Music of the Distant Stars

FOURTEEN

I slept the deep sleep of physical exhaustion and awoke, with no memory of even having dreamed, feeling heavy and lethargic. I told Edild the stark facts — that Sir Alain and Lady Claude had been introduced while she still lived at Heathlands, and that he had been a frequent visitor to the house — but, when she quite naturally wanted to discuss the implications of this, I shook my head in denial.

‘Hrype will come to see us this evening,’ I said. ‘Let us wait till then.’

She accepted this, but I noticed she was eyeing me with curiosity. I thought I’d be able to ignore it, but in the end I weakened. ‘What is it? Why are you staring at me like that?’

She smiled. ‘Yesterday you were taken to see a wizard,’ she replied. ‘I was hoping you might tell me what he was like.’

I laughed, and for a moment the heaviness lifted. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, reaching for her hand. ‘Gurdyman is extraordinary. He has such a sense of power about him, yet he’s careful to keep it veiled. He looks like the most genial, cheery, everyday sort of man till you happen to find him staring at you, then you feel as if someone’s pushing tiny filaments into your body and trying to find the core of you.’

‘It sounds alarming,’ Edild observed.

‘It is,’ I agreed. ‘But he realized I was disturbed by his scrutiny, and immediately he stopped. I wouldn’t wish to be his enemy.’ I shuddered. ‘I should think he could be ruthless.’

I pictured Gurdyman’s round, smiling, strangely unlined face. Then the image was superimposed by another. The sage’s face grew stern and seemed to alter shape, so that the bones under the plump cheeks and the smooth brow became prominent, the flesh melted away and the kindly eyes turned harsh and penetrating. I gave a small gasp, and instantly the familiar, friendly face returned.

Was it my imagination? Had the image of the frightening wizard been conjured up by my own mind because I had been wondering what it would be like to be his enemy? Or had Gurdyman himself planted it, as if to say, You saw my genial face. Do not be fooled into believing that is all there is to me.

I did not know.

Edild had cleared away our breakfast bowls and cups, and now I hastened to my feet to tidy our cots, folding the bedding and stuffing it and the pillows out of sight beneath the bed frames. The daylight was waxing fast, and soon our first patients would be coming to call.

I tried to concentrate on my work, but I kept being distracted. I thought of Sir Alain and Ida. I imagined them together, those two people who seemed made for happiness and laughter, and who, if the world were arranged differently, would undoubtedly have wed, raised a family and lived as happily as it is possible for humans to live. I dare say I was romanticizing them, believing what I wanted to believe, and I was undoubtedly making too much of what scant evidence I had so far. I had been told that Sir Alain had visited Heathlands, and I kept telling myself that was all I knew. To leap from that one simple fact to proposing that Alain and Ida were so well suited that they would have married if they could was pure invention.

Yet, as the morning wore on and my battle to fix my mind on my work became more and more challenging, the quiet little voice at the back of my head insisting that I was right refused to be silenced. And just how, I wondered in silent frustration, could that rose-tinted vision of the pair of them accord with my new certainty that it was at Sir Alain’s hands that poor little Ida had died?

In the end Edild lost patience with me. In our work, inatten-tiveness is potentially very dangerous. I muddled someone’s symptoms, reporting to my aunt that the man had bellyache when in fact, as he was quick to correct me, he was severely costive. Then, later, I handed her a jar containing dried wormwood stems instead of the pot of willowherb leaves she had asked for. She noticed instantly — of course she did, the two are quite dissimilar — and quietly but forcefully thrust the wormwood back into my hand. ‘Go and wait for me outside!’ she hissed.

I went. I do not often make my aunt angry, and I hate it when I do. I waited until her patient emerged, clutching the infusion Edild had just prepared that would swiftly ease his headache, and after a moment she followed.

She studied me for a while. Then, instead of the castigation I had expected and richly deserved, she said, ‘You are no use to me today indoors. Go and gather some sweet flag root. We’re getting low.’

I dipped my head meekly in acknowledgement. I fetched my collecting basket from the outhouse and hurried away before she could change her mind.

