Music of the Distant Stars

FIVE

My sleep was filled with weird dreams, and in the morning I did not feel all that rested. Edild informed me that our duty today was to lay out the dead girl’s body. It is one of the services that Edild performs for our village, and she has been training me so that I can follow in her footsteps when she is too old. I knew I could not avoid the task — I know full well I must do whatever my aunt tells me — but the thought of preparing poor Ida’s body for the grave was quite dreadful.

Edild must have noticed my reaction. Instead of querying it, which would have been pointless as we both knew I had no choice but to do as I was told, she said calmly, ‘We are not expected at Lakehall until midday. I can manage without you this morning, so why don’t you go across the village and see your mother?’

I bolted the last of my porridge and leapt up. It was early yet, and if I hurried, I might get home before my father left for work.

Some time later, I was sitting beside my mother in our family’s house. There had been barely enough space for us all when we’d all lived there, for at our most crowded we had numbered eight plus a baby: my father, my big, blonde mother, my Granny Cordeilla (not that she ever took up much room), my sisters Goda and Elfritha, my brothers Haward and Squeak (his real name’s Sihtric, but hardly anyone remembers that) and the baby, Leir. Now that my sisters and I all lived elsewhere — I with Edild, Elfritha with her nuns and Goda, the eldest of us (and I have to say the least agreeable) with her husband and two little children in Icklingham, a few miles away — my parents shared the house only with their three sons and, although Leir is a baby no more (he is four), there would still be room enough for Haward’s bride.

I don’t think any of the family had thought yet how it would be living with Derman.

This morning just my mother was at home. I had caught my father as he was leaving, my disappointment assuaged a little by the warmth of his hug and his quiet words of comfort, just for me, spoken softly in my ear. My mother, too, was red-eyed; Granny Cordeilla had been a good mother-in-law to her, and the two had been close.

‘I know she was small and had few possessions,’ my mother said, twitching a stray strand of long, pale hair neatly behind her clean white headdress, ‘but the house just seems so empty without her.’

I felt the same. I was rapidly learning that it’s not the actual space a person occupies that matters; it’s the extent to which their character expands to fill a house.

I squeezed my mother’s hand. ‘It’s hard for you and the men folk,’ I said, ‘since you have to live with the constant reminder that she’s not here any more.’

My mother wiped her eyes. ‘Yes, that’s true, but there’s a comfort in being here, because she’s still with us.’ She frowned. ‘Well, she’s not, of course, but-’ She shrugged, apparently unable to put the feeling into words.

‘I know,’ I whispered. I had just caught a glimpse of Granny Cordeilla, sitting up on her little cot eyeing us brightly and waiting her chance to get a word in, just as she always did when I came to visit. The fact that her cot had been dismantled and ceremonially burned, as is our custom, and that Granny herself was dead and in her grave, did not appear to have made any difference. I hugged my mother’s large body to me and winked at Granny over her shoulder. Granny winked back.

Presently, my mother disentangled herself from my arms, gave me a quick but affectionate peck on the cheek and said, ‘Enough of tears! Let’s talk about something else.’

I took a last look at Granny, already fading into the planed planks of the wall behind her. She would be back, and we both knew it. Then I settled down beside my mother and said, ‘What shall we talk about?’

As if she had been waiting for this invitation, she said instantly, ‘Haward’s going to marry her,’ and I knew precisely what was on her mind.

‘That’s good,’ I said. ‘Zarina’s a fine woman, and she loves Haward sincerely. She’ll make him happy.’

In my eagerness to reassure my mother, I had spoken without thinking. Instantly, my mother pounced: ‘How can you possibly know?’

I could not tell her. Could not begin to explain how Hrype had started to teach me the rudiments of rune lore and how, unable to resist the temptation, I had slipped away with my own crude set of symbols, succeeded in putting myself in a light trance and asked the question burning in my mind: will she make my loving, vulnerable brother Haward a good wife? The answer had come, swiftly, unequivocally, and I had read it both in the fall of the runes and in the succession of images that had seared through my head.

I could not tell my mother this. Far more crucially, I could not tell Hrype, for he had specifically warned against the perils of a novice such as I asking personal questions. The pounding, throbbing, sick-making headache I had endured all the next day was my punishment. If Hrype had noticed — and he probably had — he must have decided there was no need for him to add anything.

