid the cost of her passage – see, told you she was a slippery one! – and one of the crew came after her to collect what she owed.’

‘What was the ship?’ Jack’s eyes were narrowed like a cat’s. ‘And where had she come from?’

‘She was The Good Shepherd,’ the master said, ‘out of Yarmouth.’ He nodded, as if confident that he had answered all our questions. ‘That’s where that veiled woman came from – Yarmouth.’

Jack Chevestrier didn’t say a word as we headed back over the Great Bridge into the heart of the town. I could understand his mood; it really had seemed that we’d been on the point of discovering something crucial about the veiled woman. Yarmouth, however, was no likelier a starting point for her voyage than Lynn.

I went over my earlier encounter with the lady. Something had occurred to me, pushed out of my mind by subsequent events, and now I returned to it.

There had been an aspect of her which recalled a matter I’d once discussed with my aunt Edild. It concerned a new mother in Aelf Fen who, for some inexplicable reason, had taken a dislike to her newborn daughter; a dislike so profound that she had, for a few terrible days, refused to feed, tend or in any way care for the child. The baby was not her first; there was just something about her that the mother couldn’t tolerate. Edild said it sometimes seemed to happen – fortunately not with any frequency – that, following a birth, a mother became inexplicably miserable; unable to feel any joy in the new life she had brought into the world. Often it occurred when a birth had been particularly long or hard, as if the baby was a constant reminder of the pain and the distress its arrival had caused.

My wise aunt had succeeded in persuading the Aelf Fen woman to accept the baby. Observing the veiled lady, I’d wondered if Edild might be able to help her, too. And, after all, the lady wanted to locate her kinsman’s dwelling in the fens.

I hurried to catch up with Jack. ‘I’ve had an idea,’ I panted.

He turned to look at me. ‘Yes?’

‘I should take the veiled woman and her child to my village.’

‘Why?’

‘First, because she’ll have to go into the fens if she’s to find her kinsman’s house, and that’s where my village is.’

‘I know,’ Jack said. ‘You are from Aelf Fen.’

‘I didn’t-’ Then I remembered. When the veiled woman had said she sought the fens, Jack Chevestrier had said it was an extensive region, and he’d added, as this young woman could tell you. He’d known I was a healer. He knew where I came from. It was only surprising that he’d had to ask my name.

‘So, why else do you want to take her to your village?’ he asked.

‘My aunt Edild is a healer.’

‘So are you,’ he observed.

‘Not like her!’ I protested. ‘She’s my teacher, and she’s had years of experience. She’s very knowledgeable, and full of compassion for people with problems. She helped a village woman who couldn’t love her new baby, and she’s fine now; the woman, I mean. Well, they both are, the woman and the baby, only she’s not a baby any more, and the woman’s had another since and-’ I stopped gabbling. I could hear how stupid I sounded.

But Jack didn’t seem to think so. He said, ‘If you are the healer you are because of your aunt’s teaching, she is indeed a fine woman.’ Then, before I could even begin to deal with the embarrassment his words had caused, he added, ‘And we’d better see about getting you, the veiled woman and her baby out to your village as soon as we can.’

I dreaded telling Gurdyman I was leaving. For one thing, we were in the middle of a new course of study. For another, I knew how eager he was for me to have another attempt at looking into the shining stone. He thought he was managing to disguise his impatience, but he gave himself away with constant oblique references to it. I didn’t want to look into the stone. The thought of peering into its smoky, murky depths frightened me, and I kept seeing an image of those two dark birds. I was quite sure they came from another world: the world of the spirits. Being presented with an excellent reason for distancing myself from my strange inheritance was like a gift from some beneficial god.

In the event, the anticipation was worse than the actuality. When I told Gurdyman where I was going, and why, he simply nodded and said, as he always does, ‘May the good spirits guard your path.’