The yellow flag — which we also call gladden — serves mainly as a purgative, using the fresh roots. It likes wet, marshy ground, so I went down the path from Edild’s house, crossed the track leading towards the hall and set off towards the soggy ground where land gives way to water. I worked steadily, taking a little from several plants rather than filling my basket from one single place. Edild says we must respect that plants have a right to life too, and that taking too much of one plant’s root would probably kill it. Each time I cut some root I chanted the little song of thanks that my aunt had taught me.

I found that I had wandered almost as far as the fen edge. Stopping, I put down my basket, which was getting heavy, and put my hands to the small of my back. I had been bending down for too long and short, sharp stabs of pain were my reward. I was quite close to the place where the little causeway goes across to the island. I decided to pay a quick visit to Granny, guilty suddenly because I had been neglecting her since the discovery of Ida’s body.

I left my basket where it was to collect on my return and hurried off. The ground was reasonably firm now, so soon after midsummer, for the weather had been fair and we had not had much rain. It would be a different matter in autumn, when the equinox gales sweep in and the rain lashes the land. We would by then have taken away the planks and supports of our temporary bridge, the way to the island would become impassable and Granny Cordeilla would be left all by herself with the ancestors.

I did not think she would mind. They were her own kin, she had known and loved several of them in life, and she had no doubt communed with those who had died before her birth long before she went to join them.

I crossed over the narrow planks and jumped down on to the island. I went to stand over the big slab that marked Granny’s grave, opening my mind and my heart to her. I was just closing my eyes when I noticed something: a tiny wreath made of grass wound into a circle and laced with wild flowers, the whole thing about the size of my palm.

I bent down to study it. It lay half under the stone slab, so that it had been hidden as I approached. It looked as if someone had wanted to put it as close as possible to the tomb, but without going so far as to move the slab and put it inside.

I don’t know why, but I felt sure it had been left for Ida and not for Granny. Perhaps it was the furtiveness of the placement. If any of us had brought a little offering for our dead relative, we would have left it where all could see it. I looked at the craftsmanship of the little wreath, noticing that it was crude, the grass stems already beginning to unravel. It looked like the work of a child.

I heard a voice in my head. It was Sir Alain’s. He used to make little posies for her, clumsy things of grass stems woven together with a couple of flowers stuck in.

Then I knew who had left it.

It made sense, too, because he probably thought she was still here. .

I was filled with pity for him, poor Derman, mourning the girl he had loved from afar, driven to some furtive, night-time visit to the place where he believed her body was interred and leaving his pathetic little offering. I wondered where he was hiding, almost certain that he had not strayed far from this spot. He must have missed them when they came to take her off to Lakehall — he’d probably still been back at home with Zarina, where I had left him that terrible morning — and he could not have seen the sad procession when her body was taken to be reburied close by the church. Perhaps, exhausted by his grief, he had been sleeping somewhere, curled up in whatever nest he had made for himself. Perhaps he had been off looking for something to eat, for there was little to sustain a grown man in the immediate vicinity.

‘Where are you, Derman?’ I said aloud. ‘I know you are afraid and do not understand, but you should go home. Zarina is very worried about you.’

Was that good advice, though? Even if Derman could hear me, should he obey? I was not at all sure. I was convinced he hadn’t killed Ida — I did not allow myself to think about who might have done — but the rest of the village certainly didn’t share that view. There was still too much talk of going out to hunt for Derman, and not with anything charitable in mind like wrapping him in a warm blanket and bringing him home.

The little wreath did, however, tell me something very encouraging that I could report to an anxious sister: the wild flowers were still fresh, which meant the wreath had only recently been made. Derman was still alive, and he was still close by.

I said a hurried farewell to Granny — I know she would have understood — and, leaping back across the planks, ran back to fetch my basket. Then, moving more slowly once I was encumbered by its weight, I went back to the village. I left the basket of roots beside the outhouse; I could hear the murmur of voices from within the house and knew better than to disturb my aunt and her patient. Then I ran down the path again and raced along the track until I reached the widow Berta’s house.