‘I just feel she’s the right woman for him,’ I said now. It was a weak answer, but seemed to satisfy my mother.

‘I do too,’ she said, the frown deepening. ‘I shall welcome her here, just as Cordeilla welcomed me, and I shall do as she did and endeavour to overlook what differences Zarina and I may have and concentrate on what binds us.’

‘But?’ I knew there was a but. I also knew what it was.

My mother gave a faint, defeated shrug and said simply, ‘Derman.’

I waited, gathering my thoughts. Then I said, ‘What does Zarina say? Is it definitely the case that where she goes her brother goes too?’

‘I don’t know!’ My mother spoke sharply, but I knew her frustration was not with me. ‘I said Haward’s going to marry her, but in truth I believe he hasn’t actually asked her yet.’ A soft smile lit her face. ‘He told us all two days ago that he was going to. It was so sweet, Lassair, almost as if he were asking our permission.’

That was just like my brother. I could follow his thought process: he’d have reasoned, very fairly, that his parents and his brothers were going to have to share their house with the new wife and so would have wanted to ensure they were happy at the prospect. Naturally, it was better for everyone if people liked each other. Houses in our village are pretty small. There is nowhere to get away from an uncongenial fellow inhabitant, as all of us had known all too well when Goda had still lived at home.

‘Perhaps we should just wait and see,’ I said tentatively. ‘Maybe Zarina has a plan. There could be family we haven’t heard about who could take Derman.’ My mother began to protest. ‘Yes, I know she said they were alone in the world, but maybe there’s someone who’s like a relation, but not actually kin. What about those travelling entertainers that Zarina was with when first she came to the village? It’s possible, surely, that Derman may go back to them?’

My mother looked singularly unconvinced. ‘It’s possible, I suppose, but not very likely. You see, Lassair,’ she added in a burst of confidence, ‘it’s been the problem all along, the one thing that’s come between Haward and Zarina: what to do about Derman. If there was an easy solution such as you suggest — ’ I’d never actually said it would be easy, but I let it pass — ‘then I’m sure Zarina would have said so, got on with implementing the arrangements and she and Haward would have been wed these many months past.’

‘Hmm, yes, perhaps,’ I murmured. My mother was right, and logic agreed with her assessment. The trouble was, my rune-casting and the visions it had sent me were at variance with what she said. In the glimpses I had seen into Haward’s future with Zarina, there was no sign of Derman.

Again, it was not something I could tell my mother.

‘How is he?’ I asked.

My mother shrugged. She knew who I meant. ‘The same, only more so.’ She ran a hand over her face. ‘You know when you brought him home yesterday morning, when you’d found — er, found what you found?’

‘Yes.’ I could scarcely believe it had only been the day before. ‘I came across him as I was hurrying back to the village. He seemed upset.’ Considering it now, I wondered what he’d been doing out there all by himself and what had distressed him. ‘I thought Zarina kept a close eye on him,’ I said. ‘Did he slip out, do you think?’

‘Yes, she tries not to let him wander about on his own,’ my mother agreed, ‘although she’s not always successful. He does like to go off by himself, and sometimes he’s gone all day.’ She frowned worriedly. ‘He can be quite frightening if you don’t know him — the way he looks, I mean, poor boy — and there’s always the possibility that if he strays too far from the village he’ll encounter some gang of bullies who will have cruel sport with him.’

Yes, Zarina had good cause for keeping her brother where she could watch over him. ‘So she didn’t know he’d gone out yesterday morning?’

My mother hesitated. Then she said, ‘It’s not the first time. He — Zarina thinks something very unfortunate has happened.’ A delicate pink flush spread up the smooth, pale skin of her pretty face, and I wondered what on earth was coming. ‘Derman has taken a fancy to someone,’ she said, staring down at her hands in her lap.

‘To a girl?’ It should not have surprised me for, although Derman has the mind of a child, his body is that of a man, and he undoubtedly had a grown man’s urges.

‘Of course a girl!’ my mother said sharply.

‘Is that so bad?’ I asked gently.