As I checked through my satchel and packed into it a few necessities for my journey, I congratulated myself on having neatly evaded something I dreaded doing. But, just as I was fastening my satchel straps, I heard heavy steps on the ladder up to my attic room, accompanied by the sound of Gurdyman’s laboured breathing. His head appeared at the top of the ladder, and, with a smile, he said, ‘Take the shining stone, child. It needs to stay close to you.’

My heart gave a leap of fright.

Had he said what I thought he said? Surely it must have been, You need to stay close to the stone?

I listened to the echo of his words. No: he had definitely said the stone needed to be close to me.

As if it had thoughts and emotions.

As if it were alive.

Without my volition, my hand went to the place beside the bed where I keep the shining stone. I watched myself pick it up – I noticed how reverently I handled it – and place it carefully inside my satchel.

Behind me I heard Gurdyman murmur, ‘Well done.’

It was a vast relief to find myself outside in the bright, fresh air of early morning. It was the next day; Jack hadn’t wasted any time. Putting the memory of that disturbing scene with Gurdyman right to the back of my mind, I strode off through the maze of lanes and emerged on to the wide street that leads up to the Great Bridge.

Jack was waiting on the far side. Beside him, the veiled woman sat on a beautiful bay palfrey. She had fastened her high-collared cloak tightly around her throat, and pulled its generous hood up over her headdress and veil. Her dark eyes seemed to be fixed on some point in the distance, as if she was determined to disassociate herself from the proceedings. Since those proceedings were entirely for her benefit, I thought this a little arrogant.

Jack was talking to a tall, slim man dressed in dark garments, a cloak slung back across his shoulders. Whether from choice or necessity, his head was bald. His lean face was pale, and his close-set, narrow dark eyes were shadowed by heavy brows drawn down in a thunderous frown. He was speaking rapidly, gesticulating, and seemed to be issuing orders. As I reached the group, he looked up and saw me. He leaned close to Jack to say something more, his mouth right up close to Jack’s ear, then he spun round and, with a whirl that revealed the luxurious lining of his cloak, marched away. He turned briefly to spit on the ground and give Jack a final glare. I turned to Jack, about to ask who the man was, but Jack’s expression was equally forbidding and I lost my nerve.

Mattie stood beside the lady’s mount, the baby in her arms. I smiled at her. ‘Are you coming with us, Mattie?’

‘No,’ Jack said curtly. Then, his expression softening, he added, ‘Well, not if you’re prepared to carry the baby.’

I’d carried heavier loads between Cambridge and Aelf Fen. ‘I’ll manage,’ I said grumpily. Great lady or not, it seemed a bit hard that, although the veiled woman was mounted, it was going to be me, walking on my two feet, who would have to carry the child.

‘… should be here very soon,’ Jack was saying.

I came out of my sulk and asked, ‘What was that?’

‘I said, the other horses should be here soon,’ he repeated.

‘Other horses?’

‘Yes,’ he said. Then, as I still must have looked blank, he went on, ‘Mine – he’s having a new shoe fitted – and one from the sheriff’s stables. For you,’ he added.

‘For me?’

He grinned. ‘Of course. How do you usually get to your village?’

‘I walk.’

‘Well, you can’t walk carrying a baby.’

My spirits rose. I love riding, and only wish that the chance to do so came my way more often. And today I was going to ride a horse from the sheriff’s stables! We all knew Picot didn’t stint himself, so this wasn’t to be some sway-backed old nag not capable of more than a resentful trot.

Then something occurred to me. Whoever was bringing my horse was also bringing Jack’s. Was he coming with us? I had imagined that his involvement would end with explaining to the veiled woman what was planned for her, finding her a horse and sending us on our way. I hadn’t thought he’d travel out to Aelf Fen with us; didn’t he have duties that kept him in the town?

He was looking at me as if waiting for my thoughts to run their course. Then, leaning close and speaking quietly, he said, ‘I am concerned about our mysterious veiled lady, and I sense that there is much going on that we do not know.’ He paused. ‘I may be wrong, but I will not risk your safety.’

‘What about hers?’ I whispered back.