Zarina was, as I had expected, down by the water, wringing out a long piece of sheeting with strong, red-knuckled hands. It looked as if it was of good quality, perhaps belonging to some grand servant up at the hall. She looked up as she heard me approach, her face anxious. ‘What’s the matter? Have you any news?’ she demanded.

I waited while I caught my breath and then said, ‘I’ve just been out to the island. Someone’s left a little wreath, and I’m sure it must have been Derman, making an offering for Ida.’

Slowly, she let the sheet drop on to the ground. ‘He’s still alive, then.’

I could read nothing in her tone. If she was relieved at my news, she didn’t show it.

‘He must be hiding somewhere nearby,’ I said encouragingly. ‘He obviously thinks she’s still in my Granny’s grave, so that’s where he left the wreath. Oh, Zarina, perhaps he goes there regularly to be with her! We might be able to lie in wait for him and persuade him to come home! If you like I’ll help you. I could-’

‘No.’ She cut my offer dead. Then, managing a smile, she said, ‘It’s kind of you, Lassair, and I know you mean well.’ I hate it when people say that because it usually means that you’re so far from achieving your aim that you might as well not have bothered. ‘But I think it’d be better if I went alone,’ she went on. ‘He’ll be in a very bad state. He’ll be frightened, hungry, thirsty and tired. He doesn’t manage very well on his own.’ Briefly, she turned her face away, and I guessed she was hiding sudden tears.

‘Very well,’ I said. ‘You know best, I’m sure.’

She must have detected from my voice that I felt snubbed. Turning back, she said, ‘You’re very kind, like all your family. I really don’t-’

She did not finish whatever she had been about to say. Without another word, she picked up the sheet, brushed off a few pieces of grass and went back to her wringing.

‘When will you go?’ I asked.

She shot me a quick glance, and then the golden-green eyes were covered again as she lowered her gaze. ‘Soon.’

I had the strong sense that was all she was going to say. There seemed little point in staying, so I left.

Hrype came, as he had promised, soon after Edild and I had tidied up after supper. As before, we were sitting out under the trees, and he knew where to find us.

I had already told Edild what I had found out on the island, and now I repeated it to Hrype. We all agreed that the wreath must have been left by Derman. I had called in at my parents’ house on my way back to Edild’s after seeing Zarina, and my mother had said that, as far as she knew, nobody in the family had left any such offering for Granny.

‘Zarina’s going to go out to the island to see if she can find him,’ I said now. ‘I offered to go with her, but she said she was better on her own.’

I watched Hrype and my aunt exchange a glance. ‘I wonder,’ Edild said softly.

‘You wonder what?’ I demanded.

But she shook her head. ‘Nothing.’

It wasn’t nothing; of course it wasn’t. What she meant was that, whatever it was, she wasn’t going to share it with me. They weren’t going to share it, because clearly Hrype knew what she meant. ‘It would be a solution,’ he murmured.

I was about to demand that they tell me but Hrype, as if he realized, turned to me and said, ‘Now, you have told Edild what we learned concerning Sir Alain’s familiarity with the household at Heathlands?’

‘Yes,’ I said shortly. I was cross with them.

‘Don’t sulk, Lassair,’ my aunt said. ‘So — ’ she was addressing Hrype — ‘you are suggesting that Sir Alain and Ida were lovers before Ida accompanied Lady Claude here to Lakehall?’

‘Possibly,’ Hrype said guardedly. ‘It seems likely that the two of them met. At the least, they could have done.’

‘Let us assume he fathered a child on the girl yet was betrothed to Lady Claude,’ Edild mused. Then, cutting straight to the point: ‘Lady Claude is very devout and intolerant of sinners. If she discovered the man she was to wed had bedded another woman, moreover one to whom he was not married, and had made her pregnant, she would have nothing more to do with him.’

‘Motive enough for him to kill Ida?’ Hrype asked softly.

‘Oh, I can’t believe he killed her!’ I burst out, earning urgent Shhh! sounds from my aunt and Hrype. ‘I just can’t,’ I repeated in a whisper.