My mother’s eyes filled with tears. ‘What future can there be in such an infatuation?’ she said. ‘Poor boy, what girl or woman is going to look kindly on one such as he?’

‘If she’s gentle with him, and understands his limitations, it might be all right,’ I persisted.

My mother made an impatient sound. ‘Lassair, for someone who thinks she’s so clever you can be very dense,’ she fired at me.

I started with surprise — did I think I was so clever? Yes, perhaps so, but had I let my mother see? Apparently, I had.

But already she was apologizing. ‘I should not have said that.’ She took my hand again. ‘It’s not you I’m so upset about. It’s just that. . that-’

‘That I’m here to take the blows you wish you could aim at somebody else,’ I finished for her. ‘Don’t worry, I understand.’ I reached out and hugged her. ‘So, Derman thinks he’s in love, and he’s been sneaking out from under Zarina’s vigilance to gaze at his lady love with moonstruck eyes.’ Deliberately, I tried to diminish it. I met my mother’s gaze, raising my eyebrows and silently repeating the query: is that so bad?

‘He could be so very hurt,’ my mother said quietly. I remembered Derman’s heart-wrenching sobs; perhaps the lady had already rejected him. ‘And,’ she added, lowering her voice, ‘suppose he turns violent if he doesn’t get what he wants?’

‘Violent?’ I had not associated slow, bumbling Derman with violence. Now, thinking about it, I wondered why not. His mind was like a child’s — how easily we all came up with those unthinking, dismissive words — but he was very far from being a child. Squeak was a child; well, he was eleven now, so he was fast growing to manhood, but when he was little he was not at all like Derman. He might not have known much — children don’t — but there had never been any doubt that he was intelligent. As for Leir, even at four years old it was clear he was a bright boy. Whereas it was all too plain that no spark of intellect burned behind Derman’s deep, dull eyes. If he loved some village girl and she turned him down, no matter how gently and kindly, what would he do?

A sudden horrible suspicion bloomed in the corner of my mind, waxing fast until it was all I could see. I turned to my mother and read the same awful thought in her eyes. I clung to her and whispered, ‘What should we do?’

She held me close, her strong arms around me. I could feel her trembling. Then she said, ‘You told me you are to go with Edild to lay out the body.’

I nodded. ‘Yes. I should be going — Edild will be wanting to set out soon.’

My mother held me at arm’s length, staring intently into my face, her light-blue eyes fierce with purpose. ‘If it’s as we fear, then someone will have seen him,’ she said. Suddenly, she was strong, her concern for her family overriding her dread. ‘Don’t say anything — don’t admit you know who he is, and whatever you do, don’t tell them.’

‘No, no, I won’t,’ I promised.

‘Keep your wits about you,’ my mother went on. ‘Listen carefully; try to detect the slightest finger of suspicion pointing in his direction. If they do think he-’ But she could not go on. Mutely shaking her head, she let me go.

I wanted more than anything to go straight to the house where Zarina lodged and ask to speak to Derman, then make him tell me where he had been before I’d found him. To ask him what he had done. I resisted the urge. I walked quickly back to Edild’s house, and shortly afterwards we set out for Lakehall.

As we walked I sensed my aunt’s eyes on me. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

I nodded. Much as I love my aunt, I always feel restored by a visit to my parents’ home. I looked up and caught Edild’s swift assessing look. Although she made no comment, I felt her support. The task ahead was going to be a severe test for an apprentice healer but, with my aunt watching over me, I knew I could do it.

They were expecting us up at the hall. Bermund was waiting, and without a word he led us across the courtyard and around the side of the manor house, along a narrow passage between outbuildings and up to the door of a small lean-to set against the rear wall of the kitchen. The kitchen door was ajar, and I could smell food cooking. There were voices engaged in light conversation. I heard a burst of laughter, quickly suppressed as if whoever it was had just remembered there was a dead body on the other side of the wall.

Bermund opened the door of the lean-to and ushered us in. ‘It’s cool here,’ he said shortly. There was no need of further explanation. ‘When you’re done, send one of them to find me.’ He jerked his head in the direction of the voices in the kitchen. ‘I’ll bring the coffin on the cart and take her to the church crypt.’

He had, I noticed, said take her, where many people, referring to a body, would have said take it. Bermund too, it appeared, was not without feelings for Ida.