His mouth twisted down in a wry grimace. ‘Whatever trouble she may be in, she has probably brought it on herself. You, on the other hand, are involved purely because you wish to help.’

I’m not sure how I would have answered that. Fortunately, I didn’t have to. There was a clatter of hooves on the road leading from the bridge, and one of Jack’s deputies appeared, leading two horses. One was a grey gelding, its pale, silky mane and tail catching the light breeze, its wide, dark eyes eager and interested. It went straight to Jack, and he put his face to its nose, quietly murmuring its name, which sounded like Pegasus. It was clearly his horse; without doubt, he was its man.

My horse was a black mare. She was small and neatly made, with lines that suggested excellent blood. I stepped up to her and gently patted the graceful curve of her neck. She gave a low whicker.

‘Her name’s Isis,’ Jack said. My delight must have been obvious, and he was smiling at me. ‘Mount up, and Mattie can hand the child to you. Then -’ he glanced up at the sky, where the clear light of morning was slowly being overtaken by gathering cloud – ‘we’d better be on our way.’

We were lucky with the weather. September was marching on and we weren’t far from the equinox, which so often brings violent storms. Although rain threatened for most of the journey, however, we didn’t receive more than a brief shower, during which the veiled woman insisted we sheltered in a copse of fir trees. The lady didn’t want to get her finery wet.

Jack Chevestrier had packed food and drink, and we stopped when the sun was at its zenith to consume it. The baby – Leafric; I was trying to remember to whisper his name to him as I tended him – had been asleep in my arms, soothed by the smooth pace of my lovely horse, but woke hungry when we stopped. Mattie had fed him before we left, and had prepared soft bread sops soaked in her milk for the journey. Leafric was reluctant at first, but, driven by increasing desperation and catching the familiar smell of Mattie, finally ate. I cleaned him up as best I could, then put him back in the cradle I had fashioned for him from my shawl. He burped, blinked his eyes a few times, then fell asleep again.

By early afternoon, we were close to Aelf Fen. I was amazed at how much faster the journey was achieved on a good horse. We were taking the veiled lady to Lakehall, the residence of Lord Gilbert and his wife, Lady Emma; nowhere else in Aelf Fen was suitable for a noblewoman. Jack, apparently, knew of Lord Gilbert. I wondered if he was aware that, while a basically kind man, Lord Gilbert carries the fat of over-indulgence, is indolent and not very bright, and that the brains of the family rest, along with a good heart, with Lady Emma.

As my mind leapt ahead to riding up to Lakehall and presenting our foreign companion, I hissed to Jack, ‘We don’t know her name!’

Jack frowned. ‘I’ve asked her, but she’s reluctant.’ As if making up his mind that he’d had enough of her nonsense, he drew rein, waited until the veiled woman came up beside him, then said firmly, ‘Madam, we shall shortly arrive at the house of Lord Gilbert de Caudebec, who we hope will welcome you as his guest. Lord Gilbert will help you locate your kinsmen.’

She studied him with her usual cool-eyed stare, but made no reply.

‘You have so far refused to reveal your name, and, out of courtesy to a stranger, I have not pressed you,’ he went on. ‘Now I must insist. You cannot be presented to Lord Gilbert as an anonymous foreigner, and, in addition, he will need to know your family name if he is to help you.’ He paused, and I had the sense he was controlling rising irritation, if not anger. Then he said abruptly, ‘Speak, please, madam.’

The veiled lady gave an over-dramatic sigh, and in a tone of resignation, as if she was being forced to accede to a totally unreasonable demand, said grandly, ‘I am Rosaria Dalassena, widow of Hugo Guillaume Fensmanson.’