‘Why?’ Hrype asked.

It was a good question. I had been asking it of myself all day and still had no answer. My sensible, logical head said that of course he’d strangled Ida; who else could have? My heart, however, just would not accept it. ‘Because he’s nice,’ I muttered under my breath. Fortunately, neither of them appeared to hear. ‘I don’t know,’ I said lamely.

We talked long into the night, for there was no obvious way to test our tentative theory of Sir Alain’s involvement with poor, dead Ida. The household at Heathlands would have been able to give us some answers, but the likes of us could hardly go marching up to the door and begin asking questions about Lady Claritia’s future son-in-law and his possible dalliance with Lady Claude’s seamstress. Hrype proposed trying to talk to some of the servants, but you could never tell how loyal a man or woman was going to be to his lord and lady and, if word got back to our Lord Gilbert that Hrype had been asking questions at Heathlands, it would undoubtedly lead to trouble.

I said, ‘I could go and see Lady Claude again. She wasn’t there when I went a couple of days ago, so it’d look odd if I didn’t try again.’

Two pairs of clever eyes turned to me. ‘What have you in mind to say to her?’ Hrype asked. ‘Other than asking how she feels, of course.’

I hesitated. ‘I could try to draw her out about Ida,’ I said. ‘I could even tell her that her symptoms — the headaches and the sleeplessness — are often an accompaniment of grief, and that talking about the dead person sometimes helps. All of that is true,’ I assured him. ‘Isn’t it, Edild?’

‘Yes, it is,’ she said slowly, ‘although I do not like the idea of making use of your profession to extract information that is not strictly to do with healing.’

There was a pause. Then Hrype said, ‘I am sure that Lassair would not permit her curiosity to interfere in any way with the correct treatment of her patient.’

It was very generous of him, and I hoped it was true.

Edild made up her mind. ‘Very well,’ she said eventually. She fixed me with a hard stare; she knows me better than Hrype does, and she is never taken in by my dissembling. ‘But remember you are there to heal,’ she said forcefully. ‘Anything else — anything at all, even if it does pertain to a young woman’s death — is secondary. Is that understood?’

I made myself hold her eyes. ‘Yes, Edild.’

Once Hrype had gone and my aunt and I were settling for sleep, I found that my mind was too hectic with thoughts and conjectures to allow me to relax. After what seemed ages, but was probably not all that long, I slipped out of bed, picked up Elfritha’s shawl against the night chill and went outside.

I walked slowly down the path, looking out over the marshy ground to the fen edge and the island. I thought of Derman. Was he out there now? I wondered. Had his sister found him and was she even now reassuring him, encouraging him to come home? If so, we would all have to watch him, perhaps taking turns, because it would be best if he did not venture out until Ida’s killer had been found. The people of Aelf Fen were not bad, I knew that well enough, but they had got it into their heads that Derman’s hopeless love for Ida had led to murder when she’d turned him down — and, it seemed, they weren’t going to change their minds.

I thought about Sir Alain. Had he killed her? If he had, and we could somehow prove it, what were we to do? We would have to approach Lord Gilbert, and that wouldn’t be easy, and he would probably-

The singing began. From somewhere quite close by, I heard that eerie voice. For all that I had now met its owner, it sounded no less strange rising softly into the night air. I was tempted to seek him out, speak to him, try to comfort him, but if, as I guessed, he did not know I was there, then it might dismay and distress him further to know he had a witness to his pain and his grief.

I edged into the soft darkness beneath a group of alders and listened. I noticed then that, where before there had been no more than a hummed chant, a succession of heartbreakingly sad sounds, now there were words. I strained my ears, and eventually I made them out.

Alberic was singing his lament for Ida.

The singer of a thousand songs was I,

Yet now but one remains, the saddest of them all.

For now that in the fenland soil you lie,

I have no longer any hopes on which to call.

At first I was not free my love to show,

And then, by fate, another took your heart from me,

My dearest hopes were shattered by this blow

So cruel, and yet I knew I had to set yu free.