It was strange, I mused, how we who had never known Ida in life were building up such a clear picture of her through the emotions, words and actions of those who had.

Edild stepped up to the body, laid out on a trestle table. ‘Thank you,’ she said gravely, turning to Bermund.

He nodded, spun round and left the room, closing the door after him.

My aunt and I set about our task.

We made her look lovely, not that it was hard to do. Her face was expressionless, like some stone effigy, but her handsome, regular features somehow retained a vestige of her living essence. We removed her garments and washed her, and I noticed how tenderly Edild bathed the rounded belly and the full breasts. I thought Ida had been about four months pregnant, for the swelling in her womb was not very pronounced. I had observed how sometimes a woman’s breasts fill out dramatically before she even suspects she is carrying a child, and this seemed to have been the case with the dead girl.

‘It is midsummer,’ Edild murmured, ‘and I judge that this child was conceived in February, perhaps early in March.’

I would have to find out if Ida had been here at Lakehall then. Before I could stop myself, other questions began racing through my mind. If she had, was she already the object of Derman’s hopeless love? Had he seen her, desired her, waylaid her and forced himself on her? Oh, but such a thing was abhorrent, and surely Ida would have protested, shouted out at her rape, demanded that justice be served on her attacker? But perhaps she had understood he could not help it and had taken pity on him, not wanting to make his miserable life any worse. Oh, but what of the infant she carried? Would it have grown up like its poor, pathetic father and been a child all its life? Ida, oh, Ida, what did you think? How could you bear to-

My concentration had lapsed with my wild thoughts, and I dropped a bottle of lavender oil. Quick as a flash Edild’s hand shot out and caught it. She looked me straight in the eye and said sharply, ‘You are no use to me like this, Lassair. I know this is not easy for you, but if you cannot pull yourself together, I shall send you home.’

My aunt is very rarely cross with me. The fact that I had richly earned the reprimand made me feel even worse.

We worked side by side in silence until we had finished our task. Edild wrapped the last length of the shroud around Ida’s head, covering the glossy, curly hair. Then she bent down, whispered something I did not hear and kissed the stone-cold brow. She eased the end of the white cloth across the dead face, tucking the end in securely. I had packed up the oils, perfumes, wash cloths and towels that we had used into Edild’s leather bag and now she held out her hand for it. I gave it to her. She smiled at me and said, ‘You have done well.’

Then we stepped outside into the sunshine.

We had been summoned to see the lord and lady before we left. Vowing not to allow my emotions to get the better of me again, I followed Edild’s straight back into the hall. Lord Gilbert and Lady Emma sat on one side of the great hearth. Opposite them sat another woman, younger than Lady Emma, whom I guessed must be Lady Claude. Edild had stopped and was standing before the lord and lady. Invited to speak, she said that Ida’s body was now freshly enshrouded and ready for burial. I noticed she did not mention the pregnancy. Perhaps, like me, she had decided that if Ida had not revealed her secret, then neither should we.

I slipped into her shadow, from where I felt it was safe to study Lady Claude de Sees.

I thought she was a few years older than me, perhaps in her early twenties, although her uncompromising appearance made her age hard to determine. I recalled what Hrype had said, that she had wished to become a nun. A woman with such a vocation would naturally not have wasted her own or anyone else’s time making the best of herself while she searched for a husband. Looking at her, I realized that she was clad as if she had achieved her ambition, for her gown, although beautifully made of soft silk that had a sheen on it only found in the costliest fabric, was of unrelieved black. Around her face she wore a tightly-fitting headdress not unlike those worn by the nuns of Chatteris. It covered her forehead down to just above her eyebrows and curved round either side of her face, joining at the jaw with the wimple around her throat. She wore a heavy, jewelled crucifix around her neck, the cross hanging over her flat chest.

She was pale and the skin of her face was coarse; even from where I stood I could see enlarged pores in the flesh either side of her longish nose. Her eyes were light and the lashes all but invisible. Her mouth was small and, although she was young still, already small lines radiated out from her upper lip, almost as if someone had once sewn it to the lower one.