None of the names meant anything to me, although the family name Fensmanson supported the woman’s claim to have kin hereabouts. Well, not her own kin; it was her late husband’s family she sought. That seemed reasonable enough. Widowed, and left with no one to support her and her child, she had abandoned the faraway place where she had met and married her husband and made her way to England, to seek out his kin. You had to admire her courage. Perhaps she had been driven by desperation …

Jack was studying the woman with a frown. ‘Dalassena?’ he said softly. Her eyes shot to him, their expression hard and challenging, as if daring him to question her further. ‘Let us ride on, then, Lady Rosaria.’ His tone was carefully neutral. Nudging his heels into the grey’s sides, he led the way on down the track.

We came into Aelf Fen from the south, having followed the road that curves round the lower limits of the fens. Lakehall was the first dwelling we came to. I pointed it out, and Jack stopped to study the place.

I have known it all my life, but I tried to see it as a newcomer would. The house had been built by Lord Gilbert’s father, Ralf de Caudebec, who had fought with the Conqueror and been awarded the manor of Lakehall as reward. The estate rose up to the eastern side of the track, a mixture of arable land on the higher, drier ground, and waterlogged marsh – rich in eels – out on the fens. The house and its outbuildings were surrounded by a paling fence, and the house itself boasted a wide hall, a solar and extensive kitchen quarters. Lord Gilbert was very fond of his food.

We set off up the drive. ‘The reeve will receive us,’ I said to Jack. ‘His name’s Bermund. He’s not exactly a cheerful, outgoing sort of man -’ my younger brother Squeak had once said the reeve looked like an anxious rat – ‘but he’s fair.’

Jack nodded. ‘Anything else I should know?’

‘Lord Gilbert’s lazy and not very quick-witted.’ I lowered my voice. ‘If you can enlist Lady Emma’s sympathies, the job’s done.’

He nodded again. ‘Thank you.’

We clattered into the courtyard, our horses’ hooves announcing our presence. A lad poked his head out of the arched entrance to the stables, and someone else ran up the flight of stone steps into the hall. Bermund appeared in the doorway.

He studied each of us, his eyes resting on me. ‘You’re the eel-catcher’s daughter. The healer girl,’ he said.

‘I am,’ I agreed.

His glance went back to Jack, then to Lady Rosaria. ‘What do you want?’ He fixed me with a stare. ‘Who are these people?’

I opened my mouth to speak, but Jack forestalled me. ‘My name is Jack Chevestrier,’ he said, ‘and I am an officer of the sheriff of Cambridge. This is the lady Rosaria Dalassena, widow of the late Hugo Guillaume Fensmanson, and she has come here to seek her husband’s kinsfolk, bringing with her his child.’

Bermund’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘What has this to do with Lord Gilbert?’

‘The family whom Lady Rosaria seeks are fenland people,’ Jack said firmly, ‘and she needs help in finding them.’

Bermund looked as if he’d like nothing better than to shut the great door in our faces. But observance of the old rules of courtesy, hospitality and chivalry to ladies in distress goes deep. He said curtly, ‘Wait there,’ and disappeared inside the hall.

He reappeared a short time later. ‘You’re to come up.’ He summoned the pair of stable boys who had been watching, wide-eyed, from the courtyard, and they hurried forward. Lady Rosaria, Jack and I dismounted, and the lads took our horses. Just then, the baby gave a start – the movement had woken him – and let out a shrill cry. The cry swiftly escalated to a steady scream of protest: Leafric was ravenous.

I made an apologetic face at Jack. ‘He won’t stop till he’s fed, and there’s no more of Mattie’s bread sops,’ I said above the yelling. ‘I’ll take him straight to Edild. She’s bound to know of a wet-nurse, and, in the meantime, she’ll feed him.’

I turned and, on foot since there was nowhere at Edild’s house to care for a horse, set off back towards the track, all other thoughts and preoccupations dissolving in the face of Leafric’s mounting distress. His little body had stiffened in outrage, his mouth formed a gaping square, and his face was screwed up and bright red. Jack called after me, ‘Where will you be?’

‘I’ll stay at my aunt’s house,’ I called back. ‘Go on towards the village, past the church, and it’s the next house on the right.’

Then, clutching Leafric close, I broke into a jogtrot and hurried away.