Oh Ida, can you hear this sad refrain?

Can notes of music pierce your damp and peaty frame?

And would you hold me close if I were lain

Beside you? Could we sing the happy songs again?

He had stopped. I stood there alone in the silence for some time, tears on my face. Then I wrapped my shawl tightly around me and went back to my bed.

We were woken at first light by someone’s fists hammering on the door. ‘Open up, oh, for the Lord’s sake, open up!’ cried a voice.

Struggling out of sleep, I realized with horror that I recognized the voice. It was my brother’s.

Edild was already on her feet, fumbling with the door latch. I elbowed her out of the way, wresting the door open. ‘It’s Haward!’ I cried. ‘Something’s wrong — someone’s been taken ill or is hurt!’

He fell into the little room. His face was wet with sweat, and his eyes were wide with horror. ‘Is it our parents?’ I demanded, my hands on his shoulders shaking him roughly in my terrible anxiety. ‘Squeak? Oh, not Leir, lovely little Leir?’

Haward shoved my hands away, and I fell over my own feet and sat down hard on the earth floor. He rushed to help me up again, hugging me tightly. ‘No, n-n-none of them. They are all unharmed.’ He brushed a quick kiss against my cheek.

With my immediate fears allayed, there was time to think of others. ‘Then who-?’ I began.

My aunt took charge. In a quiet voice that was nevertheless full of calm authority, she said, ‘What has happened, Haward? Tell us what we must do.’

He turned to her gratefully. ‘Yesterday Lassair told Zarina that she’d found a wreath by Granny’s grave, and we all guessed it had been left there by Derman, thinking Ida was still in the tomb. Zarina went out some time last night to see if she could find him.’ Such was the power of Edild’s effect on him that his stammer had temporarily vanished.

‘She went in the night?’ I protested. ‘By herself? How could you let her?’

‘I d-d-didn’t!’ He rounded on me as swiftly as when we were children and I had accused him unfairly. ‘I thought we were going to go together, early in the morning, but she must have waited till I had g-gone home and was asleep, and then slipped away by herself.’

‘I see,’ I muttered. I ought to have known him better than that. ‘Sorry.’

‘Then what happened?’ Edild asked, glaring at me as if to say, Don’t you dare interrupt him again!

‘I went j-just before dawn to see if she was ready to go. You know I always wake early, and it seemed a good time to try to c-c-catch him — Derman — unawares.’ He stopped, swallowed and, his expression anguished, began again. ‘She — she wasn’t there. I s-s-set out for the island.’ Again, a pause. His face was working, and I knew how hard it must be to try to force the words out past the gagging stutter. ‘I m-m-m-met her c-c-coming back. Sh-sh-she was crying. I p-put my arms r-round her and for just an instant she h-h-hugged me. I knew then she hadn’t found h-h-him s-s-so I t-told her to go on home and I’d h-h-have a look round.’ He stopped, drew breath and said, ‘I w-went out on to the island. I c-c-couldn’t see any s-s-sign of him. Then I turned to c-c-come back and th-th-there was a sh-sh-shadow under the water. Sh-sh-sh-she w-w-wouldn’t have s-s-s-seen it, there was only j-j-j-just enough light f-f-for me.’ He shuddered to a halt, exhausted by the huge effort of stuttering out his tale.

‘What was this shadow, Haward?’ Edild’s voice was gentle, soothing, hypnotic almost, and, responding to her again, for a few moments Haward calmed down.

He fixed his eyes on a spot on the wall above her head, breathed deeply and said, ‘It was a body. A big body, face down in the water, the head and shoulders caught under the planks of the causeway on to the island.’

Nobody spoke. Haward dropped his head. Then Edild took his hand, bent down so that she could see into his face and said, ‘Who was it?’

Haward’s expression was dreadful to behold. Shock had taken hold, and he was shuddering, his teeth rattling. Although he was still sweating, he was deathly pale. His eyes on Edild’s he said, ‘It’s Derman. The back of his head isn’t there any more.’