So this was the woman who was to marry Alain de Villequier. Fleetingly, I wondered if he would have agreed to the match if he had set eyes on her beforehand, no matter how much his family needed her wealth, but I did my best to suppress the unkind thought. I wished him joy of her. I wished them joy of each other.

I heard my name spoken. Edild turned and held out her hand. ‘Lassair here found the body,’ she was saying, ‘as Lord Gilbert and Lady Emma already know, my lady.’

She was addressing Lady Claude. My hand grasped firmly in Edild’s, I now found myself being presented to her.

She looked me up and down with her pale eyes. I could see she was nervous, for her hands were twisting in her lap, the fingers busy at some object. . It was a small velvet bag, also black, that hung from her belt. I wondered what treasured object was inside, for her to clutch at it so in this time of trial.

I reminded myself that she had just lost her seamstress. I put aside the antipathy I felt for her and, bending my head in a bow, said, ‘My lady, I am so sorry for your loss.’

She made a soft sound and closed her eyes. She too, it seemed, felt the death of Ida grievously. There was silence for a few moments as we waited for Claude to speak, then she cleared her throat and said, ‘Ida was a most gifted seamstress. I do not know how I shall manage without her.’

Lord Gilbert was her second cousin, I had been told, and he was also her host. Even so, it seemed that he could not allow Claude’s comment to go unremarked. He got up, crossed over to her and, bending down with an exhalation of breath — he had put on even more weight recently — he whispered something in her ear. She stiffened, frowned deeply and drew herself away from him. Again he bent close to her, presumably repeating whatever he had said, and this time some of it was audible: ‘. . mourn her for herself, even if you do not!’ he hissed.

‘This is such a tragedy, for us all!’ Lady Emma, looking embarrassed, spoke up suddenly and over-loudly in an attempt to cover her husband’s words, but it was too late. Edild and I had heard, and Edild had shot me a horrified look.

Lord Gilbert stumped back to his seat and a very awkward silence fell. Lady Emma was the one to break it. ‘As we told you, Lassair, Lady Claude is to be married,’ she said brightly, ‘to Sir Alain de Villequier, whom you met here yesterday.’

‘Yes, my lady,’ I mumbled.

Silence again. Then Lord Gilbert tried: ‘Ida was helping my cousin to sew her trousseau.’

Yes, I thought, you told me that yesterday too. I felt very strongly that Edild and I ought not to be there, but nobody appeared to know quite how to dismiss us. I noticed that Lady Emma kept glancing at the main door, the one that lead out into the courtyard. After a short time I heard footsteps and understood why. Sir Alain de Villequier strode into the hall.

He bowed to the lord and lady, nodded to Edild and me and hurried to his future bride, swooping down beside her and taking her hands in his. ‘Claude, my dear, I am sorry to have been so long,’ he murmured. ‘I was detained.’

She had edged away from him slightly and was holding herself very stiffly. ‘It is of no matter, sir,’ she replied politely. ‘I have been adequately entertained by my cousin and his wife.’

‘I should have been here to look after you at this dreadful time,’ Sir Alain persisted, his voice pitched low, but nevertheless audible. ‘You have lost your seamstress and your friend, and all we here who knew Ida, albeit briefly, are aware how deep the grief must go for you who were so close to her.’

He was sitting beside her on her bench now, his arm around her thin waist as he tried to comfort her. Again she seemed to slide away from him, and I wondered if she might be embarrassed at his attentions. He meant well, I could see that, but perhaps it was not done to show your emotions so blatantly in the lord’s hall.

At last her reluctance penetrated even Sir Alain’s well-intentioned determination, and abruptly he stood up. Then he turned to look at Edild and me and said, ‘I wished to speak to you both, which was why I asked Lord Gilbert to keep you here until I arrived.’

He wanted to speak to us! Instinctively, I prepared myself, although I am not sure what it was I feared. But it was not what I had thought. Instead of starting to bark out questions — which, before this tense, taut audience, it would have been very hard to answer — he stepped forward, took my aunt and me by the arm and, turning us neatly around, ushered us towards the door. ‘I shall escort you back to the village,’ he announced, ‘and we shall talk as we go.’

The three of us reached the door, turned to bow to the lord, the lady and to Claude, and then we were outside, hurrying away across the courtyard and off down the track.